Share & Walk Alone & Tell with Mike Schur and Joe Posnanski

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Share & Walk Alone & Tell" with Mike Schur and Joe Posnanski

Pablo Torre Finds Out — The Athletic

Air date: May 21, 2026
Guests: Mike Schur (TV writer, producer, Liverpool/Red Sox superfan), Joe Posnanski (sportswriter, author)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the psychological and cultural roots of sports fandom, the shifting economics of modern sports, and how community, nostalgia, and business collide in today's sports landscape. Pablo Torre, joined by writer Mike Schur and author Joe Posnanski, explores why fans care so deeply, the quirks that make fandom special, and the growing threat of corporate capitalism overshadowing authentic fan experiences. The discussion moves between personal anecdotes, social science, historical reference, and cultural critique—all with wry humor and warmth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening: The Joy of Trivia and Sports Obsession

[03:02–07:07]

• LeBron’s Stat Anomaly: Joe shares a stat — despite LeBron’s career averages (27 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists), he’s never had a "27-7-7" box score. Mike and Pablo marvel at the oddity, before dissecting mathematical explanations and baseball trivia.
• Statistical Oddities & Sports Fandom:
  • "You could build an actual full team of players that won back-to-back MVPs. It was exactly nine and it was every position." — Mike Schur [04:14]
• *Light banter on trivia as the foundation for their dynamic, illustrating the deeply nerdy joy shared by sports obsessives.

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Personal Histories and the Roots of Fandom

[07:36–09:56]

• Fact-Checking & Journalistic Pride:

  • Pablo reminisces about fact-checking Joe at Sports Illustrated, highlighting how sports writing and reporting connects people across generations.
  • "Fractional Pulitzer for Joe Posnanski is what I'm here to hand out." — Pablo Torre [09:01]

• Award Season Anecdotes:

  • Humorous retelling of Joe Posnanski attending Mike Schur's Hollywood Walk of Fame induction, under protest from Schur.
  • "As soon as they said actor, everybody broke out laughing." — Mike Schur [14:46]

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The Power and Psychological Need for Sports Fandom

[14:57–26:29]

• Regis Philbin’s TV Record as a Metaphor:

  • Regis log 698 days-worth of TV—used as a symbol of "undisputed stardom" in an earlier media era vs. today’s fragmentation.
  • "He was on TV for a World War’s worth of time." — Pablo Torre [15:55]

• NFL’s Domination and "Squeezing the Lemon":

  • Discussion of the NFL’s ever-expanding influence—turning even the schedule release into a spectacle.
  • "They're so cocky with the way they do it … at some year … people are going to not care in the way that they currently care." — Joe Posnanski [16:52]
  • NFL’s relentless expansion: the draft, Super Bowl on Valentine’s Day, encroaching on other cultural holidays.

• Sports Fandom as Psychological Fulfillment:

  • Exploring the thesis from sports psychologist Daniel Wan.
  • "If sports were just, like, fun and distracting and entertaining, okay, yeah, people would be kind of into it. But there's a billion or more sports fans...this thing, fandom, has to be meeting basic psychological and emotional needs." — Joe Posnanski [24:46]
  • Both Schur and Posnanski get emotional over buzzer beaters, walk-off home runs, and sharing fandom with their children.

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Visceral Experiences: Darts, Soccer, and Shared Humanity

[20:58–26:29, 28:31–32:33]

• Darts as the Spark for the Book:

  • The viral video of British darts fans, in wild costumes, losing their minds over the game—"these fans, as crazy as they look, are essentially just like us" (Mike Schur [22:55]).
  • Parallels between ironic enjoyment (e.g., dressing up in costumes for darts) turning into genuine emotion.

• Liverpool FC and "You'll Never Walk Alone":

  • Mike’s pilgrimage to Anfield—a lifelong Liverpool fan experiencing the communal singing.
    • "You could just see Mike ... like a kid ... vibrating." — Joe Posnanski [30:28]
    • "Who look like ... brandishing some prison weapon. And they're just weeping." — Pablo Torre [32:18]
  • How sporting rituals serve as a channel for men especially to experience, display, and process emotion—connecting across generations and communities.

• Male Loneliness and Fandom:

  • Fandom offers a rare "safe" space for men to feel and express deep feeling, often with references to Field of Dreams, Brian's Song.
    • "We as a society need to do a much better job of letting men feel emotion. Like, that was the larger [point]." — Mike Schur [37:21]

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Pandemic as a Test Case: What Happens With No Fans?

[37:21–43:01]

• The Pandemic Void:
  • Fanless games felt "worse" despite featuring the same athletes and stakes.
    • "It's the reaction video without the reaction." — Pablo Torre [37:52]
  • Filmed crowds and virtual fans couldn't capture true collective energy.
• Sports vs. TV Comedy Laughter Tracks:
  • Mike and Joe compare the attempted retraining of TV comedy audiences (moving from laugh tracks to single camera) to the irreplaceable need for fans in sports.
    • "You can retrain people ... but sports is just sports. Baseball is baseball." — Joe Posnanski [40:35]

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The Coming Twilight of the Fan — Capitalism, Private Equity, and Sports Ownership

[45:43–57:55]

• Fragmentation, TV Deals, and Loss of Human Connection:

  • As major leagues cut deals with tech giants, the importance of the physical fan is diminishing.
    • "The people who are sitting in the stadium and paying money to be there are a complete afterthought." — Joe Posnanski [47:55]
  • Pablo’s theory: With private equity/institutional investors taking over, "that humanness ... that ineffable but palpable fandom will never be less important to them." [46:45]

• Owners, Superfans, and the Profit Motive:

  • Rare exceptions (Steve Ballmer, Mark Cuban) are already vanishing. Most new owners are guided solely by "the green arrow" of financial growth.
    • "There is ... a great irony. The world’s most virulent capitalists bond together in a socialist collective ... maximize profit for their leagues." — Joe Posnanski [49:24]
  • The definition of "winning" has shifted:
    • "The definition of winning now isn't hoisting a trophy ... it's signing a record-breaking media rights deal." — Joe Posnanski [55:14]

• Fan Power: Europe vs. America:

