← The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The UFC Cashes In, Plus a Truly Riveting 1990s Cowboys Documentary With Ariel Helwani, Cousin Sal, and Bryan Curtis
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- [00:00]
Bill Simmons
This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Cracking open a cold one on a hot summer day is one of the best feelings, but it's even better when it feels like you earned it. Like in a friendly little competition. It's always better when there's something worth playing for. And Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer is a pretty great prize. I would. I mean, I would be all tennis for Michelob Ultras because that's what I do all summer. Because tennis is an actual sport, unlike pickleball. So tennis, doubles, singles, whatever. Let's play for an Ultra. Fill your fridge with Michelob Ultra this summer@doordash.com enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri this episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Your home is more than a space. It's where you express yourself. Like, we've all got our game day set up, right? I'm all about the viewing experience and the entertaining. So I got my sofa in optimum viewing position and I got my grill and patio set up for halftime or after the game. Whatever your vibe, Wayfair is the trusted destination for all things home. They've got all your home essentials, storage solutions, decor and more all in one place. Get inspired with room ideas and curated collections, all with everyday ways to save. Shop everything home@wayfair.com with free and easy delivery straight to your door. That is W A Y-F A I R.com Wayfair every style every Home Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where we have a new rewatchables that went up Monday night. We did Rollerball, which came out 50 years ago and is the second greatest modern sports movie in the whole arc. When you go longest yard 1974, rollerball 75 and then we're off. Rocky Bad News Bears, Slap Shot. This movie's awesome. I can't believe how well it's aged. Talked about it with Brian Koppelman, producer. Craig was out of his mind. Really fun podcast and you can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. Coming up in a second, we're going to talk to Ariel Helwani about this massive, massive Paramount UFC development slash deal, which is going to change the face of how we watch ufc and it's going to change Paramount as a streamer and there's so many different ramifications. We go into all of them, so get ready for that. And then cousin Sal, who is going to be on here every Sunday night when the football season starts. But him and Brian Curtis came on because Dallas Cowboys mania is about to happen thanks to this Netflix documentary. It's coming out this weekend and it's just, it's unbelievable. And we dove into all the things we learned from it. It's not coming out for a few more days, but we really just want to talk about early 90s cowboys and just what an amazing, amazing, amazing, crazy, bonkers era that was. It just reignited a lot of football stuff for us. So Sal Curtis, second part of this. And then. And that's the pod wanted to mention the Celtics that came out today that, that Wick Grossback who sold the team with his family to Bill Chisholm for $6.1 billion, is not going to be the governor. Initially, when they said the deal, they said he was going to be the governor for up to three years. On this podcast, I talked about that. I was dubious of that, that it would be three years. I thought he would be passing the baton sooner, and now it's literally sooner he's done. It's going to be Chisholm as the governor. So Wick Gross back, brought the Celtics 2008 title, 2024 title professional, as the team in all these great ways. I really liked him. I thought he was a great owner. And now it's, it's done. Not surprising. This is how it goes. This out went with Mark Cuban as well. But. But yeah, so that's it. So now we have the Bill Chisholm era is officially here in Boston. We'll see if the team can be half decent anyway. All right, that's it. Podcast coming up in a second. We're take a break. Pearl Jam and then Ariel Hawani next. All right, recording this Tuesday morning Pacific Time. R.L. helwani is here. It's tough to book him. He's doing like four hours of content every day for Uncrowned on Yahoo. He pops on here every once in a while. This is the biggest UFC story, not only of the year, but one of the biggest ones ever, because Paramount just went all in and they bought UFC basically 1.1 billion a year. It's way more money than I think anyone was expecting. And there's so many ramifications out of this. But. But the biggest one is that the whole concept of the numbered pay per views and just how we're going to get content is completely shifting and the pay per view era is basically over. This is it now. Now the numbers are going to come down. There's going to be stuff on cbs, they're going to be making the sport accessible in a completely different way. This feels like a win. Was my first takeaway for UFC fans.
- [05:31]
Ariel Helwani
Oh, 100%. And by the way, thank you for having me back on. It's been a minute. You look fantastic. I move everything just to be on the program, so this is great.
- [05:38]
Bill Simmons
You look great too.
- [05:39]
Ariel Helwani
Thank you. Thank you. It's gigantic. So there's basically four entities involved. Number one is Skydance, Paramount, they have this big merger. They officially finalized it last week. David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, he wants to make a big splash. He does the south park deal. But Paramount and cbs, they are in the sports business. There's the NFL, there's the Masters, there's Champions League on Paramount, plus and then the Final on cbs. But they don't own a sport here in the United States. They had an opportunity to own a sport. So to me, it's a no brainer. You can argue that they paid a little bit too much, all that stuff, but they can own a sport and they could do a lot with it over the course of seven years. And yes, the number for them by themselves is a big one, but I always thought they would get the ufc, that is, and TKO would get over a billion a year for their rights. I just thought it was going to be split up. So that was surprise number one. We all thought they would go the way of the NFL, NBA, et cetera, where they would split it up among two or three different entities. They only go to one. That's surprise number one, by the way.
- [06:41]
Bill Simmons
I think that was happening all the way through June. I think that's where we were heading, where it was going to be. Netflix getting the numbered pay per views and ESPN get everything else. And I think that's what everybody thought. This is where we're landing.
- [06:54]
Ariel Helwani
Yeah. And if you believe Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, who said on CNBC on Monday, as of late last week, that was the plan. The plan was the 30 fight nights to Paramount, and then they were gonna sell the 13 numbered pay per views, or ples, if they wanna call them that now, like wwe, to someone else. But once the Skydance Paramount deal went through On Thursday, in 48 hours, they said it took just 48 hours. They said, we want the whole freaking piece. And so that's why it went to them for 1.1 billion a year. And so it's a win for them because they can own the sport. Obviously, you know, for the UFC brass, for TKO, it's a win because their previous deal was about 500 million a year with ESPN dating back to 2019. So now they go from 500 million a year to 1.1 billion a year. I would say that's a win. Obviously, as you just said, it signals the end of pay per view starting next year. But it did make for a very awkward dance yesterday, Bill, because at the beginning of the day, you had Mark Shapiro, COO and president of tko, say pay per view is dead. It's antiquated, we're off pay per view only old things are on pay per view. And then you had Dana by the end of the day saying, well, I actually have to sell a pay per view this Saturday, UFC 319, and I have five left on ESPN, so don't quote, kill it just yet. That was a little bit awkward, but they'll figure it out and then we just move very quickly forward. For the fans, obviously it's a no brainer because if you're paying 1299 for the premium package on Paramount or 799 for the essential package and, and then some shows on cbs, it's way cheaper now to be a UFC fan. Here's the biggest one, though. What about the fighters? I had Tom Aspinall, the UFC heavyweight champion, on my show yesterday. He knew nothing of the deal. He's asking questions like, well, what about my pay per view points? For those that don't know, CERN fighters and the champions will get points based on the amount of pay per views you sell. Well, we're celebrating the death of pay per view. What about the champions who rely heavily on those points? Do the. Do the purses go up as a result of 1.1 billion coming in? Are the fighters getting any percentage of this deal like they do in the NBA? 50%? No, as of right now, they're getting zero percent. So there's many different permutations here, but overall, as far as the fans are concerned, yes, it's a huge win because it's now cheaper to be a fan starting next year.
- [09:05]
Bill Simmons
You left out Redbird, which was the other piece of this. So Redbird owns 22.5% of Paramount, Jerry Cardinal and that, that whole group and they've been buying up sports different. They own different sports assets, they own pieces of teams, they own a piece of Fenway Sports Group, all these different things and they really want to get into sports with Paramount. That was one of the reasons that they grabbed a big piece of it. There were no sports left. This was it like the NFL, I think now gets the CBS package. Gets to go back. But Goodell, I think that's already done. Paramount and CBS is good now. Other than that, this was it. This was the one chance to basically grab a big sports asset that you and I have really believed in as something that had a lot of potential. Plus, with people under 30, which I think is a big part of this UFC audience, what does that look like if you make all of these free? I think the thing that was the hardest to figure out was how many people were pirating the pay per views, what the actual audience is. I think that was a big issue for Netflix, trying to figure out, all right, if we're going to buy out all the numbered pay per views, which is what they were looking at, what's the actual audience? Because ESPN kept jacking up the prices for those pay per views. They were getting to, like, 79. What was it? 79.999.
- [10:24]
Ariel Helwani
Yep.
- [10:24]
Bill Simmons
So if you're a UFC fan and you wanted the 13 pay per views, now you're paying a thousand dollars a year. So people are now picking and choosing. Maybe they're getting three, maybe they're getting four, or they're pirating them. And I think that the. The big variable that I have no idea what the answer is, is how many people are actually out there to watch these pay per views. You could almost tell me any number. You could tell me it's 500,000 people. You could tell me it's like 2 million people. And what if they put it on CBS and basically everybody can just click on CBS at 8 o' clock on a Saturday night and watch UFC for three hours. What is that number? Maybe that's 7 million people. Could they grow the audience? And then on top of it, I think a big thing for Redbird is there's ad stuff with this that you couldn't really do. The way UFC was structured originally, you can actually put real stuff in here now, now that it's free, and try to grow it in a way that I think ESPN had a tougher time doing. Yeah.
- [11:22]
Ariel Helwani
And we'll never know that number. To your point, what we do know is those numbers, as far as the plus, pay per view numbers were dwindling. And that's part of the reason why ESPN probably didn't want to pay a billion dollars for this. They initially, when they first signed the ufc, they said, we want exclusivity. We want the whole thing. And I think it was a great relationship. I think UFC propped up plus, and I think ESPN gave UFC the rub. And if I'm Look, I didn't talk to Dana White about this, but I know Dana White quite well. Dana White wanted ESPN and Netflix. Forget the price tag. He's an optics guy. There is no chance in hell that he said, my top choice was Paramount plus and cbs. Even yesterday on that CNBC interview, they're talking about the Tiffany Network. They're talking about like old school C. Dana White's not that kind of guy. He wanted to be where the cool kids are hanging out. That's why he always touts social media and the podcasters and all this stuff. And if you even break down the social media numbers From CBS to ESPN, from everything, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. ESPN blows all things CBS Paramount out of the water. And so I'm really curious when you're talking about those young kids, like your son, like my kids, like my nephews, okay, to them, they know espn. They see espn, they see it on their feeds. They see, they see it on YouTube, CBS and Paramount while they have maybe three times the amount of subscribers. As far as Paramount plus versus ESPN, I don't know if those subscribers are UFC fans right now. They may become UFC fans and UFC fans may come over there. But I'm really curious to see how this breaks down in terms of like the footprint. As you know, when you're in business with espn, they make you a part of the news cycle, right? They talk about you on SportsCenter, you're on the ticker, you're watching the NBA Finals, and I see Isa Makhachev and Dustin Poirier's faces on the scores table. All that is gone now. That doesn't happen. Yeah, you might get an ad read from Jim Nance during the Masters, but it doesn't quite hit the same. And so I think they're going to lose out on some of those things while they're still obviously making a boatload of money and what a week for them, right? Who would have thought bill in 2026 ESPN would be in business with WWE and not UFC or even Top Rank. It's a crazy reality that we're living in. And TKO is obviously making a ton of money involved.
- [13:30]
Bill Simmons
Well, that was the other variable in this. ESPN ends up with what does it look like 10 premium WWE pay per views that Jimmy Pitaro was on Brian Curtis's press box podcast yesterday and talking about they have these 10 signature pay per views and they're actually going to work with ESPN scheduling to try to. And this is something Nick Khan I think has been great at with WWE trying To figure out where the holes in the schedule are, where it's like, August 2nd, there's just nothing going on in sports. We should put SummerSlam right there and make it two days and try to blow it out. So I think they're going to work together and try to do these signature things, but they're paying, I think it was 350 for the 10, which is money they could have spent on UFC. So they basically chose those 10 premium events of WWE over the totality of having all this UFC tonnage, which I guess they just didn't value in the same way anymore. And then from a Netflix standpoint, Netflix could have bought out the number of pay per views. And I think, you know, they're already in that raw business. That was like, what, 500, $500 million a year or whatever the hell that was. They could have the number of pay per views with a way bigger audience. Right. Netflix has 300 million subscribers. Yeah, but I don't think they valued it the same way Paramount did. Paramount has seven. I think that I saw they had 7.1 million subscribers. That's it. They're like the. One of the lowest ones. If you're able to add a million subscribers now, it's like 14% subscriber growth, which is all they care about. If they can try to get to 8,9 million subscribers, that's a huge win for them. Netflix didn't really need it. You know, it's nice to have, but ultimately, it's not like a game changer for them. For Paramount, it's a game changer. And for espn, I don't know. What would you rather have? Would you rather have the 10 signature WWD events or all the UFC tonnage? I think I would rather have the WWE stuff.
