David Samson Spars With Senator Chris Murphy | Hour 2

Summary

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz

Episode: David Sampson Spars With Senator Chris Murphy | Hour 2

Date: May 21, 2026
Host(s): Dan Le Batard, Stugotz
Guests/Contributors: David Samson, Chris Cody, Mike, Roy, Tony Hawk

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Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging and candid discussion centered around sports (notably the NBA playoffs), the personal evolution of fandom, the ethics of sports media and podcasting, and a debrief on David Samson's recent conversation with Senator Chris Murphy. The show maintains its signature mix of sharp sports analysis, behind-the-scenes media critique, self-deprecating humor, and digressions into pop culture and personal anecdotes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. NBA Playoffs: Officiating, Challenges & The Harden Debate

• Bad Officiating & Challenge Rule Flaws:

  • Dan highlights how the Spurs used both their coach’s challenges early (and correctly) to keep Wembanyama out of foul trouble but lost them for late-game situations, flagging flaws in NBA officiating and rules.
    • Quote (Dan, 00:37): "We're not going to keep getting away with doing this, this poorly where the officiating is poor and your system is also shitty and it's going to cost someone a game."
  • Chris Cody questions coaches using early challenges and notes frustration with the system.

• James Harden & Playoff Narratives:

  • Samson expresses skepticism about Harden’s leadership and playoff effectiveness.
    • Quote (Samson, 05:04): "He's an unbelievable situation where you have a Hall of Fame player who to me is not... He's never won anything ever."
  • Chris Cody admits he's actively rooting for Harden to fail, specifically noting his dislike for Harden's style ("flopping," "debating officials").
    • Quote (Chris Cody, 05:46): "I don't like the way he plays... so yeah, I go into tonight hoping he's terrible."
  • Samson compares Harden’s and LeBron’s styles, noting that complaining and looking for whistles is a generational player tactic, not unique to Harden.

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2. Fan Detachment & The Effects of Working in Sports

• Samson's Lost Fandom:

  • Samson explains how his emotional connection to the Knicks and to sports in general has faded after working in the industry.
    • Quote (Samson, 06:58): "It's a very bad thing when you want to feel something and you can't... once you lose that feeling, it just doesn't come back."
    • He attributes this to his time spent in sports, comparing it to how Covid accelerated trends already in motion.
    • Quote (Samson, 07:59): "...being in sports for as long as I was has robbed me of my fandom."
  • Dan notes this as a broader condition—world events and disorientation deadening emotional responses for many.

• Balance of Audience vs. Guest vs. Personal Fulfillment:

  • The team discusses their primary responsibility: to the audience, not the guests or even sponsors (a recurring theme).
    • Quote (Dan, 19:16): "My responsibility is to the audience and making it good. My responsibility is not to the guest."

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3. Alumni in the Spotlight: Knicks Nostalgia & Marbury’s Court Invasion

• Chris Cody recounts Stephon Marbury’s overzealous on-court celebrations, reading Marbury’s humorous Twitter apology.
  • Quote (Chris Cody, 11:27): "My energy flew out the roof I lost my mind and my feet carried me somewhere they didn't belong."
• Samson explains the hierarchy of Knicks alumni seating at MSG and why Marbury needed to issue a public apology to avoid Dolan’s wrath.
• Further banter on which Knicks alumni are most deserving of reverence.

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4. David Samson’s Debate with Senator Chris Murphy

• Samson details his sparring episode with Murphy about the Let Kids Play Act, meant to prohibit private equity from investing in youth sports.
  • He insisted the podcast would feature real debate, not softball interviewing, leading to tension with the Senator and worry about losing future guests.
    • Quote (Samson, 16:41): "There was a bit of sparring... And it occurred to me that Coca and his concern of we're not going to get called again to do these anymore. And my thought was I don't care... I don't want to be the one who's the cupcake."
• Discussion pivots to the broader challenges of interviewing powerful guests, maintaining editorial honesty, and not trading "pieces of the truth" for access.
  • Quote (Dan, 22:40): "...that transaction is corrosive to the viewer. That if your responsibility is to the viewer. The trading of I'm going to trade pieces of the truth in exchange for the access to you makes everything worse, especially the content. And it's not a trade that I think we should be making."

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5. Changing Media Landscape & Audience Loyalty

• Samson bemoans the difficulty in growing a media audience without resorting to clickbait or viral influencer gimmicks, despite producing high-quality, substantive content.
  • Quote (Samson, 23:29): "...we don't come close to what it is that some rando does by posting something ridiculous because it's the lowest common denominator."
• Dan points out that while they may lose the numbers war, the show's audience is loyal because it offers honesty and depth, even when uncomfortable.
  • Quote (Dan, 24:22): "That audience sticks to you from in there, where they're like, nah, this thing's a little truer than the other things."

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6. Pop Culture & Documentary Review: “The Crash”

• Samson reviews Netflix’s "The Crash," about a teenage influencer who killed her boyfriend and another in a car crash. He shares his disbelief at her massive YouTube following and her decision for a bench trial.
  • Quote (Samson, 32:43): "That is exact. That's it, Roy. What I got out of it is I can't imagine she chose to murder with a car crash. I can't believe how many YouTube subscribers she and her friend have."
• Ultimately, Samson found the doc more disturbing than educational.
  • Quote (Samson, 34:15): "No. It makes me feel terribly... I do not think it's worth it for anyone."

