← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd Podcast - Steph Curry The Most Impactful Athlete Ever? ESPN Dumps MLB, WNBA Needs To Embrace Caitlin Clark,
01:05:16
Loading summary
Transcript69 lines
- [00:00]
Colin Cowherd
This one's for the food obsessed. For the phone eats first person, for the influencer who knows about a new spot before it's poppin, and for the person who's all in on dining out With Amex Gold, you can earn four times points at restaurants up to $50,000 and up to $100 back annually in statement credits on eligible purchases at US resi restaurants so you can get rewarded for eating what you love. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Cap applies. Learn more@american express.com With AmEx, you can count on T Mobile to help keep you connected from big cities to small towns on America's largest 5G network. Switch the T Mobile keep your phone and they'll pay it off up to 800 bucks per line via prepaid card. Learn more@t mobile.com heap and switch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required Card has no cash access and expires in six months hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This past season on my podcast here's the Thing, I spoke with more actors, musicians, policymakers, and so many other fascinating people like writer and actor Dan Aykroyd. I love writing more than anything. You're left alone, you know, you do three hours in the morning, you write three hours in the afternoon. Go pick up a kid from school and write at night and after nine hours you come out with seven pages and then you're moving on. And actor and comedian Jack McBrayer.
- [01:38]
Ethan Strauss
The most important aspect is the collaboration.
- [01:40]
Colin Cowherd
With people that I like, I trust are talented. That has been the most amazing gift.
- [01:46]
Ethan Strauss
To me about this crazy business that we've chosen.
- [01:49]
Colin Cowherd
Meeting these people who have such diverse.
- [01:51]
Ethan Strauss
Talents and you're able to create something together.
- [01:55]
Colin Cowherd
Listen to here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, what's up? This is questlove, and every year we do special programming in February for Black History Month. Now, it's especially important this year as we gear up for some new conversations. So the team and I compiled some clips from the show that are worth revisiting. In Part one of the celebration of Black History Month, we're listening back to Moments with Chris Rock, Solange Prodigy, Ben Vereen, Jennifer Lewis, Angela Rye, and Gina Yashore. Listen to Questlove supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. The volume Our conversation is Presented by Uber Eats. You know, I love them get game day deals all season long on Uber Eats. Okay. You know, he's one of my favorite people. His name is Ethan Strauss and he, he used to be part of the traditional media and he kicked that dead end profession to the curve and now he is a substack maven. He is a podcasting whiz. House of Strauss to me is my podcast listen of choice, especially on long walks. I want to talk about the warriors you covered for years. So I looked. Sportico had a list today of the five most valuable franchises in the United States. Three of them were NBA franchises and one was the Warriors. Now if I would have told you 20 years ago, it's going to go Cowboys and Golden State warriors, you anybody would have thought, what the hell happened? They were a mess for 20 years. I mean, I grew up with them with Rick barry in the 70s, you know, they had some interesting teams, Tim Hardaway, but it was just kind of a dead brand. Which the Yankees were, by the way, in the 80s, the Don Mattingly years. It was a dead brand. You can look back and there's a lot of people that can take credit. But I've thought about this. The Lakers were very big pre LeBron and the Cowboys were big before Dak. And most of these organizations that are listed, the Celtics have been big since Bill Russell.
- [04:17]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah.
- [04:18]
Colin Cowherd
But you look at the warriors and as somebody that covered them, can you make an argument if they're an $8 billion franchise, that seven and a half of that have been driven by Steph Curry?
- [04:32]
Ethan Strauss
I know it's the number with a B. I'll say that much about it, whatever it is. I feel like Logan Roy, the Logan Roy line where nobody wanted to watch the warriors, but then we got Steph Curry and we got some draft picks and look at them. It's amazing how forgotten it is, how irrelevant they were. And I remember being in those locker rooms where a tumbleweed could have blown through because there's no media at all. That's how I got to covering them, Colin, is that I was just blogging about them as a fan on a fan site, Warriors World back in the day. And I had other jobs that I was doing and the guy running the blog said, you know, we can get a credential. I said, really? He says, yeah, Nobody's going to these games. Like they're desperate for somebody to go to one of these games because they've got the beat writer and then they've got the other beat writer half the time. Those two beat writers are talking to each other and they're saying, hey, if you don't show up to practice, I won't show up to practice. And then we both get the day off like that was happening back then. And nobody would show up to practice and get any kind of story. It's been driven by Stephen. It's been driven by more than Steph. I'm a little bit defensive on behalf of your guy, Draymond Green's legacy. I know he can annoy people, but I think because he annoys people, they start rewriting history. I see people say, oh, my God, Draymond was drafted into the perfect situation. Nobody has been drafted into a more perfect situation. And I go, when he showed up, there was no situation. There was no situation to speak of. Nobody cared about this team, nobody cared about this franchise. Nobody expected Anything good on 2012 draft night. And that guy was a second round pick, no guaranteed spot, and he had to scrape claw wrench jobs away from guys getting paid a lot more money with a lot more organizational investment. He became the best defensive player of his generation, which then merged with Steph Curry being the best offensive player of his generation. And a lot of other things have gone right in between some other things going wrong. But it's a crazy, just miracle of a story. And yeah, I think you're right to hit on it, that we almost take it for granted. We almost act as though this has always been a glamour franchise. They've always been here. It was not that way. They were Clippers North. It was different.
- [06:56]
Colin Cowherd
Time to look at this week's tastiest matchup brought to you by Uber Eats. I think there's an argument to be made, and I haven't given it that much thought, that Steph Curry, more than any basketball player, football player, golfer, tennis player, or hockey player, changed his individual sport more. I don't think there's ever been a player in. I mean, Ohtani's great, but we had Babe Ruth. He pitched and batted too. You look at the great football players. Well, Mahomes was great. So was John Elway and Dan Marino and Brett Favre. And they're, They're. I think you're. I mean, Philadelphia has the tush push. People are a little uncomfortable with it outside of Philadelphia. It's not changing football. It's just a really good fourth down play. Steph Curry has changed every single level of basketball. Everything he's changed. I mean, I look at the shots being taken now and like anything else, any cultural change is that at Some point they all go south. Like analytics for baseball. You're like, yeah, the game is more efficient. Oh, wait, now it's more boring. Oh, wait, three pointers. The math are better than two pointers. Oh, wait, now it's boring. That's the way analytics all work, is that these are TV products and initially they make the game more efficient and they work on a volume scale regular season. But ultimately analytics don't generally work in any sport quite as effectively in post seasons and they generally aren't good for television. And so Steph, now there's a little bit of a. Okay, we all fell in love with small ball and Steph, but now it's been copied so often and people do it at such a. A much more. A poor level. They don't. I mean, Houston can't shoot and they're. I mean, we got Wemby and guys shooting too many threes. Joel Embiid's never shot more threes. He shoots 29%. So. But I do think Steph, more than any athlete of my lifetime, literally changed Muhammad Ali, personality driven athlete, I think. I think he was for a long time, Ali was what people looked at and went, oh my God, look how big you get if you let your personality out. But I mean, that's just my take that Steph Curry is really one of one in a cultural changing a sports aesthetic and style of play.
