← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Michigan Football, NIL Chaos, Gambling & Politics with Clay Travis
00:36:01
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Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wimsound smart speaker. Get high resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $299. From Quiet Mornings to lively holiday gatherings, wind sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim Sound that's W I I M S.
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O u n d this holiday season, give the gift of incredible sound with Vizio's full soundbar lineup, available at Walmart. Transform any living room into a home theater with rich, immersive audio that brings every movie, show and song to life. Whether you're gifting a loved one or upgrading your own setup, Vizio soundbars deliver powerful, crystal clear sound that turns ordinary watching extraordinary experiences. Stream your favorite holiday Playlist with the iHeartRadio app and discover how good your music can truly sound. Head to Walmart.com and find your perfect Vizio soundbar.
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Today, season two of unrivaled basketball is here, and the talent is unreal. Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, TruTV and HBO. Max.
- [03:01]
Tudor Dixon
All right, you're listening to the Tudor Dixon podcast. And today I have Clay Travis with me and I wanted to dig into all the sports stuff because if you listen to my podcast, you know that I'm not a sports person. But obviously Clay is, and I'm in Michigan and U of M just had this like, bizarre thing. So everybody, Clay is saying to me, this has to be because we lost to Ohio. But I don't think it is.
- [03:25]
Clay Travis
Look, it is interesting if, if Michigan had beaten Ohio State, then maybe things would be different. Because I think the number one unforgivable sin of major college athletics is not cheating. It's not, you know, recruiting kids who have no business on campus. It's losing to your most hated rival. And so Sharon Moore last year beat Ohio State as a first year head coach. I know he also won as an interim for people out there that are big fans, but then got whipped pretty solidly in the big house in Ann Arbor. And then a couple weeks later, lo and behold, right after signing day, when the recruits commit, it comes out that he was allegedly having an affair with a subordinate and boom, he is fired. And then, you know, look, the affair with the subordinate would be bad enough, but his career wouldn't be over. He'd just have to say that he screwed up. He's 39 years old, relatively young for a coach, would have to go be an assistant for a few years until he got another opportunity. Except that according to the felony charges brought against him, when he got fired, he went to the subordinate's house and said he was going to kill himself in front of her, according to the allegations, and that her blood would be on his hands. She blamed him. He blamed her for sharing the fact that they had been engaged in this relationship. So that's the, the story in a nutshell. And there are lots of different angles that spin off from it, but that's the most basic aspect of it.
- [04:53]
Tudor Dixon
I mean, it is bizarre here because obviously U of M football is very important to people. But you listen to this and there's all these rumors like, oh, he went there and he was like, holding himself at butter knife point. You know, it's like, just very threatening.
- [05:09]
Clay Travis
Yes. Yeah. No, look, the. The whole thing is a cluster, and it kind of ties in with the University of Michigan and has been a bit of a mess off the field for a few years now. And I. Look, I think part of this is in order to sometimes compete at a very, very high level in college football. One of the coaches used to say, we. You recruit your problems. It was such a great line because I think it's applicable to all of life. He said, you know, we're in a unique spot because we recruit our problems. And what he meant by that is, you're begging coaches, you're begging players, you're begging people to come to your program. And then when they get there, if they don'. Perform at a level that you would hope that they would, or certainly if they engage in behavior that's criminal in nature, then you have brought the problem into your own house. And, you know, when I heard that phrase the first time, I thought it made a lot of sense. The older I get, the more I think it makes sense for everyone because lots of people focus on external threats, and most of the time, we are individually our own worst enemies. We recruit our own problems while we tend to focus on the external nature and worry about things that often don't emerge. And I think that, you know, put simply, Michigan has recruited a series of problems that have not been particularly beneficial to the university as a whole.
- [06:37]
Tudor Dixon
I can see that in politics, too, what you're saying. I mean, it's. It's really hitting me hard right now because of what I see on social media and because behind the scenes, when you're in the political world, so many people come to me and they're like, we want to have a whole influencer network. We either want to have an influencer network for a state, or we want to just start influencing across the country and have our own. But it's like, that's exactly what I say to them. Not, I mean, not those words exactly, but I'm like, you recruit it, you own it. Who. Whatever that person, once that person hits a certain level, they feel like they can do whatever they want. They are untouchable. And you. You recruited that person, so you own whatever they. They become. And it's hard.
