The volume.

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All right, Danny Parkins, former Chicago radio legend now at FS one, is joining us.

We bring in Danny about once every five or six weeks.

He's a busy guy.

You know.

I was thinking about this somebody the other day asked me.

They said, you know, Colin, you don't do politics, and I said, well, I also don't post my meals on Twitter.

There's a lot of things I do that I don't do publicly.

I don't want to hear Bill Maher's football picks or Ben Shapiro talk the college football playoff.

I said, you know, me and my brand is like football in sports, and that's what it is.

And I don't want to dilute it at all.

Stephen A.

Smith loves it.

Knock yourself out.

I don't want to work that hard.

But it was interesting because it one of the only times I've thought, ooh, should I have an opinion, but I didn't because I was busy in doing stuff and didn't care.

Was the Jimmy Kimel situation, where listen, I just don't think it's I think it's a bad precedent.

I don't care what somebody says, how offended you are.

Don't take comedians off the air.

Don't.

Don't.

And by the way, the left was doing it with comedians years ago.

They were getting called out for jokes, and now the rights upset with Kimmel.

But one of the things I thought about was that in the end, Bob Iger, who I know a little bit.

Disney is huge globally.

It is massive in southern California.

And Bob's going to retire.

I know where he lives in California.

He loves it.

And my take was, he's surrounded he Disney is a company full of artists.

I mean, it really is.

That's what it is.

The theme parks used to drive it.

I'm not sure the percentage of revenue, but you know, so much of Disney now is movies and Hulu and all this stuff.

And my takeaway was, in the end, I thought Bob Iger probably sat down and went and I think gavinknew some things.

This way, this is my state.

I literally have the support of half the state, many of which are artists, creatives.

Screw next our, it's local levy.

I mean, it's like ninth on our wrung.

And I really wondered.

I thought, like, if you're Gavin Newsom and you're Bob Iger, and basically your support in the state is overwhelmingly these creative industries, and you're like, well, Kimmel's in a creative space.

I don't care if the president hates me.

I wonder that was my take on it that everything in my life, every big decision comes down to sex, power and money, nobody else.

You know what I mean?

Seriously, when when you're talking about big corporations, it's I mean, it could be the White House, it could be Main Street, it could be any Wall Street, and that why do you think?

And if you don't like this question, you can talk bears, But why do you think?

Ultimately, Bob Aiger just said.

Now we're just going to put him back on.

Well, first of all, because it was the right thing to do.

I think you know, you said a lot there, and I've got a lot of thoughts on this obviously, so I can go as long on this as.

You want to, but this, this is the right thing to do.

Right.

This was a pretty clear cut freedom of speech issue, and everyone from Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro and George Clooney and Meryl Streep and Joe Rogan everybody came out against this like this was a fairly cut and dry one.

Easy.

It was an easy one.

And so I think that when you see that reaction to it, I don't know how much credit I'm supposed to give you for like ultimately doing the right thing, because it was so universe, it was so easy, So I don't think about that.

Also, though, to your point about Hollywood and like being comfortable where you live, Kimmel is so popular in southern California among the Hollywood elite, right, like his green room when when he first started doing a show twenty years ago, was like the Hollywood hangout.

People call him, you know, the mayor of Hollywood.

He he is is likely to.

Hang out with Magic Johnson as he is Jennifer Aniston.

And then he when he started, he dipped his toe into the water with politics because of healthcare, because of what happened with his young child, right, and you know, like that was his He was not a John Stuart John Oliver, like Jimmy Kimmel is the Man Show, like Jimmy Kimmel's local radio.

Jimmy Kimmel is a prankster.

Jimmy Kimmel was like likability guys, guy, pull pranks, football picks, all that sort of thing.

He started dipping his toe in politics through.

Healthcare, and then I think he got it infatuated with it, and the left started reaching out to him and he started doing events and he you know, speaking at Obama functions and things like that.

But like Jimmy Kimmel in Hollywood, as I understand it has pretty like universal approval.

Yeah, his approval, his approval.

Everyone wants to hang with Jimmy Kimmel.

Yeah, I mean because if you think about it, Letterman always sort of poked Hollywood in the ribs.

Madonna share, Ricky Gervais doesn't give a fly, and you know what about Hollywood, He mocks them in front of them.

Cobert is the political guy, fallin sort of a New York music vibe.

Carson was debonair, Leno had the monologue.

Conan was quirky, And I always think, whether you're a columnist at the New York Times or you're a late night host, you need a lane like you need.

Kimmel was friends with these people.

Was Hollywood correct that he was the mayor of Hollywood?

Like he he vacations with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston, you know, like that was his thing.

He created a vibe, and he created a hangout spot.

And so you know, I I thought that when the four hundred actors and artists saw like signed that petition, I thought that was like an obvious step that was clearly coming.

But I thought that if Disney and them, if everyone like didn't kind of back down on this one, I think that Kimmel is popular enough that it might have gone further because you saw a few people like writers.

I think, like a writer from Lost or something was like, I'm not going to work for them again until they do well.

That's where I feel Eiger feels that institutional pressure.

I mean a great example is for a brief time in LA I moved to Brentwood, which is it's a very much an industry town like Manhattan Beach is USC grads playing volleyball, work hard, party hard right.

Beverly Hills is very international.

I mean, West Hollywood is very much industry.

Brentwood is where the industry, the CEOs, the agents live and so I moved there in a very beautiful area.

But my neighbors, one of my neighbors, like Lindsay Buckingham.

It was a lot of industry people.

You'd occasionally see, uh, you know more Dustin Hoffman.

I never saw him, but apparently he had a house.

You know, there's a game show host down the street.

That's what I didn't move there for it.

I moved it because in my when I started the volume, a lot of people in the company were in that area, and I didn't want to keep driving back and forth and driving back and forth.

