ESPN's Kevin Clark on Sorsby Scandal, Bears Relocating, & More

All right.

Joining me now, always one of my favorites when he comes on the pod.

Wanted to do a little potpourri.

Can't think of anyone better than Kevin Clark from ESPN and this is Football.

Kevin, how's it going?

Can't think of anybody better.

I think there's some people better.

Well, here's what caught my attention.

Um, well, and also full disclosure, like the scheduling of the NBA Finals really screwed me.

So, you know, this might have been like a Mike Breen, Tim Legler, Richard Jefferson day, but, You know, with the pod coming out tomorrow, anything today would be useless.

So I had a, I had a pivot.

You know how it goes in the podcast business.

This is football.

Have you ever had anything like that where like you tape a pod and then it's either like outdated or news blows it away or like what have you had?

So the big one, and this got blown over really quickly, but I had Devonte Adams the day booked the day after he shoved that photographer.

Do you remember that?

And it was a huge brouhaha.

It was one of these things, Jimmy, where like, I don't think they got in touch.

I think we all just decided not to do it because it was the biggest story in America.

And he's selling, you know, whatever detergent it is to plug, and everybody's just kind of like, I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna wait on, on Devonte Adams right now because remember, it looked worse than it was and there were thoughts they were gonna charge him and all that stuff.

So sometimes it's about you.

your week on getting Devonte Adams and he shoves a photographer.

It happens.

So you had him booked the day after, day after, like the morning after.

So that wasn't gonna work.

Uh, I'm trying to think, you know, I mean, the big thing when you're a writer is the stories that don't get published because it got blown up.

So like a good example for me is I thought I crushed the Seahawks win the Super Bowl gamer that I wrote .

In the 4 minutes before the Malcolm Butler interception, because remember, it looks like it was obvious, so you're starting to write, I'm at the Wall Street Journal, I'm on deadline, and I'm just cranking out paragraphs.

And like, you know, I think we'll talk about the Knicks beat here.

There was a really funny line I once heard, uh, that I heard from the Knicks beat, but they said it originated with Fred Kerber, uh, at the, the Nets beat, and nobody ever really uses it.

But if you're ever in a pickle because you wrote a story, And then the reverse happens because of a big comeback or whatever.

The joke is, keep your story the exact same and just end every paragraph with, or so it seemed.

Which I always.

It's a good tip.

It's a good tip.

You know, it's funny.

I remember becoming a really big fan of yours with your writing at the Wall Street Journal.

And now, I would, you tell me if I'm wrong, it would be fair to say you're known for this as football.

How do you feel about, how do, how do you feel about that transition?

Yeah, um, so first of all, I, I would anticipate me doing a little bit more writing, um, on the ESPN side in the next couple of months, um, just because I like doing it, and it also makes you a sharper pundit.

It makes you a sharper when you're on TV or radio or podcast that you're going through all this stuff and you're doing the the thoroughness.

And even if you say, hey, I'm doing all this research on Aaron Rodgers this year and the Steelers, you're doing it.

To talk about it for 30 seconds, that research.

You're not doing it to talk about, to, to write about 4000 words.

It's a completely different level of, of, of rigor.

So, I'll put it that way.

Um.

And so it'll be helpful to, to write a little bit more.

But, uh, to answer your question, how do I feel about it?

Just the industry that, that, that's just the industry is how many, not, not to be, um, Reductive, and I'm sure there are, there are counterexamples I'm not thinking of, but how many writing stars have emerged in the last few years?

It hasn't been very many.

Um, how many podcast stars have emerged in the last few years?

A lot.

How many YouTube?

How many YouTube stars have emerged?

A lot.

How many creatives who do 5 or 6 different things on different attitudes?

A lot.

And so it's everything.

And, and you have to, that's the one thing that I tell.

Journalists, when they ask me for advice when they're young, is like, don't be married to a medium and be prepared to have to do a million things.

By the way, if you do 7 things, one of them might pop, but guess what?

That's a hell of a lot better than none of them popping or saying, I'm gonna be committed to this one avenue and that doesn't end up working.

I mean, for God's sakes, uh, Dave Hyde, who was one of my, uh, old mentors, I don't know if you saw this, he's, he's the guy.

He's the guy in South Florida.

Everybody reads his columns after a Dolphins game.

Everybody reads his column after a Hurricanes game.

Everybody after a Marlins trade reads him, and the Sun Sentinel laid him off.

And, you know, he wrote in his layoff thing that he's a, he's a couple of weeks from 65, he got a great run.

I get that, but if you're laying off the guy in the market, uh, writing can be a really tough road, man.

Oh yeah, and I You, you don't wanna see it, and you hate to say it, but I mean, I, I get where companies are coming from.

If they're looking, uh, here's what I don't understand about it.

Nobody under 30 will read a column.

That's just a fact.