- [15:20]
Ariel Helwani
It's a really interesting question because obviously the WWE fans are super loyal and they'll follow them wherever. Just ask Peacock. It's 10 shows over 12 nights. Right. Because you're getting two WrestleMania nights and two SummerSlam nights, at least for now. Who knows if they'll add more nights to some of those other shows? And you can make a case that the WWE package is a little more reliable because you know that you're getting the top stars almost every single month. Right? Those guys are competing every month. And as far as the UFC is concerned, like, look, if you're. If you're ESPN, you're saying, the last time we had Conor McGregor on our air was 2021, and here we go. He's not fighting for four years, and we're never getting him back because the, the deal is going elsewhere. And so you can have a streak as you know where it goes up and down. And you know, there aren't top stars, there aren't top draws, there aren't top champions. Jon Jones isn't fighting, Conor isn't fighting, Ronda Rousey disappears. The whole thing we talk about every time. And so it's a little less reliable. And, and so if you're someone like CBS slash Paramount as it has come to light over the last 24 hours. Cause again, the messaging was a little bit funky. Initially. Mark Shapiro said likely all of the numbered shows would be on cbs. And then I was like, wow, that really is kind of shocking because don't you want people to go on plus and subscribe to watch cbs?
- [16:34]
Bill Simmons
They backtracked on that one pretty fast.
- [16:36]
Ariel Helwani
Then Dana said four shows. And then even by the end of the night to New York Post, he said, hey, we not totally like ruling out pay per view in the future. I think it'll ultimately be those four tentpole events, including the big White House show July 4, 2026. But here's where it gets really interesting. As you know, WWE can't ever go back on pay per view. Once they made the decision to put all those PLE shows on the network and then eventually Peacock, they decided we're out of that business. UFC is now out of that business. They in seven years they won't be able to go back. And they were the last ones left who whether they were getting a hundred K buys, 200, 500, 600. They were the last consistent entity left that was using pay per view. And despite it going down, still somewhat successful on pay per view. Now that's gone. And so I asked them, and I asked Paramount what will ultimately be the Difference between UFC 326 and UFC Fight Night Omaha. What's the difference between these shows now? Because before you would tell me, oh, Jon Jones has to fight on this date because that's UFC 327, at T Mobile. Well, ultimately they're all on the same platform, on the same spot with no extra charge. So what's the difference Now I'm worried. Just playing devil's advocate. Ultimately, I think it's a great thing for everyone involved. UFC fans, et cetera, not the fighters. But you know my reasoning there. I'm worried that now there's not that pressure to stack the deck for the number it shows because they are behind a paywall and that will thus lead them to kind of take their foot off the guys a little bit and make the product a little more watered down than it already is. That's my worry.
- [18:03]
Bill Simmons
It's interesting because the pressure would now have to come from Paramount instead of the pay per view prices. But my interpretation, reading everything and talking to people yesterday, was that they're kind of moving more toward a WWE model where they're going to have the three or four signature shows, which in a weird way they were already doing. They just didn't say it. We knew this summer we knew the big show was the Vegas show and at the end of June, right, that was the one where it's like, oh, this is some of the. Some of the big. Some of the big guns are here. Then the next. Next month isn't as big of a show. And you kind of knew ahead of time which three or four they were stacking up. And they're just, I think, going to be more transparent about it. And maybe, just maybe it's like they have the one Vegas show will be huge. They'll have a New York show that'll be huge. They'll have some show in South America or Mexico that'll be huge. And then they'll do like a Dubai whatever. And that'll be kind of the four corners.
- [19:00]
Ariel Helwani
They did specifically say it's 13 premium live events. So what is.
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Bill Simmons
Both of us know that's impossible. They don't have the fighters for it. They don't. I mean, one of the things that's happened, even you've. You've been a fan way longer than I am. I've been a fan because of my son the last seven, eight years. You could feel it's really hard to find the hooks for the main events because they just don't have.
- [19:22]
Cousin Sal
They.
- [19:22]
Bill Simmons
They're. I don't want to say in a rut, but it feels like they're in a transition and it's a little like wrestling, where all of a sudden they could have seven guys who could lead a pay per view. But right now they're really leaning on some of the older guys and then hoping that Toporia is going to be like this massive Connor type guy, which I don't think is going to happen unless he fights Canelo, which I thought was another interesting thing this week, him calling out Canelo. I was like, oh, you want to go on the map to Poirier? I know it's not going to happen, but if you want to go on the map, that would be. That'd be one way to do it. But who are the. Who are the guys who would be the signature main event, pay per view guys that UFC even has right now, other than Aspinall and Toria.
- [20:00]
Ariel Helwani
Look, they, they, they've got four on the books right now. The fifth is in December, but they haven't announced the the card for that because it's a little far out. I would argue these four coming up are pretty damn good cards. This Saturday, Drupless versus Khamzat Chimaev. A lot of people said that to them is their most anticipated fight of the year. Like dating back to when we found out that Khamzat was going to fight ddp. Everyone has been salivating. Both guys undefeated in the ufc. Chimaev has been on an incredible run. So that's this Saturday. That's pay per view number one. Then you've got October 4th, Magomed Ankalaev versus Alex Pereira. 2 Ankalaev shocked everyone when he beat Pereira back in March. Also Murab d' Alishvil against Corey Sanhagen. Like if you're a hardcore fan, you love that Khalil Rountree is on there against jairi pachazka. That's October 4th. October 25th is the return of Tom Aspinall, defending his title title for the first time officially against Cyril Ghana, France. Love that fight. It's a heavyweight title. You know, that's a big deal. And then you go to the MSG card in November and it's Isam Khachev moving up to 170 to fight the new champ, Jack Della Maddalena. Like those are four gigantic, at least to me, like salivating worthy big time fights. And so they still have those guys. Are they million plus buys like they had in 2016 with Conor and Ronda? No, they. But they were unicorns. And so I still think that there is at least, you know, I don't know, 8 to 10 solid pay per view main events a year. I'm just really curious how they're going to skin that cat now moving on to this new era where none of these are going to be behind the paywall. And I could tell you a lot of these champions are wondering, all right, so what's going to happen now? Because like they make a ton of money off the buys. Does my base pay go up, by the way? Do the performance bonuses go up? Know now everyone goes crazy over these 50k bonuses for fight of the Night and all this stuff. Do they at least raise it to 100k thus changing people's lives? The base pay now is 10 and 10, meaning if you're a UFC debutante, not like a guy that they signed from another organization, like, just a guy who's like 6 and 1. Coming from the regional scene, you're getting 10 to show and 10 to win. Do they at least raise it to 20 and 20, or are they keeping all of this to themselves? Because I think that's a really big part of this as well. Like, if I'm a UFC fan, I'm happy to. That I'm getting this all for free. But I also kind of want, or at least, you know, for a minimal cost. I also want to know that the fighters are being taken care of, because we've seen what happens to them at the end of their careers where they're left with very little.
- [22:19]
Bill Simmons
It's a good point. Could this lead. Everybody has always wondered, could there be an mma, UFC union or any of that stuff? And everyone says should.
- [22:28]
Ariel Helwani
By the way, this is the time. If there was ever a time, this is it. They're literally sitting here watching everyone from the executives go on all these great shows, waving their pom poms that they have just scored the biggest deal ever. Over a million, a billion a year. 7.7. Like this rivals. This is more than what the Olympics gets and NHL gets and PJA gets. They are now in the mainstream, right? Tiffany Network, all that stuff. And you're sitting there as a fighter being like, wait a second. If I just kind of band together with my brothers here and maybe we threaten not to show. I'm not suggesting they do that, but that's how this starts. What do we get out of this? Look at the mat. Look at all the ads. What do we get from that? Like, it's crazy, but by the way, my prediction is this will not happen. They've had other opportunities. They've never shown any interest in doing it. They're not going to show interest now.
- [23:14]
Bill Simmons
The problem is the careers are too short. And if you're going to risk out a year, like in basketball, you can lose a year if you don't want to, but you could lose a year. You're still going to have a long career. Football is the one where even though football has a union but football couldn't, the average career in football is like three, four years, something like that. So if you lose a year, you're losing 25% of your earning. I would assume that would be the same thing for this.
- [23:39]
Ariel Helwani
The easiest way to do it is there's like five to six max influential managers in this sport who, you know, work with the Top stars. If those guys came together and said, yeah, we're going to convince all our guys to do it, I think it could actually happen relatively quickly. The problem is those guys, for the most part, are way more concerned with being friends with the UFC brass than doing what's best for their clients. So there's no chance in hell that they would ever do it.
- [24:04]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And then. Well, and then from a Paramount standpoint, so. So this would be, this would be the zag against what you're saying about how do you incentivize the fighters? If there's, if they actually elevate some of the Paramount stuff and make it a bigger deal on there and there's advertising and there's a chance to be seen by more people, then you would think there's some sponsorship possibilities for the specific fighters. And there's outside the octagon stuff that maybe, maybe they could get. I'm, I'm a little nervous about it, even though I think it's great because I do think people were picking and choosing the pay per views. I'm a little nervous about how this plays out with the sameness of week to week. Kind of not as a. Like, I'm a more. Way more casual fan than you kind of not knowing when to come in and out. And now it's like, you know, because I've not. Like some of the ESPN stuff, I just skip unless somebody tells me, you gotta watch. There's somebody on this card and I'm like, all right, I'll watch it. But I don't. I don't know, the 52 week cycle. You know, at least in basketball, there's a start, a middle, and a finish. You know, football goes September and we end in January. Wwe, it's like, all right, we have these signature things and then there's Raw, if you really want it. Week to week, how UFC figures out how to stagger all their content in a way that makes sense for my brain, I think it's going to be really hard. And that's the part that I don't know if they put a ton of thought in yet.
- [25:31]
Ariel Helwani
You know, I think that they cater to different people. There's like the super casual who are going to watch maybe one or two, and then there's different levels all the way to the hardcore who are watching every single one and who are saying those shows at the apex on Saturday, like this past Saturday is a can't miss because X, Y and Z guy's on there. But, but one thing that I don't Think that has been talked about enough in all this and I can't wait to see what it turns into. And again, you're the perfect person to talk to this about is like, you know that when ESPN is out of business with a sports entity, they essentially stop covering that entity, right?
- [26:03]
Bill Simmons
NHL corollary.
- [26:04]
Ariel Helwani
Yeah, they're the perfect example. They left, they stopped covering them, they're back. They've got ancillary shows, they've got analysts, they've got the coverage on SportsCenter. I'm fascinated to see how ESPN treats UFC. If history is any indication, it will be the same way and what they lose out from that. Because I really do think it's very valuable to have the Daniel Cormier Friday at the weigh in spot on first take before a pay per view where he's breaking things down with Stephen A. Having all the stuff on their Instagram, having all their stuff on the TikTok. Like those numbers are insane compared to what CBS slash Paramount can do for them. And, and to me that's not being talked about enough because at this point, unless ESPN decides to re up their deal with PFL, so they have a deal with PFL, who's the distant number two? They've got one year left on that deal that ends in 2026. Unless they decide to re up with them, they're gonna be outta the MMA business. And I think part of the reason why the UFC is getting a billion dollars from Paramount, billion plus is because of espn. ESPN elevated them. Think about where they were when they left Fox and think about where they are now in terms of like what kids are talking about watching, how they know the UFC stars. That's a huge, huge deal. And by the way, kudos to the ufc. They have always had the great benefit of timing. When they left Spike and went to Fox, Fox needed them to prop up FS1, right. When they left Fox and went to ESPN, ESPN needed them to prop up ESPN plus they leave ESPN to go to Paramount, Ellison needs them to prop up the new Paramount. Plus they have been able to really benefit from great timing and that's not a knock on them, but, but they've just been able to be used as this thing to prop up and history has shown that they are able to prop those things up. FS1 dies on the vine, in my opinion, without UFC. And plus doesn't really get off the ground without UFC. So I think that they'll have a similar success. But now it's totally different, right, because there's no more pay per view. And so those. That. That whole breakdown has completely changed.
