PMS 2.0 1526 - Cooper Flagg, Chase Daniel, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, Dan Orlovsky, & Darius Butler

Summary

The Pat McAfee Show 2.0, Episode 1526

Date: April 1, 2026
Featured Guests: Cooper Flagg, Chase Daniel, WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert, Dan Orlovsky, Darius Butler
Main Theme: Breaking down the latest twists in sports including NFL drama, Cooper Flagg’s rookie journey, WNBA future, and much more—with Pat and the crew’s signature humor and insight.

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Pat McAfee Show delivers a packed slate: the unfolding drama around Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, Chase Daniel’s QB analysis, Cooper Flagg’s transition into the NBA, insights into the booming WNBA from Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, live pro day reactions, hockey talk, and a dash of baseball and March Madness. The show is its usual blend of irreverent banter, sharp sports insight, and unique insider perspective.

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Key Segments & Insights

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1. Eagles & Jalen Hurts Drama

[00:00 – 09:43]

• Main Discussion:
  Hot off the NFL league meetings, Pat reacts to an ESPN report (by Jeremy Fowler) on Jalen Hurts’ alleged role in “calcifying” the Eagles offense. The crew breaks down media leaks, locker room dynamics, and whether this is just April Fool’s fodder or a real issue.

• Key Points:

  • “Calcified” used to describe a stagnant offense, allegedly due to Hurts’ preferences.

  • Locker room tension, anonymous sources, the question of leadership, and how Philly expectations create drama.

  • The prevalence of anonymous sources draws ire:

    “There should be anonymous sources and things that are very real in the world… but this feels cowardice.”
    – Pat, 06:27

  • Ongoing drama isn’t new with the Eagles—it’s about continuity, play-caller turnover, and high-standard city culture.

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2. NFL Win Totals & April Fools Banter

[09:44 – 12:07]

• Eagles’ Over/Under: Still strong sportsbook faith with a 10.5 win-total line despite team drama.
• Lighthearted April Fools’ riffing: The crew jokes about the now year-round prevalence of fake news, thanks to AI and social media.

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3. NBA & Cooper Flagg’s Rookie Journey

[12:07 – 41:09]

• Transition to NBA Talk:

  • Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg joins after a 19/10 game, amid the Mavs’ tough season.
  • Discussion of the challenges for top prospects joining rebuilding teams and the parallels with Wemby in San Antonio.

• Interview – Cooper Flagg:
  [23:22 – 41:09]

  • On being “main event” in Dallas after winning everywhere else:

    “Through high school, college. I only lost four games last year…there’s been times this season… really mentally taxing… But I think, you know, hopefully eventually I’ll be able to look back and know I was able to learn a lot from it.”
    – Cooper Flagg, 24:03

  • On rookie challenges: learning NBA pace, handling point guard duties, dealing with “superstar” isolation as a teenager in a league of grown men.

  • Rookie of the Year race, keeping in touch with fellow Duke alums, being embraced by older NBA generation (but they “definitely want to go at the rookies”).

  • Life off the court: gaming, staying grounded, Maine roots.

  • Comical talk about Maine, lobster rolls, and the bonding power of “lobstah.”

  • New Balance endorsement and the “lifestyle shoe” game.

  • Flagg’s mature mindset shines—embracing adversity now as fuel for future greatness.

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4. Shohei Ohtani’s Historic Stats & Baseball Talk

[41:17 – 47:04]

• Shohei going both ways:

  “Shohei Ohtani currently holds the longest active on-base streak—36 games straight... and the longest active scoreless innings streak. That’s baseball, right? That is baseball.”
  – Pat, 44:34

• Chatter on pitching workload, Dodgers’ plans, and Ohtani’s drive to be the all-timer.

• Pirates’ Paul Skenes and fan traditions (“Hoist the cone!”) poked fun at alongside MLB traditions—quirky as ever.

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5. WNBA Growth: Commissioner Cathy Engelbert Interview

[58:39 – 113:42]

• WNBA History-Making News:

  • Engelbert unpacks the just-signed seven-year CBA, record broadcast deals, and ongoing franchise expansion.
  • On CBA talks:

    “CBAs tend to get done at the 11th hour... The process was definitely not linear. You have to do a lot of listening, reacting, acting, responding…and, in some cases, totally pivoting...”
    – Cathy Engelbert, 94:28

  • Sustainability is paramount: learning from NBA/NFL business model evolution; player salary growth tied to revenue; importance of corporate partners.

• On the League’s Future:

  • “Players will, for the first time, benefit every time we increase our revenue. Full revenue share. That’s a huge win for both them and the owners.”
    – Cathy, 98:10
  • The league hitting its stride now, after years of unprofitability—a common timeline for major sports leagues.
  • Star-power focus: Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, growing global/international presence, household names fueling ratings and investment.

• Expansion & Development:

  • Toronto, Portland set to join; plans for Philly, Cleveland, Detroit.
  • New dev spots (practice players) boosting opportunity—collaboration between PA and league.

• Draft/Eligibility Rules:

  • No change in age/class requirements; four-year college helps build NIL and pro brands.
  • Big picture: more teams, more money, better play—the WNBA’s on the rise.

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6. NFL Media Rights, Coaches’ League Meeting Hijinks

[61:10 – 74:50]

• TV Deals: NFL carving out even more prime time (Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve), “a la carte” game-selling for major new revenue opportunities.
• League Meetings Recap: Coaches’ group photo analyzed for alpha dominance—Mike Vrabel’s “stance,” Sean Payton’s gamesmanship, rookie coaches getting “sunned.” Classic Thunderdome banter.

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7. Pro Day Live – #1 QB Prospect Fernando Mendoza

[122:23 – 135:40]

• Real-time reactions to Indiana’s pro day; throwing showcase for Fernando Mendoza, future Vegas Raiders QB.
• Darius Butler and Dan Orlovsky dissect throws, footwork, leadership—fun rapport with good-natured ribbing.
• Orlovsky clarifies previous week’s “big game” viral dustup—crew teases but affirms mutual respect.

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8. Hockey, NBA, and Final Banter

[151:35 – close]

• Hockey:
  • Sidney Crosby and Ovechkin chase more records, Penguins playoff push, goalie fights, Detroit’s “Eiserplan” debate.
• NBA:
  • Knicks panic, Celtics optimism, Cooper Flagg missed by Knicks fans, Mavericks’ failed blockbuster moves dissected.
• Pat’s classic monologues close out the show, including reflections on kindness, team on three, and being a friend.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Jalen Hurts Drama:

  “There should be anonymous sources … but this feels cowardice. Will we cover it? Got to. We’re part of the problem.” (06:27–06:54, Pat & Darius)

• Cooper Flagg’s Mindset (on tough rookie season):

  “I’ve had to grow up a lot quicker … being out there by myself, new city, new pressure—just got to trust the work I put in.” (29:52–30:19, Cooper Flagg)

• WNBA’s CBA Progress (on growing from unprofitability):

  “We’re just not going to do this without a financial model that’s sustainable for our owners…” (97:00–98:10, Cathy Engelbert)

• Pro Day Insight:

  “Intermediate passes, layering throws, being on time—this is what everybody’s looking for … NFL always about the throws you don’t see in college often.” (124:06–124:21, Darius Butler)

• Locker Room Banter:

  “Alphas. Lot of alphas. One stance above all … had to sprawl to make sure I wasn’t lifted into the sky … I was hoisting the cone, enjoying the time.” (167:29–168:33, Pat)

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Timestamps Quick Guide

• Eagles Drama/Jalen Hurts: 00:00–09:43
• NBA/Cooper Flagg Interview: 12:07–41:09
• Shohei Ohtani/MLB talk: 41:17–47:04
• WNBA Commissioner Engelbert: 58:39–113:42
• NFL TV Rights/Coaches photo: 61:10–74:50
• Pro Day/Mendoza live: 122:23–135:40
• Dan Orlovsky, banter, Autism month: 135:41–148:43
• Hockey/NBA/Final wrap: 151:35–end

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Tone & Style

• Playful, passionate, and fast-paced sports talk with genuine admiration, teasing, insight, and camaraderie (and heaps of inside jokes).
• Mix of expert critique, fan passion, and relatable humor.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode brings deep dives (and laughs) on the state of the Eagles, the up-and-down of sports superstar journeys, and the way pro leagues build and sustain value. The show manages to make pro day tape thrilling, illuminate the business of women’s sports, and dissect every off-the-field eyebrow-raiser, all while staying true to its “fun first, insight second” format. If you’re a sports die-hard or just appreciate good banter, it’s an easy must-listen—especially for the candid interviews and playful behind-the-scenes moments you won’t get anywhere else.

Transcript

[Host]

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome. On this April Fool's Wednesday. March. No, April 1st. It should start now. Sports. Listen, April Fool's obviously something that some people fall for. Let's not be rude out there. I saw a couple guys announce their return to some professional leagues. Good luck to them if that's the case. It's April Fool's. I don't like that you put me in a position to be happy for you, and then now I gotta rescind that and actually be mad at you because you tricked me. Now, on that note, hope you're all having a fantastic Wednesday. We're back here at the Thunderdome after two days in Phoenix, Arizona, where there was a lot of NFL chatter in conversation, a lot of NFL people all kind of in one place. A lot of people shaking hands, kissing babies, telling secrets. And then all of a sudden, reports coming out, jalen Hurts, the problem. Whoa.

[Darius Butler]

What?

[Host]

That's for Mr. Fowler. Jeremy Fowler at ESPN reported, basically, is our latest at ESPN, as he describes his entire article alongside Tim McManus. Jalen Hurts stands at a crossroads. Despite his immense success, sources say he has a hand in the Eagles offense becoming calcified and frustrations grown. Uh oh, pull up the definition of calcified, please, just so we can do that. Hardened by deposition of or conversion into calcium carbonate or another insoluble calcium compound. I go to the toxic table at Boston. Connor. More specifically at Ty Schmidt, who got into Harvard, chose to go to Iowa because he wanted to be a Big Ten angler. Okay, no big deal. What the hell does he mean by calcified? Basically saying that Jalen Hurts has put the Eagles offense into a position where it can't go up or can't go down. It's basically just here. And in the article, they say he likes certain routes, he likes doing things, he likes throwing it out here. He doesn't like these things. He changes plays to be ass plays, is what an anonymous source told Jeremy Fowler. In a nutshell, this whole thing. Now, you read that, okay? Especially as what we saw last year coming out of Chicago Bears camp with how Caleb Williams was kind of being talked about by anonymous sources. You go here to Philadelphia, you see anonymous sources, you start thinking to yourself, well, who would be saying play calls are good? That guy was changing them to ass call. You can start piecing things together. Or maybe this is fresh out of the league meetings. The overall narrative was like, hey, there's a bigger problem here. And it's not just AJ Brown opening Up books on the sidelines saying he hates. What's it become over there? Is everybody unhappy? Is Jalen now the enemy? This is a wild article to have have here on this April 1st, fresh out of the league meetings and I really don't know how to take it. Nick Sirianni is being called chud. Yeah, because of how he looks. He looks like he's a little bit jacked, but he certainly doesn't have a six pack just yet. But now the Eagles even more drama, which is seemingly the case with this team all the time. Now all eyes seemingly are on Jalen Hurts. That's crazy. This guy just won a Super bowl two years ago, Ty.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, based on the context clues, I assume that is what Calify means in this situation is basically that the, you know, the offense is just stagnant because of him. Stays the exact same, doesn't change. But like you said, it is very interesting because this is the big thing we've kind of talked about with the Eagles even, you know, before they won that super bowl when they, when they went a couple years ago with psych and I mean, it seems to always be a new offensive coordinator. Is it this guy's fault? We know how the fans treat him. Fans hate every offensive coordinator that comes in. Then gets, you know, Sirianni kind of gets some of that backlash as well. But it does make you think because, I mean, this stuff has come up before, but I think that's always been our response is kind of like, listen, this guy just won a Super Bowl. He cannot be the only reason that Philadelphia's offense kind of has looked like shite for the better part of, you know, last year and a little bit before that. But it is very interesting that a couple people are kind of taking shots

[Host]

at nine year NFL vet Darius J. Butler is here. 11 and six was the record okay, this last year. Now, yeah, certainly would be now Philadelphia, fresh off a Super bowl, can't have it. We got to look better. We got to look the part. We got to be the part every single week. We need to be better than what we're showing. And, and also when our star players that we have paid to be star players are coming out and saying, I hate this, I hate all this publicly in the middle of the season. Obviously that's not good. Fans are expecting a certain thing. Team obviously wants to win every game. Jalen Hurts has won the, the entire thing and has played very well. I mean, dagger, let's not forget about what that is from Jalen Hurts. But that's One of those throws he likes. Oh, yeah, right. He did call that play. He actually did call that particular play. But the drama seemingly never ending around Philadelphia. Is. Is this a real thing of content here, you think, with this Philadelphia Eagles, especially with this article coming out, especially the timing of the article, do you think this is going to be something that might affect the building in Philadelphia?

[Darius Butler]

Oh, definitely. Definitely real. I've been hearing these rumblings for some time now. As you know, I'm in Philly. I fly into Philly every week during the. During the NFL season to shoot at films, which is right in Jersey. So obviously, fans talk. Fans talk. And people are in the building, people that work in the building. So you hear these things about the quarterback, and the quarterback position is always going to be a bunch around them. I thought, you know, usually people are a fan of the quarterbacks and the players who win, who win the big games, who win the big moments. As we know, the Eagles, they're one of my teams. Why I became Eagles fan is because of Jalen Hurts. I liked how he played, I liked how he led. I liked all those things. Same thing on the other side of the country with Justin Herbert. And if you look at the narratives around these two different quarterbacks, everyone loves Justin Herbert. Hey, get some help around him. Get some things. He's got to get over the hump, got to win a playoff game. And then you look at Jalen Hurts, you say, oh, he has a good offensive line, he has Saquon, he has good receivers, he has a good defense. Anybody could win super bowl in that situation. So there's different narratives around it. I'm sure there's some truth to it as well. But we know this about quarterbacks. A lot of times they do bump heads with people. They want to do things their way. And look at that list, the graphic that we had up with all those different play callers that's been in his ear since becoming a starter. Like, that's abnormal. And obviously, even in a league where offensive play callers move on, he has an offensive coach. Like, this is abnormal. Usually these great quarterbacks, you have continuity with play calls for some time.

[Host]

Three out of five years, he's created a head coach.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, true.

[Host]

Okay. He knows that. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

We were talking about Baker Mayfield and the coaches that have gone on and coached him went on to be head coaches. And so it's a lot of narrative. When it's Philly, it's going to be a big talking point because of their market, their team, their brand. And when you don't win when you don't win at all, especially the team like that, it's going to be loud shit like this.

[Host]

In the article, Team Source said poor body language, always bought in. Not the most coachable and players notice. I would like to say I don't love that this is all anonymity. Okay. It's like, these people's lives will not be jeopardized. I understand that. There should be anonymous sources and things that are very real in the world and you need whistleblowers and all this type of stuff in sports. This seems pretty cowardice.

[Darius Butler]

Yep.

[Host]

You know, this feels pretty cowardice. Will we cover it?

[Darius Butler]

Got to.

[Host]

We're part of the problem.

[Tone]

Yeah, you do have.

[Host]

We are certainly a part of the problem. And maybe this is how business is done, you know, to get things to happen. But that's a real quote right there. That's. And the players notice. It's like question of leadership, basically. Not being bought in. Other players notice and they hear the players speak during the season. It's like, Philadelphia is such a fascinating place. And the head coach who's being called CHUD right now has also been called big dumb dipshit in the past.

[Con Man]

That's right.

[Host]

And they won a Super Bowl. Yeah, they've won a Super Bowl. So good luck to all parties over there. Go ahead, comment.

[Con Man]

Yeah, but it's clearly not. Nothing like, that's why we have to talk about it, because this isn't the first time, if this is the first time we've heard, like, oh, there's, you know, some stuff going on in the Eagles locker room. Fine. I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but Brandon Graham on a radio interview basically said like, ye. The locker room, Jalen, A.J. brown, like, they're not seeing eye to eye. And whether that was, you know, outside voice or inside voice on the outside, whatever the hell you say, that wasn't supposed to be said. And then Brandon Graham says it, and then all of a sudden, no, this is nothing. And then there's the whole entire, oh, they had a handshake thing. AJ Saquon. And, you know, Jalen were, you know, they. They settled their differences and then they asked A.J. brown about. And A.J. brown's like, I don't remember that. That never happened. So it's. It's not as if this is just out of nowhere. The timing of it is interesting right after the league meetings. That is fascinating. But, like, there is something within that locker room that isn't right, that that has caused Problems and whether or not A.J. brown is there next year. Right now he is. So if A.J. brown goes back and that they. They figure it out, that's amazing. But let's say AJ Brown leaves and then some stuff happens. It's like then, then there are real questions about the Jalen Hurts thing.

[Ty Schmidt]

And if you remember it, it was either last year at this exact time or right before the season. There was another long ESPN article detailing how Sirianni and Jalen Hurts didn't get along at all. And that was one big thing that they had to kind of come face to face, you know, before the season started. Like, hey, we have to put our swords down. Like, we have to make this work. So. Yeah, exactly. It might not all be true, but Jalen Hurts is at the center of all this stuff, like in his name continually gets brought up. So it probably is a little more than nothing.

[Host]

All right, I guess we have to pay attention to it now. On that note, let's go to one half of the hammer.

[Con Man]

Done.

[Host]

Cowboys AP tone. What's the Eagles over under?

[Tone]

The win total is ten and a half.

[Host]

Think about that. Ten wins is expected on the sports book. Ten and a half.

[Tone]

I think it's tied for the most in the league. It's either 10 and a half or 11 and a half. They're still favorites to win the east, but they have fallen like the last few years. They've been favorites to win the NFC as a whole. They're fifth right now behind the Seahawks, Rams, Niners and Packers. So they fell a little bit in there. But they're still favorites when these ten and a half is a very, very strong win total. So the books don't believe in the drop off as much as maybe the public is right now.

[Host]

Pittsburgh Steelers, eight and a half. That's classic. Seahawks just won a Super bowl. Ten and a half.

[Tone]

Yeah.

[Kathy Engelbert]

Okay.

[Host]

Philadelphia Eagles, who have fresh out of league meetings April 1. We don't think it's April Fools from Jeremy Fowler. We try to do like personality profiling.

[Con Man]

Sure.

[Host]

We don't think Jeremy Fowler would be an April Fool's type guy.

[Darius Butler]

It's an adult with this.

[Host]

Exactly. That is what we're saying.

[Tone]

He is very.

[Host]

He's super adulty. Yeah, we would see that now. There was a time back where April Fool's day was a scary day and he stayed away from phone. Yeah. You know, whenever you live in life a little bit, you know, you need to stay away from that. But we, you know, there was a little bit of that stuff just like really you know, a couple of those.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

And then you start conversating like, could it? Could it? Well, I guess. And then things got a little bit too real. You know, we always ruin things. I think April Fool's had a fun time. Yeah, I think it had a fun time, but now with AI and the Internet and everything. Yeah. It's just gotten. Every day is April Fool's Day.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's right.

[Host]

And then April Fool's Day now has it potentially become like New Year's Eve where the amateurs are going? You know what I mean?

[Con Man]

Sure.

[Host]

And it's like. I don't know. But whatever the case is, we need to all agree to April Fools should be something different. We should stop with the. The fool around. Yeah.

[Tone]

Yeah.

[Host]

And how about every day we stop using AI Trick people into believing things that could be true.

[Con Man]

That happens.

[Tone]

Every day is kind of April Fool's Day.

[Host]

That Dan Hurley thing.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Mm.

[Host]

Thought that we thought that was.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thought there was a chance it was.

[Host]

Which I think is good of us to do that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Con Man]

I mean, you got to have it every question.

[Tone]

Everything.

[Darius Butler]

Everything.

[Host]

Not just on April Fools. So I think our April Fool's messages now every day is potentially. April Fools stay enlightened. Cuz that's right. On that note, Jeremy Fowler. I don't think he's April fooling around.

[Tone]

No. He doesn't feel like that.

[Host]

I don't think he is April fooling around at all with this. And this is a pretty heavy story. He knew that was going to be the case coming out. He's going to have a good April, we think. Clicks. Yeah, he's on good start. He's on a good start. We've obviously we've dove into that. We think we might have Cooper flag in about eight and a half minutes. Okay. We think. We don't know. We've not gotten confirmation on a time and they lost pretty bad last night. But they've been losing.

[Ty Schmidt]

They have.

[Host]

They've been losing. But there was a conversation that was had with Cooper flags folks that he would come on program. There's, you know, March is just not. It was not a good month for the Dallas Mavs. So we don't know how this is going to go, but we think we're going to be catching up with Cooper flag. He had 1910 last night. Double double ho hum. Don't worry about it. They lose by 50.

[Con Man]

Yep.

[Host]

So that's what it was.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's been their season though.

[Host]

That's what it was.

[Con Man]

That's the norm.

[Host]

What was their record in March 3 and what?

[Con Man]

3 and 14 in March. I think they're 24 and 50 overall.

[Host]

So if he, you know, if we. If he's on the program in eight minutes, we will certainly let him know that that stinks. That that's your experience. But also that happens in every sport. Usually if you're a super talent, you're going to a team that isn't that great. Now, the Mavs were better than most teams whenever you went to that team. And then there was obviously a lot of hopes and dreams and drama and tweets from Sham Charani that change the entire trajectory of everything in that entire world down there. But Koop Flag is a guy. There's some stats coming out about him. There are some stats coming out about him and some names that are being put up there. Teenagers who have averaged 20 plus points in a season. Cooper's doing it this year currently. Will he be able to finish? We assume. Luka, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, all certified bucket getters. Cooper Flag, obviously trying to cement his name on that list and also try to turn around a franchise. That, boy, they've done some big old. And then just right down here at the foot, then they get that thing back and then they turn. Turn that thing to the left foot. That's what they've done a lot. Mark Cuban sells that thing. Then they're accused of trying to move the team to Vegas by being so shitty that people stop buying tickets. Do you remember that? Yep. That was actual accusations that were kind of happening to them.

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

Then, you know, the move is made for the whole Luca trade and Anthony Davis comes in there. If he's healthy, that's good. He's now a member of Washington team in D.C. and he's not playing this year until next year because they're tanking. So he's on his team. And Luka scored more points, I think, in a month than maybe their team did in a year or so. Yeah, I forget what it was. So, yeah, Luka's the guy right now.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Down 38 pounds, which I think Nico is probably trying to say, you know, when he was in Dallas, too good of cooking over there, maybe, is what he was thinking. But, yeah, Luka has won this particular trade. The Mavs haven't. But with Cooper Flag, what we're saying, if we get a chance to chat with him in six minutes, is. Seems like you're off to just a normal superstar start in a league. Wemby first year at San Antonio. Right. They weren't like the best somehow.

[Con Man]

Yeah, same thing.

[Host]

Somehow they weren't the best right now with what we know about Wemby, they weren't good. And he could have been good by himself is what we're learning basketball basically. So we hope the same will happen to him. But it feels like there is a young generation in the NBA that are doing good. Right. I think that is a conversation. He's joining that group right now.

