Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 11

Summary

Oral History of The Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 11

Release Date: February 7, 2025

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Introduction to the Oral History

In "Episode 11" of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, hosts Dan Le Batard, Stugotz, Greg Cody, Mike Ryan, and Amin Elhassan delve deep into the tumultuous journey of their show within ESPN. This episode serves as a comprehensive oral history, capturing the pivotal moments, internal conflicts, and personal reflections that shaped the show's trajectory.

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Transition After John Skipper's Departure

The season begins with a reflection on the departure of John Skipper from ESPN. Mike Ryan recounts the stability that ensued during the six-month interim period, highlighting the ability to maintain the show's productivity and relationships with key ESPN personnel.

Mike Ryan [03:03]: "Stu, what's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? 20 mediocre years."

As the hosts reminisce, Greg Cody emphasizes the supportive environment fostered by Skipper, which allowed them creative freedom.

Greg Cody [04:51]: "I didn't realize, though, that that's why they were spending more time with us. I really do think that people... know what they were doing and let us live over there and leave those people alone."

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Challenges with Political Discussions

A significant portion of the episode addresses the increasing pressure from ESPN management to limit political discourse on the show. Mike Ryan reflects on the difficulties of discussing sensitive topics without a sports angle, leading to frustrations and a sense of being stifled.

Mike Ryan [05:53]: "If you're interested in... how are they able to do that at Disney? And it's because a lot of stuff can be kept away from me given how weird our whole setup was."

The hosts express their struggle to balance authenticity with corporate directives, leading to internal tensions and a decline in the show's original spirit.

Greg Cody [08:18]: "I didn't realize... they were cultivating relationships to take care of me. These are people I care about who have helped me."

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Impact of COVID-19 and Escalating Tensions

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic further complicated the show's dynamics. Mike Ryan discusses how the pandemic acted as a catalyst, exacerbating existing tensions with ESPN management.

Mike Ryan [07:13]: "Our experience, Dan and mine... it's becoming more divisive... but we're not going to avoid the intersection of sports and politics when it comes up."

Dan Le Batard expresses disappointment over management's inability to support their platform for meaningful discussions, feeling unheard and constrained.

Dan Le Batard [02:22]: "Because if we thought the timelines got screwy before, we're walking up to Covid... But just to clarify, Dan's going to talk about that."

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Departures and Organisational Shifts

As tensions mounted, key figures like Marcia Keegan and Trog Keller retired, signaling a shift in ESPN's approach. Amin Elhassan reflects on the changing priorities within ESPN, acknowledging the difficulty of maintaining their show's essence amidst corporate pressure.

Amin Elhassan [07:55]: "Radio was dropping. So I think the patience to have anything that was any kind of disruptor... meant it was expendable."

Greg Cody laments the loss of supportive colleagues and highlights the emotional toll of these changes.

Greg Cody [09:04]: "These pressures brought to bear on me... I want to be maximum honest... There's an unrelenting ocean of sausage I'm looking at."

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Building Independent Ventures

Amidst the turmoil, the hosts attempted to establish independent ventures to safeguard their show's future and support their team. Mike Ryan mentions the creation of a merchandise line, aiming to provide financial stability outside ESPN's constraints.

Mike Ryan [45:38]: "They weren't allowed to sell our own merchandise at the time we said we were because of a huge lapse in ESPN's judgment."

Greg Cody discusses the challenges of navigating corporate policies while trying to innovate and maintain the show's integrity.

Greg Cody [45:38]: "It's very difficult... but I was being insistent on them trusting me to do it because you hired me to do this."

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Final Struggles and Show's Conclusion

The episode culminates with the hosts recounting the final moments leading to their departure from ESPN. Mike Ryan describes a critical incident during a live show that accelerated their exit, highlighting the irreparable rift with management.

Mike Ryan [56:35]: "Dave was trying to get a hold of Dan, and he wouldn't respond... Everything was changing so fast... but I didn't think it was a possibility of happening even as it happened so quickly."

Dan Le Batard reflects on the emotional strain and the realization that continuing under ESPN's new directives was untenable.

Dan Le Batard [52:27]: "We were talking about... it's going to end ESPN with this segment."

The hosts express mixed emotions about leaving ESPN, acknowledging the loss of supportive colleagues while feeling liberated from restrictive corporate policies.

Greg Cody [55:17]: "When our internal tensions... I just left. Age and patience were factors."

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Conclusion and Reflections

"Episode 11" serves as a candid exploration of the challenges faced by The Dan Le Batard Show within the evolving landscape of sports media under ESPN's corporate structure. Through personal anecdotes and honest dialogues, the hosts illuminate the delicate balance between creative freedom and organizational control, ultimately narrating their journey towards independence.

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Notable Quotes

• Mike Ryan [07:13]: "We are not going to avoid the intersection of sports and politics when it comes up."

• Greg Cody [09:04]: "There's an unrelenting ocean of sausage I'm looking at."

• Dan Le Batard [52:27]: "We were talking about... it's going to end ESPN with this segment."

• Amin Elhassan [07:55]: "Radio was dropping... meant it was expendable."

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This episode provides an insightful look into the internal dynamics and external pressures that shaped The Dan Le Batard Show, offering listeners a thorough understanding of the factors leading to its evolution and eventual departure from ESPN.

Transcript

[Dan Le Batard]

You're listening to giraffkings Network.

[Stugotz]

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[Mike Ryan]

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[Dan Le Batard]

10 libert welcome Derek T. And that.

[Greg Cody]

Concludes our Marlin coverage for the season.

[Dan Le Batard]

Ste, what's the single most important thing the Falcons hat to do to beat the Patriots? 20 mediocre years.

[Mike Ryan]

Thanks for having me.

[Dan Le Batard]

Have a great day. This is the oral history of the.

[Greg Cody]

10 Leitard show with stuff I'm proud of this project, we're proud of this project, narcissistic though it is. And I do believe that the second half of this has the potential to have more information and be more interesting and more honest than even the first half. Because there's a lot of stuff in here that I have not talked about and that I will need help remembering with Mike and Stugatz because it felt like such a crisis time where the things I was about felt like they were being attacked and I didn't quite feel supported by anybody but the people that we had most around us.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'd lean on Mike more than me.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, I'm curious. I think this episode more than any of the other ones, is gonna have us trying to talk out what happened here. Because if we thought the timelines got screwy before, we're walking up to Covid, which was such a life changing event that it screwed everybody's timelines up. But just for you in the audience, where we're at right now, the last episode we covered, John Skipper stepping down from his position at espn. There was about a six month period, to the best of my knowledge, Stu, where the people that were place below John Skipper kind of stayed in place in a holding pattern as Disney tried to figure out the direction of ESPN and who they were gonna put in place there.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

There was actually some safety in knowing that for at least six months we just keep the status quo.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, those people below John Skipper were people that we had relationships with, that they became accustomed with the show and the kind of work and productivity that we put out. But they were also pretty good people. It was Traud Keller, it was Marsha Keegan. They liked us, we liked them. They spent a lot more time with us than they ever had because John Skipper was no longer there.

[Amin Elhassan]

Tron Kel. I was senior vice president of the ESPN production business units, oversaw some of the smaller ESPN businesses. Both shocked and saddened. Right, it's out of left field. And saddened because I'd known John quite a while, even before my time at ESPN in my role at abc. And I knew John to be just a smart, creative executive and considered him a friend. I enjoyed our many conversations that ranged from is there a God? To how are sales going? Anyway, it was a shock to the system and John had given us a lot of leeway in regards to running the. He knew we knew what we were doing and he, along with Norby, let us do our thing. I did say, okay, you know, when there's a change at the top, there's always change. That's what happens in corporate America. And so buckled down and waited for what was next.

[Greg Cody]

I didn't realize, though that that's why they were spending more time with us.

[Dan Le Batard]

You didn't? No.

[Greg Cody]

I really do think that people, if you're interested in sort of doing a forensics on how we did what we did in a way that made people curious, how are they able to do that at Disney? And it's because off prem a lot of stuff can be kept away from me given how weird our whole setup was. What they have now with McAfee is not something that they had tried before. Let's rent this ready made thing and thrust it upon our people and let it live over there and leave those people alone. And that's not the deal that they sign up for. So it created an assortment of problems that I really wasn't privy to. Because Mike is getting battered in all the things that you feel in the last episode because he's fighting in defensive protection of the executive producer job on this show is protect Dan. Just make sure he's okay so that we can all be okay. Because if you take care of the show, it will take care of you. If you protect the show, it will protect you.

[Mike Ryan]

And just to further clear up the timeline, we're in the second half now of the first Trump administration and by then most people are tired. And it's not just the people that are going through the things that are triggered by what they see on the news. It's also people on the opposite side of the political spectrum that are tired of you complaining about it. And this is the height of the ESPN is woke machine. And there's a whole economy now of people getting clicks and covering the media through a conservative lens. And you're getting aggregated a bunch. And you're one of the lead dogs when it comes to getting engagement on those things. So the world is a changing. And once John Skipper leaves, I'm more in tune because I'm getting more of the complaints and I certainly know of more things to keep away from Dan and more things to be more careful with, but also more thoughtful with. Again, I said this in a previous episode. Part of me does miss some of the guardrails that ESPN put in place when it came to political discussion because it did force us to be more thoughtful and generally less abrasive with the words that we use now that we're more independent and we have partners that don't manage us quite like that. If we're emotional about something, we convey that emotion. And it's probably working against our best interests. I know that for a fact, in terms of perception, in terms of growth. So I do kind of see where ESPN was going with it. But this was a top line call from Disney. We are not going to be perceived as woke anymore.

[Greg Cody]

I will cover as much of this as I can. I know Mike Ryan has said previously that we or I have to be careful here. And I don't feel like I have to be careful here because my emotions here have subsided on wherever it is. I was hurt and I can see clearly now without that emotion, the benefits and why it is ESPN is entitled to run its business, however it is that ESPN wants to run its business. And so I don't have disparaging things to say about how all of this ended. I will say that I was hurt because I wanted a big company to stand for something when I knew the reasons that I was hired there and the company changed and the country changed, but I didn't change. The reasons I was hired there at the beginning was to do that job. And so whatever was getting me in trouble was me just thinking, hey, I'm doing the job that you hired me to do. When you went and got the Latin columnist from Miami to speak on things that are also social commentary, we probably.

[Amin Elhassan]

Don'T have enough time to get in into it. And suffice it to say it wasn't a fun time because for obvious reasons didn't make sense for the Walt Disney Company, especially espn, a sports network, to start to get involved in politics because of how divided the country was becoming. So, you know, you go one direction, you've immediately alienated half your audience. And as much as Dan, I think probably thought he could make converts with, to his perspective, that just wasn't the business we were in. So managing that was. Yeah, it was tough. I mean, there were gray areas and it wasn't a lot of fun. But we definitely don't have enough time to go into that. Nor I think in my retirement do I want to go back to it. I think I still have a little PTSD from it all, but the dynamic change.

[Dan Le Batard]

Meaning John Skipper left and I think he left you a much wider range of things that you could discuss. And maybe some of those guardrails kind of came down a little bit, I don't know. But that's interesting that you've gotten yourself to a place where you're okay with it. And I'm guessing that's because you are now running your own business.

[Greg Cody]

Well, yeah, we benefited from it. Yes, we. We have been able to increase our value because of the things we were able to take from the discomforts of. They did not want the headlines of me going out the door screaming and yelling about how hurt I was because they know what was happening in those meetings, and they are scared of too many revelations coming out, and it's easier to just pay to make them go away. So I don't want to be in a position here where people are expecting that I'm going to be guarded and have too much careful here. I will tell you as I. Honestly, as I can, the things that happened here, and I will betray no inner secrets in doing so, because I don't think the people involved who cared about us are guilty of some of the things that I'm going to be talking about here. But at the end there, and I will keep saying this to people, I did not know how it is that we were protected by Skipper. I did not take advantage of that. I wasn't in any way aware of it. I thought the deal when we got there is, you will leave us alone. And they largely did leave me alone. Again, I did not know how Mike was dealing with some of these things that he had to deal with. When the decision gets made that someone who comes from my past with what you know about me, know me to be as a journalist and as a Cuban person who is always talking about the exile experience. When we've gotten to the point in America where the president of the United States is saying to brown women, go back to the country that you came from, anybody who knows me being Cuban or any part of my story, or the sacrifices my father and mother made so that I would have the freedom to be like, nah, man. No employer tells me what I'm saying about this. And I have to go through Nick Wright to say it because of company policy of I've got to go through a sports figure of some sort to talk about this thing. If it's in the news, you know where it is that I would break on that stuff.

[Amin Elhassan]

I think when John Skipper left, Dan lost his rabbi, his guy, right? So John brought Dan on. John championed Dan, and rightly so. Dan was a really talented journalist with a different perspective and one that created a great radio. I remember going down to south beach years before trying to get Dan to do radio, but it took Skipper to work his magic to get him to finally do it. But look, when Skipper left, it wasn't just Skipper leaving. I think the country was changing a little bit, too. And certainly talking any kind of politics was becoming more divisive. But I think, you know, Dan felt like he was hired for a certain reason and for a bunch of reasons that were, I think, good and right. But things change in corporate America. And I think he dug in and he didn't like it and he knew what he was hired for and that's what he kept doing. So I do think he got angrier as time went on. It was a great radio show. It still is. It's a great podcast with its own audience. I think not every show is meant for espn or is ESPN meant for every show? Right. Things evolve this espn. Right. And so I think, by the way, at the end of the day, it all worked out for everybody.

[Mike Ryan]

So for the first two years of the Trump administration, there were a lot of places where the intersection of sports and politics met. Colin Kaepernick discussion being huge and being a pop culture conversation towards the latter end. There were three big things that happened in American politics, two of which did not have a sports tie to whatsoever. And that was the instruction that I got while we were in that six month period without John Skipper being there, which is if you're going to broach anything that could be conceived political, try to find the sports avenue for it. The first thing that happened was the treatment of illegal immigrants at a nearby facility here. The kids in cages thing, that was one that got all the way up to Dan. Dan spoke eloquently about it, emotionally about it, and there were no sports sides for this. I got taken to task because I said some things too, because this was a cause that was important to me as well. I started getting really frustrated with their stance on this because we were talking about humanity. I didn't view this as a political discussion. And I found the conversations that we had with ESPN brass after that show very disheartening and very frustrating. Dan, what do you remember about that man?