- [07:18]
Clay Travis
Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that, too. And I think we live in. In a profoundly inauthentic era. And so the, The. The c. What I would say is the antidote to cancel culture is authenticity. Because if you are what people think you are, then it becomes really hard for you to get in trouble for being what the expectation is that. That you are. And I'll. I'll give you a kind of a ridiculous but fun example of this. Charles Barkley is probably the best former player who has done media, maybe ever. Former NBA superstar, and he was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona. I don't know if I've told you this story or you've heard it, Tudor, but he was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, for driving drunk. Not ideal Scottsdale, Arizona, by the way, a place where lots of people go out and get drinks. You know, it's a. It's kind of a lively spot. When he was arrested, when they pulled him over, they said, you know, hey, you're driving drunk. He acknowledged he was. And they said, why are you doing this? And if you got kids in the car, turn it down. He said, because I'm driving to the house of the woman who gives the best blowjobs in Arizona. In the police report, he missed one day of work. One day of work tutor. Because everybody was like, yeah, I kind of expect Charles Barkley to get drunk, get in his car, and go do that. And so I would argue that probably Charles Barkley is one of the most authentic voices in media. And look, you can also apply that same logic, I think, on some level to Donald Trump. Right. People kept saying, oh, my goodness, he just. Just did this, he just did that. There's no way his political career is going to survive. And actually, as long as Trump behaved as people anticipated Trump to behave, once he set that expectation, it became very, very difficult to alter it. And I'll give you another example from the world of politics. Hillary Clinton completely lied about being under fire in Iraq. I mean, you go back and look at all the evidence, she was never in danger. She was never under fire. Brian Williams, who was at the time NBC's top political anchor. Top. Basically top anchor in general, I think Gate told the same lie. His career collapsed. But why? Because people expected that he would tell the truth, and they expected that Hillary Clinton would lie. And one more, and this is, I think, even more illustrative of this, when the Access Hollywood tape came out, Tudor, with Donald Trump and Billy Bush, do you remember the outcome?
- [09:46]
Tudor Dixon
Donald Trump was toast.
- [09:49]
Clay Travis
Yeah. And Donald Trump got elected President of the United States. It wasn't just that Billy Bush lost his job, his wife left him, his entire world collapsed because he kind of laughed at a Trump joke. He didn't tell the joke. It wasn't a full on interview. He was off. You know, they were mic'd up, but they weren't on camera yet. And yet the standard in media was his career is over for Trump. He got elected President of the United States. So it is amazing, and I think to a large extent, it's illustrative of people in the general public have a higher tolerance for behavior. Right. For humanity, good and bad, than sort of the artificial safeguards that are put in place in the media ecosystem, which I think all those stories to me, kind of are illustrative of the era in which we're in.
- [10:42]
Tudor Dixon
So I will tell you my Charles Barkley story. When I was fifth or I was 16, I just gotten my driver's license and Michael Jordan did this like, golf tournament every year right down the street from my house. But that year he had had surgery or something, so Charles Barkley was taking charge of this. And I went out to dinner and he was sitting at the table next to me and my girlfriend and we were so excited. So we like. And he was with Danny Ainge. Yeah, someone else. I can't remember who the third person was. So we're like, totally geeked out. Right, so. And the Bulls were winning. It was like, you know that time.
- [11:16]
Clay Travis
Era in the NBA when everybody cared about the NBA.
- [11:19]
Tudor Dixon
Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. So we walked up to him and I was so excited and nervous. And I introduced myself and he looked at us and he goes, oh, are your parents sitting at a different table? And I was like, no, it's just us. He goes, did they drop you off? And I said, no, I drove here. And he was like, man, who are they giving driver's licenses to now? Are you like 10 years old? And that was. It was like that moment where he wasn't playing with me. He really was just like, oh, my gosh, you look way too young. But he was. He was genuinely nice, but it was just really who he was.