And it's fine, But there was a restaurant there called Toscano, and it was I went there all the time.

They had a great bar that you could just watch sports, really low key.

Every time you walked in.

It was industry people and iiger I went there probably thirty times.

He was there, six to seven of them.

Kardashians were there.

I mean, it was all these Hollywood people and like industry people.

And the truth is Bob was could not get in and out of that restaurant.

And he would dress very casually, never a suit.

I mean, it looked like he just got done biking.

He was legendarily beloved and left the company, came back, and I do think there is this point where you look at it and you think, time out, what are my affiliates.

Who are my alliances with there?

They're not they're not, I mean.

And so when you see all the like Silicon Valley guys go and into the White House, that's different.

Those are massive global companies.

You don't know where those people are going to Live, they probably got eight holes.

Iger always felt like an LA guy.

I mean, it's it's I thought he made an offer on one of the sports team his family did he feels like, I mean, so, I just I guess my point being is that like if I was Bob Iger and I don't, I wouldn't think you even have a choice.

To your point, you don't get credit.

It was like you had to do that, that is your base.

Yeah, I thought it was such an obvious overreach, you know, I thought that the FCC chairman, I mean, the stuff that he said was just like I mean, i'mluckily stupid, and so yeah, I thought it was like a pretty open and shut case because and you also said earlier, you're like the left was doing it with jokes and going too far, Like I don't I don't want to like.

False equivalent those because like there's no question that.

Sensitivities and people like lashing out at media got a little too extreme and people got.

A little too sensitive.

And you can like talk about cancel culture or whatever, but like losing out on hosting the Oscars because you wouldn't apologize for jokes is not like losing a gig is not the same, like because like an event wouldn't book you.

That's not the same as the head of the FCC taking you off the air and the president like celebrating your firing, right, Like that's that's not the same.

That's government overreach.

And so I thought this one was just like appalling to everybody, you know, like this was this is like what happened to Howard Stern back in the nineties, Like this this was just like so they're just like, wait, they're gonna do what over what comment?

And like who's getting involved?

Like and I thought Kimo, what he said in his monologue was hilarious and spot on, like he had great ratings, like talk about your all time backfire, like they made him a martyr and you've shown him like you have this power the volume, and you know a lot of people have left, like institutional job, like Conan left Late Night and as is as popular as ever.

I know you're not the biggest Conan guy, but.

I think he's really I've kind of moved back into Conan.

Actually, I was gonna I want to I was going to tell you what's interesting about all of this because I know Jimmy a little.

He's a really really nice guy.

I don't know everybody likes him everybody else, yeah, yeah, And they're all different guys, they all have different personalities.

I think Colbert is is kind of a little bit more academic.

I think Fallon's kind of silly.

Uh Leno is actually like like Seinfeld is like has this, I don't know, Ornate's the right word this, like the car fetish like they're they're really like mechanics who write amazing jokes, like they really are.

He's a technician.

Yes, yeah, he's a joke technician.

That's what I know.

When Seinfeld to me are where Letterman had the quickest wit in the world.

But it's interesting about the responsibility.

I was thinking about this today is that I think some people were waiting for Joe Rogan to have a big opinion on this, and he was out elk cunning and you know he said, listen, I went up in the mountains.

I didn't have a phone.

I've done that.

I'm sure you have too.

When I go on vacation, like I turned the phone off for like four days at a time, Like my kids know how to get a hold of me.

I'm out.

That's why I go on vacation and if you go Elk cunning, which I never have, I can see you going up to the mountains.

There's not a tower next to the ELK.

I get it, but I always think it's interesting.

What is the responsibility?

Or Sineo Hall said this once.

I'm not a journalist.

I'm doing a late night show, watch the news, and I remember thinking, yeah, ur Senio Hall's right, you can bring Clinton on and he can play the saxophone, but you're doing late night.

Carson stayed away from it, but it was a different time.

Leto Letterman.

Letterman would talk big stuff.

It could be nine to eleven, it could be as a heart attack.

His best shows were during these gripping, authentic crises in his life or in the nation.

But there's been this sense that Joe Rogan has a certain responsibility because of the size of his audience.

And I always think to myself, Okay, podcasting isn't even governed by the FCC.

I'm having a green River whiskey podcasting.

I would be let go at any other network drinking on the job.

I don't necessarily think popularity means you have a responsibility.

I don't think Howard Stern had a responsibility to talk politics.

This is where I'll defend Rogan.

Rogan is bizarrely curious.

He knows more about dragons than I do about my kids, Like he cares about stuff I don't care about.

But I think he's so wildly curious that he's kind of a fascinating listen.

And my son doesn't politically always agree with him, but he just he talks about space and aliens and lizard people, and it's just whatever.

Do you think there's a responsibility.

I don't have it for Paula, because I do have it for sports.

Do you think there's a responsibility if you have a large audience to comment to take a position on big political issues.

No, but there's a little bit of nuance here and Nick and I were talking about this, and then Nick made the point on his podcast, which is a part of the volume, so I will echo it, but since he said it publicly, I will give him the credit for it.

I did think that Rogan eventually did owe his audience a comment on this issue, because so much of what Rogan has talked about was free speech right and cancel culture like that had that was a part of his brand.

Defending Cox defending cancelizations, you know, being a I mean, the guy platforms a lot of people, and it's like Evan's opinion is welcomed, and I thought some of the things that Rogan has done in the past I disagreed with, Like I don't think that Joe.

I don't think that Alex Jones deserved Joe Rogan's blast.

Same, right, same, That was the one guy I'm out on.

Yeah, correct, right, And no, that's obviously the most extreme example, but I'm using it to make the point that Joe Rogan's defense of that, as I understand it was and continues to be, everyone deserves a voice, and everyone's voice should be heard.