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7. Meta Moments: Podcast Banter & Self-Deprecation

• The team jokes about Dan’s embarrassing restaurant habits and food preferences (no garlic, gluten, etc.).
  • Quote (Samson, 29:12): "Dan is the single worst person I've ever been to a restaurant [with]... You just have to cater to what his dietary requests are. Nothing can come as is..."
• Samson and Dan riff on the idea of Dan doing “Get Ready With Me” influencer videos for YouTube.
• Lighthearted confusion over Tony Hawk’s injuries and his brother “Mike Hawk” culminates in a recurring, intentionally juvenile name-play.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On officiating and challenges:
  • Dan Le Batard [00:37]: "We're not going to keep getting away with doing this, this poorly where the officiating is poor and your system is also shitty and it's going to cost someone a game."
• On losing fandom:
  • David Samson [06:58]: "It's a very bad thing when you want to feel something and you can't. It reminds me... like, why can't I get that feeling? ...once you lose that feeling, it just doesn't come back."
• On the role of hosts:
  • Dan Le Batard [19:16]: "My responsibility is to the audience and making it good. My responsibility is not to the guest."
• On the access/truth trade-off:
  • Dan Le Batard [22:40]: "...the trading of I'm going to trade pieces of the truth in exchange for the access to you makes everything worse, especially the content."
• On influencer culture frustration:
  • David Samson [23:29]: "...I look at a bunch of absolute dots, like an intellectual free zone, posting about what. What outfit they're going to wear with 500,000 subscribers... while we produce a show every day."
• Marbury's apology on X (read by Chris Cody):
  • [11:27] “My energy flew out the roof I lost my mind and my feet carried me somewhere they didn't belong... Just kidding. Unless Jalen hits another one, then all bets are off.”
• On the audience's loyalty:
  • Dan Le Batard [24:22]: "I can make an argument, one of the most loyal audiences in the history of sports... because that audience appreciates that... a little truer than the other things."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• NBA Playoff officiating and rule debate: 00:07 – 02:34
• Samson on losing sports fandom: 02:34 – 08:46
• Mental health and world events discussion: 08:47 – 10:01
• Stephon Marbury’s court moment and apology: 10:01 – 12:16
• David Samson on MSG Knicks alumni hierarchy: 15:03 – 16:27
• Samson’s debate with Senator Murphy about youth sports bill: 16:41 – 18:35
• Ethics of guest interviews and the access v. truth conundrum: 19:09 – 23:29
• Debate about influencer culture, audience growth and quality content: 23:29 – 27:45
• Samson’s review of 'The Crash' documentary: 30:32 – 34:15
• Tony Hawk injury anecdote (from South Beach Sessions): 35:22 – 38:26

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Style & Tone

• Conversational, irreverent, and honest.
• Mixes deep introspection, media criticism, and sports analysis with silliness, inside jokes, and pop culture tangents.
• Offers rare candor about the personal and professional tolls of working in sports and media.

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Summary Takeaways

• The show artfully dissects the NBA playoffs but is just as interested in the psychology of fandom (and its loss), the ethics of media, and how modern sports content is shaped by access, honesty, and click-driven economics.
• Samson’s segment with Senator Murphy is used as a case study in the tension between real, sometimes uncomfortable conversation and the pressures of access, sponsors, and guest expectations.
• Their core philosophy remains: serve the audience first—even at the risk of alienating guests or not maximizing digital reach—in the belief that authenticity yields loyalty, quality, and cultural impact.
• The humor is fast, sometimes biting, but always self-aware—making for sports radio (and podcasting) that’s insightful for both hardcore and casual listeners.

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For more from David Samson, check out “Nothing Personal” and keep an eye out for the “Pitch Clock” baseball segment later in the show.

Transcript

[David Sampson]

This is the Dan Levator show with the Stugach podcast.

[Dan Le Batard]

You get a double dose of Samson today. He will be appearing later in the show on Pitch Clock as we continue around here to segregate baseball. Jeremy and Samson are both very good on baseball. You should listen to Samson. I'm there, too, on baseball and business. Nothing personal, Chris. Nothing personal.

[David Sampson]

Thank you.

[Dan Le Batard]

Jeremy and Sampson will be doing Pitch Clock later in the show. And Nothing Personal is the name of Sampson's podcast, which I continue to tell you at every turn has an assortment of terrain that he covers that I simply do not see other people covering. We will get to him in just a second. I do want to put in front of you another prediction, though. I made the prediction yesterday that at some point during that Spurs OKC series, things are going to continue, continue to escalate, and it's going to appear like the Thunder are going to be trying to hurt Wembanyama. Something else that's going to make an appearance at some point during this postseason is the ridiculousness of the spurs last night used their challenges in the first half to keep Wemby out of foul trouble, used them correctly, got them both right, and then lost their challenges. At the end of one of these games, one of these teams isn't going to have a challenge. And they would have been right both times and not late in the game been able to reverse something because the officiating was so bad. That's going to be a thing at some point. We're not going to keep getting away with doing this, this poorly where the officiating is poor and your system is also shitty and it's going to cost someone a game. Because the Spurs, I think, in the second quarter were out of challenges and they got them both right. Like, what is that, Zaz? That's asinine.