- [09:33]
Ethan Strauss
You said a lot there. I love this topic. This is a great topic. I totally agree. And I think what's remarkable about Steph, and we need to add it when we say nobody has changed their sport more, when that happens, people can become a victim of their own influence. Mike D'Antoni revolutionizes basketball, but then he's almost a less. He's almost a less effective coach because all these other people learn how to do it and maybe even refine it and maybe even do it better and he gets overrun and he doesn't actually become a championship winning coach. The crazy thing about Steph is that he's been doing it for over 10 years and he has revolutionized the NBA and he's still the best at doing it. He showed people the way it could be done. He gave them the recipe and he's still the best chef cooking it. I didn't mean to make a Chef Curry joke right there, but you see what I'm saying? That's unbelievable to do that, to be so influential and yet remain the best at what you're doing. Now, the other part of it that you said, the malign influence on the sport with analytics, the optimization problem, I think that's real. There are these strange things where sometimes we like something when one person does it, but we don't like when a bunch of other people are doing it. I felt that way about Zach Lowe's writing. Zach Lowe, probably the greatest NBA writer of all time. He had a very particular sort of style that was highly informational and could be a little bit quirky, but was fairly dry. But the way he did it was great. But so many younger writers coming up and bloggers coming up, they wanted to be like Zach Lowe because Zach was the man. And I looked at what they were doing and I went, I don't know if I like you doing this. It doesn't work when you do it. This isn't a recipe that works when somebody else does it. It would have been better if you went with something else. And maybe even a generation before that, Bill Simmons might have been that guy where. I loved Bill Simmons columns, but then I'm watching people try to be irreverent and funny in the way Bill did it. And it's just, this doesn't scale. This isn't what I want. This isn't what I want. I just want Bill doing it. That's what it feels a little bit like right now in the NBA where a lot of people loved watching those warriors in 2015, 2016. Not everybody loved watching these teams that emulated the three point shooting. As optimization takes over. And now most of the shots are going to be three pointers.
- [12:06]
Colin Cowherd
That was this week's tastiest matchup, brought to you by my fave, Uber Eats, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. I use it every week during the football season. Uber Eats best game day deals all season long. Order now for game day. You know what I thought was really interesting because I thought Caitlin Clark. I was really disappointed in the WNBA is that I thought Caitlin Clark's appeal was very simple. Holy shit. We found the female Steph Curry. She's taking shots women don't take. I didn't think there was anything to it. And when she. And then all of a sudden and she has this Angel Reese competition in college, like Magic and Bird, it pivots to the professional league and it's fascinating. And Angel Reese, I think her success helps Caitlin Clark. I think it feels Bird Magic. Although I don't think angel is close to Kahlan as an influencer. Bird and Magic both had. They kind of ended up in the perfect cities. Bird in kind of tough guy Boston and Magic in, you know, showy Los Angeles. But it was funny because with male sports, I feel. Sometimes I feel bad for Caitlin Clark in the WNBA that people are trying to explain her popularity. Nobody ever had to explain Steph Curry. It was just. Did he just shoot from 34ft off balance and make three in a row? And there's part of me that feels sympathetic to the WNBA and part of me that doesn't. First of all, I feel like when you're young, when Bryce Harper came into baseball, he went through an Andy Dufresne tunnel for about three years because he was flashy. Right. And baseball doesn't like flashy. So Caitlin's not the first athlete to deal with this. Tiger woods had to deal with a lot of comments and a lot of traditionalists pushing back, and the network only shows Tiger, so Caitlin's not the first to go through it. But I do think the WNBA has gotten to a point where I want to say, girls, girls. She's the female staff. Just embrace the hell out of her. You're getting on private jets. So I try to be. I tried to defend the WNBA initially, but. How does that land for you? Because I think they've gotten to a point where I'm finding it hard now. Yeah. Like if she. If the chippy play continues, you may just lose me as a viewer.
- [14:35]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of. They say about academia that the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small. And the wnba, there wasn't money to be made. And so attention is the money. And suddenly this player comes in and is getting all the attention, and this is the primary thing that you care about. If you're not getting any sort of pay in accordance with what you think your value is. And there was a ton of resentment towards her. And a lot of people in that league seem to get caught up on this whole versus is problem. You know, there are people that can really grapple with what is. And there are people who get really stuck on how it ought to be, and they're just fixated on it. It ought to be. It ought to be. Asia Wilson ought to be a huge superstar. Asia Wilson ought to be the person Nike is promoting because she's the best player in the league, and she is the best player in the league, but that's just not what it is. People are interested in Caitlin Clark. They like watching Caitlin Clark. Asia Wilson's game, It's more analogous to a Tim Duncan. People are not as interested in that. You can say there's a racial element of that, okay, I don't know what to do with that. We can't just replace Caitlin Clark with somebody else. She's the person who showed up for this particular job of being Caitlin Clark. She's the one who's resonating. And we can either benefit from what it is, or we can tear apart everybody who's into it and make everybody feel bad about it and try to stop it from happening. That latter move seems completely insane to me. And yet it's entirely infected a lot of the coverage of the WNBA from people who support the league. At least support it, you know, in quotations, because they're not helping it when they go about it that way. And even the, you know, Time magazine and even some of these publications that cover it, it's like they're scared. They're worried if they're not giving enough attention to the other players.
- [16:32]
Colin Cowherd
Look at the history of basketball. Kareem Giannis Jokic did not move the ratings needle. Yeah, Steph Michael. Smaller players did. This is the history of basketball is that my son's not a sports fan. He likes Steph Curry because he feels like, oh, I could do that. I'm not that huge. Steve Nash had a wildly entertaining game. He wasn't a dunk machine. I didn't think as a kid growing up, Bob Lanier was fascinating. His game didn't work for me. So the truth is basketball's history. The WNBA should take a deep breath and realize basketball's history is. Best score. Alex English led the 80s in scoring in the NBA. Alex English. There have been so many players. Kiki VanDuoy, I don't remember a basket. He just never missed. But there are players that are just. Ant is dynamic and fascinating. Kobe was fascinating, but a lot of the Biggs like. And. And that's something we just have to. To be honest about. Russell Wex Westbrook's game. I've said this before. In his prime, I had to pay to watch him play. He couldn't shoot. I didn't love his handles, but sweet mother of vertical jump. The guy was like. It was popcorn in a hot skillet. He was flying through the air. So the NBA is so caught up on, well, she's the leading score. People like different. And no other woman shot 33 footers. It's that simple.