Well, if that's your thing, and that is undeniably Rogan's thing, then when an actual First Amendment free speech overreach happens, I do think you owe it to people to be on the front lines of that conversation too, because if he would have just been like, eh, you know, the joke wasn't funny, and broadcasters have a right to pull.

Licenses and it is fecy, it is public airwaves, so you know, I guess tough shit.

I would be like, well, hold on a second, are you just doing this because you like shaking his hand at UFC events, Like because a lot of those podcasters in the run up to the election who were Comedian north Star free speech absolutists absolutely were a part of that campaign, and so I think that there it is good.

For the most part, I have seen all of those got THEO Vaughn Andrew Schultz, like right of center politicians who had politicians on in the lead up to the election.

I think universally they've come out in support of Jimmy Kimmel, who I don't think any of them would say they think is that funny, and I don't think any of them would align with him necessarily politically, but on the free.

Speech issue they have been consistent.

So as someone who loves comedy as much as I do and journalism as much as I do, I do think those guys on this issue owed it to people.

But I don't think because Rogan has a big audience, he owes it to us on every issue.

Yeah, I'm not a free speech absolutist, Bill Morrowis says he is, I am not.

I think you have to.

I think the bigger the platform you have to earn your way on.

I think you just just saying anything idiotic, that's hateful.

I'm not going to put you on any of my platforms.

So I'm not a free speech absolutist.

Although I do think Mar as a broadcaster, is more compelling and interesting by bringing on people who are polarizing and disagree with him.

I think that's just better television than being in an echo chamer.

Yeah.

I think mar is the one that he has endured for the last thirty years, and I think one of the reasons is he I like the sparring of it.

He's brought a couple of people on I would not, But you know, I'm not a free speech absolute I think you earned the bigger of the platform.

You earn your way on it.

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For the record.

There's people I wouldn't bring on left and right.

I think they're fringe.

I'm not a big fan of fringe.

But again, I view myself as a moderate to an independent left socially, right fiscally, and so I try not to let it get in the way of what I think.

But I again, my take is kind of of yours, is that I talk about stuff that I think fits my brand.

I'll give you something I didn't talk about years ago because I thought it was boring.

So I when I first started at FS one, the first four or five years, I watched every minute's ratings the next day.

I wanted to see what worked and what didn't.

I don't do it anymore, but I did, and I there was an urban Meyer NC doublea Ohio state story, and I was fascinated by it, and I talked about it, and the next day I went and looked to the ratings and nobody cared because it was bureaucracy, and I was like, oh, it's just too much minutia and everybody hates the NC DOUBLEA.

So that was one of those where I'm like, and I mean, my rating's just forty percent of the audience just left, and I was like, Okay, the audience is telling me NC doublea's inadequate, toothless and boring.

And so several years later there was the Lebron China comments and I all all I could think of was, Oh, it's bureaucracy, it's boring.

I got burned, and I'm like, I don't care about my audience doesn't care about Chinese bureaucracy and Lebron James.

All they do is complain about Lebron.

So I didn't talk about it, and in my I don't think I've ever said this, and a lot of it was my audience doesn't like bureaucracy, they don't like corporate talk, you know, NCAA government.

And I got some feedback, Hey, you're afraid to talk about it, and I'm like, no, it's just bad television.

Like there's I literally go to my boss with album one of the people, you know, the executives, and at the beginning of a football season, I go give me the twelve most popular NFL teams, and he'll give them to me, and I will try to stay Even today, I won't say what team is.

I turned down a topic that was pushed by somebody on the staff because the team is just not interesting enough Nationally.

I'm not doing local or regional radio, so there are times that I haven't embraced big stories, gotten criticism from I don't want to care about the critical stuff.

But like you know, fans are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Where do you land on that stuff that you probably should have maybe arguably have an opinion on.

But it's just bad television.

It's bad boring radio.

Yeah, Like I think that if I was doing the Danny Parkins podcast, like the equivalent of the Colin Coward podcast or the Joe Rogan Experience or What's Right with Nick Right, I would always err on like I'm going to talk about what is interesting to me.

Yes, Look, I the First Thing's first staff has heard a lot of my Michael Pennox takes.

This week, I thought, because I thought that his performance against the Carolina Panthers was mortifying, and I would like, I will not bet on him again for a long time.

He cost me a Survivor pool entry.

Carolina's defense was the worse than the NFL last year.

They were bad through two games, they were a five and a half point favorite, and they lost thirty to zero.

And he threw a pick six on a check down where I think he was legitimately three seconds late on the throw.

He looked horrifyingly bad.

But I can't get that opinion on TV because like the Falcons Panthers, people just do not care.

I've been told and I'm like, I think I would be really good.

You just laughed at my opinion.

I'm like, I think it would be like people want to just see what you're passionate about.

Like I think it would have been fine to do for two minutes.

But you know, I don't have as much skin in the game here as much like you know, Pelts on the wall whatever the expression is, as you or Nick do.

So I gotta lose that one, but that the producers are going to hear about it.

So like I think on television where we are on in sports bars and airports and moms getting their kids ready for school.

Like mass appeal, you're trying to cater to everybody, but if you were really interested, Like a podcast, I think, by definition is more niche.

It's like HBO.

It's like real time.

Yeah, you have to opting into it.

You're seeking it out.

Like if I am a listener of the Colin Calherd podcast and I am a subscriber of it, I will listen to want.

I want to know what you are interested in.

And if you are interested in lebron and China, why you are good at what you do is because you make me interested.

I love your line of I'm in the omelet business, not the egg business.

It's not my job to make you interesting.

But I think that is more applicable to national radio and national television than it is podcasting.

Like if you wanted to get on here and grind out a topic on the hypocrisy of the NBA, and it's like, I'd listen to it, and by the way, if I didn't find it interesting, I'd fast forward, like.

You know, you know, that's part of the beauty of podcasting.

So I think it matters for time place, but mostly for this conversation platform.