- [27:55]
Bill Simmons
I think that's a really good point about, especially about TKO the last couple years, because Netflix and the Raw deal, they are hating Netflix, right? As Netflix is like, we really want to see what Live can do for us. We need something. Oh, here's Raw. Let's grab this. They get the. The Paramount. Paramount is getting bought by Ellison and Redbird and they're like, we got to get into sports. We got to boost subscribers. Oh, here's this. This will be the last sports thing available. We'll grab this same thing for ESPN plus. And then. And then this WWE deal that they just did, which honestly makes more sense for whatever this flagship thing is going to be where you want basically these little signature events, tent pole events that you can kind of get behind. So the thing you just said about ESPN, it's interesting because I think 20 years ago was probably a bigger deal from a TV standpoint because ESPN was just more in people's lives than it is now. I don't think SportsCenter matters, you know, even 10% like it did. I think first take matters a little, but the social stuff and their. And their foothold in all these different social platforms and how big their app is and TikTok and Instagram and if ESPN is just like, we're just, we're just out. We're not going to. We're not going to talk about this stuff the same way. That is like a massive footprint that they just lose.
- [29:17]
Ariel Helwani
I actually, I actually have some of these numbers for my show today. Thank you to my producers for this. Take a look at this, Bill. All right, this is. This is kind of crazy. As far as tick. Excuse me. As far as Twitter is Concerned, ESPN has 58.8 million, 45 million on their sports center account and 1.6 million on their ESPN MMA account. As far as CBS, Paramount plus and CBS Sports, 1.1 million 416,000. 1.4 million on CBS Sports. Like just that alone. Just. Just listen to Instagram. 28.2 billion for ESPN. CBS has 965,000. SportsCenter has 38.8 million followers. Paramount plus has 1.5 million. ESPN MMA has 4.6 million followers. ESPN, excuse me, CBS Sports has 1.9 in total. If you take TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. ESPN has 308. 300.8 million followers slash subscribers. CBS, Paramount and CBS Sports has 32 million followers slash subs. That's a huge, huge difference. Now Paramount definitely has more subs. 77.7 subscribers. Million subscribers. ESPN has 24.9 subscribers at the end of Q1 this year. But again, I think the vast majority of those. We don't know the breakdown, but I would venture to guess that right now, a lot of those subs on ESPN plus were built off of UFC fans. I would venture to guess a lot of those 70 + million subs on Paramount+ aren't UFC fans. It's going to be very interesting to see in two, three, four years how many of those go from plus ESPN plus to Paramount plus.
- [31:01]
Bill Simmons
And that's the thing. We don't know whether that's 475,000 people or 3 million people. We have no idea what the number is for Paramount. All right, so everything we're laying out, it's like, wow, why would they do this? It seems like they overpaid. I was trying to think about, like, when you have a streamer and you're not Netflix, or you're not YouTube or you're not ESPN, like, what's your identity? Right? So you, like, you and I are buying Paramount. We're like, what the fuck? What the fuck are we buying? We're getting South Park. We have the cbs, we have some NFL. We got Taylor Sheridan.
- [31:37]
Brian Curtis
We have all of his shows.
- [31:40]
Bill Simmons
Now you, the Daily Showtime, you get, like, the carcass of mtv. You get some Comedy Central. But really, like, you're thinking, like, a year from now, who are my faces? Right? So now you have UFC and you have Dana White, and the. The broadcast crew is like, now a face of Paramount. Taylor Sheridan is a face of Paramount. Football is a face of Paramount. The south park guys, they're, you know, they're. They're like the ultimate disruptors in the comedy content space. And you kind of see you're moving toward. This is like a male kind of like, those are things that there's, like, a Venn diagram where there's a lot of stuff colliding in that Venn diagram. And I think that's maybe what Paramount might be trying to look at here, is we can have sports and then this content and just kind of go after dudes. And then you get. From cbs, you get people like my dad, who's couldn't be more excited about Boston Blue with Donnie Wahlberg filming right now, getting ready for a September launch. But you get, like, older men with cbs, and then you get the younger men with some of this other stuff, and it's like, all right, at least now we have something unlike where, like, I look at Peacock now And I'm like, what the hell is Peacock, right? NBC stuff. And that's it.
- [32:50]
Ariel Helwani
Yeah, Premier League Soccer, you get that. So I'll be keeping my Peacock and probably my ESPN plus as well. But, but, but that's. Yeah, that, that's pretty much it. And by the way, how about the fact that they have done tko that is, has done an incredible job of splitting this pie up in as many way possible. Like look at how they did WWE here in America, Raw on Netflix, Smackdown on usa, NXT on cw, the ples to espn. That's four different entities right there. And there's even still some talk about their library because the library didn't go to, you know, the Vault, if you will, didn't go to espn. So could they sell that off to someone else? Well, as far as UFC is concerned, okay, now we know that, that all this is going to Paramount. They have, Paramount doesn't own it globally. They have, you know, these rights in different countries around the world. For example, in the UK and Ireland, they're on TNT Sports. But they did carve out something that now Paramount will get a 30 day exclusivity period when the deals are up around the world to be able to negotiate exclusively with the TKO brass in order to try to gobble these up all over the world. But we go one step further, they still have something called Contender Series, which actually kicks off tonight on espn, which is basically the UFC signs these regional guys, these up and coming guys, the likes of Sean o' Malley started there. And then if they win, Dana White sits there like on his throne old school Roman Coliseum days and says, all right, we're giving you a contract. We're not giving you a contract. They haven't. That wasn't a part of this deal. So they could sell that off to someone else. The Ultimate Fighter is still kicking. That wasn't a part of this deal. They, they could sell that off to someone else as well. And so they also have Zufa Boxing, which is about to launch on September 13th with Canelo Crawford on Netflix. That's a one off. And Dana White said yesterday that that deal is done as well. They just haven't announced the broadcast partner. So the amount of broadcast entities that this group is in bed with, in business with, with, you know, Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, Nick Khan, Dana White, like some of the most powerful people in all of sports media and entertainment. And it's really staggering to watch how they've essentially like owned all this real estate in a very short amount of time.
- [34:58]
Bill Simmons
This episode is Brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket. If you're an NFL fan like me, there's one move to make before the season kicks off. Subscribing to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. You will get every game, every Sunday all in one place. Right now, new users can grab for eight payments for just $34.50 per month. Go to YouTube.com BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games and commercial use terms and embargoes apply. Availability varies. This episode is brought to you by. Workday There are two kinds of people in the world. Backward thinkers and forward thinkers. Forward thinkers have plans 15 minutes from now and 15 years from now. They're not just one step ahead, they're 1,000 steps ahead. And when you're a forward thinker, you need a platform that thinks like you do. Workday's AI illuminates decision making and reimagines how you manage your people and money for long term success. Workday moving business forever forward. Find out more@workday.com yeah, so I think where it heads is the big boxing pay per views that they're going to do go to Netflix for the most part. The big WWE pay per views go to espn. All the big UFC stuff goes to Paramount and then the biggest stuff goes to cbs. So now I'm in four platforms. I guess the question for me, like we don't know the exact numbers. Let's say, let's say Netflix was. Let's say Netflix wanted 400 million a year for the 13 numbered pay per views. And let's say ESPN was ready to offer 200 a year for everything else. I have no idea if those are the right numbers, but let's say that's about 600 a year. So we'll round it up. I'll say they could get 650 a year from Netflix and then you have your pay per views with 300 million subscribers and they buy it out and then the rest is on ESPN or you go to Paramount. I get an extra 400 million a year over seven years. So I'm getting an extra $2 billion, but way less certainty about my audience. What would you have done if you were the UFC Conciliary?
- [37:14]
Ariel Helwani
I would have taken this deal. This is a tremendous number.
- [37:16]
Bill Simmons
1.2 million. Yeah.
- [37:18]
Ariel Helwani
You're taking the money a year.
- [37:19]
Bill Simmons
It's too much money. You're taking it.
- [37:21]
Ariel Helwani
And by the way, so much less pressure now. All the pressure is on Paramount and cbs. To sell these shows, like, we'll just put together the cards and, you know, Paramount and CBS are banking on the three letters. And there was once a time where all the pressure was on the ufc, where they're like, yo, man, we need Brock lesnar at UFC 200 because we need to sell over a million pay per views. We need to figure out how to get Conor to come back to fight. So. And so Khabib Nurmagomedov, let's say, because we need that 2 million pay per view, they don't need nothing anymore. And so when they're at an impasse with some superstar between. Eventually they'll be at an impasse with, say, Ilya Toporia, and. And Ilya's like, I ain't fighting unless you give me 20 million. They'll say, cool, enjoy. It doesn't change our lives. It does not change our lives in one way, shape or form if you fight or not. Because all of it is bought and paid for. You know what I mean? And so it's not even, by the way, it's not even bought and paid for to where like, hey, our partner needs these pay per view buys anymore. No, our partner is not even putting these numbered shows behind a pay per view wall anymore. And so for CBS and for David Ellison and for Paramount and for Skydance and for Redbird, and all these people, they're like, all right, we're. We just want those three letters. We want it on our. On our streaming platform. And we're gonna hope and pray that those three letters mean a lot to a lot of people and that they're gonna deliver for us. But if I'm the UFC brass, if I'm tko, this is the greatest deal in the world. It's over a billion. You're now playing with the big dogs, and there's zero pressure on you. Of course they would listen to this and be like, what are you talking about? Of course there's pressure. We wanna put on the best product. I get that. But it's not the same type of pressure as 2010 when you're out there freaking trying to cut deals with everyone because you are benefiting from the pay per view.
- [38:58]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it's. It's. I get it from everybody's side, but it does feel like something is going to be completely different now. And I can't put my finger on what I think what you said about the pressure about, oh, shit, we have this thing in Vegas on June, and our top guy just fell out. We have to make sure we have, like, Are they going to care in the same way is the question.
- [39:22]
Ariel Helwani
No, I mean, you'll care from a gate standpoint, but the pay per view is completely different. And that's a huge number, I think, right here now. And this could change between now and, let's say, next year. I think the ones who this affects the most are the kids, in good ways and bad ways. And when I say kids, I mean like your son's age, because I think, great, they won't have to pirate. And by the way, a lot of these kids, as you know, aren't even paying for the 1299. They will still pirate because they're just lazy and they expect to get everything for free. But it won't hit the pockets as much.
- [39:51]
Bill Simmons
The stealing it for the pirating is part of the art.
- [39:55]
Ariel Helwani
Yes, they love that.
- [39:56]
Bill Simmons
They saved. Yeah, yeah, they like it.
- [39:59]
Ariel Helwani
But it's that, I'm telling you, it's that digital footprint, man. I do not, do not discount social media. Cbs. Paramount basically has no presence on social media. CBS Sports hq, compared to ESPN or whatever is nothing. And I really think, like, I would get it all the time from my nephews. They would send me stuff, they would send me clips. Like, that's not going to exist anymore. And so I'm really curious to see how that affects the just sort of general popularity, because, as you know, five years ago during the pandemic, no one benefited more than the ufc because they came back so soon and they were the only game in town, espn. I was on the. I was in the a block of SportsCenter 6pm Sports center in the middle of spring when it would be like NBA playoff time, talking about, like, random fights that no one cared about because there was literally nothing else to talk about. And obviously that was an extreme. But all that is going away. And so I'm really curious what that translates into. And my, My prediction is that it will. That demographic will. Will kind of find something else to tune into. It's going to be fascinating.
- [41:01]
Bill Simmons
One other thing about Paramount that I wish I had mentioned earlier was the. The whole concept of buying a subscriber base and how these big companies think about, like, you buy this UFC audience, and even though they overpaid for it, they're still getting this audience. And maybe they didn't overpay, but now they have. I think I said before it was like 7.1 million subscribers. Maybe that gets to 8 now, maybe that gets to 8 and a half. But it's people that aren't canceling Paramount once they get it because they love ufc, right? Once they're in, they're just in at that point and you can just count on them. And there's no churn rate for it. And what all these people care about the most is churn rate like Spotify. One of the reasons the stock is 700 plus dollars is because once you get Spotify, you kind of don't cancel it, you don't get rid of it. Right. You have all your playlists on there. You're used to it and it's just the price. And nobody really gets rid of Spotify wants to have it. I think UFC fans, whoever has the UFC content, once they're in on it and once you know there's a, there's enough content week to week, month to month, you're probably just, you, it's, you're probably just doing the automatic recharge. I, you know, HBO would have that issue where they would have like white lotuses coming and people get HBO and then cancel it right after White lotus sense. I don't think the ufc, I think that'd be way harder to do if you can sprinkle the content correctly. You know what I mean?