[Con Man]

Yeah, without a doubt. It feels like the NBA is definitely on the up and up. And for Cooper Flagg, I believe he started the year at point guard. Like they've moved him around so it's not as if he just kind of, you know, hit the ground running. It does feel as though he had to make some adjustments. But to your point, they fired the GM during the year. That's never a good sign. As far as teams doing well. Jason Kidd's still there, but yeah, we'll see. A long way to go for the Mavericks once Kyrie comes back. Maybe that'll help him. You know, Kyrie's been gone all year as well, so it is just one of those things where, hey, let's wait and see.

[Host]

I love that basketball is going to heat up in the playoffs and there's going to be a story about the NBA not being dead. Yeah, I, I do love that that's going to happen. But boy, with the haves and have nots in the NBA now, it is tough to watch a lot of these games. But hey, things are going to heat up. Let's remember exactly. LeBron James is taking off from foul line again.

[Con Man]

Yeah, they got a chance.

[Host]

I have no idea how he's doing, especially with the things that are being said.

[Tone]

Wow.

[Host]

About what's going on. We're watching this guy, he's a 40 plus year old taking massive oops from Austin, just going crazy. The minutes he's playing is outrageous. We've been watching him do that since he's 12 years old. He's still doing that. And that team might be on a run. It's like the NBA whenever it gets to the playoffs when we get rid of all the have nots that are all ass at basketball, some of them, Adam Silver's not gonna like me saying this. Are trying to be the worst ass, the most ass basketball team trying really hard. They're trying. They're trying their absolute best with interesting little strategies. Subbing out the six minute mark, three minute mark. Who's going in? Who's playing? Stars still playing. Stars still playing. When are they playing? How are they playing interesting moves being accused of these teams trying to be the most ass. But when we get to the playoffs after that first play and thing once we get to the playoffs we should have all the good teams. So I think the NBA is going to be in a good spot. Sucks that Cooper Flag's not a part of that. We will not start the Max Crosby needs to be traded type conversation so they can make games with Cooper flag at this point. But it certainly if this is two more, three more years of this, we're certainly going to have to get into that.

[Con Man]

Yeah, it's hard to imagine that just because of how good he is. But I can't remember the last time. All the teams that, you know, are eliminated from playoff contention is where it is. Basically all the playing teams for the playoffs are, you know, solidified. Whether they're the 7, 8, 9 or 10 seed, I'm not sure. But those ones are already out. But yeah, it is a very good young league which is good. Like Wemby in the Spurs. That storyline throughout the playoffs is going to be unbelievable. And then even the new teams in the east like you know, the, the Pistons and even James Harden with the Cavs is sweet.

[Host]

The haters are going to be mad. In which there are many. We will not just be talking NBA hoops today.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no.

[Host]

We'll be talking college hoops as well. Yeah, we'll be talking college hoops as well.

[Darius Butler]

Always Yukon shout out.

[Host]

Oh, Yukon. All five Americans. You see that little graph. Talking college hoops obviously found a force here in Indianapolis.

[Kathy Engelbert]

That's right.

[Host]

Coach Case. That's great. Also talking WNBA today.

[Ty Schmidt]

Okay.

[Host]

Every time we do that, it ends up really well.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

Today. Today's gonna be another one of those today. What's up, April Fools? See, Are you really? No, we just talked about April Fooling around.

[Con Man]

What the heck was that?

[Host]

Just making sure WNBA commissioner Kathy Engelberg will be joining today's show.

[Darius Butler]

Let's go.

[Host]

It's a big conversation for us dudes. We're very lucky and thankful to be doing it. I have a lot of questions. Yeah. And she talent. We went through her history. She was co at Deloitte, which I think is like one of the four biggest firms.

[Cooper Flagg]

Big four.

[Host]

Yep. Whatever. Firm accounting. There it is. Big, big accounting. Normally associated with a lot of money.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Tone]

Ton.

[Host]

A lot of money.

[Ty Schmidt]

A lot of talking, a lot of

[Host]

moving, a lot of numbers. She was also a D1 athlete who is now a commissioner of a league. Only commissioner across all leagues. It's a D1 athlete as well. So a little bit of a dog on the field while also becoming an absolute beast in the sew room and suit game. So we're excited. Sits on the board of McDonald's debone. So thankful for what you guys do. He's so thankful. I'll make sure I tell Kathy. I do as well. I grew up. I don't think I was during the Kathy Engelbert McDonald's board time. Sure. When I was growing up Dollar Menu I don't think could fall into her no you know particular world. But I'm sure there's other things that bone has certainly brought the McRib back. Yeah potentially. So we'll talk to her about that. We're very, very thankful for the WNBA having that convo with us today that'll be in the next hour. Is Cooper flag joining the show?

[Cooper Flagg]

I believe so.

[Host]

He has not joined the Zoom but

[Cooper Flagg]

I've gotten confirmation that that he is good for 1220.

[Con Man]

Here we go.

[Tone]

Cool.

[Host]

We didn't know. We didn't know. We didn't know. We didn't know. We didn't know. We like that. Okay. So on that note, NBA we should chit chat about what college hoops has been doing. So NBA convo all year has been teams are good. Teams are ass. Okay. College hoops having a better season than the NBA is what everybody said. Which should mean that it's gearing up for a massive March Madness while the numbers are in. Everybody's watching this thing. 19 mil the other day is what the number was for the television rating. Most watched NCAA tournament since 1993. 10.3 million viewers through the Elite Eight across TBS, CBS, TNT and TruTV. Shout out TruTV. It's great finding where that is every March Madness. They're up 9%. Yukon, Duke and Elite 8 peaked with 18.9 million viewers on CBS for a thrilling conclusion game averaged 13.4 million view numbers which is up 15%. Sweet Sixteen early primetime window on Friday. Duke St. John's Michigan Allegiance 14 million. That's up 38% most watched since 1992. College hoops. Everybody was saying they're having a great year.

[Tone]

Oh yeah.

[Host]

Turns out March Madness is doing it for him. Nil. Transfer portal Older guys no more. Cinderella's okay. Basically Iowa's closest thing this year to baby continuing Cinderella. Yeah but they're saying the whole what we used to watch for March Madness, what everybody used to get excited about is hiring a two year old nun, Sister Jean. With Loyola going on a run and us not Knowing about it. And holy hell, that's the case now at transfer portal nil. Any of those smaller school guys that play good, either like for their first year or second year, because a lot of those Loyola teams or younger teams, they're like third, fourth year guys who've been together and they kind of know each other. If you have a good first year or a second year and you happen to get into March of Madness or you just play well at all, all these big schools are just coming in and. Because if the ducks are quacking, you got to feed them.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Host]

All those big schools are just quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. They are literally just taking all the small schools. So we thought maybe the power four would take over. Basketball would be bad for hoops. Turns out no quality of play is great. The games are battling. There's been a few blowouts that certainly happened, but there's been a lot more exciting battles in this March Madness. And the numbers are gigantic. Have we been winning and gambling and this thing. Has the public been winning? Because I know favorites did well in the first and second round. And then as we move into the Sweet 16 Elite 8, now the final four, how should we feel whenever we're gambling on this? Have the public been operating at a high clip against it or have the crowns never been ours?

[Tone]

So the, the first weekend was good, obviously, because of all the favorites and the favorites dominated. And then that Friday, if you did a favorites parlay, it was undefeated. So they, they did well in the first weekend. And then the. The second weekend was going to be like, how was that? The favorites went six and two straight up over that weekend. There was only two upsets the whole weekend as far as. As far as the straight up money. And then it was four and four against the spread were favorites in the second weekend. So. And a lot of people in these. The spreads weren't that big, so they were doing a lot of moneyline parlays and stuff like that. The one person who always wins, always is Dan Hurley. He is 100 against the spread. Yeah, sweet 16 and later 18 and 3 against spread overall in the tournament. If there is a is a man that you want to follow into war betting, it's Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskies. 183 in the tournament his career and 100 against the spread. Sweet 16 or later is Dan Hurley and UConn in his career there. So pretty incredible.

[Host]

Yeah, it sounds like Dan Hurley was letting that ref know potentially. And I appreciate both sides of that conversation afterwards, coming out and saying that was a great basketball game. It certainly was. Down 19 at one point, down 15, they come back, not only cover, obviously get the win over the highly powerful Duke squad, which is a shame. Join us now. Oh, tough. This is tough transition. I didn't know this is where we're headed.

[Tone]

That's all me, ladies and gentlemen joining us now.

[Host]

He's a Duke legend, absolute icon, potential goat convo in the future when it's all said and done. Hembo has sent us stats about what this dude is doing during his teenage years. Remember, he reclassified, graduated high school early so he could get to Duke quicker to get to the Yale NBA. Now, I don't know if it was strictly to get the NBA or just for the good of Duke, where he lost to the Final Four, made it to the Final Four though, which is certainly fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, Dallas Mavericks star. The main event. Cooper, flag.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

How you doing? Hey, thank you for joining us. Listen, we are very thankful that you have joined us. I want to let you know that immediately off the jump, but I understand season's not going anywhere near what you expected. I looked up your record in high school. You won a state championship, then you go to Montverta, you win a national championship. There you go. Duke obviously got a Final Four. Anytime you're a highly sought after person though, especially in professional sports, you're potentially not going to the best setup. What has this season been like for you? Obviously you are getting numbers, you're balling, you're learning the NBA game. But what has this all been like is you're not getting as many wins. I assume you're a bit conflicted. Living dream while not going exactly perfectly. Is that kind of a good way to describe it?

[Cooper Flagg]

100%, yeah. I mean, obviously it's been tough like you said, you know, through high school, college. I mean, I only lost four games last year. So there's been times of the season where it's been, you know, really mentally taxing on me, you know, just not having the success that I would have hoped for. And obviously we've had a lot of injuries and a lot of, you know, unfortunate things happen throughout the year. But yeah, it's obviously not been ideal. And I mean, I've had growth along the way and I've had to get better and learn on the fly. But yeah, definitely not the start I would have looked for. But I think, you know, hopefully eventually I'll be able to look back on it and know that I was able to learn A lot from it.

[Host]

Yeah. Let's talk about you playing like point guard with kid there also helping. I think that was a big decision early in the year. Let's put the ball in his hands and see what it's like. You're a teenager. We put up some of the stats about the guys that you're next to. I don't know if you know this. Hembo sent this over to us this morning whenever he found out averaging 20 plus points as a teenager. You, Luca, Durant, LeBron and Carmelo. Okay. Not ass. Okay, so let's go ahead and finish this entire thing out. What has it been like as you transition into the men's league? Are you just. Do you view yourself as a bucket getter? Have you had to develop. What do you think you've really changed in your game since getting to the Mavericks as opposed to college or high school?

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, I think I've had to change a lot. I think, you know, coming in, I wasn't expecting, you know, kind of to be thrown in the fire as much. You know, obviously I was looking at, you know, Ad Kai Klay, and obviously with, you know, some of the injuries and stuff, it just didn't work out that way. And I was kind of just thrown out there, you know, a little bit more than I would have expected and had a little bit more responsibility. But. But I think overall it's just something to develop, like you said. You mentioned the point guard thing, like Coach K giving me that confidence to go out and be a creator and learn the game in a lot of different ways. I think it's helped me to just get comfortable all around.

[Host]

Yeah. How do you feel about the handles right now? Better than ever. Like, you think if I was to train for a month or two, I might be able to get a hand out there. Do you think so? How do you feel about the handles right now?

[Cooper Flagg]

I feel good. I feel great about it. Like I said, I've gotten so much more confident and comfortable out there as the years progressed. So, no, I don't think you could, but you could try.

[Host]

I'm fouling the shit out of you. You know that, because, first of all, I'm looking straight. How tall are you in real life?

[Cooper Flagg]

Six, nine?

[Host]

Okay, so we're here. We are here immediately. Okay, so that's not great news, but I'm fouling you immediately. But you're tough, dude. You go hard. You go so hard to the. In the paint. It is. You're fun to watch, brother. That's why, obviously, the NBA is So excited about the future with you in there. Go ahead, con man.

[Con Man]

Yeah, Cooper, one of the reasons you could argue why you go so hard is you were basically training with, you know, the USA Olympic team before you even got to college. You know, what was that experience? Like, how much did you learn? You know, just going one on one against, you know, guys on that list, Kevin Durant. And how much did that kind of carry into your development for that year at Duke? Just knowing what was on the horizon and what kind of players you were going to be playing in, you know, 18 months.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, it was incredible. I think for me, just having that experience before I even played in a college game, it just gave me a lot of confidence going into that season. Like, playing against those type of guys, just sharing the core with them. Like, it showed me that I was right where I belonged and I was on the right path. So it just gave me so much confidence moving into the college season, and I just took that confidence and momentum with me, and I had a great season at Duke.

[Host]

Yeah, they were talking about you, and obviously you've been very good your whole life. I believe Mom's star, too. I think you've been great your entire life. When you hear the OGs, in your eyes, there are contemporaries, but you're young. Ass. When's your. What year were you born?

[Cooper Flagg]

06.

[Ty Schmidt]

Jesus Christ, man.

[Tone]

You were in college?

[Host]

I was a freshman. College. What month? What month?

[Cooper Flagg]

December. So pretty much 07.

[Host]

Oh, my God. Wow. We're having quite a time.

[Darius Butler]

Geez.

[Host]

We're having quite a. December. 06. Yeah, you were. Oh, my God. We're having an absolute blast. You are so young. Anyways, when you talk about the OGs, I guess, who are younger than me and my age coming out, speaking about you and getting play against them, is that a. Is that a big deal? Especially in this NBA now, whenever you travel around, are you talking to guys on other teams? Are they welcoming to you? Like, how do you kind of view that relationship with the older generation of the league as you are clearly in everybody's eyes, the next generation.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, for sure. I think it's been cool to interact with, you know, some of those guys that I grew up watching and, you know, that the Team USA thing, like that was my first time, you know, sharing the court with any NBA players at all. So I was definitely a little starstruck, you know, for that experience, and it was a little surreal. But, you know, I think now there's definitely a lot of, you know, guys that are welcoming, like the older guys but you can definitely tell that, you know, a lot of them want to go at, you know, the rookies and the young guys and they don't want to, you know, let them play at all. So a lot of guys just, you know, attack and come at the young guys.

[Host]

So how do you feel about that? Yeah, just knowing a guy's trying to kill you. Hey, you're really good. Yeah, Main event. That's cute. Okay. I heard about you. Kevin Durant said this about you at the Team USA stuff. He looked like a hell player. He's somebody that's only going to get better with more experience. He's 17 years old. Coming in here playing like a vet, no emotion. So you're. You're a stone a. We are not talking about. I'm not a fan of these guys. Okay. I'm not a fan of these guys. If I act soft, these guys are going to fucking kill me. Was there a full pre. Yeah, I assume there was for you going in there, like how we're going to operate and obviously you impressed everybody. But have you been that way your whole life or you always just like, kind of made for the moment? It seems like because you youngs, because of money now are handling money, I think a lot better than us olds had to do it. But also like social media, being a famous person, do you feel like you've had to mature in that aspect of like how you handle your emotions in those situations?

[Cooper Flagg]

100. Yeah, I think, you know, it definitely helped me to grow up a lot earlier. I mean, I left.

[Host]

Left.

[Cooper Flagg]

I left home when I was 15 to go to a prep school and live in a dorm. So I think I definitely had to grow up a lot quicker and things of those nature. But as far as like, you know, getting on the court and being nervous, for me it's just once I step onto the court, it just comes down to basketball. Like, I've played so many basketball games, at the end of the day, I've worked out so much and so I just go back to that and trust all the work that I put in. And then I know that I don't really have anything to worry about, you know, when I'm out there.

[Host]

Yeah, but like, you haven't done that. You can't. If you've done it every moment of your life since you were born, which I know there had to be some days where you're a baby, you took a nap. Right. Maybe it had to be someday. So it's like the amount of reps that you've had Compared to. It's outrageous. Go ahead, Debutt.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, Coop, I know you're in the middle of it right now, but what's been the biggest adjustment on and off the court is now a pro. Like you said, you've been in a. You left home 15, so you've kind of been doing this. You've been on the bench, big stage, you've been under the spotlight. But what's been the biggest adjustment now? You know, being an NBA player?

[Cooper Flagg]

I mean, there's a lot. I think the first thing I would think about is just the lifestyle change. It's a big lifestyle change, obviously. I mean, I'm in a new city, you know, living on my own, worried about paying rent, paying for different things, just figuring that stuff out. You know, everybody has their own family. Like, a lot of the guys have, you know, children, wives, so nobody's hanging out. Like, I'm. I'm going to practice, going to the games, and I'm. I'm going home and kind of just chilling by myself. So a lot of lifestyle things are a lot different. And then another thing I would say is just the length of the season, like, you know, 82 games is. Is a lot, and you can't really prepare for it. So it's just been things that I've had to learn throughout the year of, you know, mentally, physically preparing my body, preparing my mind, just to be ready for. For 82.

[Darius Butler]

Have you had that kind of welcome to the league moment yet? We all kind of have had it in different ways. Have you had that yet?

[Cooper Flagg]

I had a couple, I think, you know, very early on in training camp and practice, when we were going hard at the start of the year, there was definitely a couple moments, you know, one I've talked about before. Like, I tried to dunk on one of my teammates, PJ Washington, and it just didn't go very well.

[Host]

When you say you sit at home alone because your teammates are all adults, you play video games. I heard You a big gamer.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, I play video games.

[Host]

Which ones? What are we playing? What are we playing?

[Cooper Flagg]

I'm playing 2K a lot. FIFA, Rocket League, Fortnite. Sometimes, like, whatever. I kind of just switch around, play whatever.

[Host]

You're a good Hooper or a good gamer. And do people know it's you?

[Cooper Flagg]

I'm okay. I wouldn't say I'm great. I'm okay. And the only game people know it's me is 2K, because they give, like, give us a little logo so people

[Host]

can tell when it says, how are you in FIFA? FIFA Pretty good. Or Rocket League? Better.

[Cooper Flagg]

Probably better at Rocket League. I don't play FIFA as much.

[Host]

Yeah, well, Team USA is just getting their asses kicked in softball.

[Darius Butler]

Nobody picks him on the game.

[Host]

We're just getting our asses beat. Dude, we just got Portugal last night. Just.

[Tone]

Yeah, good squad.

[Host]

Ass beat the other day again. Who'd we play? Bolivia? Who was it?

[Tone]

Belgium?

[Host]

There it is. I mean, we need to get better. Cooper, why don't you take your 6 foot 9 ass and go stand in net for us at World Cup? We're giving up a lot of goals. We're conceding a lot of goals.

[Con Man]

Too many.

[Host]

Could you imagine him? Yeah. Oh, my God. Coop, where are you at next? When's the World Cup?

[Tone]

Summer.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. July.

[Host]

All right, Forget about July. This kid's young. We don't need to be putting that much pressure on him. But you need to think about it, Cooper. I think that is something you at least need to think about. Obviously, the main event is one of the greatest nicknames I've heard. Go ahead, con man.

[Con Man]

Yeah, Cooper. Being a New England guy myself, I kind of understand the layout in Maine. I. I don't want to, you know, Bury, Maine, at all. But there. There doesn't seem much to do in Maine, aside from, you know, skiing, maybe head on down to a gunquip. But what did you kind of do growing up? Was it strictly basketball? Did you play other sports? Like, what was kind of it like growing up? Or was your mom just on your ass every day? Like, you better go get 200 jumpers up right now so you can go to the University of Maine? Just like myself, unfortunately, you were much better at what to do.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, my mom was definitely on my ass every day, no matter what. It didn't matter what I was doing. She was always on me about something. But, no, I played a bunch of sports all the way up until high school. I played football, played soccer when I was younger. Baseball, ran track for a couple years. So I definitely did, you know, a lot of different things just to keep my body in shape and, you know, to just kind of compete when basketball wasn't in season. But. But, yeah, I definitely did a bunch of different things.

[Host]

Lobsters. Is that what's up?

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah.

[Tone]

The best lobsters in the country.

[Host]

Fresh catch. You've never. He's never complimented. Maine. I want to let you know that's not true.

[Con Man]

My parents go to a gunquit for many, many years over the. And plus, I'm a North Shore guy. Gloucester is basically a stone's Throw away from me.

[Host]

Oh, you're skipping stone up there to Maine.

[Con Man]

Skip stone.

[Host]

Will you get back to Maine? Will you? When do you get back to Maine and what is the plan for the main event? I feel like you should just go do. Shoot around up there. Probably sell an arena. Is there?

[Con Man]

Yeah. Maybe get traded to Boston. Come over the Celtics like, you know you want to. Stevens will get it done.

[Host]

I don't like what Tatum did either. Fucking Some miracle return whenever you play Boston earlier than anybody, so the main event can't even be celebrated up there. But tell me about your relationship with Maine and what it will be here as you continue to go. Feels like it's a lot of pressure. You're the. I mean, other than a lobster thing on Shark Tank, right?

[Con Man]

Yeah, legit.

[Host]

The lobster people. It's like, you are what I think of when I think of that state as a whole.

[Cooper Flagg]

Well, I appreciate that, but, you know, for me, it's less pressure. It's more of just, you know, love and support. And I felt that ever since, you know, I was 15 and I left home to go to Mont Ver down in Florida. Like, it was just an incredible amount of love and support from the state of Maine. And, you know, they've showed up for me in a lot of ways, you know, ever since I left. When I played in high school, we went back and played a game in Maine and sold out two arenas two days in a row. When I played last year in Boston, you know, it was, you know, hundreds of people that drove down to support us at Boston College. And then obviously, you know, when we went out to Boston this year, I felt a lot of love, and a lot of people drove up and supported me, so it's been really cool. And like I said, less pressure than anything. It's more just love and support, and people just show me that love.

[Host]

What lobster should I buy if I want to have a good Maine lobster?

[Cooper Flagg]

Well, lobster. I'm gonna. I'm gonna be real. I don't eat lobster very often, and it's not my favorite, so I can't give you the gross recommendations, but my trainer's wife actually makes the best lobster roll that I've ever had, so maybe I can get that for you sometime.

[Host]

Thank you.

[Cooper Flagg]

Boom.

[Con Man]

We would like you not feel like a good lobster.

[Host]

I mean, lobster roll from the training, too. Make me taller, more athletic. You never know what's going on in there. Yeah. You're. Your trip down to Duke, obviously, talked about in a massive way. Everybody learned of you, but it wasn't just you that they learned about. And I think through the draft, another Duke guy obviously comes up and now rookie year going crazy alongside. Go ahead, Tone.

[Tone]

Yeah. Cooper, obviously your. Your Duke teammate, Con Knippel, and you are the favorites to win rookie of the Year in the NBA. Just he set the rookie record for threes. Youngest player ever to hit 250threes in a season. Did you know coming out of Duke that Khan had this in him? And then. And is there any competition as far as rookie of the year? How often do you guys talk?