  • The rapid collapse of the European soccer Super League due to fan protest—impossible to imagine, the trio agree, in the US.
    • "Would Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft listen? No. I don’t think they would." — Joe Posnanski [53:11]
    • "Hedge fund money is amoral. It has no skin in the game." — Joe Posnanski [53:41]
  • Final warning: As team valuations soar, family-owned teams will disappear, and fan connection will erode—potentially irreversibly.
    • "We should be so glad ... fandom created an economy that got so big that of course, the financialization of everything came to burn down the field of dreams." — Pablo Torre [56:55]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “He was on TV for a World War’s worth of time.” — Pablo Torre, reflecting on Regis Philbin [15:55]
• “They are so cocky with the way they do [the schedule release]...at some point, people are going to not care in the way they currently care.” — Joe Posnanski [16:52]
• “Fandom has to be meeting basic psychological and emotional needs.” — Joe Posnanski [24:46]
• “You’re at the center of the world. I mean, that’s how it feels.” — Joe Posnanski, about “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at Anfield [30:55]
• “Fandom offers a rare ‘safe’ space for men to feel and express deep feeling.” — Paraphrased from Schur and Posnanski [35:16–37:21]
• “It’s the reaction video without the reaction.” — Pablo Torre, on fanless pandemic sports [37:52]
• “The people who are sitting in the stadium ... are a complete afterthought.” — Joe Posnanski [47:55]
• “There is an ... amorality, not immorality. ... Hedge fund money is amoral. It has no skin in the game either way.” — Joe Posnanski [53:42]
• “The definition of winning now isn’t hoisting a trophy ... it’s signing a record-breaking media rights deal.” — Joe Posnanski [55:14]
• “We should be so glad that we got to see fandom create an economy ... before the financialization of everything came to burn down the field of dreams.” — Pablo Torre [56:55]

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Essential Timestamps & Segments

• 03:02 — LeBron trivia and statistical weirdness
• 09:01 — Pablo fact-checks Joe at SI; sports writing/navel-gazing
• 14:57 — Regis Philbin stat; then sports and media fragmentation
• 16:52 — NFL spectacle and the limitations of ever-expanding news cycles
• 20:58 — Darts fandom as case study; universal language of passion
• 24:46 — Daniel Wan’s fan psychology insight
• 30:28 — Mike Schur’s Liverpool pilgrimage
• 32:18–35:16 — "Male loneliness" and why sports lets men cry
• 37:21–43:01 — Fandom during the pandemic and the irreplaceable nature of crowds
• 45:43–56:55 — The looming threat: private equity, changing definitions of winning, and the fate of the fan

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Takeaways & Tone

The episode balances affectionate nostalgia for sports’ role in personal and community joy with skepticism (even dread) about the privatization and "financialization" of fandom. The tone is witty, warm, slightly irreverent, and ultimately mournful about what may be lost as sports teams become commodities rather than communal totems. Torre, Schur, and Posnanski blend personal anecdotes, nerdy stats, and sharp social commentary for a reflective, funny, occasionally bittersweet exploration of what it really means to share—and walk alone—as a fan.

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Recommended for:

• Long-time sports fans curious how and why fandom shapes us
• Media nerds interested in the intersection of sports, economics, and sociology
• Listeners who enjoy banter-laden deep dives with warmth and intelligence

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're gonna find out what this sound is. Right after this ad.

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[Joe Posnanski]

LeBron's 23 year NBA averages 27 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists. He has never had a game in which he has gotten 277.

[Mike Schur]

Oh, wow.

[Pablo Torre]

That wild.

[Mike Schur]

Wow.

[Pablo Torre]

I like that.

[Joe Posnanski]

But then I went on this deep dive and. Thank you, buddy. Probably. You want to order?

[Pablo Torre]

No, I'm good.

[Mike Schur]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

Thank you.

[Joe Posnanski]

It turns out that math, it's one of these great things where like mathematically it's actually not that unusual.

[Mike Schur]

How is that possible?

[Joe Posnanski]

I don't know, but there's all these people who like broke down the math and like one, he's only had three games of 28, seven and seven. He's had three games of 27, eight and seven. He said three games of 27, seven and eight. Like, oh, wow. It's weirdly not that it's. There's only the like a. It's like 20% chance that he would get to this point without that actual stat line, but it's not, you know, 0.004%.

[Mike Schur]

That's crazy. I still love. It's an oldie but goodie. I still love that. Roger Maris was not intentionally walked one time the year he had 61.

[Joe Posnanski]

That's a great one.

[Mike Schur]

That's a good one. That's a really good one.

[Joe Posnanski]

Baseball wise, Bogs popping up to the infield twice in a season in the 360.

[Mike Schur]

Amazing. Well, there used to be the MVP. One was unbeatable, but you could build an actual full team of team of players that are one back to back mvp. It was exactly nine and it was every position. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

For those who are not familiar with what you guys do, this is mostly it. Thank you for being here.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah. I was going to say though, I

[Pablo Torre]

always hang up the phone with my credit card company and I take down a note and then I'm like, you

[Joe Posnanski]

guys are just trading stats.

[Mike Schur]

That's all we do.

[Joe Posnanski]

History.

[Mike Schur]

That's pretty much it. Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

Can you right now name those nine guys?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay. Hal Neuhauser's the pitcher.

[Mike Schur]

Hal Newhouser is the catcher.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yogi Bears. Let me see if I can do it because I know you can. You wrote like seven books about this. Bear is the catcher. Garrick is first baseman. No, no. Okay, wait, let me think about this. Morgan, it's second. Morgan's the second shortstop. Is there might be two now. Are there two there now?

[Mike Schur]

Are.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. Ripkin. No, a Rod.

[Mike Schur]

No, a Rod. Didn't win back to back. Maybe there's only one.

[Joe Posnanski]

He didn't win back to back then. Who am I forgetting?

[Mike Schur]

The guy who had the original.

[Joe Posnanski]

The guy who did it.

[Mike Schur]

Actually, the easiest. It's pretty easy. It's the obvious choice.

[Joe Posnanski]

Honus Wagner.

[Mike Schur]

No, no, that's well before MVPs.

[Pablo Torre]

Is it out?

[Mike Schur]

Think about who's the best shortstop. Think about your favorite shortstop. The guy you had to have his card.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, no.

[Pablo Torre]

Really?

[Joe Posnanski]

Wait, my favorite shortstop?

[Mike Schur]

I don't know if he's your favorite shortstop, but I think you got a really cool, like 1958 card of his.

[Pablo Torre]

If I'm not.

[Mike Schur]

If I'm not mistaken.

[Joe Posnanski]

Ernie Banks. Ernie Banks. It's not my favorite shortstop.

[Mike Schur]

No, no. Yeah, but you. But you did get that car. You thought that card was awesome.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, I did think that car was awesome, yeah. Third base is Schmidt.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

All right.

[Joe Posnanski]

Outfield would be. Is it. Does it. Did it break down right, center and left?

[Mike Schur]

I believe so.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

Really?

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

DiMaggio.

[Mike Schur]

No.

[Joe Posnanski]

Ted Williams. No, no.

[Mike Schur]

Oh, Ted Williams might be left.

[Joe Posnanski]

Mantle.

[Mike Schur]

Mantle. Yes.

[Joe Posnanski]

And he counts as center.

[Mike Schur]

He counts as center. But it's then the guy who actually played center. But you can put him in right.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, so there's no right fielder. So it's not Clemente, Not Clement Day guy who actually played center. And you can put him in right.