- [11:54]
Clay Travis
Yeah, look, I've gotten to know Charles quite a bit, and I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've heard from him, and he said it was given to him early in his media career, was if you worry about the opinions of people who don't like you, then eventually the people who do like you won't like you anymore either. And this was kind of in a pre social media era that he told me that quote. But I think it's so particularly perceptive for the world in which we live in where it's just there's. I mean, if I go on my phone right now, there's no telling the toxicity that is in my mentions over whatever I said today on the show or whatever I've tweeted. It could be sports, politics, pop culture, whatever it is. And there's a lot noise. And if you allow your head to get involved in that noise too much, then. Then it can start to impinge on your unique nature. And I don't think it's coincidental. I mean, Barkley basically isn't on social media at all. And, you know, Peyton Manning to a large extent isn't on social media at all, but certainly Michael Jordan isn't. And I. I think there's probably a great deal of health for people who chose not to get on social media. I'm on social media for my career, but I don't have, like, private social media accounts or anything like that. So I see.
- [13:11]
Tudor Dixon
I see that people will, like, send you a nasty message. And. And it. And it hurts my heart. It's like this. I'm. I've always listened to you. I'm a huge fan. You turn me off today and I'm done. And then you post it. I'm like, that is so bold. And I love that you do that because it is that first. My first feeling when I see that is like, I don't want to lose you, but I don't even know this person.
- [13:33]
Clay Travis
I've been hearing that my entire career. I mean, seriously, you know, when I first started doing local sports talk radio, and the first couple of times, I thought it was strange because somebody sends an email and they're like, I will never listen to you again because you said whatever opinion it was. And then what I noticed is that person always wrote back. They were like. And. And then you said, sometimes there is. I really think this, there is a hater gene and there's a certain person out there type of personality that is, in some way, they're attracted to their own distaste for things. And I don't really understand it because I don't have time to watch all the TV shows or go to all the concerts that I would like to or whatever else. So I only go to things that I like. But I think there's about 20% of the population that somehow gets gratification out of being a hater. And so they can't turn away. And they listen to people that they claim not to like, but they actually listen more than the people who claim to like you. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
- [14:41]
Tudor Dixon
It's like the freaky joy and misery people. There are truly people that love to be miserable and they, they seem like they're happy in their misery, but everyone around them is also miserable because miserable people are just miserable.
- [14:53]
Clay Travis
Yeah. And they also, I mean, this is like holiday advice for everybody, but they also suck a lot of joy out of the air, right? Yes. Not just that they are miserable internally, it's that they become energy vampires. And everybody knows what I'm talking about. There are people that you're around that have effervescent personalities and they give you energy and help everybody to be, to be better off. The phrase I've heard, and I think it's so true, there are a lot of energy vampires and basically they exist to suck away your energy and just leave you like, oh, what in the world are we doing? And I think around the holiday season, you know, there, there are, unfortunately, everybody's family has got people like that that you're placating and trying to make sure that they don't end up angry. And, you know, happy holidays, Merry Christmas.
- [15:40]
Tudor Dixon
Even Winnie the Pooh has Eeyore. We learned about it when we were young. That's right, the Eeyores of our life. Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.
- [15:52]
Public Investing Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra, SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the.
- [17:02]
US Ski and Snowboard Insider Sponsor
World'S best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals. Now you can follow their every move. Join Insider, the official US Ski and snowboard fan loyalty program, and get premium viewing at World cup ski events, exclusive athletes meetups, discounts from brands you love, and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep. This winter, show your support as they race for the podium. Head to insider.usski and snowboard.org and join today.
- [17:31]
Whim Sound Sponsor
Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wimsound smart speaker. Get high resolution audio with a 1.8 inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful style speaker for just 299. From Quiet Mornings to lively holiday gatherings, Wind sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim Sound that's W I I m S.
- [18:00]
Commercial Announcer
O u n d this holiday season, give the gift of incredible sound with Vizio's full soundbar lineup available at Walmart. Transform any living room into a home theater with rich, immersive audio that brings every movie, show and song to life. Whether you're gifting a loved one or upgrading your own setup, Vizio soundbars deliver powerful, crystal clear sound that turns ordinary watching into extraordinary experiences. Stream your favorite holiday Playlist with the iHeartRadio app and discover how good your music can truly sound. Head to Walmart.com and find your perfect Vizio soundbar today.