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, 100. I didn't have any doubt in con. Like, I mean, I saw it all year long throughout the season last year. I saw his work ethic and I just saw what he was capable of. I mean, he was my roommate, so we had a lot of, you know, conversations and talked about it a lot, both of our mindsets and what we were looking forward to next for this year. So, I mean, I never had any doubts in con at all. But as far as rookie of the year, I mean, we don't talk about it specifically. We've definitely stayed in contact throughout the year and checked in on each other and just kind of seen how each other were doing. But, you know, it's never been like, oh, did you see the newest rookie ladder or have you seen my game last night or anything like that. So it's more just been, you know, love and support of each other and we're just going to let you know whatever happens with that. Happen.

[Host]

Yeah. Well, good for you guys. You know, obviously you don't get a chance to see this because you're in the game, you're in the league. Let's make sure it stays that way until you're retired. But anytime two friends, two teammates are at the top of the odds to win an award, that's cool.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. That is a. That's a special story that you all will talk about for the rest of your lives. Ty has a question for you on that Duke connection.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Do you have much contact with Coach Shire? Like, does he reach out to you guys during the year? Like, I know a big thing for you guys and I don't know how. I don't know if Coach K was doing this too, but like, the Duke brotherhood and all that kind of stuff. So not just Khan, but, like, are there other Duke guys that are established in the league? Like, have you been able to lean on them? Like, do you guys interact at all or what's that been like?

[Cooper Flagg]

100%? I think anytime we play somebody that, you know, has guys that went to Duke. You know, it's always cool and a good experience for me to, you know, catch up and talk to them. But I think definitely my teammates specifically, every time we play or even in general, I've definitely stayed in contact with from last year. And, I mean, there was all five. Our starting five is in the league now, so just, you know, staying connected with those guys. And it's been really cool to have that experience, but that's why Shire, you know, he's reached out a lot of times throughout the year, and we've stayed in contact. Obviously, we've both been, you know, pretty busy, but I'll talk to him a lot. The All Star break, all of us went back from last year's team, and we were all back and watched two games at home. So we definitely still have that brotherhood and that connection, and that would never go away.

[Host]

You should send him a text, I think.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, it's gonna be okay.

[Con Man]

Coach, you want me to come back?

[Host]

Coach, you should send him a. Yeah, you want to go golf, baby? Heard you're a big golf guy. I also see you're wearing. Is that New Balance T shirt or is a sweatshirt there?

[Cooper Flagg]

New Balance T shirt.

[Host]

You a New Balance guy? You a New Balance guy?

[Cooper Flagg]

A huge New Balance guy. I love New Balance.

[Host]

Oh, yeah. Everything about him. Just like the logo, the style, the fit, the shirts.

[Cooper Flagg]

Everything. Everything, yeah. Yeah. The shoes, the clothes, you know, the brand, Everything about it.

[Host]

Yeah. What's your favorite New Balance thing, other than the shirt you're wearing right now? If you had to just go through your entire mindset, like, oh, New Balance has so much good shit. But my favorite thing is when I.

[Cooper Flagg]

I would say my favorite thing is the lifestyle shoes. Obviously. I love the basketball shoes, too, but, you know, I like the lifestyle shoes. There's so many options, and they have some really good lifestyle shoes.

[Host]

So do we have any, like, sales on that going on right now or anything like that?

[Con Man]

I mean, his shoes have been sold out. Out, basically since they came out. It's kind of.

[Host]

I remember us trying to buy them.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. I remember us trying to buy them. So that's kind of. Thanks, New Balance. Is there anything else that we. The leisure shoes. Maybe that's why he said the leisure shoes. Ah, basketball shoes are cool. Tough to get. But the leisure shoes, you can wear those, right? Is that what you were saying?

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah, I can get you some, too, if you need them. So.

[Host]

I want to support the biz. I want to support the biz I want. I don't. I'm size 12. Love it up. Love me. Cooper, thank you for joining us, man. Continue strong here. This is going to be a huge year. Obviously you know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but this year is going to be massive. Whenever they tell the story of your entire career, we can't wait to watch it all. And thank you for giving us your time.

[Cooper Flagg]

Of course. Thank you guys very much.

[Host]

Ladies and gentlemen. Cooper, flag. Yeah, Coop. It's the main event. New Balance.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah. They got a roster.

[Ty Schmidt]

They do.

[Darius Butler]

They do.

[Host]

Shohei.

[Darius Butler]

Coco Cooper. Cool.

[Host]

Is it Kwai?

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, I think Kawhi.

[Con Man]

Leave. Kawhi.

[Host]

Did you see? Did you see we got the TV on the back wall here. Yeah. Backwards as well. Yeah.

[Con Man]

Classic.

[Host]

Might have saw both sides of my face right there. And I thought to myself, yuck, dude. Too much of that Shohei. Speaking of Shohei and New Balance.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

He made his pitching debut last night for the 2026. This would be in normal rotation too for like a starting pitcher, right?

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

So it feels as if Shohei potentially going to be one of the starting pitchers in rotation this year for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He threw in preseason. He had 11 strikeouts in four innings last night, six innings pitched, six strikeouts, one hit. Massive success is what we would call this. And he also got on base as well. Right. So this was a full Shohei evening and this is what we should be expecting throughout the rest of the season. Ty Schmidt. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

I have no idea how often he'll pitch. He might, you know, typical. Typically the starting pitchers, they'll. They'll get four or five days rest and go again. I don't know if Shohei will do that or if he'll kind of. They'll sprinkle him in a little bit more just because he is doing so much like you mentioned, he played. You know, I mean, he had a single and also had two walks. So he got on base three times through six innings. But it's one of those things where if Shohei's out there and he's pulling the string on that sweeper, he's throwing six innings of one hit ball and striking out guys like. Yeah. And if he feels good and wants to do it, like you need to have this guy out there every five days because not that the Dodgers aren't winning enough already, but if he's pitching like this, it's damn near an automatic win.

[Host]

Yeah. And on that note, we all think from our information that we have gathered about Shohei Ohtani, he views himself as a pitcher. So if he does not have at least one successful full season where they win a World Series as a pitcher, I think he won't fully, you know, feel as if he did it. He told us that he thinks he could strike himself out whenever we talk to him at the All Star Game. Do you view yourself as a hitter who can pitch or a pitcher? I'm a pitcher who can hit is how he views himself. So I think it's a very self important mission that he's on as well and I think the skipper Dave Roberts has mentioned that too. Like Shohei wants to go, so we're going to have him go. He seems to be one of the most driven people in history of sports as a whole. He's going to be talked about as one of those guys if he accomplishes a full season of pitching and hitting though this is a ludicrous venture that he's about to attempt here.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh yeah, for sure because that would be the only concern is just like, like how, how much can the human body take of him going out there throwing a hundred, throwing a bunch of pitches for six innings, also taking a bunch of at bats and then because he is he like he's the, he's not going to get very many days off to begin with A because he, he probably doesn't want to be sitting on the bench but he's also DHing so like they need him in the lineup. If, yeah if he were to go through this entire season and have like a Cy Young esque season on the bump, we already know what he's going to do at the plate and then if you know they stay healthy and make a run to the World Series or win a world Series. Like there is no question that he is already the, the best, most talented baseball player of all time. But yeah, this would just take it to another strategy.

[Darius Butler]

Greatest athlete ever. Like greatest.

[Ty Schmidt]

I think you can make that argument.

[Host]

Can I drop, can I drop a stat just before you even get into that slings on sports. This was tweeted by the mlb. Shohei Ohtani currently holds the longest active on bass streak which is hitting the

[Ty Schmidt]

best or yeah just getting on base

[Host]

which is most consistent. I mean 36 games straight of getting on base is pretty good. Yeah, it's obviously the longest streak and then the longest act of scoreless inning streaks as well. 22⅔ innings pitch. That's what we're doing. That's baseball, right? Yeah, pretty much what baseball is. It's this One. Yeah, it's this one. And then it's this one. Right. That is base. This is baseball.

[Ty Schmidt]

Getting on base and then assuming guys are going to drive you in and then not allowing the other team to score. Like, yeah, that's a pretty good recipe to win baseball games.

[Host]

Games insane. So, yes,

[Darius Butler]

that's crazy.

[Ty Schmidt]

And I don't think that. I'm guessing that doesn't count playoffs. Like, he had the playoff game last year where he went like, oh, yeah, six. And then pitched two and it was three home runs. Yeah, exactly. Just like the craziest thing ever. So like every time he goes out, there he is. It is kind of one of those things where it's like, Shohei could do something tonight that has never been done before.

[Host]

Creating history, which is always a cool thing to be a part of. And we will continue to watch that. More history happening today as well. Well, who's on the bump for the Pittsburgh Pirates? Tone?

[Tone]

Paul Skeens is on a bump today.

[Host]

Oh, really?

[Con Man]

It better go better, Skeen.

[Host]

It has to.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

The last time Paul Skeens was pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he got pulled

[Con Man]

in first inning, 67 ERA.

[Host]

He has still yet to get three outs this MLB season.

[Tone]

That's true.

[Host]

This would be his second start. Now, there's some stuff that happened in that particular inning in which Paul Skeens was pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Like the center fielder. That guy couldn't catch a ball multiple times with runners in scoring position and potentially a way to get out of the inning. Good news. He'll never have to deal with that again. Paul Skeens had to have that on his first game and he won't have to do that ever again.

[Con Man]

Sure.

[Host]

Yeah. They're not. Why would they?

[Con Man]

Well, it turns out there's some salt.

[Host]

O', Neill, Cruz, we got the same center fielder going up there for Paul Skeens today.

[Tone]

Guy hit two fucking home runs last night.

[Host]

Cool. Put him in another position. Guy can't catch a damn fly ball.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's.

[Tone]

I mean, that's where he's at. I don't know what to tell you.

[Host]

This is how we feel about Paul Stick.

[Con Man]

Don Kelly likes his gas.

[Host]

I. I respect that. And there's a lot of people that have locked their gas for a long time. And listen, if that guy's going to hit multiple dingers, every single do is. Can we DH in this league?

[Tone]

Yeah. We have a DH that can't play in the field already, so.

[Con Man]

Yeah, and he just stays in the dugout and just hoist the cone all day long.

[Darius Butler]

The what?

[Ty Schmidt]

The cone.

[Con Man]

He hoist the cone.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hoist the cone. It's kind of the smoke.

[Con Man]

Come on, Smok.

[Ty Schmidt]

I think Tony can talk about it more because I think this is like a Pirates tradition that goes.

[Darius Butler]

We were at a game

[Host]

cone. That's what they're doing.

[Tone]

Yes.

[Host]

So why are they. Why are they hoisting a cone? You might ask yourself.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

If you're a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, you're probably wondering the same thing. Load you now. We're all hoisting cone these days, Pen. How did the cone make its way into the. The dugout dog out for the Pittsburgh. Yeah.

[Tone]

You'd be shocked to learn that buckers have not always hoisted the cone. What now?

[Host]

We raised the jolly rod.

[Tone]

We do raise the jolly rod.

[Host]

Not a lot. That's when a win happens. You raise this Jolly Roger. Bones. It's a buckle flat. You're supposed to raise it up. Yeah. It doesn't get up there a lot, though. A lot of very fresh Jolly Rogers. Cannonball on deck.

[Tone]

Cannonball coming. Yeah.

[Host]

A lot of these.

[Tone]

So hoist the cone is new because shocker here. You're going to be absolutely shocked. Pirates this summer, fanatics put out a shirt that said hoist the cone on it. I believe it was a. A misprint. But there's the bucko PE right underneath. It says hoist the cone. No one in Pittsburgh had any idea what that meant, but the team has decided to embrace it. When we're hitting bombs, we are hoisting that cone, baby. We're still putting on the. The welder's mask, but we're also hoisting the cone.

[Host]

Yeah. So we got a welder's mask. We got a cone. We're hoisting because it's traffic cone. We can't be having too much traffic on the base.

[Tone]

There's a cone animal.

[Host]

So there it is. Hey. However many more to buck. Those need to keep winning. Let's do it. And fanatics are saying, this is what we do. We influence pop culture.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Exactly.

[Host]

We give traditions to folks. And I like to say fanatics. I think people would say huge strikeout on the hoist cone at the beginning because nobody knew what it meant. Event. You were just living in the future. That's fanatics football.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly. Because I believe the Marlins are actually the Miami Marlins DBUTS team who are lightning hot so far.

[Con Man]

4 1.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ruffle the feathers. That's what they're going with this year.

[Host]

Really?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Host]

Did you see that on a shirt?

[Ty Schmidt]

I did. Same deal. No, it's the Marlins that had, like, the little fish coming out of there and ruffle the feathers. That's what they're running with.

[Darius Butler]

Feather. What are we talking about?

[Host]

Exactly. That's what you need to start.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's what you got to start wondering.

[Host]

And didn't you see another one in there?

[Con Man]

Yeah, I saw that. The Reds were thinking about doing Break the bulb.

[Host]

Break the bulb.

[Con Man]

They're gonna have a bunch of light bulbs in the dugout, and then anytime they hit a home run, they're gonna take that bat and bash a bulb just right in the clubhouse.

[Host]

See, this is what fanatics is doing. Fanatics saying, we get involved in your league, we make your league better. We start traditions, we hoist the contest. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's gonna break down the situation in Philadelphia with their quarterback better than us. And to be honest, I learned of the situation through this man's Twitter account, where he has certainly been active this morning on his thoughts. This guy played in the NFL for 14 years. He's super bowl champion with New Orleans Saints. Now ESPN guy, and I think he has his own show as well. Ladies and gentlemen. Chase, Daniel.

[Chase Daniel]

What's going on, boys?

[Host]

Sorry, we're hoisting a cone there. Had to do it. I love it.

[Chase Daniel]

What's the Padres one? I'm taking my son to a Padres game today. I'm taking him out school. Does the Padres have something cool?

[Host]

I would have to ask Reuben over there. Fanatics. I'm sure there's something you nobody's thought of yet that is certainly going to become a lucky charm. On that note, family forever. Love that. It's a good hat. It's good. Yeah.

[Chase Daniel]

Love them.

[Host]

Love that. They're good people over there.

[Chase Daniel]

I got about 15 of these hats. Every time I'm on, try to wear something like that. I love what they do as a. As a company man.

[Host]

Yeah. I hope they're good people because we give them a lot of marketing if they're like serial killers, right?

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

And I've never met them.

[Cooper Flagg]

They're great people.

[Host]

Okay, good. Happy to hear that. Family's forever. Yeah. Good hats. We so appreciate the hat you sent us, Chase. Let's talk about family. Maybe not forever. Let's talk about a football team becoming a family. Let's talk about an organization becoming a family. Especially with the amount of paisans that are over ish family over there. The story that Fowler reported this morning, fresh out of league meetings, about Jalen Hurts, first of all, we talked about this earlier. We do feel as if we are a part of the problem as we are. Continue to amplify anonymous sources within a building. Don't love that anonymous sources happen in sports. Don't think your life is in danger. We understand where there is a need for anonymous sources in sports. Sports. It feels weird, especially with this type of shit that's coming out here. Chase, how abnormal is everything that's being said from in this building, especially for a guy that's won a Super Bowl? And why do you think it's happening and what are next steps? Kind of just take it everywhere in every thought that you have about the situation. Chase.

[Chase Daniel]

Yeah, I mean, I'm with you guys. I was watching Yale's a block and open, and just the fact that the anonymous sources to me says it all. I absolutely hate that. Like, put your name behind it because these are people's careers and jobs and stuff like that.

[Host]

That.

[Chase Daniel]

On that note, when I read this article, it's like another Jalen Hurts hit piece. It seems to like, be coming out every single year. And the timing is, is really weird, right? AJ Brown trade didn't go through. Now we're back to talking about Jalen and every. This is not normal, Pat. Like, like for, for teams, team sources, whatever it may be, to be talking to reporters and getting this news out there, right? Like, like you want to protect. Protect the family. You want to protect the team. So when I see this, I'm like, well, do they not love him? Do they not do this? Like, he's one of two quarterback or he's one of eight quarterbacks to go to two Super Bowls in the first five years of his career, right? But I think because of what's being said in this article, there are a lot of parallels you can really draw to his play. And that's where I take it is like the play on the field at times, right?

[Dan Orlovsky]

He's.

[Chase Daniel]

He's known for his clutch gene. He's known for his winning. He's known for all this stuff. And I, and I'm saying this, and I'm probably the Philadelphia Eagles, public enemy number one. Like, Philadelphia fans absolutely hate my guts because they think, when I'm talking about Jalen, they think that I'm like criticizing him as a person. No, no, no. Look, we're just talking about his play. And you guys saw last year, right? He's going to be on six different play callers, I think, in six years.

[Host]

Yes.

[Chase Daniel]

Something's got to give. And I think the article hits on a Lot of, of correct things when it talks to his time on the field because his time on the field, right. It's very vanilla. What Jalen hurts, does really well. He wants to sit back and shotgun. He wants to see everything. And he's really a half field type progression guy. You don't really see him. He doesn't feel comfortable going under center. You don't see him sweeping the field, 1, 2, 3, 4. Like, like other quarterbacks and that's fine. But when you have an offense that has surrounded him like that with full of all prosaic Barclay, the best running back in the world, A.J. brown, you're talking about trading one of the better receivers in the NFL. It's just a really interesting thing. And so that's why just zone coverage. But you know this better than anyone. Zone coverage, it just makes Jalen sort of freeze up. Right? You don't know. He doesn't know where to go at certain times. When he's on time and in rhythm, it's good. But more often than not, it's not. But, but I'm with you guys. The anonymous sources drives me crazy.

[Host]

And we're amp. Once again we are amplifying the anonymous sources so we feel terrible. But it's a huge story. This is a gigantic story for the Philadelphia Eagles, especially because they've won a Super bowl with this guy. They've paid this guy and there's been drama seemingly surrounding him. Now you talk about the six different play callers in six years. Something has to give. He's made three head coaches too. So it's like a very Sirianni, obviously, Shane and then Kelly Moen there, three of the guys head coaches still that have been his plate callers. So it's like there has been some good. Good. It's seemingly been way too negative though. And your point about the timing, People are just getting too comfortable talking bad about the starting quarterback. People are way too comfortable talking bad about the starting quarterback. And I think that's what we're acknowledging about the entire situation. But if everybody's this comfortable talking bad about it, they feel handcuffed. I guess they can't move on. How would you move on and what would you move on to?

[Darius Butler]

I mean it's a tough spot to be in, obviously being, you know, the quarterback of the Eagles. But back to on the field, Chase, do you see at this point in his career those things changing or him evolving or him doing those things better at the quarterback position?

[Chase Daniel]

Yeah, I mean that's a great question. I think everyone can Evolve. When you have a guy with the talent that Jalen Hurts has, you can absolutely evolve into that guy. And with Sean Manion, right? La Flora, Guy McVeigh, Guy Kubia Guy, you're going to see this year debut. This year is going to be a, a really good litmus test, in my opinion, for Jalen Hurts because there is going to be, be a lot of under center, which he doesn't love to do, but he's successful when he does it. The run game is more successful when you do it because you have the play action pass, you have under center run, you have outside zone, you have inside zone. I think the quarterback run game is going to be brought in more to what's happening. And so it's going to be a good litmus test this year to see, hey, if you can fit in this mold. I'm not saying they should move on, but by any means. But when you have an offense and you have that type of defense with Vic Fangio, you expect better results. And it's just Philly. Look, I played in Philly in 2016 and that locker room is different, man. Like, everyone is very aware of everything that is being said about them and about other people. And I've witnessed at times that locker room can be a little divided. That was in 16. That was 10 years ago. Right. Completely different head coach, completely different building. But Philly just seems to be like the negativity coming out of there is like in an all time high always too.

[Host]

It seems like there's always some negativity, 30 seconds or less in your answer. Fernando Mendoza throws today at Indiana. What do you think everybody sees? The entire Las Vegas Raiders organization is out there.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Chase Daniel]

I mean, clear number one pick. Like, I really do believe this dude is a franchise guy. And you're, you're doing that because. I've talked to Dan quite a bit after his whole Ty Simpson thing and we're, you know, we see it differently and I think Ty's a great player, but. But when you look at Fernando, there's a lot of things that you can't teach. It's the intangibles, the heart, the poise, the, the interviews. The guys love him. He's six five Pat. Like, come on, man. Like, how can you not. You're handing the ball to Ash and Genti.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yep, yep. We appreciate you. Ladies and Chase Daniel,

[Kathy Engelbert]

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[Host]

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[Kathy Engelbert]

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[Host]

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[Kathy Engelbert]

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[Host]

shop, dry cleaner, you name it.

[Kathy Engelbert]

Refer a business today and earn $500 with when they successfully join the program. Visit Amazon.com hubdelivery to learn more or refer a partner. That's Amazon.com hubdelivery now looking for hub partners in your area.

[Host]

Sports are fantastic, aren't they? Oh, yeah, the best. In this hour, we're gonna be talking to a commissioner of a league, a league that just signed the new cbs, a seven year CBA that saw its salaries for players grow exponentially. Ladies and gentlemen, Kathy Engelbert will be joining us this hour. She is the commissioner of the wnba. People are wondering, you know, why would she come on his show? Who said that? Me, kind of.

[Con Man]

That's fair. I think that's fair.

[Host]

But I'm pretty excited, okay. I'm like, I've taken this as a huge honor, huge opportunity and we've tried to do as much research as possible so we get some good answers out of Kathy. But also provide Kathy the opportunity to kind of talk shit about her leak a little bit, you know, for her league, you know, for her, not about, for her good shit. And what they were able to accomplish, I mean, this negotiation, I thought they had no chance, especially with what the projections were happening, how it was happening. They had pictures coming out from the negotiation with the players and the owners, governors. I don't know what names they use for the, the people that own the team.

[Con Man]

Sure.

[Host]

I don't know if they use the name owner or not.

[Ty Schmidt]

I think it is governor.

[Host]

The governor of the team. The governor who also Owns teams in there while they're doing the negotiations and everything. Like, I appreciate the way they've operated. Genuinely. I really have massive respect for it. The way she's been able to guide the ship, I cannot wait for her to be. Get a chance to put her league over a little bit. And in doing so, maybe us learn some things. Yeah, maybe we get a new favorite team. You never know. Well, do you want to be a fan of maybe a dynasty in the making? Three out of the last four. The Las Vegas Aces. Yeah. With Asia Wilson, who's going to go down as greatest player of all time until. Until Cece out here in a fever kind of do their thing.

[Con Man]

Got a new facility going up.

[Host]

So I'm excited for our WNBA conversation today. I think it'll be different than anybody else's, and hopefully this will be one that ends positive.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

Talks. Right? That would be cool.

[Chase Daniel]

Of course.

[Host]

This is the one that'd be so cool. If that happens, I don't think you

[Ty Schmidt]

got anything to worry.

[Tone]

Our time is now.

[Host]

Yeah, your time is. Everybody's time is up. Yeah, our time. But our time also talks to table at Boss Connor at Ty Schm. That's one half of The Hammer Cowboys, AP 10 Looking like Cameron Young with the MLB logo right on your chest.

[Tone]

Right.

[Host]

Is that because Paul Skeens pitching today and you're his biggest fan?

