← It Could Happen Here
It Could Happen Here
How to Break a Union From the Inside: The NFL Players Association, Pt. 1
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- [00:00]
Cool Zone Media Host
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?
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Boys and Girls Podcast Host
Welcome to the boys and Girls Podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition, hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, copy, comedy, and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Cino Show Host
get your podcasts on the Cushow Podcast. Each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejo talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Adish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
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Recovery Story Speaker
I'm an alcoholic, and without this problem, I'm gonna die.
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Cino Show Host
Listen to Cino's show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
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Nick Dickenpole Show Host
On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand.
- [01:17]
Union Expert / Analyst
Better version of Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- [01:20]
Charles McDonald
Yes. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was.
- [01:25]
Union Expert / Analyst
I got that wrong.
- [01:26]
Nick Dickenpole Show Host
But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:35]
Bob Pittman
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up this season on Math and Magic, CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario.
- [01:55]
Charles McDonald
People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower where it's really like a stone sculpture. You're constantly just chipping away and refining.
- [02:06]
Bob Pittman
Take to interactive CEO Strauss Selnick and our own Chief Business Officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to Math and magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [02:17]
Cool Zone Media Host
Cool Zone Media.
- [02:22]
Union Expert / Analyst
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about unions falling apart and in this case, how they're not being put back together again. I am your host, Bo Wong. And today we are telling a somewhat unusual story for this show. It's usual in the sense that it's a story about, you know, the replacement of democracy with bureaucracy, like the death spiral of business union, of unionism. It's a story that's also as much about the defeat of the workers movement as it is like Lamar Jackson's counting stats, a thing that it also, bizarrely, is about. And this is. This is the story of the crisis of the NFL Players association, which is the NFL's union. And it is so unhinged that the only way that this could actually be talked about reasonably is to bring in someone who knows ball, and that is Charles McDonald of Yahoo. Sports and the wonderful Football 301 podcast. Welcome to the show. This is going to be a trip.
- [03:18]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, thanks for having me. I've listened to a few episodes, so I was excited when you asked me to come on. Love your work. And this is going to be a good rant because. And not even really a rant because. Because. Because honestly, like, when. When you, like when you start to peel this back, it is really like a textbook case study from what we know on, like, just straight up organizational decay.
- [03:42]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [03:43]
Charles McDonald
Like, you get such a clear picture on how just really a few people, in this case, 32 NFL owners can just completely dictate the life of, you know, thousands of people who are literally sacrificing their bodies to try and, you know, escape whatever poverty they come from in their. In their earlier life. So it's. It's fascinating. It's sad. I mean, this is one of those areas that I have, obviously, because it's my. It's my job. But, yeah, just like extreme cognitive dissonance sometimes. Like, yeah, I love football. You know, I played from the time I was seven through college. Obviously, like, I do this work. It's kind of giving me, like, everything, and then you have to deal with just so much bad stuff that comes with it. Yeah, yeah. Like, I remember, like, covering the Colin Kaepernick season, which was 10 years ago as of this year.
- [04:34]
Union Expert / Analyst
God.
- [04:35]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [04:35]
Union Expert / Analyst
Jesus.
- [04:36]
Charles McDonald
10 years ago. Yeah. And just remember, like, seeing how alienating that was, just like, just writing, like, a column saying, hey, you know, Washington, like, they should work Colin Kaepernick out because they don't have a quarterback, and this guy is a startable quarterback, and you would get, like, hate mail over that stuff. But I'm still tuning every Sunday, you know, Lamar Jackson stuff. I was on the front lines for that. But still tuning in to get my, my racing slop every Sunday.
- [05:01]
Union Expert / Analyst
This is like, the fundamental issue here is that people will still do it. Admittedly, I am mildly proud that I wasn't watching in that era, but I wasn't watching that era specifically because the Seahawks lost the super bowl to the Patriots. And then I was like, I'm fucking out. I was out for like eight years.
- [05:17]
Charles McDonald
I've been watching this stuff my whole life. Like, I remember watching, like, college football with, like, my dad and his friends when I was like, five and six years old. It's like I, I, like, legit, just don't know anything else to a degree. Like, I had to use this sport as like, my vehicle to kind of explore the rest of the world, like, once I, Yeah. Once I got out of college, just trying to figure my shit out.
- [05:36]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah. And I think we have a good combination here to talk about this because you come at this from the football angle and then exploring out of the, like, oh, my God, this is so unhinged. Everything is broken. And then I come at this kind of from the opposite direction. Which is one of the things that's been really frustrating about the coverage of this is that like, like there's lots of very good coverage. Pablo Torre, who's done a lot of very good work about this and is like the guy who kind of instigated
- [05:58]
Charles McDonald
the whole, like, instigate is kind of putting it, is putting it lightly. I mean, he got the union president fired, basically.
- [06:06]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, he got, he got the union president fired after it was revealed that he was using union money to go to strip clubs.
- [06:15]
Charles McDonald
Is like, that's like the tail end of this story.
- [06:21]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, that's like the end of it. That's where this is going. Right. But, like, the thing that's been frustrating to me about this is like, the people covering this and people have done a lot of good work. They're not people who cover unions at all.
- [06:34]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [06:35]
Union Expert / Analyst
And like, that's like, what I do. Right. And like, I don't know. Like, I think as much as this episode is going to be us screaming about this union doing unhinged, like, we're obviously like, pro union. Like, I, I, I had my union that I helped organize on my show to talk about our contract against. Yeah, Yeah.