- [18:07]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah, they. They like what they like. Not even Logan Roy could make Asia Wilson the biggest sneaker saleswoman in basketball. And it's the no detraction from her game. She's excellent, but she's somebody, especially in the Time story when she did an event with the 2K video game, who's just complaining about the lack of attention she's gotten and how it's not in accordance and it's not at the level it should be at. And it's look, life to a certain degree is not fair. And that's actually what makes basketball sort of fascinating to me. That's why I wrote the Steph Curry article in 2016. There's this ineffable charisma of stardom, of superstardom that you just know it when you see it. And we're not always sure about all the elements you need for it to happen and for you to really pop in the way that Michael Jordan did, in the way that Allen Iverson did, in a totally different way, in the way that Steph Curry did. And the people who do it are worth billions of dollars to the league and to these sneaker companies. And then there are players who are effectively at the same tier or level that just can't and just don't. And there's just something human about it and it just is what it is and you're just going to make yourself miserable trying to figure out how it ought to be and change reality.
- [19:29]
Colin Cowherd
Who's scoring big in the NBA this season? You are all the new ways to get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Slams dishing the ball, cleaning the glass. Get behind your favorite players. Prop bets you can make on DraftKings. It's fun. The home of NBA player props. If you're ready to place your first bet, make it really simple. Pick how many points your favorite player is going to score. Go to DraftKingsportsbook. They have an app. Download it. Make your pick. If you're a first timer, here's something special new DraftKings customers. All you have to do is bet 5 bucks. Get 150 in bonus bets instantly. So take it to the rack with DraftKings sportsbook. Every point counts. Download their app. Takes 90 seconds. Use the code Colin C O L I N to get 150 bones in bonus bets. Betting just five only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800- gambler in New York. Call 877-8-HOPENY or text hopeny467-369 in Connectic. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and resort in Kansas 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. New customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG co Audio welcome to a day in the life of an amex Gold Card member. 7:00am Iced coffee with up to $84 back annually at Dunkin locations. MMM 12:00 Pesto zoodles with four times Membership Rewards points on purchases at US restaurants up to $50,000. This is so good. And to finish strong, the freshest sushi spot with up to $100 back annually on eligible purchases at U S Frazi restaurants. What a day. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Cap applies. Learn more@americanexpress.com withamx Omaha Steaks delivers the world's best steak experience and it brings people together with more than 100 years of family owned expertise as America's original. But Omaha Steaks legendary filet mignons are extra aged to maximize tenderness and are tested to the highest standards to maintain the coveted distinction of USDA Certified tender. And now during their semiannual sale, you can get 50% off site wide at Omaha steaks.com plus our listeners get an extra $30 off with the promo code Colin C O L I N at checkout this weekend was a great time to bust open my Omaha Steaks assortment. Pack air Chilled boneless chicken breasts, ribeye and steak burgers. Gourmet jumbo franks. They're great butcher's cut top sirloins and for dessert, caramel apple tartlets. It doesn't get better than this. From legendary steaks to classic comfort food, bring home that exceptional handcrafted flavor and convenience of Omaha Steaks. Every steak perfectly aged. Five generations of uncompromising quality Omaha Steaks has been America's original butcher since 1917. Don't miss the semiannual sale at Omaha Steaks. Visit Omaha Steaks.com 50% off site wide and for an extra $30 off, use the promo code Colin at checkout. That's 50% off at Omaha Steaks.com and an extra 30 bucks off with a promo code Colin at checkout. Catch Jon Stewart back in action on the Daily show and in your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices.
- [22:53]
Ethan Strauss
Of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect.
- [22:56]
Colin Cowherd
Companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners like in depth interviews and a Roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli.
- [23:21]
Ethan Strauss
The five families did not want us to shoot that picture.
- [23:25]
Colin Cowherd
Leave the Gun Take the Cannoli is based on my co host Mark's best selling book of the same title. And on this show we call upon his years of research to help unpack the story behind the Godfather's birth. From start to finish, this is really the first interview I've done in bed. We sift through innumerable accounts. 35 pages isn't very much, many of them conflicting. That's nonsense. There were 60 pages and try to get to the truth of what really happened.
- [23:50]
Ethan Strauss
And they said we're finished, this is over.
- [23:52]
Colin Cowherd
Not only is not going to work.
- [23:53]
Ethan Strauss
You got to get rid of those guys.
- [23:55]
Colin Cowherd
It's just that Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, James Caan, Talia Shire and many others. Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I think you have either an intuitive sense with business, either that or an acumen. Sometimes people just have a feel. But I think I've watched you build your business and I think you've done a really good job of compartmentalizing things being unique, but yet predictable enough that I get into patterns of listening to you. So as I watch you, it's not about your ideology, it's always about your content. But the way you built is the way I would have built if I was a writer and went into substack and podcasting. So your a network executive. You get to pick five either events or sports to have huge contracts with. Everything going forward in 2025 you can consider everything like the NFL you're going to have to pay a fortune for. So you get five. Now you can include events every four year events, you can include leagues, whatever you want, you get five. Put them in order of what you, Ethan Strauss, the new head of programming for Blank would do.
- [25:36]
Ethan Strauss
Oh my God, Colin. I think I'm a good content guy. I don't know if I have that kind of business acumen. I think you think a little bit, you think a little bit more in terms of business. I don't know how I would rank any of that because you've also got the problem of what they're worth. Right. I think that women's college basketball, speaking of women's basketball, is an interesting sort of buy low proposition where it started to make some inroads. If you gave me, if you let me be a dictator to run NCAA men's basketball. Oh, I would be very intrigued with that. If I could change it and do it in accordance to what I thought would make money and grab the culture. I happen to believe, and this might be sacrilegious, the tournament's too big. I think it's too big a tournament. I think. I know a lot of people would say that's why I like it. And it's what the gambling is about. But it's devalued the NCAA regular season. I might pare it back to 32 teams. I might make it a little bit less. I'd make the season try to matter more. I try to make those events tent pole events because college football has done really well over the last decade. I know there's been a little bit of slippage in the ratings. Maybe they're, I don't know, oversaturated a bit with the expanded playoff, but they've done really well. College basketball hasn't. I want to make college basketball more event and less inventory. I think that's where it can really make some hay and be a counterpoint to the NBA, which is just too many games. How do I make what we're doing? Big events that cut through the noise. It's hard because it's like herding cats with all these different conferences. But if you made me dictator and gave me the rights and the ability to completely control the schedule and how it goes, I think that's one that's a little bit dormant, where there's an appetite for it, but it's just got a little too much NBA disease of too many games. And your regular season doesn't matter when you've got this big single elimination tournament that I know we love and I know it's called March Madness. I want a way to preserve March Madness as a thing while making those regular season games matter. So that's the dream property for me. I'm sorry I couldn't rank them off the top of my head, but that's one where I've looked at it and I'd said, man, if they could just do it different, they could really make this an even bigger thing in the culture. Because as much as we love March Madness, college basketball has never mattered less in my lifetime than right now. And that's a problem. And it doesn't need to be that way.
