"Bill Simmons"

Well, uh, say five nice things about me.

Um, tall, handsome, tan, voice, funny, funny, charming, charming, uh, selfless. What else? Um, uh, that's it. I think we went over five, but we couldn't get to 10..

I know you and it felt like you were going to keep going. I felt like I cut you off.

I don't think I could possibly get an incredible boxer.

Welcome to Spoilers.

Smart.

Love.

Smart.

Love.

Smart.

Love.

Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Smart. Um, you know, the one thing I will miss about New York is the prepared meals at the grocery store. And I love that because I, just, just right before this, I just finished having sushi with, uh, uh, you know, the spicy tuna hamburger. And then, but, but I always go there and I get like the spaghetti, like, don't you guys love that?

Like, you know, we have those out here on the West Coast.

No, but, but not to walk to, um, you know, you just walk in, you get like a spaghetti and meatballs and you just walk back home.

It depends on where your house is.

Spaghetti and meatballs is not sushi. I mean, I'm going to check it out right now, but you check that out, Will.

I explained to Sean that if you live near a place that sells prepackaged food, you can walk to get it.

Could you, Sean, you could walk to Larchmont if you wanted to. I'm not divulging your-.

It's kind of far. Kind of far.

Well, I mean-.

For a guy who doesn't like walking up a flight of stairs. Yes.

Yes.

No, that's not true. He does walk. I will say this about Sean. I like to walk a lot. Oftentimes, when I call him, he's walking in his neighborhood.

Yeah, I love to walk.

He does.

By the way, Amanda says she saw you and Alessandra knocking down the big hill over here, uh, the other day. That's so adorable. Yeah.

Will likes a good walk.

In the afternoon, I can just see you sort of pushing your laptop aside and saying, reach for the intercom there in the mansion, and you say, hon, what room you in? Are you up for a walk?

You put your ankle weights on?

You zip into your bag, right? Your sweat bag?

I get my, I put my sweat bag on and I put my body weights on and I start climbing that hill. And you know what? The first time I really did that hill was with you, JB, during, during the plandemic. And, um, JK, JK. And, uh, I remember the first time we did it and I was like, oh my God.

I know. And Will, you live on a hill.

Yeah, I live on a hill. And so I do-.

You tried biking. I biked up that once. No, you did not. Yeah. That was a whole different thing.

That was amazing. That is brutal. I've seen a couple of guys do it and they're barely, they're barely going forward as they.

go up. Yes, exactly. God bless the 10 speed.

But I've seen, I've seen JB, I've seen you over the years a few times on that hill and usually give me like a scornful look or whatever, like it's sort of a shitty, like, ugh. But Amanda-.

I just honk and swerve near you. And try to scare you.

Well, it's in the family. Cause, Amanda, yesterday, all of a sudden this, like Tesla, comes and it's like, and the swerving, I'm like, what the fuck? And then it's Amanda waving, you know, brightly. At least she's waving brightly.

With the Drake just pouring out her window.

I just talked to her yesterday.

Yeah. End of story?

How are those three hours?

Yeah.

How's your ears?

I love talking to Amanda. She said she's going to throw me a party when I come home.

We goddamn right we are.

Can I go?

I'm like, you assholes. better throw me a party. Are you kidding?

And it's soon, isn't it? What is it? Isn't it like a week now?

JB, you're looking real stripy today. Are we, are you getting out?

I'm back on the golf course. today. You are?

Yeah.

It's been a while. Um, I got this shirt while I was visiting with Will out there East. Yeah. Um, I'm going out there to, uh, uh, one of, uh, Burbank's finest courses today, and, um, I'm going to enjoy myself.

What a life. What a life.

I feel like I have something more to say, but I'll, maybe I'll think of it while we're talking to our really high level guest here.

Oh, nice. Okay. We bored this person. Huh? We bored this person now.

Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, guest. It's our day to day. Our D to D.

Oh, we can't out of town.

Please. Wait a minute.

What?

Sean still doesn't know who I am.

No, no, I love Bill Simmons. Wait, what happened to the show?

We've never aired it. We talked about was like, what was happening that week. and, and really, yeah, it was just, it didn't.

Yeah. I did. one of the first test shows.

Yeah. It wasn't a test, but it was, it was one of our big shots right up front there, along with Dax Shepard.

Oh, so you just squashed it. Oh, I should feel much worse about this.

No, it's not even air, because it was too, Jason's right. It was too topical. It was too like, exactly. It was like, what was going on? It was like May.

You're not alone. There were a couple, I think Tapper, same thing happened with Jake Tapper, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I just thought you guys didn't like me. And then, like, maybe, I said something about Ozark back in 2020..

We tried to edit it and make it entertaining. We just couldn't make it work.

We, we, we love you and revere you, in spite of your allegiance to certain teams. Put it that way.

Certain teams. Like you, mean every Boston team?

No, not every Boston team.

Wait, where's your beef? What don't you like about it?

I'm not going to, I don't want to get into a back and forth with Bill Simmons. He'll crush me. Are you kidding? I don't know. He doesn't like the Bruins.

I do like the Bruins. The only team you have a passion for are the, are the Maple Leafs. Well, you didn't for a while, right? Well, I was mad.

We had a cheap owner and he cost us a Stanley cup, and I was in my twenties and spiteful and I got mad. Right.