- [06:53]
Charles McDonald
I was a member of the first box union that. Yeah. God Damn, that's almost 10 years ago now.
- [07:00]
Union Expert / Analyst
Jesus Christ.
- [07:01]
Charles McDonald
So old and look like I, I, I believe in this stuff. Like, I, like with the stroke of a pen. Not, not to, to put it that simplistically, because Obviously, a lot of fight went into it, but, like, with the struggle with Penn, like, I was able to live in D.C. after being very broke, you know, and, yeah, it's crazy. Like, my salary went up to a livable wage and nothing died.
- [07:21]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [07:22]
Charles McDonald
Right. You know, no one died.
- [07:23]
Union Expert / Analyst
Like, it's amazing.
- [07:24]
Charles McDonald
It was. It was. It was. It was business as usual, honestly. Like, nothing was weird. So obviously people who listen to the show, like, you know that these people with the money, like, they're. They're out to get us, obviously for their own gain. And it's so just brazenly clear through, like, this union story, especially through the past 20 years, which is where I think you kind of have to start it. I mean, just systematically stripped down. And the one thing that even Pablo, on his most recent episode, because he talked about it last week, because J.C. treader was elected executive director.
- [07:58]
Union Expert / Analyst
One of the villains of this story, who they.
- [08:03]
Charles McDonald
And one thing about Pablo and Mike Florio, who have really been on this more than any national journalists, is like, yeah, we still don't know a big component of, like, the why and the how this is happening, because, you know. Well, we got to get into it because basically it feels like there's two. Two or three guys kind of acting as liaisons to the owner while also trying to respect and, you know, run the union, which are obviously just two completely incompatible ideologies when you're trying to, you know, work that out.
- [08:34]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, I guess that's actually a way to start talking about this kind of going back to there. There used to be a time when the NFL union would go on strike. Like, they did pickets. Like, they fought scabs outside of the gates of football stadiums. This was a thing that happened, like, regularly. Like, there's a whole bunch of stories of, like, UMWA guys and, like, guys from, like, the auto unions, like, on these picket lines with the NFL players and, you know, like, one of. One of the sort of upshots of this. God, okay, that's a terrible pun. I'm realizing now, because this.
- [09:08]
Charles McDonald
Okay, we gotta talk about Gene, you know.
- [09:10]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the guys who led this union was Gene Upshot, who was a player for a long time and then was, like, ran the union for most of its history. And he's, you know, he's running an actual union. Like, they go on strike, they organize, they, like, do shit. And, you know, Gene, like, over the course of this, runs into, like, they start losing strikes, which is just like, a nightmare. And then he just, like, dies in 2008. Like it was really horrible.
- [09:42]
Charles McDonald
He had pancreatic cancer.
- [09:43]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [09:45]
Charles McDonald
So, so like not only like, like Gene, Gene was a Hall of Fame offensive lineman.
- [09:49]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [09:50]
Charles McDonald
Like, like when you think of the Raiders in the, in the past, like he was kind of like the start of that era. The only, basically the only area where we still think of the Raiders is like, you know, an entity that, that should be respected. Right, right. Not a joke because. Well, because, you know, it was a different time in the league. Like, especially when we see what the Seahawks sale ends up looking like.
- [10:13]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [10:13]
Charles McDonald
And we've seen like the Broncos and the Commanders get sold within the past decade. These teams are now being run by people who don't have football backgrounds. Like when you think of, you know, even, even, even someone as despicable as Jerry Jones, like you can't, yeah. You can't doubt at his heart that, you know, he loves this sport and will be an advocate to the sport even in ways that, that can be harmful to the sport at times.
- [10:38]
Union Expert / Analyst
Oh boy.
- [10:38]
Charles McDonald
But now we, we, we, we kind of have like this influx of people who don't have football backgrounds, but they have the capital to kind of get in.
- [10:46]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [10:47]
Charles McDonald
And that, that has also been a shift, I think, just from an ownership perspective over the last few years. But when you look at where Gene was coming out as a player after he retired, I think in the early 80s, he kind of set the standard for. He was elected executive director of the union, I think, in the 80s, and he held that position until he died in 2008.
- [11:13]
Union Expert / Analyst
So yeah, he died in office in the middle of the thing.
- [11:16]
Charles McDonald
That's a long time. And it's a lot of trust. And also I think Gene kind of solidified the idea, which is important now, that players should run this union, which I agree with, you know.
- [11:30]
Bob Pittman
Yeah.
- [11:30]
Union Expert / Analyst
That's what a union is.
- [11:32]
Charles McDonald
Right. That's what the union is. And I would say even just like someone who played football by self, like it's kind of a cult when you're in there and you don't really, really trust the outsiders to understand like what is going on here on a day to day basis. And also when you look at like the start of this union back in the 50s, training camp used to be free for the owners. They didn't get paid.
- [11:54]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [11:55]
Charles McDonald
For training camp or preseason games. They played. They played six free preseason games.
- [12:00]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [12:00]
Charles McDonald
And didn't get paid for training camp.
- [12:02]
Union Expert / Analyst
Unreal.
- [12:03]
Charles McDonald
Right? Unreal.