You can, you can spin it any way you want.

And then you may , and that number may even be 40, but I'll be, I'll say 30.

I don't know how you fix that.

It's only going to get worse.

It's not going to get better.

And What's even crazy about it too is I even see it now where Used to think.

You know, 60 year olds, 65, 70, 75, they're not scrolling.

No, those people are scrolling now too.

And those people are getting captivated by reels and all that, you know, I, I mean, I don't know, so I can't blame.

Companies for sort of evolving.

I wish, I just , I wish there was a way we could sell the column better.

Like that person, David Hyde, should not be laid off.

But there's gotta be a, but how do you sell his column now?

Like that's, so I, I, I, I've thought about this.

Um, you know, the people who've had success with it, Jimmy, are the college football people, where if you're in a college football market.

And you're a Georgia fan, not only are you paying for the content that they give, which is usually proprietary recruiting information and analysis, but also those, those content creators, they're using the written word as the anchor of the site, but not the end of the site.

And, and newspapers have started to get this, but maybe it's a little bit too, too late in that regard for some, for some of them at the, at the very least.

But in college, The beat writer not only posts on the message board with the fans, which they have to pay for, but they're doing podcasts, they're doing live Q&A, they're doing the TikTok posts, they're doing everything.

They're flooding the zone.

And what you're paying for is their expertise and their proprietary information.

And if I didn't, you know, with, with Miami, I'm a big Miami Hurricane, if I didn't pay.

For, for like David Lake and Gaby Rudy and those guys, there's, there's a lot I just wouldn't know about the Miami program.

And what I think that needs to happen is, and you see this a little bit in some of these bigger these more passionate markets.

Green Bay is one of them that's done a really nice job monetizing that and saying the newspaper saying, hey, we're gonna put an extra level of things behind the paywall.

I think Pittsburgh has done it.

There's a couple of other places that have done it.

Where you're saying, if I don't get this guy's insight and info, I can't be a good fan, and for whatever reason that has been way more prevalent in college football than any other place, and part of it, nobody wants to say it, but it's real, like, you have to become a brand, you have to become a brand on the beat in the market.

And, you know, this is something, um, That actually, not to bring him into this, but Brian Curtis and I talk about this all the time, where there was this pivot in the last decade, maybe plus, um, where everybody could, could become national.

It was really hard to do that when it was newspapers, because it's really hard to get that job.

It was really hard to be the national columnist on the NFL for the New York Times and the New York Daily News or the Chicago Tribune.

Now, there's so many websites that you can just kind of become national whenever you want.

And what we're losing, Jimmy, is Being the guy in Phoenix, I'm making these cities up, Detroit, Philly, let me tell you something.

First of all, there's a lot of money in that, and there's a lot of expertise that makes the league better when that guy just wants to be the mayor of Atlanta or the mayor of Charlotte or the mayor of Tampa and doesn't say, hey, I'm gonna go for this and try to cover all 32 teams.

I think that there's a lot of value there, and I think it's starting to swing back a little bit where some of these guys saying, hey, instead of taking the 40% raise, And trying to go for it on a two-year deal for a national, uh, startup that might, that might end up going bust.

You know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna double and triple down on, on the Seattle Seahawks.

And I think there's, you know, with substack, with all of these things with podcasts, with local advertising, I, I do think that I've, I've heard people say this, there is a market for local advertising on these types of things that can support.

A staff.

Um, and so I think that, that's the pivot people have to make is go to where you can be an actual expert that people will pay for and, and, and make it less of a, um, exercise in trying to grow your, uh, footprint as big as possible.

Well, that's what I wanted to mention earlier and then I lost my train of thought is that, um, You know, no one under 30 or 40 is reading columns.

They're all about scrolling.

They're all about reels.

They're all about TikTok.

But then, like you said, in terms of advertising and, and local getting local and going local and go and narrowing your beat.

The people who have the money to spend are older.

The person who's 60 can subscribe to 5 different publications.

He's more, would be more prone to that than someone who's 28.

So I understand why everyone pays attention to the younger people and maybe they don't care about the older audience as much, but the older audience is the one with the money.

So it's very confusing to me sometimes and it's the generation.

That is used to paying for content.

My generation grew up on the internet.

We, we may have been AOL dial-up, but man, I was reading page two, and I was reading all these, I was reading out of town newspapers and it was for free.

And if I wasn't a journalist, I probably wouldn't pay for a lot of places, man.

Right, right.

It, uh, it's crazy time in this business.

You know, it's funny you mentioned the college football beat being successful at this, and that will allow me to transition because at the top when I said I wanted to, I was looking forward to speaking to you, you, you, you came out very strong on social media about the, about the, uh, Soarsby situation, which is crazy.

Um, A couple of things there.