[Greg Cody]

There's someone there I love who calls me in the middle of this. I'm getting it. So little to God. Some promise promising you that. It's just, I don't know how much of this mic is taking for me because things that should be obvious because I'm naive are not obvious to me. So when Trog and Marsha come down, two people I care about, two people who were very good to us. I'm not thinking it's because I need to be monitored or watched or that they have to cultivate these relationships to take care of me. These are people I care about who have helped me. One of them said we'd be working there for as long as we wanted to work there because he and his son loved our radio show so much. And he. He really understood radio, uncommonly understood radio. So I'm not noticing or feeling it, but someone who's there, who I would say I have, and we had the best of executive relationships with, calls me and says, why would you talk about that immigration thing? It's boring. That's somebody who doesn't come from where I come from. I love this person. We just come from different places. Why I would talk about that thing is because it's a deeply personal thing to me to see that happen to minorities and people who aren't minorities don't care about it. Why am I having a convers with someone I love that doesn't understand this? And so I can walk him through it, but it's still something that causes him and them problems. Because who can get Dan under control? Who can get Dan to stop talking about this? And the answer is nobody.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, this gentleman in particular was always kind of the buffer and would defend us when they would have their company head meetings, department head meetings, and he was always kind of a Dan guy. And this was the first time that I got clued into the amount of pressure that he was probably being put under as Disney tried to get out of this.

[Greg Cody]

I didn't understand that. And if I had, like this happened to me naively with the Deadspin vote thing. Like, this was another thing. This is more benign. But once it got to me, hey, Dan, you're putting Skipper in a bad spot and you're putting a whole bunch of people that Skipper cares about in a bad spot because Deadspin is being viewed as anti espn and you've just climbed in bed with Deadspin. So once that's presented to me, of course I'm going to be some semblance of reasonable. But as an employer, I would ask anybody who cares about me because I've never had these kinds of problems with employers. I do expect some sort of understanding of why it is I was hired and who it is that I am before you make a phone call like that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right. That was the puzzling part to me is you have Dan as smart, as good, as eloquent as anyone in the media. Not just sports media, the media. And if you know anything about Dan and his history and things that are important to him and really to you as well, Mike, to our audience, to other guys on our show, Dan's going to talk about that. Stu Ford knows. I tried to get him not to talk about it. But if I can't get him to not talk about it, then no one is gonna be able to convince Dan not to talk about it. These things are important to him. And it was always confusing to me. Why'd you hire him? Why does there need to be a sports angle, a sports tie? Why can't Dan just talk about something that he's passionate about?

[Mike Ryan]

I think ESPN really struggled, really coming to grips. And I actually learned this when Castro died, too. Our experience, Dan and mine, Dan's parents, leaving communism, my dad as well. The plight of the Cuban American, it's not understood the way that Cuban Americans understand it. And you can say that for a lot of people, but nationally, there is a bit of a sea change. There's just fatigue when it comes to these people having a voice and a general misunderstanding about their plight. And I found that with the death of Castro, and I kind of found that at ESPN with this discussion, in that we were talking about our own personal experience, decent things that were afforded to our parents that weren't being afforded to people at that time, as the vitriol turns up. And I understand why Disney's going in this direction. There are a lot of things about Disney's business model that are going sideways at this point, and they're struggling to wrap their brains around what's the reason for this. It's really the whole cable bundle thing was. It was a huge ruse, but they're trying to take in intel and find out reasons as to why this is happening to their business model. And part of the feedback that they get is, you're too woke, you're too political. Disney's, I mean, got broad appeal. ESPN's supposed to have broad appeal. I understand how they kind of deduced, let's get away from this. It's why I don't really harbor any ill will, say, for maybe one or two people out there, But I was really hurt by the kids in cages thing because I felt like no one was actually hearing me. And I didn't feel like I was having a discussion with human beings. I felt like I was having discussions with vessels that were relaying a message from on high. And that's the first time I experienced that. That I wasn't getting anywhere. That no one could look me in the eye and really see where I was coming from. Nor did they care.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

Which hurt.

[Dan Le Batard]

They weren't listening to you?

[Mike Ryan]

No.

[Dan Le Batard]

They weren't hearing about what it is that you were going through at the time.

[Mike Ryan]

No. And maybe it was my struggles as a communicator. But Dan's a pretty good communicator. And I was on these calls, like we got pulled aside on our own call about this and we were kind of begging and really confused why they wouldn't afford us to speak from personal experience here because that's not political. That's my life. That's Dan's life. The lives that our parents and grandparents had. And we were giving voice to that and it fell on deaf ears. It was right then and there that I knew, like, man, that was really unpleasant. I did not like that. And I was starting to be afraid, man, whoever they put in place next, is there more to come, Right?

[Dan Le Batard]

So disappointing because I have always told Dan, like, use me as a gauge for the audience because if I find something interesting, there's a good chance that of the audience is going to find it interesting. And I remember feeling your guys pain, feeling your passion, feeling you wanting to talk about it and also remembering just how good both of you were on the topic. And it was a personal thing. And I remember saying to myself, this is riveting because both of you taught me a lot about how it is you grew up and where it is you grew up.

[Greg Cody]

Well, I prided myself on that. It's always been important to me to allow people to discover what is in my case, borrowed pain. Because I like saluting my parents by getting the words of my mother somewhere near Kornheiser. So when Obama is speaking in Cuba about relations between the countries, I'm on ESPN blasting. Blasting ESPN for going over there. Because I'm presenting this as an argument and seeing something that serves everybody during a different time. Right. Serves Skipper. Serves everybody. Skipper asked for me and my parents to go to Cuba on that trip. My dad wanted to go with me. He was ready to go. My mom refused. So we did not go. Refused to answer any of Skipper's calls. We didn't end up going. But I was on television presenting those viewpoints. That's what I was there to do. I was born to do that. Now make it Colin Kaepernick. I see that initially that's not even to me a politics story. All I see when I'm there is like, holy shit, that's gold. That's content gold. Like you say, we moved away from this stuff or you could see why it is that you can move away from it. It came to us. There was no avoiding it when it's there. So I thought of that.

[Dan Le Batard]

What happened on a football field.

[Greg Cody]

Yes. And I Thought of that and foremost as a work of art. Like, that's why you hired me.

[Mike Ryan]

This is why we can have thought provoking 100% right? And have this essentially a Trojan horse to have, like, really important conversation. And it's protected in every single way. But we deviated from that, leaning on personal experience. I remember I was in a car ride with someone that was actually working at this detention center, and I was really chastised, like, you don't know if that person's actually working that detention center. I'm like, I guess you're right. But I also read the news. I know what's going on over there. You shouldn't have done that. I'm like, okay, but there's personal experience here. They didn't really care for it. So I was worried. But shortly thereafter, Jimmy Pitaro is named as John Skipper's replacement. We do go up to Bristol. We have a meeting with Jimmy Pitaro. I liked him from the jump, and I kind of felt like, okay, there's a chance here for a good relationship to be formed. And also there was something that happened in between the Kids in Cages and Send Her Back controversy on this show. We kind of stepped into it on a Trump thing, and Jimmy Pitaro had our back. And I was like, okay, cool. Is this a move? I don't know. But if it is a move, it's working with me. I'm like, okay, cool point. For Jimmy Pitaro, this seems like it can work. What do you remember about your first meeting with Jimmy Pitaro?

[Greg Cody]

I always liked him, and I am now introducing myself to him in the middle of a controversy. But as preface for you and him, I would say, when I ask the audience, who am I? Who do you think I am? Or who do I think I am? When presenting myself to you, my answer would be somewhere in the person who brings you a Cuban story so that you can find the humanity in yourself and in that story. A storyteller and feel something in there. I don't need Jim to know that before meeting me. But when I went to go see Jimmy Pitaro after this and this one, I was good. I made a deal that I wouldn't normally make to honor and respect him, to make that look like that was him summoning me to meet him versus what it actually was.

[Mike Ryan]

We're getting out ahead of ourselves. You got something for something that happened even after the sentence.

[Greg Cody]

But this is the first time I'm physically meeting him. You're not talking about a.

[Mike Ryan]

We had a group meeting in Bristol that you May not remember that we all went up there, which was just like all of us meeting with him.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Mike Ryan]

And that went well. There was something that happened, I forget with Trump that he had our back on. I remember I went back up to Bristol by myself and another meeting with Jimmy probably doesn't remember this at all. And I said, look, I understand the position that this company is in. I understand that we all work for Disney, that things like what our show is more known for, fair or unfair, are going to pop up a little bit more. Just know I'm going to continue being mindful of this, going to try to keep the discussion civil and try to keep ESPN's guardrails relatively intact. But we are not going to avoid the intersection of sports and politics when it comes up. We will avoid rhetoric as best we can. And I will be as much of an ally as I can for your management team as long as you understand my position. We left it there pretty well. And then two weeks later or thereabouts, I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana at a show event and the center back controversy happens. And this, if I can pinpoint one moment in our show where it was just done for us at espn, this is it. This puts that in motion. Remember, we just had one with the kids in cages. We had a meeting, we're good. Jimmy defends us. I'm there two weeks earlier saying, don't worry, if I'm in that studio, I gotcha. I'm not in that studio.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right. As an aside in that meeting, Pitaro's telling me, keep it on the track, Stu.

[Mike Ryan]

And Dan gets emotional because of all the framing that we've done in this episode, in this moment in particular, where you address this on the show and you call out ESPN in particular, because that's also what raised everybody's antennas. Because you went at your bosses because at this point, you know, they want you to stay away from this and you turn that into content. Dan, to me, it felt strategic and I've always kind of felt like that I'm not there. Billy at this point is in the penalty box. You have no producers there. Mina was co hosting with us this show. She was not in the studio.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

I feel like you were protecting her from what was about to come.

[Dan Le Batard]

I was there, but I wasn't really there. I wanted to do Marina Montana.

[Mike Ryan]

I mean, it's very clear that this was with intention. I don't think your intention was just nuke the whole thing with espn, but you were fed up with the rules that were put in place. And you wanted to challenge that and you set forth a chain of events that really just ended everything at ESPN with this segment.

[Dan Le Batard]

I remember you wanting to kind of and correct me if I'm wrong, kind of setting a precedent. Hey, I don't care who's running this place. No one's going to tell me how to do this. No one's going to tell me how to do the show.

[Greg Cody]

I will tell you that as you guys talk. And there's been a lot of this throughout this oral history where some things get jostled and I don't remember things correctly. So I don't have any recollection of the meeting in Bristol you guys are talking about. I only remember two times meeting with Jimmy Pitaro. But you will forgive my memory lapses and what it is that we're talking about here as I try to remember it as best I can.

[Dan Le Batard]

Do you remember Fort Wayne?

[Greg Cody]

What I remember is Mike Ryan really being mad at me in Fort Wayne because he put me on FaceTime and I was cursing at the audience and I bottled tequila in my hand. And at this point I'm guessing he's feeling I either self destructive or that we're just careening toward the abyss. So he's in Fort Wayne and he thinks some things here are strategic that I'm not going to remember as strategic. I promise you that. Stugot. There's one thing that I remember being strategic about that day and it's pulling Mina out of the room because I knew I was headed to get into trouble and I didn't want her anywhere near whatever that trouble was.

[Dan Le Batard]

But I was left me in.

[Greg Cody]

But, but I was blissfully, blissfully naive about how, how deep a trouble we were in and how the walls were caving in on us. I was pissed off about the specifics of a few restrictions that had been put in place, but I didn't know they were restrictions that were put in place because our jobs were in trouble. I never thought I was pushing against the boundary so much in here that we might risk losing our careers. It's a consequence I would abide, but I didn't think it was a real one.

[Mike Ryan]

So ESPN on ESPN Crime, you were always very quick to say whenever someone got in trouble, like whenever Bill Simmons got in trouble can take shots at ESPN personalities or ESPN or Disney. And in this segment, what really got aggregated was you going at ESPN's policy like, I can't talk about this unless I have a sports guest on when this is bigger than all of us. You were Essentially calling it cowardice. I may be framing it a little lazily there, but that was really at the crux of this disagreement. It's like you were taking shots at espn, or at least that was a perception.

[Greg Cody]

Well, the perception also is somewhere in there, a new president is being greeted by being called a coward by somebody who can be in a position in this political climate to. If Disney is not going to tell you to stop with the woke talk. No. I'm an employee at Disney, but I'm one who comes from a journalistic background, hired by journalists, having worked with journalists at what ESPN was doing with journalism. And those people taught me to do journalism and know all the fights and arguments that we would have over 20 years of me saying to them, guys, do you understand? Understand how much more valuable it would be to everyone involved if ESPN covered ESPN the way it covers everyone else, with the same sort of judgment? And therefore you allow criticism from within the building to give everybody more criticism because you're doing things responsibly, journalistically and honestly, you're treating your own company with the same judgment that you're nailing athletes with.

[Mike Ryan]

And they were all within the rights to say, terrible idea, Dan LeBatard. No.

[Dan Le Batard]

And they did.

[Greg Cody]

And they did.

[Mike Ryan]

You approach it very thoughtfully, like, isn't this a great idea? Actually, no, it's not. It's a terrible idea. We're your boss.

[Greg Cody]

It's more arrogant than that, even. It's more. It's more arrogant by me than that, even. Don't let everybody do it.

[Mike Ryan]

Just let me.

[Dan Le Batard]

Just let me do it. The biggest thing here.

[Mike Ryan]

Come on. Wasn't I the guy that would push boundaries? Anyways?

[Dan Le Batard]

I got to tell you, the show got so big at that point, I agreed with Dan.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, well, I kind of like, aren't we grandfathered in?

[Greg Cody]

I can be trusted to do it. You don't need to trust anybody.

[Mike Ryan]

You guys used to. Don't you still.

[Dan Le Batard]

Come on.

[Greg Cody]

Don't you remember. Wasn't that great fun? Don't you remember how much applause we got when you. I wanted my dad and me in Cuba, and I'm criticizing the employer while on the employer. We did that together, didn't we?

[Mike Ryan]

New sheriff in town. We found out. Now I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana, because fans of our shows, like, had a great grassroots.

[Dan Le Batard]

Are you saying at what point Dan was the sheriff?

[Mike Ryan]

No, Skipper was a sheriff, but we curried favor with the sheriff. And I provided those tidbits of those previous meetings that I had with Jimmy Pitaro to say, like, Within a very quick amount of time, we've gone from, don't worry, I got you. We'll be mindful. We're all aligned. You like us. Oh, you did us that favor there.

[Dan Le Batard]

Cool.

[Mike Ryan]

And then Dan's on a microphone going at espn, calling the new president essentially a coward.

[Greg Cody]

Didn't mean to do that, by the way, Just to be clear. Okay. No one will hear a bad word from me on Jimmy Pitaro. That guy tried to do right by us, was in an impossible spot. This was not a good position for him to be in. To be clear on that, we did.