- [12:04]
Union Expert / Analyst
Like you can like, you can get like people every single year get really, really seriously injured, like Trading camp and
- [12:11]
Charles McDonald
preseason games, and there was no free agency, right? So, like, the team that drafted you, like, they own you until, you know, you're ready to call it quit till they trade you somewhere else or they cut you, and you kind of got to figure it out. But, like, the idea that you could just, like, have this agency and leave and your contract expires, you go sign with someone else, that. That was not a thing. So, obviously, when. When you think about where football is now, like, what I tell people is, like, why. When they ask, like, why should I care about this union? Okay, think about how bad it is now. It. It can get worse.
- [12:40]
Union Expert / Analyst
It was worse.
- [12:41]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, it was worse. It was significantly worse. But, you know, you have, like, this idea that. And it's a correct idea because the players are the basis of it, that this person in charge of the union needs to be a player. And Gene, like, coming from his background with the Raiders, we were talking about proud football organization. Like, the very, like, material basis of being an NFL player was extremely important to Gene. So, yeah, you know, up until he passed away in 2008, I mean, he is, you know, he's, like you said, he's. He's leading strikes, he's fighting for more revenue, he's fighting for, you know, more benefits on the back end after guys retire. And it kind of culminates in the 2006 CBA. I would say this is kind of like the Empire Strikes Back moment for the. The. The owners, because in 2006, the players and the owners, they signed a CBA that on the surface, granted the players a 60%, 60% revenue share against the owners, 40%. When you start actually digging through the
- [13:46]
Union Expert / Analyst
numbers, and, yeah, that's not fake as fuck. Like, it was fake.
- [13:51]
Charles McDonald
It was fake, right? So I'll say this. It was fake in the sense that there was something called like a revenue credit or a revenue tax or something that the owners took off of the pie before it went down to, like, the 60, 40 split, right? So, you know, and it started, you know, in 2006. Like, I think the first time they cut it, it was like, you know, $800 billion. And then, you know, within two years, they were taking well over a billion dollars before it got passed down onto the player. So, you know, the players that got 60% of the total revenue, but by the time, you know, that they. The owners took a second look at that CBA and they use their opt out clause in 2008, it was functionally like a 51 and 52% split. In favor of the players, which the owners deemed completely unacceptable. Right?
- [14:39]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [14:40]
Charles McDonald
Like, and it's so funny because, like, this is, this is like the first part, like, where you start to see, like, at least in this era of football, you can see how greedy these people are. Right? Where you're already taking a top off of like this quote, unquote, total revenue, and then you're, you're pulling the clause in two years to get out of this. So in 2008, the owners say, we are going to get out of this. And now the CBA, instead of like the 10 year clause, is going to expire at the end of the 2010 season. So they had two seasons to kind of figure out what was going to happen next. But unfortunately, in 2008, Gene Upshaw gets pancreatic cancer and honestly, just like, just deteriorates pretty quickly and passes away right before the season. So, hey, listeners of this podcast probably know, what do billionaires do when they see a power vacuum at the top of their labor force that they are actively, you know, fighting against? They pounce.
- [15:33]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [15:33]
Charles McDonald
And you have this vacuum of leadership. And then Damor Smith gets voted the executive director of the NFLPA. And the owners, at the end of the 2010 season, they locked out the players. And that's where things really start to get hairy.
- [15:54]
Ana Navarro
I'm Ana Navarro and on my new podcast, Bleep with Ana Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now we are all cursing and asking what the BLEEP is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement, by administration after administration,
- [16:30]
Union Expert / Analyst
the Justice Department through, I think we counted four presidential administrations failed these victims.
- [16:39]
Ana Navarro
Listen to BLEEP with Ana Navarro as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:53]
Cool Zone Media Host
Hello, gorgeous. It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at Sur may be over, but I'm still loving life in the Valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown up vibes. But over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala. You either love or love to hate. I've been full on oversharing with fans from family and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwarzy when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap.
- [17:23]
Charles McDonald
I was so. God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry. I don't want to. I don't want to blame all couple of that. I got to blame that one on the alcohol.
- [17:31]
Cool Zone Media Host
This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving. And yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally. Lala. Listen to Untraditionally lala on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:53]
Recovery Story Speaker
I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him. I was, hi, dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass, convict, right? Just finished five years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk. At mom
- [18:14]
Cino Show Host
on the Ceno show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejo talk about addiction transformation and the power of second chances. The entire Season 2, 2 is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Adish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
- [18:39]
Recovery Story Speaker
I'm an alcoholic, and without this trope, I'm gonna die.
- [18:45]
Cino Show Host
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the CNO show and listen.
- [18:49]
Charles McDonald
Now.
- [18:54]
Eating While Broke Guest
I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money.
- [18:59]
Eating While Broke Host
It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating While Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist lakeisha Landrum Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
- [19:16]
Eating While Broke Guest
If I'm outside with my parents and they see all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what today? Now, Obviously, it's like 100% they believe, leave everything. But at first it was just like, you gotta go get a real job.
- [19:28]
Community Economic Expert
There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by fails, they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids they do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.
- [19:44]
Eating While Broke Host
Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast Foreign,
- [19:57]
Charles McDonald
You're dealing with that amount of greed where they're already taken off the top, and then they say, that's not enough. So we're going to rip up this CBA. And the funny part was the 2010 season, like, the last year of, like, the ripped up cba, since they didn't have an agreement on the next year, there was no salary cap for the 2010 season. And Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, and Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington football team.