The one thing we can get into how ridiculous it is that he has a two-game suspension after betting on his own team, but the one thing maybe you can explain to me because you're much more in the college football world than I am, is then these schools, I think it was Georgia and maybe another one now, they're refusing to play Texas Tech.

How, why is Texas Tech in trouble here?

I mean, he, he was gambling on his own volition.

And now Georgia is gonna say, oh, we're not playing Texas Tech because a judge.

Said, oh, everything's fine.

It's not a big deal.

Two-game suspension.

That's a Texas Tech.

I mean, I guess is the argument, oh, we want Texas Tech to suspend the kid.

No school would do that.

That's just, yeah, no, but that, that is, that is the argument.

I'll tell you that right now that's, that's the argument.

It is essentially bullshit.

So, so, so here, here's what happened.

I mean, is, is the NCAA ruled him ineligible.

Texas Tech appealed that.

The NCAA ruled him ineligible again, which is just what they do.

Um, and then it goes to a court saying that, that he gets relief because it would harm him.

If he wasn't able to be a part of the team, which was their, which was their argument, which I don't necessarily buy, Jimmy, because you could make that argument against any sports consequence in the history of the world.

Any suspension or banishment or punishment, you could say, hey, it harms me if I'm not a, a, a part of this team.

I would lose money, I would lose opportunities.

Yeah, that's what happens when you gamble.

Um.

I think that what Georgia and Nebraska are doing, and then I also think that that's gonna sounds like it's gonna extend, at least the threat will extend to the Big 10 and the SEC at large .

And the ACC came out against it, but I haven't heard about a call or anything, is to put pressure on Texas Tech to essentially Um, respect the NCAA's initial ruling, which is he's ineligible.

And I don't know what you do in that spot if you're Texas Tech.

I don't know.

I, I cause, by the way, it's not a football thing because the, the, the, the college football teams, they play 9 conference games now.

They're not gonna schedule Texas Tech out of conference in the Big 10 and the AC.

It's not gonna happen.

What the pressure would be on is Illinois is playing Texas Tech in basketball later this year, right?

Uh, does Illinois say we're pulling out?

Uh, Texas Tech is supposed to be in the playoffs.

er a college basketball tournament later this year.

Does every team that's been the Big 10, the SEC say, you're not allowed, we're not playing you or we're, we're pulling out of Texas Tech is there.

Softball is a big deal.

Baseball is a big deal in the South, um, women's basketball.

It would be that, it would be trying to choke out the entire athletic department to, to basically force the hand of Texas Tech.

I think that the NCAA should just try to get a ruling as quickly as possible, and I think that Brandon Sosby should go to the supplemental draft and save everybody a headache.

That's, that's my feeling on it.

I don't know if a boycott is necessarily gonna work.

There's a couple of things that have really Upset me about this.

Number one, it's, it's, it's one of the dumbest things, just process-wise.

I can't believe we've gotten this dumb, where if you bet on your own team, if I, if I, if I got caught like this, and I, shamelessness is a skill, Jimmy, you know this, shamelessness is a skill.

Unfortunately, I have some modicum of shame.

And so if I got caught, I'd say, uh, all right, I'll take my medicine.

I'll see you.

What I would not do is come up with a million excuses, including I wanted to feel connected to my team.

Well, you're practicing every day, so hopefully, you do feel connected to the team if you're not playing in it, OK?

So that's, that's one way to feel connected to it.

But, uh, uh, I, I wouldn't come up all these excuses.

Uh, I wouldn't try to file a lawsuit in Texas.

Everyone keeps saying, well, of course, it's gonna be in Texas.

The, the, the bets were, were in Ohio and in Indiana.

So I, I don't know, it doesn't have to be in Texas, I promise you that.

But essentially venue shopping.

They got a, a, a lawyer, or excuse me, a judge.

who was retired and, and was not a Texas Tech graduate, but now if it gets appealed to the 7th Circuit in, um, in Texas, all four of those judges who would hear the appeal are from Texas Tech.

Um, but what makes me uneasy, Jimmy, is you're, we're getting to a pathway where All these kids can gamble, and then if they get caught, they just run to the courts.

And the only thing stopping that at this point, if Texas Tech plays him for the last 10 games of the season, the only thing stopping that would be a congressional intervention that is simply not going to happen.

And now you're seeing people, people, the lawmakers who come up with this bill saying, oh, of course, the Brendan Soarsby thing wouldn't happen if, uh, if, if this, if this antitrust thing went through.

Well, first of all, the antitrust thing is not going through.

And second of all, The guy who's the biggest proponent of this bill is the billionaire booster from Texas Tech.

And there are two things that he thinks that this bill will solve that would render Brennan Soarsby to not be on the team.

Number 1 is you can't gamble.

That's it, that's in section 113 of the bill is you can't gamble and, and they can make a ruling that you're ineligible.

Number 2 is, you can only transfer once.