But now you're back.

Now I'm in a better spot.

You're back with the Bears?

The Bears. The Bruins. Yeah. They do have the Bear.

I thought you meant the Hershey Bears. I thought you meant he became a Hershey Bears fan of the AHL.

We're taping this right now and Mookie Betts is going back to Fenway Park, which, um, was the most traumatic Red Sox thing that's happened in the last 30 years. Yeah. He was our best guy.

You guys are both huge baseball fans.

Yeah.

And did you guys, when Mookie Betts came to the Dodgers, was there, did you guys fire some texts back and forth?

No, I told him, I told all my Dodger fans, I was like, you guys won the lottery. This guy's amazing. This is the biggest mistake the Red Sox have made in my lifetime. I couldn't get too mad, because we won four world series and I had said before we won the first world series that I'd probably sell my soul to win one world series. So we won four.

Wait, wait, wait. I thought it was only two. When was there four?

So you did sell your soul. I just want to confirm.

No, we won four. Yeah. I do think I might be going to hell. I think I might've said that drunkenly one night. that, uh, that I would sell my soul.

How far were the Red Sox from making that deal? Did they have an, did they have an opportunity to match what the Dodgers offered them?

They got super smart and analytical about baseball players as they hit their thirties, how their production declines, and you're basically paying for past performance, which is true with, like the sluggers, but like the Sean Hayes kind of wiry athletic types age pretty nicely into their thirties. You know, I know Sean is still playing squash and doing whatever he's doing.

I got my, I got my things on this compression wrap on his elbow from hammering the piano.

every night. Bill, I wanted to ask you, uh, what, I mean, you are sort of a jack of all trades, as Jason said, and you, you, you, opine on lots of different things, but sports is sort of the, was your, the lead, that was the sort of the cutting edge of that got you into this world. What was it about you? Like, as a kid, were you like, this is going to be my milieu. Like.

Well, it also might've been not having a life, you know, as an only child. And I absolutely love sports. I was all into it. And, uh, all the Boston teams, my dad had Celtics season tickets, just kind of threw myself into it. And at some point in college, I had a, I had a column in college that really, from the first week I was in college and I was like, I wonder if I can get paid for this.

But you, early on, decided that you were going to make your, your, your, your, your journalism, come from the perspective of the fan, as opposed to, um, uh, sort of trying to stay, uh, neutral and just kind of report the facts. Um, was that shaped by your experience as a Boston fan and that the Celtics were, were, were just killing it, uh, there in the, what was it, the late seventies or eighties, right?

We had a nice run. Right.

And then the, the socks were giving you a lot of pain. Um, so did that kind of shape full, that's more of like a, I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm a very passionate fan by virtue of the local teams. And so let's, let's do that angle.

It was two things. It was. the first one was that the way people wrote about sports back then was very, you know, reportery, um, like non fan stuff. Right. Um, and it just wasn't the way my friends and I talked.

What was your first, what was your first sort of, um, moment where you got, uh, not validated, but got entree, like where somebody said, okay, you can come in, you can get into the, into the locker room. You can get into the press box. You can have access. What was that moment?

Yeah. How do you get into the locker room?

Yeah, that was, so. ESPN got my column in 2001 and I had a little more juice at that point to go to stuff. But at that point I was like, you know what, like having some distance from this and writing from the fan side is actually better for me, because I was weaving pop culture and all my stuff. And I was like, I actually think like this is a better lane. So for really the, all the two thousands, I tried to stay away from being kind of too embedded with athletes and getting in there and just kind of being detached.

Yeah. There was that, that big transition. You talk about you becoming a high profile. So, listener. for those of you that aren't, you know, sports junkies like me and, and Sean Hayes, um, uh, you know, bill, uh, exploded onto ESPN.

Um, and yeah, my podcast was Oh, seven, Sean, but that it was like me and Mark Marin and like two other dudes.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know who you are. I know you've been around. I know what you do.

So what, so tell us about that. That transition was not gradual. It was, it was, it was pretty, not overnight. I don't know. I don't mean to diminish it or belittle it at all.

Yeah.

That kind of maturing from ESP, from ESPN to the next chapter. Is that what you mean?

Well, being, being on air, like all of a sudden you were, I remember seeing you on, on, uh, on TV, and I was like, I was like, who is this guy? And I was like, Oh, Bill said, Oh, that's what Bill Simmons looks like. And, and listening to you talk. And like, it was just this great new personality.

Disappointed you were at how handsome he was, but there really.

was definitely like an unapologetic. Sorry to use a word again. Um, you, you didn't really make much of an effort to be some like zippy on air personality, like you were, just like, I'm just a guy and I got an opinion and it's backed with knowledge and facts. And, uh, and here we go.

It was fine with just being a plain, regular guy, which we really admire. Yeah.

We're just small.

Yeah. It was, it was actually fun to do those shows, because I would just kind of call it like it is. And I think people were surprised initially. Cause it was very like, yeah. Barkley could do, cause he was a hall of famer, but like when the media guys usually came on, they were way more careful.

We got it on our show.

Um, that was when I started writing my basketball book and that was when I started doing my podcast. And then, the next year after that, it was like, all right, how can I keep going? How can I keep going? And that led to Grant land in 2011.. And, um, and then just TV in 2012..