[Mike Schur]

And more and more recent than those guys, an 80s guy.

[Joe Posnanski]

Jesse Barfield,

[Mike Schur]

Dale Murphy.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, Murphy. Right. All right, so who did I miss? Who is it? Who is it? First.

[Mike Schur]

First base was Frank Thomas came along and he did it. But I think Thomas is not the original. Maybe he is. Maybe Thomas is the original for his baseman.

[Joe Posnanski]

Who else could it be?

[Mike Schur]

It could be. I don't think Fox won back to back.

[Pablo Torre]

What the are you guys talking about? If you have not turned off your phone already or your YouTube browser window, it is a joy to have you both here. Oh, thank you, buddy. Thanks.

[Joe Posnanski]

It's a joy to be here. And. And I have to say in person now.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Joe Posnanski]

Congratulations. Ah, incredible honor.

[Mike Schur]

Congratulations.

[Pablo Torre]

Thank you.

[Mike Schur]

How cool is that?

[Pablo Torre]

Well, it's cool because Joe Posnanski, I used to fact check you with Sports Illustrated.

[Mike Schur]

I remember. I actually really remember this.

[Pablo Torre]

And I was just looking through my Gmail inbox. Mike. Sure. Guy who has been on the show many times before. And I was looking at like, what did I used to ask Joe Posnanski, one of America's great sports writers and the co author of this new book you have. Big fan that you've written together. And I was asking you stuff like did Jim Tome literally grow up on a farm because you say he's quote, unquote Farm strong.

[Mike Schur]

I I. One of my favorite things, and of course this is so long gone, was getting those, those fact check emails from people because, I mean, it was so frustrating because you're like, oh, God, these questions. But at the same time, it was like, oh, I can't screw up. I mean, there is somebody really working hard.

[Joe Posnanski]

A human being is looking into whether.

[Mike Schur]

And look, calling the people, making sure the quotes are right.

[Joe Posnanski]

Did Tome grew up on a farm or not?

[Mike Schur]

He did not. No. And farm strong was intended, I think, just more of a. As a. Which I believe I told you exactly right.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah. And for those listening the tomes, if they are listening, let the record show. Not farm people.

[Mike Schur]

Not farm people. No, they are not. They're Peoria people, but not farm people.

[Joe Posnanski]

Farm adjacent.

[Pablo Torre]

I was also, you gave me Marvin Miller's contact info at one point. Like, it's just funny, man. I'm like looking through. This is like 2010, 2011, when I was at Sports Illustrated fact checking. So fractional, fractional Pulitzer for Joe Puzanski is what I'm here to hand out. But actually the thing I wanted to start and, and want to start with, and there's a lot I want to get to about fandom and sports fandom and all this stuff, I think I have a take that I'm piloting that we might actually be in the twilight of sports fan peak sports fan, but peering over into some sort of an abyss. I want to get to that. But speaking of awards, the thing in this book that made me laugh the hardest, maybe.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

As you guys go on a tour of America together was Joe Pos's trip to Hollywood a year ago this month.

[Mike Schur]

A year ago this month.

[Pablo Torre]

Because what happened there, Joe?

[Mike Schur]

Because a year ago this month, a guy named Michael Shore was given a star on. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And my favorite part about all of this was we were on our very, very first trip for this book. We were in Texas, driving from Austin to Dallas, and we were talking just exactly the way we always do on every podcast. And nothing changes when we're not on air. It doesn't matter. And at some point, he just lets it slip that he's getting a. And he's embarrassed about it, that he's getting a star on the Hollywood walking fame and he's just not. He didn't tell me. He, like, it just slipped out. It was sort of like, oh, I've got this thing coming up and whatever. And I immediately said, well, I'm going to that. And I'M gonna write about it. And he's like, not a chance. I mean, not a chance that you're doing that. And I'm like, oh, I'm totally going. Absolutely. And. And he was not happy.

[Joe Posnanski]

As I remember it, it was a. I'm going, no, you're not. I'm. Yes, I am. No, you're not. It was basically duck season. Rabbit season. It really was, for like, a good

[Mike Schur]

30 miles until I said, okay, I'm not. Yes, you are. Like, you. You switched it up on me.

[Joe Posnanski]

I. I did not want to start here. I did not want this to be the topic that we discussed.

[Pablo Torre]

As many people are. I learn in this book, I'm on a group chat with Mike Schur, and the details of it are hard to summarize. But you would attempt to. How?

[Joe Posnanski]

I would say, and this is true, that I am honored to be the token white guy in this group chat, which is how I was asked to join.

[Pablo Torre]

Correct?

[Joe Posnanski]

It was. It was.

[Pablo Torre]

This is right. We were running affirmative action for white guys.

[Joe Posnanski]

There was a DEI situation where you guys had to get one white guy. It's. It's you, Mina Kynes, Alan Yang, and me. And we mostly talk about sports and culture. And it's a. It's a mini pablatori. Finds out kind of casual friend version.

[Pablo Torre]

And Avatar, which was thrilling to discover, is attached to my entry in the index of this book. That's right. It'll be a total Easter egg. I'm not gonna explain it. It's just in here.

[Joe Posnanski]

The original point of the thread was to discuss Alan Yang's pending nuptials and the movie Avatar. Those are the only two topics we could discuss.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Joe Posnanski]

And you and the Avatar part of that is what leads you to show

[Pablo Torre]

up in this book, which will, again, we will not explain. But I say this all to say that I'm on this group chat with Mike and he doesn't tell us. I'm, like, scrolling through my feed one day, and I'm like, is this a video of Mike Sher kneeling on the sidewalk? Wait a minute. Is he kneeling in front of a star with his name on it?

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, like he was being knighted. It was truly like he was being knighted. I don't know how it's possible he kept it as private and quiet as he did.

[Joe Posnanski]

There's a reason for this. And I said this. I had to make a speech, and I said this in the speech. And it's true. Like, you go into writing specifically to avoid moments like that, you know, like everyone's staring at you. People who want that become actors. People who don't want that become writers. And so it's a very weird position to be in where it's a lovely honor. I was very flattered. I found it really moving to have people there.

[Pablo Torre]

And of course they read Mike's credits. The Office, Parks and Rec, Saturday Night Live, man on the Inside, Brooklyn nine. Nine. It goes on and on and on. But the video. I think we should just play the video.

[Joe Posnanski]

Really. Should we though? If we could just.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Schur]

No, we definitely should.

[Pablo Torre]

Because.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

When they pull off the covering to reveal it is in fact Mike Scher. Your look is. It's that of a man who is watching a stripper pop out of a cake. That not order. Like I should politely acknowledge what's happened here, but there's a general unease.