- [18:32]
Unrivaled Basketball Sponsor
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- [19:04]
Tudor Dixon
I want to talk about name, image and likeness because I was watching so I went to UK and I was watching a basketball game with my brother in law a few weeks ago and he was like oh yeah one of these guys never plays. He gets all this money but he never plays and he people apparently were making fun of him so he went out and took $30,000 out of the bank and like made it rain money on Instagram and I was like I may never Play. But I get all this money and I think this is gross, but I don't know how you feel about it because you're a sports person.
- [19:33]
Clay Travis
Well, so I'm a capitalist. But I think that it's always important to remember that in most of the world we don't have true capitalism, by which I mean unregulated, completely capitalism. Like we can't sell our kidneys in the United States. Right. Like, you know, you can't go buy a nuclear weapon and decide that you're going to put it on ebay. Right. Like there, there are certain things that as a society we look at. I mean, you know, I'll give you a good example. I've got a 15 year old tutor. You know, my wife, she would murder me with her bare hands if I took him out to go get a tattoo, even if he wanted a Tattoo because he's 15 year old. Right. So we regulate a lot of commerce. What is allowed to be sold, what's not allowed to be sold. And in college athletics we went from the Berlin Wall being up, where we tried to enforce a standard where nobody basically could be paid at all, to the Berlin Wall came down and suddenly everybody could get paid everything. And it actually reminds me of what happened in Eastern Europe, which is that pure unregulated capitalism for a little while led to, hey, I want to buy a tank. Hey, you know, I'm going to go buy like a government munitions plant. Right. They started selling off everything. And so I think that's where we are in college athletics. And what's unique about college athletics is, is actually not unique to sports in general, but sports is one of the only places where the goal of the business is to compete and you don't want to put your opponent out of business. Right. So you were talking about the NBA back in the day. One of the reasons we all love the NBA back in the 90s was Michael Jordan had elite competition that he had to go up against and everybody got to sit around and watch that competition. But if you had a situation where the Bulls got to spend a billion dollars and everybody they played against got to spend a million, well, it wouldn't be a very fair competition. Right. And so we're going to have to end up with some form of regulation in the nil space to preserve competitive balance in college athletics.
- [21:42]
Tudor Dixon
But how, how is it working? Because it's not the schools that are paying, right?
- [21:45]
Clay Travis
Yeah, well, the schools are now paying some. And look, the downside is what you just pointed to. Kentucky lost your, your Alma mater lost to Gonzaga in my hometown of Nashville a couple weeks ago, and they played awful. And when I was a kid, my dad always said, you never boo college kids because they're out there trying their best. They're 18, 19, 20 years old. The booze rain down like crazy. Because they're not college kids anymore, Tudor. They're professionals. And so if somebody is being paid millions of dollars and they perform poorly, the sports fans let them have it, even in the home arena or the home stadium. So I think where we have to go, this is eventually where it's going to end up is use the NBA or the NFL as an example. They have salary caps. Players sign contracts, they're committed to teams for multiple years. You are can be a free agent, but you have to serve out your contract four or five years. And everybody has to pay similar amounts of salary to individual teams. The salary cap exists for that reason. So I think we are headed towards there. It may take a decade to get there, it may take 20 years to get there, but to me, it's the inevitable final destination.
- [23:01]
Tudor Dixon
What you just said. Okay, so when I was at uk, it was like they were. They were us. It wasn't like they represented us. It wasn't like we owned them or.
- [23:13]
Clay Travis
Yep.
- [23:13]
Tudor Dixon
You know, it's different like when you own a car and you race it. But that's the way you just described. It was like they're not a part of the university there that I don't like.