- [42:25]
Ariel Helwani
Yes. I would say the number one most loyal are the WWE fans. Like they are the most. They will follow you wherever. And WWE does a great job with all the other stuff, the documentaries, the behind the scenes UFC hasn't really done that as well. Like The WWE turned WrestleMania 9, one of the least liked WrestleManias of all time, into this great behind the scenes documentary that they put out back in April. And I was gobbling it up. I loved everything about it. Look at this WWE Unreal that everyone was talking about on Netflix. So like WWE fans will eat it all up. And I would say the next tier are the UFC fans who are a little bit more fickle and who will come and go. Sort of like boxing fans, but I would say a little bit more loyal to the brand than boxing fans are loyal to a specific brand. And they will, they will follow, they will do their thing. It's just, it's just a brand new world and you can never go back to pay per view now. You can after you tell them it's.
- [43:19]
Bill Simmons
It's around.
- [43:19]
Ariel Helwani
Dazn did this. Do you remember when Dazn came out with the pay per view is dead thing? And now they went, and then they went back to pay per view and now they're telling you again that pay per view is dead. Like you can't do that to the public once you tell Them once that, hey, you're. You're. Hey, you're paying too much. We want it to help you because you're paying $1,000 a year in seven years. You can never go back to that. And so what does this sport look like in 10, 15 years as a result of the decision announced yesterday? Can't wait to see.
- [43:43]
Bill Simmons
Well, and then the last piece that we didn't talk about. So they had the unicorn of Conor, they had the unicorn of Rousey for two years. And then going back in the 2000s, there were a couple other people, but they really haven't had the unicorn. Somebody who can pull everybody in for a while. They've had some people that seem like maybe, and it just really hasn't happened in 2000 and 20s. What happens if they get their version of Caitlin Clark or the. Or the 2000 late 20s version of Conor or whoever gets somebody who then becomes a mainstream megastar for like two, three years? And now that has to be on Paramount and cbs. Like, we don't have that. And by the way, we don't know if that's going to. That might not happen. Like, it hasn't happened in golf since Tiger. Tiger hasn't had anybody like that for basically 15 years. So maybe it doesn't happen. But if it does happen, it's happening at Paramount.
- [44:36]
Ariel Helwani
That person will come. That is my one prediction that I know for sure. I don't know who it could be Ilya, it could be Tom. It could be someone we've never heard of. It could be someone who's in the seventh grade right now. But those people will always be there. It could be Brock Lesnar's daughter for all we know. Like, those people will always be there.
- [44:53]
Bill Simmons
The shot putter.
- [44:54]
Ariel Helwani
Yes, yes. Who knows? They will always be there. They will always come. There will always be superstars. And I don't think the UFC is struck. Like, who saw Dricus du Plessis becoming this champ that people love. Khamza could win on Saturday and turn into, like, a tour de force that doesn't lose for the next 10 years. Who the hell knows?
- [45:13]
Bill Simmons
I'm not betting on that fight, by the way.
- [45:16]
Ariel Helwani
You know what? I think if we would have talked six, seven months ago, everyone been like, oh, yeah, Khamza, he's unstoppable, right? He's a locomotive. I think the cool pick now is Drikhis. I think, like, the smart mark pick is Drikus, because everyone says if Drikhis takes him into the championship round, so to speak, three, four, five, he's got this in the bag. In other words, if you looked into a crystal ball and that crystal ball told you this fight ends in one or two. Oh, yeah. Khamzat won. If you look into a crystal ball and it says it went to the championship rounds or the distance, it's Drikas. I, I'm leaning towards Dricus. I just think the guy is impossible to figure out, but also, like, he could lose in 60 seconds and everyone would be like, of course he's going to lose because Khamzat is so crazy. I think the smart market is minus.
- [46:01]
Bill Simmons
260, which I thought was higher than.
- [46:03]
Ariel Helwani
I thought I actually would have. I wouldn't have been surprised if you would have said like 325 or something like that. What?
- [46:10]
Bill Simmons
Strick is plus 196 on FanDuel.
- [46:14]
Ariel Helwani
That feels. I, I, I like that one. That feels like the pick. In my opinion, that's the flyer.
- [46:21]
Bill Simmons
It'd be a good one. All right, this is all great. How are you feeling about the Bills? I put Josh Allen at the top of my QB pyramid. I don't know if he had any thoughts.
- [46:30]
Ariel Helwani
I appreciate that. I don't know if you're trying to do like some sort of, like, reverse.
- [46:33]
Bill Simmons
I wasn't, I don't do that. I thought he was the best guy last year. I mean, he won the mvp. It wasn't like, it was a hot take. And I just didn't think Mahomes had a great year that the Chiefs didn't.
- [46:43]
Ariel Helwani
By the way, there were some people who said Lamar deserved it. I don't agree with those people. But this, I feel something in the air. I have to say I'm reluctantly watching Hard Knocks. I wasn't a fan when I heard it because I just, I don't want the distraction. I don't want to play up to the cameras. But it's fun seeing my team shown in this light because, you know, that's an institution. I'm a little worried about the James Cook stuff. Although just today Sean McDermott, coach McDermott said he he's going to be practicing. I pray to God they figure that out. And if they do, who's stopping us? Who's stopping us? Certainly no one in the AFC East. You would agree with that, right? We're going to kick.
- [47:17]
Bill Simmons
My team's going to be a little friskier this year. I'm just telling you. Defense, what's frisky?
- [47:22]
Ariel Helwani
What are we talking about? 7 and 10.
- [47:24]
Bill Simmons
Pretty good. We're well coached.
- [47:25]
Ariel Helwani
What are we talking about 6 and 11?
- [47:27]
Bill Simmons
How about 10 and 7? Man, I discounted the Washington Commanders last year.
- [47:32]
Ariel Helwani
Sure, it was a nice coach in qb. This is it. This is our year. It has to be, Eric. If not now, when? I'm seeing him on all these commercials, Snickers, Pepsi. He's the face of the NFL for goodness sakes. Everyone has Chiefs fatigue. There's no way they're going to repeat. In terms of making it back to the super bowl again, it feels like our year. I'm worried. By the way. Here's my prediction. I'm worried about week one. I think the Ravens will come in with like freaking revenge on their minds. And then I think we might run the table after week one. Like I could see an 01 sky is falling. Press the panic button on the lower thing on first take and then I see them winning 16 in a row. I wouldn't be surprised, honestly.
- [48:09]
Bill Simmons
Have you recovered from the Knicks yet?
- [48:12]
Ariel Helwani
Feel fantastic about the Knicks. I have my Gershon Yabuseli jersey already. I love that.
- [48:17]
Bill Simmons
That was a great signing. Yeah, that was great.
- [48:18]
Ariel Helwani
Love that signing. I am obsessed with that guy. Was obsessed with him when he killed Canada in the Olympics and then what he did to usa. Love the Jordan Clarkson signing as well. Love that we didn't tinker too much with everything else. Cautiously optimistic about Mikhail Bridges. I almost feel like they had to do that deal because they gave up so much for him. I think he will thrive under Brown. I'm all in on Brown. I feel horrible for Tibbs. I've said this already, but again, just like I was talking about the east, as far as the AFC is concerned, like who's going to stop us in the Eastern Conference? Cleveland. Right? That's the one that everyone thinks. Other than Cleveland, who are we worried about? Atlanta. That's the cool, sexy pick. Come on. What are we talking about? Philly? No chance. Boston sucks.
- [48:58]
Bill Simmons
Milwaukee would be the one. That's kind of just because they have the best part in the conference. I think you have to mention best player.
- [49:03]
Ariel Helwani
They added Turner. They lost Lillard. I'm not too worried about them. They. They take. You know, they don't really show up. It's. Cleveland had a fantastic regular season and I wouldn't be surprised if they're one and we're two. We meet them in the Easter Conference final, we punch our ticket. Revenge against iheart and the thunder and around like June 17th or so canyon of Heroes parade. It's going to be a great 2026.
- [49:25]
Bill Simmons
On Saturday though, NBA TV was showing game one of the indie Knicks series. No, I don't mean to do this to you, but it was the fourth quarter and there was six minutes left. And I was like, I haven't watched this since it happened. I got to watch this.
- [49:39]
Ariel Helwani
I will never get over that.
- [49:40]
Bill Simmons
It's unbelievable.
- [49:42]
Ariel Helwani
It's unbelievable.
- [49:43]
Bill Simmons
It was three times more unbelievable than I, than I remembered. Like n just starts making these crazy shots and then I just can't believe the Pacers came back in that game.
- [49:55]
Ariel Helwani
Look at the score with like I think 2, 46 or something like that.
- [49:58]
Bill Simmons
In the game for 46 minutes. You're up 8 with like 40 seconds left. But it was, I, I, I had forgotten that. That was probably the craziest loss. I mean it really was. You don't want to say a fluke because Indy made every shot, but if I'm a Knicks fan, I'm looking at that. I'm like, we probably should have made the finals last year. Why not? Why can't we just get back 100%?
- [50:18]
Ariel Helwani
Absolutely. And I think we beat the Thunder, if I'm sort of honest with you. But man, I can't wait. I keep seeing all this NBI and NBC stuff, like the promos and all that. I think next year's NBA is going to be great. It sucks that these stars are out. I don't wish that upon anyone. But the nostalgia. And you know what I'm so excited about? Like the new voices, the mellows of the world. Like I'm just, I'm excited for the.
- [50:40]
Bill Simmons
New coverage, positive media coverage.
- [50:43]
Ariel Helwani
I'm just, yes, elevation, some new voices. And I'm fascinated to see what happens with the inside the NBA guys as well with espn because I think that might be a fascinating marriage to watch from afar too. But yes, I feel good about the Knicks. I think Brown will be a new voice. I think there'll be change. I think everyone had their little fun this summer about all the.
- [51:00]
Bill Simmons
How optimistic. Ariel, I can't believe this.
- [51:02]
Ariel Helwani
Always. By the way, not since, Dare I say, 1994, have my two teams had a better chance to win a championship. Not since the Bills were going to their fourth straight and the Knicks were playing the Rockets in the NBA Finals. And, and I have to mention, since this is on a very, very special date, August 12, 1994, I probably peaked as a sports fan. Cause you'll recall that date lives in infamy. That was the day that the players went on strike. And the first place Montreal Expos six games ahead of the Atlanta Braves. I will never forget August 12th. And so every time I see that today's August 12th, I remember this. So I peaked as a sports fan in 94. I'm hoping that I just get one before I die.
- [51:45]
Bill Simmons
Well, I'm about to talk to cousin Sal and Brian Curtis about the Cowboys mega documentary that's coming on Netflix. I would advise you to skip it.
- [51:53]
Ariel Helwani
No chance. No chance. I'm watching a second of that.
- [51:55]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I would. I would. Honestly, as your friend, I would skip.
- [51:59]
Ariel Helwani
Okay. I wasn't planning on it, by the way, if I'm being 100% honest.
- [52:02]
Bill Simmons
But I'm happy there's a specific episode. Just. Just don't watch.
- [52:06]
Ariel Helwani
All about that. All about that.
- [52:08]
Bill Simmons
Just. Just stay away from the helmet and all that. No, it's just. Just stay away. It's gonna bring up some dark. Some dark demons.
- [52:16]
Ariel Helwani
Is Leon Lead and Don BB in there?
- [52:18]
Bill Simmons
That they are not. But there's some other stuff in there that I. You know, this stuff was all 30 years ago. There was stuff I forgot about. Anyway, Ariel, great to see you. You can listen to him and watch him on the uncrowned podcast, which is. You get like four fighters a day, by the way.
- [52:34]
Ariel Helwani
Yeah, we're working hard here. I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [52:37]
Bill Simmons
Thank you.
- [52:37]
Ariel Helwani
Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.