Like, I agree with you that not every topic Nick and I talk about it sometimes, like that's a good radio topic, that's a good podcast topic.

That's not a good TV topic.

And I, you know, and I'm a little over a year into my TV career, and so I am still learning and like figuring that piece out as a long time radio guy.

There are topics that are just better for different mediums.

Yeah, no, that's and that's pretty smart that you guys talk about that, because it you know, and I've said this before, college March madness and the baseball playoffs I really like.

But the regular season of both doesn't move the needle.

You lose you hemorrhage audience if you taught college basketball before March.

But I start watching it in February and I'm really into college basketball for three weeks.

I've got really good friends in the industry, a couple of coaches, and I love watching like eight to ten programs, you con and Gonzaga and Villanova and Kansas.

I love watching them play.

You know, I loved Syracusan Beheim so and by the way, baseball's like that.

So you know, I grew up with the Mariners.

Well, now they've got Cal Rawley, they hit home runs, they got Moonyo's the closer, they have a really good starting staff and an Era.

They're great at home.

It's all be fascinated for five weeks of baseball, but during the regular season it's not a great topic.

So that's a prime example of to the audience, and sometimes I take people behind it and just say listen.

When I lived in ESPN Land, I watched a ton of Yankees red, so I worked out every day to Nissen, Mike Felger, The d the radio show, the TV simulcash.

Every single day I worked out.

That's why I'm so buffed.

Every day I worked out to that, and I listened all the time to Mike and the Mad Dog in the afternoon when I was driving around doing errands and picking my kids up, I'd listen to forty five minutes and they would just go, you know, it's baseball show more than anything, which was crazy in a city like New York with the Knicks and the Jets and the Giants.

So there are topics like that.

But I will say in October, I think these I think I told this.

I led with this today on television I led baseball.

I said, whether it's AI in business, nil in college football, or fear of the salary gap in baseball, there is a neurotic, anxiety ridden, fadeless group of sports fans who literally always fear the worst.

And I'm like, you do get the Lakers got Luca bounced in the first round, ok Ce met in the in the finals.

You you do get that the Brewers are the best team in baseball, and the Mets are unraveling with their three hundred and forty million dollar payroll, and the Reds and the Guardians and the Mariners are crushing it in Toronto where none of the star players want to play in Toronto, and the taxes in Canada, and you start looking around at all these sports and it's like, guys, green Bay's great, the Jets and Giants are unwatchable.

That there there is something that's very very true about business and sports obsessive wins, and when you're in big cities, it's more distracting.

There's more to do in Chicago and New York.

There is not more to do in Green Bay, and there's not more to do in OKC.

And I do believe it's not just because you should have advantages game day revenue in the big cities.

More free agents want to live in Miami, LA and New York than they do, you know, Dallas.

That I think in cities like Dallas and New York and Miami and Los Angeles, it's more distracting, not just for the athletes, for the executives and for everybody.

And I guess my whole point is what I love about baseball.

I think it's been an unbelievable year for baseball, that all these small markets, that all these sort of can't compete with the bigs.

I mean, the Dodgers have a they're unraveling their bullpens terrible.

I mean, I think it's been an unbelievable baseball.

If you asked a commissioner, he'd go, I want the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Yankees to be good, but not too good.

I need two small market teams, one in the Northwest and one in the middle of the country.

Like every team except the Braves that you would want to win is winning.

Have you paid more attention to baseball this year because you're a Chicago native.

Yeah, listen, I love the Cubs and so when I did local radio.

You know, we were doing baseball all the time.

I do agree that some of the stories cal Raleigh, like to me he should be the MVP judge, is amazing, but that those power numbers as a catcher they're playing every game is stupid.

That's like a few baseball players about it, and like to a tee, they don't talk about him like he is Otani, but they talk about it like in the same level of like I think it was physically possible for a catcher too.

Well, Piazza, Johnny Bench, Pudge and Cal Rawley.

It's like it wears you out to be catcher.

Correct, So to be catching that number of games and hit that money home runs for a good team is just awesome and preposterous and an amazing story and it probably should be getting more attention, though it is obviously getting plenty of attention on MLB Network.

I since leaving, like I did not love the local radio day to day of baseball because it was always hard for me to put any significance on any one game.

Yeah, because like my math brain just didn't allow for it.

It was just like a the guy that my co host was a huge baseball guy.

My producers were huge baseball guys, and I was like, guys, I am a huge baseball guy too.

I just like more like storylines, playoffs, macro.

It's an event culture, and that's the audience is they're distracted.

Like baseball is a hard sell in the regular.

Season, right, but like in May in Chicago when the Cubs are off to an amazing start, like they're the biggest deal in town and there's nothing going on with the Bears or the Bulls, and it's like it's kind of like in local radio, that's what you're doing, and so roundabout way to talk about.

Like, so I love baseball, but I love it more now that I am not in it every day because I can of just kind of like appreciate a good game, a good highlight, a good storyline, and then as to your point, lock in for the playoffs.

And it's more than they become football games.

Like the reaction, right, like it each game obviously matters way more.

Each decision is like truly fascinating to hyper analyze and magnify because like in the regular season, it's like, ooh, that was a questionable lineup decision, or he should be batting there, that was a weird bullpen decision.

It's like, well, we're operating with such incomplete information.

Was the guy healthy?

Are we playing the long game?

Are you just trying to get this guy a spot?

What was the reason for?

Like it's but it's one of one sixty two.

The actual result of the baseball game doesn't matter that much, Like I need.

We consume so much.

Sports that I need there to be stakes attached to my sports, and it just doesn't feel to me like any one regular season baseball game matters all of that much.

So I'm with you that the stories have been great, but I personally prefer it from the national level because I can zoom out a little bit.

Yeah, the now that you live in New York, so and I spend eighty percent of my time in Chicago.