[Tone]

It is because Paul Skeens is pitching. Because the Buckos are currently hoisting the cone. O' Neal Cruz hit another one. It's also because one thing that Netflix did do right. On their MLB coverage is Bert Kreisler wore this hoodie out when he was announcing the teams. And I saw that hoodie, and I went to the website immediately and bought it, because I can be easily.

[Con Man]

Hold on.

[Darius Butler]

Good hood.

[Host]

Hold on.

[Con Man]

You were influenced by the Netflix coverage?

[Chase Daniel]

Yep.

[Host]

See, that's what I'm talking about. Everybody's talking negative about what was going on there. Hey, it's baseball. Let baseball do baseball. Well, what they were thinking was big business. They were thinking, let's go ahead and sell some to Marks. Boom. You know, you do kind of look like Bird in that hoodie. It looks good.

[Tone]

Well, that's a hell of a compliment.

[Host]

I think so.

[Con Man]

All right, now take your shirt off.

[Tone]

That I would still look like Bert.

[Ty Schmidt]

So I. I don't.

[Tone]

I don't take my shirt off.

[Host]

Let's go baseball. That was a good speech. The. The thought of Netflix getting absolutely crushed and crucified for that. When's their next baseball game?

[Ty Schmidt]

Never yeah, they have the Home Run Derby in the middle of the season. Yeah, they do.

[Host]

Okay, I'll watch that. That'll be good. That is a spec.

[Tone]

ESPN doesn't have the Home Run Derby anymore.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, Netflix does. But I think what Netflix is trying to do, it's in Philadelphia this year. I think Netflix would, is like perfect for the Home Run Derby. I, I do believe that. I think, think a lot of the stuff they try to do, I, I anticipate this year's Home Run Derby being very entertaining.

[Host]

Okay. There's been a lot of moving of assets. Nine year NFL quarterback Darius, or could have been.

[Darius Butler]

I played a little quarterback, play wide

[Host]

receiver, play corner, played safety, you know, play a little outside linebacker if you need me. Ladies and gentlemen, Darius J. But we're talking about assets kind of moving around. You see what happened with the Monday Night Football double header?

[Darius Butler]

I did.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah. Monday night double header. No, no longer. Yeah. Much to the chagrin of nobody, the doubleheader on Monday nights is over. This was something that was cool maybe one time as like, hey, we got a double thing here. But nobody really enjoyed it. It was tough to watch March Madness. Much easier to watch multiple games or have multiple coverage on. But if one of the games was clearly better than the other, you had no interest in the other. And then you end up seeing less of that particular game than even whenever you do for Red Zone Channel on Sunday with Scott Hanson covering games, it don't matter. So. So I just think it was an interesting thing to try. I appreciate ESPN getting more NFL games out of it, so I appreciate and respect that. But I do believe during the negotiations of NFL Network coming over to espn, which is now official. Congratulations.

[Darius Butler]

Let's go.

[Host]

I saw there were some emotional conversations about the history of NFL Network. Now it's about to enter a new stage with ESPN in control as the guider as opposed to the league itself. They have brand new studios over there in LA that are beautiful. They obviously have a lot of technology, have a lot of assets, they have everything like that. But in doing so, he moved some games around. Now they have five games that would have been Monday Night Football doubleheaders that are now available potentially to new streaming platforms that they can sell. What's that called? Whenever you sell something individually as opposed to in a big package like a

[Con Man]

one, a la carte.

[Host]

It's like a la carte.

[Tone]

There it is.

[Host]

That was exactly what I was looking for. Now they can sell these games a la carte and that's where you can just start Getting the bidding wars for absolutely absurd games. And this is how the revenue and the salary cap in the league will continue to grow. And once they continue to showcase that they can sell one off games, whether it's on Friday, Black Friday, or a Wednesday afternoon game, or a Saturday game, or a Christmas night game, or a super duper day in the week night game that happens on one of these platforms, once they showcase how much money they can make out of that and what the salary cap can become, and then they make their pitch to the players saying, hey, if you give us 18 games here and we're able to do this with others, the amount of money and what the salary cap can become is astronomical. I know we're talking to the WNBA commissioner and Kathy Engelberg. They've been around for 30 years. The WNBA this year. I think it took the NFL a long time to become a mega profitable kind of operation. So we're talking decades and decades and decades for most of these leagues to become mega profitable. The NFL is currently in its super duper profitable world. And if they're going to start a la carton games even more with how much these streamers are looking for live events, streaming platforms are looking for live events. It's only up and to the right for the foreseeable future for this NFL. And I like this move as a viewer, even though ESPN is losing an NFL game, which technically, because ESPN licensed this show, we should be bummed out about, I think this is good for the viewer. I think this is great for the NFL's pockets.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, it's always going to be great for the NFL pockets, any move that they make. And then I think what you said more importantly though, for the viewer, because for the viewer you would think more games better on the same night. But. But you know, you have one game, you hopefully it's a good game. You got the crew that you're used to. Every Monday night, it's going to be that big game. And as a player too, even like you knew when you had that Monday night game, that was the day, the night that all your peers going to be watching your family, your friends, your fans, wherever they were, your haters, everybody was going to be tuned in watching that one single game. And it makes that game huge. Just like Sunday Night Football, Sunday Night Football is here. So now you have Monday Night Football and you have have it with that one specific game in NFL, they're going to always make their money. It's always going to help that bottom line. But for the viewer, I think it's more important. I think it's a win for them, too.

[Host]

I think so as well. Thanksgiving Eve is being pitched by Ari, obviously, at night. Every Thanksgiving Eve, there's a lot of families gathered around. Just like Thanksgiving Day is the same. I've been pitching for a while to the NBA. Adam Silver, Christmas Eve, because the NFL kind of came in and took over Christmas. We just kind of. We. I'm saying we. Like I had anything to say with it. I did. But Raj Goodell.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Host]

He said we're taking Christmas and they did. And Christmas for the NBA used to be that day, right?

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

That was kind of like the day for the NBA. So they need to move Christmas Eve, but if they won't move Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, another great day for the NFL to go to. Strictly because everybody's off school, right? Christmas Eve and this year's on Thursday.

[Tone]

So I assume they will have a Christmas Eve game.

[Host]

So they'll try it. This is what they did with Christmas. Christmas fell on a day in which the NFL, Sunday, Thursday, Monday, whatever was Christmas, fell on a day where the NFL was. And they felt obligated to their viewers, obviously, to deliver. And then once they saw it, oh, everybody's home. Let's go ahead and we can total audience deliver, manipulate this thing a little bit. There's at least two, three people at every TV. Right? Think about these families gathering. Yeah. We got 275 million people watching. Yeah. We can do a couple more of these things. We got a couple more of these. Couple more of these, couple more of these big events. Now all of a sudden, they're doing their own Christmas Eve could be one of them. There's Thanksgiving Eve night, obviously, could be one as well. But it's like you can get another day, I think, in on Christmas Eve if you really wanted to.

[Tone]

And actually this year, because Christmas falls on a Friday, I believe yesterday at the league meetings, the owners passed something where teens can now play more than two short week games or whatever, Thursday night, short week games this year because of that. So, yeah, I mean, the wheels are already there.

[Host]

Yeah, it's really had the money. The money is. And they know it. You can tell that they know it. And you can tell that people are trying to buy. NFL teams know what's possible. They can just start making up events.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Host]

I mean, well, if a duck quacks, feed it. And I'll tell you what, pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. But if that thing's quacking all day long, which we will. Yeah, yeah, we Will. We will wake up. If there was a 7am game, we'll do it. We will wait. If it's a good game, that's gonna have to be a good game. I think the whole world would wake up at 6am if it was a good game.

[Cooper Flagg]

Then who?

[Darius Butler]

Scott? Calling volume. That determines the volume level.

[Tone]

Sure.

[Host]

Who's calling the game? Oh, yeah, yeah. We can't be mailing it in on those morning games. You're trying to tell us it's prime time because it's all by itself and we're supposed to wake up to the NFL. Our first impression of the NFL is that game. Let's make sure we're putting on a good show. Like over there in Australia. They're doing a 1035 game or whatever it is for their time. Nighttime. That's gonna have to be a good presentation of the game.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

That's gonna have to be a good game. 10:35am yeah. And it will be. That's why they got such a good game going down there. I do love Shannon hand going. I, you know what? I've been trying to look into it a bit. I've. I haven't found one positive. It's good for the game, though.

[Tone]

And I like that he said, hey, when we're in Mexico, Rams, they're playing us in Mexico because if we're doing two internationals. They're doing two internationals.

[Host]

Then you heard the little conspiracy work about how, you know, fans take over other stadiums. Oh, we got to move to another part of the world. Okay. All right. Yeah, sounds good.

[Tone]

A lot of red and so far.

[Host]

Yeah. Interesting, interesting. We're taking this thing to Australia. I like the way these coaches have been operating at this league meeting. Feels like they all know who the guys are. Feels like this generation of coaches all know who the head like. Feels like. We're going to have this group of, this, a class of head coaches that we're about to live with, I think for the next 10, 15, 20 years. And I think they all know each other very well. That is my takeaway from the off the record camaraderie, chemistry building thing that we got a chance to see.

[Darius Butler]

And this is when they. You would assume this is when they really get to know each other. Especially what, we got eight new head coaches or what? Six or seven first time head coaches. So this is their first time being in that element, being around the pool with Jay Glazer holding court. And now you kind of see kind of the pecking order, the hierarchy in that world.

[Host]

I like that they're talking shit to each other.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

I like that they are confident and comfortable. I mean, even the Ben Johnson, LaFleur stuff. Yeah, it's like they just had to be in the same place here a little bit ago. Still carrying that on. Like, I like this generation of coaches. I also appreciate the fact that Variable understands. You know what I mean? Frable kind of understand. During that coach's annual photo, we had to zoom in on it. Mike McCarthy almost missed it. He thought, the GM's going first. We had to send him on his way. And where he stood in that photo, you could tell that he almost missed it. He was just getting there late. I don't think many people were talking about that. As context added to why he was standing back behind everybody, he looked the way that he looked there. As Vrabel sat down, we saw him. He was one of the first people to sit down for this photo. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. He put his left foot down, then he put his right foot down and he put both of his hands on his knees. This thing was an engineering feat to keep these legs locked into the dirt in which he was holding there. And then others sat down. Sean Payton sat to his left, Halfley to his right. We actually wondered how that was going to go. Sean Payton, Texas guy, football guy, from what we've been told, a little bit of a hard ass as well. Sure. You sit down in an airplane and you're sitting in A or C and B has done both arms with legs completely spread out. That's a decision that has to be made as soon as you say, how do we. Are we just. Are we. Or are we taking this? Halfley sat back in the seat. Oh, yeah. So that's my first year. I don't even do any shit.

[Con Man]

Crumble.

[Host]

Sean Payton tried. They're definitely knee to knee there. I mean, they are knee to knee there. But Vrabel definitely knew what he was doing. And then the New England Patriots tweet out today, big dog. So this is what's been going on. This is the attitude. This is the mindset.

[Darius Butler]

I don't like that.

[Host]

What do you mean you don't like that? Shut up. What do you mean you don't like. Shut up.

[Darius Butler]

I love Vray boy. I love what Vray was.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's bullying Joe Brand.

[Darius Butler]

He's put on. He's a Patriot. I came into the league as a Patriot, but that's my head coach right there. That's Jeff Halfley right there.

[Host]

What are you talking about?

[Darius Butler]

And I don't like how the Patriots, you see how they kind of crop Sean Payton halfway out, they made sure

[Ty Schmidt]

Sean Payton's coming out for a look

[Con Man]

too full time in there.

[Darius Butler]

Like, yeah, this is a. I can't say exactly what I want to say, but it's a great performance by Mike Brable. Jeff, come on, Jeff.

[Host]

Do you see Sean Payton cook the. Which is good OG move? He took a tip of his knee, something that he could feel, and dug that into his it band so that he had to feel that a little bit. It's a little bit of jiu jitsu style. Because in jiu jitsu, you know, they poke you here and you're like, why are they poking me here? You can't do anything because that just moves you a little bit like that. And as soon as they get the. You are dead because you opened your neck this side. So Sean Payton went in with the tip of his patella, the Kneecap2IT band just to get a little bit of a reaction. And then once he moved a little bit, he had to stomp that in, and then he had to lock that in because Sean Payton said, oh, no, no, that's not how this is going to go. And I think Sean Payton's probably doing it in his own way with that left leg on the other side as well. Vrabel wore these glowing white pants.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Host]

Because he knew he was going to do this. He knew he. This was. He got in early. He had mission. Left foot down, right foot down, hands down, white pants, they're glowing.

[Tone]

Surprised he didn't wear a kilt, so his dong was hanging out.

[Host]

Yeah, see, that might be next year. We don't know what's going to happen. Then there was the AFC coaches meeting the morning after the whole big booze fest that happens. He went over and grabbed Joe Brady's name tag, crumbled it up, fucking threw it in his face. Walking out of there. Nerd frames is having quite a time out there at the league meetings. And from my understanding, boy, the Patriots fans love it. Con man is flying high. Every time he reads one of these new situations, he gets excited. He saw him the other night do a thing, and he was like, patriots are going to win forever. That is genuinely how you feel whenever you see things like this. And what are your thoughts here on Joe Brady and Halfley? Okay. Rookie head coaches in the division kind of feeling the wrath of Mike Frabel running rampant at the league meeting.

[Con Man]

And that's kind of the best part, and that's kind of What I try to just pontificate and imagine is the conversation that Vrabel had, you know, when he was sitting down or once Halfley sat down next to him. Now, as far as Sean Payton digging his, you know, knee into, you know, Vrabel's own it band, metal doesn't feel rubber. Okay? Old man Peyton ain't making a budge on Vrabel. And when it comes to Halfley, what they didn't show is probably, you know, Vrabel standing up, giving him an elbow, maybe, you know, hey, hey, what time is it? Boom. One of the face. Hey, what time is it again?

[Host]

Boom.

[Con Man]

Swirling.

[Host]

Yeah. Oh, you're nuts, dude. You think he's doing what's on the shirt? Even the trick with an upper thigh.

[Con Man]

I could see one of those. Yeah. Hey, do I have something on my knee? Boom. You know, how's your dong? Gotcha.

[Host]

I mean, that's two. Aaron Glenn's the only one that seemingly escaped the AFC kind of bullying that Vrabel had to do at the league meeting.

[Con Man]

Word on the street is he was very tired, had to take a couple naps.

[Host]

That was very easy to fall asleep in there.

[Con Man]

It was very easy to fall asleep in that Arizona. The sun too. But, yeah, the Joe Brady thing is really what gets me because we get Brandon B. On the program and he's talking about winning Super Bowls. You know, they're talking about all this fun stuff. I don't know how many times first year head coaches have won Super Bowls. Oh, wait, I think I do. Never. So that's one of those things where the expectation gets set a little bit. But the Brady and Vrabel thing does seem to be more friendly than the Halfley thing. The Halfley thing was like, hey, sit next to me. I'll make you look like a little boy. Okay. This going to be really fun for me because you're going to look like a child sitting here.

[Host]

I would like to say. Okay, Big dog certainly did his thing. Rabe certainly had a league meeting. I think. I think people would say Vrabes had a good league meeting. Okay. He had the orange juice moment. Yeah. Okay. We seen him around. He's doing. Rabe's won the league meetings. And I would assume that people would say without Rabes in there, energy probably terrible at the league meetings. I assume he brings.

[Con Man]

It's an alpha.

[Host]

If we were to get a full photo, though. Sean Payton played this game before, too. Yes, he did. Oh, yeah. Both those seats were empty. Empty. We saw it as they were filing in. Do you. Did you see how the photo ended? No, Go ahead and zoom in. Can we zoom in down there or. No, we can't zoom in. Can we zoom in on. Because if we zoom in on that, I think Sean Payton's right foot outside of his chair leg. Oh, I think Vrabe's potential shoe turn in a little bit.

[Con Man]

Oh, they're like. Yeah, no, you know, you can see brave.

[Host]

What are you talking about?

[Con Man]

Now, both of them, granted, both of them are outside the chair, like. But let's not act like Sean Payton isn't scared to even touch Vrabel's foot. If Sean Payton had a real cojones, they would be, you know, kind of outside foot to outside foot. Vrabel's foot is one in front.

[Host]

I mean, look how much bigger he's. Top shin, outside knee, certainly in there. And Sean Payton's heel is back there at the chair where Vrabes a little bit out. Because we know Vrabes did have to get full extension out there. We will say Sean Payton put on a good performance for the situation in which he was placed. Yeah, we think. Oh, yeah, for sure. And he notices that too.

[Tone]

He held his ground.

[Host]

Sean Payton knows that as well because whenever he walked over and he saw what frames is doing, there was an immediate, come on, we gotta do this.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

A little bit of a kick over there. Open that thing up. I love it. It does feel, though, like this generation of coaches are all kind of a lot of blue bros, too. Like, there's a lot of Feels like this is a good group for the NFL. It feels like this is good for the league. I'm not saying everybody's gonna be good. There's gonna be ass coaches, all this place. How's mentor going to do in Baltimore? We shall see. He's very happy he didn't sit where Halfley's at. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Big time.

[Host]

Is pumped that he did not have to deal with picking up half the chair. Halfley not thrilled that this is what. How this went.

[Ty Schmidt]

You can't even see his left shoe.

[Host]

His left shoe is in brave shadow. This is how Halfley has to start this whole thing. Yeah, right. We would like to let Halfley know and the people that are watching that are Halfley supporters, he really had no. I mean, he was. This was. This is checkmate by first time. Frape sat down early.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, and that was probably a rib from all the other coaches. They scrambled and be like, no, no, no. Halfley can sit next to variable. Like, we know what's happening here. Let's let the first year guy kind of, you know, have his shoes be in the shade the whole time.

[Host]

Do you think when people saw braves in his white pants, they thought to themselves, oh, he's playing his song. He knows he's up to something.

[Con Man]

Joe Brady, actually, great performance in the coach's photo as well. You know, just to give a little bit of. Bit of light to him. He looks massive. I don't know if he's somebody he's

[Darius Butler]

a lot bigger than.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, is that the floor?

[Con Man]

He looks. Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

The floor kind of did get a little sunned a little bit. Kevin o', Connell, once again, giant. He is a creature in the middle there. You were to zoom out a little bit back to the left. That is where Kevin o', Connell, giant, huge. Shane Steichenthal. Yeah, Shane Steichen. Shananna chose to stand next to Kevin o'. Connell. Is that who that is? We're not doing this again or bad staking. We're not doing this again. Todd Bowles doing his thing next. MC DC back there. Shoddy. Good spot for Shoddy to be right there. That's good. Good selection. Now next to MC dc. A little bit aggressive, but he gave himself some space. See. Kind of spaced himself away from there. Nobody really turning, leaning sideways. Getting a full bodybuilder physique build. And Sirianni said, you know what, just straight on. Maybe a wind gust on my polo too going at me. That'd be the best it could possibly be. Shout out to the boys. Way to go. Congrats. Salah had the good.

[Con Man]

Yeah, I could see a coach.

[Host]

Salah was square.

[Con Man]

Well, that's. I was gonna say Monkin had a plan, but he was sucking out a lollipop at the barbershop still after his fresh fade.

[Host]

We do not know if a lollipop was given or a sucker was given after the haircut, but Todd Monkin would have had best haircut in that photo. Certainly the freshest. He was allegedly getting his hair cut at the time of the photo for the photo. Sure. So just classic misread, you know, Pacific time, mountain time, you know, you never really know with Arizona and then us on east coast time. It's a different world over there, man.

[Ty Schmidt]

It is.

[Host]

It's a different. Like obviously we enjoy it, but I mean like 5am on the alarm is late. 4am on the alarm for like a 6:30 thing is vastly different because that 6:30 thing is actually a 9:30 thing. Yeah. So it's like you just have a different day over there.

[Darius Butler]

You know what I mean, 12 o' clock hits.

[Host]

We had time.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. Different ballgame.

[Host]

A lot of time. Wasn't good for a lot of livers, I think.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, true.

[Host]

We certainly had to tie one or four on a couple different days. For the good of the league.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

For the good of ball celebration. And Fowler was walking around saying, what you guys got. What do you guys think about Jalen Hurt, huh? Jason Kelce will be doing coverage for ESPN for Wednesday's Par 3 contest. We'd like to say congrats, Jason.

[Con Man]

Yeah, congrats, Jason.

[Host]

Jason did some TGL coverage. Obviously had the Hawaiian shirt on, cut off the sleeves. Him and his brother were down there bombing it around during the TGL playoffs. Eli Payton, I think, also down there that particular evening as TGL was celebrating, you know, playoff golf in a big way. TGL appearance allegedly potentially leads to also Masters experience. You know, Jason Kelce likes golf. He knows golf. He's obviously a goat at his position. Super bowl champion has the biggest sports podcast on earth right now, I do believe. Right. His new heights, did they win the biggest? I don't know them or pardon my take. Whatever the case is, we apologize for the current rankings, whatever it is, one or two gigantic. And we think he'd be good to maybe freshen up the coverage of the Masters. Okay. That's potentially the thought, as it happens. I like it. The Internet was rude. The Internet was rude about this. Obviously, the Internet goes on to say, like, we don't need Jason Kelsey at the Masters. And that's probably a valid point, if I had to guess. And I'm only saying that strictly because we have attempted to be a part of the Wednesday coverage of the Masters at the par three thing for three consecutive years now. And for the people that are mad about Jason Kelce being a part of the matter, I got a good piece of news for you. They've told us to go to hell. So I think you should be happy about that, that they do try to preserve it as a whole. They have a certain thing that they are looking for. So I think Jason Kelsey, who's a dog, who's funny, who's relatable and is a very good athlete and is probably friends with a lot of these guys that are going to be golfing in there. I think he will provide a bonus for that par 3 coverage. But to the people that are upset saying that the Masters are the only thing you got left, know that they've turned us down very loudly numerous times, which I think should be good news for the state of Their golf and the way they you at all.

[Con Man]

Oh, and the people who are upset, too. It's like, hey, this isn't Thursday. This isn't the opening round. And Kelsey's going to be walking around like, this is Wednesday when it is fun, when, like, the families are out there and the kids are taking putts. It's like, Jason Kelce should be there because it also gives other fans kind of like myself, who haven't been massive golf guys or kind of been around the golf culture to kind of bridge that gap. So for them to be mad about a Wednesday of Masters is just absurd.

[Host]

There will still be a standard.

[Tone]

Yes.