[Chris Cody]

I don't remember. I know what the second challenge was. What was the first challenge?

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't. It was. They got it right.

[Chris Cody]

The reason. But the reason I asked.

[Dan Le Batard]

It was Wemby's foul. It was Wendy foul, I think. I think both of them were to keep Wemby out of getting fouls.

[Chris Cody]

No, that. But my question is because a lot of these coaches, like, they'll use a challenge in the first quarter. It's like, why? Why are you doing his head on the ball? That's all.

[Dan Le Batard]

Sampson is with us now here. How did you experience? David, we've talked before about the fact that when you were younger, you would go to Madison Square Garden and you were a heckler. You Love this basketball team. You are an actual Knicks fan. As opposed to Jeremy accusing me of being a Knicks fan. How did you experience game one as a foreigner?

[David Sampson]

I, I wanted to. We were a part of history. Teams were 0 and 643, down 20 with seven minutes to go in the playoffs, and all of a sudden it's 1 in 643. That should have been the highlight of my sporting life. It was game one of the conference finals and I felt nothing. I was like the chorus line, man. I don't know why that happened, but I've been thinking about it ever since because it, it bothered me, Dan, terribly. I should have been jumping up and down. I should have been schwitzing. I should have been pacing. I, I, and I just wasn't doing any of those things. I was saying, they're gonna have to start hitting shots. They're laying bricks for three and a half quarters. They're gonna have to make some shots, aren't they? And then they did. And then I was just waiting for Kenny Atkinson to get fired. And I guess I was thinking if I were running the Cavaliers, I may have stormed the court and fired him right then and there on the court at the final buzzer.

[Chris Cody]

I heard Cleveland radio host Tony Rizzo yesterday say that Atkinson should be fired ahead of game two and they should hire Jason Kidd. He should be the.

[David Sampson]

It was an unbelievable coaching malpractice to continue allowing the pick and roll switch to happen. You can coach that to not happen. You don't have to have the switch off where Harden takes it. And they kept running the same play again. It's like in football. I was thinking, if you're, if you're running the same play every time, eventually the defense is going to catch up to it and change the way they defend it. But the Cavaliers didn't do that. To say nothing of the fact that they did not give Donovan Mitchell the ball in overtime. I continue to say that any team with James Harden in charge is going to be a team that can't get anywhere. But, but they're in the conference finals, good on them. But I just thought all it was a disaster. Which makes tonight's game even more interesting because game one becomes a memory. If Cleveland wins tonight and they went for one game in the first two and they get it. But if they lose tonight, the series is over at 2. Nothing. So it's definitely a big game tonight.

[Dan Le Batard]

I want to ask you some follow ups of why you would feel like a foreigner there. I assume it's because real Life is happening to you and sports is less important than it used to be to get, you know, perspective about life compared to perspective about sports. But before I ask you that question says something today that I don't feel like a lot of people are saying, but a lot of people do actually want, which is Zaz is rooting for James Harden to be historically terrible tonight.

[David Sampson]

He. Listen, he'll do that. He doesn't even need you as he just seems to do that more is he's an unbelievable situation where you have a Hall of Fame player who to me is not. He's never won anything ever. You know, one appearance in the finals with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He puts his way from team to team to team. I don't want to say he's Durant because Durant has a ring, but I just don't view Harden as someone who I'd want to go to battle with with my team and they've tried to embrace him in Cleveland, but again, I just don't think it's going to work. But yeah, I always root for Harden to go know 2 for 18.

[Chris Cody]

And I'm not trying to be like, you know, mean or I don't even know how you would classify where I'm rooting for a guy to fail.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hater.

[Chris Cody]

I don't. I don't like the way he plays. I don't like his style of play. I don't like debating officials. I don't like all the flopping. So, yeah, I go into tonight hoping he's terrible.

[David Sampson]

Well, do you have that view of sga getting there.

[Chris Cody]

You know, like getting there. He was awful to watch last night. It's not. It's a brutal watch.

[David Sampson]

I think you should try to remember the four year run that he'd had with LeBron. And I was just lucky enough to experience that because I was in Miami at the time and I was at so many of his games. He also was an unbelievable complainer. And I remember noting that during the four years I was watching him up close, he complained every single time. He would flop all the time. So that is what players do. They're trying to draw fouls. You know, Michael Jordan was no saint, I will tell you that. When he got into the paint, he expected the whistle to blow. And any time Daryl Garretson would swallow his whistle or Jake o' Donnell or any of them, he would go crazy floppy. I don't. Well, it's just a different. It's just not flopping around the ground because who the hell wants to get up Every time that there's no reason to flop to the ground when you can just sort of complain to the referees.

[Dan Le Batard]

Why a foreigner, David?

[David Sampson]

I just didn't. I. It's a very bad thing when you want to feel something and you can't. It. It reminds me. And I was singing the Barry Manilow song, trying to get that feeling again. I was singing that during the comeback, like, why can't I get that feeling? How do I. What do I do to get that feeling back? And then you realize there's nothing you can do once you lose that feeling, it just doesn't come back. And that's it. And I had to come to grips with that. And I didn't come to grips with it until game one, the last seven minutes of the fourth, and all the overtime when I was just sitting in bed with headphones on and. And my girlfriend was sleeping and I was just. I was silent. And that's unheard of. I should have been like, anyway, it's. It's. It's nothing.