Well, what I love about it, sorry. And correct me if I'm wrong, Bill, is that you, you say you do all these things and you're like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And it feels like you were at ESPN. Then you were at HBO, I think for a minute. And it's almost like those places just couldn't contain you.

Yeah. I realized I got suspended in 2014.. That's fine.

From ESPN, for, uh, that was for dealing all that heroin, right?

I mean, yeah, it turned out, the age was just not, wait, what.

did you get suspended for?

I said some stuff about the NFL commissioner, who was their biggest partner, and they got upset. And, um, and when I got suspended, something weird happened. Um, all these people reached out like, Hey, when you branch off, I'd love to invest, or I'd love to, and I was like, wait, what's going on? And that really made me start thinking about it pretty seriously. Like, okay.

And that's a risky proposition. A little bit nerve wracking. I mean, not nerve wracking, but it's, it's a leap, right? Yeah.

I remember explaining it to my wife, and she's like, I trust you, but I could see like this glimmer in her eye. Like, should I go on Raya now? Or like wait for six months? Raya.

Well, before you, you give us all a layman's lesson on, on podcasting and, and, and where it's kind of going, and all that, talk a little bit about where this Moxie came from to sort of double down, triple down on yourself and, and, and to be really proactive in an entrepreneurial way, because, you know, dudes that are super big sports fans that like write about it and stuff aren't, aren't famous for being a business Titans, uh, to, to put it kindly. So where does all that come from? I mean, you, you're, you're very well educated. Um, you, you come from, I think your dad was a teacher and your mom was a superintendent.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, uh, I mean, you're, you're raised by adults and, and you are one. So is that, is that simply it? Or do you just have an innate business, um, acumen?

You guys are probably going to like this answer. I, the more, the more I got embedded at ESPN, you start looking around and you're like, wait, I can do that. Guy's kind of terrible. This guy's terrible. Well, how did this guy get this job where he decides stuff?

Yeah. Yeah.

It turns out nobody knows what they're doing, but even if it's not that, usually I find if, if you just get in the door in any sort of industry, uh, sort of the, the mystery of it that you build up in your mind just kind of melts away. And, and that's, that's half the battle.

Everybody is awesome and all knowing, and they're just not.

Or that they've got this like well of like secret knowledge that you'll never have access to that. they, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And most, and most of the people just got, yeah, they got promoted a couple of times and they kind of can't believe they got to where they got. Like when we did 30 for 30, and people loved it.

The first vine, is that like, is that like 80 for Brady?

No, it's a, well, they were the sports documentary series.

So we created it and we finished it. And the person who was in charge of ESPN films, who it, changed hands a couple of times, and by the time we finished 30 for 30, people loved it and they were like, all right, so 30 for 30 is done. We're going to call documentaries now ESPN films and do it that way. And they didn't want to do a second volume. And we were like, we just created a brand.

Amazing. That's so cool.

It was so stupid. I can't tell. I would go now. I don't get as mad as I did back in the day, but like in the late to, I would just lose my mind. I would send these 2000 word emails and I thought it was normal.

Kimmel is a lunatic.

Like, he's just, yeah. Kimmel is like, he will whip off a 700 word email in three seconds as he's playing a video game and doing nine other things. So I thought, well, Jimmy's like that too. That's normal. And then you realize like, oh, Jimmy's also a lunatic.

Yeah. I'm very similar.

Yeah. You guys have, Sean is. by the way, Sean will, Sean will answer an email before the person has hit send.

Most of the time and they don't, they don't, they don't pop off on shit they're wrong about.

No, no.

Wait, hold on. Let's, let's be clear. Kimmel is way worse than I am. He's not confident. He is super stubborn and we'll just fight to the death until he just breaks you down and you admit he's right.

But he's smart enough not to dig in on things that he's not smart about.

He'll just back off and it'll be like, it never happened. Yeah.

And we will be right back.

Hey, it's Guy Raz here. The host of How I Built This, a podcast that gives you a front row seat to how some of the biggest products were built and the innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists behind them. Every week I speak to someone new. Stories like Justin Wolverton's, a lawyer who just wanted a healthy alternative to ice cream. So he created Halo Top in his Cuisinart.

and I heard somebody say, call 9-1-1..

As writers, we'd written our share of murder mysteries. So when suspicion turned to Dan's wife, Nancy, we weren't that surprised. The first person they look at would be the spouse. We understand that's usually the way they do it. But we began to wonder, had Nancy gotten so wrapped up in her own novels?

And now back to the show.

So how did podcasting hit your radar earlier than anybody else? Um, not just listeners, but podcast creators. and, and what, what was it? Who whispered in your ear and you got ahead of it and, and carved away and made it possible, for, you know, idiots like us and Dax and, um, I like that.

I made it possible for your podcast to succeed.

Well, it became a medium, you know, it wasn't a medium before you and Mark Merritt.

Jason, our lawyers just emailed me and said, take that back.

Cut that out later.

No, when, when I started it, it was just because I saw there was this interview link on ESPN.com with the interview with the Celtics GM. And I clicked on it and it was like podcast interview with Danny Angel. I'm like, what the hell is this? So I emailed them and I'm like, can I have one of these? And they were like, okay.