- [28:10]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, it's this year. I watched the WNBA draft and knew the top seven players and I did not know the top seven players in the NBA draft. I'd never seen them play. And it was like, wow, that's a problem. Like, that is a major problem. So I think one of your points there that's really satient is that women's college basketball, because the players stay for four years, there are more recognizable names in women's college basketball than men's. Now. I do think the NIL is going to keep maybe not Cooper flag, but it's going to keep like mid late first round guys in college for a year. So I actually think that's highly beneficial for the NBA and college basketball. Stay with Tom Izzo for one more year, then leave after your sophomore year. So the NIL gets a lot of pushback, but my take is it's actually going to be good for college basketball and I think in turn good for the NBA. Who doesn't have to babysit every player that comes in. I mean, half these guys come in, they can't even drink at the Ritz Carlton bar. Like, it's ridiculous. They're just kids that forget learning basketball. Their EQ isn't close to being ready to travel with grown men. So I think women's college basketball, if all these were stocks, is one of the biggest buys.
- [29:26]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's undervalued. I think they haven't been promoting Hannah Hidalgo enough out of Notre Dame. I think she's fantastic to watch and a smaller player who just makes incredible things happen out there. But to what you're saying, the thing if I was dictator of NCAA men's basketball, I need the rules to be more in alignment with the NBA. We can keep the 40 minutes, but other things need to be in alignment because that's what's getting in the way of the development and making it less of a reliable pipeline to NBA superstardom. If we can get these guys playing the same sport that they're going to be playing at the next level, I think that helps everybody on both sides of it. So that's one of the other things when it comes to revitalizing the men's side.
- [30:11]
Colin Cowherd
Okay, I want to talk about. It looks like World War 3 and I don't understand it. And I've talked about this on a previous podcast with John Middelkoff. So outside of the NFL, which has been sort of In a growth trajectory since I was like 12. Every other sport is cyclical. Boxing died because of its greed. And ufc, horse racing because of several factors, one of which is this controversy with horses dying and drugs. It's just a mess. Nobody wants to touch it. Soccer, the World Cup. Now globalization takes place has never been more popular. We become more of an event culture. But things are cyclical. And so right now, in my opinion, baseball speeds up the game. Defensive shift is gone. Ohtani to the Dodgers. Harper, Phillies, Soto, Mets, Judge, Yankees, Ronald Lacuna, Braves. All the best players and most interesting players are all in the right markets. ESPN, a couple years ago signed a $7 billion deal. I think it was. It could have. It was around there or it was seven years, $3 billion deal with TNT. For hockey, there's not a single iconic hockey franchise in America. Maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs in North America. There's not a single recognizable superstar hockey player. You don't have to love the Knicks, Warriors, Celtics, Lakers, LeBron, Steph. These are household names. I do not understand it. I think Jimmy Pitaro or whoever is in this process has made a big mistake stiff arming Major League Baseball like guys. It is significantly more relevant than hockey.
- [32:04]
Ethan Strauss
What say you, I wonder. I'm sure the analysis they did was deeper, but everybody's informed by their biases and the people around them. I wonder if certain decisions are informed by sitting in the middle of Connecticut versus Yourself column where you're doing a lot of your out of la. I know you're moving to Chicago. There are parts of this country where the NHL just does not exist. It doesn't. It's not my assessment of how good a sport it is. It's just a reality that there are certain parts of the country where hockey seems very, very relevant. And there are certain parts of the country where you will go years between anybody mentioning the sport in your midst. I, I like what baseball has been doing. It's a little bit to bring it back to the Bezos thing. I don't know if everything they're doing is going to work, but it's hard to hit a target without aiming for it. And when they go, we're speeding up the game, we're making the bases bigger, we're doing this, we're doing that. It's at least a concession that we have a problem. We're trying to solve it. We care about you as the fan. We want your business. And they did some great advertising for it with Bryan Cranston's narration. And now they've got the Box office stars and they've got the Ohtani thing going. Look, I, it's strange to me. I think baseball gets culturally short shrift. It's not as glamorous as basketball is. But people will say things about basketball that are just as true of baseball and they won't say it about baseball. Oh, basketball, so international, so global. I go, okay, what about baseball? No, no, no. Well, wait a second. Is Japan, Korea? These aren't other countries far away. Latin America, I mean baseball is still very popular. I think we just have it locked in our heads that baseball is the aging, grain, dying sport.
- [33:55]
Colin Cowherd
I agree.
- [33:56]
Ethan Strauss
And these other sports are on the come up when in reality all the inventory sports I would call them have basically the same issue. You know, there are event sports like football where they're very rare when you know when they're going to happen and they cut through all the noise in the culture. They're events. And then there are inventory sports that made a ton of money in the cable television years, still make a ton of money, but might not be as relevant to that end of the business now where there are so many games that you have them on the background of your life. And that's baseball, that is hockey, that's basketball. They're all facing the same issue. And I think baseball became almost the archetype or the example of decline in that respect that was afflicting the other major sports that had the same issue. And it's caused some people to overlook some of what baseball has going for it. How the World Series recently been more watched than the NBA finals. I think that would surprise some people, but it's true.
- [34:53]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah. No, I think to your point is baseball, hockey in the NBA are all more international. But I would say with Luca going to the Lakers and Jimmy Butler to the warriors and the Knicks and the Celtics current relevancy, the NBA and baseball. Actually as of this week, the NBA and baseball have their stars in the right cities and they're both buys going forward. Now this is not an anti hockey take, but it's expensive. There was no ice hockey rink where I grew up and in warmer climates it's just not a thing. You don't have hockey teams in high school we all played basketball, we all played little league baseball. So it's really interesting. Again, this goes back to everything, but the NFL is cyclical. If you go look at college football, Ethan, after the kind of the USC, Texas National Championship, the sport for about 15, 18 years got really Southern and really regional. Georgia, LSU, Bama, Clemson, the numbers in the attendance went down. Alabama had an attendance problem with Nick Saban. Now Fox and ESPN step in and say, we're financially going to control the sport. College football is now a buy. Baseball today is a buy. And I think it's a huge misstep by ESPN to break off talks. I. I just. I can't believe what I'm watching, man.
- [36:20]
Ethan Strauss
I wish I could re capitulate what Logan Roy in Succession said in the first episode. There was this amazing scene where Ken, his son. Did you watch Succession? How much exposition should I do?
- [36:33]
Colin Cowherd
I watched probably four or five episodes. Yes.
- [36:35]
Ethan Strauss
Okay, that's good enough. That's good enough. Logan Roy, his son, is saying, it's all getting faster. It's all getting different. It's so different now. We've got to buy the equivalent of whatever Gawker was in that show. I think they called it Voltaire. And Logan Roy does this speech saying, oh, it's all so different, you know? You know, in the past, they said people didn't want to go to the movies, but we built up the movie theaters, and it turns out they do. And he goes through this whole speech, and basically the idea of the speech is that it's not all about trends, Trends are part of it. But sometimes it's just somebody with a vision saying, this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to be doing. I have the money. I can see it. I'm putting all my life force behind it. I don't know if that's going to be enough to make baseball as popular as it was in the 1980s. Indeed, I doubt it. But there's just something to this idea of the leadership matters. These sports, they're not just determined by these other factors. Sometimes the people running these sports, the people televising these sports, they have the capacity to step in like a Dana White. I don't think it was just natural for UFC to become the big property. It was. There had to be a guy who saw it, who knew it could be. So that's how I feel about it. And I think there's some potential there with baseball and hell, there could be some potential there with hockey if they do it right. If they say, let's start building rinks in the suburbs of Southern California and Florida, who knows? But you've got to try. You got to aim for that target.