I still go to LA regular but he still have a lot of friends, and I still love going.

And I'm not one of these I hate LA I love Listen.

I've lived a lot of places I like.

I love the East Coast, I really love.

I never thought I would, but I mean June first to October first, maybe October fifteenth, if I could, I'd live in the Northeast.

I think it's the most beautiful place in the world.

The beaches, the fall foliage, foliage, It's amazing.

I will say Chicago is radically cheaper than Los Angeles on like thirteen different fronts.

It's unbelievable.

How much more affordable Chicago is.

Like having a beer, I mean, having a chicken sandwich at a food truck, like going out to eat, like rent I miss it.

It's I miss it now.

Now you've gone from Chicago to New York.

It is unbelievable.

You've gone from a city with bad owners and mediocre sports to a place that's worse.

It's president.

I mean, it's incredible.

How would you what's the difference for our audience between a Chicago sports fan who you talk to every day and a New York sports fan that you can hear every day on radio or TV.

Yeah, I mean listen, New York sports fans take a tremendous amount of pride in their they're booing and their anger.

Like I would always say, because I too listen to Mike and the Mad Dog When I was in Syracuse they would be on the YES Network and I was a sports radio dork and I was I consumed it from then, and I went to school with all these kids from the Philadelphia area and the New York area and whatever.

And as much as I love Chicago, I do think that there is kind of like in terms of like tough fan bases, there's a big three and it's New York, Philly, Boston, and then there is a gap and then Chicago is like the biggest of everybody else and the toughest of everybody else with the Chicago Bears.

The Chicago Bears beat is a good, tough beat.

They ask tough questions, they will hold players like there's big city journalism that happens around the Bears.

It's an excellent beat.

The Cubs beat is pretty good.

There are national reporters based out of Chicago.

It's a good beat.

White Sox catch a ton of hell.

But it's not it's not like Boston.

It's not like Philly, and it's not like New York.

I think Chicago.

Someone is Chicago angry.

Isn't Philly angry?

Midwestern people.

I'm saying, yeah, they're just not as angry.

That's there.

And by the way, Philly takes pride in it.

Chicago's kind of they feel bad when they hang up the phone and rip somebody.

That's that's That's what I'm saying.

It's I think the media reflects the fans, like the fans in Chicago, like we want to be tough and mean, but we're still like Midwest nice.

Yeah, like we still we still kind of judge the we want you to when we when you hold the door open for someone like not to be surprised, like New Yorkers are like what are you doing?

Like do you work here?

And so I think that there is some that's it's a cliche, but I do think that there is like a noticeable difference.

And it's not just New York Chicago.

It's like New York, Philly, Boston, everyone else.

And so that to me is the biggest difference.

But you are one hundred percent correct that God is their bad ownership in both cities, Like it's it's wild and that's why though like listen, the one I use is like the Bengals were the Bungles before Joe Burrow got there, like it can change.

The Chiefs did not win a single game with a quarterback that they drafted, not a playoff game, a regular season game between Todd Blackledge and Patrick Mahomes.

They won games with Alex Smith and Joe Montana and Trent Green, but like Brody Croyle, who they drafted and he went on ten.

Like so like a player can change it.

Now you got to be unbelievable, and it is harder to change the culture and the institutional failures and you're paddling upstream and all of those things.

But like, if if Caleb is that guy, he can change it.

If Derek Rose would have been Orench is taller and had better knee ligaments, like he could have changed it.

You know.

So I do think that, like the ownership matters a ton, but you great management can overcome.

The Cubs were terrible forever, the Tribune company never spending anything, and the Ricketts family they spend, They make a ton of money, but they don't spend like Steve Cohen or you know someone you know, like they what the Cubs make, they put back into the team.

But when they had theo Epstein running the show, they won the World Series.

You know, he was the greatest baseball executive of the last thirty years.

And now they're pretty well run and they've been consistently good for a while.

And we'll see if they can get another one.

But so I think that ownership can hold you back, but you just have to be truly special to overcome it.

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So and I'm gonna let you think about this, okay while I give you mine.

So, if you ever had an especially strident position, and for a variety of reasons, perhaps in my opinion it's a cultural change, you go the opposite way.

And I'm going to start with mine.

And I thought about this so for years, Ioways said Green Bay not having an owner was a negative.

That you need stan Kronky on the tarmac with Sean McVay on the phone and he's getting ready to fly his Gulfstream from lax to Heathrow and literally McVeigh and less need pin him down on Stafford and he goes, okay, let's get him.

You don't have to go through a board.

You don't have to gather people around like in green Bay, and you know, Mark Murphy had to answer to people.

And so for years I always thought, what a negative for green Bay.

They don't they can't walk upstairs.

I've always said one of the strengths of Fox over ESPN.

ESPN's a massive company.

It's like the Marriott Shane.

You know, Fox is like a boutique hotel.

If I really needed something, I would walk upstairs and I've done it maybe once and just ask Eric Shanks, Eric, this sucks, you know, can we do this?

Or Eric, I'm not comfortable with this.

What do you think of it?

And if he's there, he would just say, oh, that's a good point.

Let me get it on the phone.

And I don't do it much.

I've probably done it twice, or I've said hey, can we do this?

This is one of them.

Was like, well, I won't even get into it.

It was kind of a thing for the staff I wanted to do, but you can get an answer and get it solved very quickly.

And I don't have a lot of you know, I don't have to do it much.

I think I've done it twice in nine years.

It was just something I'm like, yeah, this feels weird, let's not do this.

You get an answer.

Packer's never had that.

Then something happened and I really noticed it over the last two to three years, and I've talked to gms about this, is that owners have gotten more impulsive because they're not worth seven hundred million.

They're worth eleven billion, and so they have no problem running a sixty eight million dollar check to get rid of both coordinators and they head coach.

They don't care.