What is this?

Um, so I would have my friends on and, just like people that I thought I would have good chemistry with. And then around, oh nine, that I'd had it for about two years. And I remember Seth Meyers text, uh, he emailed me about it and he was like, uh, yeah, Jacko was my buddy. Jack is a, yeah, Jacko was feeling it today. Like it was, it was so funny.

It's also a great way for celebrities to be, um, to have a, a, an extended conversation with a, with an interviewer or journalist or whatever, and, and not run the risk of, of having, uh, you know, a, a headline, you know, cherry picked out of there for some sort of sensational, you know, like, yeah, it's all verbatim.

Well, I remember talking to you about it, Jason, cause you were like, we were talking about how frustrating the talk show circuit is.

Yeah.

Especially when you come out and you do like, well, Kimmel's, but you do like, you're on a talk show for 10 minutes, right? And they do the pre-interview, and you come out and you hit your three things and you have a little back and forth. And I think for the celebrities, the podcast was just such a more fun format because it was like, this is who I really am. You're hanging out. So that was a big win for everything.

Tell me, sorry to just go back again. So your parents were teachers. What did they think? What did you see, say to them when you graduated college? You're like, all right, I'm just going to go into the sports thing.

No, they, I think they, it was like 50, 50 for them. I was going to be able to have a steady job. I don't, I don't think. I was like waking up at 12 o'clock.

But you just got a master's degree in print journalism.

So I got a mass, my senior year, my dad was like, Hey, what are you going to do next year? I was like, I don't know. And he's like, you. should, you maybe keep going on the sports running out. You're right.

So he encouraged you.

Yeah, it was more like a, what are you doing next year? And just kind of staring vacantly back with no answer. But then I went to journalism school and, and, you know, it wasn't, it didn't work out right away. Like I worked at the Boston Herald for three years and did grunt work and Chinese food orders and covered high school sports. And, and, uh, by 96, I was out, I was bartending.

So did you play sports as a kid? And then, and then did you not want to go into professional sports? Like playing them?

I was, I was like high school level best.

Yeah.

And what was your sport?

Basketball is my favorite. Yeah. I still, I still play tennis. I had to retire from basketball 10 years ago because we're all old people.

Oh, did you, did you roll an ankle too many times?

Yeah. I remember speaking to an orthopedic surgeon once in New York and she was just basically like, yeah, like nine out of 10 injuries of dudes, over 30 are from basketball.

Yeah.

And now it's like pickleball and basketball.

Yeah. Pickleball.

Yeah. I played, I played basketball when I was a kid and I was like, you know, we'd run down to one end of the court and I'd be like, and then they'd get the ball, the rebound.

And I'm like, wait, we gotta go all the way back.

We just, we gotta go all the way back to the other side. I don't, I don't understand. And why do I, can't we just play half the court? I didn't understand it. It was too much for me.

So, so basketball was your, your main sport. You played baseball too. I imagine a little bit when you were a kid.

I played everything until, uh, high school just played basketball. I love basketball the most, though, cause we, we had the season tickets. We were like front and center for the whole Larry Bird era. So I just understood it the most.

Did you grow up in Boston, Boston, or did you grow up?

Yeah, I grew up in Brookline and my parents got, my parents got divorced, which is why I have a sense of humor.

Exactly.

My mom moved to Connecticut and eventually I moved to live with my mom for high school. Okay.

And, uh, and they got divorced like at a, at a tough time for you too. 13,, I think it was.

No, I was nine.

Uh, yeah, I had Wikipedia, the Red Sox.

Yeah. Don't read Wikipedia. The Red Sox lost to the Yankees in 1978 playoff game, which was the most traumatic sports loss ever. Bruins lost to the Canadians. And my parents got separated, all in the span of six months.

Wow. It was tough. Wait, was that 78?.

Did you say 78 in early?

Yeah. Cause the Leafs, the Leafs lost. They were swept by the Canadians before that.

The Canadians. Yeah.

They just, so. you were both on the edge of a few buildings that year. I was, it was tough.

Well, he's had, I mean, the Leafs thing is, it's so tough. One of the most traumatic professional sports relationships that anyone has. Oh, I, nothing, nothing good happens.

But Brendan Shanahan is going to bring it all back. Right.

Willie is the man. Shani is our man. He's the best. He's the best dude. I actually just played golf with Shani and Mike from Mike and the Mad Dog a couple of weeks ago.

Will, did you ever get tempted by the Kings? Just like doing a full hockey divorce and just second wife with the Kings?

I couldn't. I mean, I go to Kings games when I'm here and I'll, you know, sometimes with the kids and stuff just for fun, but, and I'm just such a huge hockey fan, but the Leafs are just my team. They're just it for me. And they always have been.

Isn't it hilarious that people will divorce human beings, but not their teams?

You know what's funny? So, so when I was with Shani a couple of weeks ago, he goes, I, he's like, I think I hear he heard on the podcast or somewhere. He goes, so I heard you say, cause I've become like in the last 10, 12 years, like a massive soccer fan and I'm a big Liverpool supporter through my friend. And, and I just.

Will loves Tottenham.

Get him.

Do you, are you Tottenham fan?

It lasted three years until my kids started playing sports every Saturday. And it's tough. Yeah, it was too hard.