[Host]

Like, that's what I think people still. There will still be like a master standard. And that's why the only reason why I'm saying they've told us. Yeah, right. A couple times. Because they're like, still very much the people that are making those decisions are very like, we're not doing that. Which we understand and respect. It's Masters, for God's sake. It's down there in Augusta. We understand that as a whole. But I think he'll be a benefit. And I think golf growing, like, I know TGL was a little bit of a whiff, I think is what people call it. So, you know, it drew some attention. I don't know if it was as big as they thought it was going to be, but I like that they were trying it. Like, I appreciate that golf is going to continue to try to grow and try to evolve because we all love golf. I think everybody loves golf that has ever played golf. More people golfing, the better. Especially for if there's teenagers or younger people that Jason Kelsey might attract into golf. It's like learning the skill of golf. My daughter's going to learn it later in life. A lot of things happen with people that make a lot of decisions on a golf course. And if you are ass at golf, golf, oh, it's not good for anything. If you are okay at golf, good. If you are great, Much better for all parties. A lot of big business done for the people that are really good at golf. But if you're ass, it's bad news. So, like, I think golf being introduced to people, however it gets introduced, people is good, which is why I like tgl, them taking a swing on that. I appreciate them trying to evolve this Masters coverage, even though there will be a standard, because I think golf is good for society.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. Golf is always at least like, growing up, it kind of felt like, ah, this is kind of for us Keep everybody else out. So this is another step in like kind of bridging that gap and post Covid. You know, you just mentioned it like the golf has, has boomed for younger people, for women, for all these different types of audiences. So I think this is a great move. I think it's be fun. I've never tuned in to the Wednesday Part 3 thing, but because Kelsey.

[Tone]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

As a football guy. Because Kelsey's on there. Yeah. I've seen clips, I've seen like Fleetwood Kid, you know, head over to part three skipping. Yeah. I've seen different videos on the Internet. But even like YouTube Golf, like, it's so many, many different avenues of golf that the fan can kind of. Because sitting there watching, you know, in the coverage of golf, I think is great because it's always action, it's always a shot, it's always a storyline. And then Sunday, you know, Saturday, the moving, all the different parts of it. But I think this would be cool for the average golf fan, the people who are the avid, all Masters. I wanted this, I wanted that way. They may not like it, but the, the day one or early golf is. I think this would be great.

[Ty Schmidt]

There's just so much other stuff you could be upset about that this, this should just not crack the list. Like, like you guys mentioned it. I mean, I, I, I, I will check in on the par three. You know, you see. Yeah, there will be like a hole in one from, you know, every now and then or like a great shot or someone skipping one over the water and maybe making it. But it, you're not locked into this like you are Thursday at the Masters. So like, exactly. Why not? You know, and the stuff with Jason Kelce like that, that's just not going to go away. Anytime he does something now going forward, that's always going to be the response that is. They're shoving this guy down our throat. Nobody wants him on this or that or whatever the case may be. But, like, why not? You know, if you're given the opportunity to go out there and do this at Augusta, like you, you don't think he's probably not like, you know what that sounds like awesome. That sounds awesome. I'd like to go do that.

[Host]

I love that Jason Kelsey's getting an opportunity to do all this. He's been, he's been doing a lot of. Yeah, they, they've, they've had him do it. Remember, they were dropping Marshawn in situations. Yeah. We should still do that, by the way.

[Tone]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

That's kind of disappeared because he's doing, like, actual movies, right? I think he's getting paid, like, real money to be being real movies. I think what we're going to see Marshawn in over the next couple, because movies take a long time, act and then edit and it happens later. I think Marshawn's about to become a real actor, but if we can continue to drop him into stuff. Let's do that. Jason. Kelsey, they're doing the same here. I'm excited to see what his master's coverage is. I am excited to see what he thinks of Augusta, the whole thing. He'll be on a microphone live. Live in real time. I don't hate it, but, boy, people get loud. And could you imagine if they would have said yes to us, how loud it would have got?

[Tone]

Same reaction. Yeah.

[Cooper Flagg]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

Probably much louder. Chase Kelsey much more affable with certain group people than us. There would have been a group of people. Oh, you think there's different groups?

[Darius Butler]

I'm just saying he gets a lot of heat. Baby face. He was. And then. So when that turn happens, it usually big. It's usually loud.

[Host]

Yeah, but what if he hits a hole in one on Wednesday? Everybody's gonna have get to eat.

[Tone]

Oh, he's golf.

[Host]

I assume he's swing club.

[Tone]

Then I'll have a problem.

[Host]

Okay,

[Darius Butler]

he can go.

[Tone]

He can announce it all. He doesn't need to be swinging a golf course. A golf club on Augusta.

[Host]

Okay, well, it's a par three course. It's not.

[Tone]

It's still Augusta.

[Con Man]

Tony, come on.

[Host]

What if a player asks him to take a shot?

[Tone]

That's fine.

[Host]

Yeah, what if a player asks him to take a shot and a shot.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. Well, that won't happen at Augusta. S semasters. It's Augusta. That won't happen. We're talking boozing and shooting. You know, it might. I mean, maybe he does. Maybe he has a good time. I think it'll be good. But boy, that got loud quick on the Internet. That got loud really quick on the Internet. Hopefully goes fantastic. So everybody has to eat shit. But then there's a chance also it goes horrendously. I don't know how that would happen. And they try something new. Maybe next year. You know, there's. There's all these types of ideas and setups. Tiger woods has released a statement since the accident that us saw. We saw him upside down a Range Rover allegedly climb out of the opposite window for another time. And we're about done with seeing it. I think that was our entire take. Is like, hey, I don't like knowing that you're potentially gonna be dead. Anytime you get into a car, you need to stop doing it. For what our take was, this needs to stop. Obviously how dangerous it is. We all have friends who have passed away from DUIs or from driving driving or getting hit in the entirety. It's in with the access that he has to things. It's like, it's, it's seemingly. It is inexcusable at this day. It was our take on it as a whole. Tiger, get a driver. Waymo pulled up right behind us. Yes, it did. A robotic car pulled up behind us. Tiger woods understands it seems like. I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today. I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well being and work toward lasting recovery. I'm committed to taking time needed to return a healthier, stronger and more focused place, both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding and support and ask for privacy for my family, loved ones and myself at this moment. One at this time. Tiger. All right, Tiger. Good luck out there, dude. That's a big decision, dude. Big decision. Hopefully, you know, you go ahead and go on with that because none of us like hearing anything about any of that college hoops this weekend. Final Four. We got the right ones, Connor, don't we? I saw a graphic now with where the starting fives were from Yukon, five American flags, one of them being right here in Indiana. Splash City. How you doing? Everybody else had a European infiltration of some sort for at least two of their starters. We all have been saying that it's good for the quality of basketball. Are we expecting a phenomenal Final Four that seemingly all conversation is like, hey, these, this is about to be maybe greatest Final Four that we have ever seen. Con man.

[Con Man]

Yeah, we saw the numbers on the March Madness tournament. Those are only going to go up. Like the two games feels as though they are the best possible matchups. Like Yukon versus Illinois. You mentioned it, we've talked about it. The big itches from Illinois that feels as though kind of like a new style, kind of sweet team. And then UConn Older School, Hurley, Caravan guys we've seen before. There's the kind of lineup there. And then Michigan, Arizona that. That feels like kind of the one seed versus one seed matchup we've been wanting to see since the beginning. Arizona has been dominating teams. And then Michigan just beat Tennessee by like 30 points in the Elite Eight, it wasn't close for one minute. Lindenborg, I believe he's a graduate. And then Arizona has all these freshmen, you know, co opied, of course. Our guy Braden Burries. Tommy Lloyd is kind of hitting the news, you could say with the whole UNC thing. A lot of guys are saying, hey, Tommy Lloyd, Arizona, he's going to leave immediately after this season. But he's also come out and said like, hey, I'm only focused on this team, so that'll be something interesting to watch. Yeah, exactly.

[Host]

Has to show you that. But.

[Con Man]

But this game in particular, it makes sense why this is kind of the billing game of the night.

[Host]

UNC is thinking about getting West Virginia's coach too, right?

[Con Man]

Russ Hodge.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Con Man]

If he can bring home the crown. I. I think that is kind of a little thing.

[Host]

If he was dying get there and at Tar Heel Blue, good things could happen, you know what I mean?

[Darius Butler]

I actually don't think he would like delay his interview or any of the process for the fucking crown, what you're

[Host]

talking about right now.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, he would go.

[Tone]

Yeah.

[Host]

Well, we got big time game tomorrow. Remember. The Super Duper crown does begin tonight as Baylor and Minnesota will do battle. As will Oklahoma and colorad tomorrow night. West Virginia and Stanford obviously find out who's going to do battle against Rutgers in the Blue Jays.

[Tone]

I heard the president can't address the country anymore tonight because this is going on so they couldn't take it off of tv.

[Host]

I think there's a presidential address set for this evening is what I just learned.

[Tone]

I thought I saw.

[Darius Butler]

I saw his words.

[Con Man]

That is right. I believe they're supposed to be launching to the moon around like 650. And then he. I'm dead soon.

[Host]

We are actually first time in 50 years. I've seen some photos. We're heading up there. Is that what's happening? We're doing a president. I just learned that right now. And once again, I know that's not good, but I just want to show that that's the type of human you're talking about here with me. I did not know that's whenever you attack me for whatever you attack me. Just know. I didn't know we had a full presidential address tonight.

[Ty Schmidt]

April Fools. So it's one of those.

[Host]

Exactly.

[Ty Schmidt]

You just don't know. You just don't know.

[Host]

But I'm going to be pissed, okay.

[Con Man]

If.

[Host]

If I can't watch Baylor, Minnesota first round Super Duper crying because I'm learning about going to the moon.

[Tone]

Couldn't agree more because I'm learning about

[Host]

going to the moon again.

[Ty Schmidt]

Some people got to scout these Games again, man.

[Host]

50 years, dude.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

What do you mean?

[Tone]

What?

[Host]

What do you mean? Let's talk about it. I think we know what's he saying.

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't think we do. I don't. You know what? This guy's uninformed. He's a. You know, I don't know if this

[Con Man]

is some sort of me or toad me.

[Host]

Okay.

[Con Man]

Uninformed. Check the tape, brother.

[Host]

Yeah. Maybe the most informed, but what is that? That. Who knows? April Fools.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Host]

April Fool. Could be. Could be any day now. With the way AI is, we really do have to stay on top of things. And what we should be doing more of is going directly to the sources of things. Now, these sources of things certainly get upset whenever we don't do that, but we assume that we can't get to source of things to correct these things. Whenever we have an opportunity to get to source of things, though, we got to make the most of it.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

Ladies and gentlemen, I have no idea how this happened, but we're upon to about it. Yes. Tighten up, tighten up. Everybody lock in. We're not. You're not. Youtubing to stop with what you guys had going on.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, we're done. We're done.

[Con Man]

I mean, I don't know about that.

[Host]

We'll, we'll click pause, circle back, just like you got to do when you come out home from the moon. You got to go around the backside.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. Slingshot technique.

[Host]

You got to circle back. You know, that's what they said to the dark side of the moon. You got to, you got to go around there, use that centrifugal force to kind of of in the gravity lack of slingshot your ass back to Earth. Right. You know, do we still have to do that now, 50 years later, are we still slingshotting around the dark side? Do we know?

[Con Man]

It depends. What so.

[Host]

Well, it depends what kind of thing, what this guy. We're not doing it. It depends. I thought we put a pause on this.

[Darius Butler]

I might ask our guest

[Host]

now on

[Ty Schmidt]

that note, got bigger fish to fry

[Host]

if you remember the mathematics side of the entirety of it all and the numbers and accounting that took place for all of that historic moment for the United States of America. Yeah. She potentially is one of the ones that would be representing former head of Deloitte. And if you know what that is, that means you understand how impressive that is. If you don't know what that is, it's unbelievably impressive. It is an absurd thing that is happening in the money world, accounting world. She is that. She is also the commissioner of the WNBA and just got done negotiating one of the fastest CBA things we've seen in some time, especially with how seemingly far apart part all conversation was the commish of the wnba, Kathy Engelberg. Yay Commish. How you doing Commish?

[Kathy Engelbert]

I'm doing great. I'm doing great now.

[Host]

Pat, hey, we are so thankful that you are joining us. We did not expect this opportunity, but we are thankful for it. And you say you feel good. Now let's talk about the negotiations. Congratulations on the new seven year CBA getting done. We know that is very difficult. There were certainly worse work stoppage conversations and it felt like there was a lot of posturing happening on both sides, both through the league and the players. And then we saw photos of you all working together and getting this deal done, which is going to see an increase in pay and seemingly very happy operation right now. How did we get to this point and was there ever any sketchy moments where you thought maybe there would be a work stoppage for the WNBA?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Well, it's interesting, you know, Pat, CBAs tend to get done at the 11th hour. And I mean I think this one was a function of how important and meaningful it was not just for the WNBA and women's basketball, but maybe all women's sports. So there was so much past passion and the players were amazing through it. And it was just a testament on how invested everyone is. We needed to get it right. I mean, when you're looking at this long term labor piece, seven years, the process was definitely not linear. And you know, you have to do a lot of listening, reacting, acting, responding, and in some cases you're totally pivoting from what you thought when you went into a bargaining session. But you're just trying to get it right for players, team owners, fans, the business. You know, we want to set that all up for success. And that's why I think this was everybody thought this was so unusual. I think like again, because the WNBA has grown so much, I think it was now where arrived as a major sports property and it was probably a little more usual. But obviously, obviously everybody likes to get things done sooner rather than later in this environment. But you know, we had to get it right.

[Host]

Number one, a lot of heat coming in. And anytime you're a league that's been around for 30 years and are projecting into the future, it can be hard to come to an agreement, especially with the Players and how everything is kind of gone. We did some research. D butt was looking into it. We tried our best to learn as much as the situation that you were in as soon as we found out that you were going to join our show. So we've been looking into it. So some of these numbers might not be 100% accurate, but we learned that the NBA took a long time before it became a profitable business. The NFL like 50 years almost before it became like a super duper profitable business. You guys are going to be celebrating 30 years right now. Feels like we're close to making like how do you kind of project what the future looks like, how much money you can make? Because there was numbers coming out and we don't know what side the numbers were coming out from, where if you gave up 20% or 30% in a $10 million salary cap, the projections would be you'd lose 200 million or something like that. I forget all that, but the projections were all negative that were coming out about your guys's deal or potential deal. How did you end up falling on the seven and a half million dollar salary cap for seven years and a percentage split that it ended up with the players? And how are you projecting this kind of to go over the next seven years of the WNBA's existence?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Yeah, it's a great question. And obviously we, we grounded everything, both sides in principles that we needed. Significant increase in player salaries and benefits. But also balancing that with the ability to continue to incentivize investment in our league. We've had incredible investment in the league and practice facilities and player experience, etc. We've had incredible investment by our, our broadcast partners, including espn, Disney and we're bringing on NBC this year and Amazon and we have SCRIPPS ION and CBS, so. And Versant now as the SpinCo out of NBC. So incredible investment into the game, into the WNBA, our corporate partners as well. So it was making sure we could balance all of that. That's the hard part. Right? Because you do want. We're in our 30th year, by the way, the longest tenured women's professional sports league in the United States by double any other. So we took it with great responsibility that we're just not going to do this without a financial model that was sustainable for our owners. Our board of governors are our team owners. So that was really important and we were able to strike that balance, I think. I mean, not everyone gets everything they want. You know, there's a lot of uncomfortable moments when you're Negotiating around these things, especially because you're looking for that long term agreement. And you want to make sure that though the players are going to. This is the first time the players are going to benefit every time we increase our revenue. They have a full revenue share on full league and team revenue. And that's a huge win win for both them and the owner and the team owners.

[Host]

Congrats on all of it. And being the longest tenured professional women's league by double or triple, we're appreciative. We have a lot of baby girls in this Thunderdome. And my daughter has been to three soccer practices now. First one just cried and watched the entire time. Second time we kind of got involved. Third time we had much better attitude, but there was numerous times where didn't want to use her feet, just picked that thing up and actually dunked it into the net. So let's continue that. Okay. For the good of my. And I think that's why I had so much interest in the business side of it, in the sustainability of the league. I think we looked it up. We don't know what's 100% accurate. Obviously on the Internet it is April Fools. So, you know, there's a lot of that, but I think it's 42% WNBA. 42, 42% NBA. And then there's what, 16% of other investors in the entirety of the WNBA. I think my natural thought was that the NBA was kind of owning this. How do you get everybody on board for this deal? How much is the NBA involved? Whenever there's negotiations and conversations happening, I know there's a lot of carryover for NBA and WNBA owners like here in Indiana, I think in Phoenix, I think Mark Davis is an owner out there in Las Vegas, they're in the middle of a dynasty run. But how, how much are you and the NBA kind of doing all this together and how much expectation is on the NBA to continue to help WNBA grow?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Yeah, absolutely. The NBA and Adam have been so supportive. There's a reason why when I came in that we were the longest tenured league. And it's because, you know, we're tipping off our 30th season. The NBA has been a great partner. Cycles happen in the economy. And so when I came in, everything needed to be transform from the player experience to stakeholder success to our fan experience. So, you know, one of the other things, you know, when I came in, one of the things was like less than 1% of all corporate partnership dollars were going to women's sports and less than 5% of all media coverage at the time was in sports, was women's sports. So those percentages have gone up. Thankfully, we've helped grow those percentage. And, you know, when you look at how many hundreds of basis points you would have to grow those to even get to 10%, 15%, given that there's billions and hundreds of billions of dollars going into sports. So the NBA has been a huge partner of ours, hugely helpful, and, you know, as have all of our stakeholders, I'll call them more broadly, and. And that includes, again, these media companies, these corporate partners, because without them, you know, companies like Ally and Deloitte and AT&T and Google and Carmax and Nike, they have stepped up in a big way, and that enabled us, quite frankly, to build a sustainable revenue model to pay the players what we're now paying them. You know, everyone's like, why can't you pay the players more? Well, you need a revenue model to actually fund the payment of these type of salaries. And we finally have it, and we wanted to be able to sustain it. So, yeah, the NBA, great partner. And I think everybody's rowing in the same direction now.

[Host]

Hey, feels like you're an absolute dog, Kathy, you know, because you. You hear the same thing we hear when they're like, pay the players, Pay the players. This happened. And I don't want to compare the WNBA, it's been around for 30 years, years, to the US XFL. Okay, I don't want to do that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Host]

I don't want to do that. But we got information from the usxfl. They were like, hey, Dwayne Johnson, friend of our show, lost $45 million last year on USXFL. Then their quarterbacks were like, we're holding out. We want more money. It's like, that doesn't make that, like, it's hard to really. I feel like when the wnba, it's always talked about, it's like, lose money, lose money, lose money. Then we heard there was gonna be a work stoppage, and I think everybody, like, wanted to pile on. But I love the fact that you took the mindset of, like, okay, let's make this a business. Let's do what we have to do. And for those companies to jump in for the good of your league and for the future, and obviously broadcast partners, I mean, that's. That's. Any of our businesses having partners that support it. Good for you, Kathy. Hey, good for you and the entire WNBA team for making that happen. Because it's good for our society whenever that's taking place.

[Kathy Engelbert]

Exactly. And I love you guys are girl dads. And you see the benefit. And I think what happens, what happened is we had this investment from the NBA before we became as popular as are we to that we are today. And those other investors who came in, which, by the way, half of them were MBA or WNBA owners already. So everybody doubled down on their investment. Because when I came in, the owners at the time were like, you know, we're going to go big or go home. That literally is what they went. My first meeting with some of the owners where we're going to go big or go home. And you know what? We hit the pandemic right after. And that was, like, existential for us because if we were to be out of the sports landscape for 20 months, which is it would have been had we not had that 2020 season. So we cobbled together the bubble in Bradenton, Florida, at IMG Academy and held a successful season. And that put us off to the races. So you kind of look back at all these turning points in kind of the trajectory of the league, at least since I've been here, and, you know, you look back and say, thank God we had the resistance and the persistence and the. And the resilience to, like, keep going. Because we could have hung it up there and I probably wouldn't be sitting here today as the commissioner. We could have hung up the CBA when it became contentious. But we said this is the right thing to do for the wnba, for these players long term and for the owners long term. So, again, it's all a balance.

[Host]

Yeah, it certainly is a balance, but I think the product on the floor also has to keep up with the business. You know, we've seen businesses where the business is good, but the product is kind of trash. Feels like you have stars, obviously. Las Vegas Aces in the middle of maybe the best dynastic run in the history of professional women's sports as a whole. Winning three out of the last four. Asia. Absolutely. Absolutely absurd. I think more people learned about her is that rookie class from a couple years back. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, who took over March Madness with LSU in Iowa, come into the league now. On that note, any business runs off of its stars and how their stars perform. Go ahead, Ty.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, commission. So obviously everyone's excited that this is done, but it kind of feels like now is where, like, the real work starts. How confident are you that the league can create new stars? Because I'm an Iowa alum, I watched all the of Caitlin Clark's games You know, while she was in school there. And then you're just naturally kind of curious when she gets to the fever. And you guys definitely did catch, you know, lightning in a bottle with her. And obviously it wasn't just her, but the WNBA was, you know, kind of appointment television for a while there. So how confident is the league that you guys will be able to continue to kind of get these not only college players that are coming up, but current, current, you know, players in the league and establishing that them as like household stars?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Yeah, and you bring up the point that I always say, like you need household names, you need games of consequence. And that's usually, you know, because our season shorter, you know, now we'll be able to play up to 52 games over the life of this agreement. When I came in, I think we were playing 32. So you need that and you need those stars. And Caitlin, without question, has been a huge part of the growth of our league. And she's not only an incredible player, but a great ambassador for the game. You've seen her on, she's done some work with the NBA on NBC this year and couldn't be prouder how she's handling the moment for her because a lot of pressure on her. But as you said, there's a lot more stars. I mean, this year our draft is actually like 12 days away and we have Easy Fudd from UConn, Olivia Miles from TCU, Flauge from LSU, Lauren Betts from UCLA who's in the Final Four. We actually have two players from outside the US and so we're becoming a more global player population as well, just like the NBA has done over the years. And we're, we're catching up. I think when I came in the league we were 8% players born outside the United States and last year we were 23% or something like that. So we're growing our global game too. So. And we need to invest there as well. But it's going to be a great draft. I think there's going to be a lot, you know, you think next year you have Hannah Hidalgo, you have Juju, depending on she's red shirted this year, obviously because of the injury. Juju Watkins and you have so many other great players, Kiki Rice at UCLA that are going to be coming in. And I think like, I don't get to see a lot of the U18, but I'm told, like, Kathy, wait till you see these U18 players, these under 18 players. They're, they're going to be the next Caitlin's, the next juju's, the next Aaliyah Boston's and Asia Wilson. So I'm excited. I think our broadcast partners saw the future even before, as we were negotiating, even before Caitlin was in the league. They saw the future of all this great talent coming in. Again, not just from. From college, but also internationally.