[Mike Ryan]

Put him in an uncomfortable spot. By the words that you picked, I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana, because. And I really wish, in retrospect, although my life turned out pretty great afterwards, the reason why we weren't all in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was Ian. Espn, from a liability standpoint, wouldn't greenlight the entire show going over there. They had raised funds. They wanted a whole broadcast there. I was out there. We got thousands of people to a minor league baseball game for us like we were the draw. I have a spectacular drone shot of the crowd that we drew. It was really the height of my professional time at espn. I was at dinner with the local radio people and other ESPN national radio people there. And the social media clips start hitting my phone. And it goes very quickly from one of the highest professional highs to one of the lowest professional lows, because I knew we had just stepped in it.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah. And I was upset with Dan on the inside. I think we talked about it maybe when he called Jimmy a coward. And he has apologized for it, but.

[Mike Ryan]

We'Re boiling it down.

[Greg Cody]

Wait. I did not call Jimmy Pitaro a coward. I thought that. Well, wait a minute. It's important.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay, well, this part.

[Greg Cody]

Okay. But the corporate policy was that I couldn't say anything unless it was with an athlete as a meat shield. And I thought. Thought the policy was cowardice. Okay, what happened last night? This felt un American. What happened last night? Okay. Basically a chant. Send her back. Is not, you know, it's not the America that my parents came to get for us, for exiles, for brown people. Like, there's a racial division in this country that's being instigated by the president. And we here at ESPN haven't had the stomach for that fight because Jamel did some things on Twitter, and you saw what happened after that. And then here, all of a sudden, nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss these subjects. But what happened last night at this rally is deeply offensive done by the president of our country. And this tweet from Nick Wright. If you're listening to people chant send her back about a Somali refugee who serves in Congress, Nick Wright writes, I don't talk politics on here, but this isn't political. This is obvious. This is abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric. And not calling it out makes you complicit. The send her back chant and the go back to where you came from are so antithetical to what we should be. It is so right what he is saying there. It is so wrong what the president of our country is doing, trying to go down, getting reelected by dividing the masses at a time when the old white man, the old rich white man, feels oppressed, being attacked by minorities, black people, brown people, women. That's who we're going after now. Black people, brown people, women. And that's the like, let's do it as the platform. That's what you're seeing and the only way we can discuss it around here, because this isn't about politics, it's about race. What you're seeing happening around here is about race and it's been turned into politics. And we only talk about it around here when Steve Kerr Popovich says something. We don't talk about what is happening unless there's some sort of weak, cowardly sports angle that we can run it through. When sports has always been a place where this stuff changes.

[Mike Ryan]

I do think Scots to a degree is speaking for probably Jimmy Pitaro. And they're like, really?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Mike Ryan]

You got to challenge me.

[Dan Le Batard]

I feel like I said the same thing. I mean, no. Did I not?

[Greg Cody]

Look, man. Ok, okay, look, just. John Skipper worked at Rolling Stone as a troublemaker. I'm a troublemaker. He hired me to be a troublemaker. Disney's only gonna do so much troublemaking because it's Disney and everyone loves the magical fantasy of Disney.

[Mike Ryan]

If I may, though, I understand why you feel like why John Skipper hired you. I understand all that. I understand who you are. I understand your heart.

[Dan Le Batard]

We both do.

[Mike Ryan]

But you also have to understand, like, that's why he hired you. The game has changed for everybody.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

And you're trying to play by the same rules.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes. And to kind of put a personal spin on this, we discussed when we first went to meet John Skipper, me, you and Dan. And John Skipper was not very receptive to me as Dan's co host. He wanted Bomani Jones. And then I get a meeting with Jimmy Pitaro and I get a completely different boss than John Skipper was to me. Jimmy Pitaro loved me.

[Mike Ryan]

There were a lot of reasons to like ESPN and be frustrated with the challenges there, but we were the biggest thing in sports talk radio. We were the biggest thing in sports podcasting at the time.

[Greg Cody]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

The branding helped us. Our arrow was pointing up. We were elevating. We had security. We felt like we were cooking.

[Dan Le Batard]

But I want Dan and the audience to understand my disappointment where I'm there for the first whatever amount of years. And I felt like, to me, the only reason I am here is because of Dan lebatar. John Skipper does not want me here. He wants me out. He wants Bomani Jones in.

[Mike Ryan]

You're doing the fantasy football stuff. Your star is ascending individually, you have a brand now.

[Greg Cody]

Right.

[Dan Le Batard]

And I start having some success away from Dan and away from this show. John, leave. Jimmy comes in. Jimmy really likes my character, likes the thing that we've developed. And by the way, loved you and loved the show. He really did. Like, he told me, him, his kids, they would listen all the time. But I went from having a boss that I didn't feel like was terribly confident in me to having a boss who loved me. Jimmy was good like that. Jimmy was a salesman. And he is. He's great.

[Greg Cody]

And he's a sports fan.

[Dan Le Batard]

He would throw me a football when I saw him in the hallway.

[Greg Cody]

I mean, in terms of chumminess and perfect partnerships.

[Mike Ryan]

Do we miss Jimmy Pitaro's?

[Dan Le Batard]

I do.

[Stugotz]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

He was a handsome man.

[Greg Cody]

Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, so handsome.

[Mike Ryan]

Went to Cornell.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah. Corporate.

[Mike Ryan]

Michael was a huge fan of his work. Would celebrate him with a Cornell music. So I just felt like, man, the timing on this. But I realize in retrospect, like, certainly if I were in that studio, it wouldn't have gone down that way.

[Greg Cody]

Well, you say this, Mike.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't know.

[Greg Cody]

Let's examine this for a second. Hold on. Produced one of the funniest video clips in the history of what we do, where Billy was in another room in front of a green screen and just seemed confused and was in charge, but couldn't hear anyone talking to him.

[Dan Le Batard]

Weird time.

[Greg Cody]

And the director had gotten off of me as a camera shot and put it on Billy. So that went viral. The news clips. Couldn't use it because it was just Billy in front of a green screen.

[Dan Le Batard]

Terrible job.

[Greg Cody]

All the mechanics of whatever it is television had to do to make sure that did not become viral had not accounted for the social media age.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

And so Mike Ryan thinks some of this stuff is strategic. And I would say the cosmos have had a funny time with our show. And this stuff, I'm telling you, is not strategic. I did not take advantage of Mike celebrating our show in Fort Wayne to do something that I wouldn't have done with Mike there. I was simply pissed off that a president had said to people that are women and brown, go back to your own country, Americans.

[Mike Ryan]

He's telling America, yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

And back to America, yes.

[Greg Cody]

Or just go back to where you came from.

[Mike Ryan]

The crowd. Shannon sent her back.

[Dan Le Batard]

So.

[Greg Cody]

So it's just that, Stuart, like, I don't need to explain this part to you.

[Dan Le Batard]

I knew the show before we even got in that day. I knew where you were going. Mike wasn't there, but I knew where you were going. And, Mike, I am telling you, most cases, you could stop it. In this case, I don't think your presence would have stopped it.

[Mike Ryan]

I've looked back on that day. I had my feelings about. I don't fully agree, but what I will say is, if it wasn't this controversy, it would have been another one.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right?

[Mike Ryan]

Like, there would have been another one. We were headed in this direction because ESPN's company directive was changing and kowtowing to a bit of a shift. And if it wasn't this, it was gonna be what popped up later. Because Dan was hell bent on talking about, okay, I can only talk about politics when there's a sports tie in. Cool. I'll listen to you. Daryl Morey. Daryl Morey got his wish. Yes, but, Dan, this Daryl Morey story. And let me tell you guys, rest assured, the block was hot. It felt like, to me, we were on final warning after the send her back thing, but we survived it. But my communication and the tone in which people were talking to me was totally different. Definitely new sheriff in town. The Daryl Morey story happens. But, Dan, you're not in town when it breaks. You're on your honeymoon. And so this thing is in the news cycle for, like, two weeks, and it starts dying down. Correct me if I'm wrong, you come back and you're hot on this, because this is the story, not Colin Kaepernick. This is the story that you were made to cover. Are you kidding me? An NBA executive taking out one of the biggest NBA markets and essentially getting the NBA blackballed within China. This is huge. But by the time you wanted to come back and circle back to the story, it had already died down. What can you tell us about this controversy? Because this probably was indeed the final straw.

[Greg Cody]

Well, we've had about 17 final straws in the course of the telling of this story.

[Mike Ryan]

The last one was a point of no return. This was the final straw.

[Greg Cody]

Okay, I will have to get that hierarchy from you guys because I feel like we'll have 19 more final straws before we're done here. I will tell you that some of this time again becomes muddy because I'm gonna lace the personal elements in here. And Stu Gotz had a very difficult time where he lost his mother and the show had to go on. So what I'm remembering about this time is at the very end of it, for reasons that I have to be careful about talking about because I want to protect Poppy's privacy. But there have been just a couple of times, in ways that are really hard, where my father's just not all there and there's not a real explanation for it. And it puts everything that I care about in some peril. The last days of my honeymoon. I'm talking on FaceTime with my dad, and I see a hollowed out look. It's only happened a couple of times, but I can see, oh, shit, I'm in Japan, and I gotta get back home. And my dad's not right. And so now I'm coming back into also and I gotta get back to work with my dad on television. And even during my honeymoon, the most blissful time with the most blissful woman I'm churning on. And when I get back, highly questionable is the platform that I was made to write something on this subject and deliver something more powerful here than anyone because of my connection to where it is to have freedom of speech, you know, smothered and how important I think it is. Here's a place for me to be able to make really good content on behalf of underserved people and make a sociological point that will thread this needle on degree of difficulty that will make ESPN proud. Proud that I will do a piece of work that won't be substantive. And so I'm coming back into that, and I can't do it. I'm not allowed. Nobody wants any part of this subject matter.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

By then they decided, all right, we're not going to feed this furnace anymore. And I will say, while you were in Japan, we were able to talk about it on the air.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yep.

[Mike Ryan]

We weren't talking about it the same way. Certainly not as intelligently and as powerfully.

[Dan Le Batard]

Thank you.

[Mike Ryan]

But it's okay. I'm complimenting Dan. I'm not insulting you.

[Greg Cody]

I believe that I. I had written the most beautiful Thing I believed that I had written the most beautiful thing I had ever written. I wanted to come back and write it. And inspired by everything from honeymoon to, like, the things I like to identify as being as a professional worker, after.

[Mike Ryan]

We chewed on it for two weeks, they kind of did say in clear terms, all right, that's that on the NBA, China, we're all, as a company, moving on. And you came back ready to have this discussion. They didn't like that that leads to a disagreement and what became two weeks away at the start of football season, which wasn't the most popular move, by the way. And by all means, you are entitled to take your honeymoon whenever you like. But given our standing there after the center back controversy, like there was some NBA Finals off time and then you're off in the beginning of football season, then next thing you know, we're essentially Sue Gods & Co. Is essentially an entire book for the start of fall football. Because what we do, we did pretty well.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wow.

[Mike Ryan]

It was a very strong book for us.

[Dan Le Batard]

Nice.

[Mike Ryan]

But your honeymoon gets extended like a couple of weeks because you're flying to New York. This becomes a hill to die on for you professionally, does it not?

[Greg Cody]

Again, I'm not viewing these things as hills to die on, because throughout this process, as someone blissfully naive about an employer can terminate you. You know, Dan, your history of relationships with employers doesn't always have to be something that is positive at the end.

[Dan Le Batard]

And you have a crew of people that you employ that you care very much.

[Greg Cody]

I've also got relationships with the people who were there that I don't believe this is going to end. I believe that I'm making good trouble. I believe that we're.

[Mike Ryan]

I mean, you understood where they were coming from with the cowardice stuff.

[Greg Cody]

Yes, but I believe I'm making good trouble. I believe I'm doing things in public.

[Mike Ryan]

Says that I do, too.

[Dan Le Batard]

I mean, it's weird.

[Mike Ryan]

There's a disconnect.

[Dan Le Batard]

There's no such thing as trouble, but if anyone can pull it off, it's dead.

[Greg Cody]

Okay, but no, but I understand why they wouldn't trust me to do it, especially after things changed there. But I was being insistent on them trusting me to do it because you hired me to do this. And yes, everything has changed. But I'm promising you I could do this in a way that will represent everyone well.

[Dan Le Batard]

And they said, don't do it.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah. They said no. They said no. Dan returns to the show. I want to say, like 10 days later. And at this point, Marsha Keegan and Trog are approaching retirement. We have a show event that we fly Trog Keller down to. There's a dinner that's concert contentious because Dan has had quite the few months over there at espn, has become more aware of how ESPN feels about him and his views and is not fully comfortable with how that's framing our show. It's all of a sudden in a governor he never had to worry about. It leads to some contention and shortly thereafter Marcia and Trog retire simultaneously. And Dave Robertson, Norby Williamson come in. And Trog and Marcia were allies of our show. Dave Robertson, Norby Williamson were essentially sent down from on high to carry out this new direction for Disney espn, which is like we're getting away from being aggregated. We're getting away from this perception. And we had Dave Roberts around. He was a big fan of the show. And then something changed when in fairness.

[Dan Le Batard]

Today he was a big supporter of our show early on.

[Amin Elhassan]

Listen, do I think once Dave Roberts and Norby took over after me and Marcia, was there going to be the end of our show? I don't know. I think, look, radio is not a major piece of ESPN by any means. Certainly from a financial point. Do I think that it is an incredibly important barker in a very complex media world in terms of how many different options there are having an entity 24, seven a day, letting people know what's on, what games are coming up, all that kind of thing is a very valuable tool. But at the end of the day, priorities were changing at espn. Radio was dropping. So I think the patience to have anything that was any kind of disruptor in a business that wasn't considered very important meant it was expendable.

[Greg Cody]

During this time you mentioned Trog Keller and it is a source of a good amount of pain for me. And I hope at some point that I can heal all of this with him because he was very, very good to us and I really appreciated his support and just how he loved radio. I've told him this, I've called him this, but there's an explosion in here. You guys will understand that is going to take some telling here. Okay, so we'll get in some future episodes to where money became a problem because I wanted to make sure some people around us were taken care of outside of what Disney could do. And there were also liabilities on how much I could give them. Personally, I don't understand any of it, but I couldn't just write checks for people. So we invented a business and it was a bit of a miracle that I think Trog Keller was able company that is cartoon, cartoon protective to have a T shirt company at Disney that would make its own art. It was a bit of a giant victory to have a T shirt company.

[Mike Ryan]

No one prior to us at ESPN was able to sell their own merchandise. Come to find out, we weren't allowed to sell our own merchandise at the time we said we were because of a huge lapse in ESPN's judgment. And so was it a victim? It was like, keep in mind this is post Skipper. We're still getting dubs, unprecedented dubs over there and such that it was. They were still trying to build out. This is the start of Le Batard and Friends Network. We were able to start carving out our own thing the way that Bill Simmons had with Grantland. We were starting to carve out our own thing under the ESPN umbrella and bucking against trends that were usually non starters contractually for them.