- [20:21]
Union Expert / Analyst
Oh, God, one of the worst people ever, by the way.
- [20:23]
Charles McDonald
This is.
- [20:24]
Union Expert / Analyst
We don't. We don't have time to do this right?
- [20:26]
Charles McDonald
But, like, one of the worst people ever. So, like, if you played Madden before, you know, sometimes you might turn off the salary cap and what do you do? You spend. And because Jerry has always been like, it's my money. I'm going to spend as much of it as I want to if I please. Like, within the rule of the salary cap, no salary cap, Jerry's going to stand. And the other owners punish those two with fines after the season for spending recklessly. That's how committed they are to this consolidation of power. They will punish each other over it,
- [20:56]
Union Expert / Analyst
which, by the way, is unhinged. Because one of the fundamental issues of the NFL is that it is a monopoly.
- [21:03]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [21:03]
Union Expert / Analyst
Now, the way they get around this is, A, they have the union, and B, the teams are supposed to be competing with each other, and they are not supposed to, quote, unquote, collude against the players. And it's like, okay, you. You find guys for paying people, like, right. Too much money.
- [21:21]
Charles McDonald
Like, you find each other for paying.
- [21:23]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah. Which is, like, just unreal. It's just like the most obvious conclusion
- [21:28]
Charles McDonald
if you look across, like, to the NBA, where, like, the Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer stuff is going, oh, my
- [21:33]
Union Expert / Analyst
God, another Paltore, another Palatore exclusive.
- [21:38]
Charles McDonald
But, hey, there's a reason why they aren't aggressively going after this, you know, because the other billionaires don't want people rummaging through their shit either. So, you know, and hopefully they like the Microsoft guy being part of the gang. So, yeah, they're not going to do anything. And that's when you see, like, oh, wow, there's so much power here that these guys have. And. But going back to the NFL, like, the 2011 CBA is, by the way,
- [22:01]
Union Expert / Analyst
CBA is collective bargaining agreement.
- [22:02]
Charles McDonald
This is the collective collective bargaining agreement, right? Yeah.
- [22:04]
Union Expert / Analyst
Between the union and the league.
- [22:05]
Charles McDonald
Right. So if there's no agreement, then, like, they can't play football games.
- [22:09]
Cool Zone Media Host
Yeah.
- [22:10]
Charles McDonald
Because, you know, like you said, like, the NFLPA functionally just exists, so the NFL doesn't get sued for, like, antitrust stuff.
- [22:17]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [22:18]
Charles McDonald
Which takes us right back into the next point. So going back to 2011, the players are trying to figure out, like, what are we going to do about, like, this lockout situation? Because they need to work honestly.
- [22:31]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [22:31]
Charles McDonald
You know, this. This is a career that you can only do for most guys, like, two or three years, and the idea of missing a season is not really feasible, which the owners, you know, they take advantage of all the time. Like, they know that these guys are on. On short. Like, short clocks. If you. If you get to, like, year five of an NFL career, you are in a very, very small group of players that, like, honestly, like, just represent the elite of the elite of people who have ever played football, like, in this country.
- [23:02]
Union Expert / Analyst
And I think the other thing about this, too, is, like, that's really important. This is an unbelievably, unbelievably skilled labor force.
- [23:09]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [23:09]
Union Expert / Analyst
And in order to develop these skills, you have to devote your entire life to it.
- [23:12]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [23:13]
Union Expert / Analyst
And then what you get from devoting your entire life to this thing that is killing you because you're getting injured constantly, and you're getting head trauma from all of this every single time. Like, we start from, like, high school. You're starting to get brain damage from concussions and from, like, you're starting to get cte.
- [23:29]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [23:30]
Union Expert / Analyst
And then you have a couple of years to, like, make money from having devoted your life to this thing.
- [23:35]
Charles McDonald
Right. So think about, like, It's March of 2011 now. Gene Upshawson passed away for a couple years. We're in the. Fully in the Demore Smith, in the demore Smith reign of union leadership. And the first move that the owners make, like, now that the CBA is officially over following the 2010 season, they lock out the players, which, as we just said, if your career is two years, the idea that you would miss one of those years is kind of unfathomable.
- [24:02]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Charles McDonald
Your earning power is just, like, demolished. And let's say you're. You're 24 years old. You got to play two years in the NFL. You're walking out with, let's say, a million in your bank account. You still got to get a Job, bro. You know, like. Like you still got to find something else to do. So, like, this isn't money that's going to set you up for the rest of your life for. For most of these guys. Even though it does give you, like, a nice cushion to fall off to, even if you're someone who struggles a little bit. I mean, shoot, I know when I was 24, I would have loved to have like $700,000 in my bank account. Things would have. Things could have turned out, you know, maybe a little bit different. Probably still would have found something some way, like where I'm right here. But. But honestly, it's a good start. So what the union did was they decertified as a union in 2011, led by Tom Brady and Drew Brees. I'm a Falcons fan, and I will say this part has given me so much justification on my hatred. It's like it went past the football into like the, like, the material realm of like, real life. You guys messed up here. They tried to, you know, challenge the league by decertifying as a union and arguing, you know, that now this is an antitrust situation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You get down to August. It's on the 2011 CBA in August of 2011. So, like, this is a month, a month before the season. And the concessions that were made after, like, after getting locked out for what, six, like five months.
