LeBron ESCAPING LA?, Shane Gillis Unleashed, F1 Movie Marketing, & USA Men’s Soccer Rising

Is LeBron James DONE with the Lakers? Rich Paul’s comments spark TRADE RUMORS 👀 We debate whether LeBron is being selfish or simply protecting his legacy as the Lakers face serious roster questions ahead of the 2025 NBA season.

Plus, Ilia Topuria KOs Charles Oliveira in a stunning UFC finish! Is Topuria becoming the next big thing in MMA? We break down his post-fight comments and explore the fine line between confidence and cockiness in the fight game.

Hollywood meets high-speed: The new F1 movie is revving up interest in Formula 1, and we compare it to the success of “Drive to Survive.” Is this peak sports marketing?

20-year-old Aldrich Potgieter WINS the 2025 Rocket Mortgage Classic in a dramatic 5-hole playoff! A rare feat, joining legends like Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, and Phil Mickelson. Is golf entering a new youth era?

USMNT beats Costa Rica in PKs! Should penalty shootouts be used more often to create thrilling soccer moments? We explore a wild idea to spice up the beautiful game.

Wimbledon kicks off with a SHOCK: Benjamin Bonzi upsets top-10 player Daniil Medvedev. Huge shakeup on Day 1—how far can Bonzi go?

And Shane Gillis to host the ESPYs sports award shows might be the best combination since Ricky Gervais and the Golden Globes. Plus, are athletes specializing too early leading to more injuries?

0:00 – Breaking News Sizzle
0:56 – Is Unhappy LeBron OUT in LA?
8:00 – Is Luka A Threat To LeBron in LA?
9:11 – UFC Fighter’s Unique Perspective
10:40 – MMA Mindset is VERY Different from All other Athletes’
13:05 – The Athlete Mind: Confidence vs Cockiness
16:50 – F1 Movie: A Masterclass Marketing & Storytelling
22:50 – Golf Is Beautiful: 20-year Old PGA Tour Winner Is In Rare Air
27:30 – USMNT Beats Costa Rica in PK Thriller
30:48 – CONCACAF: Is Soccer Poised for MASSIVE Growth in USA?
34:36 – Linemen Humor Is Different – Shane Gillis To Host ESPYs
38:25 – Why You Should Play Multiple Sports
41:16 – Wimbledon: Medvedev’s Shocking Loss & Lessons from Roger Federer