That's, that's Cody Campbell's big thing.

You can only transfer once.

Well, guess what?

Brandon Sosby is on his 3rd team.

So, basically, Texas Tech, which is trying to push this congressional bill, is going to play a quarterback that is essentially everything this, this congressional bill is trying to, to, to outlaw.

And so the hypocrisy and the shamelessness to me is just baffling.

And I, I just don't, and by the way, there's all these people, I've never seen.

People, maybe, maybe you've seen it, I'm maybe I'm, I'm missing a story.

I've never seen people with stronger opinions who don't, haven't read anything about the story, haven't read anything about the story.

Well, there are always people saying, oh, well, he, he was, you know, what's wrong with betting on a team to win?

Well, he bet on unders of his quarterback, of, of the starting quarterback.

He bet on under totals.

So, which is to me is a form of betting on losing.

And then the other part is all these Texas.

Tech fans saying, oh, you're just scared of Texas Tech.

Brother, no one, no one is thinking about Texas Tech any more than anybody else in that, in that conference.

OK.

That, that, that the, the, the hypocrisy and the shamelessness to me really bothers me because college football, It is lawless, but it ain't this lawless.

Well, see, that's where maybe we would disagree because my issue is, OK, he bet on his own team.

He should be suspended indefinitely, permanently for the, whatever you want to say.

I have zero issue with that.

But when these other teams are gonna get involved, like Georgia and Nebraska.

I guarantee you.

Their house is as dirty as that.

The sport itself is filthy.

It is a filthy sport.

And I understand there's the integrity of the game and you can't have people betting on their own team.

I get all that.

And that's a major issue.

You cannot have it.

But I also find it repulsive when a coach leaves in, in, in the middle of the season to go coach somewhere else.

And then there's a bowl game or whatever.

I mean, think about, Last year you had, when Lane Kiffin, and they were bringing coaches back to coach games, even though, It's all filthy.

So, I don't wanna hear, like, again, if your take is the judge is ridiculous, I couldn't agree more.

If your take is he shouldn't play, I couldn't agree more.

The lawlessness is 100% like you cannot be suspended for two games if you bet on your own team.

But, You can't tell me that the entire sport isn't filthy across the, I mean, the only thing that might be filthier is college basketball.

I mean, they are, I mean, college basketball, the, the season ends and the next day you see these stories.

Oh, there's 5000 kids in the portal.

The whole thing is fucked up from top to bottom across the board.

I, I, I was, I'll tell you a college basketball story.

I was at a, a sporting event a couple of years ago and I ran into a guy who knew a basketball coach, a college basketball coach, active college basketball coach at a mid-major.

And He had been an assistant in a bigger program, and I didn't know this guy at all, and they're just talking and BSing and they brought up the name of a really big star, and he said, oh, yeah, his, his agent had actually reached out at the end of non-conference two years ago, and, and we got, they got him in a package with blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, oh, wait, wait , wait, wait, this was.

Done 18 months before the kids showed up, like, they're using these other schools like JCOs.

They're just like, hey, hey, you go finish your year there, and then we'll talk in 6 months and like whatever.

And it's all, there's, there's an element, a little bit of professional wrestling, frankly, but then the other element I would say.

Is that, and, and this is, so players have been getting paid since time immemorial.

Like with the players have been getting paid in college basketball and college football since those sports started to exist.

I think that what The fans have shown not to like is seeing it so public, because I think that every The team that had a dynasty over the past 50 years, probably knew there was some untoward stuff going on, if you look beneath the hood.

But the number one thing they wanted to think was that, oh, you know what, just like me.

You know, the quarterback at, at, at Sunshine U is, is, is, uh, a Big State U.

He loves the, the lake on campus just like me.

He loves the bar I go to.

He loves the way the stadium looks at sunset.

No, no, it has never been like that.

It has never been like that.

But you used to be able to lie to yourself about that.

Now you can't.

Now we know, hey, this guy, Soursby, $5 million.

So it is harder for a Texas Tech fan, or, and this is not unique to Texas Tech, it's harder for a Texas Tech fan to say, Brandon Soarsby is here because just like me, he always dreamed of being a Red Raider.

It, uh, NIL and, and all of that stuff in the portal has removed.

A level of delusion that fans were able to have about the sport.

And, and I think that that, uh, being at the forefront now is why you're seeing, especially from smaller schools, such a rejection against it.

And I also think that even with the cap stuff, If you're saying, oh, hey, you're only gonna be able to make $21.

8 million for the, for every athlete in the thing, I think Congress and the ADs and the coaches know teams are gonna find a way around that, but it's not going to be as public.

And I think that's kind of what they're after is going back to, hey, we might give this guy an extra million dollars, but you're not gonna hear about it.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, and again, I don't wanna come across like I'm defending him because there's no defense.

There's no defense .