- [52:39]
Bill Simmons
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. There's a lot of misconceptions around mental health, especially if you're a guy, but you shouldn't be ashamed to seek help when you need it. Trust me, everyone needs help sometimes. A great way to get the support you need is BetterHelp. They can match you with the right therapist in an easy, comfortable, judgment free way. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com billsimmons to get 10% off your first month, that is betterhelp.com billsimmons this episode is brought to you by Viore. Look, I'm not a big let's hype up workout clothes guy, but Vuori, I gotta say, total game changer. Been wearing a lot. If you see me power walking around Los Angeles, probably gonna see me wearing some Viori Sunday performance joggers that they have. It's made with four way performance stretch fabric, one of the most comfortable things you own. You will wear them everywhere, I promise. All you have to do is go to vuori.comsimmons and you get 20% off your first purchase with Vuori v u o r I.comsimmons. enjoy free shipping on all US orders over $75 plus free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right, recording this on a Tuesday morning as well. Bryant Curtis is here from the ringer. Cousin Sal, even though Dee from what's Happening died today, had decided to power through it. And some funniest female of the 70s for you, or was there somebody else?
- [54:01]
Cousin Sal
I think so. I. You know, I put Bonnie Franklin from One day at a Time up there. No, no, of course.
- [54:07]
Bill Simmons
Of course.
- [54:07]
Cousin Sal
It was d. She was terrific. She'd cut anybody down.
- [54:10]
Bill Simmons
All right, well, thanks for gutting through today and. And talking cowboys. So Netflix has this giant cowboys documentary coming out that when we saw the news, I don't know how many years ago, and it was Netflix paying, like, 50 million bucks. Jerry Jones, the way some of these team documentaries work, how the patriots thing played out with Bob Kraft just putting himself over all of it, and you're just like, wow, this cowboys thing's going to be a train wreck. Jerry Jones is going to be all over this thing. It's not going to be editorially responsible at all. This is just going to suck. And then I got an advanced copy of the first seven episodes, and it was like Last dance level riveting. So many things I forgot. So I implored you guys to watch advanced copies. Who. Who wants to start? Because there's so much to go here. S. I told you, like, clear your schedule. You have to watch this. Did it exceed your expectations?
- [55:08]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I mean, I think. I mean, this is no great feat, but I think in 18 hours, I knocked the whole seven hours out, whatever, so.
- [55:15]
Bill Simmons
And you couldn't stay away.
- [55:18]
Cousin Sal
I had my oldest son watching with me, and he went out one night. I was like, no, no, no. Stay home. I'll pay you to stay home. We need to finish these. But to me, this was like. I fucking loved every. It was like a vial of crack with a. Like a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. And smothered with Michelle Pfeiffer from Greece, too, all rolled up and.
- [55:36]
Bill Simmons
Wow. I felt like you're at the White House. I think that was at the White House.
- [55:39]
Cousin Sal
I was at the White House. White House, by the way, not very impressive. It was basically like a. A suite at the Quality Inn behind the training facility. I thought it was going to be like, this big mansion, but anyway. Well, I'm sure we'll get to that. But, yeah, I fricking loved it. And I got to. I. I mean, we'll let Curtis join in here, but I took a different perspective of how I looked at some of these guys.
- [55:58]
Bill Simmons
Curtis did it did. I mean, you've read every book. You're a lifelong Cowboys fan. You thought you knew everything, and then you hear this is coming out. What was your reaction watching it versus what you thought was going to happen?
- [56:11]
Brian Curtis
Well, I did read every word. I mean, every word that Ed Werder wrote, you know, that was me. Because these events take place between my first year of middle school and my last year of high school.
- [56:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [56:20]
Brian Curtis
So I was at, like, my maximum sports fandom. And, Bill, I don't know if you've ever mentioned the 86 Celtics on this podcast.
- [56:26]
Bill Simmons
I think I heard it once or twice. Yeah.
- [56:28]
Brian Curtis
The 92 Cowboys are my 86 Celtics. I'm very protective of them. I feel like for the rest of my life, I have to tell people how great they were, and then when they bring me stories, I'm like, yeah, I knew that.
- [56:38]
Bill Simmons
I read that.
- [56:39]
Brian Curtis
Dude. I enjoyed this so much, reliving every moment of this. I mean, I was ready, as you say, for the Jones family. I mean, Biden family. I mean, Jones family rehabilitation project.
- [56:51]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [56:52]
Brian Curtis
And this was a riveting fun. It was like a western directed by Baz Luhrmann. I mean, it was just a really, really fun series.
- [57:02]
Bill Simmons
And it's not coming out for a few days, but we. This seemed like the perfect time just to talk about that whole era. I think what struck me, because it's been, you know, 30, 35 years for a lot of this stuff, is just how much I forgot. I watched all of these games, and as the years pass, when it's not a Boston team, where I can remember the beats of a Boston team, but when it's other teams and when it's 90s NFL, the stuff blends together. So, like, as you guys know, I am the. The. The king of the. The outside Dallas. I would rather have Emmett Smith than Barry Sanders. That's been. I've been on that hill forever. And one of my big cases was the separated shoulder game. And over the years, I thought that that happened in the NFC title game or whatever, and I forgot the context of the Giant. So it was like. It was a lot of, like, just jogging my memory from what actually happened, but then reinforcing things, you know, that I felt. And the reality is football just felt like it mattered more in the early 90s. And I don't really know why. I know we were younger. I know it's easier to say stuff like that, but there was. It wasn't the 247 like we have now, where everybody has social media, everybody's Got a podcast. There's coverage for. There's video everywhere. Back then, it was just like, you watched the Sunday game. We had Madden and Summerall, and you had these big, epic teams that felt like these superpowers with the Giants and the Cowboys and the Niner. Who am I leaving out? Giants, Cowboys, Niners. I mean, the Bills and the Redskins. Yeah. From the nfc. And it was just three of them. Were always good. They would always battle. We get to December, January, it felt like the games were the most important things ever. And Dallas was just great. Like, they, like great to the point that we always used to say. It felt almost unfair that it was like, whoa, we got to fix this. They got to do something with those salary cap. You shouldn't be able to have this many good players. So that was. It made me really nostalgic and, I don't know, sour. We just old.
- [59:00]
Cousin Sal
I think what's going on now is unfair. How we haven't won in 30 years and don't even really come close. I think that part is unfair. But I think you're right. And it's hard to explain to people to say that, oh, football was bigger back then because it can't possibly be bigger than it is right now for all the reasons you laid out, right. The 247 coverage, the Twitter and everything. The all different streams. But like you said, like, Aikman, Young, Favre, Kelly Sims, Montana. Every year, Montana, like, trading off, like, it just felt huge by every metric. I don't know how to explain it. But, yeah, that was. That was the time to be around. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you missed it, Cowboys fans. I really am sorry. Hopefully this helps.
- [59:39]
Bill Simmons
I mean, you think because I'm a Pats fan and we won six Super Bowls in the 2000s and the 2010s, I'd be like, that was the best era, and it just wasn't. It felt like the 90s. The sport was also way more violent, which I think that's one of the great things about this doc. It's like, oh, my God, like, I just can't believe they had this Aikman concussion montage at one point. And he has, what is it, eight concussions and. Or six concussions in 14 months or something? Or nine.
- [60:08]
Cousin Sal
Or like, yeah, it was like five and 12 months and nine undocumented just getting this.
- [60:12]
Bill Simmons
And the guys in the early 90s. But, you know, this was why Curtis. This is. I think when football went up a notch, I was there for Sal and I were there for the 70s 80s, 90s. But it felt like 90s was when everything got cemented. Even when you look back in the old, like the retro news Twitter account will have like the ratings for 1977 and Monday Night Football is like 20th, you know, wow. Football. Monday Night Football is only 20th. But by the time we got to the mid-90s, it felt like football was the biggest thing. Right?
- [60:45]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. The media B roll from this doc. If you lived in the 90s, I mean, how many Leslie Visser sideline reports.
- [60:51]
Bill Simmons
Are in this thing? Young Pam Oliver, all of it. Yeah.
- [60:54]
Brian Curtis
Madden and Summerall, you know, and again, that's what made it feel so special. I think that's what you're talking about a little bit too. That's all mixed in here because that Giants game you're talking about where Emmett has a separated shoulder. John Madden, in my memory came down from the booth and went to the Cowboys locker room and said, that's the bravest thing I've ever seen. And that was like this laying on hands moments like, oh, my God, John Madden said that to Emmett Smith after a game. I mean, who in the world would have the ability to say something like that now? And it would be meaningful.
- [61:23]
Bill Simmons
Right? Well, and then there was these other beats in there that because we hadn't followed sports for long enough, like Emmett's contract holdout, which I totally forgot. It felt like one of the biggest stories of all time as it was happening. Like, wow, he's gonna, he's going to sit out the season. Like they're not going to pay him and then that the new guy comes in and he's terrible. But it's tough now, like in 2025. Guys, hold down. You're like, all right, we know how this is going to go. He's going to. It's like what you're doing with Michael Parsons right now, it's like, all right, we're going to do this little dance and then we're going to get to August 29th and Michael Parsons will be a cowboy. When Emmett Smith was holding out, I was like, is he ever going to play again? What's going to happen here? They're going to throw this away.
- [62:05]
Cousin Sal
Exactly. I wonder if Jerry reliving this reinforces what he's doing with Micah Par. Right? So Emmett missed two games that year and they won the super bowl and he won the rushing title, which is crazy. So this is why he doesn't freak out about holdouts, because he knows he's going to release the funds, like you said, in late August or Early September, maybe. He does even miss two games. Parsons, by the way, we'll lose the Eagles anyway. So that's one game that didn't matter. But he gets to play a villain for the whole month, right? I mean, it must have killed him to know that Nico Harrison was the most hated Dallas executive for a minute. I mean, he's got to get his title back, but he loves it. Even at the red carpet thing last night, he said, this is controversy. Like, this is good for the team. Like what? Nobody thinks that, but. Okay, good. I guess you have a plan here.
- [62:49]
Bill Simmons
Well, one of the things, Curtis, with this doc, with the. Just the storytelling, it's just perfect ip. I think the two best IP for sports documentaries were the Last Dance and this because you have Jones and Johnson and that falling apart. You have the Aikman, Emmett, Irvin, like that Trioka, and all of them have different kind of faults. Right. Aikman is just getting the shit kicked out of him. Emmett's like the constant overachiever who's underpaid. And then Irvin's just a maniac. You have that piece, but then you have Jerry and Jimmy falling apart in a way that now I feel like we'd have more day to day, we would have known more about it. There would have been like little, little kernels coming out all the time with just the national media. Didn't work that way back then. And when Jimmy left, it was like, he's. He's not going to coach the Cowboys. It was like the most stunning thing ever. I don't feel like people would ever be stunned by that in the same way. Right.
- [63:51]
Brian Curtis
I agreed to a point that, well.
- [63:52]
Bill Simmons
You were a Dallas fan, so you, you were sniffing it out in Dallas.
- [63:56]
Brian Curtis
What's funny is the doc reminded me that a lot of this stuff was cut out on the table. You know, before that second Super Bowl, Bob Costas did an interview with Jerry and Jimmy together. And can you imagine the Kraft Belichick version of that interview? And the interview's point was basically like, do you guys like each other? And you listen to the answers Jimmy gave in the press conferences before the super bowl about his relationship with Jerry. I'm like, I can't believe this was happening like days before a game. That was wild.
- [64:24]
Bill Simmons
I guess we had no mechanism back then to really talk about something that happened. Like, because the MJ gambling stuff was all happening at the same time, too. And when you look back at some of that stuff now, it seems bonkers. Like they're asking him on the NBC Pregame show, do you have a gambling problem? But we had no. We had no Internet back then. We had no way to be like, hey, did you see that? What'd you think? Wow. I thought that was crazy too. And the Jimmy, Jerry. It felt like something was wrong. But you always just felt like stuff was gonna work out in sports. Like, ah, they'll get back together. The only time I can remember that not being was the Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner stuff, right? In the 70s and 80s where it's like, well, these guys say, oh, he fired him, you know, but it's just like, how is Jimmy going to walk away from that job? S. He had built like the super team of all time.
- [65:10]
Cousin Sal
I know. And they dangled the Jaguars in front of him. I remember that being like, what the f. The freaking Jaguars? The things that bad that he wants to go to the Jaguars. Like, they never snapped the ball yet. But I. Yeah, but to the point of, like, we weren't finding things out. Like, Jerry puts it all out there so you don't really have to dig. Like, they're caught. Caught at a Mexican restaurant before he's even hired Jimmy Johnson, right? He knew he was going to get busted there at the press conference. And he buys a team. He looks at Tech Shram and says, I'm gunning for your job. And text. Ram looks like the saddest man on earth because he knows he's not fucking around. You know, it's like.