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[Applause] it’s all the approach if you’re asked to take a pay cut and the organization that you’re working for is not living up to expectations got to put yourself in his shoes thing with LeBron is he’s always looking for a way out he’s always looking for just an easier path there’s something brewing here you know what guys i’ll stop defending LeBron it’s more impressive of of HotGer nowadays because a 19year-old in 1930 that’s the equivalent of a 35year-old 20-year-old today is the equivalent of like a 12year-old in 1911 yeah the 12-year-olds were working in the mines and bringing home the bacon literally Ilia Topura he’s beaten three straight legends Fulk Max Holloway and Charles Olivivera he had this really interesting quote after “Are you in a physical and mental level that you feel indestructible?” Mike did you get all that translate please lebron has selected or opted in to his $52.6 million player option for next season for the NBA for the Lakers this story has gotten kind of a lot of buzz and news surrounding it just not just because of him opting in but also some of the comments that his agent Rich Paul has made uh including this one that we see right here he said “We understand the difficulty in winning now while prepping for the future we do want to evaluate what’s best for LeBron at this stage in his life and his career so there’s a couple things that we can go into on this but first I just wanted to get your guys’ thoughts on LeBron opting into this kind of the max of his deal because some people are calling it perhaps selfish maybe you should take a play pay cut especially with you know the Lakers roster issues okay I’m a little bit torn on this situation because here’s the he did take a little bit of a pay cut last year right and sort of the argument in favor of him would be okay he did take that little bit of a pay cut and it seemed like he wasn’t totally satisfied with everything that the Lakers did building around him to make a championship level roster obviously getting Luca great however they had some glaring issues that like really came to light especially in the playoffs like defensively not having a big man which they still don’t have that they hope to get in in free agency here so I mean imagine like if you’re asked to take a pay cut and the organization that you’re working for is not living up to kind of your expectations of what they would do and how they would manage that pay cut i mean can you kind of put yourself in his shoes a little bit
yeah yeah i I can see that from a normal employee standpoint or a normal call it star of a team standpoint but LeBron James has historically had his finger on the pulse and the finger on the button of being able to kind of make pseudo GM moves or at least get his GMs to make moves that other stars and other players would not otherwise be able to do so it’s also I get the sense that it’s a lot of him kind of bucking responsibility when it fits for him and when it fits like his call it feelings um because look LeBron like for you to all of a sudden say that you don’t have like pole or sway within the organization to have maybe avoided something along the lines of the AD trade or or you know it’s not as though they didn’t contact you and talk to you about this because you’ve been in conversations with him with with the Lakers and the GM and the front office on all the other trades so I don’t know i don’t know i feel like we maybe as fans and on the outside overestimate the influence sometimes that some of these stars have within the front office like I know there’s a ton of this conversation with like Aaron Rodgers as well and who knows how much that’s actually true or not because some of the comments LeBron said when AD was traded you remember the one where he a reporter asked him “Hey what do you think about this?” and he like kind of said “Hey yo I’m not I’m going to keep my mouth shut because my boy AD said what he wanted and he was shipped out like the next week
right but I think I think that was that was convenient for him to say that at that point in time because he knew that it was the right thing to say in the moment.” There’s a difference between while Aaron Rogers is supreme in his position and in his Hall of Fame status in the NFL one that functions vastly differently in the organizations and how how players are are moved about the NBA is a player-driven league and if we’re talking about one guy outside of Michael Jordan that has the sway to literally move the league in a certain direction it is LeBron James and he’s shown it over the course of his 20 plus year career so like that’s why I say this is a vastly different scenario where yes there’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying but it’s LeBron and like for him to all of a sudden take this this route where it’s just like oh yeah I have I have no uh I have no say in the matter I don’t think is genuine
okay yeah sure but what you’re saying right there so let me take what you’re saying right there about him have like kind of everyone sort of looks to him and he’s sort of the example of who could make some of these moves or have any of this influence he does have a lot of influence throughout the league and one could argue that him taking the pay cut again sets precedent for other players to be expected to always do this so then it could kind of diminish the player power that is so prominent in the NBA and I’m not saying that’s a that’s a bad thing i mean I we we like personally that the NFL is not so playerdriven but would this not set sort of a dangerous precedent or expectations for other players around the league well I think I think the president’s already set it’s not unnatural to see an aging star or superstar having to take lower and lower pay toward the end of his career i don’t think it’s as unnatural as as it seems on the surface okay all right yeah i mean there are there are other examples for example like Derk Nitzky I think in his final couple seasons or final he made like five million bucks which is essentially like the veteran Hall of Famer minimum and he he opted to take that which is more team friendly and it is something that we really admire about like some players like Tom Brady or even Patrick Mahomes who seem to value more giving more flexibility to the team in pursuit of championships and wins other than personal financial gain so it is kind of like I don’t want to bash on him too much um but it does kind of h it does kind of handcuff the Lakers a little bit and he could open up a little bit more flexibility with them this Go ahead yeah you just you can’t have you can’t have your cake and eat it too like he can complain about roster movement and all this kind of stuff but at the end of the day he’s like he’s kind of cuffing the organization one arm behind their back in taking the more money so that they can’t make the moves that he is suggesting if that makes sense so it’s it’s just it’s kind of like he he’s able to play both sides of the fence when it fits him and that’s what’s so frustrating about this