[Greg Cody]

And so somehow, because we did still at this point have this support, we now have a T shirt company that will allow me Stugach to take some of the money. Here it is. Let's pay our employees better. Let's have a little company and have a little thing that makes a little money on side. But it had not happened for a number of reasons that I do not understand for about a year. And right before my 50th birthday party, I'm at dinner with Trog Keller and my agent, Trace Armstrong, who says that this is the worst meeting he's ever seen that didn't involve Bobby Valentine. And at this meeting, I think I lost both my agent and Trog. Although I have not gotten Trace on the phone to help explain to me where it is that I lost my agent because of whatever Trog and Trace's relationship was that birthed T shirts and an enormous victory that made me appear ungrateful at a dinner a year later. Because I'm saying to somebody who I genuinely love and appreciate his support, Trog, it's a giant company. It's Disney. How can't I sell a T shirt in a year? Like I was just legitimately confused by how can I not sell a T shirt. And so it's an enormous naivete.

[Amin Elhassan]

The famous Dan Trace dinner did not impact my decision to retire. I was frustrated trying to run a radio business. Dan was all about Dan. Look, at the end of the day, that's kind of what makes talent great. They are concerned about numero uno and people around them.

[Dan Le Batard]

Right?

[Amin Elhassan]

Because that's what helps make them the top of their Game. You know, Dan certainly was a huge proponent of his people, but I was running a business and I felt like I had hit the wall of the complex complaining. So I just left. At some points, you can only take so much. It was probably a little abrupt, but, you know, as you get older, your patience for some things start to wane. I'm probably guilty of numerous things, but probably losing my patience more quickly as I got older was probably top among them. I was always going to hit the eject button at 60. That is a good time to exit the Walt Disney Company. And it was also clear to me that I was also the oldest guy by a lot in every meeting room that I was in. So, no, that didn't impact it. Although it did make leaving more joyful, given the chaos that was going on.

[Greg Cody]

I want this thing to be maximum honest and I don't know some answers here. And I would love Trog to know how sorry I am that the pressures brought to bear on me, okay? Because Stugat, this is a person I deeply care about and I'm wildly appreciative for what was unending support. But I also remember where our relationship there ended because my wife's never seen me that way. She's looking at me in a kitchen because of everything that's exploding around me, the level of unhappiness I have about, please let me be me. This is a time to speak freely. And I'm just screaming into a phone, standing up, fight, fight for something. Fight, fight. The head's just like, no, please. Like, okay, we're done here.

[Mike Ryan]

And please stop yelling at me. What are you doing? Yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

And at that wanted to talk sports.

[Mike Ryan]

And at that point, Trog had an illustrious career worldwide leader. He was defending you. I was in meetings in which he was defending you and our show. And Trog doesn't end up attending this event and very quickly after retires. And that opens the door for the new power with Dave Robertson, wildly supportive of us.

[Greg Cody]

I do not have a single bad thing to say about Trog Keller.

[Dan Le Batard]

I mean, how could you? Trog was.

[Amin Elhassan]

I do look back fondly in some ways on the Levitard show. I loved it. I love the content. I thought it was good stuff, was fun. I thought it created community with its audience. And that's always the most important thing a radio show, an audio show can do is create community and keep that community coming back and being able to, by the way, sell products to that community, because that's how you monetize it. But you only do that through Trust and staying true to yourself. I think it just got difficult when it started to veer into things as the country changed, as things got more dicey politically, it got too difficult. And I was glad that in some small way, I was part of that show's success, and I'm glad that it worked out for everybody.

[Dan Le Batard]

But Dave was trying to get a hold of Dan, and Dan wouldn't respond to Dave. And Dave was calling me in my car and yelling at me for Dan not calling Dave back and my kids in the car. And I'm sitting there going, like, what do you want me to do? I answered the phone, and I knew, like, our days were kind of.

[Mike Ryan]

Miami has the super bowl that year. First Take is broadcasting from our studios. We feel like strangers in our own home.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Mike Ryan]

Because we can't even get access to the First Take set. Dan goes out there with an advanced auto parts battery, AKA Chris Cody. And it's just uncomfortable in our own home, all of it. We are very clearly falling out of favor. Norby and Dave are in our studios. They barely talk to us. I don't have the greatest interaction with them. I also notice around the Super Bowl, a lot of people are getting sick, like, just to help frame the discussion for what's coming. Yeah, this is not good vibes around our show. Very quickly, after the new management team comes in, there's more feedback, more. Stop doing that. More stern tones. Definitely stop doing that. More feedback on, like, wait, what? You don't like what? Mr. Roberts? Like, you liked our show before. You like this specifically about our show, and now you don't like it about it. We would have meetings, and I would just be Persona non grata in these meetings. And it feels like they're about done with us. And I feel like the hammer's gonna drop at any moment. Dan, I don't know if you feel the same way. And something stops all that from actually culminating. Covid Rudy Gobert touches a bunch of microphones. Tom Hanks gets sick. And all of ESPN's plans, I think, which were headed in the direction of altering our show. Maybe not fully letting go of our show, but altering our show drastically.

[Dan Le Batard]

There was something coming, right.

[Mike Ryan]

Everything gets suspended because COVID 19 you.

[Greg Cody]

Guys, though, honest to God, please correct me if I have this wrong for whatever the problems were with management. I'm still never thinking that one of the consequences of this is that while we're in the contract, they're going to push us out.

[Mike Ryan]

Like, I agree.

[Greg Cody]

It's just not a thing that I was thinking. About I'm like this.

[Mike Ryan]

We have contracts.

[Greg Cody]

When I'm.

[Dan Le Batard]

I was thinking it the entire time.

[Mike Ryan]

I was afraid. I was afraid. I. I know why you were thinking it, brother. I was right there with you.

[Dan Le Batard]

I had more business acumen than both of you did at the time.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, no doubt. I was right there fearing that, too, because I was in these meetings. Dan was never in the meetings with Dave Roberts. And hearing how he would talk about our show there and seeing the change within him when it came to our show, I knew something was changing there. But Dan's approaching it like, we have contracts and we're still doing this thing.

[Greg Cody]

It's more than that, though. Like, I honestly. And I'm not sitting here claiming that this is some brave rebellion. It's stupidity. It is being. Being just wildly unaware of the storm that was actually around us.

[Dan Le Batard]

Had you known you were jeopardizing the show and ESPN and our jobs, would you have changed what it is you have done?

[Greg Cody]

Well, this is what I would tell you, because I'm being governed by trying to be authentic to the audience, because stugats this thing has lived in service of where our connection with the audience is 100% so. But whatever's happened over 20 years, I think that.

[Mike Ryan]

I think so. I do. I do think that Dan would have changed the concept had he known the gravity of the situation. Maybe I was keeping too many things on. I'm sorry to stop your train of thought, but I happen to know there were plenty of times where Dan has decided against something that he wanted to do for exactly that reason.

[Greg Cody]

Right.

[Mike Ryan]

To protect you, to protect everybody.

[Dan Le Batard]

I understand that, but I'm sitting there going, how does Dan not know? And I'm so frustrated because I have landed at the place professionally where I wanted to be.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, you're getting the Dave Roberts vending calls.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah. Right. Where's Dan?

[Greg Cody]

The thing is, though, and this. Yeah. It speaks to how differently we look at it through all of our eyes. If I had known this is going to be funny to you guys, if I had known that it would respond in our immediate firing, I may have still gone down with that battery.

[Dan Le Batard]

You would have did.

[Greg Cody]

And been at the back of first take just to have that as the joke, as the punctuation.

[Dan Le Batard]

But, but.

[Greg Cody]

But I will tell you that the ultimate governor is ultimate. The first one on this will protect everybody on the show. Holy shit. This is going to be good, right? Like, this is going to be funny. Yeah. We're having a lot of problems. They're not going to fire me. Over this. This will just be funny.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's a pool.

[Greg Cody]

It's first take. Derrick Henry's there. I'm yelling at a battery. Come on. Come on. As an inside joke for Derek Henry.

[Dan Le Batard]

Sitting next to me. I have the seat lowered. He has his seat raised. It looks even taller than for our.

[Greg Cody]

Audience getting that joke on first take. If that gets me fired. Maybe I choose that. Maybe. But there have been any number of times that Mike has talked me out of whatever is the flippant joke because it's actually going to get us in real trouble. I like some of the trouble stugats. I did not think that what happened was a possibility of happening even as it happened to us real quick.

[Mike Ryan]

Because I know I wanted the cliffhanger of COVID But there's. There's another thing that happened that was deeply painful to us. Our relationship with 790. The ticket had dissolved. We were on 560. The Joe once again called 5 60-Q-M down here locally with very little notice. They decided, yeah, we're not going to take your local hour anymore. And I know that was extremely hurtful. And it continued a trend over the years of just us being out of the loop because we first and foremost thought of ourselves as a Miami show. And the market was so important to us. Dana had worked that hour for free. You had worked that hour for free. And we were just basically told we're going to go in a different direction. And we're like, your entire enterprise exists because of us. We save the company. What are you talking about? And you're not going to give us heads up. How hurtful did you find that?

[Greg Cody]

It was more heartbreaking than everything we just talked about.

[Dan Le Batard]

Really?

[Greg Cody]

Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

560 the Joe.

[Greg Cody]

Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

Really?

[Greg Cody]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

But not everything that we're about to talk about.

[Greg Cody]

No.

[Dan Le Batard]

But Dan only cared about being in this market like we talked about the struggles of convincing Dan to go national with our show in the first place. So I understand that. Because that's all you cared about. The Miami market. Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

Hugely hurtful to find that out. Devastating. Heartbreaking. But the most heartbreaking thing that happens to our show happens after people start coming back to work. But we've got an entire Covid era to discuss. Because our internal tensions with ESPN management types that kind of gets put on ice as the entire world hits pause and the pandemic. Pandemic changes everything.

[Greg Cody]

I will ask you guys the flip.

[Dan Le Batard]

Of I thought it was important. Had you known. I thought that discussion.

[Greg Cody]

I saw my. Thank you. No.

[Mike Ryan]

I wanted to defend our Guy, too. Because, like, I've known Dan. There's been like four dozen times where I'm like, dan, this jeopardizes everything. And I know you want to do it, and he did it, and no, no, no. And he doesn't do it or he alters it.

[Dan Le Batard]

Really.

[Mike Ryan]

He listens to me. I'm like, dan, if you go down this road when he has a full grasp ahead of time of how it might impact everybody, Dan almost entirely acts in the best interest of the group. There was so much change so fast during this time that Dan genuinely was confused by it. And you were avoiding so many phone calls, which, if you would have answered one of them, you would have had an idea.

[Dan Le Batard]

One Dave Roberts.

[Mike Ryan]

One. One phone calling at me.

[Dan Le Batard]

My daughter's in the car. I'm at a lacrosse tournament.

[Greg Cody]

I know what your answer. What do you want me to do? God, I know what your answer is to this question, but I want to.

[Dan Le Batard]

Ask.

[Greg Cody]

Mike this question, because I'm going LeBron, really? Mike Ryan made some of the decisions with an unborn daughter on gambles that we've taken as a show in the name of believing in ourselves and believing in the content. So if I tell you now, Mike Ryan, not with everything else that has happened, but that the hill we're going to die on. Mike, you're not going to believe this, but this is how it ends at espn. It ends because Dan and we knew that if we went down to the pool with Chris Cody in the battery and sat in first takes shot that we would immediately get fired and did it anyway.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Would you have chosen that as the joke to end our ESPN tenure, even if the consequences were your unborn daughter doesn't get to enjoy the fruit of all of your labor and good decisions since.

[Mike Ryan]

Yes, 100%. But I think you ignoring Dave Robertson or V. Williamson that entire trip down to Miami had more to do with it than battery.

[Dan Le Batard]

So you know my answer to that question.

[Greg Cody]

Yes, I'm pretty sure. I know that you would just stay at ESPN and not cause any trouble and just eat muffins.

[Mike Ryan]

Coming up next, we lighten things up with a death of millions.

[Dan Le Batard]

Folks. Did you know that sleep is one.

[Stugotz]

Of the most important parts of recovery? Whether you're a pro athlete or just.

[Dan Le Batard]

Looking to crush your day, getting the.

[Stugotz]

Right kind of rest is key.

[Dan Le Batard]

And that's where sleep number smart beds comes in. Since 2018, Sleep Number has partnered with.

[Stugotz]

The NFL to help elite athletes get quality sleep that they need to perform at their best. In fact, 80% of NFL players sleep.

[Dan Le Batard]

On Sleep Number Smart Beds Tough workout the Sleep Number Smart Bed can be adjusted to suit your needs.

[Stugotz]

Firmer one night, softer the next, giving.

[Dan Le Batard]

You the ultimate recovery boost. And let's talk about those sweaty, sleepless nights. The New Climate Cool Smart Bed adjusts up to 15 degrees cooler on either.

[Stugotz]

Side with scientifically designed cooling programs to.

[Dan Le Batard]

Keep you comfortable and undisturbed. Sleep Number Smart Beds don't just help you sleep, they learn how you sleep, providing personalized insights to help you get even better rest. It's like having a sleep coach right in your bedroom. Why choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort.

[Stugotz]

On either side and now save 50%.

[Dan Le Batard]

On the new Sleep Number Limited Edition.

[Stugotz]

Smart Bed Limited time exclusively at a.

[Dan Le Batard]

Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.

[Mike Ryan]

Hey folks, it's Mike Ryan and I need to talk to you about something that I use religiously. Anytime I'm hosting a big dinner party, I want to impress people and I get food from some of the most iconic, famous places in the country. You know what helps me do that? Gold Belly. This amazing site where I order from all the time where you can get all these amazing foods from all across our great country. They will ship free to your door anywhere in the US of A. Gold Belly will ship you Philly cheesesteaks from Jim's or Pat's in Philly. I'm treating my office right now to a cheesesteak party from Pat's, courtesy of Gold Belly. And on top of that, I threw in some original Buffalo wings from Anchor Bar in Buffalo. You can get Kansas City's most legendary barbecue from Gold Belly. And if the pizza near you sucks, they will ship you New York style pizza from John's on Bleecker or Chicago deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. I do that all the time. Or even New Haven or Detroit style pizza. If you are truly gluttonous though, they will ship you Guy Fieri's famous trash can nachos, which I kid you not, are the ultimate game day centerpiece. So if you're looking to host an epic super bowl party, or any party for that matter, go to goldbelly.com and get free shipping and 20% off your first order with promo code DAN. That's goldbelly.com code DAN for free shipping and 20% off your 1st order.