[Dan Le Batard]

Explain it to me. No, but explain it to me. Has it been that way the last three years? This is the most relevant stretch of Knicks basketball that there's been since Larry Johnson had that four point block in 25 years.

[David Sampson]

The Larry Johnson four point play was fun. So here's my answer to you. My answer, Dan, is that being in sports for as long as I was has robbed me of my fandom. So it was heading this direction and much like Covid, just steep in the slope of many things that were going to happen anyway, what's going on with me has just steepened the slope of what was happening anyway. And so it's just been jarring to me how quickly I've bottomed out in terms of my allocation of time and how much time I spend with sports and the visceral attachment I have to the feeling of success and failure around sports, by the way, it's impacted everything, including nothing personal. I used to be obsessive about checking rankings and checking downloads and keeping track of numbers. I mean, to the second. And now for whatever reason, I just take the microphone and keep talking every morning.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's sad.

[Chris Cody]

Well, the second part feels healthier. The first part not.

[Dan Le Batard]

But I mean, everything he's saying is talking about a deadening and a numbing. I asked Mike today, I asked Mike today, how you doing? Everything okay? And he just turns around, he's like, is anyone okay? Is anyone okay right now? And I thought about it. I'm like, yeah, probably not. I think everyone is In. I think every single person right now is in a stage of disorientation about just world events. If you're paying any attention. He did say that.

[Mike]

I did say.

[Dan Le Batard]

He said, accept Zaz. He said. He did actually say. He's like, is anyone okay? And he's like, yes. As is probably okay.

[Chris Cody]

I feel good.

[David Sampson]

I think the key for us is to remember that everyone has a job during these times, and our job is to entertain. Even when there are political overtones to it or serious things that we can talk about. Like, I want to talk about my show I did with a senator the other day and what happened after the show, which is shocking to me. But our job is to entertain and sort of ignore what's going on because we're supposed to be used as an escape. But it's hard when it's something that's unscripted to be the escape, because you really have to remove yourself from reality. And it's easy when there's a script. It's much more difficult when there's not.

[Chris Cody]

Dan, did you see Stephon Marbury in game one? What was taking place in overtime?

[Dan Le Batard]

Just running on the court.

[David Sampson]

Yeah.

[Chris Cody]

Like, so it's a weird thing in general that the Knicks, as opposed to any other team, for whatever reason, former players, they just. They gravitate toward how.

[David Sampson]

So stop. Have you watched the Pistons games? Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Thomas.

[Chris Cody]

Good point. But they're not jumping on the court. And so after. After Jalen Brunson is scoring in overtime, this is happening. Several baskets in a row. Stephon Marbury and John Starks, too. They're on the court while the ball is in play. Like, they're cheering, they're pointing out defenses. But Marbury is on the floor here several times in overtime.

[David Sampson]

I'm not going to lie, though. The way you're setting this up, I think he's like, at half court, and then the video we show, he's like, toe is on the court.

[Chris Cody]

Okay, but we can't play the video, so I had to go further. Yes, it goes further. He goes like two steps in. All right. Well, David, it was enough that Marbury felt the need to tweet an apology the next day because he was so overzealous. I'll read this to you here. I would like to issue a formal apology. He's at Starbury Marbury. If you want to give him a follow on X. I would like to issue a formal apology to every Knicks fan, every security guard, and especially Jalen Brunson. Not because I stole his Shine because I could never. That man owned the Garden. I just got swept up in the current like a plastic bag My energy flew out the roof I lost my mind and my feet carried me somewhere they didn't belong. Thank you to the fans for the positive reaction. It felt great, which is honestly concerning. Now. How about we run that back? Just kidding. Unless Jalen hits another one, then all bets are off. Signed Starbury.

[David Sampson]

Bunch of emojis at the end there.

[Dan Le Batard]

What are those emojis?

[David Sampson]

That was what.

[Dan Le Batard]

Read all those emojis, please.

[Chris Cody]

Okay, we got people's eyebrow, People's eyebrow, Spock. We got Looks like laughing face emoji. Ooh, a lion. Could be Mufasa. Not sure. Then you have. Is that. Is that a goat?

[David Sampson]

It's a bull.

[Mike]

That's an A bull.

[David Sampson]

Go.

[Mike]

I feel ox.

[Chris Cody]

Don't shame my. Shame me on my emoji nod.

[Mike]

You got to know what the goat looks as.

[Chris Cody]

All right. I don't use emojis.

[Dan Le Batard]

Why is there a bull and a. And a wolf there? Like what?

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What?

[Mike]

Lion, bull, Chinese New Year. Let me look that up. He's big over there.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's true, actually.

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[Mike]

Tony, you know that moment at a party or at a tailgate where everything just sort of clicks?

[David Sampson]

I know it.

[Tony Hawk]

Well.

[Mike]

It's usually when I show up, everybody goes crazy. Yeah, you usually take all the credit for it, but it's because Tony usually walks in with Cuervo. Walk in like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuervo is a thing that turns hanging out into this is the night. It has that effect on people. It does. You usually take the credit for it, but again, it's the Cuervo effect. It's like that moment in a big game where everyone in the crowd just starts standing up, hootin and hollering. Keep it Cuervo.