Now, uh, where I would maybe, Where we would part path, where we'd maybe go on different paths is you, you spoke there heavily about sort of the fans' reaction to this.

I, I'm not interested.

Sports fans are deranged and college football fans are on another level of derangement.

I can't take anything any college football fan says seriously because they're, like you said, you have Texas Tech.

People saying you're scared of Texas Tech.

So there's a, they're deluded, they're deranged.

My issue again, uh, and then we'll move on because it's , is the Georgias, the Nebraska, the conferences going after Texas Tech.

That is my, I mean, what Lane Kiffin to me did last year is just as bad for the sport as what Soarsby did.

So there's a lot of problems in that sport.

Again, it's, it's, and I've always said this, like, My thing with college football is like I, I wanna be there Saturday at noon till Saturday at midnight and the other stuff I can't get worked up about because it's filthy across the board.

It's like boxing.

It's like boxing.

Everything in boxing is treated like you're going out of business sale and to The point that everything, the only thing that you can really get fired up on is when two guys are walking to the ring, because everything else might fall apart or might be just a money grab or whatever.

But I do want to say one quick thing on the Lane Kiffin.

I got a call the day before the national championship game from, from someone in the NFL.

And he said, hey, do you notice anything about the two teams that are playing, uh, on the national championship game, Indiana and Miami?

And I said, you know, I said a couple things I noticed, and they said, The only teams.

They're bringing back their coaches for next year.

And we don't, again, talk about the hidden stuff that we want to keep under, under wraps, right?

Lane Kiffin is leaving and he's doing portal stuff and the coaches are flying back and forth.

Oregon, both coordinators are leaving.

Texas A&M, both coordinators are leaving and you start to look at it, uh, I don't know, I actually don't know about Alabama, um, but, uh, but like you look at some of these teams that had big losses.

And you start to go, hey, did they lose because they were overmatched, or did they lose because their coaches had 1.5 ft out the door?

Oh, excellent.

Yep, couldn't agree more.

It's interesting you mentioned pro wrestling there.

So I guess you have a thing now where you look like Dan Hausen.

I, I had never seen it.

I'd never seen it.

Uh, and how could you not see it?

He's on your network 24/7.

No, no, I know who Danhausen is.

Uh, I, he had a, there was a great New York Times profile of him a few years ago.

I've seen him a million times.

Um, AEW.

I know Tony Conwell, uh, and then the WWE, great stuff.

At no point was it like, that guy looks like me.

And then Stanford Steve in a meeting thought it was me, I guess, at an SVP meeting.

And now Scott Van Pelt says it on air, and now everybody's like, oh, how could you not see this?

And I'm like, well, he's wearing, he's wearing demon makeup.

So I haven't really studied the contours of his face, but I, I can see it now.

I, so, I didn't know this was a thing and then I saw the Stanford Steve thing and then I said, and then someone put a side by side.

I'm like, oh, there, there's something there.

There is something there.

Yeah, I know.

It's, uh, it's the nose and the, the skinny white guy part.

I, I feel like Dan Han's become like ESPN's number 3 person besides after McAfee and Stephen A.

I mean, they got him on every, every freaking show every day.

It's unbelievable.

He's got juice, man.

He's got juice with ESPN.

That's for sure.

Has nothing to do with the partnership, I'm sure.

Um, well, I, I, I, so, so nothing's in the works for you and Dan Han to do something together.

Uh, and it has not, that has not come up yet.

I do.

I have a friend at the WWE.

Uh, who knows, I'm not like watching every single week, and he just said, just so you know, this is a compliment for both of you.

And I said, that's great, great.

We both, we both, we're both pulling off the look well.

He is definitely in the wrestling lingo over, so it is a good thing.

Um.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where is your World Cup fever at?

It's pretty low.

Um, really, I thought you would.

No, no, I, I, I just, I can't stomach it.

I can't stomach the scams, um.

I went to USA '94 when I was a very young kid in Orlando.

I saw the Dutch play twice.

Um, one of the best, so the Irish also were in Orlando, um, and One of the best memories maybe I've ever had was I was 6 or 76, and my dad snuck me into Mulvaney's pub in downtown Orlando when the Irish fans and I found out players were just absolutely boozing after a, uh, after a win of a game I didn't go to, but it was the first time you're exposed to like singing, you know, you don't get that at Orlando Magic games or Florida State or Florida or Miami games.

You don't get any of that stuff.

And so, um, I went in there for 15 seconds before they told us we had to leave because I was 6, but it was just an unbelievable environment.

And so I've loved soccer.

I've gone over to Europe to see a bunch of games.

Um, you know, I had my son enrolled in soccer, he was into it.

He's 3.

and I really wanted to take him to a game, whether that was in New York, whether that was in Boston, whether that was in Philly.

And number one, the cost is ridiculous.