[Stugotz]

Guys, it's that time of year. Valentine's Day is coming up and for me there's only one place that I trust. 1-800-flowers.com Every year I order stunning, high quality bouquets from 1-800-flowers that my wife absolutely loves. She looks forward to them every single year. She knows it's happening and yet she's surprised and loves them every single year. And this year, I'm partnering with 1-800-FLOWERS to make sure you're a Valentine's Day hero with exclusive offers just for our listeners. Double the roses for free. When you buy one dozen roses, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses. It's the perfect way to say I love you without breaking the bank. Trust me, 1-800-FLowers always delivers. And the roses are incredible, guys. We got the sneak peek of the roses at the Lebatar show studios and they're incredible. All right. Long stem red roses accompanied by an hourglass red vase.

[Mike Ryan]

Everything beautiful.

[Stugotz]

They're timeless. Luxurious. Luxurious romantic. Ready to get you going for Valentine's Day in the office has never smelled better, fellas. It's a must have on this Valentine's Day. To claim your double roses offer, go to 1-800-flowers.com dan. That's 1-800-flowers. Com dan.

[Greg Cody]

Give us as much as you can here. Take us up to the dramatic first pitch.

[Stugotz]

Billy Jose arena standing at the back of the mound. He reaches down, he's rubbing some dirt and rosin on his hand. And here we go. Now he's writing something on the mound with his fingers next to the logo. I can't see what he's writing. All right.

[Mike Ryan]

He's.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, here we go.

[Stugotz]

And the wind up. And the pitch.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, God.

[Dan Le Batard]

A home run on the first. Welcome, Derek, Jen. And that concludes our Marlins coverage for the season. Saturday, it's Bark in the park night at the Fort Myers Miracle game.

[Stugotz]

The miracle take on the Lakeland flying tigers at 6:00.

[Dan Le Batard]

6:00. An oatmeal. It's the oatmeal.

[Greg Cody]

The dog friendly event includes doggy pools.

[Stugotz]

Adoptable dogs as well, even treat bags.

[Dan Le Batard]

For your own puppies. It's also Buddy the Elf night.

[Stugotz]

So if you dress as Buddy the.

[Dan Le Batard]

Elf, you get a special ticket offer.

[Stugotz]

There's a Santa hat giveaway, a car.

[Greg Cody]

Giveaway, and it's Greg Coat Knight.

[Stugotz]

Cody Knight.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay, stepping to the plate, number 13, Yeltsin.

[Greg Cody]

And car State and carnation. We kick off our super bowl coverage.

[Dan Le Batard]

With Kenny G. What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? Have me play the national anthem, big boy. What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to to do to beat the Patriots, man, they got to keep spreading that ball around like they've been doing it. Matt Ryan just got to stay poised and calm and play the same kind.

[Mike Ryan]

Of ball they've been playing.

[Greg Cody]

Queen Latifah is with us.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? Oh, boy. They got to stay healthy and they.

[Greg Cody]

Gotta play the entire game because Tom.

[Dan Le Batard]

Brady ain't no joke.

[Greg Cody]

Kenny G, thank you for making yet more time for us.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to to beat the Patriots?

[Greg Cody]

I told you yesterday, if I'm such a national anthem, that's all you need.

[Mike Ryan]

To do right there.

[Dan Le Batard]

Just get me to play the national anthem and that show and then. And your dreams will come true.

[Greg Cody]

We continue our super bowl week coverage with Ron McGill.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Mike Ryan]

I think the Falcons are going to beat the Patriots, first of all, and I think they just have to let.

[Greg Cody]

Matt Ryan do what he does. Bill Burr is as funny as funny gets.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Mike Ryan]

I do not want us to play catch up against those guys.

[Dan Le Batard]

And I think defenses win championship. Patriots have a good defense.

[Mike Ryan]

As much as the Falcons are, like, ranked 25th, I think they sucked early.

[Dan Le Batard]

In the year and they got their act together. I'm judging them. The way they played against Seattle and Green Bay.

[Mike Ryan]

I think it's going to be a classic.

[Greg Cody]

David Johnson with us now.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important certain thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, that's a tough one. I would say run the ball.

[Greg Cody]

Ezra Edelman is a brooder.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Mike Ryan]

What?

[Greg Cody]

Kenny G, thank you for making yet more time for us.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? Oh, well, again, I need to play.

[Greg Cody]

The national anthem there. How much many times do I have to tell you?

[Dan Le Batard]

All right, all right.

[Greg Cody]

Bob Lee is the best journalist that ESPN has.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Greg Cody]

Score more points.

[Dan Le Batard]

Kyle Schwaber. What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots?

[Stugotz]

The Falcons run the football.

[Greg Cody]

His latest album, Brazilian Nights, is available now. For tour dates, visit kennyg.com Doesn't Stu have a question for him? Oh, yes. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Sorry. Our bad Very good, Kenny. I mean, hold on a second, hold on.

[Dan Le Batard]

What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? The single most important thing, I need.

[Greg Cody]

To play the national anthem at the game.

[Dan Le Batard]

David Deal. What's the single most important thing the Falcons have to do to beat the Patriots? I think the biggest thing that they have to do to beat the Patriots.

[Greg Cody]

Is they need to play clean mistake free football.

[Dan Le Batard]

It takes a full two weeks of.

[Greg Cody]

Preparation to get ready for that game.

[Dan Le Batard]

No, number one, you have to be.

[Greg Cody]

Prepared for the unexpected. You have to know the rules of the game. But the biggest thing for me looking at this game is it comes down to coaching. And I talk about halftime. Halftime usually come in it's about 15 minutes during a regular season game or a playoff game. But the super bowl, it feels like.

[Dan Le Batard]

You'Re in there for like an hour.

[Greg Cody]

I'll never forget In Super Bowl 42, I'm like, okay, we still have time. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'll come back out. I'm sitting in the bathroom, bathroom and I'm going, I'm taking a pee and I'm start singing Free Falling. I'm like, wait a second. I could hear Tom Petty in the stadium while I was in the bathroom going. I'm like, okay, this is definitely the Super Bowl.

[Mike Ryan]

I like the cut of your jib. You've realized you're not man enough. You need man 101 in your life. It takes makes a real man to realize he made a mistake, but an even bigger one to realize that mistakes are the domain of the loser. They're called mistakes, not Mr.

[Dan Le Batard]

Steaks.

[Mike Ryan]

Trade in that Hyundai Sonata, get yourself a Chevy Silverado and drive your kee, sir to Mark Schleris, man 101. And when you think you've arrived, you have it. We trick Google Maps into thinking we're located somewhere we ain't. Why? Because here at Man 101, we'll always make you go that extra mile. Mark Schleris, Man 101.

[Dan Le Batard]

You're welcome.

[Mike Ryan]

Mark Schleris, Man101 features an all star cast of instructors to help you get the results you need. Tony Bercelli's history class will show you that Rome could have actually been built.

[Dan Le Batard]

In a day if those lazy Italians.

[Mike Ryan]

Just had some elbow grease. And Warren Sapp's finance class will teach your mouth not to write checks your ass can't cash. We're not savages, though. We'll even allow you to recharge your batteries in our World class spa. You've heard of saunas and mo mud mask?

[Dan Le Batard]

We kind of have that.

[Mike Ryan]

Only we lock you up in Texas Tech's equipment room and just put your hand in the dirt. And remember each day ends with Mr. Slerith chewing you up and spitting you out. So sign up right now for Mark Slearith Man 101. The price is whatever you can afford as long as you put your money where your mouth is. Enroll now and get two free tickets.

[Dan Le Batard]

To the gun show.

[Mike Ryan]

Which just means you get to at Brian McCann doing some arm curls. So long as you don't look him in the eye. Marks Laris Man 101.

[Dan Le Batard]

You're welcome. You ever watched the combine?

[Mike Ryan]

All these so called football players prancing around in their skivvies worried about being aerodynamic and clocking a good 40. Here at Marks Laris man 101 the only sports where we hand you is a hard hat and a lunch pail. Protein shakes.

[Dan Le Batard]

We don't drink shakes.

[Mike Ryan]

Why? Because we already got the best damn blenders on earth.

[Dan Le Batard]

Our jaws butch up.

[Stugotz]

I know.

[Mike Ryan]

Life has its ups and downs. They're called squats. Now drop and give me 20 marks laris man 101.

[Dan Le Batard]

You're welcome. Ladies, we must do everything in our power to fight toxic masculinity for the men in our lives, for us, for the future of of society. But until then, take advantage of the fact that if you fart at the bar, no one will think it was you. You've heard of Mark Schleritz? Man 101. This is Katie Nolan's woman 101. Tickets are going now for just 79 to 82 cents on the dollar depending on your industry. Katie Nolan's woman won a 101.

[Stugotz]

You're welcome.

[Dan Le Batard]

Ladies, when a man says well actually do you instantly get your period? Do you definitely always totally watch the wnba?

[Mike Ryan]

Never miss a game when dream of it.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's like so important to you. Then Katie Nolan's Woman 101 is a seminar for you. Learn such value valuable skills as crying discreetly on public transportation, writing a work email without an exclamation point and how to not poop. Katie Nolan's woman 101. Seriously, I have not pooped since 1995. Do you dislike Lena Dunham as much as your male friends but feel uncomfortable saying so in a public forum? MeToo at Katie Nolan's Woman 101 we'll teach you how to deploy useful phrases like I support the message, just not the messenger. So you can Be the ally the world constantly expects you to be. Did you find the Aziz Ansari story to be completely relatable, but still pretend to be outraged because support of the MeToo movement was more important in that moment than your personal opinion or experience? Even though that you have had that.

[Mike Ryan]

I mean, who hasn't had an experience that was similar?

[Dan Le Batard]

And it's uncomfortable and you get that, but it was just. It wasn't time for you to voice that opinion right then. It was more important that you talked about the movement so you didn't counteract all the work that all the.

[Mike Ryan]

All the wonderful women who we believe.

[Dan Le Batard]

In were doing for. It just was. It's really complex. And you. What was I. Katie Nolan's woman, 101. It's not a problem. Honestly. I'm happy to help.

[Mike Ryan]

Domestically, he's won everything there is to win at Barcelona.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

And he started Barcelona, what, 13?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

He's won everything there is to win.

[Dan Le Batard]

Here's how you know what Messi's about.

[Greg Cody]

When they were winning, the best things at Barcelona was.

[Mike Ryan]

Messi was Xavi Iniesta, David Villa, that.

[Greg Cody]

That was a team.

[Mike Ryan]

When they would break from 2008 on and go their separate ways for major tournaments, Xavi and Iniesta and David Villa.

[Greg Cody]

And all those Spanish guys from Barca were winning tournaments three in a row. Euro 2008, World Cup 2010, Euro 2012.

[Stugotz]

Good math.

[Mike Ryan]

Messi, the second he steps on a field without that core is average.

[Dan Le Batard]

And you have seen it in Copa Americas. You have seen it in World Cups.

[Mike Ryan]

He's now gone 675 straight minutes without scoring a World cup goal. Because Xavi's not there, because Iniesta is.

[Greg Cody]

Not there, because David Villa is not there.

[Dan Le Batard]

And the best players I've ever seen.

[Mike Ryan]

In my life can play with anybody.

[Greg Cody]

Cristiano Ronaldo can play with any.

[Mike Ryan]

Michael Carrick's sucks.

[Greg Cody]

Derek Fletcher sucks.

[Mike Ryan]

Why are you stabbing Michael? I'm making a point.

[Greg Cody]

I'm making a point that Ronaldo didn't have.

[Mike Ryan]

Didn't have Xavi Ronaldo, Nav Iniesta, Zinedine Zidane could play with anybody.

[Greg Cody]

And he did it constantly at Juventus.

[Dan Le Batard]

For France, Real Madrid scoring in the final at Hampton park in Scotland. He could play with any Ronaldo.

[Mike Ryan]

Fat Ronaldo from Brazil could play with any, anybody and win.

[Greg Cody]

That's greatness. That's a goat. That's a guy you respect.

[Mike Ryan]

Fraud. I love slants, man. Wow.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's what they're sponsoring. Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Wait a minute. Was that you or Guden who just did that?

[Mike Ryan]

I love slants, man.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wow.

[Mike Ryan]

You know, I love my brother, man. He's over here, actually, he's looking for his quarterback. Over here?

[Stugotz]

Yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Where's Robert and Kirk?

[Mike Ryan]

I love that, man.

[Greg Cody]

Fats and info's limited. Fake J. Gr. It's just too obscure.

[Mike Ryan]

Very limited.

[Greg Cody]

Where's Robert Kirk? Wait a minute. Why is he. Why is he. He doesn't know where they are. Like that's all you've got?

[Stugotz]

More that, man.

[Greg Cody]

Okay.

[Mike Ryan]

I'll help you look for him, man.

[Dan Le Batard]

Robert Kirk.

[Greg Cody]

Kirk.

[Mike Ryan]

I should hold a camp man to find your quarterback.

[Greg Cody]

This is the Gruden brothers. What would it sound like? Let me do this another way. What would it sound like if the Gruden brothers were teaming up to play hide and go seek?

[Mike Ryan]

I love that game. You count.

[Stugotz]

Okay, I'm gonna go run.

[Greg Cody]

One, two, three.

[Mike Ryan]

Don't forget about four.

[Dan Le Batard]

Outlaws.

[Greg Cody]

Love for Robert.

[Mike Ryan]

Robert, I'm out here playing with your quarterbacks, man.

[Dan Le Batard]

Ready or not, man.

[Stugotz]

Drink them.

[Mike Ryan]

Try to not look under.

[Stugotz]

Hey, I see you, man. Tag, man.

[Greg Cody]

Who you see? Who you see? Fat Rock.

[Dan Le Batard]

Fat Rob. Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Okay. So stupid.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Ryan]

And Demolition manage Drexler.

[Greg Cody]

Absolutely not.

[Mike Ryan]

Die Hard can be Jordan Drexler.

[Greg Cody]

Look, it's not a Paul Millsap.

[Dan Le Batard]

A couple more years.

[Greg Cody]

No, you know what? I'll tell you what Demolition man is. Demolition man is Jamal McGlore. That's.

[Dan Le Batard]

What. Get out. That's disrespectful.

[Mike Ryan]

Unbelievable.

[Greg Cody]

But just following it. I mean, how sure are you that Baker Mayfield's going to be a star?

[Mike Ryan]

I mean, he's got the goods, dude. Now, if there's anything.

[Greg Cody]

That was an unnecessary.

[Mike Ryan]

He's got the goods.

[Greg Cody]

Wait a minute.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hold on.

[Greg Cody]

Two minutes. Get you. Two minutes.

[Stugotz]

You understand what I'm saying?

[Greg Cody]

Two minutes. Get out of here, Dan.

[Stugotz]

Thank you very much, Dan.