- [23:25]
Clay Travis
No, I think it's. Look, the, the. The one group that is getting screwed here. I think players are making more money than they've ever made before. Coaches are making more money than they've ever made before. Television networks are making more money than they've ever made before. But fan loyalty is being taken advantage of. We just had Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss in the middle of the playoffs. It's the greatest season in Ole Miss football history, probably certainly in like the modern era, last 50 years. And yet their head coach just away to go take a job against or of a rival against lsu. Lsu. What's going on is everybody is acting in their naked self interests and there's no one who's looking out for the best interest of the sport. And that is why I think we're in a challenging spot. Because what makes people like you love UK is the experience that you had at the University of Kentucky. What makes people fans in college athletics is typically a connection that feels personal. Can be that they went to the school, it can mean that they went to watch games when they were kids, it can mean that they feel an associational value as a member of a fan base, a tribe that all kind of pulls in the same direction. And when you have people who are playing for Kentucky one year, in Louisville the next, or coaching for Kentucky one year, Louisville the next, hated rivals, mercenary players, at some point it starts to strip away what made college athletics great. And it may always be a bit of a fiction, but everybody out there that's a fan of a school that loves a school, you like to think, hey, that 17 year old, he came to my school because he saw something unique in our tribe, in the experience, the culture of the university. And when it's like, oh no, he came because he got 50k more than somebody offered him at Tennessee or Alabama or wherever it is they, you're not really selling that blood connection that you feel, that tribal connection. You're just hiring a mercenary. And I think it starts to detract at some point from overall brand of college athletics.
- [25:30]
Tudor Dixon
And you kind of felt like it was nice to think that they went through that same process that they sent in their SAT scores. And that guy you see at the cafeteria is also one of the people you're cheering on at the, at the game. I mean, it just is a very weird concept to me that you could technically then have a player your freshman and sophomore year who then when he turns, when he becomes a junior, he gets a better deal and he leaves. That feels so weird.
- [26:02]
Clay Travis
Yeah. And not, by the way, you could have a kid who goes to four different schools in four years tutor. So, I mean, think about how hard that is. And remember, ostensibly the reason these guys are there is to get a college degree. Because most people.
- [26:18]
Tudor Dixon
Well, what. That's what we thought.
- [26:19]
Clay Travis
Yeah. Well, most. And look, most college athletes, let's say you go to the NFL. Yeah. Let's say you are supremely talented. This is why I talk to kids all the time about this. And my way I talk about it is use the ball, don't let the ball use you. And there are so many kids out there that get used by the sport because let's say you're wildly successful at football, you're an incredible athlete. You know the average length of an NFL career, 3.5 years, 3.5 years. So that means you come out at 21 or 22, and by 25 or 26, your football career is completely over. You're still in many ways a baby. Right. In terms of your professional career and everything that you have worked so hard for. To aspire to reach the apex of your profession. You're done with it at 25, you're done with it at 26. And then you have to go back because a lot of these guys, let's say you made $3 million on that contract. $3 million, you know this, but a lot of the kids don't. Let's say you're paying 40% tax on that, you're down to 1 6. Let's say that you're paying agent fees, that you know that money is gone, right? Like you, that it is gone. You're not living on that for the rest of your life. So you have to have an ability to build a career doing something else. And that's what you go to college theoretically for. And I feel like unfortunately a lot of these kids are going to make a few hundred thousand dollars in college. They're going to have no marketable skills, they're not going to be able to go pro at all. And they're going to be sitting around, you know, back at home at 23 years old thinking to themselves, okay, what do I do for the rest of my life? When they're such young guys and, and you know, again, you know this, they spend money because young men are oftentimes not very smart. You don't have great financial advisors around you. Most people aren't used to even having hundreds of thousands of dollars in their 20s, much less access to it.
- [28:18]
Tudor Dixon
And you're not at the age where you're thinking this is ending, correct? So you can't even comprehend that, that that money is temporary and that salary is temporary.
- [28:28]
Clay Travis
And by the way, you're also, then maybe you're trying to do something nice for mom or dad or you're trying to do something nice, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, whatever it may be. And that money can vanish in a hurry. And, and, and so my concern is, look, I mean people make off awful choices all the time with the way that they choose to, to live. I've got a buddy from law school, I was out to dinner with him recently, tutor, he's going through a divorce. And, and I was talking with him and he, and I said, well, how are you doing? He said, For 20 straight years I had two paths. Smart Financial decision, bad financial decision. He's like, and every time I took bad financial decision and you know, like he's a 45 year old guy now and he's sitting around and he's like, you know, I don't have a nest egg, I don't have anything to take care of. And so my point on that is we tend to focus on athletics, but a lot of people don't necessarily make the best decisions for themselves. And it gets accelerated even more when you're talking about guys 18, 19, 20 years old who are trying to drive nice cars and impress, you know, girls campus and they think that money's going to be there forever. And suddenly you hit a wall at 25 years old and you realize I'm going to have to have a real job and you don't have the skills to do it.