[Joe Posnanski]

Look at Ted. So Ted Danson and Kristen Bell and Amy Poehler and a bunch of other people were there.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Joe Posnanski]

And look at. So Ted and Amy are like, this is old hat to them. They know what to do. I don't know what to do in this moment.

[Pablo Torre]

What do you do with your hands? It turns out you will I so tightly as to prevent circulation.

[Joe Posnanski]

Like I'm. Like I'm about to receive communion is what I look like. Ted and Amy are smiling and they look camera ready and they're happy. And I. I've never felt more awkward in my life. And. And was there merch?

[Mike Schur]

There was merch. The whole thing was wonderful. My favorite favorite moment probably was when they introduced Mike and they were like producer, writer, showrunner, actor. And as soon as they said actor, everybody broke out laughing. Like literally everybody broke out laughing. But they gave out little fans, actual like those little hand battery operated fans. And it was like Mike Shore fan. It was. That was the name of it.

[Pablo Torre]

Said it on it.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, it said on it, yeah, Mike, sure. Fan. And. And I keep that in a very precious place.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's talk about the. One of the conversations that I did want to have is about sports fandom as its own category of fandom though, because one of the things that is written in this book that Mike actually observes is that. And we don't ever talk about this, but it is amazing that we are here, Joe, with the son in law, the late, great Regis Philbin. Yeah, yeah. And his statistics. Speaking of statistics.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, he's got a lot.

[Pablo Torre]

Do you have them committed to memory? Do you need me to help you with this?

[Joe Posnanski]

He was awarded the Guinness Book of World record for most hours on TV

[Pablo Torre]

stars on TV and the total was 16,746.5.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. And then he was awarded that and went, well, that's great, thanks so much. And then he was on TV for like another thousand hours after that.

[Pablo Torre]

The great stat you had on this page is that that is 698 consecutive full 24 hour days of being on television. For comparison purposes, the U.S. was involved in World War I for 584.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Full days.

[Joe Posnanski]

He was on TV for a World war's worth of time.

[Mike Schur]

That's right.

[Joe Posnanski]

I mean there were a million things like that. He started, you know, in San Diego, local TV when he was in his early 20s after getting out of the Navy and was just essentially never left. He just started being on TV and never stopped. And that record will never be broken.

[Pablo Torre]

But the notion that there used to be on television these stars of this sort of a tonnage and wattage and now in the fragmentation of everything. Joe.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

It's never been more valuable. Oh yeah. And this is both kind of a point of pride for people, I think, who worked in sports and it's always been popular, but like now it's like, holy crap, like everybody else wants a piece of this.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. And specifically the NFL and that, you know, the recent. The schedule release which now it's so funny.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. What do you think of the schedule release now that it's like competitive comedy sketch.

[Joe Posnanski]

What are we doing? It's a deliberate slow drip of information where you're like the second Sunday night game is Bengals, Cowboys or whatever. Like, like they are so powerful that they're able to do that and get news cycles out of so many little moments. But it feels extremely risky to me because they are so cocky. They are so cocky with the way they do it. And at some point, at some year, I don't know when it's going to land like a thud. People are going to not care in the way that they currently care. And I just cannot believe the degree to which they dominate the news media with things that are not the sport. Like no other sport, no other institution in ever in America has been able to do that.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, it's like they keep squeezing the lemon and you're like at some point it runs out of juice, but I don't know that it's does ever. The draft to me is. Is fascinating in the same way that the schedule thing is in that we can. How often are you going to get fooled by the draft? I mean, there's only going to be a couple of players in this draft that are going to be True, true impact players. There'll be some that will be, you know, successes and most will not live up to the expectations.

[Joe Posnanski]

That's more explicable to me though, because that's about promise, right? That's about like any of these guys could be. Greatest thing that ever happened in the NFL was Tom Brady at 199 becoming Tom Brady. Because now if you're, if you're a true psycho fan, you've got to watch your sixth round pick because for the entire sixth round, Mel Kuiper Jr. Is going to be reminding you that Tom Brady was pick number one 99. And, and rock pie. Rock pie was, was Mr. Irrelevant.

[Pablo Torre]

So that's.

[Joe Posnanski]

Even now there's whatever 60 picks later, there's a guy who matters. So I just think it's not called the goose that laid the golden eggs and then it just kept on laying golden eggs forever. It's. It how they're treating it. They are trying to kill the goose and still get the eggs. And it's not going to work at

[Mike Schur]

some point, only because I think they're going to make the product worse and worse and worse. They're going to add another game. They're going to keep doing things to like, make it so that it's.

[Joe Posnanski]

They're putting the super bowl on Valentine's Day. Do you know that?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Joe Posnanski]

The Super Bowl. Super bowl is on Valentine's Day.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a bit on the nose.

[Joe Posnanski]

The NBA had Christmas. They're coming for that. They've already taken Thanksgiving. They are now going after Valentine's Day, which means that a whole lot of people are figuring out right now here in May how to explain to their significant others that they can't do anything on Valentine's Day.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, well. And you know that like Super Bowl Sunday is always right. Like the, the, the day with the fewest weddings. Right. Like, is like, that's like, obviously people are just never scheduled. So now there could be no weddings of Valentine's Day. They're just, we're shutting America down.

[Pablo Torre]

But this is also all.

[Joe Posnanski]

They're expanding their territory. It's Empire expansion.

[Mike Schur]

That's why.

[Joe Posnanski]

I mean, and this is because they're already counting on the 18th game that will push the schedule another week or two later.

[Mike Schur]

But you're, you're. I'm less skeptical that they will conquer the entire world.

[Joe Posnanski]

I know. I, I don't think they can. I just think at some point.

[Mike Schur]

I think they can.

[Joe Posnanski]

At some point. The product is spread too thin and it Collapses.

[Pablo Torre]

Before we get to the truly foreboding crystal ball, I do want to explain so many of the things that you've already mentioned just spontaneously are themes running through this book.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

The idea that there are hundreds of thousands of people in real life who will go and fill the streets of a host city for the draft. The idea that men will leave their ostensible loved ones to hang out and just name some dudes. The idea that we are starving for something psychologically.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. You know, I think you can go

[Pablo Torre]

to certainly NFL stadiums for that, but you don't need to. I want to actually paint the picture of darts.

[Joe Posnanski]

Well, start with the fact that darts was the impetus to write the book. Because a buddy of mine sent me a video and said, you got to watch this. And it was two stocky gentlemen throwing darts at a dartboard with blank expressions on their faces. Just thunk, thunk, thunk.

[Mike Schur]

This is insane. Come on now.

[Joe Posnanski]

But as they did this, a crowd of what appeared to be thousands of people behind them with each throw got like their engines revving higher and higher and higher.

[Mike Schur]

I have never seen the like. Come on, spully boy. Yes. Double 12. That is the most amazing leg of art you will ever see in your life. I can't spike. I can't spike. Absolutely, absolutely unbelievable.