[Greg Cody]

Definitely deserve that. Dude, the goods, dude.

[Mike Ryan]

That's got to be more than two minutes.

[Greg Cody]

In fact. Yes, a five minute major. Yes, yes, a five minute major. He's got the goods, dude. Nick, thank you so much for being on with us. Really enjoy your work.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, thanks for having me.

[Dan Le Batard]

Have a great day. Why do you carry around $2,000? Unless you're paying off a referee or something.

[Mike Ryan]

It's pocket change.

[Dan Le Batard]

Whoa. What happened?

[Greg Cody]

What happened?

[Dan Le Batard]

What happened? I didn't imply that Doc Rivers is like a saint, one of the great coaches of all time.

[Greg Cody]

Put on the poll, Guillermo. First of all, is Greg Cody. As a journalist, spectacularly reckless. Put that on a poll first and then secondarily put on the poll as well. Is Doc Rivers paying referees?

[Dan Le Batard]

I never said he was. Dan. Dan, listen up. Turn up your headset. Marriage is tricky. I got tricked into it by Abby. And now Valerie has played the same trick on you. I thought you were smarter than that. Anyway, here's what you need to know. Your days of winning arguments are over. They are gone. Forget about them. You'll never win another argument again. Just wait. She'll make the crooked logic I've used in the past seem like scripture. No matter what, you are always wrong. Even thinking that you are right. Wrong. I see you nodding. Knock it off. You are wrong. Remember that. Wrong. Secondly, pick a day of the week for sex. One day you'll thank me later. Not everyone gets a day. I pick Sunday because the jets stink. I hate them. Not Sundays. The Jets. I hate the Jets. Abby hates Sundays. Sundays are all I have left. Sundays and golf. That's right. Pick a hobby. You'll need to escape the house a lot. Just don't pick golf. Cause I have no interest in playing with you. If you have kids, here's what you do. Put a lacrosse stick in their hand. Force them to be a lefty. I'll coach them for a price that will split their future earnings. 9010 my way. Good, good. By the way, now, if you have a kid, does that mean we have to fire Chris Cody? That's how nepotism works, right? Lastly, Aunt Dan. I can't stress this enough. I hope you got a brain up. You're a metrics guy. 51% of these end badly. I may not believe in stats, but I believe in money. The most important thing on your big day isn't love or happiness. It's the prenup. I really hope you got her John Hancock on the dotted line before you waddle down. That I own. And if you didn't, I've got attorneys. And just so you know, if you do get divorced, I get 100% of your stuff. Except the kids. You're stuck with them for life. To recap marriage. Tricky. I got tricked. Thought you were smarter. You'll never win an argument again. Crooked logic. Pick a day for sex. Thank me later. I ate the Jets. Abby ate sundaes. Pick a hobby. Escape the house. Kids. Lacrosse stick. Left handed. 9010 my way. Fire Chris Cody. Nepotism. Prenup. John Hancock waddled. Where's Joe Buck? Somebody check on him. I think the brownies are out. And now it's time for a smoke break with Mikey C. All right, here we go. Yes. Didn't mean to turn the tables.

[Stugotz]

This is great.

[Greg Cody]

All right.

[Stugotz]

Welcome to a new edition of Smoke.

[Greg Cody]

Break with Mikey C. I'm your host, outsider Mikey.

[Stugotz]

Oh, drop the pizza.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's okay.

[Mike Ryan]

I got it, I got it.

[Stugotz]

That voice that you're hearing, I'm very excited.

[Greg Cody]

Joining me out by the dumpster is none other than Mina Kimes. Welcome to the show, Mina.

[Stugotz]

How are you?

[Dan Le Batard]

Hi. I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

[Greg Cody]

Mina's actually been doing more interview questions on me lately, but I did some research for you.

[Stugotz]

I got all these things.

[Greg Cody]

I could go off sprint, but I don't know where to go, so. So let's run through these real quick.

[Stugotz]

You, you get to like interview like.

[Greg Cody]

A bunch of cool people all the time and everything like that.

[Stugotz]

Athletes and stuff.

[Greg Cody]

Have you ever gone to visit somebody and all of a sudden they were smoking while you were trying to do an interview?

[Dan Le Batard]

Smoking, maybe like a cigarette. Either or, I guess. Well, I. Non cigarette division. Yes, yes.

[Greg Cody]

No cigarettes though. Everyone's in the non cigarette division. Yeah, that's.

[Stugotz]

The times have changed and you know, I live in California.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Nobody smokes out there, do they?

[Stugotz]

Not a lot of cigarette smokers, no. That's too bad.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah. Did you know there's an article from tvovermind.com about you. 10 things you didn't know about Mina Kimes?

[Dan Le Batard]

I think a lot of those articles are computer generated.

[Stugotz]

Is that what it is?

[Dan Le Batard]

I think a lot of them are written by bots.

[Greg Cody]

Well, it was written by Tom.

[Stugotz]

Yeah, it just says Tom.

[Dan Le Batard]

Don't think Tom's a real person. Just gonna go on a limb and say that.

[Greg Cody]

Well, I was gonna.

[Stugotz]

Back home, my like research is so much better because these are these, these questions that I have.

[Greg Cody]

Like number 10, there's not a lot of information. Is it getting in your face?

[Stugotz]

I should have. There's not a lot of information about her early years.

[Dan Le Batard]

Is that true? I mean, I guess.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah, I kind of. What are they gonna write about a 10 year old? Social media too?

[Dan Le Batard]

Wasn't really until I was in college. Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Mina started as about as a business journalist. I think I knew that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, that's actually.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, you printed it out.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, I forgot this one.

[Greg Cody]

She has a net worth of around 1 million.

[Dan Le Batard]

I would have actually guessed higher probably. I don't even know how quote unquote. Tom would have arrived at that.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, he's got your salary right here and everything.

[Stugotz]

That is inaccurate. Yeah, well, yeah, you know, I probably.

[Greg Cody]

Interviewed more millionaires by a dumpster.

[Stugotz]

We should call Guinness.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah.

[Greg Cody]

Like, who's interviewed more millionaires by a dumpster than Mikey C. You have carved.

[Stugotz]

Out a very specific niche.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

What else is there here?

[Greg Cody]

Anything else?

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, my God. Is your record is still on?

[Mike Ryan]

I just wanted to make sure.

[Stugotz]

It's always on.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay.

[Greg Cody]

This one, I wanted to ask you.

[Stugotz]

She reports.

[Greg Cody]

Number four. Thing you didn't know about Mina Kimes.

[Stugotz]

She reports on a lot of different.

[Greg Cody]

Controversial subjects, but tries to avoid any personal controversy. I.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes, I think that's true of us.

[Greg Cody]

All right.

[Mike Ryan]

Or at least the second part.

[Stugotz]

And then they take shots at you.

[Greg Cody]

Her social media following is.

[Stugotz]

Is substantial enough.

[Dan Le Batard]

Whoa.

[Greg Cody]

It's definitely not on par with a lot of other celebrities that are in full, full view of the public on average.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wow.

[Stugotz]

More than 62.

[Dan Le Batard]

I feel like at ESPN, I'm pretty. Pretty high up there.

[Greg Cody]

Do you know about what you have some followers?

[Dan Le Batard]

My Twitter is 280/something, so I think that's pretty. Mike, is that.

[Stugotz]

Yeah, go, Joe. What are you sitting at?

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm at like 175,000. That's good. 175 is good.

[Greg Cody]

I'm at 18,000.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's a lot.

[Greg Cody]

That's not bad for like a. Behind you.

[Stugotz]

Yeah, that's right.

[Greg Cody]

Yep.

[Stugotz]

Yeah.

[Mike Ryan]

This is not a very good article.

[Stugotz]

No, I was kind of disappointed by it.

[Mike Ryan]

All right, well, that's all that I have left, so.

[Greg Cody]

Well, thank you for joining me, Mina.

[Stugotz]

I really appreciate you doing this. And we'll catch you on the Internet, hopefully soon. Thank you so much for having me.

[Dan Le Batard]

I appreciate your follow.

[Greg Cody]

We have a very uncomfortable tension and have had one around here since we got to espn between us and management. And I don't like what's happening around here. There's division everywhere. I don't even know if Roy's leaving right now because he's fed up or Roy and Billy. Roy and Billy are not down with what Michael and Christopher are down with.

[Dan Le Batard]

Someone's gonna walk out of that door and never come back, I'm telling you at this point.

[Greg Cody]

But there is a real tension. Thank you, Amin, for sitting in, because at any point today, anybody can walk out of here because they're. We're having arguments in the hallway about stuff. Billy is very frustrated. He hasn't been able to get his shots off the last couple of days because corporate Michael is doing nothing but advertising and selling out at every turn. Billy has lost his best friend, Chris, who has come over literally, to the. Christopher, who has literally come over to.

[Mike Ryan]

The side of my right hand. Dan.

[Greg Cody]

Michael. And Michael is Insisting I talk about NBA playoff.

[Mike Ryan]

Well, what I insist is for the audience setting up who you are, who your co host is, and start nailing the top du jour.

[Stugotz]

Also, what time?

[Mike Ryan]

Yes, what time? What station are people listening to?

[Greg Cody]

Well, a lot of them. A lot of different stations.

[Mike Ryan]

What network are you on?

[Greg Cody]

ESPN Radio. Who is that behind you? Who There. Listen, hold on a second.

[Dan Le Batard]

I have no idea who these people are.

[Greg Cody]

Stop for a second. I have to stop for a second and forgive this audience because more and more ESPN executives keep flying down.

[Dan Le Batard]

Here.

[Greg Cody]

We were work in a closet. In a closet, over a bar. And more I'm. Every time I walk out of this studio, there's another person with a tie who looks exactly like all the other people in a tie. And now there's someone sitting behind you. Mike, I don't know who that person is.

[Mike Ryan]

It's Michael.

[Greg Cody]

Who is the person behind you?

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, McDonough. He's our business strategist. See, the show is growing. So is our overhead.

[Dan Le Batard]

McDonough.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, it's your business.

[Greg Cody]

He's awfully brown for being a McDonough, isn't he?

[Mike Ryan]

Gotta watch that compliance video. I've been on you about that.

[Greg Cody]

I'm talking about literally, what are we doing here?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, I was following you. I agree.

[Mike Ryan]

Building tsl.

[Dan Le Batard]

Legit question. It's part of gei, man.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah. In fact, I know GEI is hard for you guys to understand, but coming off of our two minute sellout at the Gramercy Theatre in New York, my right hand man, Christopher, has actually brought a graph. Thank you, McDonough, for preparing this. Okay, so here is right here, as you can see, here is global in this pie chart. You see that little sliver right there in the pie chart? That was our global expansion before the initiative. And now Christopher. That's global expansion now after the initiative.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wow.

[Mike Ryan]

All black.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wow.

[Stugotz]

Good job.

[Dan Le Batard]

Does that mean we've taken over the.

[Greg Cody]

World or AM radio? The future of AM radio is ours. We can do whatever we want with it. I do feel like we've totally lost Billy, though. Billy, you. You haven't said much of anything for the last two days.

[Dan Le Batard]

He's confused.

[Greg Cody]

Well, he's not just confused. He's also sulking. As an added bonus.

[Stugotz]

I'm not sulking. I'm sad for what we've become.

[Greg Cody]

Please elaborate.

[Stugotz]

I mean, I think we all know what's going on here.

[Greg Cody]

You care to expound? Or do you want to just be.

[Stugotz]

Pretending that we didn't sell out? But we've totally sold out and it's sad. I mean, we used to be self deprecating. Now we're self congratulatory and it's just. It's a sad turn that we've taken. We are Mike. Francesa.

[Mike Ryan]

We did sell out. We absolutely did sell out. The Gramercy Theater in two minutes because.

[Stugotz]

Of W E E I.

[Mike Ryan]

No, it's GEI Put on the poll.

[Greg Cody]

Guillermo, is God Bless America controversial because it's getting pulled off of some of the ballpark.

[Mike Ryan]

We're gonna.

[Stugotz]

We're gonna not switch topics.

[Mike Ryan]

Do not put that pull up. Do not put that pull up. That's a direct order.

[Greg Cody]

What do you mean it's a direct order?

[Stugotz]

Thank you.

[Mike Ryan]

Amino Michael Decaf.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah. I got you sugar and I got you Equal. I didn't know which one you'd like better.

[Mike Ryan]

Both are fine. Thank you so much.

[Greg Cody]

I mean, really coming along. Go sit in the penalty box. Go sit in the penalty box. Get out of here, Amino. Get out of here. No, you're just sucking. You're. Get out of here. Leave, please. Thank you. I am so.

[Mike Ryan]

I mean, this is so ready for.

[Greg Cody]

This week to end.

[Mike Ryan]

This is so sophomoric. We should be talking about the things that matter, like Kevin Durant's performance. Instead, you're kicking people out and putting them in penalty boxes. Christopher is out in a pool, which has to be some sort of hazard. Yeah, I haven't seen the compliance video yet. This is pretty unprecedented. I. And generally the show's growing and being more successful than ever. Your segment on First Take was the highest rated quarter hour of the day. First Take, the biggest show in America with relatively zero promotion, I might add. You were number one. Why? Global Expansion Initiative. Kinds has a commercial because of my emails to my superiors saying that she should be the face of what we're doing. And our expansion. Gramercy Theater, May 18, New York. Record time. That show sells out in two minutes. And you're telling me what I'm doing right now is a bad thing? I see these as all successes, wild successes.

[Dan Le Batard]

We were talking about farting on First Take.

[Mike Ryan]

Yeah, I got that email, too. You know What? I'm calling Mr. Williamson.

[Greg Cody]

What was it?

[Mike Ryan]

What do you mean, force my hand?

[Greg Cody]

What do you mean?

[Dan Le Batard]

You want us to talk about the topics of the day? And I'm saying we went up first and we talked about farting. I mean. And it was the highest rated quarter hours.

[Greg Cody]

Am I supposed to be afraid of you calling Mr. Williamson? Is that supposed to strike fear?

[Mike Ryan]

Me?

[Greg Cody]

You think I'm Billy Williamson, right?

[Mike Ryan]

Now I have a direct line. Yes, Mr. Williamson.

[Greg Cody]

Get out of here. Let's get out of here. Roy. Billy. Roy. Lock that door. Lock that door. As soon as he gets out, lock that door. Don't. Don't even let him back in.

[Dan Le Batard]

Thank you.

[Greg Cody]

Thank you. We every empty the fart folder Next.

[Dan Le Batard]

It started with a gut feeling that.

[Mike Ryan]

Nobody wanted to believe in mine.

[Greg Cody]

I would have cleaned and plus you.

[Stugotz]

Would have smelt it.

[Mike Ryan]

But all the data was there.