- [25:37]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [25:38]
Charles McDonald
And you decertify that. You go through all this work to try and get a deal done, and they gave up so much.
- [25:46]
Union Expert / Analyst
So.
- [25:46]
Charles McDonald
So we said before you had the total revenue split at 60, 40, but functionally it was closer to 51, 52% in favor of the players. That dropped to 47% in the 2011 CBA. So now the owners are back in charge, like a 53% revenue split in favor of the owners. So you just gave them back billions of dollars over the course of really just like a couple of years, but over the lifetime of a 10 year CBA. I mean, that. That's. That's egregious and also unbelievable amount of money. Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like, full autonomy over player punishments. I don't know why you gave that up either.
- [26:30]
Union Expert / Analyst
That's unhinged, right? Why? That's like, that's the kind of thing that, like, the only kind of unions that would sign something like that are like, like, I don't even think the organized crime unions would sign it. I think that's just like literally the fascist unions and the unions that are Directly controlled. Like the yellow unions that are directly controlled by corporation are like the only ones that would sign that. Even, even those ones probably would want to still have like some involvement in that. That's like unbelievable for, for a union contract. Just like.
- [27:03]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [27:03]
Union Expert / Analyst
Nonsense.
- [27:04]
Charles McDonald
Right. And what's changed here is like these players are not willing to go on strike, like to not play these games, to not have a situation like in the 80s where you know, Donald Trump is building up the USFL and saying, hey, why don't you strike in players like come play over here. And you got, you had some, some guys who were like NFL hall of Famers who have briefly played in the USFL during, you know, during the strike stuff that, that doesn't happen here. And think about the timing.
- [27:31]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [27:32]
Charles McDonald
August, what was it? August 4, 2011, 132 day lockout. They signed this deal. So, so I can imagine. And I'll like, I'll give them this. It's hard out here, man. Like the. You're about to, you're looking at.
- [27:45]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [27:45]
Charles McDonald
Like the consequence of, you know, I'm about to not have checks and I maybe have a lifestyle where I am still should be getting, you know, these week to be paychecks. That's kind of a tough, tough draw. So I, I will give them like the small grace of saying at that point, man, okay, fuck it, just, let's just go just get something signed. But what they gave up, unbelievable. I'm not sure like they were fully aware of what they gave up here. And the part of the biggest thing that where they gave up was part of the biggest thing after they, after I say they gave the money back to the owners. They gave Roger Goodell, they made him dictator in terms of like the punishment.
- [28:23]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [28:23]
Charles McDonald
Workforce. But the rookie wage scale was, my God, a massive.
- [28:29]
Union Expert / Analyst
Holy shit.
- [28:30]
Charles McDonald
Massive concession to ownership. Yeah, because they, they as in like Tom Brady and Drew Brees, more so Drew briefs from what I've gathered, kind of frame this as, hey, why are these rookies getting all this damn money? Like this is something that should be going towards the veterans and ownership was like, oh, you see, you think like, you think that's a good idea. Like we can agree. We could agree to that. And what they got back was like less practice time. So you know, you know you don't have to have as many two a days. That's worth billions of dollars. Really like in terms of like, yeah, what you, what you guys can set yourself up with and what the, what the veteran players who, who were on board with this what they thought was, oh, okay, well if the rookie wages, if the rookie wages deal, like if that, if that gets capped at a certain amount, then that's more money for us. So like, like a prime example is in 2010, Sam Bradford was the number one overall pick to St. Louis Rams. He signed a six year, $84 million contract. Though the next year Cam Newton is the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers. And after this lockout ends, his contract was four years, $22 million fully guaranteed.
- [29:41]
Union Expert / Analyst
Jesus Christ.
- [29:43]
Charles McDonald
You lost $60 million in terms of value from the year before. So what the veteran players thought was, oh, okay, well now there'll be this influx of cap space to sign veteran players. What do billionaires do when they suddenly have access to a cheap workforce? They just load up on rookies. Right. So these veteran players, they sold themselves on like the fallacy of trickle down economics and got themselves replaced out of the league. So the only people that benefited really was people like Drew Brees, people like
- [30:16]
Union Expert / Analyst
Tom Brady, people who don't need it.
- [30:18]
Charles McDonald
Right. But also are so indispensable to their organizations that they can eat up the cap space that was left over from, from the rookies getting slides. So that's like, that's when you start to see like the quarterback contracts balloon up.
- [30:31]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [30:32]
Charles McDonald
Where, you know, you go from like in 2015, 11 years ago, or 2016, I think Cam Newton signed a contract that made him the highest paid quarterback in NFL history at five years, $100 million.
- [30:44]
Union Expert / Analyst
Oh my God.
- [30:45]
Charles McDonald
You know, and now that number is what, like, I think, man, who's the highest paid? Is Joe Burrow the highest paid right now at like, feel like it's Burrow.
- [30:55]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, that sounds right.
- [30:56]
Charles McDonald
But now like that deal is worth, you know, closer to 80 million, you know, $70 million a year than it is to, to anything. Like closer to 20.
- [31:04]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [31:05]
Charles McDonald
So you gave up so much and you got this whole middle class of the league just decimated. And yeah, like that, that's still tangible today. You can just go on over the cap.com or stocktrack.com and just look at like, like average money like per year. And there is a top. And then the middle class is literally like a couple players. And for quarterback, it's like two or three guys. Like you'll have like, yeah, announce like a Malik Willis or a Daniel Jones, like 40, like as crazy as to say like $44 million. Like that's outside the top half of what guys are getting paid. And then it's all rookies.