But it's yeah. So I'm up at four, 30 in the morning watching games and stuff. And I'll watch every, I'll watch, but his legal watch, the legal watch, anything. champions league, forget it.

Getting me so hot.

So I start watching it and I guess I'd sort of said offhand that, like, it's that watching Liverpool and watching soccer has become, almost is almost taken over hockey. And he looked at me with such disappointment. He's like, is that true? Is that true that you love? And I go, Hey, first of all, relax.

Settle down.

But I do, it has helped to, to kind of mitigate my frustration or disappointment by watching that, because I, I I'm so invested in the Leafs. I live and die by. And the, you know, so I've gotten into, and football has been a really great soccer has become a really great sort of antidote to that. And so I can have some, I can have some highs, better attention span sport too.

It's two hours. There's a halftime. It's just flies through and you're done.

It's perfect. And once I got into an understanding who the people were and what the stories were behind, it is super interesting and champions league is interesting. And, but, and I'll watch virtually any sport, which makes me like, I ended up watching, you know, the ashes, the cricket, uh, I'll watch 2020, uh, cricket T20.. Like, I'll watch. And I think, like, is there anything?

It's not, it's a game.

Is there any, it was golf, a sport, then game.

Game. Baseball's a game, not a sport.

Yeah. I guess golf's a game, but it's the, but, but the, but, but the top guys are athletes.

True.

Have you seen the bodies on the red socks?

No, no, no, no. Is there a sport you won't watch? Sorry. That was my, my big long lead.

Is there a sport? I won't watch that.

Yeah. That you don't enjoy.

I don't get auto racing. And like, there's this F1 resurgence and I gave it a, gave it a kick, a kick drive.

And I just get driving around.

It's just cars just going in laps. I don't get it.

Well, I, the road courses I get, but circles come to formula one with me.

You'll get it. Come with me.

Listen, you're the hundredth person. It's like, no, no, you'll get it. You just, but it started to feel like Scientology a little bit. You don't understand. You've got to meet Miss Gavage.

That's hysterical. So wait, so this is a perfect opportunity. And this is going to be a long question. So just hang in there. Cause I was like, should I ask it?

Guys, I'm going to go make a sandwich.

Yeah, I'm going to pee.

I've heard your long questions, Sean. I'm excited.

They're not. Okay. So it's, it's to the three of you guys. Oh, so, and this is a perfect opportunity to ask this. And I wasn't going to ask it, but here we go.

It's already too long.

No, no, hang on.

All the qualifiers.

No, so I.

He's a big qualifier guy with his questions.

So what is the psychology behind loving sports? so much? Okay. So wait, so, like, you know, in movies, theater, TV, whatever it is, you're watching a story. You're emotionally invested.

Yeah, I'll go first. Yeah.

For me, it's just simply, and it's, and it's heightened by the Olympics, because it's, it's only every four years. It's the televised live moment of somebody putting everything they've got on the line. And it's a binary result, success or failure. And I get to see this person reach for excellence and let's see what the best they can do is going to yield. And that's a really exciting thing to me.

Yeah.

I get that. I would say for me, it's, it's not dissimilar. And I, as I explained, my sort of, my appreciation of soccer was, came from understanding the stories and the people behind it.

Yeah, you told me that Will.

So once I can get into like this guy came over here and for me, it's not necessarily binary, because there is victory sometimes in people in failure when they don't actually get it, but they try really hard. I like that.

Yeah, but, but, but the stories, like you told me that a long time ago, you're like, Sean, just try to watch the stories of the people. So I'm watching, I'm like, well, this is a Dateline episode. Like I could just watch, you know, I could learn about these people without watching them kick a ball around for two hours. Sure. You know what I'm saying?

But then, but then there is a, there is a moment, there is an, there is an actual venue for them to go and, and try to do that. You see the story behind it. So like, for instance, if you watch, like one of these great soccer documentaries, and you see the importance of the team to the town and to the fans, and then you see these players and these guys and their town and what it means. And then the players who come in and they're trying to do it, and they're trying to do it, not just to win, but they understand the cultural impact that they have. They feel it.

And also, but on the other side, I went to a daughter's game with Jason a couple of years ago and we're sitting there and I was like, I kind of get it. I, I get like the atmosphere. It's like watching this old house on a Sunday. You're like, oh, this is very relaxed.

It's gone so well.

You know what I mean?

I get it. Almost there.

No, I mean, they'll get them back on track.

If Sean, in the same way, that like, for me, I can't go, I can't get into musicals. Right. And I, and it's why people singing. And I'm like, what?

And if you learned about them, if you, if you, if you kind of understood, kind of what, what goes into it all, then you.

Well, I do, in the sense that it is sort of adjacent to what I do as a profession. And yet I still can't, it's just not for me. It doesn't speak to me. And for whatever reason, sports does in that way. And, Bill, you probably have a much more concise answer.

I just think it's, it's almost like a DNA thing. It hits you. It's got to hit you before, like age six. Yeah. And I see it with a couple of my friend's kids.

He's going to be really good.

And now he is, he's like 14 and he's one of those guys.

Yeah. Like, like, like I was, obviously I'm from Chicago when the Cubs won. finally, what four or five, six years ago. I remember when that was. Yeah.

Sean, that's it.