And when they're around their buddies who are millionaires, probably not billionaires, they're giving them shit when they vacation with them, like your coach is an idiot, this quarterback's a bum.

And you know, they did a bit of a billionaire echo chamber, and they and they lean on a GM and they lean on people and they just are crazier and so Green Bay, now I believe has a huge advantage where they don't answer to any impulsive owner.

They basically have really smart president, really smart people in the front office.

They tend to be patient with quarterbacks.

I do not believe you can draft a first round quarterback and sit him for three years twice.

You can't do that in any other city except green Bay, the masters of the most important position in the national football increasingly so over the last fifteen years.

So that's my sports take where I it's like there and I have pivoted to the other side, and I think Green Bay's ability to have multiple year patients is unprecedented in this sport.

So the green Bay thing is a little sensitive for me because my dad's whole side of the family are cheesehead Packer fans, and I've had to deal with this for my entire life life.

And I always would.

Say, you know, to my brother, my older brother is a Packer fan, and my dad and you know, rest in peace to both of them.

But I would always say, I was like, you guys don't know how the rest of us live.

Like you guys get.

Going from FARV to Rogers to Jordan Love, Like I remember when Rogers got hurt and Brett Hunley had to play for like six games.

They're like, oh, it's like six games.

Try sixteen years.

Try the eighties.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the game that Caleb Williams had against Dallas.

A Bears quarterback has not done that.

Four touchdowns, zero picks, zero sax since Rex Grossman in two thousand and six, and before that it was Eric Kramer in nineteen ninety five, and then before Eric Kramer it was zero times.

I like, that's entirety of the list.

And so like the fact that like so and so packerstans don't understand how good they have it, But allow me to just push back a little bit.

Isn't it luck is?

It isn't I mean, because our sample size there is two, right, Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love.

And because FARV was like FARV was good, they had Farv.

They traded for Farv and then Aaron Rodgers falls in the draft, not supposed to be there.

They take him, they sit him, but he was you know, number one, it was him and Alex Smith.

Then that works and then Rogers they think he's done, They train up and take Jordan Love.

Then they get rid of McCarthy.

Lafleur comes in all of a sudden, Rogers is winning two more MVPs.

Like the plan wasn't like, let's sit Jordan Love for three years.

The plan was, we don't know how much longer Aaron Rodgers has and then a new coach kind of injected some old man life into him, and Jordan Love was sitting longer than they initially thought when they aft if they thought that Aaron Rodgers was going to be an m VP, they would have drafted T Higgins instead of drafting Jordan Love.

So like it's and by the way, it was multiple presidents, you know what I mean back then with it was Ron wolf Right, it's been multiple j Thompson and Ted Thompson, multiple presidents, multiple general general managers.

I don't I don't just believe that, like inherently because they eat brought worst and they have no owner and it's green and gold that they have just like that, they just have this ability that like if if Mark Murphy went and it's a new president.

Now I forget the guy's name, but if you like, if he became the president of the Jaguars, I don't think that the next Jaguars quarterback would be Aaron Rodgers level good.

Like I think they have gotten I think they've gotten lucky twice and it an noise the hell out of me.

So here's where I'd pushed back.

They are also arguably the best draft team period for twenty five years, and I think, I mean they literally have maybe in twenty five years, had two bad offensive lines and they never draft offensive lineman in the first round.

Is that once again their ability to draft middle rounds and just be patient and not have a relentless angry media banging on them.

Their media is not even collegiate, it's almost high school nice.

I mean, it's a very supportive media.

And so I would buy into luck if they didn't currently have the best tight end wide receiver youth groups in the NFL.

And they don't do free agency, so they're missing a leg from the barstool.

And it's almost like there's so many teachers that are actually millionaires, almost higher than almost any profession outside of tech.

And one of the reasons they have to be is because teachers don't make a lot, so they tend to pay off their homes, they buy use cars.

Green Bay similarly knows we don't get free agents.

We have to draft and development.

We have to be patient.

We're not attractive to star mike linebackers.

And wide receivers on average, So I think I would buy that, But they draft so exceedingly well.

And I think a lot of it is you do in life.

What you have to.

If you have to save to retire early, you don't buy a second car if you're rich.

I mean the New York.

Operations, they just fly through money because their game day revenue is huge, and they and I mean I think, I mean, like the Knicks, James Dolan, I'm firing the most successful coach we've had in twenty years.

You wouldn't think of doing that in Green Bay, Like, it wouldn't even be on the table, would it.

I mean, they fired Mike McCarthy after he won a Super Bowl, now not right after he won it, obviously, and.

He struggled the last year and a half two years he struggled.

Yeah, but but Mike Donlins hasn't won a playoff game since twenty sixteen, and they've kept him there because, like the Steelers ownership group, believe he was in continuity of coaches.

So listen, the Packers are a very well run organization.

So there's obviously an ounce of hater that is coming out of me when we're talking about this and R is very good.

It's just an ounce, just a smidge, feels like sixteen ounces.

It might be forty proof.

It might be it might be forty proof.

Can you pass me some of that whiskey?

By the way it looks DELICTI uh.

The ad policy, by the name, is the new the new Mark Murphy, the new Ted Thompson.

I just I have a I think that they are very well run.

They are very good at drafting.

The historically, you are one hundred percent correct, have not been a free agent team.

But it's also not because part of it is because they don't.

They're not attractive to free agents.

But in the NFL, it guys normally go where the money is normally right, Reggie Reggie White going to Green Bay was like a massive deal on an number of levels because of race and religion and location and all that.

They also paid them a boatload of money.

I remember when Mario Williams went to Buffalo.

Everyone was like, yeah, remember, oh my god, Buffalo got a big free agent.

And I was like, you get one hundred million dollars anywhere, so green But Green Bay has also talked about like a lot of like they believe philosophically organizationally in building through the drafty.