- [65:43]
Ariel Helwani
So Jerry puts.
- [65:44]
Cousin Sal
And he still to this day does interviews three times a week. So you don't really. You didn't really even need Twitter back then for a lot of this stuff, you knew what was going on.
- [65:52]
Bill Simmons
Well, the Landry thing. So if we followed sports in the 1980s like we do now. The Landry thing. For somebody like me living on the east coast, where he was like, Tom Landry, he'll never get fired. The guy's one of the great coaches of all time. But meanwhile, he'd really been declining for years and years, and the team had been declining and he just got old, but it still seemed inconceivable he was going to get fired. And when Jones comes in, he buys the team and he fires Tom Landry. What do you remember from that, Curtis?
- [66:21]
Brian Curtis
When it happened, I was 11 years old and I remember that I freaking loved it. I was just at that age where you're starting to think anything that happened in my parents generation sucks.
- [66:33]
Bill Simmons
That's the past.
- [66:34]
Brian Curtis
And here comes Jerry Jones and he's like, I'm going to take your parents, Dallas Cowboys coach, and your grandparents, Dallas Cowboys coach. And I'm going to fire him, and we're going to start fresh. And I was like, hell, yes. Here we go. I mean, it was like this. He was doing this, like, you know, child versus parent thing on my behalf. And the doc reminds us, he fires Tom Landry, and then the city of Dallas has a huge parade for Tom Landry. Imagine Bill Belichick, like, a week later. They're just marching him down the streets of Boss. Like, we just want to thank you, Bill, for everything you've done for this organization.
- [67:07]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. People were horrified.
- [67:09]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [67:10]
Bill Simmons
That.
- [67:10]
Cousin Sal
Well, do you know how old I.
- [67:11]
Bill Simmons
It's weird.
- [67:12]
Cousin Sal
Watching the doc, I forgot Landry was only 38 years old when they fired him.
- [67:16]
Bill Simmons
No, no, he was.
- [67:17]
Cousin Sal
No, but he was 65. I would have thought he was like, 92. You know, 65 is nothing younger than.
- [67:22]
Bill Simmons
Andy Reid right now.
- [67:23]
Cousin Sal
Oh, yeah.
- [67:24]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [67:25]
Cousin Sal
So it was weird. But I will say, like, I. I was. I had the same feeling as Curtis. I was a little older, but I was like, all right, maybe this moves things around.
- [67:33]
Bill Simmons
This.
- [67:34]
Cousin Sal
This moves the needle with Landry. But then when they traded Herschel Walker, I did not think that was a good idea. Then I was like, oh, we might be dealing with a madman here. Fires Landry and trades Herschel Walker. What are our chances here? So I was wrong with that.
- [67:46]
Brian Curtis
I'm glad Sal said the words Nico Harrison already in this podcast, because that was the Nico Harrison trade in the moment in October 1989.
- [67:54]
Bill Simmons
It really was. And they covered in the DOC was the way it was reported versus what the trade actually was, was so confusing, where you get all these players, but then there's these weird secret conditions where if you waive each one, you get this pick. And it was really about the picks, but nobody. We were like, what? They fucking traded Herschel Walker for those five guys? What is this? Right? And at that point, you think Jerry Jones is just a complete lunatic. And it turns out it was pretty brilliant trade. When you. The Jerry Jimmy thing we've been talking about for 30 years. When you watch this, with the knowledge of what happened the last 30 years with Dallas, the Jerry Jimmy thing almost makes more sense in retrospect, where Jerry just the whole time is like, I'm the gm. I'm in charge of this shit. And now we've had 30 years of the Cowboys being terrible. I do. Did you have, like, a sliding doors thing, either of you, with what happens if Jimmy just is the coach the whole time? How does this play out? What if Jerry is just a little bit like, I'm just here to put the right people in charge and help them work? Like, what. What happens to the Cowboys?
- [69:05]
Brian Curtis
So my take on that is it's all Jerry's fault. Number one, he screwed everything up. But that if Jimmy had stayed, it would have been a fast burn. Jimmy was Bill Parcells. He was. I'm coming in for five years, I'm going to yell at everybody, and then I'm gonna go get bored and go do my next thing.
- [69:22]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [69:22]
Brian Curtis
Cause if you look, he actually spent fewer years in Miami, where he was head coach and gm, than he did in Dallas, where he was having to share power with Jerry.
- [69:31]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [69:31]
Brian Curtis
I mean, think about that. Like, Jimmy was just a fast burn guy. The other thing that Doc kind of touches on is 1993 is the beginning of NFL free agency. So all of a sudden, the most talented team in the league has this problem that no NFL team has ever had before, which is like, we got to actually keep all these players who suddenly have this power. Ken Norton can go to the 49ers and, you know, kill us in the NFC championship game. And that. That, I think would. I think Jimmy would have lasted one, maybe two more years, and then he would have been gone even if he'd had everything he wanted.
- [70:01]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it's a little like the second apron NBA right now, where all of a sudden it shifted, and it just became way harder if you did a really good job building a team to actually keep all the components. And Cowboys had, you know, these assets, but at some point, you got to gather behind some of the assets. What do you. What do you remember about that whole Jimmy era, Sal?
- [70:20]
Cousin Sal
I mean, I just. What was most fascinating with that, Curtis? How much would you pay for that sign that Jerry Jones claimed he had on his desk that said, if you're willing to give others the credit, you'll conquer the world. Like, how much would fetch on thousands.
- [70:33]
Brian Curtis
And thousands of dollars for me, personally?
- [70:35]
Cousin Sal
Incredibly ironic, and it's amazing. And then he comes out with the announcement that 500 coaches could win a Super bowl with this team. And at that point, you didn't really know. It was, like, Kobe, Shaq, right? Like, oh, man, who do I tr. If I have. We have to lose one of them. I'm not going to lose Jerry, really. Right. But who do we trust? Jerry or Jimmy here? And then they bring in Switzer, who had been gone, removed from anything for, like, five years, which is like. Like Coach K. Coaching the Knicks this year. You know, it was. It was very weird, but you're like, all right, you got to think he knows what he's doing. And the fact that you knew Jimmy Johnson was rooting against that team the whole year and gets the boots on the ground, like he's out actually announcing and he's a commentator during halftime and everything you get to see. To me, that was my favorite part of the thing. Those little nuggets that year.
- [71:21]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Some of the stuff when them on the field and just Fox felt they'd finally figured out how to modernize a pregame show and, you know, early Terry, early Howie with Jimmy, James Brown, and it just felt like. And then eventually you. Our cousin Jimmy started. When did he start doing the bits? Like 97.
- [71:42]
Cousin Sal
99.
- [71:43]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, 99. Yeah. By that time it had been established as whatever. But that was a really fun era too, Curtis, of when coaches would come on tv because Pat Riley started it. He never gets enough credit. Pat Riley went on NBA on NBC for, I think, one year and was awesome. And then that led to this whole run and Johnson was good, but then it led to this run of guys who weren't awesome, like George Seifert, who was one of the worst people ever on tv. But it just. Everything felt like just like the biggest thing in the world. I don't know, maybe we're just more used to the grind of football now and like, all right, week one up, Thursday night and there's more football. And there's Thursday and there's Sunday and there's Monday, there's going to be Friday, there's Christmas. And back then it was like, man, Dallas is playing San Francisco. This is the biggest game of my life and I'm not even a fan of either team.
- [72:38]
Cousin Sal
I think we were perfectly saturated back then.
- [72:41]
Bill Simmons
You know what I mean?
- [72:42]
Cousin Sal
Now it's oversaturated. And now it's like, in addition to everything you just said, we have to wait to see what Stephen A. And McAfee say on Monday morning before we can form our own opinions. It's kind of ridiculous, right?
- [72:52]
Bill Simmons
Zagging that somebody's got to, like, throw somebody. Yeah, the. The other thing. And it's weird because this, I'm sure, was not an intent of the doc, but it was just the natural outcome was how important Madden and Summerall were in it. Like, I. I just. I know we've talked about Madden a million times, but 90s Madden and Sumal, I think, is the most important announcing team of all time. Like, they really elevated. And when Madden said something like when he's praising him and Smith during the game, it. It. Or when he was mad at that Switzer went for it on that fourth and one.
- [73:25]
Brian Curtis
That's unbelievable.
- [73:27]
Bill Simmons
You would just kind of feed off whatever his reaction was and it would just become your reaction. I don't know if there's another. Is there another announcer like that Curtis?
- [73:34]
Brian Curtis
Not anymore. I don't think so. Because nobody says stuff like he did. You know, like Matt. Matt was not Stephen A. Smith.
- [73:40]
Bill Simmons
Let us.
- [73:40]
Brian Curtis
Let us be clear about that. But when he criticized you like he did with Switzer, that moment against the. He goes fourth and one where they go for it twice because the first play didn't count, they still run the same play again and he would just blast you. That was huge.
- [73:55]
Bill Simmons
So what was your single favorite part of this, Doc? So can I just say, I felt.
- [73:59]
Cousin Sal
With Madden Sumrall, I felt the weather when they were announcing. Oh, I felt it was cold. I don't know if it was a spacing between their words or between, you know, whatever else. And. And yeah, they were important. I watched the old Madden thing, the special. Right. Would you do that for anything else? Like now? So my favorite part, the Skip Bayless testimonials really hit home with. No, no. I hated that. The skip stuff. I'm sorry, people, you're gonna have to. It's like the doctor Melfi scenes with Tony. You're just gonna wish you could fast forward through them and get to the. More tire irons.
- [74:32]
Bill Simmons
But he had to be in there, though. He was the biggest chronicler that team. Like, they couldn't avoid having him.
- [74:39]
Cousin Sal
My biggest takeaway or my favorite thing is that I have a new appreciation for Jerry Jones because I looked at it through the lens of him being a gambler like he talks about. And it's all in the first, like seven minutes of the thing, right? He's like. Talks about, I had this one. Well, I invested $800 million or whatever into this. Well. And if this didn't gush, I was in trouble. And it gushed. And it's like he like a flowery description of how it did and whatever. And then he struck it now and we knew, like, Jerry, like, he took chances. I think he, like, owned, like, Shakey's Pizza, like, try to borrow money from his father to own Shake his Pizza. But that to me, it's like, oh, yeah, for real.
- [75:17]
Bill Simmons
Shake his pizza.
- [75:17]
Cousin Sal
I swear to go look it up. Yeah, Come on.
- [75:19]
Bill Simmons
Shaky's Pizza.
- [75:20]
Cousin Sal
Really look it up. It's right there. Yeah.
- [75:22]
Bill Simmons
Now we can shake his pizza.
- [75:24]
Cousin Sal
I know. Now we got it.
- [75:25]
Bill Simmons
So that.
- [75:26]
Cousin Sal
That, to me was the big, oh, I understand Jerry more. Doesn't mean I hate what he's doing less, but I do understand him.
- [75:33]
Bill Simmons
Well, you understand Jerry more than you understand how the last 30 years happened. Because the same irrational confidence to be like, I'm throwing everything into this last well, and I'm going to fire Tom Landry and hire Jimmy Johnson is the same piece that leads to the last 30 years. But, I mean, Curtis, the thing I was the most worried with this, especially after the craft experience. And I had the opposite experience when we did the Celtics stock. Like, the owners just trusted us and let us do our thing. Jerry sold this to Netflix and Skydance. And the worst case scenario of just, just, just being a Jerry hagiography, it really wasn't. I actually thought they were like. It was like a warts and all Jerry did. I mean, obviously they could have gone further with how dysfunctional I think some of the family stuff is and having his son, you know, basically the two of them, and whatever is going on with credit grabbing in that family and who knows? But I thought, for the most part, pretty fair, right?
- [76:30]
Brian Curtis
I didn't hear the words paternity suit anywhere in the documentary. And that might have been the price of admission to get in.
- [76:36]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [76:36]
Brian Curtis
And when it starts, all the main characters, Jerry, Troy, Emmett, they're sitting in front of these, like, western movie sets. And it felt like when a billionaire invites all his friends to his birthday party and they have to come, and they're sitting in front of some very elaborate kind of thing, and everybody's like, oh, what are we doing?