[Greg Cody]

I don't think there's much question about that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Chris Carter. I'm pretty certain that boom made a noise with his mouth.

[Mike Ryan]

Tom Jackson.

[Dan Le Batard]

And PJ Carissimo is the Geiger counter.

[Mike Ryan]

Reader who's the first to know some.

[Greg Cody]

Sort of catastrophe is coming but can't.

[Mike Ryan]

Get anyone to listen to him become. I worked too hard this week. Jim Tsula.

[Stugotz]

One of examples of football history of good. I've worked too hard.

[Dan Le Batard]

You have thrown everything away.

[Mike Ryan]

We stole the Gramercy out in two minutes and all you want to do is fart around. Quite literally. How'd you even find that? Tom Sula clip.

[Greg Cody]

Why do you have a hammer? Why was I locked out?

[Mike Ryan]

You know what?

[Greg Cody]

Get out of here. What? I quit. What?

[Dan Le Batard]

Whoa.

[Mike Ryan]

I quit.

[Dan Le Batard]

Whoa.

[Mike Ryan]

He's had fun farting around and being small time.

[Greg Cody]

Ladies and gentlemen.

[Stugotz]

Yes.

[Greg Cody]

Actually, no, not yes. It's just gentlemen. Because this is an unrelenting ocean of sausage I'm looking at. Gentlemen, may I present to you Greg Cody.

[Mike Ryan]

Wow. You screwed it up because you already screwed up.

[Greg Cody]

Let's do it again. We did this like seven times today. Get out of here.

[Dan Le Batard]

Doing it's for you. You're taking.

[Stugotz]

I will keep quitting.

[Mike Ryan]

He was taking the praise. He got caught.

[Dan Le Batard]

We do it again. What?

[Mike Ryan]

We rehearsed.

[Greg Cody]

We did it like seven times today. He got it wrong.

[Dan Le Batard]

Are you attending a Laker game tonight? My God.

[Greg Cody]

Let's go do it again.

[Stugotz]

Don't walk from.

[Greg Cody]

Ladies and gentlemen, just gentlemen, Rick Cody. Oh, yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Go.

[Greg Cody]

You got to sing soon. You got the song is yours.

[Dan Le Batard]

Start spreading the news. I'm grieving today.

[Stugotz]

Because Zion won't be part of it.

[Dan Le Batard]

New York.

[Mike Ryan]

What?

[Stugotz]

Too soon?

[Greg Cody]

It is time to do the spelling.

[Mike Ryan]

All right, gentlemen. We've done this for several years running. We haven't done it during the NBA playoffs this year because we were saving it for something special. And then we settled on let's just do it in New York. Anyways. Whatever. We got to burn this up. So you will each be given three names. Totally random. Totally random. And this will be a competition. These are names in the NBA playoffs.

[Dan Le Batard]

I got this.

[Mike Ryan]

All right. Dan will go first. Dan. And make sure if you. If you have difficulty understanding the name, ask for it in a sentence, okay? Please. Your first name is Kevin Duran.

[Dan Le Batard]

The hell out of here.

[Greg Cody]

Can I hear it in a sentence, please?

[Stugotz]

When things got tough in Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant took the easy path and left to Golden State because he couldn't win on his own. As a result, none of his rings count in Stat's personal record book.

[Greg Cody]

K E V I n D U R a N T. K E V.

[Stugotz]

I n D U R A N T. Kevin Dream.

[Greg Cody]

Dan.

[Mike Ryan]

All right.

[Dan Le Batard]

Spelled the KD you would have been.

[Greg Cody]

I'm up one. Nothing.

[Mike Ryan]

Dan is up. Here we go. Here's his name. Totally drawn at random.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, Jesus Christ. I got this. Who the hell. Katie Nolan. I got this.

[Mike Ryan]

Would you like it in a sentence?

[Dan Le Batard]

I would like to hear it in a sentence, please. Yes.

[Stugotz]

Boban Mayanovich looks like the recluse giant from a children's fairy tale who is initially misunderstood because of his size and shy demeanor, but then forever beloved when his unexpected heroics saves local children from a precarious situation.

[Dan Le Batard]

B o B A n. Am I still alive? Amartha ii. Last name Marjanovich. Oh, my God. M a r. He got Kevin Durant.

[Mike Ryan]

Mike, it's just totally drawn at random.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, I know it is, man. M A r J O H N. Boba Mayanovich. What?

[Stugotz]

B o B a n. M A R. J A N A o V I C. Boba.

[Greg Cody]

So close.

[Mike Ryan]

So close.

[Greg Cody]

Okay, what's my second word?

[Mike Ryan]

Second name Totally drawn at random. Here's Dan's Russell Westbrook.

[Dan Le Batard]

The hell out of here, man.

[Greg Cody]

Can I hear it in a sentence, please?

[Stugotz]

Dan is incapable of talking about Russell Westbrook without saying either fast twitch, muscle fiber, or me. Chill.

[Greg Cody]

Hissing radiator. I do. Hissing radiator.

[Mike Ryan]

Hissing radiator is another one.

[Greg Cody]

Two Ls or one L R U S. Are you.

[Dan Le Batard]

Were you asking me?

[Greg Cody]

E L L W E S T B R O. Okay.

[Stugotz]

Russell Westbrook. R U S S E L L W E S T B R O O K. Russell Westbrook.

[Dan Le Batard]

Aqua.

[Mike Ryan]

All right, next name. Totally drawn at random. Sugats are still in this. Here we go.

[Dan Le Batard]

Let's go. Get the hell out of here. We heard a sentence stood that the.

[Stugotz]

Greek freak was going to hog all the titles, but somehow had the Celtics beat him last.

[Mike Ryan]

Last round.

[Stugotz]

Just like that lady of Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce sucks. Let me hear you. Both beer sucks. Both beer sucks.

[Mike Ryan]

Boat.

[Stugotz]

Beer sucks.

[Dan Le Batard]

Not exactly on top. All right. T H E G R E E K F R E A K what's up?

[Greg Cody]

What's up?

[Stugotz]

Janice Adetacumbo G I A N N I S A N T E T O K O U N M P O Jane Zada decumbo that was close.

[Greg Cody]

I've been very lucky so far. Very lucky so far.

[Mike Ryan]

You've read the press clippings. Fox's big Noon Saturday is making progress in the ratings. That's because it takes a formula of college gameday and goes to the fifth best game of the week. You've responded to not only the insight, but generally Brady Quinn's smile. And if you've ever looked at Reggie Bush and thought zaddy, you're in luck. Because coming this fall, an all new network dedicated to college athletics brought to you by the same people behind Speak for Yourself. It's Fox U. Have you ever wondered what ESPNU might be like? Only with former employees will Fox. You ever want to watch Pepperdine vs Pacific? Fox youx? We don't need conference championship games.

[Dan Le Batard]

No.

[Mike Ryan]

We've got Chris Broussard talking to you about the Big East. But it doesn't stop there. We've given an entire show to the editorial staff of thebiglead.com dedicated to who they think is coming out of the A10. Don't get left out. Call your cable operator today and tell them F you. And learning nothing from our past coming this spring. FU2. That's right. An entirely new college athletic sports network that you also didn't ask for. Have you ever wanted to hear a 20 minute diatribe from Jason Whitlock on why Penn State football players should cut their hair? Well, F U2, did you ever wonder how much Joel Klatz sounds exactly like Mike Gullick Jr. Well, F U2. F U2, call your cable operator and demand more Fox Sports. Tell them FU and FU2FOX.

[Stugotz]

There are many people on this bandwagon who at the end of last season said to yourself, maybe even shared it openly. You said we got robbed. If we didn't have injuries, those bomb ass repairs, we would have won our seventh national championship. You heard me Filete seven. Well guess what bro. Next year is here. The time is now. And all of the cut out from UF and all the stupid Seminoles and all the haters and even that rat Nevin Shapiro, all of them will be watching us. The time is now. And don't any of you overestimate this moment. This team ain't got on Us, bro. When I walked into that stadium today, they patted me down and they found the extra beer I had in my cargo shorts. They took it from me because this place is wack as f. But I persevered because I had to be at this game. They scheduled us to play on a Sunday night to try to throw us off. They scheduled in a different city because they know we are the dopest team in the country and everyone wants to see us, bro. The NFL didn't even want to start this week because they know that you was playing on Sunday. And you know what happens when you play primetime on a Sunday night? The whole world watches you. And let's be real, whenever the U plays, the whole world is already watching because it's all about the U. But for other teams, the whole world watching causes pressure. And when there's pressure, we drink cafecito. And for the week, when they drink Cafecito Seca. No, bro. But for the strong, when we drink Cafecito. No, he's not. When you walk out there and you see 100,000 Cane's fans yelling, when you go out on that field and everybody's running around and things aren't going your way because our revs hate us, and everything gets a few cags from time to time, remember, that's straight focus. Because it only takes one play to bring out the turnover chain. Let me tell you a story. Last year in West 32, me and my boy George were down two cups in beer pong. Two cups. The other team only had one cup left. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were in the middle of my game day playlist and Sarasura had just come on. I looked into Jorjito's eyes, and he looked into my eyes and he said, bro, get your done. Next thing you know, we hit a cup, then another cup, then the other team tried to bounce one in. And I said, oh, you know me hold out with that bouncing and bing, bam, boom, we hit the final cup and the game was over. And you know why? Because no one is better at people. Punk and Canes fans. And because I got my done that day. We barely walked into the stadium because of how faded we were in the middle of the second quarter. But we walked in as beer pong champions. In all my years of winning championships, the one common thread that was woven into each of those teams was a promise. The same promise that me and Jorjito made. One man to another. I will get my done. Can you guys make that promise to each other? Can you go out there and get your done. That day we walked out of West32 and we made history. And today you get to write your history. And don't let any come get in the way of you writing your history.

[Greg Cody]

You must have had so much fun with enforcad. What a great word in Spanish. Like, we need to start shouting and chanting this throughout South Florida and folk at.

[Mike Ryan]

It's a dangerous one.

[Greg Cody]

I know, but that's. No, that's. I know, I know, I know. That's a guess. I understand. I understand that I'm in the danger. Stone. Mike, what's the matter with you?

[Mike Ryan]

Great recall. Oh, man. I. I don't know what else to say about people. I'm in love.

[Greg Cody]

I can't get enough of this character. And it's not a character. It's. It's. We grew up around. All of us. Grew up around him, all of us.

[Stugotz]

It's real life, bro. This is real. This is 100 you're talking about. Character. Who's a character are you talking about? What else are you coming? You're not coming this trip. We have one spot left. I started doing a head count yesterday. Me jorhito. We're going, Garo. One's coming.

[Greg Cody]

Beer, punk.

[Stugotz]

Gato. Two is coming. Kato. Three is coming. I don't know what was going on 25, 30 years ago. She like. But everybody was named Caro. So we have one spot left if you want it. Danny. Yeah, Danielito, we're ready. We are about to bring the. We're gonna put the big D in Dallas, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean?

[Greg Cody]

I don't know what you mean. Tell me. Explain to me what you mean.

[Stugotz]

We are going. Oh, we're gonna embarrass that. Yo Jorgeron la cosa vace mala, mata mala. You can bring your Cajuns if you want. We'll bring you that cojones.

[Greg Cody]

Yes.

[Dan Le Batard]

This shipping container has consumed so much Cuban coffee.

[Greg Cody]

We are giants, baby.

[Dan Le Batard]

Feel my eyes. I love it.

[Mike Ryan]

Boy, oh, boy. Oh, my God. I get two of those.

[Stugotz]

Give me another one.

[Greg Cody]

Put it on the pole.

[Mike Ryan]

People. Yeah. People. People's here.

[Dan Le Batard]

People.

[Greg Cody]

People. What's happening, people? Coffee supplier is here. Our drug dealer is here. His name is actually Peo. We have an actual Peo here.

[Mike Ryan]

That guy makes a mean coffee.

[Dan Le Batard]

My God.

[Greg Cody]

I don't think that people know that. This is actually how it happened on the show, that Billy created a character called People before any of us actually knew of People. We just said that I was always being Contacted by a Rod's people instead of a Rod, and that he inevitably had a guy named People. Then a few months later, a guy comes to work for us and his name is actually People. And so Chris Cody is in the bar downstairs, and the actual people walks in and he yells, hey, people. And then a couple of fans of the show are like, that's people. And they just run over to him and it's just some old guy who makes us call.

[Stugotz]

What do you mean the actual people, bro? Like, if there's only one, get the hell out of here. Dan Levitar. Enough of you. Like if this is fake.

[Dan Le Batard]

Wait, that's his name? Well, that's the other thing.

[Mike Ryan]

St.

[Greg Cody]

Gods doesn't know the name of anyone who works here except for Bruce, who's always asleep in the other room.

[Mike Ryan]

What's up with that?

[Greg Cody]

He doesn't know anyone's name here.

[Dan Le Batard]

I got some great shots of him yesterday sleeping. Action shots.

[Greg Cody]

Yes, of Bruce. Tweet some of them out. Bruce sleeping.

[Mike Ryan]

That's going to be me in about 25 minutes.

[Dan Le Batard]

I've been revving.

[Greg Cody]

No, I. I want to put on the poll at Lebitard show. And it seems like a simple, ridiculous question in Miami, but have you ever had Cuban coffee? Because I don't believe that many of the people listening because we're on like 270 some odd affiliates and it's hard to get Cuban coffee some places in the country. And so I. I imagine that most people listening to us do not know that that is like snorting crack coffee.

[Mike Ryan]

You should have some more.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Cody]

You guys got to be careful with that stuff.

[Stugotz]

I can stop whenever I want, bro. I don't have a problem. You have a problem.

[Dan Le Batard]

Stuff is dangerous. It is.

[Greg Cody]

You can't start. They come in these little thimbles, these tiny little thimbles. People thought you just wanted him for his personality and radio charisma. You didn't realize you were just using him for his.

[Dan Le Batard]

No, no, no people. No, no, no, no people. I did one of those before around the horn. We had to stop taping the show. I thought I was having a heart attack.

[Greg Cody]

It is. It's crazy. You know, my. I was. I had one of those one days and I felt smoke coming off my eyebrows. One of my eyebrows caught fire. Fire. It's too early for this. Too early for shot even by Miami Standard, really. For the.

[Dan Le Batard]

The.

[Greg Cody]

The ag.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't think it's safe. Put them down, boys. You ready?

[Mike Ryan]

You ready to go?

[Dan Le Batard]

Slam it down the hatch.

[Greg Cody]

All right, everybody throw it down. People drinking it straight from the cup. Jesus.

[Mike Ryan]

This guy's an animal.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, my God. He's not using the tiny thimble of crack cocaine. He's using an entire cup of it.

[Dan Le Batard]

I've had seven since nine.