- [38:00]
Colin Cowherd
I think you made a really interesting comment at the beginning of that discussion on where ESPN is located. May be a factor in what sports they like. Let me give you A story. I'm not sure if I've told this before. He was one of my favorite people at espn, John Walsh, kind of the Svengali of the company. Very smart. And I went upstairs, he was on like the fourth or fifth floor, which I tried to avoid. It was all the bosses, you know. And I would go see him about once a month and if there was a good New Yorker magazine, he was very well read, very learned guy. And I just, I thought he was fascinating. And we would go up and talk. And I remember going to him and saying, John, there is this sport ufc and it's big in Vegas and la. I think you guys should buy it. I said, it is more organized than boxing. They've gotten rid of some of the eye gouging and some of the real brutal techniques involved. They've cleaned it up. It's more corporate and it's again, it's not a, a pit bull against a beach ball. It's like boxing. It's got weight classes and size dimensions where you get even fights. And I said, jon, I think this thing is huge. And the takeaway from John and many at ESPN is it's too brutal, it's too raw, there's too much blood. Let's talk Red Sox baseball. And I remember when I was. And again this, I'm not picking on anybody, but I can remember there was a commercial one time I was driving to work at the other place and they were talking about Florida playing Florida State and the commercial red at that company and the Gators from Tallahassee and the Seminoles from Gainesville. And I literally called them off and went, guys, you sound completely tone deaf to Southern college football fans. You don't even know where they play. And so I think your point, and by the way, I'm not saying Fox or other networks haven't made mistakes. I'm not picking on anybody. But I do think when you grow up in the Northeast is that you don't follow college football. You didn't initially get ufc. It was, I can remember having bosses that like, that really considered college football niche and baseball everything. And I do think I argued this for years with friends. I said my negotiations with Fox have always been pretty easy. And I said one of the reasons is they're near Hollywood and they're what they would call talent friendly because this is the world they live in. And they, you know, they live in Southern California. This is the home of entertainment and stars. So they're really good at negotiating with on air people that it feels like family it never gets personal. You don't always get what you want. But it does feel different. Whereas a lot of sports companies in the Northeast feel like sports factories. You go to work, you punch a clock, you put in overtime, here's management and down there is the workforce. And it doesn't feel like that for Southern California. It doesn't feel like that for maybe Netflix based in California. It doesn't feel like that for Fox. So I do think where a company is located has an influence on the culture within the company, if that makes sense.
- [41:16]
Ethan Strauss
No, I have a story that's similar. I think it's less about the location, but it's just more about these companies that get locked into a certain way of doing things. And it's natural for us to project our sensibility on the public and to make what we think is popular to us, popular for everybody. I think we all do that. And I had an experience. It's a self serving example and forgive me for it, but in 2016 I was reporting the story for ESPN the Magazine and it was back when magazines, I think had a bit of a higher status and what's in the ESPN the Magazine is a big deal. And it was a big deal to me. So I, I wanted to do my best story. I had a story about how Nike had screwed up the contract for Steph Curry and Steph Curry had wound up with Under Armour.
- [42:05]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, great story.
- [42:06]
Ethan Strauss
And Nico Harrison happened to be Steph Curry's handler during that time and was in this infamous meeting where everything went wrong. Somebody else called it Steph Stefan. Somebody else put up a PowerPoint. It was repurposed materials from the Kevin Durant pitch meeting. It was a disaster. And so I had this story and I was telling them, I was saying, the sneaker industry, it's a big deal. People are really into the sneaker culture and these guys make billions of dollars. And it's not just about Michael Jordan. It's, this is a big thing. And the people at ESPN the Magazine were very smart and they handled me wonderfully. I'm not trying to criticize them, but I'm saying that I was younger back then. They were a little older than I was. And they had this idea of this is how we cover basketball, this is how we cover the NBA. What you're doing right here, I don't know what to do with it. It's about the sneaker business. That's not what we do here in Connecticut at espn. And they cut the story from the physical magazine and then they put the link up there. And it became, and I know it's self serving, but it became the most read English speaking sports story of the year because it connected. And there were a bunch of people who do care about that kind of thing. People are fascinated by business. People are really into sneaker culture. It just wasn't the sort of stuff that people in Bristol were focusing on every day and so they missed it as a relevant story. I think that happens all the time. I'm sure I do it. I'm sure I miss really big resonant things just because I'm one person and I'm going to see the world through my own tastes.
- [43:44]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, I mean, I've noticed this. One of the reasons I love every four years our elections is not because I'm right. It's because of how wrong I am. And issues that I view as niche issues. The transgender issue, which I viewed as niche, didn't affect me. I think it became a real touchstone for people in this country. I was asked about it and my take was always, it's such a small number. It feels clicky. Well, I was wrong. It had a touchstone feel, like immigration was obviously a massive issue. Inflation was a massive issue. But I think that is something. I think about this all the time and I tell my staff this all the time. Let's try to avoid confirmation bias just because I want something to happen. Like Sam Darnold, I loved his season, but I kept saying on the air, I can't unsee four interception games. The New England disaster, it'll rear its head and eventually it did. So it's something I fight, but I'm guilty of it constantly. Do you find yourself the transgender issue, for me, I never thought it would have that impact. I remember being in a discussion, though. I went and had a beer with some friends. There's a place in Manhattan beach called the 900 Club. It's kind of a private club. Really neat, cozy, almost feels like a ski loft. And it was about a month out or two months out from the election and, you know, guys were talking about stuff and I was kind of eavesdropping, but half watching, you know, an NFL highlights and half listening. And I couldn't believe they had kids. I couldn't believe how passionate they were. And these, this is Southern California. These are not like Midwest alt right conservatives. It's not the crowd. And I remember walking out that night and thinking, man, I am just detached from this. Have you had something like that?
- [45:49]
Ethan Strauss
Wow. I think I was surprised by the Democratic overperformance. In the 2022 midterms. So that was a situation where I went, oh, I thought there would be more of a reaction. Things seem to have gone not great with all the inflation, and there are some of these other topics, and people were talking about a red wave. And so I was very surprised by how the Democrats overperformed in that election, and so was I. I share your exact sensibility where I'm endlessly curious about the public because I can't predict where they're going to go. I live in the Bay Area. How would I know what normal people are into and what's going to be motivating to them? And I don't look at them in a condescending way when I learn it either. I just go, okay, well, this is what's motivating to people. This is what they care about. I do not believe you'll hear people use that term, voting against your own interest. I don't believe that's a thing. I think your interest is what you're voting on. If you're more interested in culture than you are in economics, you're not voting against your own interest. If you're voting against something that would help you economically, your interest is culture, and that's relevant to what you care about. I respect that. I understand that. So I think that was one where I was surprised. And then you try to learn more and try to see about, okay, why did that happen? Why are people maybe a little wigged out still about the January 6th stuff at that particular time? I think that was motivating. And I also think, obviously, the Dobbs decision and abortion, that happened a few months before that election, and that seemed to be galvanizing. And so you learn a little bit. And I think that that's healthy. But people, for whatever reason, do not approach it that way. Often they approach it like, well, the public. I either completely know what they're going to do, they're going to do what I want them to do, and then when it doesn't happen, they're idiots and they're bad, and this country is bad. I don't like that reaction. I much prefer. I much prefer going, okay, what's going on? Why did you people feel that way, and where are you feeling it? I'm really curious about the different parts of the country. It's amazing to me that the county that's to the east of the county I grew up in, to the east of California, think it's Imperial County. I should know that because I grew up there. But it's I think something like 85% Hispanic on the border. And it made this massive shift towards Trump. Nobody would have predicted that. Nobody. So the elections are just this real object lesson in understanding attitudes out there that we probably wouldn't even be aware of.