They don't even really pursue big time free agents.

Like part of it, I'm sure.

Is a geographic disadvantage, but I think part of it is also just like organizational philosophy.

And they're very good.

And I think Jordan Love is just good enough to throw a backbreaking interception in the playoffs.

That's what I think.

Wait, let's wrap it up with your pivot.

A position you had and now, through either cultural changes, information clarity, you have moved off it, sport anything.

Okay, Yeah, good question, good follow up.

You're gonna hold me to it.

So I this Maybe this doesn't answer your question perfectly, but I think it's a decent answer.

I used to want to fire coaches for bad game management decisions, messing up timeouts, messing up and right messing up go for it on fourth downs.

It would drive me insane.

And I still don't like it, to be very very clear, And I do think teams in general have gotten better at it because they've brought you know, MIT nerds and analytic departments in and like they've like streamlined their process.

But like I'm talking, like by the way, like I'm go back like Mike McCarthy on the Packers when they were in the NFC Championship game against Seattle in like ye me ten or whatever.

He's got Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Rodgers's MVP of the league, and he's given the ball to Eddie Lacy inside the five yard line instead of letting Aaron Rodgers try to throw, and then he's settling for short field goals.

It was this is like before the analytic, but even up the time you have Aaron Rodgers, six is more than.

Three go for touchdowns?

What are you doing?

I used to want to like fire guys for that, but then and like Andy Reid, it was a big reason why I changed this.

Like Andy Reid has struggled at times.

And remember I covered Andy Reid and the Alex Smith era when he was coming off of the Philadelphia era.

I did not cover Andy Reid when he had Superman as his quarterback.

But Andy Reid would sometimes do things be slow at the end of half, slept the clock, run punked from midfield, and I was like, this is so dumb, but goddamn, that guy would win, and he would win double digit games and he would get Alex Smith had the best year of his career with him, And then you go back through and you look at it and it was like, Okay, not only did Alex Smith have the best year of his career with Andy Reid, but so did Kevin Cobb, Jeff Garcia, Mike Vick, Donovan mcnapp, Like yeah.

So the epiphany was like, it's the part that drives guys like me and Nick crazy because we are sitting on our couch watching an HD with the clock and the time and the score and we can do that part.

But the biggest part of coaching is very clearly not that the biggest part of coaching is Monday through Saturday.

The game plan that how you game plan for the Broncos is different than how you game plan for the Lions, and it's like a week to week chess and that's what Andy Reid is the best I've ever seen in my lifetime of watching football, and so like that, it is a part of coaching that still drives me crazy and I will still yell at my TV about it, but I will unless you have like no, like, I will never advocate firing a good coach for something like that.

You know, like if Brian Callahan can't do it and he can't coach well, then sure, just like add it to the list of reasons right why he should be gone.

But it's not like the It's not as big of a part of being a good coach as I originally thought it was, because I think I gained like a more global understanding of like what the job entails.

I don't know that I fully adequately answer your question, but it is a position that I totally have changed on and it's now more of like a nuisance than like a foundational principle.

But I also think as I go around here, I also think teams have gotten way better at it.

Like Dan Campbell is at the forefront of it, but like teams now all employee game theory people.

Yeah, like no, And I've talked to a lot of I probably say my best sources in sports or NFL GMS, xgm's current GMS guys that want to be GMS, and they've always said that a coach is a CEO.

If you get the schemes along with it, it's a total bonus.

But they've got to be a part psychologist.

Bill Parcells was brilliant at that.

They've got to be an understanding of personnel.

Jimmy Johnson was a master of that.

They have to be play designers.

Sean Payton, Andy Reid Shanahan masters of that, and that clock management is often you have a sense that that's what you do during the week.

You do all these two minute drills and red zone drills, and then you let the game develop.

And Phil Jackson used to never call the first time out.

I covered that Blazer Lakers series with the iconic shack dunk.

The Blazers took ten point leads multiple times.

Phil wanted his team to figure out dilemmas.

His theory was, I'm not going to I'm not calling the first time out.

I want you to figure it out because when that happens again later in a game, we have a dynamic.

We have been through this.

And so Phil was like, I don't It's like being a parent.

I'm not going to solve all your issues.

You need to solve some of your issues.

So a lot of this stuff, especially early in the season.

I want to see if cam Ward can handle the clock.

We're not going to the super Bowl.

What I have to find out is can I get him from Week three to week twelve to be a better quarterback.

I'm not solving all your issues.

So I was told that years ago by a guy, like what he goes when people beat he goes, you don't know the injuries.

A lot of times you can't use certain substitution patterns.

You're like, why don't you go get this, Yeah, you can't actually use it, but you didn't advertise it to the other team that that tight end is hurt.

And he's like, there's matchups that are a problem.

There's sometimes a GM told me this once he goes, you'll go into certain weeks by November and you literally have a guard that it's got twelve to eighteen snaps in him, and you're just try.

Kurt Shilling once told me when he got old, he goes, I had twelve fastballs.

You can't use him in the first two winnings.

You've got to save them.

You'll go in and have a right guard and you're like, he's got about fifteen snaps, but we need forty, and so you run to the other side.

You don't do as you know, pass protect against that matchup.

So it literally, you know, there's other things.

Now the backups get hurt and you're like, well, we don't have another slot corner, so we're gonna have to play softer coverage here because that's a physical receiver.

So through the years I've learned there's a lot of stuff you just don't advertise.

But you go into games by November, you've got all sorts of holes.

You just can't let them know them in the first two drives.

Yeah, the dirty little secret is like, our jobs are to be interesting and to have big, strong opinions which are interesting and hopefully entertaining.

But the ones of those of us who are self aware also will admit, whether privately or publicly, in a quiet moment, how much we don't know.

Like we're operating with limited information.

These coaches are lying to us.