[Host]

Yeah, they also saw that you're bringing massive partnerships with you, too. I mean, that's awesome. That's an incredible weapon to have, you know, that as we have our show licensed, you know, so we. Much smaller situation than what you have as an entire league. But in negotiations, having businesses that'll be like, yeah, if he goes, we'll go. That's a huge. That is a huge ordeal. So the fact that you're able to gather that they get a lot more confidence in what the future looks like, like, whenever you're able to supply that type of shit. Cathy, you're a beast. You're an absolute beast. Cathy. That is for real. One of the moves was the roster size. I think that that became a big conversation. Who wanted this league or players? Because now there's 12 players with two, like, practice squad players that are allowed to play on the team. Is this more players on the roster than it used to be? And who really presented this one as something that seemingly needed to be a necessity? You or the players?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Yeah, I think this was a collaborative of effort. We knew players with a 12, you know, person roster. We knew that, you know, we didn't need to stand up an entire kind of G League equivalent. But could we bring development. We're calling them development players in, so that there'll be two development players per team. That's 30 additional opportunities for players. We also went from 144 players, and now with expansion, we'll be up to 216 by the end of the decade, and we'll be 180 this year. 180 players plus the 30 development players. So we'll be over 200 that we're taking care of, giving opportunity and developing. So that was definitely a collaborative effort between the players association and the league and the teams to bring on these two development players. It's a huge investment, don't get me wrong. But it's also a huge opportunity as well for more players to make this league. As you know, in the past, like a second and third round pick in our league generally wouldn't make a roster. I think there's a lot more opportunity with both expansion and these development players to develop the next generation of talent.

[Host]

Talent, more roster spots, higher salaries, more teams. Feels like everything's up and to the right. Cathy just need to see the hooping. You know, the hooping just needs to maintain. Now who's doing the hooping? D but has a question for you.

[Darius Butler]

Back to the talent in the draft and I'm a UConn grad so I've been following the ladies game for a long, long time. Has, has there been any conversation about changing the draft rules for the WNBA? I know I think you have to be 22 years old, you have to be a college grad for international has to be 20 years old I believe. And a lot of times, you know, our stars, Caitlyn being one of them, obviously all these girls that go to UConn, they're stars in college for four years before they can go to the WNBA. Any talks of changing those rules going forward?

[Kathy Engelbert]

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of debate over that. I think we were all comfortable with where we were in the prior CPA with you know, the 22 that you mentioned. You have to be 22 by the end of the calendar year in which you get drafted, which makes them mostly college graduates or college graduate if you're younger and go earlier I guess obviously internationally as you mentioned it's 20. So we consistently studying whether you know which option is better, should it be younger. I think in general both the players association us thought we have struck the right balance on that and it gives opportunity for players who maybe are either starting later or a little older or do a red shirt year to come in, you know, after their junior year but mostly, you know, after you graduate. And again it's provided an enormous amount of talent and I think one of the things that's also these players are building their brands while they're in college. So the one and done is not going to work for us because they won't have built their brand by the time they come to the W. And so I think it's important that they have that opportunity to build their brand, get their nil money also because the women basketball players, the stars have been really kind of at the top of the list from that perspective. And then they come in with big brands like Caitlin did like angel did like Aaliyah Boston has built now that she opportunities come in post her playing career in South Carolina as well. So and again the list goes on around that and the endorsement opportunities they have once they come in the W with just not just a domestic national brand but now we're going to be in Canada this Year with the Toronto Tempo. We're going to be in Portland with the Portland Fire and then like kind of globally be able to build their global brands coming out of the university. So I think it's an advantage to have that four year career. But again we're constantly studying.

[Host]

Yeah. With social media too. The evolving building of brand will continue. And obviously colleges have helped, certainly have helped. Since the history of time in all sports, colleges have provided a nice feeder system into professional sports. We've seen it in yours. Excited to watch that. Flo J. Is she going to play good in wnba? I'm a huge fan of hers.

[Kathy Engelbert]

Is her huge, huge fan of hers as well. Followed her since she was a freshman. I mean huge success at LSU sports, very confident and just personality and I can't wait to see her at the draft. And one of my favorite parts of the year is coming up which is I get to call each of these potential draftees into the league and and invite them to New York City to the shed on April 13. And some of them have never been to New York City and some of them and they're so excited and they say things like thank you for making my dreams come true. And it's like truly the most inspiring part of the commissioner job for me is seeing that next generation of talent come in and how excited they are. And flauge is definitely one of those talents.

[Host]

I love that. Can't wait to see how it all goes with her. She's a weapon. She is an absolute weapon. Anytime there's been a microphone around her, she's hit a home run. I think that's great for the league. You mentioned Toronto and Portland. I think we're at 15 teams now. Going to get to 18 by 2030. Go ahead, con man.

[Con Man]

Yeah, commission. Pat's Point there. Portland and Toronto being the two teams this year. How do you pick as far as cities to expand to? I think Philly is also on the docket and two others coming up here. But what is kind of the process and picking like, okay, that city would be great for the W. We'll head there next.

[Kathy Engelbert]

It's a great question because when I first came in and we were only in 12 cities and not having scale, I was like, boy. And we didn't have one in the Bay Area. In the Bay Area, given the media market and the progressiveness and where the W stood kind of societally, I'm like, we need a team in the Bay Area. And then the Golden State Valkyries came in and killed it this year with Portland And Toronto know, it's. It's not easy to pick. Like we have. We probably ran 25 different. Down. A bit of a data geek from my prior life, we ran probably 25 different metrics through 100 cities both in the US and Canada, and kind of like looked at which ones we thought would be. Have the right demographics, psychographics, the right. How many. Like, do they have the right facilities? Because a free agency now is so important, and we want these owners to be highly successful, so they've got to be able to bring in free agents. Do they have the right arena? Do they have the right practice facilities? Fandom, are they already fans of the ncaa? Are they already fans of the W? We had a lot of data around that. So all we put all of that together, and we came up with a process that in the last process, we probably started with 25 or so cities that were bidding. It came down to about 13 cities. And that's when we. Granted, we originally only intended to run the process for one, but we had 13 really viable bid bids. And we came up with Cleveland in 28, Detroit in 29, and Philly in 30. And so bringing in those two, three great cities, great basketball cities. I happen to be from Philadelphia, so no bias there, of course.

[Host]

Yeah, a little heavy pen on that side. Yeah, we understand. 250 million per franchise there. Hey, yeah, keep going. Kathy, we appreciate the hell out of you. Obviously, our daughters hope to all get a chance to play in the league that you are currently guiding. And congrats on a massive deal getting done for the future. And we hope, we hope, no injuries the entire year.

[Con Man]

That's right. None.

[Host]

None.

[Kathy Engelbert]

So do we. So do we. So hopefully our trainers and our physical therapists are all working on our players here in the offseason and we'll get. We'll tip off. May 8th is big tip off day.

[Host]

April 13th, we got a draft. May 8th, we got a start of a season. The Fever are going to topple the Aces. Even though it seems impossible, we appreciate the hell out of you. Commission. Ladies and gentlemen, WNBA commissioner Kathy Engelberg. Thank you, Kathy. Have a good one. She's impressive. Yeah.

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

Killer. You can tell. Yeah. Hey, we're wondering if you wanted to do a deal with the wnba. I don't know if we can really relate. Deloitte, Nike, baa. Yeah, yeah, they're all here. We would love to do. She's a W. She forced that deal.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

That's incredible. That's what a commission is supposed to do. We're back tomorrow. Be a friend. Tell for something nice but change your life. Goodbye. Yeah, she. That's.

[Tone]

She's like I got here. There's no scale.

[Host]

We got no business. So how are we planning on making money around here? What are we doing? Tickets, nachos, beers. Okay. Anything else? I'm sure there is stuff. All right. I just came from Deloitte. I'm sure there's some sort of call it Nike. Don't you. Thank you. Don't. Yeah. We can bundle. We'll get you. Yep. Don't you hey with our players think. Yeah. Should build a business. It sounds like.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah. And it's so much that goes into it. Obviously.

[Host]

So much that goes into.

[Darius Butler]

You were talking about the leagues earlier. NBA founded 1946. Didn't really become really profitable to like the magic bird. The 80s. And they went on. We saw the documentary with Jerry Buss and how he was, you know, going through a lot of shit to keep the Lakers afloat. Of all French franchises.

[Con Man]

Yeah. Like Stern too, to your point. Like that era of David Stern. He's considered one of the greatest commissioners

[Host]

because of that in the NFL.

[Darius Butler]

NFL. 1920, they didn't get profitable to. After the merger. 1970, we saw the letter from Lamar Hunt in the hall of Fame. And they didn't get profitable until 1970s is when they kind of became the cash printing machine that they are. So it takes a while and obviously we're in a different landscape. And then it's a. It's women's sports too. So it was obviously very different. MLB probably had the fastest because they kind of had a monopoly on it. And it was just a different time.

[Cooper Flagg]

When.

[Darius Butler]

When was 18.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. I mean. Yeah, it was 1890.

[Host]

Something that was all local media.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Darius Butler]

It took them like 20, 30 years to become really dominant in that space. So it takes a while there a lot of different moving parts, but it feels like they got the right people in there.

[Host]

Yeah. Kathy seems like an absolute beast. Like. Like actually. And he looks for their arrest resume and it's like this was. Yeah, this is. Oh, we didn't ask the McDonald's question for debunk.

[Con Man]

What was the question? Is it safe to eat McDonald's for six straight days? Because he was.

[Host]

And super dinner, as he likes to call it.

[Tone]

Super early morning, fall asleep.

[Con Man]

Dinner, second dinner.

[Host]

Fries on chest. Dinner.

[Ty Schmidt]

Getting more fat dinner.

[Host]

The glass.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, that. That technically doubles as a midnight snack too because he falls asleep, then wakes up and eats all the fries that

[Host]

are all over him early backwards.

[Darius Butler]

Good for skin yeah.

[Host]

Cold pizza. Yeah, right. Have you ever tried hairy cold fries in the morning? D bone special.

[Con Man]

Gut McDouble.

[Host]

His lady. The gut McDouble.

[Con Man]

Keep it warm.

[Host]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Indiana University, the Hoosier football team, the reigning national champions who have the Heisman winner as their quarterback, has their pro day happening today. We have eyes on Fernando Mendoza. Boots on the ground. Anthony Calhoun of Wish TV here in Indianapolis has sent me 14 text messages since he's got down there. He said Fernando looks bigger.

[Con Man]

Looks huge.

[Host]

Looks like he's put some muscle on this guy's ready to go. He will be throwing with the boys. He said he wanted to. Obviously one last sesh with Omar Cooper Jr who could potentially be be first rounder amongst other guys that will be out there. So eyes will be on the number one overall pick, Fernando today. We'll take a break on the other side. He might be working out and we got some other sports stuff that we definitely need to cover on this beautiful April. Don't be fooling around first 2026. I don't like that. Take that off the screen. Take that off screen.

[Con Man]

Oh,

[Host]

jeez.

[Con Man]

That was bad.

[Host]

That was bad.

[Con Man]

What I meant bad.

[Darius Butler]

You're not a scout so.

[Tone]

Oh the didn't even know we talked

[Con Man]

about it to damn organ.

[Tone]

You want his hands to get wet before he biggest day of his life

[Host]

he uses that lotion on his hands.

[Cooper Flagg]

He probably covered it.

[Con Man]

That's not good.

[Host]

I believe. I still believe. I still believe if this goes in it's okay. Take a break.

[Con Man]

That would. I might need a new shirt.

[Ty Schmidt]

Has a different. I mean small different ball.

[Host]

Which why is that? Oh it talks about that. Let's take a break. Being a friend. Tell a friend something nice might change your life.

[Darius Butler]

It's a lower room too.

[Host]

Tell you play you that's for you boy. That's for us. That game hasn't been played in a long time. New champs kind of killed the game.

[Darius Butler]

Killed the game.

[Host]

Nobody wanted to play with him.

[Darius Butler]

That that beast you guys are talking about is dominant force in the paint.

[Host]

Thank you.

[Darius Butler]

D bone for you.

[Host]

He hasn't moved in the pain in six months.

[Tone]

There's trophy just been sitting there just waiting to be won, collecting dust.

[Con Man]

Everyone knows the fans favorite that fit awesome.

[Tone]

Right on top of the cup.

[Darius Butler]

Fan favorite disagree.

[Host]

Let's get to a break. Kathy, I think she's going to figure it out. I think Kathy's going to figure it out. I don't like how all they talk about is how much money it loses all the time. Though.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, it's not fun.

[Host]

That's like a direct counter all the the time. Wnb. Who cares how many millions they lose in the night. It's like, whoa, Jesus. What about this arena selling out?

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

Caitlyn sold this place out every night. She was the Beatles out here outside viewing parties because people couldn't get tickets in. She single handedly changed downtown Indianapolis a bit. They got a facility, practice facility. Now they got different areas being built up.

[Con Man]

Not to jail down for it too. Like help out the city greatly when that thing.

[Tone]

Yeah. Freed all the prisoners.

[Con Man]

No, they didn't. No, it was old school. But right there where it is, it's right by Gambridge. I believe it's across the street from kind of the bus stop area, hotel indie area. And it has genuine, genuinely helped the city immensely.

[Host]

ISHB has done it in Phoenix. Build a WNBA facility. Davis, Mark Davis and him in Vegas have built the aces of facility. They're in the middle of a dynasty. The Simon family has been very open about how thankful they are that Caitlin Clark has joined the fever and how they are going to try their best to make sure everything is as good as possible so they can get as much success as possible with her on the team. It's been fun to watch. It's been very fun to watch. Hopefully WNBA continues to go. Congratulations to Kathy Engelbart. We appreciate her. Be a friend. Tell friend something nice might change your life. We have updates from a pro day and from the sports world. Sweet hoodie tone.

[Tone]

Yeah, you're telling me.

[Host]

Let's play ball.

[Cooper Flagg]

Game

[Host]

for Paul SK what time's that game?

[Ty Schmidt]

It's already started.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

Oh, yeah. Neil Cruz hit a home run. Yeah, he.

[Tone]

He hoisted a cone.

[Darius Butler]

Boom.

[Host]

He hoisted a cone.

[Tone]

They're currently up three one. They are in the top of the six. Skins has 5Ks through five.

[Host]

5Ks through five. That's O' Neal Cruz hitting a ball. Bye bye.

[Con Man]

Lot of people there.

[Tone]

And you're about to see the coin.

[Host]

Hoist the con.

[Con Man]

Hoist the con.

[Host]

Ho. The con H. The ho ho.

[Con Man]

Corn.

[Host]

That's what they're doing next.

[Ty Schmidt]

Paul Skeen's ERA is down to 9.53k

[Host]

is at 67 before today. What do you want from the guy? 1 from 67 to 9. It's quite a climb.

[Con Man]

It's not bad.

[Host]

Dynamite. Be a friend. Tell friends something nice might change your life. Take five. As you know, managing maintenance, repair and operations is never easy.

[Tone]

But for the ones who always rise to the challenge.

[Host]

Granger has your Back from professional grade

[Con Man]

products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery.

[Host]

They're there to help you keep things running smoothly.

[Tone]

Plus, their technical product specialists are here

[Host]

to help answer your toughest questions. And because Grainger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your

[Tone]

partner in protecting both your people and your facilities.

[Con Man]

Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by. Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's

[Host]

never tasted so good.

[Con Man]

You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink, or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha.

[Host]

Try it today at Starbucks. As we peek in here to Fernando Mendoza's pro day. Number one overall pick to Las Vegas Raiders. Calling out routes, letting the boys always show. Okay, six pack as well. Wow, you look getting another quick squirt

[Darius Butler]

of cold water for all little things. You know, we know he can spin

[Tone]

it, can't have slippy hands.

[Host]

He's been obviously throwing beautiful balls here. We've had zero balls on the ground since we've been watching. Going to the left here. Adidas athlete. Oh, that's good. 5. Step on top.

[Ty Schmidt]

Look it in.

[Host]

That's Dan Orlovsky's. Gonna count that he will. Packed house down there for the Hoosiers. This is very abnormal, a pro day looking like this for the Hoosiers. Play action, take a goal. Yeah, he likes that rot. Tell you what, Fernando, 6 foot 5, you forget about that when you're watching this. He is towering above the competition, flying to the left, two different colors, cleats, Coop Cooper, Omar Cooper Jr. First round pick. Hey, he smoothed this guy. Oh.

[Cooper Flagg]

Oh.

[Host]

He kind of get caught up, founds his feet. Fernando waits for him, delivers a dime. Wow. Stays in bounds, finishes upfield. I'll tell you what, it's a little bit of a showcase, isn't it? D? But of everything we like.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, absolutely. You saw the dig ball bleed to Surrat and obviously a little post corner right there. But those are the passes, especially those intermediate routes that these scouts, these coaches, everybody.

[Host]

Oh.

[Darius Butler]

Because everything you hear is the RPOs, the back shoulder phase, the shots. We saw him do that a thousand times. But NFL, we always talk, talk about even with the Jalen. Hurts conversation. The intermediate passes, layering the throws, being on time, being on target. So that's what everybody's looking for now.

[Host]

Koski out of the backfield.

[Con Man]

Beast.

[Darius Butler]

Mr. Everything.

[Host]

That's a good ball right there. Feels like he's in complete command, which is what we're looking for. One ball on the ground. That was A drop.

[Tone]

Do they normally call it the quarterbacks in these pro days? Do we know he's. He's saying he's telling them all routes what to do.

[Host]

Even that ball right there, we can run with that to runner spa. We can run with that.

[Con Man]

Perfection.

[Host]

And I think I saw him break down the coverage too and find out

[Tone]

that he's got to be sick to his stomach.

[Con Man]

So pissed.

[Host]

A showcase in his stomach by Fernando wants people to know he's a little bit bigger but still not a fato.

[Ty Schmidt]

Also pretty sure I saw Clinton Kubak's jaw hit turf. Just loving everything he's seeing here.

[Host]

Mr. Black in the backfield. I don't know what's going on here. They're going back to a previous throw to

[Tone]

Hemby maybe. I know there's.

[Host]

I don't know.

[Tone]

I'm thinking the underclassmen don't have numbers. Is that what.

[Host]

Cuz they're just there strictly for Fernando. Wheel route to the crib. You see that with Ashton Genti potentially over there in Las Vegas. Unless they're keeping their cards.

[Con Man]

Hairline looks magnificent.

[Host]

Hair's flowing in. He's sweating a lot.

[Tone]

Yeah, that's why I can't hold the water bottle.

[Host]

Oh, I don't you know, necessarily love the whole squirtsy and the mafi but I mean that might be. Oh, a little stuttering Go from Sarat. Oh, that was a good ball, Nando. Oh, catch ball.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's a touchdown. That's got to be a touchdown.

[Host]

Who they got a wide receiver over there,

[Darius Butler]

Vegas.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Con Man]

Thorton super fast. Trey Tucker. Trey Tucker super fast.

[Darius Butler]

Brock Bowers is there.

[Host]

Brock Bowers obviously a tight end, top pass catcher.

[Darius Butler]

He's super one for them.

[Host]

Who's going to be catching that go ball though? That he just.

[Tone]

Who is the rookie rookie out of Tennessee they took last year.

[Con Man]

Thornton was the kid out of Tennessee. Trey Tucker.

[Host]

Oh, here's another one. Oh, Martin, a crib. Slow down a little bit. Slow down a little bit.

[Tone]

He was wide open.

[Host]

Yeah, that's because the last guy he overthrew by a yard and a half.

[Con Man]

Walk in, Nando.

[Host]

Hernando's locked in. It's not about $9.

[Darius Butler]

Well, we gotta lock in there.

[Host]

No, Akowski got a little bit of an easily and a limp. Who cares?

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean what. Catch the goddamn ball, boys.

[Con Man]

This Orlovsky's watching.

[Host]

This is, this is speaking of ladies and gentlemen joining us now.

[Tone]

Oh great.

[Host]

Oh, Dan Orlovsky. Dano, what are you seeing here from this pro day? Dano Love you, Dan. Miss you, Dan. We love you, Dan. Little balls on the ground, huh, Dano?

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not a massive pro day person. These guys should look good.

[Host]

I'm.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I mean, I've seen them throw the ball well, but.

[Con Man]

Nice haircut.

[Host]

That's good to see you, Dano.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Good to see you guys.

[Host]

Is it okay?

[Con Man]

Okay.

[Host]

We miss you, Dano. Listen, the Internet happens. We're a part of it. That was good, boss. That's Brock Byers, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Con Man]

You see that one?

[Host]

See Brock Bowers right there coming across right in the front? Boom. Let's go get some more yardage out here. That's what he's doing.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah. It's a good throw.

[Host]

Okay, Good throw. Let's check the box there for Fernando. Did you see somebody else squirt the one water again?

[Con Man]

That's honestly kind of him to let those people be out there.

[Host]

You're right. Being a part of the moment. Cuz they work their ass off all year.

[Con Man]

Exactly.

[Host]

They deserve to be here too. We don't even know this. This is maybe a pro day for also the athletic trainers and equipment trying

[Con Man]

to get their own tape out there to Mark Davis. Mark Davis might see one of them and be like, we need that guy at the Raiders.

[Host]

That's a good squirt. Yeah. Dan, you don't think about that much time, do you?

[Dan Orlovsky]

I do not think about that. I don't think that's a real thing, so.

[Con Man]

All right, dude.

[Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Tone]

Chalk.

[Darius Butler]

I think I know what it is. He's. He's a big sweater.

[Host]

He. Oh, you think he's a little bit

[Darius Butler]

of a big sweater?

[Host]

What's. What's that? Daniel?

[Tone]

He's used that towel.

[Dan Orlovsky]

My guess is. Yeah, that's why he's doing that. Because he doesn't want to put moisture on his hands.

[Host]

Okay. I like that. Sticking up for Fernando there, Dano. I like what you're doing there. Thank you for doing that with us. What should we be looking. Looking at this pro day, Dano? Even though it's hard to kind of see.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah, I mean, again, I. I'm not a. I think there's. Most people who have played quarterback could probably go in a pro doing throw well.

[Host]

So see.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Expect those guys to look good. Seems like he's throwing the ball down the field, which is a strength of his.

[Host]

There's a couple drag routes we just saw. Yeah, we just saw a couple.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah. He didn't do a lot of this under center so stuff. So that's going to have to be Something he gets comfortable.

[Host]

Pretty comfy. Grab him a pillow. This dude's comfort level is elite right now with the bucket. Sorry, Dan. I got.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I think he's a good player. Yeah, he's a good player. No one's ever said he wasn't a good player.

[Host]

I agree. We. Hey, listen, you don't have to get so defensive.

[Con Man]

Yeah, good.

[Host]

We're having good time. We're watching pro. We're past what happened last week. Omar Cooper with an out. What a throw. And. And though on the face. No big deal. Right there on the face, man. That's a crib call for the other.

[Tone]

Yeah, for the offense.

[Dan Orlovsky]

For the other team.

[Host]

Okay. Oh, now you're laughing.

[Con Man]

Okay, just like we thought.

[Dan Orlovsky]

How come you guys. You guys can joke, but I can't?

[Ty Schmidt]

We didn't know.

[Host]

You're still joking. Yeah, we thought you were potting maybe. Oh, wheel wheeled it Aoski. What? That bitch. That doesn't count.

[Tone]

Did you see in the back? That was an rp. That does not count.

[Host]

I like a little play.

[Dan Orlovsky]

There's a penalty.

[Host]

There was a penalty. Almost.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

Oh, look at this one. You like that one, huh? Those are easier throws for him. He said, what's that D butt diva say? Love right there.

[Darius Butler]

I mean, look, this is the thing to watch with all these routes. Just watch the receiver. If he slows down, if he's not out in front of him like that, boom.

[Con Man]

Oh, perfect.

[Darius Butler]

See, you saw how he caught that and had to turn back.