- [48:38]
Colin Cowherd
So, yeah, you're not beholden to being right. You're beholden to getting smarter. And that's why I think I like your podcast is that again, this is a criticism of the mainstream media. They are paralyzed by being right, never acknowledge when they're wrong, and lack a certain ability to just say shit. I whiffed on that. And I am fascinated. I remember when emails were a thing to radio shows and I would read them almost obsessively. I was listening to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, saying the first thing he does for an hour every day is read emails from people about his products, good or bad. I used to love emails, and I couldn't tell you how many times I would use an email and I would use it either as a topic or as a reminder of what people cared about. So I think there is. I think I am fascinated. I've said before, there's three days every four years I'm jealous of political talk show hosts the day before an election, the day of the election, the day after the election. I wish I was doing their job, not mine, because it's just fascinating to watch the American public and what matters to them. And sometimes I'm detached. I remember years ago, I had this driver that occasionally a company paid for when I went to Chicago. And he had been Bernie Mac's driver, the legendary comedian, one of the funniest people ever. And we would go, and I was just fascinated. And I think Ocean's Eleven had been out. And I just would ask him endless questions about Bernie and just how fascinating he was. But I found that this driver, I guess you call him a personal driver, chauffeur, whatever you want to call him, it was suv, how in tune he was to the economy by being a driver. And he would talk about, oh, oh, traffic is brutal, economy's great. And I never thought about the economy, but his belief, based on what time was the traffic, what days were slow, what days were busy, what was the activity at the airport. And he'd been doing this for 30 years. He was an older guy, and he was like. He goes, I could tell you without looking at the stock market, without looking at the housing market, I can tell you how the economy is by traffic flow. And it really. I must have had three or four long conversations with this gentleman. And it really, it was like, man, people like you have such a heartbeat of how this company is moving. And I find those people fascinating. I think they're in every neighborhood in this country. They generally aren't going to Twitter. They don't need to get clicks. But these people that drive people around, these people that work in restaurants, the lady at the diner, what are the tips like? Are people buying the more expensive thing? I mean, these people that work at restaurants, these people that work at movie theaters, they know what's happening with the economy. They're boots on the ground people. And I think sometimes we overlook those kind of people.
- [51:48]
Ethan Strauss
Well, I remember Tom Friedman, the New York Times op ed writer would get mocked. He would get mocked for doing these sorts of columns where he would have a cab driver and there'd be some primary out in some state. And I look back on it and I go, some of you cool kid media people need to get in some cabs and some Ubers. Because I don't know if Tom Friedman was wrong in using that approach. It's amazing what you can learn talking to people, especially if you're traversing the country. I felt like I understood the country better when I was a beat writer covering the warriors, just because I'd be in random towns, random Ubers, random cabs. A lot of people listening to Rogan. That's how I got a sense of how big Rogan was. A lot of people listening to you. I'm not trying to flatter you, Colin, but I did remember going, man, a lot of them are listening, listening to the herd out here. And you get a sense of people. Because I think a lot of people don't even understand the bubble that they're in. And understanding it, I think is important to be an open minded. We're all in it, I'm in it, you're in it. But you have to know that you're in it to start questioning things and start wondering about some things. And it's one of the reasons why I've really enjoyed. I'll give a shout out to Mark Halperin's YouTube show Two Way, where he'll have opposing political perspectives and he'll have Spicer from the Republican side. And I'm drawing a blank on the guy from the Democratic side. And we'll talk about the news of the day. But what's really crazy is he'll bring up just random people to the floor and you'll have random viewers of his debate. Something political. I saw a debate happening between somebody whose perspective was that Trump couldn't be elected because of January 6th and somebody saying that the media was overhyping it. And at some point Mark broke in and he said, look, we're not going to settle this today, but we're going to stay on this because this is the only place in America where this is happening, at least in a way that everybody can see it. And regular people have unpredictable political opinions. That's the crazy thing when I watch where somebody will have two right wing opinions and one left or vice versa. It's just hard to imagine because I think in media especially we're all talking to each other and we're all seeing what we say and we're just forming this consensus like that. And a lot of people aren't plugged in online, they don't go about it that way and they often have more idiosyncratic viewpoints because of of it.
- [54:19]
Colin Cowherd
With amex, there's always a new experience to explore. From curating the Perfect Vacation and chilling in the Centurion Lounge before you get there, trying out that new trendy restaurant thanks to Priority Notify with Global Dining access by Resy and getting straight to the action at the Big Game. With card member entrances at select venues with AMEX Platinum, you can experience it all. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Access to the Card member entrance not limited to the American Express Platinum card. Learn more@american express.com With Amex, Jon Stewart is back at the Daily show, and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondence and contributed and with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seal. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli.
- [55:32]
Ethan Strauss
The five families did not want us to shoot that picture.
- [55:36]
Colin Cowherd
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli is based on my co host Mark's best selling book of the same title, and on this show we call upon his years of research to help unpack the story behind the Godfather's birth. From start to finish, this is really the first interview I've done in bed. We sift through innumerable accounts. 35 pages isn't very much. Many of them Conflicting. That's nonsense. There were 60 pages and try to get to the truth of what really happened.
- [56:01]
Ethan Strauss
And they said, we're finished. This is over.
- [56:03]
Colin Cowherd
Not only is not going to work.
- [56:04]
Ethan Strauss
You got to get rid of those guys. It's a disaster.
- [56:07]
Colin Cowherd
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, James Caan, Talia Shire and many others. Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something about Mary Poppins?
- [56:30]
Ethan Strauss
Something about Mary Poppins.
- [56:31]
Colin Cowherd
Exactly. Oh, man, this is fun. I'm AJ Jacobs and I am an author and a journalist and I tend to get obsessed with stuff and my current obsession is puzzles. And that has given birth to my podcast, the Puzzler. Dressing. Dressing.
- [56:51]
Ethan Strauss
French dressing. Exactly.
- [56:54]
Colin Cowherd
Oh, that's good. Now you can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. I thought to myself, I bet I know what this is. And now I definitely know what this is. This is so weird. This is fun. Let's try this one. Our brand new season features special guests like Chuck Bryant, Mayim Bialik, Julie Bowen, Sam Sanders, Joseph Gordon Levitt and lots more. Listen to the Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
- [57:25]
Ethan Strauss
You get your podcasts. That's awful and I should have seen it coming.