[Joe Posnanski]

Every throw. And every successive throw made them go crazier and crazier.

[Mike Schur]

Look at that.

[Joe Posnanski]

Look at that, John. And they dump beer on each other and they throw napkins in the air. And then I notice as I'm watching the video, I start to notice they're all dressed in costume, these fans. They are wearing Harry Potter costumes. Some of them are dressed like the Jamaican bobsled team. So I had the idea for the book immediately. I called Joe and I said, you gotta watch this video. And then I think we should write a book where we go around the world and go to these weird events and try to see if my theory that I'm forming in real time is true. Which is these fans, as crazy as they look and as crazy as they're acting, are essentially just like us, that they're like. I recognize in myself a passion and a fervor and an insanity that for me is reserved for baseball and the NBA and whatever else. But for these people, it was these two stocky, blank faced British dudes throwing darts at a dartboard. And he watched the video and he basically said, yeah, let's do it. And then that's the beginning of the adventure.

[Pablo Torre]

One of the things that I think you guys share in Common that I love to tap into because I think it's really at my core as well, although it's coated with many now poisoned layers of irony is the idea of, like, you look at this scene at the Alley Pally in England and these characters like Ronald McDonald's, and it's crazy. And on some level, it's like, this seems almost sarcastic or ironic. And then you watch these videos or you attend any given sporting event in which people care, and you're, like, brought to tears.

[Narrator/Advertiser (Aura)]

Yeah.

[Mike Schur]

Mike loves to talk about one of his friends who became a Steelers fan when he was young simply because his father was a Cowboys fan. So he did it just to, like, you know, just to put up, like, the middle finger to his father, essentially. And now he's. There's no irony about it. It started ironically, but now he's a lunatic Steelers fan. And I think that was the feeling, certainly, we had at the darts. But everywhere else where you go and you're like, this is a laugh, right? This is a joke. But then you're like, no, people truly cared and got into it. And anytime they would. Someone would get close to a nine darter, the place would, like, really light up and. And it's. It's fun because I do think, you know, like, that old line that in order to be happy, you should smile, and then that'll make you feel happier. I think there's something to that with fandom. Like, it might start ironically, it might start as, like, a laugh, but then it gets inside you and it becomes something different.

[Joe Posnanski]

I think, to me, the most important interview or event that we undertook was we talked to a professor of sports psychology named Daniel Wan, who teaches at Murray State. He's been studying fandom in its. All its forms for a very long time.

[Mike Schur]

And.

[Joe Posnanski]

And he said something that is so obviously empirically true, but that I had never articulated, which was, like, if sports were just, like, fun and distracting and entertaining, okay, yeah, people would be kind of into it. But there's a billion or more sports fans in the world of all different kinds. And he said the way he put it was, if that's true, then this thing, fandom has to be meeting basic psychological and emotional needs. Like, there are needs that we have as a species that are being met by this phenomenon. And when you stop thinking of it as, like, oh, yeah, I like baseball, and you start thinking of it as, this is meeting a basic emotional need that I have in one way or another, you start to understand why I. Mike, will cry at any video of a dramatic last second buzzer beater, NBA shot in which there's a crowd pop. Any video where you where you're in the back row and it's, it gets quiet, the ball's in the air, you can't even see it because the video's too small. And then suddenly the entire crowd erupts. I I have the instinct to cry every time I watch one of those. And the same is true of of walk off homers. If I see a video of Joe Carter's walk off homer in the World Series, if I see like Jackie Robinson stealing home and safe by a millimeter, I feel tears well up in my eyes. And that is not and that's when it's not even my team or a big moment or whatever. And then you add on to that Now I have an 18 year old son. I share those moments with my son. We went to game two of the NBA Finals in 24 and saw the Celtics win. I cried on the plane on the way before the game. I cried during the game and I cried after the game. And now if we watch the video, I'll cry all over.

[Pablo Torre]

All right. It's getting harder to trust Mike as a reliable witness the more he tells this story.

[Joe Posnanski]

The point is, basic emotional needs being met is a better way to think of the power of fandom than just it's fun to watch basketball.

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[Pablo Torre]

So for those not familiar, Joe, for those who are not dyed in the wool, soccer fans don't know Liverpool's whole deal as Mike is a Liverpool fan and a Red Sox fan because you have to be, right?

[Joe Posnanski]

But it was a coincidence. I became a Liverpool fan long before the John Henry group ever bought the team. Total coincidence.

[Pablo Torre]

I just believe you. Root for private equity. I don't believe you.

[Mike Schur]

He does that also. He also.

[Joe Posnanski]

And also then I also have my choice of teams. There's plenty of.

[Mike Schur]

So one of the first things that maybe even the first thing that we said, Mike said we should each have a dream chapter where we get to do something we've never done that we've always wanted to do. And Mike really has been a Liverpool fan since 98 and he talks about his origin story and how he became a Liverpool fan. And he's like, we need to go. I need to go. You know, Mike needs to go to Anfield to. He'd never been. And you know, it's one thing to love a Premier League team and never have seen them, but it's particularly the case at Liverpool, right? Because Liverpool is, is such a historic, you know, thing and you have to go and, and hear them sing. You'll Never Walk Alone and everything else

[Pablo Torre]

just, just so I don't really care about Liverpool at all, right?

[Mike Schur]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

But I dare anyone with a pulse, right, to go. Go to YouTube.com or your preferred illegal streaming service and look up. You'll Never Walk alone.

[Mike Schur]

It's unbelievable.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah,

[Mike Schur]

So I went with Mike. It was a miserable day. I mean absolutely just spitting ice and, and, and people are slipping and sliding and it's muddy and, and it's so cold. And we go in and you know, Mike's really excited. We went with a couple of people who were also big Liverpool fans. Brandon McCarthy and our friend Matt Pitcher.

[Pablo Torre]

Brandon McCarthy.

[Mike Schur]

The pitch McCarthy who's a huge Liverpool fan. And we all go at me and I'm not a Liverpool fan at all. And so we all go and you could just see Mike. Mike really was. It was. He was like a kid. It was like he was vibrating. He was really, really excited about going. And we sit there and I'm like, this is really cool to watch Mike enjoy this. And then they did. You'll Never Walk Alone. And you're like, I'm at the center of the world. I mean, that's how it feels.

[Joe Posnanski]

It's. It's the tradition, it's the thing that makes that club's games famous. Also, you know, the. The worst day probably in. In UK sports history was a. A FA cup match in which there was a collapse of the stands because of some very bad engineering and bad planning and crowd control, and a lot of people died. And so that has added this idea that the lyrics of the song take on a deeper meaning when moments like that happen. So it was a thing I had been thinking about for 30 years of my life. What will it be like to be in that stadium, hear that song and sing it? And then it was exactly the way I pictured it, which is like, for a fan, that's like as good as it gets, you know?