[Host]

Well, he settled in his. Settled in his zone.

[Tone]

They were sitting covered.

[Chase Daniel]

Cover two.

[Darius Butler]

You wanted to.

[Host]

He threw him into a spot.

[Tone]

You want to throw him right into the flat defender.

[Con Man]

I'm just saying this is what have you played ball?

[Darius Butler]

This is what they would be looking at. The deep balls feels like the.

[Tone]

You didn't hear the coach yell out.

[Con Man]

Cover two feels like the Yukon pro. Name the tape.

[Darius Butler]

I love Fernando. He's going to be the number one pick, but that's what I'll be looking at. Especially

[Con Man]

where he put it, though.

[Cooper Flagg]

See?

[Darius Butler]

Good ball.

[Con Man]

Perfect.

[Host]

Right here front. Right here in front. Dan knows. You see that right here.

[Tone]

You don't know what coverages are.

[Host]

That's true. It's not the judge. Oh. Oh, he's so tricky.

[Con Man]

Play action.

[Host]

Beautiful. Oh, wow. We love that. Dano, your thoughts on that? Perfection right there.

[Dan Orlovsky]

It was a nice throw. It was a nice throw.

[Tone]

Bummed out.

[Host]

Are you bummed out? It was a nice throw. I thought we like all quarterback. Oh, Omar Little stumble. Who cares? We found it.

[Con Man]

Bang.

[Host]

Perfect. I Mean, what a game. All right, Dano, now that we have you, as we continue to watch number one overall pick Fernando Mendoza to his pro day down there in Bloomington, Indiana with a packed house, which is very abnormal for Indiana. Span won a national championship for that team, won a Heisman down there. Mr. Heisman is currently standing in Bloomington still, and which is crazy to think about, especially for Hoosier fans, what he's done for. Oh, roll out. Athlete on the move. Perfect.

[Tone]

Sig is there with a fishing rod or.

[Host]

Well, did you see what happened with the fishing rod story?

[Tone]

I saw Dion.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Tone]

Explain himself.

[Host]

What do you mean, explained himself? He explained the situation. Yeah, he was motivating. Even as the guy wouldn't be able to play for the Colorado Buffaloes, he's still motivating somebody with maybe one of them prime fishing rods. I do like that he got a little bit of an ad in the entire announcement. But Daniel, let's talk a little bit about what's going on around the end. NFL Jalen hurts situation in story. How do you feel about it? This feels like a big deal. Genuinely feels like a big deal. We had Chase Daniel on earlier strictly because I learned about the situation through Chase Daniel. He basically. I mean, that was a strike right down there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Timing that was right.

[Host]

I mean, unbelievable. The guy's got a sleeve on, not running full weight. What do you think about the Jalen hurt situation is all a bunch of bullshit coming out of league meetings or what do you think, Daniel?

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, I mean, I think that my first reaction is this is the second time they're starting quarterback in, in what, six years has had some stuff like this come out about him. We heard it with Carson Wentz. Now we hear a little bit. I don't not saying it's apples to apples, but it's the second time there's some level of disconnect between the organization and or the starting quarterback. You heard Wentz was empowered too much or given too much power. Now you're kind of hearing some of the same stuff with Jalen of changing of plays, disliking or doing too much of the play calling, change at the line or in and out of the huddle. So it's odd that that happens at least two times in a row with their starting quarterbacks that were, you know, MVP championship caliber. Obviously Jalen won it. So that's. That's different. I think the second thing is like, I don't know the why I think anybody can be honest about. About Jalen hurts and sit there and say if you just took him out. And I would tell you, I was probably the most critical person of Jalen Hurts when he came out of school and in Philly, if you just took him and threw on the field with all this 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, he would not be a top 10, probably top 12 guy. He just. That's not. He wouldn't pop that way. But I just think it's ridiculous to take a quarterback that has gone to three, two Super Bowls in the span of three years, been the best player on the field two times, one MVP once, and the super bowl, and be like, yeah, it's just not really that good. That's hard for me to wrap my head around. I understand the fascination behind it. So you hear stuff like this throughout the year. You hear a lot of rumors and hearsay, whatnot, but it's interesting that it's happened twice to their starting quarterback in the last five or six years.

[Darius Butler]

Now that's a strike.

[Host]

I agree. People way too comfortable talking bad about the franchise quarterback over there in Philadelphia. Seems like.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's just. It's weird. It's odd to me that two times in a row this has happened, and for a guy that has won as much as he has.

[Host]

Oh, man.

[Tone]

Just.

[Ty Schmidt]

Just carving this indoor facility up right now, it's like.

[Host]

It's like a Easter hum.

[Dan Orlovsky]

It is.

[Host]

That you're kind of experiencing right in front of us.

[Tone]

Sprinkler system in there.

[Host]

Because he's catching fire. Yeah. Well, I think his sweat could help if they need it. He is on fire right now, Dano. And he'll go on to be the leader of the Las Vegas Raiders franchise. That team invested heavily in free agency. Allegedly, they've already given him. Oh, we're doing it again, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. Oh, it's perfect. It was a delay. It was a delay.

[Con Man]

Perfect.

[Host]

It was a delay. Do a backflip now, Nando. Do a backflip now, Nando.

[Tone]

Yeah, this guy's the best.

[Host]

Maybe a high five. Yeah. Backhand. Yeah. I shouldn't be here.

[Tone]

Best teammate ever.

[Host]

Yeah. You want to make sure all the boys were there first. That's good leadership, honestly. Oh, actually, the guy just ran deep. Balls here. Yep. Thank you. Hey, so let's stay down here, boys. Let's go do our thing. Yeah. See a leadership. Hey, boys, I'm in.

[Con Man]

And let him in there.

[Host]

Yeah, we are. Well, he's just kind of. Yeah, he. He's in. Look, he just wants to be one of the guys one last time. I like it. That's good work. Good show.

[Tone]

Just flawless the future.

[Host]

Dan, I'm bummed we weren't able to have you on during the Ty Simpson one. I know what that would have sounded like. Look at that. I don't like that, you guys, I would like to let you know that we are happy you're back on here. And I did think you didn't like me there for a while. I did think you were pretty mad about it.

[Dan Orlovsky]

You thought that I didn't like you?

[Host]

I thought you're pretty mad about it. Oh, yeah, I was pretty. I FaceTimed. You didn't answer.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, I'll tell you, I wasn't in a good space to answer that. FaceTime.

[Host]

I know.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I gotta be honest.

[Host]

That's what I'm saying. That's why I sent you that.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

We love you, Dan. We love you, Dan. I want you to know I was

[Dan Orlovsky]

pissed off in the blue. The Internet, when it's on you, you. It's on you. Like, it's. I. I've had a couple times over the past couple years. It feels heavy and I don't know why I pay attention to it when I know I'm like, pledge, I'm in it. I would tell you that I'd prefer you not to maybe say that I'm getting paid for my thoughts on national.

[Host]

No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I said, this is why people are saying it. The Internet was saying. I said, that's why this is why people are saying it. Because then when you say, Fernando, what big games has he played? And when you got like, really defensive as. Can I.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Can I clarify that, please? Do I have the opportunity to clarify that?

[Host]

Absolutely.

[Darius Butler]

No, no.

[Con Man]

We should just.

[Host]

We should just move along. But on that note, you were talking to me as if we were in like a living room. And like, we were. That's how you were talking. You were talking to me as if we were in a living room as opposed to on TV with people watching. And like, I think. Because that would be something like we would say if we were trying to debate a point with a friend somewhere, like. Yeah, but tell me the thing. So then people attack.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Well, I was there.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

I didn't know people were going to kill you for that, though, in real time. I did not know that was going to be the one that got you. But it certainly did. It certainly did. I did not lie.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I mean, I was asking the big game thing as a literal Question. Okay, what game are we talking about? Because I obviously go into the time with you prepared to talk about Iowa on the road, Penn State on the road, like, so it was a literal question, not a, Like a jackass question type of thing.

[Host]

It wasn't rhetorical. Oh, you weren't saying, like, what big games does this guy play? But. All right, we're not going to do what we did because that's how it

[Con Man]

sounded when you watch. That is good clarification.

[Host]

We misheard it. I misheard it. Then we all misheard it. We appreciate you.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, but I. I would never. I can't never be mad at you like that. I value our friendship too much.

[Host]

Good. We love you, too. And then I like that you did this. This was a good play. This is a good play.

[Tone]

Ended at all.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I stole that from D Butt. D Butt was the first one to do it. And then I wrote to him, like,

[Darius Butler]

do what you had to do, brother. Got it off. You killed it. Good job.

[Host]

That's a good teammate. It's a good teammate, too. D, bud. It's my quarterback giving you an idea.

[Darius Butler]

Say hey on waterboard bottom.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

This one's for you.

[Host]

Here you go. Dana, get behind you.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Good job, D. But. Oh, yeah, but, yeah, it was good. It was a good 72 hours. He got a lot of text messages

[Host]

and phone calls just saying, hey, we love you, man. Just keep fighting in there. A lot of that.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I got a text message or a phone call from someone. You know, I don't want to say his name because you. But you know him, you know, like, well, work with work.

[Ty Schmidt]

And he was like, it's been a.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Been an interesting 72 hours for you. Hasn't it been, Mike?

[Host]

It has been. Dude, I can't believe coach JB called you like that.

[Con Man]

That's crazy.

[Host]

Wow. Okay, Big pop. What a pop. Mitch is done. Dan, we're happy everybody called you. Love you, cuz. I felt obligated to do it. We all felt obligated to do it, but, you know, hey, that's the game.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I didn't get a phone call or a text from Tone or why would Ty or Boston. Well, he said, we all felt obligated to do it.

[Ty Schmidt]

I said, I love you, Dan.

[Tone]

Did it.

[Con Man]

Yeah. And I said, I actually don't, so. Well, I don't have your number either, so.

[Host]

Jeez.

[Con Man]

And if I did, I'd lose it.

[Host]

All right. Anyways, Dano, we love you, buddy. We appreciate you. Thank you for coming on and watching Nando do that during his pro Day. That was a fun time, wasn't it?

[Tone]

That was.

[Darius Butler]

Dan is going to cook Fernando tomorrow

[Host]

because of that pro day. Oh, yeah. I saw a couple behind the back. I know he's going to do a whole thing. Yeah. Dana, remember there was a couple deep, deep ones in there. Right in the bucket.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Host]

Back shoulders, those out routes.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

Why weren't you at the league meetings, Dano? Is it because the Internet was cooking you at the time? Is that what. What happened?

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, I was. I was told you're not needed, so.

[Host]

Oh, man. Tough week.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's.

[Host]

Yeah. You were needed. We didn't know that was the case. I asked.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I asked to go.

[Host]

We would have brought you.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Oh, good.

[Host]

Well, actually, I don't know if we would have at the time with what was happening. I don't know.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I got work tomorrow. I got work tomorrow.

[Con Man]

I got.

[Tone]

He's got receipts, rents through everything.

[Con Man]

Just ready.

[Host]

Used to not be invited to meetings and now we're on the rooftop. Dan, take a selfie at next year's league meetings. What? I'm the fudging man.

[Con Man]

Started from the bottom. Now we're here.

[Host]

We're talking about Dano. We love that.

[Con Man]

Started from the bottom now, Dan.

[Host]

Love Dan. I want to let you know we have Brett Michaels on the show tomorrow.

[Con Man]

What?

[Host]

Brett Michaels.

[Con Man]

Every rose.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Brett Michaels. Brett Michaels.

[Ty Schmidt]

Only one Brett Michaels, brother.

[Host]

That's right. Every rose has his. That's what I'm talking about. He's on 140, 145, 20 tomorrow, depending on is.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Is there. I'm being respectful here. He's a legend, but is there a tie to him coming on? Is there something going on?

[Host]

Yeah, there is. You didn't hear?

[Tone]

I'm interested to hear, too.

[Host]

What?

[Darius Butler]

He going to be live from the moon? Is he on the mission?

[Ty Schmidt]

No, he's the biggest Steelers fan there is. That's why he's coming out.

[Host]

That's not the only reason we've never had Billy Gardell on.

[Tone]

That's a good point.

[Host]

I think we have put a request in for Billy Gardell couple times. Multiple times. Wasn't an answer. Well, we would like to say we do that for a lot of folks and even though people turn us down, don't come on numerous times in a row, a lot of them doesn't mean they hate us. And I guess I found that out yesterday. Yeah, sure, sure. Happy to know Troy Aikman does not hate us. We would like to let you know, Troy, we appreciate you coming on our show back in the day. We'd love to have you back on again.

[Ty Schmidt]

Classic mix up.

[Host]

I don't know. There's a lot of those. But I would like to say I'm happy he doesn't hate us. Maybe he does not now. We love you, Troy Aikman, and we cannot tell you why Brett Michaels is coming on. It's actually not allowed to be announced. It's been embargoed until. Yeah, we got breaking news tomorrow, Dano. How about that? Maybe. Maybe you'll talk about it on your show when you're back to work. You should have been out the league meetings. I think we got a chance to meet Shregs. Ms. Laura Shefty was out there. Obviously we got a chance to kind of experience the NFL live folks for a little bit because we're all kind of in the same world. Not just them. All the media people were there. All it was. It was, you know, getting to see kind of the entire operation. Your suits that were there, the executives that were probably the ones that sent you the email telling you not to go, they were there. We didn't talk to them much. We saw them, though. Saw them. Had eyes on them. Had eyes on them.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Are you guys going down to Augusta next week?

[Host]

So we tried last couple. We talked. We talked about this earlier in the show. I know you're not watching because we're finally past this. You did. You didn't like us there for a bit. We know you didn't.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I was running errands, dude.

[Host]

We understand for the last week and a half you've been running more tissue. We understand. We. Oh, geez. There's no reason for that. Did you hear what he just said?

[Darius Butler]

I didn't hear it, miss.

[Host]

Good.

[Dan Orlovsky]

What did I say?

[Host]

You didn't say anything. Connor said, more tissues. And I don't like that at all because, like, that was very rude of him to say that because we're at a stage now where obviously look how happy this guy is. He doesn't need tissue. Maybe tears of joy.

[Con Man]

I was going to see through.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Could run from him. I was in it, dude.

[Host]

I've been in there before. Believe me, we've all. I've been in there before. I think Connor's been in there before.

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah. Now, I ain't crying pot, but I live in those.

[Darius Butler]

You got Glazer's number. Shoot, shoot, Jay.

[Host]

Jay Glazer is what you need.

[Darius Butler]

He'll pull you out.

[Host]

Jay Glazer walked over to me and gave me a motivational speech at about 10:30, 11pm at night at that League meeting thing when I was what, four or five cones deep at that time?

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

I was hoisting a cone.

[Ty Schmidt]

You were hoisting the cone?

[Host]

I was lighting the cone. Hoisting the cone. Cone. Smoking the cone. Enjoying the time. I was having a blast there. You know, I didn't head to the booze as much as I headed to the sky. Jay Glazer walks over right into it. Oh, yeah.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Hey, with your dauber down, did you need motivational?

[Host]

Like I thought I had pretty good vibes. I thought at the time I.

[Darius Butler]

Something you said.

[Host]

I said something. And he was like, you don't have enemies. And then he was like, I. I think I do. No go. And then right into a five minute sermon about everything, about life.

[Tone]

Jay knows.

[Host]

And I was like, I like it. Hell yeah. Jay said it was. It was awesome. It was really awesome. I was getting a little tired too, wasn't I? I think at the time we were kind of. We were kind of one way or the other there. We ended up being the last couple people there.

[Darius Butler]

That was 1:30 our time. East coast time. I was. Yeah, was in it.

[Host]

Some of these guys didn't make it though, did they?

[Tone]

Didn't make it.

[Con Man]

Or chose to leave.

[Host]

I understand you're an adult. I understand you're an adult. Dan Orlovsky would have been there. And if Dano wasn't, we would have said something and then we would have been reminded immediately. People often forget the kindness is free. Let's take a break. We agree.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That was taking my. That was outside a tennis. A tennis racket place. I was taking my son to practice.

[Host]

I'll tell you what. Sometimes the universe and God drop things in your life. Life when you need it. At that moment, it felt like you needed a nice reminder that it is, isn't it? You send it.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I think what bothers me is I think the. The competitiveness of the job and wanting to be right.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Dan Orlovsky]

And then saying something and people think there's an altern that. I think that's the thing that bothered me the most.

[Host]

Most. We appreciate your competition, your competitive fire at what you do, how much you want to be respected as a opinion giver. And we like that. You will throw yourself right into a fire anytime you want to. I appreciate that. Don't we? Absolutely not. A lot of people have that trait. So you need to find a sign that says, hey, if not me, then who? And seems like you do. So we appreciate you.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I didn't think it was that big of a thought. Like I really I really didn't.

[Host]

Still not. Hey, hey. Ty Simpson being good in the NFL could all be possible still. You know, this could all be very possible.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

What? Big game. You know, that's the whole. Because then it sounds like you're just.

[Con Man]

Oh, he's really. He's really.

[Host]

How about this?

[Dan Orlovsky]

And I thought that. I thought that was an easy thing to like. Oh, he doesn't mean that. He probably means which one?

[Host]

Like. But we're happy to hear that now.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Host]

Aren't we?

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Aren't we?

[Con Man]

Yes, absolutely.

[Ty Schmidt]

Certainly.

[Tone]

No doubt.

[Host]

And just like we said to you. Well, I said you. I assumed he butt did, but these guys did not. We love you, Daniel.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

Can't wait for the rest of the season with you. Have you moved any other positions other than quarterback? We got any other big takes, big swings on any other positions?

[Dan Orlovsky]

I'm fishing for something.

[Host]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No. I still feel the same way about the quarterback position. I still feel the same way about Jeremiah Love. I still feel the same way about the wide receivers. So no status quo.

[Host]

That's why we love you, ladies and gentlemen. He's back on TV tomorrow.

[Con Man]

Yes.

[Host]

Let's watch.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Do you know what tomorrow is? Do you know what today is? And do you know what tomorrow is?

[Host]

Today's April Fools. And we're done.

[Dan Orlovsky]

If you were a great friend of. If you were. If you love me the way you say you do, you'd know. Maybe you'd know.

[Host]

It's Holy Week, obviously. We know that. Okay, we understand.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Good Friday. So that doesn't come into play. I think Passover was last night for people. Maybe last night or tonight or tomorrow.

[Host]

Passover April is also Autism acceptance month, obviously, which we like to push and advocate for, especially with our friend Orlovsky.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Good job. Tomorrow's World Autism Awareness Day.

[Host]

Are we getting. Is he back designing the set tomorrow?

[Cooper Flagg]

That.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That. That dude has been. He's got. He'll be there and it'll be all over the place again.

[Host]

Man, I can't wait to watch that.

[Dan Orlovsky]

He just sounds differently this year than he did last year because the old P word is in play for him. So.

[Host]

What's the P word?

[Dan Orlovsky]

He's got a little puberty going on, so he doesn't sound like the little. Little kid anymore. He's got. He sounds a little deeper voiced.

[Host]

Really? I like, is he gonna son you maybe tomorrow, tell you to sit your ass down, shut up, dad. As it goes through. Is there any of that happening tomorrow? We'll be excited.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, he's too good. He's too nice of a kid.

[Host]

We all got pretty emotional watching you experience that because you were experiencing his true happiness happening in a moment that you don't get to provide as often. Right. I think is how you viewed it. I don't want to speak Pocket for you. That's awesome. I'm happy for you. All right.

[Cooper Flagg]

Yeah.

[Dan Orlovsky]

He's back in the saddle tomorrow.

[Host]

Oh, like Luke Com's new album. You listen to that, right?

[Dan Orlovsky]

I haven't heard the whole thing, no. But I've heard some of it. It's awesome.

[Host]

Yeah. Luke's back.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thanks.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Luke Combs.

[Host]

Yeah. I was hoping that Luke would maybe drop a long neck. In that Saturday Night song. I think he could have got it in there. He could have paid tribute to himself. Creating what, one of the most awesome things of all time in there. He did not. He just made another banger. But it's great to see you back, Luke. The way I am available now.

[Tone]

Hell yeah.

[Host]

In a way, you are something that we love, Daniel. And that's just the way we are. Ladies and gentlemen, ESPN NFL expert guru super genius Danielski. It's good to see Dan.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Great.

[Con Man]

Always a pleasure.

[Host]

He was all bumped, dots beginning. I think he was trying to play a little bit of a character. Okay. Then he couldn't help.

[Tone]

What kind of character would you call it?

[Host]

Bomb, Dot, Bo, Ba. Dano.

[Darius Butler]

We call it something else.

[Tone]

Yeah, that's what I was doing.

[Darius Butler]

If we were in the locker room.

[Host]

Ass.

[Con Man]

Dano. What?

[Host]

No, he doesn't deserve that.

[Con Man]

I thought that's what he was.

[Host]

Badass, Dan. That's what he.

[Tone]

Is that what you're saying?

[Host]

Jeez. No. Let's get to a break until tomorrow. That's what you say. Let's get into a. Let's get to a break until tomorrow. How are the Pittsburgh Pirates doing, Paul? SK.

[Tone]

We are in a close one. It's four, three, heading to the bottom of seven.

[Host]

Paul let up three runs.

[Tone]

No, no, no. He got taken out and then Eugenio Suarez hit a two run.

[Host]

Jack, he's a good player.

[Ty Schmidt]

All right, Skino responsible for those runs or.

[Tone]

No, no, he did not start the inning.

[Host]

Okay, so he's only responsible for one.

[Tone]

One.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, just the one that he gave up earlier. So his ERA probably dropped even more.

[Con Man]

Back to nine, maybe.

[Tone]

953.

[Ty Schmidt]

953.

[Darius Butler]

What's the update on the Marlins Game 8?

[Tone]

Nothing. Marlins are wag.

[Host]

That's a good ball club.

[Darius Butler]

Hey, that shout out to you Boys for playing that, that video.

[Host]

Scott, play ball.

[Darius Butler]

It game day.

[Host]

Yeah, you wouldn't have said it right there. It's over. Some hockey news real quick. Can we talk hockey real quick? Yeah. Sydney Crosby about do something nobody's ever done done. He's been great forever. Going to continue to be great forever. He becomes potentially the first guy to ever have a point per game NHL season over 21 seasons. Unbelievable how great he's been. There's been some injuries, obviously, that's why they say point per game. He maybe hasn't played an entire season a couple different times, but anytime he has played, he has contributed. This guy is the picture of perennial consistency at greatness and loves Pittsburgh. There's been multiple times where he's potentially going to leave and he's just said, nah, I'm not doing that. I'm going to ride the wave here. We got new front office, new ownership, new head coach, new team, same legends, him, Geno and Chris Letang still together, still around. And they're making a run in it this year. And he's about to accomplish something that nobody's ever done again, which is kind of Sidney Crosby hockey.

[Tone]

Yeah. Those three have been together forever and they are hot right now. East playoffs race. Race has been insane. But the Pens have kind of, I don't want to say secured their position, but the chances of them making the playoffs over the last two games have jumped immensely. They've dominated the last two games last night against the Red Wings, who have crumbled the last three seasons. Been the worst hockey team last four seasons. Oh, sorry, my bad. Four seasons. Their march has just been absolutely horrendous. But the Pens are on fire. The east race is insane. Insane. The west is not as insane, but the east is. And it's going to be an incredible NH nf. NHL playoff.