- [57:34]
Colin Cowherd
And now for our segment, Hot off the Press, presented by our friends at Louisiana Hot Sauce. Bring the food at your party to a whole new level with the original Louisiana brand hot sauce. I put it on a pizza last night. It was great. Bold, authentic flavor embodies the rich culinary tradition of Louisiana. The original Louisiana bread hot sauce, perfect for those who demand great flavor with just the right amount of heat. I use it on my eggs, I put it on my sandwiches, I put it on my pizzas. I love it. So I'm going to throw something out there because you have a great sense of media and you've created your own media position. So Jeff Bezos, you know, the founder of Amazon, who, by the way, there's an old story in Seattle, where I'm from, that years ago when Jeff Bezos was pitching Amazon to the top names at Microsoft, that the Microsoft guys came out of the meeting and said, we just met the smartest person we've ever met. Like he was, Jeff was really, he was a next level thinker. And so he buys the Washington Post and the business is broken and the most important part of media to me has always been not resources, but trust. And the newspaper industry especially has lost trust. So he comes out and he says, you know what? We're going to change things at this company. He says, we're going to embrace in our op ed section personal liberties and free markets and of course, the predictably precious media. People at the Post are outraged. The business is dying. It's been dying for 20 years. When a business is dying, you have to change things. My takeaway is, well, guys, what you're doing is not working. You were given the keys to the kingdom and you lost the trust of the American public. And here's a businessman saying, well, we can go belly up or we can do it my way. So I defend Bezos here. Your thoughts on what he said and what transpired.
- [59:35]
Ethan Strauss
Man, there's so many directions to take this. I, I don't necessarily know if this lodestar is going to work, but I completely agree with you about where they were at. And I think to have an honest conversation in media about what's happening, we need to at least acknowledge that you see a lot of people in legacy journalism, formerly at the Washington Post, even a guy currently at the Washington Post, lashing out. And I go, can we admit there was a problem? Can we at least admit that much? And then maybe you can disagree with Bezos's approach and say, making the Washington Post like the Wall Street Journal won't work or it's self serving or whatever. I want to just give people an object example of what I'm talking about because everybody is accusing everybody of, of bias and political bias all the time. There's this critique of the Washington Post that they were biased for the Democratic Party, but I really don't think people understand the extent of what we mean. I'm gonna, I wrote this article about the Post. I've been criticizing the Post for a while. I, I draw a distinction. By the way, I think the New York Times has been a very useful paper, whatever people think of its biases. I would not say that about the Washington Post, even if some people there certainly talented and people have gotten angry at me for that. But here's an example of what I mean. The day after the Biden debate debacle that ultimately got him shoved out of the presidential race, right? That, that was the biggest news day of the year. And I remember it. I remember going to the Washington Post and going, well, I want to know what the insider gossip is. This is the Washington paper of record. What is going on I took a screenshot of the front page of the Washington Post the day after this debate where Biden's meltdown was the biggest news story of the year. The top story on the front page is justices strike down obstruction charge used for hundreds of January 6th rioters. Latest from the Post what Trump said with his very fine people comments versus what he meant. There's something about how elephants have been orphaned as babies and returned to the wild. And there's something about Baltimore's revived red line will be the light rail system. Moore says those are the top headlines. That's crazy. That's insane. Yeah, and there were left leaning or Democrat leaning publications that actually covered the news. If you don't do your job, somebody is going to do it for you. That's the lesson I take from it. The people at the paper were not doing their jobs. They had such a group thing going on there where everything was about Trump and everything was about all polling in the same direction to defend the party to the extent when the party actually fractured and Biden totally collapses, they can't even cover the story. So if you're not covering the story and I can't rely on you to do that, then what are we really doing here? And Bezos realized he was running that kind of operation that just couldn't tell people what they wanted to know. And he obviously wants to change things. So that's what drives me crazy about how this is all played out, how we can't even discuss that this, you know, this publication was just in a really bad way and now you've got, you know, you're kind of subject to a lot of journalists thinking that, you know, people who aren't the show, who've been propped up by the show, the Bezos billions, assuming that they are the show and you're not the show. You're not. And you're certainly not the show if you're not going to do what people want you to do. So that's my background take on it.
- [63:21]
Colin Cowherd
You know, I was saying this about JJ Redick, the Lakers today. I don't mind arrogance as long as it's accompanied by self awareness and humility when you're wrong. And I think Jay Redick possesses those. I think he has self awareness and he's not somebody that is unwilling to move off things if he's wrong. So I think you have to be somewhat arrogant to manage the Yankees, to coach the Cowboys and to coach the Lakers. It's a big brand. There's a lot of opinions and I think the lack of self awareness among the print media especially and traditional media is really out of whack. Bill Maher often says this. The idea that you could not discuss the concerns about the Wuhan lab, the idea that Joe Rogan was taken to the woodshed because he suggested what we were all seeing during the election, that Joe Biden has a significant cognitive decline and it's oatmeal and it's getting worse every six months. And then Jake Tapper's now writing a book acknowledging, ooh, there was a cover up. Well, I mean, it was, if you discuss that in the first two years of the presidency, it was considered mean spirited and it was a wacky conspiracy theory. And the lack of self awareness between the traditional media that, guys, we're watching things happen. There's that kind of now iconic piece of Jon Stewart going on, Stephen Colbert, and Colbert just can't, just lacks complete self awareness, just can't embrace it. And I'm no fan of Trump, but I've kind of come to terms with, I get Trump voters. I completely, absolutely get it. And when Bezos makes this move, it's like, guys, the business is broken. It's over.
- [65:17]
Ethan Strauss
Well, and you could criticize Trump within the context of what Bezos is saying. If you're in favor of free markets, Trump is very much pro tariffs, which doesn't really seem to be in accordance with free markets. So it doesn't necessarily read that this means that you need to lock step, cheer on everything Trump is doing. But I think what people want, ultimately, they want authentic. They don't want you to be right all the time. It's impossible. You do the, you know, where Colin was right, where Colin was wrong. People don't love Charles Barkley because everything he says is true. They love Charles Barkley because they know that everything Charles Barkley says is what he's thinking.
- [66:02]
Colin Cowherd
And by the way, and Barclay admits when he's wrong. And this is what I've said before, nobody in politics will admit they're wrong. Nobody in traditional media goes, hey, I whiffed on this until election night. And then it all unravels because the wrong guy won in their eyes. And you know, this is just something that, and I, and I grew up with somebody. I don't have a problem, by the way, with our government funding the Associated Press. I really don't. But I do think you look at NPR and I listen occasionally to npr. Yeah. There's no question where it's leaning. There's no question where it's coming from. And I'm a subscriber to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. I love media. I can read Ann Coulture, I can read Ben Shapiro, I can read Bill Maher. I go all over the map. I'm curious. I want all sorts of media, but the inability for kind of these mainstream medias to acknowledge they are completely out of whack. Like even, like right now, even with Trump and Elon Musk doing all these moves. Well, the truth, and I was thinking about this the other day, I'll throw this at you. Obviously I don't want to get over my skis too much. But if you look at Europe and what has happened to their economy, it's bloated, heavy bureaucracy. I mean, you can go read about the last 10 years of Germany's economy. Too many regulations, too much bureaucracy, and now it's stuck in the mud. It used to be a more powerful force. And so I think what Trump is saying is what we don't want to do in this country, and I got about six months to turn this stuff around is we don't want to be Europe. We're going to cut bureaucracy, we're going to cut spending. We want to be nimble and twitchier. So I kind of, I'm interested to see how it plays out. I don't agree with all the moves the media is just has come on the side of this is ending democracy. And my take is there are too many smart people that don't agree with that. Where are you on the Trump Musk? Rapid change. Rapid changes that are happening very quickly.