- [76:52]
Bill Simmons
By the way, I got worried with the first five minutes. I was like, oh, no, it was a little overproduced. Yeah. And then it just settles down and becomes awesome. By the way, the way, brothers directed this, who I think are really great, but great job. It settles down in seven minutes. And we're off.
- [77:08]
Brian Curtis
Two things. Save it to me. One is it's not really the Jerry story that's kind of woven in there, but it's really the story of the 90s cowboys, which is the story you want. Thing number two, and this is my MVP of the whole series is Michael Irvin, Ladies and gentlemen, the Playmaker. I mean, you mentioned the Cowboys White House, where the. The partying happened. That was over by the practice field.
- [77:29]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [77:29]
Brian Curtis
All the players in the dock are like, you know, we don't talk about the White House. And Michael's like, actually, let's talk about the White House. Let me tell you all the stories of the things that happened. Let me tell you about the time I stabbed a teammate with scissors. Like he goes into all that stuff.
- [77:42]
Bill Simmons
Stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting kind of the sanitized Michael Irvin interview. But he's like, no, no, here's everything that happened. Let's go. And that's the other thing. Documentaries kind of ebb and flow with maybe the best eight interviews in the documentary. That's why, like Last Dance had. You have Michael, you have Phil Jackson, you have Steve Kerr, you have Scottie Pippen. You have people who are actually compelling to see interviewed. This one has Aikman, who's been, you know, I think the. He's the best broadcaster in the league out of all the ex players at this point. I think it's lately that he grabbed the title, but I do think he's the best guy. You have Michael Irvin, who was on TV forever. You have Emmett, who's done some TV stuff, who's pretty competent. You have Jerry, who's a character. You have Jimmy Johnson, who's been on TV forever. And then you have Deion, who has had multiple documentaries about him. So just. You start with those six. It's like, yeah, of course this is going to be good. Not to mention all the other stuff, but I thought Irvin was like. Actually, I'd forgotten how compelling of a 90s character he was and how many jokes we used to make about him. And he was one of those guys. He was just like, I don't know if this guy's gonna be alive in a year.
- [78:58]
Cousin Sal
I mean, it was up for a murder for hire thing. Like, thank God he wasn't killed in that.
- [79:03]
Bill Simmons
Have you forgotten about that? That was another one I had just forgotten about.
- [79:07]
Ariel Helwani
Dallas.
- [79:08]
Brian Curtis
A Dallas police officer was the person who was alleged.
- [79:11]
Cousin Sal
I thought it was a rumor.
- [79:12]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, yeah, I know.
- [79:13]
Cousin Sal
He's a national. He was my favorite of the bunch. And by the way, you can't say enough about Aikman. Even if you don't think he's the best commentator that he. Joe Buck, should be propping him up. The fact that he could speak coherently at this point. Concussion curve. He's the greatest analyst of all time. There's no question about it.
- [79:32]
Bill Simmons
There was some stuff I just forgot because I'm older and my brain just. The sports info sometimes just gets squeezed out. I totally forgot about the Steve Berline. Oh, yeah. Coming in and then Aikman being ready to play and Then they're like, no, we're riding with Burlein. He's hot, that one. I was thinking, like now in 2025, I think that would actually cause a riot. I think that would cause a sports talk riot. Nobody would know what to do on first take with that situation. Right.
- [79:59]
Brian Curtis
Bill Skip Bayless, 6 to 8, KLF in Dallas. That was every segment.
- [80:03]
Bill Simmons
Just stay.
- [80:04]
Brian Curtis
That was the A block every night.
- [80:05]
Bill Simmons
Trust me. Can you imagine? I don't know if there's a better. What should they do? Because benching the hot quarterback is always dangerous. But then Aikman, and then he was pissed about it, so that piece was awesome. I forgot that Niners game where they're playing Steve Young with Montana on the bench, like the theater of that. It's hard to explain, like, how important that everything about that was because Montana was the best quarterback of all time. This would have been like doing this to Brady. And like with Garoppolo in 2015, it was just inconceivable they weren't going to play him. And then Dallas is trying to beat them and all the history of those teams going back to the catch, that was great. And then the Bill stuff, which has been in different documentaries, but I'd forgotten that in that last super bowl. Yeah, the Bills, maybe they're going to do it this time. And then it just like went off the deep end again with them like it always seemed to do. But. But what else did you just forget that you hadn't thought about in a while?
- [81:02]
Brian Curtis
Curtis, Jerry Jones was tied to Jimmy Hoffa, like, early in his business career. That was.
- [81:08]
Bill Simmons
Whoa.
- [81:09]
Brian Curtis
I don't remember that one. The Aikman part. I remembered him getting knocked out of the NFC championship game, the second one against the 49ers. I forgot that the super bowl was a week later and he goes out there and plays in the Super Bowl. This is a guy who has no memory to this day of the NFC Championship Game. No memory. A week later, he's playing the Super Bowl. And I forgot how just kind of bad or mediocre he was in that game.
- [81:34]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [81:34]
Brian Curtis
And of course, knowing what we know now is like, of course, of course he was.
- [81:38]
Bill Simmons
That's another piece of this. Like the whole. The lack of knowledge about CT concussions, all that stuff. By the way, Sal has no memory of the game. Romo, when he dropped the P A T against the C, he's blocked out that entire three hours. Leave meeting here where doesn't remember any piece of it. So was there anything you completely forgot out of this, when you're watching, completely forget.
- [81:59]
Cousin Sal
But I forgot what a train wreck Charles Halley was before we even brought him in. Like, he pissed on the 49ers GM's desk. And it was widely known, and they still. The Cowboys. Like, yeah, let's bring them in. Like, Jerry's like, imagine like, Zach Lowe defecated on Jimmy Pitaro's desk.
- [82:15]
Bill Simmons
And you're like, yeah, that would have been a better story.
- [82:18]
Cousin Sal
Maybe that'll come out. Let's spread that rumor. But, yeah, that was great. I'm trying to think what else was good. I mean, Michael Irvin with the fur coat. I can never see that enough times. Times walking in his first day of the court appearance, like, that was tremendous. Steven shoving Jerry after the Dion deal, which was the angriest Jerry ever was.
- [82:38]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [82:39]
Cousin Sal
He even admitted he cried after that.
- [82:41]
Bill Simmons
20.
- [82:41]
Cousin Sal
They go down 21, nothing. They lose to the 49ers. They come back. As you pointed out, you were sending text of the box score. It was crazy how the Cowboys just dominated them that game. But, yeah, I like, this is another, like, pro Jerry thing. Like, and you have to. As an entrepreneur, you should appreciate this. Like, Jerry's like, the rest of the league. I got this Fox deal done. I'm gonna sign Dion. He's got. His son is shoving him up against the wall, and he's, like, laughing. He's like, I'm gonna sign this Nike deal, and then I'm gonna get sued by the league, but I'm gonna countersue for more and scare the shit out of him, and everyone's gonna back off. Like, he really did put this. This league in the position it is right now.
- [83:20]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the Nike deal. I forgot how kind of crazy it was that he was just like, yeah, I'm going to do my own thing. Fuck you guys. When you have a league where everybody is sharing revenue and it's supposed to be equal to some degree, it's like, nah, we're actually not equal. Dallas is bigger than all you guys. I thought the one thing I didn't feel like in the first part, I thought they could have spent five more minutes on how the Cowboys post JFK in the 70s. Just all of a sudden felt like they were the most important franchise. Like. Like, for me, as a little kid, and a lot of it had to do with the cheerleaders and the TV show.
- [83:58]
Cousin Sal
I had that.
- [83:58]
Bill Simmons
Those two things, right? And so by the. By the time we got to, like, when they. When they beat the Rams in the NFC title game, it just felt Like Dallas was the center of the universe based on stupid stuff like cheerleaders and, and. And the who shot Junior. Plus that they are relevant. So then when it kind of died in the 80s and they got replaced by the Bears and the Niners and the Redskins and the Giants and Dallas was kind of fading away, I would have spent like a tiny bit more time on that. Like Jerry saw. No, actually this should be the biggest franchise. And went all in on it. But other than that, I don't really have a lot of notes. I thought they thought they nailed it. I wish they would have had a little more on the family. Yeah, like what. What would you. What would you wanted from the family side?
- [84:47]
Cousin Sal
Well, you bring it up. But the Dallas, the TV show kind of fueled, like got everyone prepared for this crazy rich family, right. Is fighting, right? Drinking at the owner's meeting. Everybody gets drunk and kept tells Edward, stick around. I'm gonna fire this son of a bitch. Like, it would have been like the season finale of every, you know, season of Dallas, which was great. The only other thing I thought, I don't know if Curtis. Did you miss the Steve Walsh stuff? It was Steve Walsh, right? And played for the same.
- [85:13]
Bill Simmons
Walsh, right.
- [85:14]
Cousin Sal
It was going to be. It was Aikman Walsh.
- [85:16]
Bill Simmons
It was.
- [85:16]
Cousin Sal
It was toe to. They were toe to toe for a while. It wasn't automatically Aikman starting for a second.
- [85:21]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I think that's fair.
- [85:22]
Cousin Sal
They would have like three minutes of.
- [85:24]
Brian Curtis
That and people forget how crazy that thing that Jimmy Johnson did was. So he drafts Trachman 1:1 in 1989, and then he spends the first pick in the supplemental draft a couple months later on Steve Walsh. The Cowboys turned out to be the worst team in the league that year, so he gave up the number one pick in the draft the next year. Number one overall for Steve Walsh after drafting his franchise quarterback. But Jimmy was just firing so many bullets, and that was part of his style, right? Like, I'm going to make 20 draft picks and I'm going to just bet that, like, five of them will work out and I'll trade the other ones away. But yeah, that was that. That should have at least worn it 30 seconds.
- [86:03]
Bill Simmons
This episode is brought to you by Armra. If you're striving to feel your best, Arm Ra helps you operate at your highest level. Arm Raw Colostrum is nature's original superfood, packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at the cellular level to fortify gut health, strengthen immune function, fuel muscle recovery, enhance mental clarity. And much more. We've worked out a special offer just for my audience. Go to armra.com/bill or enter bill to get 30 off your first subscription order. That's a R M R A dot com bill. The Switzer Aikman stuff, which I. I knew because I read a couple of the books the that I was surprised they went as hard as they did into the. The racist stuff with Aikman, the allegations. And they covered all that. They did not cover some of the. Some of the other stuff that's in the Bayless books that I remember. Curtis, you wrote about this for the Ringer in 2016 that at one point Switzer's like camp was spreading all this stuff about Aikman that he was gay. And it became like a story in Dallas. And the story was that these guys hate each other so much that Switzer side is actually maybe spreading some of this stuff. The doc did not touch that, but it did touch the racist stuff. I was surprised that didn't touch both.
- [87:28]
Brian Curtis
It was interesting. And I wonder. I wonder about that decision on their part. But you got the key detail there, which is Barry Switzer's camp was doing this while Barry Switzer was coaching the Cowboys.
- [87:38]
Cousin Sal
Right.
- [87:39]
Brian Curtis
About his all world quarterback.
- [87:41]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [87:42]
Brian Curtis
And you're just thinking like that happened. And the doc reminded me that some of that stuff was kind of out there on super bowl week. Like people were talking about it in the media.
- [87:51]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. They had to do a press conference about it.
- [87:53]
Brian Curtis
I know we're rehabbing everybody. We're rehabbing Jerry, we're rehabbing her, but we don't need a rehab. Barry Switzer as an NFL coach, I mean, I felt the dog got real close to trying to do that. It's like, okay, the players liked him. I wonder why that felt like that was coming.
- [88:07]
Bill Simmons
Spit. That might have been Jerry's one note. Like, I don't care what you say about me in this doc, but can we make it seem like Switzer was somewhat competent? My memory of this 30 years ago, Sal, was they won despite Switzerland.
- [88:21]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [88:22]
Bill Simmons
Is that fair?
- [88:24]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I think so. I mean, listen, I was at that super bowl and the last one we won and I was in the end zone that o' Donnell was driving on before he threw the interception. So it was like kind of scary. But yes, they definitely won despite. Look, they. Like I said, he went out of his way to get the best player in the w. The league, a two way player. They're paying Deion way more than they're paying Aikman. And Irvin and all these guys and they all embrace him. I don't know how they got that past those guys. Just like, all right, he's going to play two ways, so he deserves more money than you. I guess that was it. But yes, I think it was. Yeah, he was, he kind of just got in the way. And the fact that he had a fricking full out brawl or just a, like a, just a, a conflict with his quarterback, we haven't seen that in a long time.