We don't know who is healthy, we don't know what the game plans are, we don't know a lot of the circumstances around it.

And you know, Kurt Warner has been doing this thing on Twitter where he's like, how do you guys all have such strong opinions on Monday before you've watched the tape.

I'm like, because that's when the show starts.

Like what do you mean, Like, that's that's that's when the show starts.

We watched the game.

We just do as best we can.

We talk to the people that we can talk to, We do the stat work.

Neither reminds me.

That reminds me of the There's a moment Theo vonn has a has a podcast.

He calls this past weekend.

Yeah, and he had a guest on and the very it's an actor that's very popular, and the guests the actor goes, what did you come up with the name of that, And he goes, well, my first show was on Monday, so I named it this past weekend.

And the guest is like, He's like, that's actually brilliant, and he's like, well, that's why I named it that it was a Monday pod in this past weekend.

And it's the same sort of thing as the one thing about our business there used to be.

I think his name was Frank Rich.

He was a brilliant writer for the New York Times.

Brilliant.

I think he was my favorite columnist in the history of the country.

I think he went on to write vice.

He went from the New York Times.

I think he covered Broadway.

He became like the Sunday columnist.

I think he was writing one column a week.

Frank rich one, I would read it every week a lot of great columnists.

He was next level.

And I remember his final column.

He said, what I really regret, And remember this is one column a week.

I do three hours a day.

He said, sometimes I was forced to have really strong opinions and I just didn't.

And I'm like, on one column a week.

But the truth is, yeah, But the truth is He's right, like, not every week you have this this volcanic emotional irruption over an issue.

Now Trump, I do think historically makes it a little easier if you're not a Trump fan, right and are just our political country, the tribalism.

It's easier now than it was like when he was writing the column ten fifteen years ago.

But it is.

That's one of the things in our business is urgency.

I try to make sure I try to make stories urgent.

I'm not saying something I don't believe, but you do have to create a sense of energy and urgency.

You can't go monotone and go here's another story, like so you know, yeah, right.

By the way, Frank rich veep, which is an incredible comedy.

By the way, I did not know that Veep.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've seen Veep, but that's, of course one of the great insult comedy shows ever saw.

It so inappropriate some of the things they said.

I'm like, how do you HBO?

Baby?

HBO?

Is how you get away with it?

Man?

Are you kidding?

Yeah?

So yeah, he's he's veeped in succession and a New York Times columnist.

That's awesome.

What great?

He's the best Yeah, best columnist I've ever read.

And I mean it was like the Sopranos.

It was must read on Sunday or must watch.

Not that much does it for me?

Now it's streaming.

I you know, my wife's trying to get me into this Jason Bateman show.

With yeah, with Jude Law.

I haven't started it yet.

Yeah, and I said, god, it's like six episodes.

That's such a commitment.

I watched the Charlie Sheen Dock that was two and that was enough.

And I mean I barely got through it because he was such a has Matt spill It was exhausting.

Yeah.

I watched episode one and I haven't hit play on an episode two.

It's just it's a long, slow trainer.

Have you have you done the Studio.

Did you watch the Studio?

The Apple TV h so, so you know Hollywood loves Hollywood and the last two Emmys a show about Hollywood has won.

So I watched an episode.

I didn't get the inside jokes.

I am not anti Hollywood.

I watched the Oscars.

I like movies.

I go to the theater.

Still, I'm kind of I have you know, I've got a deal with the Hulu ABC.

Now I'm doing I've got another.

I have another deal.

It'll be we just got our first script done.

I like it.

I'm fascinated by it.

I don't get it.

I feel like an outsider, but.

It is.

What was your question?

I forget No you if you'd seen the Studio.

Oh, I watched Studio.

I watched the first episode and I didn't get a lot of it.

It was a lot of esoteric stuff and I just didn't get it.

And I thought, Okay, they're talking a mile over my head.

I didn't understand.

Now, I watched years ago there was a movie called The Player, which was similar in its it's stylistically how it was kind of an inside joke that for some reason I got.

I didn't get the.

Studio Okay, Yeah, I mean I love Seth Rogan and so I and I thought the show shot beautifully and so I thought it was hilarious and really well done, and it got better as it went.

So I was just going to recommend it to you if you hadn't seen it.

There's some seriously hilarious cameos in it, and it's absurdist comedy, but it's also shot beautifully cool cinematography.

So I dug the show.

I watched the first episode.

I didn't go to a second.

So you're saying it gets.

Better, absolutely, and I think, listen, I don't listen.

I don't know if twenty three Emmys is you know, that seems that seemed a little much.

And you're right, these things that Hollywood loves Hollywood.

But yeah, I was.

I was a big fan of the studio.

But I also like, I mean, I like most things that Seth Rogen does.

Like I like anybody who can convince studios to give him like eighty million dollars to make end of the World's comedy where him and his friends just play themselves.

Like his scripts, the pitches are like, you know, an a sausage party, like we want to do an R rated animated movie about grocery store items.

And it's like, what, Like, we like Pineapple Express.

We want to do an action movie, stoner comedy that involves shootouts and explosions.

We'd like one hundred million dollars.

You're like what?

And he gets them all done?

So I love his brain.

Man Seth Rogen's the best.

Danny Parkins, you are too, my friend.

It's good.

Good.

We've got to do this more often because every time I do it, we just go in a million directions.

I didn't do any prep for this.

That makes tower of us.

Yeah, you call me every five or six weeks, and I'm a little insulted.

I want to come on more so anytime.

I don't bring Nick right on as much because a bit.

But you hired Polker.

Yeah, I hired and that's a good call.

Like I got what I want.

I don't need you any more.

Yeah, yeah, I realized what happened there.

Yeah, you know what's right with a little V next to it, and so you don't need to bring anymore.

I'm happy to fill the void, happy to thanks buddy.

Yeah, the volume.

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