[Pablo Torre]

So this is a song that started. It was Rodgers and Hammerstein. This was in the musical carousel from 1945. Then Jerry and the Pacemakers, Liverpool band, they take it over in 63. And it has become an anthem in which one of. Again, one of the best parts of these videos, beyond hearing the palpable goose flesh, is seeing the faces of all these dudes.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Who look like. In any other context, they're, like, brandishing some, like, prison weapon. And they're just weeping.

[Mike Schur]

They're weeping. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I am not somebody who's here to make everything about the male loneliness crisis, but it's really hard.

[Joe Posnanski]

But it's not. Not about that.

[Pablo Torre]

It's really hard to avoid what this makes people who otherwise might be fundamentally uncomfortable, viscerally uncomfortable feeling, like, actually free

[Joe Posnanski]

to feel, well, a huge part of fandom, and we talked to Professor Wan about this is where does it come from? Right. How do you adopt it? And for so many people, it comes down from. From the generation before, fathers and mothers and grandparents and so forth. It comes from communities. It comes from places where there is a sense of you are part of something larger than yourself. And there are plenty of stories about if you. You could jump into those videos and ask those crying Liverpudlians, how many of you right now are thinking about your dad or how many of you are thinking about your grandmother or whatever. It would be 98.7% or something.

[Pablo Torre]

They're not thinking about the musical carousels.

[Joe Posnanski]

Right?

[Pablo Torre]

They're not.

[Joe Posnanski]

I love Rogers. I'm big, big Rodgers and Hammerstein guy. There is a story from 2004 that I think about all the time from the Red Sox World Series where a guy was like, you know what I really want to do in the aftermath of the Red Sox finally winning is I want to, like, talk to my dad who passed away. And so his dad is buried in, I think, Mount Auburn Cemetery. And it's, you know, 2:45 in the morning and there's church bells ringing everywhere and whatever, but it's 2:45 in the morning and he goes out walking and he's. And he's like, I don't know how I'm gonna get in. I guess I'll have to climb the fence or something. But he brings a bottle of champagne and a Red Sox hat. He's gonna leave it at the grave. And as he's walking towards the cemetery, he starts to see more and more people falling into. He gets there. Someone has anticipated this happening and has unlocked and opened the gates to Mount Armored Cemetery. He walks in, he lays a hat and a bottle of champagne on his dad's grave and sees in his line of sight 25 other people doing the same thing. So when you think of fandom as something which you are a steward, a caretaker for your group of friends, your family, your generational line, then you start to understand the weeping and that you'll never a Jerry and the Pacemaker's cover of a Rodgers and Hammerstein song. And those things start to make a lot more sense. And I'm not kidding that when I say every time for the rest of my life, I see Peyton Pritchard's half court buzzer beater in game two of the finals, like, I will think about my son. I will cry. You are not thinking of just the event. You're thinking of the people in your life that it represents. Where you got this from going to games with your mom or your dad when you're a kid, like, all that stuff is contained in these moments, and that's what makes it so powerful.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah. And I think specifically talking about the male loneliness thing, a couple of weeks ago, I went to this. Like, it was a group of sport. Of psychologists talking about various sports things. And one of the themes they were talking about was this notion that when you ask sort of the typical guy, what movies are you allowed to cry in? There used to be like one answer, like, you only could say Brian's Song was like the only movie you were allowed. Allowed to cry. And football.

[Pablo Torre]

It's allowed.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, it's allowed.

[Joe Posnanski]

It's football.

[Mike Schur]

And the guy dies. I mean, come on. And. And the. And the other answer. So he was telling us what the answers were. And. And it was. Brian Song is still right up there. But the final scene in Field of Dreams that you're allowed to cry there.

[Joe Posnanski]

Allowed. Sure.

[Mike Schur]

You're allowed to cry. For a father playing catch with a

[Joe Posnanski]

son, I would be such an outlier for this interview.

[Pablo Torre]

For this.

[Joe Posnanski]

I'd be like, inside out. Right?

[Pablo Torre]

We're all inside out. Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

Toy Story 3.

[Mike Schur]

How about the beginning of Up?

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, the first 10 minutes of Up. Are you kidding me?

[Mike Schur]

It's crazy. But. Ye.

[Narrator/Advertiser (SoFi)]

But.

[Mike Schur]

But the point that they were making was that. That they. They. They were doing studies on what women talk about when they get together. And it's relationships and it's. And it's, you know, love, and it's. It's. It's books and it's this and it's this. And. And what do men talk about sports? Like, that's like. I mean, it's a cliche, but there is some real data behind it.

[Joe Posnanski]

Is the theory that because they are talking to their friends about sports that, like them seeing sad moments in sports movies makes them connect to their friends and so forth.

[Mike Schur]

The theory is that. That sports and fandom allows you to feel real emotion.

[Joe Posnanski]

I can't buy that.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, when the Cubs finally won, the emotion that poured out of people that would not normally be emotional. Right. Like people talking about their grandfathers and. And. And all of this. And. And. And I mean, the argument that the psychologist was making, which I thought was fascinating, is that we as a society need to do a much better job of letting men feel emotion. Like, that was the larger.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a hell of a monopoly that sports is ruining right now. It really is an incredible moat, as they say in the world of business. But I want to get to that moat, actually, because it's so interesting to think about fandom coming out of the pandemic. Because in the pandemic, of course, this experiment that was unprecedented and otherwise impossible was run for the first time in which fans were not in the building.

[Joe Posnanski]

Right?

[Narrator/Advertiser (SoFi)]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so if you're isolating the variable of, like, so what's this business all about? It's notable that the ratings went down. Everyone was just like, this is worse.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, Right.

[Pablo Torre]

And the games were happening with the same guys on the same courts and fields. But it was the lack of the reaction. It's the reaction video without the reaction. It's just like, oh, we're just like. Like watching this In a vacuum.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And I thought that was so telling about, like, what we're also, even primarily maybe here for. Even if we don't tell ourselves that we're here for other people to be here with us.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Mike Schur]

I think that I'd be really interested to hear Mike's thoughts specifically on this, because I've thought about this. That seems very sport. Like, it wasn't the same watching it without the cheers, without the people in the stands. But there was a moment that Mike was right there on the cusp where they stopped putting laughter tracks on comedy. And it was still hilarious to people.

[Joe Posnanski]

Well, not immediately.

[Mike Schur]

Okay.