- [68:06]
Ethan Strauss
Okay, okay. So you said a lot right there. One thing is, I think it's important to admit what you don't know. I think if people get so invested in trying to show that I have the best take on politics, I'm so smart that they pretend to know things they don't. I do not know how our vast federal bureaucracies function. A lot of them I don't. And right now there's a fog of war quality to everything happening. Every story is like that story where from the Musk side it's Politico is getting paid a gazillion dollars by the government and then it's, well, no, they're not really, but they are some function called political pro and they've got a subscription and it adds up. And maybe it's a little loosey goosey. There's this fog of war where it's really hard for me to track what's happening. I'm intrigued by it. I also have concerns about how you might not know what we rely on until it suddenly gets broken in this move fast and break things sort of ethos that Elon seems to be operating under. But my critique of the Democratic side on this and the media side on this is this I could accept. Let's say they're right about every single criticism they have right now of what Trump and Elon are doing in taking a machete to the bureaucracy and the way that they're doing it, that it's illegal, that it's misguided, that it's going to end bad. Okay, let's just accept that premise. Hypothetically, what is your alternative plan? Because I don't think anybody believes that our federal government, which just to service it, we're paying unbelievable amounts in just the interest on the debt in order to get it functioning. Nobody believes that it's completely efficiently run and all the money is being spent efficiently. Nobody believes this. Nobody literally believes this. So tell me what should be cut? If you think they're doing it wrong, then tell me how it should be done right. What, you know, what aspect shouldn't get as much money. Where could we become more efficient if that's happening? I haven't seen it, or at least I haven't seen it at scale. And I think that that speaks to the problem and the predicament much of the Democratic Party and the media that is sympathetic to them are in currently, which is this ability to criticize, but not an ability to present an alternative vision, this ability to say that this Trump issue set is bad or appeals to our basis, basist instincts, but no ability to say, this is what the country should be, this is how we're going to thrive, this is how we will be great, or great again, as Trump would say.
- [70:44]
Colin Cowherd
We're increasingly a bloated bureaucracy. And what he's trying to do, I think, is in the six months, get as much done as he can. And if he takes a machete to some things he probably shouldn't, it's just part of. It's the reality of anybody that buys a new company and tries to create efficiency. You may cut too deeply, but you have also made the company more nimble. You know, you've made the company more efficient. And sometimes you just chop or lop off too much. I can live with a little bit of that, because you can always remember, you can recalibrate. You lose at the midterms. I mean, this thing's not gonna last forever. Trump's polarizing, so he's gonna Lose people along the way. But my take is not only is there no plan, but there is, once again, it's this almost derangement syndrome where there's nothing that he's doing that works. And I don't believe that to be true. And that's what the media is feeding me.
- [71:48]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah, I completely agree. I think there are a lot of issues like this. I think Trump's number one issue in the first election, maybe the second election, was immigration. And you could say that he was cruel or wrongheaded. But then I would ask friends in my life, I'm in the Bay Area effectively, you know, 90% of my friends are liberal, vote Democrat. And I would go, okay, what should our immigration policy be? Who, how many from where? And it would be crickets. And I think one of the reasons that that side of things has fallen into this, this sort of paralysis of never needing to articulate a vision is I think they had a significant advantage. I think that they did have a near monopoly on media, certainly legacy media. Yes, Twitter was on their side. Twitter was run by like minded people and it was this messaging apparatus. So if they had a problem with what the other side was doing, they would just mirror what each other were saying and it would be very effective, messaging wise. We're in a new reality. Love them or hate them. Musk has this powerful network in Twitter, X, as he calls it. He's in government so he can message what he's doing and get his version of it out there. You can say that there is a conflict of interest there. You can say that's a dystopia. You can say all these different things about it, but it's powerful. And you're going to do, you're going to have to do more. You're going to have to do better than just saying he's bad, he's a Nazi, or Trump is a Nazi or a fascist, or any of this sort of messaging that might have worked in 2017, but we're in a new reality. Demographics are shifting. The Democrats are losing young men to a crazy degree. I'm sure you've noticed this, because even in our business, Colin, it's not necessarily politics, purely the customers people care about are young men and they're going the other direction. I just don't think it's good enough to sit back and criticize. I think you need to have something of your own to sell Ethan Strauss.
- [73:52]
Colin Cowherd
His podcast is House of Strauss. He's got a wide variety of guests. He is a podcaster with dexterity. He can talk business, he can talk sports, he can talk media. You and Glass Beagle get all. It's one of my favorite. You guys get into the weeds on stuff, which I'm completely fascinated by, and you do all this amazing homework and I just want you to know. I don't know the download numbers, but all that, all that wonky media stuff for a guy that's been in it probably too long, I find fascinating. Buddy.
- [74:25]
Ethan Strauss
Oh, I. I really appreciate that. And thanks so much for all the kind words and this has been fantastic. Thanks so much, Colin.
- [74:34]
Colin Cowherd
The Volume. This is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser Podcast. On a more serious note, I'm still thinking about that commercial with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg hating on each other, because when you listen to the reasons for hating someone or something, you realize just how stupid they really are. There is too much hate in this country and it's gotta stop. So join us at iHeart in standing up to it. If you see hate, speak up, call it out and you can learn more by following. Hat's upwithhate. Hey everybody, what's up? This is Questlove, and every year we do special programming in February for Black History Month. Now, it's especially important this year as we gear up for some new conversations. So the team and I compiled some clips from the show that are worth revisiting. In part one of the celebration of Black History Month, we're listening back to Moments with Chris Rock, Solange Prodigy, Vivarine, Jennifer Lewis, Angela Rye, and Gina Yashore. Listen to Questlove supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Catch Jon Stewart back in action on the Daily show and in your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for.
- [75:59]
Ethan Strauss
Podcast listeners, like in depth interviews and.
- [76:02]
Colin Cowherd
A roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you hungry? Colleen Witt here. And Eating While Broke is back for season four Every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. This season, we've got a legendary lineup serving up broke dishes and even better stories. On the menu. We have Tony Baker, Nick Cannon, Melissa Ford, October London, and Carrie Harper Howe turning Big Macs into big moves. Catch Eating While Broke every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. IHEARTRADIO app Apple Podcast. Wherever you get your favorite shows, come hungry for season four.