[David Sampson]

Keep it Cuervo, baby.

[Mike]

Howdy, listeners. We're in that part of the sports calendar where you got multiple big games going on simultaneously, and you gotta decide either to make the investment in multiple screens or to prioritize one thing. And one thing I always prioritize when I'm watching a game is Miller Lite. That's right. Miller Lite can make your time spent watching these games with a buddy or pal even better. That moment where the game tips off, the NBA playoffs are rocking. You toast that white can and you think immediately after that first sip, you made the right call. That is the glory of Miller Lite. I reach for it every time. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brewed for taste with simple ingredients, just 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. The original Life beer since 1975. And it still hits different cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste. 96 calories. Go to millerlife.com dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

[David Sampson]

Don Levitard Tay Tass Stewgats Taytas this is the Don Levatar show with the Stugats.

[Dan Le Batard]

What were you saying, Sampson, about a senator?

[David Sampson]

I was. Well, before I get to that, the reason why Marbury had to send that tweet is there's different levels where the alums get seats in the Garden. The first row, there's first row behind the basket. That's where you see often Marbury and LJ is there, and Latrell Sprewell is there, which is unbelievable. And then Patrick Ewing and John Stark, sometimes their courtside on the other side, not behind the basket, but at the end of the sideline. And then there's alums like Bill Bradley. He gets put in the stands sometimes. Alan Houston is in the stands. So there's a hierarchy of where people are. And Marbury does not want to upset Mr. Dolan, who for fear he'll end up like Mr. Oakley. So he's got to come out there and say, okay, I won't do that again.

[Chris Cody]

That's a really good point. I do find it interesting that you scoffed at Sprewell being one of the guys who can be front row there when I would say Marbury's the guy I would scoff at. Like he was the. The face of the most embarrassing times as a New York Knick.

[David Sampson]

Yeah, I certainly don't appreciate seeing Stephon Marbury. I don't view him as a Knick. I don't think him about it as a Knick. It doesn't he. His Nick tenure was. It might as well not have happened. But there could certainly be. You alluded to China. He is big business. Do not kid.

[Dan Le Batard]

No, but he's New York. He's the city though. Come on, that's a place.

[David Sampson]

He's playground basketball.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's point guards. It's that city prides itself high school legend. I mean that he comes from there. It's roots like it is a bad time in Knicks basketball. But get to the senator story. What happened?

[David Sampson]

So I did a story where sort of nothing personal is becoming a place where politicians want to come on the show and they want to talk about bills that they're introducing in Washington and have a conversation about it. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has sponsored a bill called Let Kids Play. It's an act that is trying to get private equity money out of youth sports. And I was approached saying hey, he's doing appearances on this. He'd like to do nothing personal. And Coca is very clear with all of these handlers of the politicians, it's not going to be some sort of just glad handing where I'm just going to smile and not tell you what I think about it. And so there's great debates that happen during these shows. So we go through the show that just got released on YouTube today or yesterday and it's a podcast today. Whatever it is, it's outside of the regular nothing personal. But it got heavy because I so vehemently disagree with this bill and I asked the senator questions that were real questions like okay, who's going to pay for it? Is the government? Well, no. Well then who? If you don't want private equity money and venture capital money. And so I thought it was a reasonable question. And there was a bit of sparring that went on during this. And it occurred to me that Coca and his concern of we're not going to get called again to do these anymore. And my thought was I don't care because I don't want to be the one who's the cupcake. And if people want to come on and have a real conversation, I'll do it. And then it occurred to me that those types of real conversations as you talked about on your show seem to be disappearing. So I may have gotten metal arc media in trouble. And if I did, Dan, I sincerely apologize.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't believe that. Sincere, I believe smiled the whole time saying that I believe you. I don't care. I don't think you care whether you got us in trouble.

[Mike]

And don't Worry about apologizing to Dan for making it awkward with a guess.

[David Sampson]

Listen, Mike, I actually did think about that. The stakes are much higher with you and your show. Quite obviously, he was born in the dark.

[Mike]

You merely adopted it.

[David Sampson]

So that is the only saving grace. As I was going through the show in my head and replaying it where I could have been better, and I watched it again, trying to learn how to be a better interviewer and how to have better debate. And what was in my head was, wait a minute. Dan does this all the time. And look at the career he's built over 20 years. And here I am in year five or year six. So I gave myself a little grace because of you.

[Mike]

That's right. And it's precisely why we don't get guests anymore.

[Dan Le Batard]

The thing that's funny about that is that philosophically, actually, this one is something that has, I'm gonna say, plagued me my entire career, but I really don't actually mind it. The tension between a guest comes on. How do you treat a guest when you're a host? I'm talking about at a house party. I'm talking about on a show. There's a guest coming into your environment. How do you treat that person? I've always found it weird, David, that the guest in this particular setting who's coming into our home has the expectation that I'm there to do something for the guest, as opposed to my responsibility being to the audience. It's weird to me that the expectations when you step foot in here are that I'm catering to you versus I'm catering to the audience because I live here and you leave and the audience stays with me. My responsibilities to the audience and making it good. My responsibility is not to the guest. And so I look and it's why the guests disappear. Like, it's why we. We now and have for many years had a great deal of trouble with publicists and managers and everyone else who says no. Why would I put them there if I can just put them in a place where they'll be treated like a guest?