And I, I think the, the disconnect, the reason there's gonna be so many empty seats or they're gonna have to pay for the house.

Is They're pricing it as if it was an American event that we can't live without.

So, Uh, Indiana, Miami had the highest ticket prices in the history of college football because Miami fans hadn't been there in 24 years.

The game was in Miami, and it's Indiana fans saying, I don't know if this is gonna happen again, but we've never seen it.

OK.

So all of a sudden tickets are going for $6000 7000 dollars.

The Super Bowl.

Everybody who wants to be there, there's gonna be a premium.

The Knicks right now, you're talking about, it was $5000 right before, right before tip, but it was $11,000 right after the, the game to win.

And the problem is you're pricing USA Paraguay at that level, at $2000 3000 dollars.

I love the American soccer team.

I can live without going to the USA Paraguay game.

I'm good.

And then what I thought was gonna happen , like Scotland and Haiti are playing in Boston.

Next week or the week after, and I circled that game.

Hey, you know, kind of like what I was talking with the Irish with my dad taking me.

Hey, what if I, we have Scotland fans all riled up, let's just go see him.

I'll take my son.

He's into that stuff.

He's, you know, he loves, loves that kind of fan culture and tickets are $700.

Get in price is $700.

And, and then even if I was gifted seats or it went down to $200 or whatever.

It's impossible to get there.

There, there's no parking.

There's no, there's no parking at MetLife Stadium, Jimmy.

So what, what, what am I supposed, I live in Westchester County, so I'm gonna take the train down with a 3 year old, and, and listen, this is not, no one should be tailoring things for 3-year-olds.

I'm just saying why it's such a, no, but I didn't know, but this is what it's, this is what it's about .

It's about the mom and dad and their kid who want to go to a game and can't.

That's it, so, yeah, so go ahead.

I, I know, and so.

I wanted to go to this really badly, but if people keep screaming at you that this is gonna be a scam, if and which is FIFA's been doing.

Every day for a year now.

At some point, you just say, I'm not a mark in wrestling terms.

Um, I'm just not.

And so, yeah.

So explain something to me as someone who, like, I wouldn't go because I'm not interested, but so I, but I am fascinated by this scenario of MetLife, which is a dump, by the way, not having parking.

What are you supposed to do exactly?

Like what do they expect you to do?

You and your three year old want to go to the game.

What do they expect you to do?

Yeah, so, uh, it's a bus system from Port Authority, I think.

So you, so you would have to take a train from your house to Port Authority.

Yeah, there's Port Authority buses, and then there's, uh, NJT, and the initial NJT price is 150.

And now they got some gambling, some sports books sponsoring it.

So now I think it's down to 100.

I don't quote me on that.

I don't know if it's gone down any further, but it's not, it's not 12 bucks like NJT normally is.

And so, It's, it's that, yeah, and so, and, and part of it is that, so the, the way that the FIFA signed the agreements is they used to do it with the countries and now they do it with every single host city.

So the host city is on the hook for security costs and, and payment on X, Y, Z.

So the reason that the public transportation is so expensive is because they basically have to raise the revenue from that.

Instead of, um, you know, using taxpayer money or whatever it is, like New Jersey doesn't want to put taxpayers on the hook, so they have to get charge the people without any subsidies whatsoever, which is over $100.

So you're supposed to do that.

All right, so take a train from Westchester to Port Authority, which is not a place you want to be with a 3 year old.

Then take New Jersey Transit for $100.

Either a bus, well, the I think the bus is cheaper, or you take the train.

OK, so now help me out with this.

So I, I, I, I, people will hear this later, but, um, so I found out Friday at 9 o'clock is the USA game.

Is that at MetLife?

That's in Los Angeles.

000, OK, because I was gonna say, what are people supposed to do at midnight at MetLife when that game ends?

There are 8:00 p.m. games there though.

OK, so then it's 11 o'clock and then what, a bus to the Port Port Authority, something like that.

Yeah, probably buses and they'll probably do have different levels of Manhattan or something.

It's not gonna be easy to get to.

Again, they, they're acting like this is an event that you and I cannot live without, and that is simply not.

The case from my perspective.

And what's the logic of no parking at MetLife security perimeter similar to the Super Bowl, but again, the Super Bowl.

I don't know.

Wow, this is as bad as it gets.

Um.

All right, let's, let's talk a little football even though it's the middle of June because there's, you know.

Um We can't live in a world where the Chicago Bears are playing in Indiana.

I mean, that just can't happen.

What are we doing?

Is it, is nothing sacred?

So, you know what I got pushback on the other day?

So I said, and you'll be equipped to, um, to handle this one.

I said that I felt like any team that doesn't play near its city center is disconnected from the city in a meaningful way.

So, Maybe I'm totally wrong about this, but unless the Patriots are winning the Super Bowl every single year with Tom Brady, I think in Boston.