okay I know what you mean yeah he does do a little bit of that playing both sides of the fence you know me on this show sometimes I like to be our LeBron defender it’s sort of my role yeah yeah yeah
his agent Rich Paul one of the most powerful agents at sports said “LeBron wants to compete for a championship he knows the Lakers are building for the future he understands that but he values a realistic chance at winning all so we are very appreciative of the partnership we’ve had for eight years with Jeannie Bus and Rob Pelinka and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.” Kind of sounds like they’re hinting at wanting to be traded to a championship contender now
okay the thing with LeBron is he’s always looking for a way out he’s always looking for just an easier path
you know what guys i’ll stop defending LeBron the moves that he makes and these things that come out it just sort of repositions him into the goat of basketball/ business as opposed to the goat of of basketball like it’s almost like he’s he’s trying to have a a different path where he he kind of flexes his power in
different ways off the court as well just frustrating for me because I feel like if he would just not pull all these moves and just head down and care about what’s exactly on the basketball court then we wouldn’t be having these conversations and we would be probably guys in our our generation would be much more apt to consider him the goat goat
yeah I get the sense that he sees Luca coming in just entering the prime of his NBA career and getting to the Lakers which is the cream of the crop outside of the Boston Celtics like I get the sense that he’s looking at this and he sees the end of the tunnel on his career and he’s a he’s getting a little skittish here it’s kind of like I don’t know if you watched Mountain Head uh the HBO movie
yeah it’s kind of when Steve Carell’s character got uh you know leaprogged in terms of you know uh
the wealth wealth and everything like that i get the sense that there’s something brewing here like why does LeBron continue to do this there always seems to be some uh some other reason that generates a lot of these talking points and stories
that’s a great that is a uh great comparison right there with that with that movie also side note that movie very very interesting concept in the first hour really unraveled and got way too silly okay and this is my this is me coming from a guy I went to film school Scott oh so did you we know what a good story is
yeah all right LeBron lebron LeBron okay let’s pivot to a sport that we actually don’t talk about too much and that’s actually UFC we’ve talked a little bit about it uh in some of our conversations about what sport is kind of the most mental but we don’t talk about so much on the show but Ilia Topuria knocked out Charles Olivivera i’m going throw this up here and he’s been on a what would be described as a historic run he’s beaten three straight legends Fulk Max Holloway and Charles Olivivera uh with like legit knockouts here and this was in the first round pretty quickly into the fight he had this really interesting quote after “Are you in a physical and mental level that you feel indestructible victoria Victoria Mike did you get all that
translate please you have to read the words all right i thoughts on this i just wanted to say I I think that this is incredibly powerful and I actually really really like this mindset because this is more of a processoriented mindset than an outcome oriented mindset because he has complete control of the training process bar for some injury or whatever would happen but you have way more control of how you train and prepare for something than what actually happens inside the octagon like we’ve seen the craziest things outside of your control can happen in those fights what are your thoughts on this mentality
yeah it’s the mentality of like the journey is the reward not so much the destination and he’s obviously looking at it from that perspective and like all of the hard work that goes into into getting to that point in time when he steps on the scale and then steps into the octagon a day or two later um is is really where the hard work and the growth happens cuz like he he’s right in in his statement right there it’s like anything can happen in the octagon like you could have the biggest baddest man in the world step into the octagon and if the other fighter just gets the perfectly timed perfectly angled hit and it could be just completely random in a million times out of a million and one times loses to the other person like the big big bad man could go down
yeah because then you look at like Charles Olivivera on the other side of this that’s essentially what happens he just got hit with the hit with the punch like a perfectly placed timed powered punch and he gets knocked down it’s like what it’s very very hard to to to control how they think there’s also that that one fight with Conor McGregor i can’t remember who it was against although where he knocked him out in like 5 seconds yeah
in the press conference leading up to he called exactly the shot and everything prime Conor McGregor mentality is the most beautiful thing to watch and look back on and it’s there’s something about the mentality it takes to be at the top of the game of fighting it see it seems like such a delicate thing that takes so much to get there and then and then you see these guys who get there and they get everything and then they get out of it like you like Conor McGregor now is such a completely different person like it’s so interesting to see him step out of that and kind of go too far