- [89:07]
Bill Simmons
Aikman still seemed mad about it 30 years later. Curtis, you notice that, like he, he was not like, yeah, you know, time passes, he was still like, fuck that guy. Maybe that gets hit by a two by four for good reason.
- [89:20]
Brian Curtis
I mean, again, it's like Troyman's like, what did I have to do to earn your respect? I mean, can you imagine a quarterback being treated like that now by his head coach? The power dynamics are just completely different.
- [89:32]
Bill Simmons
Well, that's, and that's going back to the nostalgia piece. You know, when we have like, like some of the Patriot stuff that was happening in the late 2010s that like ESPN and Seth Wickersham was writing about. And it was like the Garoppolo, Brady, Belichick, Kraft. This is, there's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on. This was just aggressive back then. This is like a coach leaking shit about his quarterback and the quarterback just openly shitting on the coach. They had great NFL films footage of, you know, Aklin just complaining about the coach on the sideline talk, calling him buffoon. This was, this made the pat stuff look like a 1 out of 10 from a dysfunction standpoint. Did this, did this make you like Jerry more or less as your Cowboys owner? Because you haven't won. You haven't even made the super bowl, much less 1:1 in 30 years. And yet this was such a great era and he was responsible for it. So how do you balance that?
- [90:31]
Cousin Sal
It's just like I, I, I remember that we were once great and I, and then I, I forget that we can be this great. And then it's like, oh, shit, I watched this. Like, what the hell did he do?
- [90:40]
Bill Simmons
How does this happen?
- [90:41]
Cousin Sal
But as a, as a fan of the Cowboys, I don't respect them more, but I feel like as a fan of football, you should respect them coming out of this. He made this league as big as it is. So your fantasy teams, you're everything. I don't know if it exists without Jerry Jones, right?
- [90:58]
Bill Simmons
Then even go to the arena. What's your take on that, Curtis.
- [91:01]
Brian Curtis
It made me love old Jerry and remember how exciting it was to have him as the owner of my favorite team back then. It also reminded me that what Jerry wants most in the world is a. To just have a job. Like, just talk to me in the draft room so I can pretend like I understand why we're drafting Tyler Booker. That's one thing.
- [91:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [91:19]
Brian Curtis
The other thing is he wants to be a character in the prestige TV show that is the Dallas Cowboys, and literally in this case is the prestige Netflix doc of the Cowboys.
- [91:29]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [91:29]
Brian Curtis
Like, that's what he wants. And that's the Micah thing. Right. He just wants it to be. After a long standoff with Jerry Jones, comma, Micah Parsons signed the biggest deal for any defensive player in league history. Like, he just. He just wants to do that. And you can see in this doc, he got addicted to that in the 90s. Like, he got addicted to being a character, not just an owner, not just a winner.
- [91:51]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I think you could genuinely make the case. I was thinking about this after I watched it. This is probably the most memorable NFL owner ever. Doesn't mean he's the best, but it's like, the same way, like, Sal and I. Steinbrenner just sticks out unlike anyone else. Like, and even, like, when we were little kids, like, Charlie o' Findlay was just crazy, but they won all that stuff with the A's. But these owners that also become characters and parts, just part of the history in a completely different way, which I think Kraft tried to belatedly make it seem. And he just wasn't like, it was Brady and Belichick that whole time. Jones was just. I remember meeting Jones, and I think it was 2010 at the All Star Weekend, whenever that was for NBA, at a bar in the Four Seasons, and I was with some ESPN higher ups, and we met Jones and he was at the bar and he had girl on each side, drink drinking whiskey or whatever. And he was just exactly like I would have thought, you know, I was.
- [92:51]
Brian Curtis
Like, hey, Bill, how are you?
- [92:53]
Bill Simmons
And it was. It was just like, this guy's a fucking character. He's out of. He's out of like. Like a Taylor Sheridan show, which he literally was, because he was in the Taylor Sheridan show.
- [93:02]
Cousin Sal
You forget about, like, the. You talk about the telecast and Madden and Summerall and how much it meant Jerry put himself on the sideline. It's such a big thing that an owner is there on the sideline and that cutaway at the end of a game, God forbid, The Cowboys lost. I don't even know how much it's worth to the network. But we could all see it in our heads, right? Thirty years later, them losing whatever to the Dolphins in the. In the Thanksgiving game, or. You don't see it now, it's a Taylor Swift cutaway that you hope to get, like, five times, but.
- [93:30]
Bill Simmons
So he might have invented that, but he definitely also invented the. Let's let the cameras into our draft room so they can see us celebrating the picks, because Jimmy talks in the doc about what the fuck are cameras doing in here. We're trying to pick our roster. I'm trying to think. Anything else? We. I think we hit everything.
- [93:47]
Brian Curtis
I would just.
- [93:48]
Cousin Sal
The only other thing I'll say is. Oh, I'm sorry.
- [93:49]
Bill Simmons
Go ahead. Curse.
- [93:50]
Brian Curtis
I was just gonna say, like, as, you know, a child of the 90s, and you guys lived in the 90s. The thing that made me a little sad is how old everybody is now. I mean, how many thick voices are in this documentary? Jerry's, Jimmy's, Barry's. You know, Rupert Murdoch is in this doc in his 90s. You know, Phil Knight's in this doc. George W. Bush's voice sounded awfully thick in this. And I'm like, man, everybody's getting older. All those times are getting away from us.
- [94:17]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And then Aikman just looks as handsome as ever. Looks like he might be 32. What did you have, Sal?
- [94:24]
Cousin Sal
No, the Aikman thing I was going to bring up is, like, I feel like his playing career, his attitude mimicked his broadcasting career. Remember, he was. I don't want to say vanilla. It's the wrong word for his first few years of broadcasting. But then he got angry. He's now angry in the booth. And he gives you, like, a raw. You know, it's. It's unfiltered. And you kind of see, like, he gets mad at the players and everything. And you saw that the last three, four years of his career on the Cowboys sideline. But by the way, that was one of the saddest things with. He's gaining all those concussions. Like, I mean, it's just like a screen pass to Daryl Johnston was the best he could do for, like, four yards those last three years. It's like, please get the morphine drip on him already. This is so sad.
- [95:03]
Bill Simmons
And there was a good what if that. I had forgotten when the left tackle got in a car accident.
- [95:09]
Brian Curtis
Eric Williams, that.
- [95:10]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, yeah.
- [95:11]
Bill Simmons
That probably swung a Super Bowl. Yeah. So we've had injuries, swing Super Bowls, but Not, not the late night car accident when something bad's about to happen.
- [95:21]
Brian Curtis
And that the Cowboys were at the scene. The other players.
- [95:24]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [95:24]
Brian Curtis
I had forgotten that detail that they were running up and looking at the car after the accident. What.
- [95:29]
Bill Simmons
So most disappointing was that the White House wasn't a palatial mansion for me. Yeah. It just looked like a run of the mill house and you know, like Monrovia. Right, Right.
- [95:41]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. There wasn't. There couldn't have been 50 girls in there. Right.
- [95:44]
Bill Simmons
Women.
- [95:45]
Cousin Sal
And they're like jumping around. Right. I think. I think it seems like there was like two and three in and out every. Every night.
- [95:50]
Bill Simmons
I did have more questions about that because they said it was four bedrooms and it just didn't seem like enough bedrooms. Right. Probably needed maybe some. Some other stuff in there. All right, so how do you think, how do you think this is going to hit this documentary, Curt? Because it does The Last Dance. Had the. Had the.
- [96:09]
Brian Curtis
The pandemic.
- [96:11]
Bill Simmons
The pandemic and no sports whatsoever. And is the all time best possible setup for a doc. This is before the NFL season starts and you can binge it all at once. The binge element of it. Which Last Dance didn't have. I mean, you guys lived it. I lived it too. Like it's impossible to stop watching. Like, you just. You. All right. And it's definitely the first one of those in a while. We're like, all right. And now all of a sudden you're five hours in. So I think it's going to hit pretty big.
- [96:42]
Brian Curtis
I think so too. Because just think about this. When was the last time Jerry Jones was complimented on an NFL podcast? People won't know when they're going to turn this on and be like, wow, wow. He did the Fox deal, he did the Nike deal.
- [96:55]
Ariel Helwani
Wow.
- [96:56]
Bill Simmons
30. You probably don't know any of this stuff, right? Like, my son wouldn't know one of these things.
- [97:00]
Brian Curtis
And to your 86 Celtics thing, I'm just like, you know, you'll remember that Emmitt Smith was also awesome. I know we've decided as a society that Barry was better, whatever, but like, these guys were awesome. These guys kicked everybody's ass in the 90s.
- [97:14]
Cousin Sal
That Cowboys game against the Giants, that New Year's Day game. I was in Las Vegas with my friends Harry and Darren and Joey and we had lost all our money. So we had to watch that game at my aunt Chip Chippy's house on my cousin Mickey's 25 inch TV. I'm trying to think like that things like that as shitty as that was, that made it so much more important. There's not any scenario that I would have to watch it on a 25 inch TV. Thank God, knock wood at this point. But yeah, I mean it was the greatest and I think it's going to be good at. Normally I thought I was like, oh man, this might be released like a week too late because now it competes with Hard Knocks and everything. Yeah, it shouldn't, it really shouldn't. It's great. And I think you'll knock it out in a couple days.
- [97:52]
Bill Simmons
I actually think Emmett's a big winner out of this. He still holds the record by the way. Yeah, right, like, and like pretty. I was looking at the league leaders or the all time career leaders. Only one who even has like a puncher's chance of thinking about it is Derek Henry. Because these running back careers go so fast now. You know, Emmett was just grinding out 15, 1600 yards a year forever and was really durable and even when he got hurt, could still play, you know. But I, I, I, I'll fight the Emmett versus Barry. I'll fight to the death. I've talked about it on the pod. I just like if, if the goal is to actually win Super Bowls and not just have cool Twitter clips and a fun Madden rating like you want Emmett Smith.
- [98:38]
Brian Curtis
God bless you, Billy.
- [98:39]
Bill Simmons
Five yards of carry. He showed up for every game. He was tough as fucking shit. He blocked. He was just there. He's still to me in the, in the Mount Rushmore for me. So no doubt about it. I have no dog in this race.
- [98:52]
Cousin Sal
Good for you. I'm glad you said that. I don't know if you're kissing our ass or what. I don't know why you would have to, but that's, that's the right take.
- [98:59]
Bill Simmons
And I think Irvin is one of the best playoff receivers we've had. I do think Aikman's overrated, but I don't think it's his fault because in the 90s you could just kick the shit out of quarterback. So it's like playing nine years in that era is a fucking miracle.
- [99:15]
Cousin Sal
You know, it's tough because. Great offensive line, great. What are his stats supposed to be? If you have the greatest running back of all time, the running back with the, you know, the record. What, how, what is the stat? All he had to be was accurate and a great leader.
- [99:26]
Bill Simmons
The Berline thing wasn't awesome for the Aikman arguments.
- [99:30]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, maybe not.
- [99:31]
Brian Curtis
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was, I.
- [99:34]
Bill Simmons
Know but I mean you know, he did have a loaded team anyway. All right. I'm glad you guys enjoyed this. I had a great time. Curtis, would this have been the number one team you would have wanted to cover?
- [99:46]
Brian Curtis
Yes. Yes. I would have never slept, but I would have and I would.
- [99:50]
Bill Simmons
How would you have slept?
- [99:51]
Brian Curtis
And I would have been drinking with Jerry at the owner's meetings. You know, I would have been peering through the windows of the White House. It would have been an interesting beat.
- [99:59]
Cousin Sal
There are four bedrooms in the White House, Curtis. They would have given you one at.
- [100:02]
Bill Simmons
Least gotten a couch time show or something. Sal. Curtis, great to see you as always.
- [100:07]
Brian Curtis
Thanks, Paul.
- [100:07]
Bill Simmons
Good job by you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Sal and Curtis. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahao as well. And I'm going to be back with one more podcast. I think we're going to have a Thursday podcast this week and not Sunday. So one more coming from me this week. I will see you then. I don't have must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in President D.C. gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-89-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplianma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text hopeny in New York.