But, but, but, and, and, and I'm a huge football fan. I just need a reason to watch. Like. I need a bet or something.

When I, when I was growing up in Boston in the seventies, it's, but the cold weather city is, you know, pretty miserable for like four or five months. And Canada has this too. I know, Will knows, but, um, you know, the sports teams take this outsize importance of, just like the, the kind of whatever the teams are doing kind of sets the mood of the city. Yeah. And, you know, when Bird showed up for the Celtics in 1979 and we realized like pretty quickly, like this is one of the most special athletes in any sport.

Yeah.

That's when it goes to a whole other level. Like Cleveland had that with LeBron and the Lakers said that with Kobe, and, you know, you just kind of hit the lottery when it happens. And that's, that's going to make everyone care more.

Bill, Bill, you know, I, I, I remember, distinctly thinking this at the time. And Sean, again, this kind of goes to the, the, the way it makes you feel. I remember when Tiger starting in sort of 99 through 2008,, really up to the 2008,, uh, U S open. in that time, he did something that was so spectacular. And I remember thinking there were people who didn't like him.

real time. Yeah. That is cool. That is cool.

I thought that way about Jason with Ozark. It was, yeah, there you go. Thank you for bringing that back around. I'm a member of this species.

I know we get to that with the slow blink with McConaughey, with the slow blink that McConaughey pointed out. McConaughey pointed out that Jason's got the best slow.

He's a slow bank call.

To be honest, I'm not sure what that compliment was, but I took it. I loved it.

I have thought about it every moment.

I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday and I was like, I tried to do a slow blink and I realized, wait, I can't see what I'm doing. So I'm not sure what he's talking about.

That's good.

Hey, Bill, I don't mean to back you into anything controversial, so feel free to pull the ripcord if it is, but online sports betting that is now sort of really all over the place, on television and online, and whatnot. How do you feel about, are you worried about your average sports viewer, especially because, like when you start talking about the six year old, you know, like, pretty soon he's going to have a phone and he's going to have like a, you know, uh, an allowance every week and he's going to be able to make little bets, prompted by the on air announcers saying, Hey, listen, if you're, uh, if you're thinking this might be a field goal versus a touchdown, you can bet right now, like people are going to get hurt. And I'm wondering how you feel about that, uh, being in the, in the, in the space right now.

Well, the way the apps are set up, it's impossible for any non-adult to just start a gambling account. Like my son is a sophomore in high school. He can't like gamble. Cause. he's not allowed.

But the on-air announcers sort of encouraging that, um, do you feel like that's on the same side of the line or not?

I don't know if they're encouraging it as much as it's part of the dialogue of sports.

now to put, well, but they're promoting it. And I, and I think the network is, as a participant in that action.

Um, I could be wrong with that, but just did a deal, ESPN bet. they're calling it. I mean, I think they all kind of see where it's going.

They're doing that with Penn. Yeah, they, they, but, but Bill, again, correct me if I'm wrong. You know, the NFL has all sports, but certainly the NFL always posted the odds in the newspaper, for as long as it was always about that. Right.

Oh, it's just more overt than it used to be. But I mean, it was like teams will get fined if they didn't report injuries. Why are they getting fined? Because it affected the spreads.

Then how does it, can you reconcile it with the, with the, with the position that, um, that baseball took against Pete Rose, gambling on, on baseball. And now they're actually a partner of gambling with baseball.

No, but you can't, because the Pete Rose thing, he was betting on his own team. Right. And he was managing that team.

So he could affect the outcome.

Yeah. And they've been cracking down on, um, they don't want the players to gamble on anything. Right. And there's been, especially in football, there's been a few guys that got nailed. But if you go back to the history of the sports, like, there's been gambling scandals in every.

There was a basketball that just did it. Right. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

There's been college basketball. in the fifties. There was that huge scandal, right. A point shaving way back, when it was almost killed college basketball.

The, uh, what's weird is, there's so much attention on it. Now it would be really hard to fix anything. Anytime. Something's out of whack. Everybody, all the casinos, everybody kind of knows.

Alma.

And he would always be, he would always be discreetly kind of mentioning the line without mentioning it.

Yeah.

He was like, Whoa, that was a big field goal for some people out there.

Yeah, exactly. So it would miss an extra point inside the last two minutes ago. Yeah.

So now it's just kind of out in the open. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm good with it.

We'll be right back.

And back to the show.

How are you as a, as a sports gambler? Do you, do you, do you do it?

Oh, my God.

Are you any, you must be good.

I go up and down. I know you're trying to jinx me right now, but, uh, but yeah, we, we, uh, I have a long history. I started gambling in 1990 because the Patriots went one in 15 and it were only two games on. And we were in college and, you know, the Patriots were terrible. And it was like, this, this is the worst football season I've ever had.

And you've made a million.

And we had a buddy on it. Yeah. Buddy on my hall was like, I have a book here. We're like, what? And we start like betting on football.

And I was more excited about that than anything over or under a certain number of wins for the year. Yeah.

So they'll say like the, the giants are seven and a half and you're like, you're thinking to go over under. And we just like, and we were like, so proud of ourselves that we did well, but there's been other years where we're like, oh my God, we're, we're getting annihilated. Does God hate us?

Does that translate to fantasy sports prowess? Are you really good at that?