It's still a Red Sox town, it's still a Celtics town, you know, I don't, the Bruins have a lot to do with the heartbeat of that city, but I don't, I don't think they're certainly not above the Patriots.

Um, but it's really hard to go to a Patriots game, really, really hard, and a lot of people don't go, and a lot of people are not more than anything, a lot of people on Sunday mornings are not wrapped up in it.

You know, you go to a game in Seattle.

And you walk through any part of the city, and it's 10:00 a.m. and people are, uh, bars are overflowing, brunch spots are overflowing, everybody's wearing a jersey, you feel it.

I never get that feeling in Manhattan when the Giants are playing.

I never get that unless you're right around Penn Station.

I never get that feeling when in the Jets.

Well, I agree from the standpoint on, on game day.

I think if the Jets or Giants are playing well, I think there's good buzz in this city.

But I, but on game day, there's nothing in Manhattan on, it's not anything like the, the Knicks from my perspective, anything like, or the Yankees or the Mets.

I don't think I agree with that.

When, when there's a good Yankees, Mets, or Knicks team.

The buzz in the city is extremely different than the Jets and the Giants from my perspective.

Now, I don't know what it's like in Jersey.

I don't live in Jersey.

I don't know what that's like, but, um, it just, I've lived in Manhattan, I've lived in Brooklyn, and I, I lived in Manhattan when the Giants were really, really, really good, and, um, did not live in Manhattan when the Jets were really good because I'm not.

80, but, um, the, uh, sorry guys, um, but I, I, I just never, you know, the Monday after the Super Bowl, yeah, you'll see guys with, with Giants hats on their suits or whatever, but it's, it's not the same.

And, and so, anyway, long story short, is that I just feel like there's a a lack of energy there, and I feel like every team.

Probably in some way regrets it, right?

Like, even, even the Giants, like, it's not like they built like a big complex out there like the Patriots did or like the, like the Bears are going to do.

It's just it's just kind of there.

The MetLife is kind of there.

Um, and then there's the American dream thing, which is kind of disconnected from it.

And so, I, I, I think that the Bears would regret this.

And, and I also thinky Brinner Lacker on my show yesterday, and he was just like, he just wants him to play at Soldier Field.

Like if you just polled everybody, and I guess there's issues, obviously, they don't own, the Bears don't own Soldier Field and they want that revenue.

What I don't understand is why can't, If the city of Chicago is so desperate to keep them, and the Bears would presumably like to stay, why can't there be a deal where the Bears just buy the stadium?

Am I missing?

Am I just stupid?

Like, I just don't understand why.

And then, and then they can develop the land around it or whatever.

I am I , well, does it have suites?

Does it have all the, you know, they just renovated in 2002.

Like that, that's, that's my problem.

They played in, they played in Champaign, Illinois in 2002 at, at, at the Ilia Stadium because they were renovating Soldier Field.

So if you're saying it needs another renovation, fine.

But I just don't understand why you've got this crown jewel, and you've got this Crown Jewel franchise.

And I'm with you.

I don't want to see them go to Indiana, but I also don't even want to go see them in the northern suburbs.

Um, I want to see them play at the stadium.

We're, we're losing crown jewel event spaces in sports because everything is going and, and, you know, Soi Stadium and Jerry World and all those places are absolute marvels.

I'm glad they exist.

But, You're losing something.

You know, those old barns in hockey, you know, the basketball arenas where the people were just on top of you.

We're losing something in sports.

And I think that, um, Losing places like Soldier Field.

I mean, it's almost, and, and, and people say all the time, even though it's across the street, new Yankee Stadium has nothing on old Yankee Stadium.

The New Yankee Stadium is awful.

Don't get me started.

It's not a, it's a museum.

It's not a stadium.

There's no charm.

Old Yankee Stadium, just go back.

I mean, I, you know, my, my algorithm is a lot of 90, late 90s, early 2000 Yankees and just those clips from the 1995 playoffs.

I mean, you can't even compare.

and, and on top of the new Yankee Stadium just having no charm and being so, um, Sterile.

On top of it, there's just such a bad taste in my mouth from when they first opened it, and you had the Yankee brain trust in front office saying, yeah, well, we built a moat to keep the riffraff away from our high price, and they're not even lying about it.

No, they, they said it.

They opened, I remember, yeah, I remember.

Tell me if you could, I mean, it's June 10th, so we're, we've got a ways, a little ways to go before football, but if you could book anyone.

Possible for this is football.

Who would you want to book right now?

Never had Brady, and I think it'd be amazing.

That's the one I want too, but, um, never had Brady.

Never.

I've never had Mahomes, although that doesn't.

That's a distinction that difference for me cause I've gotten him in print a lot, and so I probably could get him for this if I went to Kansas City, so we'll we'll work on that.

Um, Burrow, same deal with Burrow, Burrow on camera would be terrific.