[David Sampson]

Yeah, Dan, the reason we didn't want players to be with you is for that very reason that we didn't think they could stand up to you and really hold own and that you would put them in uncomfortable positions, that would just not be worth it to us. But now that I'm on the other side, I realize that really the issue was our issue, not your issue. Because what you taught is it is all about the audience, period. What serves the audience, what keeps Them entertained. What helps them give of their time to you, which is the ultimate honor. People give hours of their day to you, Dan, and hours of their day to me. Why? Because they don't want us to just be sitting there not saying the things that they would say if they had the ability to say them. So I think about that. But on the other hand, we answer to sponsors, we answer to rankings, we answer to getting audience acquisition. And maybe there is a middle ground and I just haven't found it.

[Dan Le Batard]

Me neither.

[David Sampson]

That doesn't give me great hope. Better at this than I am.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, I don't want it though. And you don't need guests. And we are

[David Sampson]

so Dan, I think that what we should do. Listen, what is our show? I go on Pablo show. Pablo goes on your show. You come on our shows. It's a very incestuous network like relationship. That's amazing.

[Dan Le Batard]

Partnership was better than incestuous. Partnership is easier to sell. That's a little better. Partnership, it's a part. It's a network partnership. It's not a network incest.

[David Sampson]

It is a network incest. And what it means though is that it creates a wall around us where people become less interested in piercing through that wall because they feel like they don't get the show or they feel like they're not going to be treated a certain way and then their publicists get concerned about it. I was thinking about the interview you did with Boog and I was thinking that if I ran the network, what I would think about him working these phrases in and what whether or not that passes the crosses the line of professionalism. But when it comes to raising money for als, I think Boog will choose you as he should and choose the money as he should. But those are real push and pulls that happen.

[Dan Le Batard]

The network should choose that too though, right? Like you think you know you. But you were ahead of the curve on this. Look, David, for those who do not know the history on this, David was I'm going to say a decade ahead of the curve with Showtime in the Marlins where he made a reality show that was so interesting that they immediately had to cancel it. Like what I'm talking about when I keep lamenting the idea that so many people are interested in the streaming business in the optics as opposed to the truth that that transaction is corrosive to the viewer. That if your responsibility is to the viewer. The trading of I'm going to trade pieces of the truth in exchange for the access to you makes everything worse, especially the content. And it's not a trade that I think we should be making.

[David Sampson]

I don't want to make that trade. But on the other hand, we're competing with people who have already made that trade, and they don't think twice about making that trade and that. So I think about it all the time as we're trying to grow the YouTube channel and get subscribers. And I look at a bunch of absolute dots, like an intellectual free zone, posting about what. What outfit they're going to wear with 500,000 subscribers. And I think to myself, whoa, the amount of work that I do to do a show every day that you guys all do with all of the group that you have and Pablo does, and we're successful in our own right, winning awards, but we don't come close to what it is that some rando does by posting something ridiculous because it's the lowest common denominator of absolute intellectually free crap. But on the other hand, wait a minute, Everybody's watching that. So I think about that a lot too well.

[Dan Le Batard]

But the way that you're articulating it is the idea that if you fight that fight, you're going to lose to the people who are playing by different rules. But the way that I would argue against that is I would tell you we have, I can make an argument, one of the most loyal audiences in the history of sports. And the reason for that is because that audience appreciates that. Like, that audience sticks to you from in there, where they're like, nah, this thing's a little truer than the other things. And I think that's gonna become more and more important and more and more rewarded as we go forward. It's happening for Pablo. It's happening right now for Pablo, where people are like, nah, this is a little truer and a little more uncomfortable than. Than people realize. But actually, I'm gonna tell a story here I have not told, and I'm gonna tie it to what we were talking about earlier with Skipper and being the most powerful man in sports, when he was the most powerful man in sports, and the way that the conflict came to him and he had to bow for NFL, because the NFL is bigger than everybody. We've run things that are hard to run. And one of the bigger fights I had with Skipper was around one of the things that we ran that went after who's the name? Hb the owner of the Suns and some of the things that they were doing with predatory loans, allegedly. And we were now going to run up against real power and silver and people who can Bankrupt. You like people who can when. If they come after you, you don't have the wherewithal of ESPN or Disney to. To fight with them. It's a fight worth fighting, and people appreciate it. David, like our audience is loyal the way it's loyal. We may lose to some of those influencers in terms of size and power, say drisky, but it is. Olivia. Rodrigo is my new one. But it is something that is worth fighting for even if you lose.