- [29:40]
Tudor Dixon
Okay, but gambling is also getting a little bit risky. And now we have senators that are trying to get involved in gambling. You're obviously very familiar with gambling. So what is your feeling on the government starting to raise regulation on that?
- [29:57]
Public Investing Sponsor
That.
- [29:58]
Clay Travis
Well, so right now it's individual states have the right to decide whether or not they want to have sports gambling. And obviously sports gambling is a subset of larger gambling. And this really, I would say the gambling world exploded. The first that I remember doing this tutor was Georgia started the HOPE scholarships, basically where the lottery money went to pay for kids to go to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, state universities in Georgia, if you kept a B average. And so the idea was we're going to have a lottery. And then as these things often do, they have grown. Now there's casinos, now there's sports gambling, everything else. I, I like to gamble on sports. I also like to drink. I, I, I have an affinity for things that are not healthy for me. So I think the key to life is moderation. Right. Do are you able to balance, you know, you can't eat birthday cake for every meal like every six year old in America would like. You have to balance out everything thing. One of the challenges is there are a lot of people have addictive personalities and tutor, I don't know how you regulate things on behalf of, you know, most people can have a couple of drinks and not have to worry about becoming an alcoholic. But a certain subset of people, they are very susceptible to alcohol or drugs or gambling and it becomes super addictive to them. So my general proposition is I think the state should be able to make a decision and then they should tax and regulate it and hopefully restrict it for people that have problematic issues there. And I think we're so young in the infancy of this era that, that we're just starting there. And then the other part of this is, you know, some athletes are making awful decisions and being involved in gambling related scandals all the way up to professional athletics and all the way down to certainly college athletics.
- [31:54]
Tudor Dixon
And so what should happen if you're an athlete? What should happen if you're involved in that?
- [31:59]
Clay Travis
Well, if it's a crime, I think you should be prosecuted. Like we're seeing happen with Chauncey Billups, for instance, who was a great member of the Detroit Pistons back in the day and was coaching at the Portland Trailblazer. If you rig an athletic event in some way, then you should be prosecuted. And if I were giving advice to athletes, I would say say, hey, focus 100% on playing and avoid getting involved in talking about anything having to do with the lines or anything else. My general thought is tutor. We're catching people more because legalization means that the sports books recognize aberrant betting behavior. In other words, like they caught a University of Alabama baseball coach recently. He was trying to go into Cincinnati, or his friend was, he was on the phone with the coach trying to place a big dollar wager on a college baseball game that nobody ever bet on in Cincinnati. So they caught him. I think the fact that we are now regulating and bringing sunshine onto this issue is actually creating more recognition of it and making it look like a bigger issue than it was in the past. My hope is that these athletes and coaches are learning, oh, wait, there's a big risk here. I've got to be able to protect myself from this. But look, the leagues are making money hand over fist. The players share revenue with the league, so the players are actually getting paid based on legalization. The advertisements that you see everywhere. And I'm gonna be honest with you, tonight, I'm gonna kick back and watch Thursday Night Football and I'm gonna have money on the game. Not a lot of money, but, you know, I, I always say, like, if I go out to a movie, it's gonna cost me 50, 60 bucks minimum. And that money's gone forever. If I go play golf, it's gonn 50 bucks, whatever it is, to play with a buddy, and that money's gone forever. If I put a hundred bucks on a football game, I can watch the game, have a little bit more enjoyment from it, and I might actually make money. Worst case scenario, I lose money. And it's not much different than playing golf or going to, going to the movies. That, that's kind of the way that I think about it.