[Joe Posnanski]

No. I mean, the Office US Pilot was, by some measures, the lowest testing pilot in the history of the National Broadcasting Corporation. Now, Greg Daniels, who adapted the show, had told NBC, this is such a revolutionary thing. It's completely different from, you know, Will and Grace and Friends and Seinfeld and you. It's not. No one's gonna like this. You just have to be prepared for that. Now, some of that was just him being smart and sort of prophylactically defending his work, but he was 100% right. And it's not like the Office was the first single, what's called single camera comedy, where it's shot sort of cinematically, where there's no studio audience and you're not in a proscenium set with, like, you know, think of the Friends coffee house, right, where, like, one of the walls is missing. Cause that's where the audience is. And they laugh at all the jokes. There had been other single camera shows before this, certainly, but the Office had a double layer between the audience, which is that there was no laugh track. And also the actors were aware of the cameras. It was, for the time, extremely experimental, and no one liked it. If you go back and watch the react, read the reviews, they're very fun to read. Everyone hates it. This is terrible. It's so boring. It's obnoxious. But what Greg said was, we have to retrain the audience to understand this visual language and this community. Thanks to the comedic genius of Steve Carell and John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson and Jenna Fisher and all of the people on the show, the show managed to break through and obviously became what it became. But those sorts of moments in TV history are very difficult to get through because people don't like being retrained. They like what they like. And at that time in 2004 in the US what they liked was Friends and Will and Grace and Seinfeld and everything else.

[Mike Schur]

But do you think. Think that. I don't think that could ever happen in sports, no matter how much you know.

[Joe Posnanski]

So the difference, I would say is that you can retrain. Retrain people to some extent if you just are really good and. And people start to slowly learn. You know, Steve Carell was in the 40 year old virgin between season one and two. So people are like, oh, that guy. Oh, that guy's funny. Now their brains have been rewired and they're like, oh, that's a funny person. I will now watch this show. Things like that can happen. Sports is just sports. Baseball is baseball. Basketball is basketball. The weirdest sport to me during the pandemic with no crowds was baseball.

[Mike Schur]

I agree.

[Joe Posnanski]

It was. It was unholy. It was. It was horrifying. And partly I think that's because a home run being hit like, you know, deep fly ball, outfielder going back, gets to the wall, dink, dunk, dink, dunk. Like just the ball just rattling around the metallic outfield bleachers was just so disorienting and weird. But it was so weird in the NBA that in the bubble, they had to put like giant monitors in with giant heads.

[Pablo Torre]

I was, I was a virtual fan. Were you? For a Heat game? It was. It was in playoffs. No, this was just in the bubble. Like, I think during. Actually, you know what? It's telling that I can't recall. It might have been a playoff game. It was truly flattened into being totally unreleased.

[Joe Posnanski]

The scene for me, you're in your home. I am in.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm on a. I'm on Long island in a rented house during the pandemic.

[Joe Posnanski]

Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

And I am watching the Miami Heat play on Zoom. Or rather maybe it was like a Microsoft platform. They had some sponsorship to teams. You gotta get teams. It's important that Microsoft Teams gets credit for this. I was a fan. I think Stu Gotz was a fan.

[Joe Posnanski]

Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

And we were like kind of like Brady Bunching each other. And it was. That was it.

[Joe Posnanski]

Because that. Look, watching TV is individualistic thing for the most part. Maybe there's a Survivor watch party or that you go to or whatever. Generally speaking, you're home alone or you're with your spouse or your family or whatever, but you're watching it individually. Sports is collective. Even if you're at home watching it individually, you're the sense you have, you

[Pablo Torre]

want to be watching other people watch. Collectively, you're alone.

[Joe Posnanski]

You want to feel vicarious happiness for the people who jump up in the air and do this. When someone hits a buzzer beater. Like it's not the same as tv. That's a. It's a much different relationship people have. By the way, I have to ask, did the Heat win or lo?

[Pablo Torre]

I'm pretty sure they lost.

[Joe Posnanski]

Great.

[Pablo Torre]

I also remember, I think I tried to feedacha stugats a sandwich like through it was. It was bad. It was like you made a sandwich

[Joe Posnanski]

and he made a sandwich and you did this.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I think we were trying to like feed each other. It was bleak, man. The pandemic was a real bleak time.

[Mike Schur]

Foreign.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Pablo Torre]

Sports fandom at this moment of definitively unprecedented but seemingly infinite sort of economic power amid all this fragmentation in which you can't make stars and entertainment the same way, you still can get these communities, especially around the NFL, to care about these games, such that the valuations of these teams are. I mean, Joe, the idea that, hey, guess what? The lakers are a $10 billion franchise and we all just, like, nod along.

[Joe Posnanski]

Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

Why? What's happening? My theory of the case as we look into the. Again, the foreboding crystal ball is that because the only people who can afford to buy these teams once we reach that threshold are not people, but institutional investors, like private equity firms, we are entering a period where that humanness that we've been talking about for an hour, that ineffable but palpable fandom will never be less important.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

To them.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

To the people who actually will own

[Joe Posnanski]

sports, this is exactly the problem. I think if you own the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1934, you need to go sign a bunch of good players so that people will take a dime and buy a ticket to the game and then buy a hot dog and a. And a soda or a beer, because that's how you are making money.

[Mike Schur]

That's right.

[Joe Posnanski]

Like, it is literally, like, you have expenses, which are your players, and you have revenue, which is tickets, and we are so far away from that now. Why is the NBA showing a Game 7 on Amazon Prime? Because Amazon prime gave them a ton of money. Yeah. And the. The degree to which fans attending games matters to the people who own these teams has never been lower. And it's only going to get lower as the NFL renegotiates their TV deals and they break their season into 50 parts and they sell one piece to Netflix and one piece to Peacock and one piece to CBS and one piece to Fox and on and on and on. The people who are sitting in the stadium and paying money to be there are a complete afterthought.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

And that means that the product that they are presenting to the people is almost completely divorced from the people who made it valuable to begin with.

[Mike Schur]

Across the board, it's not just the fans that go to the game. It's. We don't care if you don't have Amazon Prime. The game 7 is on Amazon prime anyway. We don't care. They gave us the most money. So the fans consideration. I mean, the NFL is far and away the leader in this world, but across the board, the fans are not considered at all. And that's for their home experience. That's for going to the game experience. That's individual teams trying to Win. That's not important to them. You know, we, we were having this conversation about, about your good pal Steve Ballmer. He wanted to win.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh yeah. The nicest thing I will say about Mr. Ballmer.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Is that that guy is a super fan.

[Mike Schur]

Super fan.

[Pablo Torre]

He will spend, according to my reporting, more than allowed to win. On what it is to get the thing that you thought sports could deliver you as a billionaire, which is this feeling of, of I get the trophy, I get the thing that every fan also wants. And I dare say that we will get to a point amid all of these private equity firms and institutional investors owning everything because they're the only ones who can afford it. That we will long for the unhinged rule breaking billionaire.

[Joe Posnanski]

I think we already. We already do.

[Mike Schur]

I think we already do.