yeah i mean well people speaking of Conor Conor McGregor people are now talking about Isopouria’s run here like compared to Conor McGregor’s where he was the the two-weight champion and it is the the the mentality of this is such a delicate thing that’s what I want to ask you guys like the fine line between confidence and cockiness and in this sport in particular because it’s like there’s so much on the line in fighting whereas like if you lose a basketball game it’s like ah darn it lost a basketball game but if you lose a fight like it’s it feels like so much more of a drop it’s so much more personal so much more of a primal thing that like the the the confidence and cockiness aspect of it I feel like is so so delicate what do you What do you guys think yeah you lose a fight it’s almost as though your manhood your dominance your ability to like provide is put into question um you know it’s it’s it’s a tough it’s a tough mental battle that I don’t think a lot of other sports if any really have i I think
football rugby because they’re so physical are the only ones that kind of get to that point the other ones as you’re speaking to just they’re games right they’re they’re kids games that are just elevated to um you know to to big money status and everything like that in business but when you’re talking about fighting that’s just like basic instinct sort of scenario that you can get into and if you lose that there’s something deeper um you know pride ego yeah part of it um especially for maybe people like Connor um and and stuff like that when that’s dashed you have probably the biggest ego death you could possibly have of all time
yeah i mean listen like if I think compare it to football like okay a lot of aspects in football if you mess up it’s not going to be such a huge death to your ego you’re not going to feel like no longer a man but there are certain situations where you do and that is make a tackle and you get absolutely trucked that’s experience perhaps to get knocked out in a fight because that is kind of so primal it’s just man-on-man and he overpowered you and now you’re on the ground on the floor and I’ve been on the on my back just feeling absolutely horrible for about three seconds when that happens and I can only imagine that’s kind of the the comparison the closest comparison within football you don’t see guys in the UFC and like top fighters going and doing these Iawaska retreats like Aaron Rogers to get rid of their ego they need that ego so bad because it’s life and death
it’s not like a fun game like let’s see what happens if I don’t have my ego that’s true
see but then you just there’s such a a flip of the switch like after you lose that it’s just like such a let down i just think that that that’s got to be the most disappointing loss in sports I would imagine is losing those fights i mean what do you
Yeah hurt the most speaking to to Mikey’s earlier point it’s like when you’re at the top the pinnacle of the fighting world it’s such a it’s such a short period of time because you know that there’s going to be a younger dude who’s just more nimble more skilled you know has has the fire that has probably diminished in you after you got to the top so it’s like the the green flash on the horizon you you get it it’s there for a moment it’s the most one of the most beautiful things you could see on this earth but it’s fleeting and it disappears immediately so like like that’s what I feel like Connor Connor was that green flash
that’s actually why I admire Khabib a lot because he decided to leave whilst at the top and I wish that more athletes did that because now the legend of him grows forever people are always going to wonder oh what if he fought a couple more years you know but he went out on top undefeated and I wish more athletes did this you know i kind of wish Aaron Rodgers did this it feels like athletes overstay their welcome story has yet to be written
he could What if What if him and your your love for Tomlin what if they come through and end up getting to the Super Bowl and winning it
my love for Tomlin oh yeah let’s go nine and eight yeah oh you guys want to go n winning record congrats Pittsburgh congrats all right so that was quite impressive let I got something on another sport that we don’t talk so much about because we have now a a blending a fusing a marriage of sport and entertainment and that is with Brad Pitt’s new movie
F1 appropriately titled literally just titled F1 the movie okay and I’ve got here this tweet with a lot of different facts about the movie and kind of how the film production collaborated with F1 like F1 was totally in in in cahoots with this production and it’s interesting because Formula 1 also had the documentary series on Netflix for the last few years Drive to Survive
which was completely a strategy to increase popularity of F1 specifically in the United States which has been incredibly successful in doing how many people do you know that like watched that documentary series never having watched F1 before and then was like “Oh I’m so interested in F1.” And this is now taking it to another level because this is a mainstream movie with one of the biggest movie stars in the world who’s essentially shining a spotlight on this sport which could be described as a niche sport especially in some circles especially in some countries what are your thoughts on this it’s essentially just a big commercial for this sport to get more people interested in it thoughts great marketing move like obviously build off the success get one of the biggest names in Hollywood to to play in it you know especially because he’s an aging actor there’s some sort of like parallel in the story i assume he’s an aging driver so on and so forth like there is intrigue and it looks great it looks beautiful it looks very real um you know I was a fan of I’ve always kind of been a fan of the racing movies so like Senna Rush with Liam or not Liam but Chris Hemsworth and then uh you know Teladega Nights so like all of these all of these racing movies yeah all of these RA racing movies are like awesome and I I love them just because of what they bring to to life on the on the big screen um you know it gets a little long in the tooth though when you’ve had many seasons of Drive to Survive i think this is probably a few years too late um I I think I think it’s already reached over top the crest of that wave of like fandom in the United States i think people are still going to go in droves to see it but it all comes down to the the story how do you tell the story the the archetypal story here of the old man coming back dusting off his right steering wheel and and getting back out there