- [34:04]
Tudor Dixon
So as long as you have a, a small bet, I, I will tell you how poor of a gambler I would be. The other night I said to the girls, so the Powerball is going to be Over a billion dollars. And they were like, what does it take to play? And I said, we have to go get a ticket at the gas station. And they're like, do you want to go do that? And I was like, it's kind of cold. I guess we're not going to win this.
- [34:27]
Clay Travis
I look, I like to buy scratch off lottery tickets every now and then. I think it's fun. Look what, what is being. But again, it's all balancing, right? The difference between having a couple of beers and having 20, very seismically different.
- [34:39]
Public Investing Sponsor
It.
- [34:40]
Clay Travis
And the difference between buying a couple lottery tickets and buying 20 or spending money that you can't afford to lose is. Is very different. But, you know, look, the lottery ticket idea that is being sold is the fantasy of, what if I actually won? What would it be like to suddenly become rich overnight? Which is.
- [34:58]
Tudor Dixon
And then it's always tragedy. So I remind myself of that. Well, I don't want to win this anymore.
- [35:03]
Clay Travis
You know, what's crazy is even the people who win the lotteries, a lot of them end up broke, right?
- [35:08]
Tudor Dixon
I know, right? Because it's the shock of so much money so fast. And you're like, I need that yacht. And then what are you going to do with the yacht?
- [35:15]
Clay Travis
Yeah, no, I mean, people burn through it so quickly. I mean, I don't know if you saw this. It went viral recently, But Odell Beckham Jr. Said he made a hundred million dollars, a wide receiver, went to LSU undergrad, then went to the New York Giants, among other teams. And he spent all his money. You know, he's 31 or 32 years old, whatever he is. And that went viral because he said, you know, $100 million, it's easy to blow through, basically. I'm paraphrasing him. And then he started to itemize it. He was like, so first of all, that's 40 million gone to taxes. So you're down to 60. And then he's like, you got a manager, you got agents, that takes another 10 million away. You think, to your point, tutor, that money's always going to be there. So you live at a high lifestyle, you're flying around private, you're spending money hand over fist, and then suddenly you get. And this happens to a lot of musicians, this happens to a lot of people who come into wealth suddenly and always presume those paychecks are going to be there. I read recently, I think his wife now has sold her makeup company for a billion dollars. So they may be fine now, but that Justin Bieber basically had Been down to his final little bit of dollars, you know, he made ungodly amounts of money. But that lifestyle of, hey, I gotta have a private jet flight, hey, I've gotta have.
- [36:32]
Tudor Dixon
And you're with everybody that has that stuff. So it's not like we look at that and are like, why didn't you just get like a cabin in the woods and live the high life there? You know? But you aren't there. You're with all of the Richie Rich people. So you have. It's like keeping up with the Joneses.
- [36:46]
Clay Travis
Yeah. And you know that this is why, I mean, again, a general good life lesson is, is starting to start presuming and thinking about your expenses, whatever you make at a young age and, you know, deciding, hey, I want to put away X amount of my yearly income and try to manage that and maintain it, even if you have a lot of success in the years ahead. Because what most people do is as soon as they get a raise, they spin the race. Right. And the number of people out there.
- [37:16]
Tudor Dixon
You weren't expecting it. So you get to go out the.
- [37:18]
Clay Travis
Number of people who've done it. I mean, you've been in this camp, I'm sure, where when you're young, like you're not thinking about saving anything. You know, what is it like 60% or 70% of people do not have money beyond a couple of paychecks saved up. So, you know, we live in a society that definitely glamorizes expending everything you got. Life is expensive for a lot of people, depending on what your tastes end up being.
- [37:43]
Tudor Dixon
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.
- [37:49]
Public Investing Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, LLC SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the.
- [38:59]
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- [39:29]
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- [39:58]
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- [40:30]
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- [40:47]
Tudor Dixon
All right, so I I will just end because you brought up life being expensive and obviously the President was out talking about the fact that life is getting less expensive and people don't necessarily feel that way. So what's your prediction for the midterms?