[Host]

Yeah, NHL playoffs are always special. How's Washington doing? Are we going to watch them make a run in? Because OVI is about to accomplish something that nobody else has accomplished either. Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, both the old guard of carrying the NHL over the last two decades. Nick, what is OV about to accomplish?

[Chase Daniel]

He just hit his 20th season with 30 plus goals.

[Host]

Jesus.

[Tone]

Just, you know, he, we, we talked

[Host]

at length about how he broke Wayne Gretzky's all time career goal record. Now he's just adding to that and he's just the epitome he is goal scoring defined like he, he may not be able to do all the things he used to do, but to still be able to Put the puck in the net. At 40 years old, 30 plus times a season is unbelievable. And it just seems like he's never going to slow down. I love that ov still doing it. And they've been protecting him a little bit here at his older age. Nick, what was the stat you told me something about last night? Was his first face off that he was on the ice for in the defensive zone as opposed to in the offensive zone? Yeah, it wasn't last night. It was one game ago. It was the first time he started a shift in his own defensive end. So they had been deploying him in the offensive end pretty much 100% of the time in his usage now, that drops to about 99.9%. They're saying, hey, listen, if they puck's near the other team's goal, let's get his ass out there. If it's near ours, let's not be wasting any skate time for ovi. He is special with the stick, special with the puck. Those two have done special things for the NHL. Now it's the next generation's turn. The next generation was Florida Panthers, but yeah, they're done. It's all right.

[Darius Butler]

Sorry. Back to back.

[Host]

Forever will be. Forever will be.

[Con Man]

Yep, Good times.

[Host]

Who's the team that's going to win it all this year then?

[Tone]

The AVs are the favorite?

[Con Man]

Well, the hottest team right now is the Boston Brewers.

[Host]

I thought the Pens just did some historic thing about beating people's asses. No, no.

[Con Man]

They beat the poopy Red Wings and the Islanders. The Bruins beat the one seed in the East. Let me check. Yeah, the one seed in the West. And then what did they do? They came back down three. Nothing in Columbus. Took over Ohio. And then. Does it stop there? It has to stop there, right? No, they actually won again last night against the Dallas Stars with our backup, Corpusallo in that.

[Host]

Pittsburgh Penguins do have better odds than the Boston Bruins to win it all this year. What the sports books know, though, what are the sports books now in hockey?

[Con Man]

Nothing.

[Host]

Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, maybe. Florida remains the hockey state of this entire thing if they're able to get back to the top. They were phenomenal just about four or five years ago. Carolina Hurricanes. The Kanye, obviously. Always running wild. They are down there. It's a hard place to play. The Dallas Stars. Congratulations. Texas hockey. Gumpy, doing your thing.

[Darius Butler]

Good value.

[Host]

Edmonton Oilers. Is McJesus still having a hell of a season? Is Edmonton ever going to get the job done? That's always the question, I guess. Hunt Gumpy Is that what people are saying?

[Tone]

Yeah. Dry. Seidel's banged up, too. They're hoping he's back for the playoffs,

[Host]

but we'll see what happens there. Congrats on your Texas hockey team. Being at the top of the shaft here or whatever. Being close to raising the cone.

[Tone]

Yeah, we're always in the mixer. It's going to be tough. We got to go through the Wild

[Host]

and the Avalanche to even get to

[Tone]

the Western Conference final. But the boys, the boys are built for. We're a little more tight, tougher. Glutson's boys are a little bit different than deboer's boys.

[Host]

It's fascinating. They won't put hoist the cone for hockey. Right. Because we all know it's a cup.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah, maybe.

[Ty Schmidt]

You never know.

[Host]

You never know. Football team, Vegas Golden Knights. How you doing? Not too shabby. Might win it all this year, Ty. Maybe it's time to go over and get in the change room, give a little bit of a motivational speech, ride to Zamboni, maybe hit the thing.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you might be right. I'm very interested to see how Coach Torts has been, you know, because obviously Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, was just let go, you know, know, a couple years removed after winning the Cup. So I'd be very curious if Torts has those guys up and down the change room yet. I'm sure that's coming. So we're almost here, boys. You know, it's almost time for me to really lock in on the Golden Knights. Like I said, you know, those 11pm midnight puck drops on the west coast are a little tough to, you know, kind of. So you're checking a lot of box scores. But I'm very excited, you know, for the playoffs.

[Host]

The Penguins being back in the NHL playoffs is good news for our show because we'll certainly get a chance to chat about a little bit more. And the NHL playoffs, much like the NBA playoffs, a must watch. And what the NHL does whenever it comes to crunch time. So fast, so beautiful, so physical, so fantastic. And the fact that the Penguins are probably going to win it all again, that's a beautiful thing.

[Tone]

Yeah, it is.

[Host]

I like that a lot. Pulling for everybody to do the do good, though, honestly.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

This show, if everybody's teams are doing good.

[Chase Daniel]

Yeah.

[Host]

Feels like we pay attention to a little bit more.

[Darius Butler]

Come on, boys, it's your turn.

[Con Man]

Here we go, boys.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thank you. Bye.

[Tone]

You carried the torch proudly.

[Host]

Yeah, you did. For a couple years. I feel like you did represent NHL well on the program. As three year run back to back Stanley cup champion. Three years in the Stanley cup finals. But I think hockey kind of holds its own if it needs to. Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

Well, we got goalies fighting each other incredible at the end of March. I love everything about that comment they got after it last night a little bit how they dropped a. Dropped a blocker dropped. Drop the stick, drop the mask and say, let's go ahead and have one here, fellas.

[Con Man]

Oh, yeah. Igor Shusturkin and Jacob Markstrom. Maybe Haka Markstrom, depending on where you are. But I mean, it was a full blown throwdown.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Con Man]

This is New Jersey Devils versus the New York Rangers. Bit of a rivalry. Let's make it even more intense. Let's get these goalies fighting. I believe Igor Rangers goalie took a couple shots. Markstrom skates all the way down the ice, says, no, no, lad, you take those mitts off right now. Igor him. Let's throw down. And they did.

[Host]

I'll tell you, Shisterkin made him regret skating all the way down there. It feels like he did the winning

[Con Man]

his first fight, by the way.

[Host]

Who? Both of them. Igor.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Host]

Shusterkin's first fight.

[Con Man]

First.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah. So he's been waiting for this. He's been practicing in the mirror. The amount of grab, bang, bang and big haymakers. Now, hockey players know this. Obviously you can get God out there very bad. There's fists flying at faces. So you can get buttoned, you can get bled. There can be color. I mean, that can happen. But also, he who looks like he's throwing the most punch is normally the one that is assumed as the winner. It's kind of like the rock em sock em robots that it used to be. If you just kind of went in there just throwing, I don't think you would ever really lose. But people would get tired from pushing a button. So then as soon as they put it down, bang, you counter and hit that. Shusterkin's been waiting for this. He knows the deal. I'm throwing at all times. This one too is a big one. Yeah, the left hand on the sweater just jabbed to the jaw a little bit and then bang. Those who have long arms, certainly in advance, certainly advantage because they can just kind of school boy over here just kind of keep you out here.

[Con Man]

He's huge.

[Host]

Yeah. Goalies most gigantic. But the goalies very rarely battle. I'm happy to hear they're already throwing it. Don, shout out, get the glove out of here. Get the blocker out here.

[Con Man]

Yeah, you could tell Igor's been watching reputation. You know, we. We lost your. I believe or the year before.

[Host]

We.

[Con Man]

We watched Remy throw down time after time after time. And Igor took notes.

[Host]

You're talking about the Rem Pire state building. Does he still play hockey?

[Tone]

I don't know.

[Host]

That's a great question. Okay.

[Cooper Flagg]

Oh, dude, I'm fired up watching Sturking.

[Host]

I saw. I saw a lower third that said the Knicks are dead. What's going on? Are you guys okay? Three straight losses.

[Con Man]

So the.

[Cooper Flagg]

The morning shows gotta, you know, gotta

[Host]

hit the Cowboys notes.

[Cooper Flagg]

Do the.

[Host]

Do the Knicks are dead angle. I. I think they're gonna be okay.

[Cooper Flagg]

You know, tough west coast trip.

[Con Man]

It's coming home, gentlemen.

[Tone]

To where?

[Con Man]

Do you know where? There's a reason this thing hasn't left.

[Cooper Flagg]

We'll see.

[Con Man]

Cuz. It's coming home.

[Host]

Maybe they should trade for Cooper Flag.

[Con Man]

That would help.

[Darius Butler]

How you say his last name like that?

[Host]

Two jeans Flag. Yeah, why don't you say his name fast 10 times.

[Darius Butler]

I just called him Coop.

[Host]

What's that cool? No, no, but main event, boom.

[Darius Butler]

You got a nickname like that and

[Con Man]

you can also abbreviate that.

[Host]

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me For a main event. Yeah, I don't think you can.

[Con Man]

I think you can.

[Host]

I don't know if anybody will know who you're talking. What up? Me.

[Con Man]

I.

[Host]

Yeah, go me. Go me.

[Con Man]

He will come home.

[Host]

Hey, and there is a me and team too in there. Yeah, yeah.

[Con Man]

And meet Dallas.

[Host]

That was a full on failure like everybody said it was.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh yeah, big time.

[Host]

Even us non NBA people.

[Tone]

Anthony Davis isn't even there anymore.

[Host]

And Luke is the best version.

[Ty Schmidt]

They got rid of Luca. I mean, I guess they ended up getting the number one pick out of

[Host]

it, but that was up.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, they basically just gave up Luca for nothing.

[Con Man]

Was it.

[Host]

Sean's got 100 million. What's that?

[Con Man]

Was it just a. Was it?

[Host]

We're going back to the moon today.

[Ty Schmidt]

Goddamn right.

[Host]

That's the big word. You know the Pelicans.

[Con Man]

You know the Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to the Lakers too once, right? Do you. Do you remember who they got in the draft?

[Tone]

Sent no. 1.

[Con Man]

Zion Williamson with the first overall pick. It's weird how that works.

[Host]

Well, Anthony Davis is worth a big dime prize. Possession, no doubt. Washington did what Washington did.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That's right.

[Con Man]

No doubt. Yeah, they trade like a fourth pick.

[Host]

Are the Lakers okay in this?

[Dan Orlovsky]

They're great.

[Host]

That Nico guy. Michael Donna is the worst.

[Tone]

Lakers.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, there Was that video or picture surfacing of him, you know, just waiting to board with the C group at some airport? Yep. This guy was just flying private a couple weeks ago. Now look at him. He's boarding at C 2029.

[Host]

That's penthouse to outhouse there. Yeah. Think about how bought in everybody had to be in that building though, that he had. Hey, it's not us. It's this fatso. We gotta get him out of here. The guy that scores all the points for us. Yeah, yeah. Guy just took us to the finals. He's fat, isn't he?

[Tone]

His transformation has been incredible since.

[Ty Schmidt]

And I assume that would really rub you the wrong way if you're him. It's like, yeah, that's what I said. Said he needs to lose 40 pounds and then he'll be unbelievable.

[Con Man]

Yeah. But he.

[Ty Schmidt]

And he did just. Just not with them.

[Host]

And he is. He's phenomenal in la. What a perfect place for him. He's gonna be. Those 77s are gonna go every. If they win, which I know people don't like.

[Darius Butler]

Hey, plus 3,000.

[Host]

And now he's Duncan. See, I take that Patrick Mahomes dunk. We talked about that before. Did you see that high school have. He had terrible shorts on. I don't know what era that was. How old is he?

[Ty Schmidt]

30?

[Darius Butler]

Yeah, close to 30.

[Con Man]

28, 29.

[Host]

That was. That was a bad era of clothes. I think the. Those shorts look terrible on that basketball court. No, cuz there used to be like the baggy shorts. I like those.

[Darius Butler]

After the Fab Five era.

[Host]

Those were fun. He had like a tighter, longer short there that I don't really know what it was almost like a baseball player.

[Tone]

Like a Capri.

[Host]

It's what it looked like in the high school highlight of him. But all I know is the first one I saw was. Was him going up on something Mahomes. I wonder if he saw the clip from the other day. Whenever we remind him that everybody thinks he's ass.

[Darius Butler]

Probably.

[Host]

I saw a bunch of chief fans going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Do they win at all?

[Tone]

Nope.

[Darius Butler]

This upcoming season.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Darius Butler]

I mean, I got a shot.

[Host]

I like that you say no, no,

[Ty Schmidt]

I think they got a shot.

[Con Man]

I think if Rashee Rice plays.

[Host]

Yes, that's.

[Con Man]

They also just traded Trent McDuffie. So if they draft the number one corner. You know that as well.

[Darius Butler]

Then definitely got a Super bowl mvp.

[Host]

Kenneth Walker cold solo on this thing. We paid everybody.

[Con Man]

Yeah, but all the guys you paid have torn Achilles's.

[Host]

One guy had one.

[Con Man]

Oh yeah. You Only paid two people.

[Cooper Flagg]

Look at us together on there. Danny Dime's old home and his new home.

[Con Man]

That's crazy.

[Host]

That's disgusting.

[Con Man]

Yeah, but at least your team got rid of everybody.

[Host]

Let's get out of here. I don't like that. I don't like to. We're right next to the Giants like that.

[Darius Butler]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Giants are the trendy pick this year.

[Con Man]

I like the G man.

[Host]

I know, but they're literally re building again whole new culture.

[Con Man]

So are you guys.

[Host]

No. Oh, we are really deep in this one. 1. We're a decade into this thing. We're. We haven't won the AFC south in 11 years. Yeah, and we're still doing it way red. How long is how long? Stevie Israel. We already covered hockey. Okay, we're past hockey at this point. T.J. lang told me specifically do not call him today. He's on vacation. He does not want to do anything. Like, you guys are really loud with what. Stevie walks. I was about to do the. Why he's back and he's like us. He's like us as the Colts. Sick of the Iser plan at this point. It's a bumble. Is it Red Wings. Red Wings legend. No, I love Stevie Eiserman. We're sick of the Eiser plan. Two different things. The Buffalo Sabers currently have the longest drought to make the playoffs in the NHL. The Red Wings are number two behind them. And at like 11 years. Years, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong, the Sabers will make the playoffs this year, which will put us at the longest drought to not make the playoffs. That can't happen, you know? Do you know how Buffalo turned it around? How? This season they fired their GM and went on an unbelievable run to make. Maybe Stevie Wise just like an ambassador of Hockey Town.

[Tone]

It's like Hockey Town's really up for grabs.

[Con Man]

The only cane they're talking about in Detroit's the one Patrick's using to get to the. The ice.

[Host]

No, don't listen. Dylan Larin won the United States of America a gold medal. You guys should all be thanking him. But because of that, he got hurt and now we stink. Was he the one? Yeah, I do. I. I am proud of l. Yeah, I am thankful.

[Con Man]

For sure.

[Host]

He represented United States of America very well. But I remember when Covid happened and you guys weren't even invited to the game. Yeah. Do you remember that? Yeah.

[Con Man]

There's only like two teams.

[Host]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Host]

That is real. We can't house the entire league. Two of you aren't Going to be able to make it. And it was the Red Wings and maybe Phoenix.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Coyotes.

[Host]

Yeah. They are now the Utah Mammoths. So I'm bummed out about that for you, Foxy, because I do think your city loves hockey. Yeah, we do. I mean, even when the Red Wings are bad, people still show up to those games. That'll tell you everything. But on the flip side, we were just talking ball. The Pistons are still the one seed in the Eastern Conference. Just need Cade Cunningham back. Something just happened though. TJ listed it all out. He said it's been a bad couple days up and. Oh yeah, you guys aren't giving a guy the money. Yeah.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Tone]

He was holding the lion's water on that one though.

[Host]

Was he?

[Tone]

Yeah, it's their policy.

[Darius Butler]

Oh, lineman.

[Host]

Tigers were up 50 in the 8th. Oh yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

We lost last and then collapse.

[Con Man]

Incredible.

[Host]

Yeah. I mean there's 162 games a big deal.

[Con Man]

The Pistons being the 1 seed. You just know that has with Kate devastation written all over it.

[Tone]

Cade with his lung.

[Host]

No, we like the head coach.

[Tone]

Is Cade going to be back for the playoffs?

[Host]

They're saying he might be, but I haven't gotten any updates at all. Did you get a chance to chat with MCDC up there at the league meetings? I did. That was first time I've met MC DC in person. It was awesome. It was everything I wanted it to be. And he's the man and he just said. He basically just said, we'll be okay. Everything's going to be all right. And everything happens for a reason. Reason. So man, we're gonna be back. Does he still man it? We haven't talked to him.

[Con Man]

Oh yeah.

[Host]

It basically was everything you expect in a combo with mcdc. A lot of mans and I love that.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

He slug you really hard on like the arm at any point?

[Host]

No, he didn't slug me, but we dapped up and it was just like I'm dapping up an absolute monster. Yeah, you are. Yeah. Yeah. That's mcdc football. Yeah, it is. I'll tell you what, some of those coaches were getting physical at that. The little reception thing. There was some physicality.

[Ty Schmidt]

There was some.

[Con Man]

It makes sense.

[Darius Butler]

Booze is flowing.

[Tone]

Alphas, lot of alpha's.

[Con Man]

A lot of testosterone. One stance. Above all.

[Host]

I will say I had to do the sprawl technique. Sure. To make sure I wasn't lifted into the sky. In front of Pierce, people. Yeah. In front of Pierce. Yeah. So I Jack and diet here. Okay. Jack and died here. Very nice. I believe Zena was the one that bought the first rock round or got the first round from everybody up there. Jack and Diet here. Having a conversation. All of a sudden I feel massive mitts on both of my hips, okay. And I know next move is why somebody's trying to lift me up right now. So I squat ass down. Okay? Go hand on this one here. Even though somebody's getting me with this hand here. Sprawl. And then there's a punch almost to a re. Grab a re. Yeah. You think it's going like that? I don't think so. Punch. Boom. Butt at night. Escape, escape, escape. Spill of Jack and die. Still don't know who this is. Turn around. Jesus Christ. Obviously, big laugh. Okay. I was like, oh, we're having a good time here, aren't we? Yeah, we are. So then that person kind of leaves, goes over the bar. Was good interaction, good time. Cheers. That we're having fun. Then I'm standing there. Remember somebody said they're a Big Show 2.0.

[Con Man]

Yeah.

[Host]

Big Show 2.0 back. Same. Same exact situation. Back. Having a conversation this way. Boom. I'm trucked. Turn around. Big Show 2.0, baby.

[Darius Butler]

Holy one line.

[Host]

What he was not.

[Tone]

Guy is a monster.

[Host]

Monster. An absolute monster. And I turn around, I go, oh, yeah, you are. Handshake. He said, I'm getting out of here. He left. That was my only interaction. I don't know if I'm getting. Am I the only one? Get my ass beat. This fucking place. There was physicality.

[Tone]

Was physicality.

[Host]

I looked around though. There were some other physicality. I saw some people in the sky. There was somebody that was lifted up like a Baby Bjorn, you know, with their legs out like this.

[Con Man]

Oh, sure.

[Host]

Over here, Right? One of those, I guess.

[Tone]

Yeah. The floor.

[Host]

Put me down.

[Tone]

Mcdc.

[Host]

Let's get to a break. We'll be back tomorrow. The show's the worst. We're thankful we get to do it. Thank you all so much.

[Darius Butler]

Whiz.

[Con Man]

Lunch.

[Host]

H. Lunch.

[Darius Butler]

Lunch to the moon.

[Host]

That's good.

[Con Man]

I believe 649.

[Ty Schmidt]

We're damn near already there.

[Host]

I'd guess I'm trying to get there, if you know what I'm saying. They're just circling the moon also. Allegedly. They're not actually. Well, well, well.

[Ty Schmidt]

No, no. We talked about it. They're perfecting the slingshot technique. So when we go back, it's no horseplay.

[Host]

The schedule. The crew is scheduled to lift off as early as 6:24 from the Kennedy Space center down there in Florida. This is a NASA SpaceX combo. Is that what this is?

[Ty Schmidt]

I don't know.

[Tone]

I assume hopefully just NASA.

[Con Man]

Thought it was NASA. Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. But didn't NASA take SpaceX's kinda. And that they're renting them?

[Con Man]

Might be using the jet.

[Tone]

All I know is SpaceX isn't bureaucratic red tape involved.

[Ty Schmidt]

So call me when we land.

[Tone]

Hopefully just NASA.

[Host]

What'd you say about SpaceX?

[Tone]

I know it's not American.

[Host]

So what is it?

[Tone]

Elon's South African, I believe.

[Darius Butler]

Believe

[Host]

the is made in America.

[Ty Schmidt]

The astronauts.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Right.

[Tone]

I still don't.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Tone]

That I care about.

[Con Man]

Tony.

[Host]

What kind of space dude. What kind of man.

[Tone]

These colors don't run. Apparently they do for all of you.

[Con Man]

The colors of the MLB logo.

[Tone]

Red, white and blue, brother.

[Con Man]

Yeah, they don't run over here.

[Host]

It is a SpaceX collaboration just like I said it was. I thought it was right. It's. He's making them for like much cheaper and they're much better.

[Con Man]

Yeah. Be safe, gentlemen. Don't listen.

[Tone]

Selling it to all the nations.

[Host]

Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. Might change your life. We're in this thing together. I'd assume he's only doing our and allies.

[Tone]

I'll change my tune then.

[Host]

But I did see somebody on 60 Minutes who's making these massive drone weapons things and I don't think it's only coming in America.

[Tone]

I don't think.

[Con Man]

No. A lot of those are.

[Host]

That kind of scares me a little bit. It was right after a game was on. A game was on. Then all of a sudden this interview started and I'm like, I maybe woke up from a nap or something. Where's he sending those things? Everybody that hates your guts is going to get one of these. I'm making it right over here in whatever state. I'm like, can we stop doing that? Let's go to space. Let's face baby. Let's go shake their hands.

[Ty Schmidt]

Let's go shake their hands.

[Host]

From what we're hearing, we're doing maybe a little more than shaking.

[Tone]

More than hands.

[Host]

Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in a sitting together team up. Me team on 3. Deba. Great work this week.

[Darius Butler]

You too, brother.

[Host]

Good luck to the team.

[Darius Butler]

Hell yeah.

[Tone]

Luck. Bu.

[Darius Butler]

Both of them.

[Host]

All of them. All of them. This team too.

[Darius Butler]

Hell yeah.

[Host]

Which counts all you, you, you and you. And you. And also you, you.

[Tone]

Even you.

[Host]

Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team goodbye. Hey, sports fans. The ESPN app has all of espn. All in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package. For no additional call cost. Visit activate.espn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all the ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. From 30 for 30 podcasts. Did you say someone got shot? Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman for Miami.

[Tone]

Cami gunned down.

[Host]

The key to this case. It's Brian. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit.

[Con Man]

You want the truth? They just want a conviction.

[Host]

Being placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.