- [31:40]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [31:41]
Charles McDonald
Like all rookies and guys on rookie contracts, there's no middle class like that that's gone from the NFL. And with that, like, you lose some of like, personally this might be like, you lose some of like the wisdom that comes with that of guys who have played in the league because now they get, now they're getting churned out so fast because the contract is so cheap. Yeah, I'm not going to extend you because honestly, this game beats your body up so bad that it's better just to get a fresh body in there. And these people, they have no attachment to the sacrifices that have been built over a long time. So you kind of build this player force that doesn't know what's going on. And I say that with a grain of salt now because I used to be one of these guys, like, oh, you know, they don't care what's going on. And there is a good chunk that don't care what's going on. But I think now it's more clear there's like an obvious force stopping them from getting like information about what's going on with this union stuff, which is the meat of this, like the recent stuff is just like the ultimate just bucket. I guess we're pawns of the ownership stuff, you know.
- [32:52]
Ana Navarro
I'm Ana Navarro and on my new podcast, Bleep with Ana Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now we are all cursing and asking what the BLEEP is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement, by administration after administration,
- [33:29]
Union Expert / Analyst
the Justice Department through, I think we counted four presidential administrations failed these victims.
- [33:37]
Ana Navarro
Listen to BLEEP with Ana Navarro as part of the My Cultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:51]
Cool Zone Media Host
Hello, gorgeous. It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at Sur may be over, but I'm still loving life in the Valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown up vibes. But over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala. You either love or love to hate. I've been friends full on oversharing with fans, family and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I Had a little bone to pick with Schwarzy when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap.
- [34:21]
Charles McDonald
Oh, my God. I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry. I don't want to. I don't want to blame alcohol, that I got to blame that one on the alcohol.
- [34:29]
Cool Zone Media Host
This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to, too. We're growing, we're thriving. And yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally. Lala. Listen to Untraditionally lala on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [34:51]
Recovery Story Speaker
I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.
- [34:55]
Cino Show Host
Hi, dad.
- [34:56]
Recovery Story Speaker
And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen. She says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass. Convict me just finished five years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk at mom.
- [35:11]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [35:13]
Cino Show Host
On the Ceno show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trail. Talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Adish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
- [35:37]
Recovery Story Speaker
I'm an alcoholic, and without this trouble, I'm a die.
- [35:43]
Cino Show Host
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the Cino show and listen now.
- [35:52]
Eating While Broke Guest
I felt like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really started making money.
- [35:57]
Eating While Broke Host
It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating While Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist lakeisha Landrum Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
- [36:14]
Eating While Broke Guest
If I'm outside with my parents and they see all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what today? Now, Obviously, it's like 100% people. But at first it was just like, you gotta go get a real job.
- [36:27]
Community Economic Expert
There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by fails, they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids. They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.
- [36:42]
Eating While Broke Host
Listen to eating while broke from the Black Effect podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [36:55]
Union Expert / Analyst
I think the, the arc of this is like, it's, it's the arc of sort of unionism in America. You know, you go back to like your early 1900s unions, right? And those unions, you know, they're unbelievably powerful, they're extremely dangerous. You know, you get to a point where like, the IWW will show up to a town and like, the bosses in the town will show up with guns and shoot them because, right, they're that well organized, they're that dangerous, they're that capable of striking, they're that committed, and they're that able to tap into all of their members and have everyone in the union be a part of the union and do things with the union. And that's, you know, how you can actually do collective action. And then. And you can watch. This was sort of like, with the ability of the nflpa, like, obviously, like, that's a much weaker union than you're like. Yeah, I don't know, you're like 1930 CIO or whatever. Yeah, but, but you, you can watch it like sort of decay into this sort of, you know, what you call, like a service union, where instead of it being run by the players, there's like, okay, we're, we have some people, they're going to go, they're going to do everything for you. They're going to sometimes talk to you about it, but you know, like, they're going to be the runs, like, managing all of the contracts and all of the negotiations and like.
- [38:05]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [38:06]
Union Expert / Analyst
And, and as that, like, information circle gets tighter and tighter, you know, that makes it way easier for things to just get completely fucked. And then, then, you know, and this is one of the things that you see in the 90s is the, is the complete dominance of business unionism where it's just like, nah, fuck it, we're a union. Yeah, right. The US and the employers actually have the same interest and we're going to work with them to make money. And it's like, how's that going for you guys? Like, and then that's what this sort of turns into. And one of the issues here, and you're talking about this with like, the information control, is once you get into this situation where, you know, a really, really small number of people, like, we're talking maybe 30 people, and then the executive committee is even smaller than that, are the ones who are, you know, one of the things that happens in the later part of this is so JC Treader, who's like the guy behind the scenes for like the executive. The search for like the executive director. The guy who like completely, truly was like the most hideous guy I've ever had running this union. He changed the process so that it was completely confidential to the point where the 32 guys on the board who were supposed to be voting for the executive director didn't know the names of the candidates until they walked into the meeting.
- [39:18]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [39:19]
Union Expert / Analyst
What the fuck?
- [39:21]
Charles McDonald
And to me, like, that point is like so crucial because that's where I shift from. Oh, it's not that these guys don't care about this. Like, they don't know what's going on.