I was, I want, I wanted to ask you if, or if you're into fantasy, uh, fantasy sports.

Oh, I was like, I was in the first wave. I was my first, I was in basketball leagues in the eighties, baseball leagues in 1982, uh, football since 1990..

What's the name of the, wasn't there a, a baseball group, uh, early on in ESPN? Um, what was it?

Yeah, I wasn't in that, but yeah, it started in the early eighties. There's a bunch of people that I've tried to claim. They started the first fantasy league and it's no, but this was like the, these guys.

are like the best. supposedly. I forget what it was called, but, um, I wonder why I'm in the Kimmel league where we vote.

everybody out. And Sal has the hammer this year. And I think he's going to vote me out for comedy sake.

Why? Because the trash talks not, not good enough.

Well, we show up and there's 11 owners and only 10 stay. And at the beginning of the draft, the guy who won the draft a year before votes out one of the 10, one of the other 10, and you just have to get up and get the F out. We had John Hamm was in it and he showed up late cause he was filming mad men, and we waited, waited, waited. He showed up like a half hour late, comes in. Sorry guys.

That's it. Oh my God. I, I, I, I'm the commissioner of my baseball league, and it's the worst league in the world, because I don't think that there's not one trash talk at all through the entire season.

Yeah. The nineties were so much more fun. Yeah. The nineties people get mad. The draft was like really vicious and nicer.

I have a question about this stuff.

So what about, um, you want to focus on the fantasy part of it? Go. No.

Yeah, exactly. No. Why? And I think, Jason, well, I think I may have asked this on another episode of our podcast, so we can cut it, if so.

But if all this is available, wherever you get podcasts, but you can get it early on.

Wondery without that.

If I read about all of these crazy, unbelievably massive amounts of money thrown around all these players for all these teams, right? Yeah. Contracts that these guys bring. So if, if, if these teams and owners and all these people have literally billions of dollars, it seems like, why wouldn't they just go by every single top player and create and have that one team? If they have all this money.

Bill, you'll be more, you'll be recognized. No, I mean, but there's a, there's an actual.

The Dodgers kind of tried that.

It's working.

Well, because they're a, there are rules. There are rules as to how much you, you, can actually spend in most rules over, over a.

certain number. You'd think I have to start paying a punitive tax on that, but what, how would you explain what's going on with the Yankees and the, and the Red Sox this year with all their payroll? Aren't they the last two in the American league East?

The Yankees thing is great. It's, it's, it's so hard.

Aren't the Red Sox cozied up next to them, and the Red Sox aren't winning the title,

but what's happened to the Yankees is kind of like my world series of share. It's their fans are so upset. They have George Steinbrenner's loser. son. Hal runs the team, and it's like the classic, like the son who had the only reason he had is in charge of anything.

By the way, it's funniest thing in, in any arena. I know this guy.

I love the Giuliani's son running his defense.

Like, think of Hollywood, ran this where, like Bob Iger's retiring. His son is now the president of Disney. Like it would never happen in sports. They just hand the teams off.

I love kids who were born on third and score on a wild pitch. I love that storyline. It's so great. Like they just have zero talent and yet they're just because their dad had a ton of dough.

Yeah, right.

Bill, you know, you know, we were talking about sport. I want to get back to Sean's question, Bill, and, and, and hear what you think about this, um, about it. Why can't the owners just go, we were talking about the Red Sox and Yankees, and they, and they do try to do that, and they've had, and you, you're jumping with glee at how much the Yankees have spent, and, and to no success. Really, what's happening again to bring, I don't want to bring everything back to soccer, but if you look what's happened in the last year in soccer, the Saudis, uh, in fact, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which took control of the top four or five clubs, has now provided enough funds for them to go and poach from all the major European leagues, all these top stars, and pay them these salaries. Sean, Neymar just signed a $300 million deal for two years.

Well, soccer, it's just basically a free market and they're all maniacs. I think the NBA had a little bit of this issue where they had, they had this luxury tax and it was punitive. But then you had a team like the words that we're saying, well, screw it. You know, we're, we're in San Francisco. We make a shitload of money.

Well, it occurs to me that there's, you can almost draw a parallel between that and maybe any business, but certainly our business that, that you have these big sort of rich guys who either rich themselves or control these big corporations. They're driven by, you know, whatever the stock price, et cetera. And there's no actual reverence for the thing itself. Right. So the culturally, they don't really care about what impact.

Is this why Dr. Pimple Popper is on the lead cover of Max right now, instead of Succession or Curb Enthusiasm?

That's exactly why.

Hey, uh, hey, Bill, do you, do you think that the fan base to your point about how all these hundreds of thousands of people are associated or attached to each team in the fan base? Yeah. Does the fan base really have any leverage? Like, if an owner is just in a tailspin, can they, can they strike effectively and say,

well, we're not with the Washington football fans. They had this owner, who was Daniel Snyder, who was like the worst owner. He was like the championship belt holder every year. And he sucked the life out of the franchise and the city to the point that, you know, they would have a home game and they'd have more fans of the other team. And everybody was like, I'm out until this guy's gone.

And it really had no, no impact on him. It's the TV rights that really have the leverage.

Financially, they still sold. for how many billion?