[David Sampson]

Well, the problem is you. You're going to run out of ammunition way faster than anybody else will. And so you can fight the good fight and you can fight it for as long as you can, but the problem is you eventually just get swept up in the losing of it. And yeah, loyal audience. That is something you talk about and I think about all the time, building up loyalty, which is what we get when people give us their time. But part of the game that we have to play is we're looking for new people to engage with us. We're looking to be interesting. Why is it that you want to clip things of you in a bathrobe saying something serious and get aggregated for it? Because you get both. That way you get the humor that you love, you get the attention that you crave, and you get the seriousness that you strive to be. So you try to combine all those, and you're doing it purposefully. And we're competing against people who don't necessarily do the gimmicks because it's all gimmicks. So there's no frame of reference. And that's a very hard battle to fight if I'm keeping my head on the ball here. You're saying Dan needs to do Get Ready with me videos? Yeah, he needs to do. He needs to tell us what he's having for dinner. I mean, can you imagine how ridiculous that is? I want to see him prepare a meal on YouTube and I'm going to get a million follower. I just. I can't. Got to be an obnoxious dinner. Just the most obnoxious dinner.

[Chris Cody]

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[David Sampson]

Dan Levatard Go Pee Pee Stugats. Go Pee Pee.

[Chris Cody]

This is the Dan Levatar show with the Stugats.

[David Sampson]

Dan is the single worst person I've ever been to a restaurant. I've been to few restaurants, but I can imagine just the worst. You just, you have to cater to what his dietary requests are. Nothing can come as is and you don't even know if the right menu. So basically you just give in and say you choose the restaurant and then he'll choose it and then be 20 minutes.

[Chris Cody]

Can I get no garlic?

[Mike]

Was this cooked in air? Was there air around this food? Sorry, is there food in this food?

[David Sampson]

I don't mean to go after you, but man, it really got to me. The last meal we had is I was just sitting there like wondering, can I just get my spicy tuna roll, please? While they're finagling what they're doing and returning everything they don't want. Can I just get.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't return anything. I've never, I never just don't eat

[David Sampson]

it and then order a different thing.

[Dan Le Batard]

I never return anything. I will not send something back to the kid. We just turn to the waiter and say, this was bad. Where that.

[David Sampson]

Can I get some gluten free fries on that salad?

[Dan Le Batard]

I go to management and have them fired so I never have to see them again.

[David Sampson]

What is gluten free mayo, by the way? Thank you. And who would expect to have. Thank you, David.

[Dan Le Batard]

I think mayo is actually gluten free under all circumstances.

[David Sampson]

There is no gluten point, Dan.

[Dan Le Batard]

We think pretty sure, actually.

[David Sampson]

And the reason this all came up, Dan, is that I was going to review a movie about this very thing. And this is what set me off because I watched this yesterday, this new documentary on Netflix called The crash. And it is about a influencer who murdered her boyfriend and a different guy in a car crash in Ohio. And I had never.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hold on a second, hold on, hold on. I. Murder. What happened was just to be clear, because I saw the documentary too, and it was also good, but it was confusing to me how it is that she ran into a school, a school building at 100 miles an hour and the people in her car died. I just didn't really understand how it is that she never hit the brakes or how it is that the physics of that accident happened that she was going that fast. But continue, please. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I just wanted clarity in there.

[David Sampson]

That's the crime, though. That's why she got convicted, because she drove a car into a wall. Now, if you want to murder your boyfriend and somebody else, I can tell you, I can't think that driving a car into a wall makes sense. She was able to survive and she. There's no way that this 17 year old girl was able to formulate a plan using physics and calculate and game it out to say if I crash at this speed, at this angle, they'll croak and I'm only going to have a few broken bones, be in the hospital, and then I'll be fine. And the result is she's in prison. Spoiler alert. But what struck me about the documentary is what these kids are doing in high school and how far removed I am from having that level of either being in touch with it or how jealous I am. And I, I'll admit it, these two girls, her and her friend, do ridiculous stuff on Tick Tock and Snapchat and Instagram about looking at outfits, etc. And she's got more YouTube subscribers than you, me and Pablo. How is that possible? Is what I was thinking while watching this. And then I got the last laugh thinking to myself, I. Yeah, but she's in prison now for at least 15 years and hopefully life. But that's. I don't want to have to go to that in order to make myself feel better.

[Ad Read Announcer]

That's what you got out of the documentary there, David.

[David Sampson]

That is exact. That's it, Roy. What I got out of it is I can't imagine she chose to murder with a car crash. I can't believe how many YouTube subscribers she and her friend have. And I cannot for the life of me believe that she went with a bench trial and not a jury trial, because that is a right that you have to just be tried in front of a judge without a jury. You can waive your right to a jury trial because she thought, and her lawyer thought that she was so unlikable. I think her best chance was to be cute and to be like, oh, murder I murder. I can't even figure out what I'm wearing on a Wednesday afternoon. I just opened Clothes from Amazon. Like I figured that I couldn't believe it that she waived a jury trial.

[Dan Le Batard]

You do a very poor impersonation of a 17 year old girl.

[David Sampson]

I'm thankful for that.

[Dan Le Batard]

What is the review? Did you like the movie? You're talking about the meat of the movie. But did you think the movie was worth watching?

[David Sampson]

No. It makes me feel terribly. I don't know, it's. I do not think it's worth it for anyone. Other than that. You should just know that if this is really what your kid is doing or what you're doing as a high schooler, I think you should maybe think about a different path. But there's a lot better documentaries out there. I agree. It's ranked one. That's how I found it. It was the number one ranked documentary. I had no idea what it was about, hadn't heard of it. Spoiler alert. Didn't know it ended with the conviction. So I watched it and it was whatever, 94 minutes and I'm fine. But it made me feel terribly.