[Greg Cody]

I'm sweating.

[Dan Le Batard]

Did he just drink out of that large cup?

[Greg Cody]

He did.

[Dan Le Batard]

Like Tony Montana sticking his face into a Tesla Cocaine. Crazy person.

[Greg Cody]

That's exactly what it was.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hot.

[Stugotz]

It's so hot.

[Greg Cody]

Of course you're hot.

[Dan Le Batard]

You guys are there.

[Greg Cody]

You guys are of a human resources problem.

[Mike Ryan]

Better if you keep dancing. All right.

[Stugotz]

Wait a minute.

[Greg Cody]

How did Billy end up not wearing a shirt? People, put your pants back on. What the hell just happened back there?

[Stugotz]

Are we still on? Where's my shirt?

[Greg Cody]

This is very aggressive for this hour in the morning.

[Stugotz]

Time now for Guillermo's epic sound of the day. It is going to be epic. Hey, guys.

[Dan Le Batard]

Hey, Guillermo.

[Stugotz]

Real tbt. We got today in the epic sound. Dan, you familiar with Hawk Harrelson?

[Greg Cody]

Yes. He's one of the best.

[Stugotz]

It's his 33rd year as the White Sox announcer. TV announcer. And six years years ago, Hawk Harrelson was pretty upset with something that went on in a game when a pitcher was kicked out of a game for throwing behind a batter. Here's the sound.

[Dan Le Batard]

What are you doing? He threw him out of the ball game. You got to be paping me. What in the hell are you doing? What are you doing?

[Stugotz]

Wagner? You gotta be kidding me. That is so bad.

[Dan Le Batard]

That is absolutely brutal. That's incredible. That is unbelievable.

[Stugotz]

I'll tell you what. They have got to start making guys be accountable.

[Dan Le Batard]

That is totally absurd.

[Stugotz]

That just tells you he has blue. Here's an umpire in the American League, knows nothing. Think about the game of baseball. They had got to do something about this. I'll tell you, they got some guys in this league that have no business umpiring.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, that's.

[Stugotz]

They have no business umpiring because they don't know what the game of baseball is about.

[Greg Cody]

And he is one of them.

[Stugotz]

We have always had problems with this guy right here. He ought to be suspended. If they want to keep him as an umpire. Send him back to school and teach him what this game is about. Yeah. Courtesy wgn.

[Dan Le Batard]

Great contribution for the color guy.

[Greg Cody]

Put this on the pole. Guillermo should. What are you doing, Wegner? Replace. Do you believe in miracles as the greatest call in the history of broadcasting? Because the Wegner is comedically perfect. What are you doing, Wegner? It just referring. Referring to the umpire. That should be A tone, fine, but it's delightful. Referring to the umpire by only his last name is magical.

[Dan Le Batard]

Sound of the Day is brought to you by Dollar Shave Club. Upgrade the shaving with a fresh blade whenever you want for a fraction of the price. Join DollarShave Club.com today.

[Greg Cody]

All right, this allows us to do a bunch of different announcer rants.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Greg Cody]

Let's continue. Let's segue from what are you doing, Wagner? To our favorite Ed malloy.

[Dan Le Batard]

Down by two, 198 inbound to love on the left side with one.

[Stugotz]

Jumbo goes up for the shot.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's blocked by Marion.

[Stugotz]

The ball comes into the arms of Dalibear. The horn sounds, and the ball game is over.

[Mike Ryan]

The Timberwolves are screaming for a foul.

[Stugotz]

There was none called.

[Dan Le Batard]

Rubio off to love.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, that's a foul.

[Mike Ryan]

That is unbelievable.

[Stugotz]

The referees are booed as they go off the floor.

[Greg Cody]

Brutal.

[Mike Ryan]

David Guthrie is right there.

[Stugotz]

He didn't have the guts to call it.

[Dan Le Batard]

Also go Ed Malloy.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, great. So great. Oh, Ed Malloy will never be topped, not even by. What are you doing, Wagner? Even though. What are you doing? Wagner is better than. Do you believe in miracles? But is this Hawks announcer berating the Miami Heat? Does it deserve to be in the conversation?

[Dan Le Batard]

Now, down low, it's going to be Al Horford. He drives. He goes up and get knocked out hard. Oh, my goodness. The Heat have resorted to thuggery and Al Horford slow to get up. Miami, they're down by 19, and they have to resort to the street stuff. That should be a flagrant foul. These Miami Heat players are street thugs.

[Greg Cody]

And. And here stugot is the terribly tinny sound of Dave Lamont at a Florida Atlantic game. Yeah, the broadcasting quality is not good. Breaking out the good stuff, but he is also furious.

[Dan Le Batard]

You cannot tell me that the flag. That's not possible. Where's the commissioner? Where's Wright? Where's Wright? Waters. Where's Wright?

[Greg Cody]

Waters.

[Dan Le Batard]

Took him a while to get into the slide. He is defenseless.

[Mike Ryan]

Don't you understand?

[Dan Le Batard]

Throw a flag. Third down. Coey throws over the middle, behind the receiver. Incomplete. It'll be fourth down and three. Man, Cam took a helmet down the shot, regardless, even if he wasn't in the slot.

[Stugotz]

You know what?

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't really care if you people look at me in the press box. You know what?

[Greg Cody]

I don't care.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's a flag. And I'll fight any one of you if you want.

[Greg Cody]

That's what I.

[Dan Le Batard]

That's the mood. I'm in at the moment was that the 53 Sugar Bowl.

[Greg Cody]

1853. The most recent sound we played there was the Hawk Harrelson sound from six years ago.

[Dan Le Batard]

I think the Lamont one is the best.

[Greg Cody]

I think that ESPN and Disney should reconsider this whole thing about giving my arrogant ass the microphone. The incongruent images of Chris Cody in a ridiculous car battery costume dancing happily, he will ask all our guests some awful car specific pun while in that costume. Is it hot in there, Chris?

[Stugotz]

Need to pump the brakes on the negative attitude. All right, I am revved up for today's show. Let's do it.

[Greg Cody]

All right, don't use all of your material yet, guys.

[Stugotz]

This is just a speed bump.

[Dan Le Batard]

All right?

[Stugotz]

We're going to get through this being a real negative charge right now. All right, we're going to need a punch. Positive charge for you.

[Greg Cody]

How hot are you?

[Stugotz]

I just changed my AC filter, so I'm good to go.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, for the love.

[Stugotz]

Revving hot.

[Greg Cody]

All right, get out of here.

[Stugotz]

Jorge, what has you revved up for this super bowl, my man?

[Greg Cody]

Whoa.

[Mike Ryan]

Why isn't this guy here, man?

[Dan Le Batard]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Stugotz]

It's a talking battery.

[Dan Le Batard]

Answer the question. You know he. The talking battery. Ask you a question, though. Revved up for the Super Bowl.

[Stugotz]

I'm stunned because I've never talked to a battery before.

[Greg Cody]

What was the question again?

[Dan Le Batard]

How revved up are you for the Super Bowl? I believe it was.

[Stugotz]

I'm revved up like a car that has an advanced auto part battery in it.

[Dan Le Batard]

That boy.

[Stugotz]

Me too. Vinnie, can we pump the brakes on Patrick Mahomes as the goat? Vinnie, which team is under the most tire pressure this week? My man.

[Greg Cody]

Car battery, please. Get in here. Whoa. I just saw Chris over there. I thought the car battery was Chris. It is not a car battery. Go ahead and ask Diana Rossini's mom a question on Sunday.

[Dan Le Batard]

Who gonna be riding on candy painted slash? I have absolutely no idea what you just said.

[Stugotz]

I'm really charged up about. About what's going on today.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, please.

[Stugotz]

Get out of here.

[Greg Cody]

I. I have to be honest.

[Dan Le Batard]

I know I came late. I. I don't understand what this is.

[Stugotz]

Tariq, you're a real speedster. Who's gonna be breaking the speed limit on Sunday?

[Greg Cody]

For the love of God, I've got a battery back there. It is a corporate sponsor. I want to on air take that battery down there myself and stand in the crowd behind first take. Do I have permission to take. I want to put in the first. First take shot. Both me. I'M not asking. I'm. I'm asking your assessment.

[Mike Ryan]

Dude. Dude. Is the authority given to me as eternal yes man to one day in Levitard. Knock yourself out, pal. All right, let's go.

[Greg Cody]

Battery. We're going down there. Chris, you helped the battery get down there.

[Mike Ryan]

The battery has entered the shot.

[Greg Cody]

Yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay. Wow.

[Mike Ryan]

They have cut away. They have Derrick Henry on first take right now. This is not terrestrial radio norms where you tell your audience to tune away supplementally, if you watch. There is a battery and a Dan Levitar at a bar jiggling, I believe, ordering a drink in front of some bikini beachgoers that are sitting at the edge of the Clevelander pool. It's amazing, the visual.

[Stugotz]

So now he's gonna come back and he's gonna be all happy. He's in a happy place now.

[Mike Ryan]

He's in his happy place. All right, he is crashed first take. Effectively, I assume, pulling rank. Oh, there is a producer trying to stop Dan Lebatard.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, no. This is getting testy. Oh, my God. Dan is in his face. Oh, boy. Are you saying this is a better idea? Forget about a happy place. Play by play of Dan and the security guard.

[Mike Ryan]

Oh, my. This is awkward as I'll get out.

[Dan Le Batard]

All right, so me and Billy.

[Stugotz]

This is the absolute strangest guy on.

[Dan Le Batard]

Me and Billy are at Radio Row. We are watching through a television screen live footage right now of Dan LeBatard trying to get the advanced auto parts car battery on the set of first take and screaming at a security guard.

[Mike Ryan]

If you watch. If you're watching ESPN News right now, you have a live shot of Dan talking to a security guard pointing up at the ESPN Studio south beach sign. I guess in.

[Dan Le Batard]

This is my house.

[Mike Ryan]

I guess saying that this is the house that I built. I can only imagine.

[Stugotz]

V. Which edge Rushers Pistons are really going to be firing off on Sunday.

[Mike Ryan]

Dan made everything here incredibly awkward by crashing first take, including the batteries.

[Stugotz]

A little shook was the producer that tried to swipe Sideswipe our segment, but Dan really stepped on the gas. Look, look at. Let's just really put this in our.

[Dan Le Batard]

Rearview mirror, all right?

[Stugotz]

It's past us.

[Dan Le Batard]

We'll move on.

[Stugotz]

I just want to get fired.

[Greg Cody]

Mike, you should have seen him, though. I was looking deep into the. Deep into the. The battery soul. I was. And. And the battery was silent. The battery. Ask the battery how the battery really felt because the battery was very scared. The battery.

[Stugotz]

I'm glad I was covered, Mike.

[Greg Cody]

I have.

[Dan Le Batard]

I had.

[Greg Cody]

Mike. No joke. I had to keep telling the Battery speaking into the battery's face. Listen, I'll take all of it, okay? You're not going to get into any trouble here. Whatever happens here falls all on me. I will say it was my idea that I dragged you down there, that I threatened you.

[Stugotz]

I was really stalling hard. That producer must have thought you were real dipstick.

[Greg Cody]

You were so scared. Battery, tell the truth. Hold on a second.

[Mike Ryan]

Was battery still, like, acting like for whatever reason, the battery has a bounce with cartridge?

[Greg Cody]

Ask the battery some questions here because I, I, I'd actually like to know. Seriously, battery, how did you feel about what was happening there? Stop making driving jokes. I don't want to hear any more driving jokes. I want serious answer from you on what it is that you were feeling as that was going on. Because my heart rate was, was through the roof.

[Stugotz]

I was very uncomfortable. I was thinking, I hope I don't get fired. I'm glad no one can see my face. I hope this all ends well for Dan.

[Dan Le Batard]

Gave us a real spark. I thought we were in a real bad jam.

[Greg Cody]

How are you feeling? One to ten. How nervous?

[Stugotz]

It was a real fluid situation at the start. I was a little low, but then you kept saying to me, don't worry, I got this.

[Dan Le Batard]

My wheels were spinning, though.

[Stugotz]

That's.

[Greg Cody]

Oh, for the love of God. Look at that.

[Mike Ryan]

How many of these do you.

[Dan Le Batard]

How many.

[Greg Cody]

Why did you have more of them yesterday when all the sound was going down around here? Because these people keep, keep pooping on our audio.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm running out of fuel here.

[Greg Cody]

Okay, well, where was it yesterday it.

[Stugotz]

When I needed it? Awkwardly shifting gears here. The Astros really hit a speed bump with that whole cheating scandal. What'd you make of that.

[Dan Le Batard]

Chris?

[Stugotz]

I know you got a lot of miles on the old odometer, but what are the chances we can jump start this comeback? Me playing Frank, in your long career, you've never broke down my man. What's your secret? I'm just training miles this Sunday. Who's going to be kicking tires and lighting fires?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be a good game. If Andy Reid wins, I'm happy. I'm a big, you know, Eagles fan, but I like, like this. I like this.

[Mike Ryan]

Hey, folks, it's Mike Ryan. It is big game week, and I've got just the thing to make your big game big game time. A Miller time. From fireside conversations to football Sundays, winter means more moments with the coolest people in your life. Make these moments even better with Miller Lite the great tasting light beer for people who love beer. A new year is a perfect time for friends, family and great tasting light beer tastes like Miller Time. Miller Lite is brewed for taste. It hits different than other light beers. When you're hosting your ultimate game day party, why don't you bring out a beautiful silver platter of that amazing white can and know you will make everybody there happy. Because Miller Lite is the original light beer since 1975 and still the very best. One Miller Lite great taste 96 calories. Go to millerlight.com dan to find delivery options near you or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell. Beer tastes like Miller Time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

[Stugotz]

Guys, it's that time of year. Valentine's Day is coming up. And for me, there's only one place that I trust. 1-800flowers.com Every year I order stunning, high quality bouquets from 1-800-Flowers that my wife absolutely loves. She looks forward to them every single year. She knows it's happening and yet she's surprised and loves them every single year. In this year I'm part of with 1-800-Flowers to make sure you're a Valentine's Day hero with exclusive offers just for our listeners. Double the roses for free. When you buy one dozen roses, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses. It's the perfect way to say I love you without breaking the bank. Trust me, 1-800-FLowers always delivers. And the roses are incredible. Guys. We got the sneak peek of the roses at the Leitard Show Studios and they're incredible. All right. Long stem red roses accompanied by an hourglass red vase.

[Mike Ryan]

Everything beautiful.

[Stugotz]

They're timeless, luxurious, romantic. Ready to get you going for Valentine's Day in the office has never smelled better, fellas. It's a must have on this Valentine's Day. To claim your double roses offer, go to 1-800-flowers.com dan that's 1-800-flowers.Com dan.