I love Joe Burrow, but Brady for me only because I wrote so much about him as a writer, and I didn't get that access because I came in, so, just so everybody knows, like, with these icons, if you don't get in early, you're really not gonna get in, right?

Like Belichick always gave time to guys like Dan Pompeii.

I remember he would always give time to like Leslie Visser, because we're talking about people who We're talking to him when he was a Giants assistant, and then he becomes the icon and here comes 25-year-old Kevin Clark and you just get the stiff arm, which by the way, I don't blame you .

Brady, same thing.

I didn't start covering football until Brady was 36 years old, 37 years old.

He's not gonna all of a sudden strike up an end of career bromance with me, not gonna happen.

So I was writing all of these pieces without his involvement.

And I just feel like there's so much I'd love to, we're talking about one of the greatest winners in the history of the sport, right?

And more than anything, You know, like, you know, a lot of these guys who, uh, brand themselves as winners.

It, you know, it's circumstantial, right?

Like , like, like Derek Jeter, right, is always talking about winning and all that stuff, and he's great at it, he's a great talker, but you're never like listening, maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but like I'm never listening to Jeter.

I'm like, whoa, this is like actionable, incredible.

Insight into the leading and how to win, right?

And For Brady, it always seems like he's always thinking about the next insight in a way that is really special to me.

And I've never not, now you always get some cliches from any athlete, but I've never come away from a Brady interview without learning something.

And I think that that he's just a thoughtful guy, you know, like he he'll he'll come up with stuff.

This is my test of a good interview.

What does he give you answers?

Does the athlete give you answers that you would never thought of in a million years, in a million years.

And like, I'll, I'll give you an example of somebody who's kind of like that.

I, I, I did a little brief just on the side hockey.

In 20, when I first started the journal, it's like 2011, 2012, and I remember talking to Steve Eiserman, and it was for a stupid story about Uh, About home ice advantage in hockey had dissipated.

And I said, hey, Stevie, I'm Stevie Y, I'm doing this story.

Any thoughts on this?

And he's like, sit down.

And you could tell he'd been thinking about it for 30 years, and he's like talking about how in the 90s and the 80s, there weren't as many.

Regulations on the rinks.

And so you'd go into old Boston Garden, and they'd have like chunks of the ice missing in the corner and you're talking, hey, how does this, this board in the right, on the right side of where the goaltender is, is just completely dead.

Nothing will bounce off of it , right?

And so we, we know.

All of the little holes and ice chunks are missing, and all the little uh deformities of this rank, and we're going to use that to our advantage that goes away.

But it's like you get these guys who are constantly thinking about the sport, and then they want to tell you, like that.

That's when you strike gold.

Yeah.

The Brady thing, uh, my, uh, you know, he's done some interviews, you know, maybe in the last year, year and a half, and I, I don't know.

I, my issue is really with the interviewers.

I feel like they, they ask the same generic questions and it's like, can we go down a different road with Tom?

But I don't know.

Maybe that's, maybe you'll get him and then I'll, I know you'll ask good questions because that's one of the good things about this is football is you always seem to go in a different area than, You just figure out what guys wanna talk about.

That's the easiest part.

It's like if I went through every Brady interview, there's probably stuff he's dying to talk about that nobody's ever that you can hear in the interviews where he's like trying to bring something up and then you go from there.

All right, well, I appreciate you coming on and, um.

I'm, I'm still trying to get over that, that you don't have World Cup fever.

I thought for sure you were gonna say yes, but everything you say is true.

I mean, the pricing, you know, once you become a dad, you're kind of like, and you and I are spoiled.

We've gone to championship events.

I've gone to basically every big event.

There is through my job.

So I , I'm good.

I don't need to necessarily do it.

Maybe I'm just jaded and I'm, I'm the wrong market research for this.

All I'm thinking about is how do I get my kid to have the most amount of fun possible, right?

We just went to the University of Miami spring game.

He met all the players, all that stuff.

That wasn't a special treat because I'm a media member.

That was just because that's what you get to do.

Met all the players, all that stuff.

Like that's what I'm at, I'm after experiences more than.

Bucket list Instagram things and that's why I don't have the fever.

I get it.

I appreciate you coming on and, uh, enjoy the rest of the NBA Finals.

I, I'm in a tough spot.

Like I said, we're taping on Wednesday.

The game's Wednesday night.

The podcast comes out on Thursday, so it's hard to do a lot of Knicks stuff.

You could do the Tom Brokaw SNL thing.

Just, just we could just pre-tape for a bunch of different scenarios.

That was, I, I, I always think of, um.

It was Borat with Sam Donaldson.

He said, How come you don't print the news the day before so we know what's gonna happen?

So it's sort of the, sort of where we are.

Kevin Clark, ESPN.

This is football.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, buddy.

All right, take care.