- [39:30]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah. It's being hidden from them. They can't know.
- [39:33]
Charles McDonald
They can't know. And I will say, like, part of what makes this difficult if you are someone in there who does care and wants to fix things, is there's just the truth that like, even the bottom rung players are comfortably living like off of their salary. So when you start to get to guys who are veterans, like, man, even if you don't take the best deal shit, like what? I still, I'm still making $15 million a year. Like, ultimately I'm still good. And that's what is hard to like, get people galvanized about this sometimes. But I think that that part about like players not caring has kind of been overrepresented a little bit. Because I think if you're paying attention now, there's so much murkiness. And I think when, when you get to the, like the recent CBAs, like in 2020, the COVID year one. So now that's like Damor Smith and JC Treader who was playing for the Browns then, he was the president of the NFLPA. As they enter like this, this 2020 CBA at the end, after the end of the 201110 year run, where for 10 years they locked themselves into ownership to extract like, as much value.
- [40:40]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [40:41]
Charles McDonald
As. As it seemed like they possibly could at the time. And then 2020 comes and the owners are basically just like, hey, there's going to be another lockout unless you guys agree to a 17th game, which you should say bet. Okay, cool. Because there's no circumstance where you, you can watch football and know how horrible this game is for your body.
- [41:01]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [41:02]
Charles McDonald
And say, we are going to play more football without, like major concessions.
- [41:07]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [41:07]
Charles McDonald
Because I remember when that was going on, you know, I was talking to some older guys who weren't in the unit anymore, but they were looking at like, man, like, if they're, if they're going to say 17th game, like, we need something massive, like, given back to us. On the other hand, because that's just straight up a revenue play to get more games on TV and make these TV contracts a little bit more lucrative. And that didn't really happen, you know, like, no, like, they just gave up the 17th game and they got, I think, 1% more in terms of like the rev share. So got to like 48 or 49%. Like, that's it.
- [41:42]
Union Expert / Analyst
You're 1% rev share for adding, like, what, what. What's the percentage of games that added to the season? Like, right.
- [41:49]
Charles McDonald
And like, there were some concessions made to like, players made at like, at the bottom rung of the ladder. So like, like the veteran minimum salaries, like, they got boosted. The practice squads got a little bit longer. And now you got to the space where you see, like, veterans can be on a practice squad instead of guys who are within like three years of, you know, accrued years in the NFL. But the 17th game, while still having inequity in terms of the revenue share. I mean, the owners, they'll sign up for that every single time. Oh, we got to throw you crumbs.
- [42:23]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [42:24]
Charles McDonald
And we still get to. To keep our billions. And they timed it up right. So that 17th game being insert into the schedule was lining up with new TV contracts with ESPN and NBC and Amazon. Everyone you see, like, throwing cash is so understated. Like, it's not throwing cash. Like, billions of dollars is going to the NFL through these TV deals. Like, it's funny, I had a friend, you know, one of these Shador Sander stands, he was arguing. He's like, oh, you know, he was. He. He was like, oh, you know, like, the Browns, like, they took Shador because they need the. The jersey sales. I'm like, dude, Shador could have the number one selling jersey in the NFL. And Jimmy hasn't care about that. No, that's a drop of a drop of a drop in the bucket for, like, where the money's actually coming from. And that's the TV deal. So to get that 17th game is huge. And this term is for 10 years again. So in 2030, they can look at, you know, renegotiating, trying to figure it out. But in the meantime, like, to even call this a union is so far away from, like, how it's actually functioning now. Now it's getting to the point where it's kind of murky on what's happening because obviously, like, if you're in a union and you know, like my co workers, like they've dealt with J.C. tretter, like I've seen him speak before. If you're in a union, obviously, like you don't want too many people outside of the union to know what's going on. Like, it's just not good from a standpoint of like leverage and power. But JC Treader, like he plays off of that by keeping everything a secret, you know?
- [43:57]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah. Which is a terrible idea.
- [43:59]
Charles McDonald
Which is a terrible idea. Like.
- [44:00]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, well, it's good for him.
- [44:02]
Charles McDonald
Right, right, right. Maybe you don't want to tell me, a reporter like what's going on, but you should tell like the other people within your union what's going on. It's like when you see like a lack of information about or any information about like what's going on with these, these elections, it's because no one's being told what's going on these elections. And that's how you end up with Lloyd Howell, which is just.
- [44:26]
Union Expert / Analyst
Oh God. Okay, okay, let's talk about Lloyd Howell, who is. Oh my God.
- [44:32]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [44:32]
Union Expert / Analyst
One of the worst people to run a union I have ever seen.
- [44:37]
Charles McDonald
Yes. But it's purposefully bad, you know, like.
- [44:40]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [44:41]
Charles McDonald
The Lloyd Howell like secret election. Like it's not, I'm not even say like I was, you know, somewhat, somewhat of a secret. No, a secret of election, basically to get.
- [44:49]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [44:50]
Charles McDonald
Lloyd Howell hired Lloyd. Lloyd used to work for Booz Allen, man.
- [44:54]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah, he was, he was the CFO of Booz Allen Hamilton.
- [44:59]
Charles McDonald
Right. But like his background was in busting unions.
- [45:03]
Union Expert / Analyst
Uh huh.