[Dan Le Batard]

Thank you, David. So we begin with David saying he was dead inside and now it's. He feels terribly. If you want more David Sampson and some more uplifting stuff, P Clock is coming up later.

[Mike]

It will be uplifting.

[David Sampson]

I'll be there too.

[Dan Le Batard]

It is David Sampson and Jeremy Teshe. Nothing personal, Chris Cody. Thank you, David. Nice seeing you. Thank you for the time. Speaking of which, he mentioned YouTube subscribers here a moment ago and South Beach Sessions. This is long, long overdue. South Beach Sessions now has its own channel and I am requesting that the listeners of this audience support the work that we're doing around here by subscribing to the new South Beach Sessions YouTube channel. Today's interview is with Tony Hawk. I really enjoyed talking to him for a number of reasons, including that I was almost privy to the delight of having him skateboard to the studio because he always has his skateboard on him. And we talked about. I don't know whether you guys think about this at all, but about how

[Mike]

he has a brother named Mike all the time.

[Dan Le Batard]

No, we talked about how injured he has gotten over the years. Let's hear that clip today from South Beach Sessions. Can you take me through your body on A journey of the things that you have harmed or have needed surgery. Like, if you were to do it from the bottom of your feet to your head.

[David Sampson]

Sure.

[Tony Hawk]

Well, okay. Starting at my feet, I've definitely rolled both my ankles to such severity that they are almost too loose for safety purposes. I thought I broke it once when I was on tour in France. I mean, I rolled it so far. I just figured, oh, I broke my ankle for sure. Luckily, I didn't. I don't really know if that's luck or not. My shins are a disaster. They're just countless stitches. I've had. I've had knee surgery. Two knee surgeries on both knees, mostly for torn cartilage and torn ligaments. I broke my femur. I broke my pelvis. I recently fractured part of my pelvis, actually. I don't know. You might have saw me kind of limping in here. That's getting better, though. Let's see. Where do I go from there? I broke my elbow. I've dislocated my fingers. I've gotten stitches on both eyebrows. Numerous. Several times. Had a few concussions, and knocked out my front teeth five times.

[Dan Le Batard]

He forgot a bunch of them, too, because over the course of the interview, he started mentioning and remembering other ones.

[Mike]

His name is Mike.

[Dan Le Batard]

Put it on the poll. At Lebatard Show. Did you know that Tony Hawk's name was Mike?

[Chris Cody]

No, no, no, no.

[Mike]

He has a brother.

[Tony Hawk]

It's his brother.

[Mike]

He has a brother whose name is Mike.

[Chris Cody]

Michael Hawk.

[Dan Le Batard]

Put it on the poll. Did you know that Tony Hawk's name was Mike At Lebatard show? And please subscribe to South Beach Sessions. We've got a bunch of them over the next few months that I really enjoyed doing while we were in California. Got to spend a lot of time with comedians because I heard your criticism audience, on how bad I've been over the years at interviewing comedians. So I've begun practicing. That's what I got very good at with Tony Hawk. He's showing me that if you want access to my actual inner monologue, I'll give it to you here. That sound is me camouflaging. We don't have enough cameras in here to see how blue his shins are. Mm. So it's just me.

[David Sampson]

Like, you did get, like, a little look over there.

[Dan Le Batard]

Like, you're, like, also thinking of the audio audience.

[Tony Hawk]

Mm.

[Dan Le Batard]

His. His shins are blue.

[Tony Hawk]

Mm.

[Dan Le Batard]

They've got so much damage on them that that's not a human color. But you couldn't really see it because we didn't have enough camera work in that studio to execute it correctly. So that's all you got in terms of getting deep inside the intimacy of introspection with Mike Hawke.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Mm.

[Mike]

He's the brother of Michael Hawke.

[Dan Le Batard]

A couple of corrections from earlier in the show. I said that PBS had done. Or did I say that? Npr?

[Mike]

You said npr. No, this is going well.

[Dan Le Batard]

I said that NPR had done the reporting on concussions and it was pbs. And I described. I don't want to get at aggregated on this. I described the conversation with Skipper about the mortgages and stuff as one of the biggest fights we had. I'm going to call it a disagreement. It was something that we were having. We weren't aligned on. It wasn't.

[David Sampson]

You believe I can concur that?

[Chris Cody]

Is that how it works? That if you just say, don't want to get aggravated aggregated. You don't get aggregated.

[Dan Le Batard]

You messed up saying that.

[David Sampson]

And if they do aggregate it, they'll pull in that context.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, they always do. That's not how it works. But I'm only interested in how it is our audience receives it. I don't care what anyone else does with it. So it doesn't much matter after that. But I just wanted to get the facts right on that subject. I want to talk about the Stephen Colbert stuff, but we do not have time inside of this segment. So we'll start the next hour on the Stephen Colbert stuff. Because I do want to celebrate something that is ending tonight and makes me sad that it's ending and it's not necessarily the show. It's the time that is making me sad and it's the roots of it, because they really did. That show introduced me to stand up comedy. I had not known that it was something that existed. Not Colbert, but as the Letterman show, the first time I ever saw Letterman. So I want to get into that next.