- [40:59]
Clay Travis
So we're sitting here, you know, 11 months away from people being able to vote. I Think that the economy is going to be white hot, meaning in a good way. Here is the challenge. You and I are young enough that we don't remember this. People may say, like, I look old enough, like I should. And so I respect that. But I'm not actually of age where I can remember the Jimmy Carter era and the transition into Reagan. I remember Reagan 2.0, not Reagan 1.0, but I think that we have to get mortgage rates down. A lot of people who were fortunate enough to get 2 and a half or 3% before this crazy Biden inflation took off are sitting there now. They're not selling their homes. And people have to get used to what things cost. Now, I've said it before, when I take my boys and we go to Chick Fil A and it's over $50, I. I know I sound like an old guy here, but I'm just like, you should be able to sit down at an actual restaurant now. I get a, you know, chicken sandwich and, you know, some waffle fries for my boys and a couple of drinks for them, too, and everything. And I'm like, you know, that'll be $56, sir. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, that's a huge amount of money to me still in my head. And so I think people are going to have to get used to it. And the challenge, you know this because you, you've run the challenge is you have to balance the line between telling people that things are getting better without being condescending and making them feel like you don't respect the fact of what things cost. Does that make sense? You have to be able to say things are getting better without telling them that things are great.
- [42:34]
Tudor Dixon
That's hard.
- [42:35]
Clay Travis
That's a hard line.
- [42:36]
Tudor Dixon
So I will, I will tell you. I remember when I graduated from college, I spent a semester after that in London.
- [42:46]
Clay Travis
Yep.
- [42:46]
Tudor Dixon
And when I got there, I was just riding, like, cabs and stuff. But I remember we stopped one day to get gas, and it was £50. And I calculated that in my head and I thought, I cannot even imagine because I was paying maybe 18 bucks for a tank of gas. A tank. And I thought that was insane. 50 pounds. And now every time it's a hundred dollars to fill my tank.
- [43:15]
Clay Travis
That's right.
- [43:15]
Tudor Dixon
That's crazy to me.
- [43:17]
Clay Travis
No, I mean. And look, that is frustration that people feel. And I think when I talk to people who are older, they say, remember, Reagan wasn't that popular the first term. Everybody remembers in 84 that he won the landslide election. But it took about 3 years ish for people to start to see the economy turn from Carter. And so I suspect that it's going to be tough to see tremendous accomplishment in the way people feel by the midterms next year. So look, I, I think we're going to be roughly even in the Senate. I don't think it's going to move very much, but I would make Democrats a small favorite based on redistricting and, and the anger out there to take back the House. And if that happens, basically we're going to have two years where not very much can occur and then we go on impeachment. Yeah. And they'll impeach Trump. 800 will.
- [44:06]
Tudor Dixon
That's going to be horrible. Well, we're going to, we are going to work hard to make sure that doesn't happen. So Michigan is going to work.
- [44:16]
Clay Travis
We talked about this because I was up at Mackinaw with you for the, for the conference there, Governor and Senate. Michigan, as Michigan goes, I think at this point is the way the nation goes. So I think everybody up there is going to have to, my wife's going to home state. Y' all are gonna have to make good decisions because you're gonna drive the future of the country, I really think.
- [44:36]
Tudor Dixon
Well, we're fighting, we're fighting here. Clay, Travis, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You are always fun to talk to.
- [44:43]
Clay Travis
Thank you for killing it on the podcast. Merry Christmas to you and your girls and hope you guys have an awesome holiday season.
- [44:49]
Tudor Dixon
Thank you. Merry Christmas to you and Merry Christmas to all of you. Thanks for joining the podcast. You know where to get it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts and watch it on Rumble or YouTubeutter Dixon. Join us next time and have a blessed day.
- [45:07]
Public Investing Sponsor
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the.
- [46:17]
US Ski and Snowboard Insider Sponsor
World'S best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing metal. Now you can follow their every move. Join Insider, the official US Ski and Snowboard fan loyalty program, and get premium viewing at World cup ski events, exclusive athlete meetups, discounts from brands you love, and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep this winter, show your support as they race for the podium. Head to insider.usski and snowboard.org and join today.
- [46:47]
Whim Sound Sponsor
Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Whimsound Smart Speaker. Get high resolution Audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $299. From quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings, Win Sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Whim Sound Beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Whim sound that's W I I m s.
- [47:16]
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- [47:48]
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- [48:18]
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