- [45:03]
Charles McDonald
Right. That's his background.
- [45:05]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [45:05]
Charles McDonald
And this, but this is where you get like a look at the ideology of someone like J.C. tretter, who also studied labor unions in college. That's what he got his degree in labor, labor relations and labor arrangement from Harvard.
- [45:17]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yep.
- [45:18]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [45:20]
Union Expert / Analyst
You're not, you're not doing the labor relations degree to like be in a union. Like, like the people, the people who like organize for unions are like grad students who you know, have like a, I don't know, like they, they have, they have some random degree and then they were like, I organized my graduate student, I'm going to go organize the field. This is not what you go into that for. You go into this to do union busting.
- [45:41]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. So, but so J.C. shredder and you know, the people around him, they viewed that experience from Lloyd Howell busting unions as a positive.
- [45:51]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [45:52]
Charles McDonald
Because you know there's this train of thought. Like, oh, well, you know, well, if we know someone who knows how to destroy us if we hire them, surely they will change their ways and they will start to help us. Like, we're going to get inside knowledge on how to bust a unit, so maybe we could weaponize that and turn it back the other way. Man, that's dumb as hell.
- [46:10]
Union Expert / Analyst
Why would you.
- [46:11]
Charles McDonald
Like, that's.
- [46:12]
Union Expert / Analyst
Oh, my God.
- [46:13]
Charles McDonald
Right? And not only that, but Lloyd Howell, who is elected the executive director of the union, is also a part of. Of a hedge fund that is investing in NFL teams in minority states.
- [46:26]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [46:27]
Charles McDonald
The Carlyle Group. Like you, your executive director of the union, works for hedge funds that are extracting value from these teams, like players. Yeah, that's. That's disqualifying. It should be disqualifying.
- [46:43]
Union Expert / Analyst
He's on camera. The union posted a video of him on camera talking about how he was talking to the owners about letting. About letting the investment group in.
- [46:52]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [46:52]
Union Expert / Analyst
It's unbelievable. It's as close as I've ever seen outside of, again, a union that is literally run by the bosses to like, my union guy works for management.
- [47:03]
Charles McDonald
Like, it's like baffling.
- [47:04]
Union Expert / Analyst
I don't know, it's like, it's, it's like state integrated CCP shit. Right? Like, it's like, dude, yes.
- [47:10]
Charles McDonald
You have a corporate consultant.
- [47:12]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [47:12]
Charles McDonald
Is your union liaison to 32 billionaires and Roger Goodell. Like, yeah.
- [47:18]
Union Expert / Analyst
It's.
- [47:18]
Charles McDonald
It's completely incompatible on like a basic, like, ideological level. And then you start getting to like, well, okay, well now he has, like, direct control over people's lives and the funds of the union.
- [47:29]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [47:29]
Charles McDonald
Which as ESPN and Pablo Torre found out, he was using to go to the goddamn strip club in Miami.
- [47:35]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [47:36]
Charles McDonald
And to spend on other stuff. And also he was sued for sexual harassment while he was at Booz Allen. So he's hidden, like, the check marks for everything you see, like, corporate sociopathy. Right.
- [47:48]
Union Expert / Analyst
Yeah.
- [47:48]
Charles McDonald
And they're like, that's our guy. That's our guy. Once all this stuff comes out about how he spends his money and, and you know, how he's misappropriating funds. That was what got him out more so than like, the material practices that he exemplified while he was running the union, which involved hiding the fact that the owners were colluding against them.
- [48:09]
Union Expert / Analyst
It is completely unhinged. And unfortunately, the other thing that's unhinged is that's going to be all for today. However, comma, there is more to this story tomorrow as we finish part two of this interview and oh my God. Holy shit. Somehow the worst is yet to come. So join us for part two tomorrow. In which question mark There seems to be good evidence of the NFL paying a guy specifically to be able to keep control of the union. Oh, dear. So if you. If you want to find more of Charles McDonald's work, you can do so at the Football 301 podcast and at Yahoo Sports, where he writes the column four Verts. It's quite good. You should listen to it. And yeah, dear God, I don't know it. Form unions. If you're in unions that suck, make better ones.
- [49:07]
Cool Zone Media Host
It Could Happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?
- [49:30]
Boys and Girls Podcast Host
Welcome to the Boys and Girls Podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition, hoping to find love the right way, and instead I found chaos, comedy and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
- [49:54]
Cino Show Host
get your podcasts on the Cino Show Podcast. Each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejo talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Haddish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
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Recovery Story Speaker
I'm an alcoholic, and without this trope, I'm a die.
- [50:19]
Cino Show Host
Listen to Cino's show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [50:25]
Bob Pittman
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Stories from the Frontiers of Market. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up, this seasonal Math and Magic CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario.
- [50:46]
Charles McDonald
People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower where it's really like a stone sculpture. You're constantly just chipping away and refining.
- [50:56]
Bob Pittman
Take two Interactive CEO Strauss Salnick and her own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to math and magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [51:06]
Nick Dickenpole Show Host
On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand.
- [51:18]
Union Expert / Analyst
Better version of Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Yes.
- [51:22]
Charles McDonald
Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was.
- [51:26]
Union Expert / Analyst
I got that wrong.
- [51:27]
Nick Dickenpole Show Host
But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [51:36]
Charles McDonald
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [51:39]
Cool Zone Media Host
Guaranteed Human.