[Joe Posnanski]

Mark Cuban's loss is, is already being felt. Right? Like you already feel that. Thank. We got Steve Cohen, a man so insanely capitalistic, it doesn't matter who cares. But the. There is. You can count the number of these people on one hand. And a great irony. The world's most virulent capitalists bond together in a socialist collective in order to remove competition and, and maximize profit for their leagues. And they have a split intention, right? They. One intention. You would think. Think if you own the Dallas Cowboys or the Pittsburgh Pirates, your goal is to win a championship and hoist a trophy. That's not really their goal. Their goal is to maximize franchise value. That's the side of them that's virulent capitalist. And then the side of them that is collective is like, let's protect ourselves from the world by getting non compete clauses and antitrust exemptions and keeping away all of the vultures who. And part of that is imposing limits on themselves of how much money they can spend. And it is the rare Steve Ballmer super fan where the side of him that is a fan and wants to win kind of goes rogue and overrules the socialist collective side of him and is like, I don't care if these are the rules. I want to win a trophy.

[Pablo Torre]

And this thing, this sort of like dark crystal ball again that I'm looking into, it makes me think that we are in this twilight of the fan because they private equity firms and the hedge funds and those, those institutions, man, they are motivated entirely and exclusively by the green Arrow.

[Joe Posnanski]

That's it.

[Pablo Torre]

Is the asset improving year after year. It's not. Are the fans mad at us? No. Are the. Did we win a title? And. And it makes me go back to the country that we've been exploring here today, which is England, because I look back, Joe, at April of 2021 1, when there was this, this idea to both replace and or disrupt the Champions league. Yeah. Because 12 of Europe's biggest soccer teams decided, we're gonna form a super league.

[Joe Posnanski]

Green Arrow will go up.

[Pablo Torre]

That's what it was. The think of the media rights deals, JP Morgan Chase said as they provided $4.5 billion in financing at the time, more revenue, higher quality matchups, all that stuff. And what happened?

[Joe Posnanski]

The fans lost their minds and wouldn't let it happen and essentially stopped it with just stop protests. A number of protests that occupied the stadiums.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Advertiser (Instacart)]

Here they are in their thousands. The ill fated European Super League has started a fire and it's ripping through the game. These protests had been well publicized, but the scale and ferocity surprised police and security at Old Trafford.

[Mike Schur]

There are fans who have made their way into the ground and they are now protesting. They've come through the bottom end. The Stretford end is away to my left. They're now heading out onto the pitch to let their feelings be known. This is obviously not what we want to see. And the security here at Old Trafford has failed.

[Narrator/Advertiser (Instacart)]

So hundreds of fans breaching a cordon around the ground just hours before Manchester United were due to play Liverpool.

[Pablo Torre]

It's so remarkable that within 48 hours

[Joe Posnanski]

they shut it down so fast.

[Mike Schur]

So fast.

[Pablo Torre]

48 hours.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. And, and that is like the obvious question that you're implying here is could that happen in the US and the answer, I believe, is no. I don't think that fans would rally that way. There might be protests or whatever. The question is. Would, would Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft listen? No, I don't think they would.

[Mike Schur]

No. And they wouldn't be. And they wouldn't have to.

[Joe Posnanski]

I mean, wouldn't care.

[Mike Schur]

The, the utter disdain that Rob Manfred showed for Oakland. Literally protesting, just like you're taking the team away for no reason. And they just. The disdain like, it's good to see him have a nice crowd out there or whatever he said. I mean, they don't care.

[Joe Posnanski]

The same guy, by the way, who referred to the World Series trophy is just a piece of metal, right?

[Pablo Torre]

These, the.

[Joe Posnanski]

There is an, a real amorality, not immorality. Steve Ballmer, allegedly immoral, knows what the rules are and breaks them. Hedge fund money is amoral. It has no skin in the game either way.

[Pablo Torre]

It's actually telling you, yeah, we exist with a profit motive.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, they are. The hedge fund money is a, is a, a Plague of locusts. It just swarms over a field, field. It devours the field and it moves on to the next field. It does not care about the farmer whose field it destroyed. It doesn't care about all the other insects living in the wheat. It just eats and moves on. And so when you have Jeannie Buss the last, essentially like mom and pop shop family business in the NBA saying getting the, the valuations get to a point where even she is like this is my entire family legacy. But like I can't say no any, I can't do this anymore. Like, like I'm going to sell. Now the same people own the Lakers that own the Dodgers and they're going to do to the Lakers exactly what they did with the Dodgers to the extent that you can in the NBA. And the green arrow will go up and the, and the relationship between the fans and the team will deteriorate forever.

[Mike Schur]

I think that one of the fundamental aspects of sports used to be that these owners, they want to win. They're competitive people. Like they, they're competitive in their business. They, they definitely want to win. That was like at the very heart of what it was. And now these are, these owners aren't human in the same way.

[Joe Posnanski]

Well, the definition of winning has fundamentally changed. The definition of winning now isn't hoisting a trophy.

[Mike Schur]

That's right.

[Joe Posnanski]

It's signing a record breaking media rights deal for the NFL. And so, and they all get together and cling champagne glasses because they all won. And I, to me, getting back to your earlier point point, Steve Ballmer, if he allegedly did what he allegedly is supposed to have done based on a Pulitzer Prize winning 10 part series on this very program, would you rather have that guy or would you rather have a guy own your team?

[Pablo Torre]

Who, who?

[Joe Posnanski]

The guy who owns a baseball franchise who looks at his, his revenue, looks at his expenditures, looks at his payroll and thinks to himself, well why would I increase my payroll? All I'm doing is eating into my profits and all I have to do is nothing and I'm guaranteed 178 million in revenue sharing and then next, and the valuation of my franchise will go up because I know what the media rights deal is again next year. So I'm going to go 78 and 84 and, and fly around in my private jet and everything's fine like that. To me that is the immoral owner in sports.

[Pablo Torre]

I dare say, Mike, as you impose this binary choice that maybe door number three ex exists.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Now granted, door number three pretty much got Barricaded and as please caution tape

[Joe Posnanski]

over harder and harder to get into that.

[Pablo Torre]

No one is walking to quote your favorite team, the coach. No one is walking through that door. Actually, there is no.

[Joe Posnanski]

There is no huge patino guy there.

[Pablo Torre]

There's so many jokes, so many jokes that I'm not going to make.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

But yeah, if those are the choices, then I dare say things will get worse. And we should be so glad that we to see fandom create an economy that got so big that of course, the financialization of everything came to burn down the field of dreams. Joe Posanski Mike Sher this was a total delight. Congrats on the book and thanks for coming in.

[Mike Schur]

Oh, thank you.

[Joe Posnanski]

Thank you buddy.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk

[Joe Posnanski]

to you next time.

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