Right. Well, what happened was the sponsors started fleeing and it became, and then he had a couple other things.

But that's because of his behavior personally, as opposed to team performance.

But that's the thing. These guys, like the Phoenix Suns owner, had this whole toxic environment and they made him sell. And then he sells, and he sells for like a record price, you know, so.

Or Sterling made a bunch of money at the Clippers, right?

Sterling's the worst guy probably has ever owned a team. And, you know, he cashed out and made more money than anybody.

By the way, my feeling on that, I've thought about it since that sale and that everything went down, and then his family was trying to block him from selling it to Steve Ballmer back in the day, blah, blah, blah. And then they were claiming that he was sort of unfit to make the deal, Sterling himself and all this stuff. And I think it was all by design to drive the price up. Now, I'm a cynic, but I do think that that was all by design. Because the more that the family was fighting, they were saying, the price just kept going up just to grab it.

Oh, no question. I have had Clippers season tickets for 20 years because I got them to go see the other teams. And so, but I got to know a lot of the people in my section. And Sterling would show up and he'd be dressed in all black and he'd sit court side. And it was, he was like the fucking Grim Reaper.

So, Bill, not to embarrass you, but you've done very, very well financially, with all of your, all of your efforts. Well, not like you. And we're trying. But you're, you're, you're crushing it. My question is, because you mentioned court side seats.

And I can, I can guess one thing, because you're living in Wayne Manor.

It looks like, yeah, it looks like a highway. But because you're, because you seem like you've really kept very close contact with your sort of simpler self, you know, and I don't mean that as a pejorative, but you're a very normal guy, which is great.

Oh, thanks, Jason.

Is it, how are you, does it, is it comfortable? Well, you know, you're not, you're a very, you're, you're a mogul, but you don't seem like one. You're wearing a t-shirt and you're just talking with the us idiots. And so how are you able to match all of your dreams? All of the, yeah.

I I've never, well, just on the court side seats thing. Yeah. They're actually like, it's like a pretty bad seat. Have you ever, but they're like, if you're at a basketball game, I've. I'm always like amazed.

The courts, I think, um, like sit in front row in a movie theater.

I always say that about hockey games. People who were like, I'm right down in the glass. I'm like, great. You got the worst seats in the house. You can't see shit.

Or right between, right behind the goalie is cool. Cause we had those King seats for a couple of years.

Oh, that's cool too.

That's where you're like, how are, how is every goalie not just completely traumatized and in a mental hospital? When you see like what happens to them, their whole lives, it's just like, they're getting just things fired at them. There's all this commotion in front of them. They're falling. They're jumping up.

They are healthy. Yeah.

Not in a straitjacket.

Bill, what do you do when you're not watching sports? What's your thing? This is sort of a, a Jason Bateman question. What, what's the thing? What's your, what's your guilty?

Well, oh, outside. Cause it's a lot of sports movies and TV. And I host this rewatchables podcast, where we do a podcast about a movie every week that people really like. And it's fun to like, try to figure out is that rewatchables worthy or not? And then, if it is, I'll watch it twice.

But, but is there something else that you do that's outside of that or no?

You mean just like my personal stuff?

Yeah. Your personal. Yeah.

I have two kids, um, a lot of kids sports. Both of my kids are athletes.

What do they play?

My son is football and lacrosse. My daughter is playing soccer actually in college right now. So, um, so I had a lot of, there's a lot of sports, parents stuff that kind of took over and then, you know, still playing tennis and still a lot of like stuff with the friends. You know, you find your little friend group as you get older and you do the dinners and then somebody gets mad at somebody and you talk about it the next day. It's great.

Well, we can't believe we had you longer than an hour. You're the man. Thank you for doing this again.

I can't wait for you guys not to run this.

Yeah. We promise to air this one promise.

Go socks.

We won't be in the world series. Don't worry.

I'll give you the red socks.

Celtics. Yeah.

And by the way, guys, it's, uh, it was cool to be on the test show and then watch how the podcast blossomed. I remember telling Bateman, I was like, do you want it? You guys want to do this at Spotify? I was like, no, I think we're going to hold on to this. We kind of like, just kind of being in control of it.

Well, we'll see.

But we're certainly having, we're in the bed, on our bed, on ourselves.

Thank you for making the bed that we're, uh, we're enjoying.

Uh, good to see everybody. Thank you.

You too, pal. Thanks, Bill. See you, man. Bye, buddy.

Yeah, it was so long ago. I didn't remember anything we talked about, so I'm glad.

It was, it was three. It was well over three years ago that we first had him on. It was one of our first shows and we asked him about the podcast business. Cause. we, we know, if you can imagine, that we've been first, right?

That was the first episode.

That was first. But, uh, and then we got very topical at the time. And so, yeah, it just didn't work. And I'm Jason's kudos to you for bringing him back. Cause he's such an infinitely interesting guy.

I could talk forever about everything.

I really admire that has been able to just crush it in multiple areas. And, um, I know.

How about we, you just take a topic up and he fucking knows about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to get into an argument with him. He'll kill you. Facts.

Sean, Sean, how is the buy work coming?

Well, I can't really do it, because I know you've been working on it for probably 40.

minutes.

You're wearing, oh, you're not wearing your regular glasses. You're wearing your Oh,

let's get this from our net.

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