yeah dust off my steering wheel doc Hudson in the movie Cars if you will precisely
one of the best racing movies of all time
well here’s the thing about F1 like you said it got a little long on the tooth and they were doing multiple seasons of it and I think the first couple seasons of it especially were really really effective but then it got highly highly criticized
because the filmmakers of the doc series were manipulating reality so much to where they were trying to kind of create these archetypal stories that resonate with all sorts of human beings and like even if you’re not an F1 fan you’re going to enjoy that they got highly criticized for that because sometimes in an F1 season or any sports you’re just not going to have those archetypal stories right whereas with a scripted movie right here that they have complete control of the story and the emotional beats and everything i kind of think that this is going to resonate with even more people and probably create more F1 fans because they’re able to they know exactly what emotions they’re tapping into with those story beats and you’re going to walk away from this two hours i think it’s gonna be more effective than multiple seasons of the documentary series what do you think of that look at us busting in our film school
i I agree with I agree with you this is a more powerful tool and but I think it’s illtimed i think that’s why I keep saying is I think they I think they showed their hand and I think enough people were turned off by exactly what you were talking about to where like it they may not even go see the movie um you know it they may wait until it pops up on a VOD you know something along those lines you know h maybe it’ll stir up some intrigue and whatnot but at the same time the repetitive nature of the series and and seasons of the series it seemed like they were they were trying to engineer the magic of the first two three maybe four seasons this should have been a few years earlier
okay yeah fair fair point are you guys going to go see it
of course
uh go I don’t really have
Brad Pitt on big screen
i know it’s Brad Pitt take your children take the baby yeah take the
Okay it’s supposed to be the loudest movie of all time uh so I think your baby’s g be put some ear muffs on him the last thing I want to do is introduce driving fast and getting my daughter excited about that because she would be the one to have a heavy foot yeah as they as that tends to happen okay so we got that going i do think it’s very interesting to the the the the blending and just such obvious strategy of these like it’s this movie however good it ends up being and I’ve heard it’s great
it’s not coming from a pure place of story and you know you can always argue that about every movie it’s all about making money but this is
this is to increase popularity of F1 yeah it’s too on the nose is it Michael Bay producing us is he directing us
no no no come on hey show some respect no I love I love Michael Bay but he is a master at doing these product placements and all of all of that kind of stuff so he would be the ideal guy to do something like this michael Bay puts in the most egregious like ob e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e eg eg eg eg eg eg eg eg eg eg egregiously obvious product placement shots within his movies like transformers fighting all of a sudden you have this beautiful shot of like a Dodge Charger and the logo is in the best spot
ever and then Mark Wbert cracks a beer and drinks it right there nowhere
Michael Bay movies now show some respect this is Joseph Kazinski okay who directed Top Gun Maverick all right
very good director knows how to how to handle these big machines and make how to handle cockpits
yeah [ __ ] cockpits there you go and big movie stars like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruz all right uh we got a little golf it’s the summer it’s the season of golf guys i’m going to go golfing this week actually
um and we have got a 20year-old who has won the 2025 Rocket Classic and now he is in a member of an exclusive club there’s been I think Scott a handful of teenagers that have won a PGA um
very few very few but a 20-year-old he’s one of the youngest of all time give me your thoughts on this
yeah I mean since 1983 there were a number of teenagers like we’re talking early 1900s that were winning PGA tours at like you know
Oh here here’s here’s the uh here’s the dates right here can you see that
oh yeah yeah yeah there there exactly yeah so a handful of dudes way back in the day during even pre the first war um jeez that’s a long time ago but yeah this is this is crazy because since ‘ 83 I think this article is even saying that there have only been a handful of dudes and there have only been a handful of of young players I think it’s six under the age of 21 who have won PGA Tour events and the way in which this guy did it uh Potter I always I am butchering his name um Aldrich aldrich i’ll call him Aldrich it’s guy if you want German you want the German pronunciation well he’s South African so like that’s what’s throwing me off you well you know there’s there’s some German influence on but this is this is it was awesome i don’t I don’t know if you caught any of it but it was a three-way fivehole um back and forth between three dudes and it it was hilarious because they were each of a different e decade right so one was a 40-year-old one was a 30-year-old and the other was this 20-year-old and they were all going back and forth and obviously looks like youth won out score one for the youth it’s actually a really cool thing about golf that you can have three different decades
Oh yeah
players competing like really at the highest level right there like the the longevity and lifespan of a golfer it is one of the beautiful things about you say golf is a lifelong game like we can play golf we can play our our our poor version of golf until we’re 85 years old you know
is it is I do want to talk about though the ages of these guys okay so we’re looking 1931 1923 1931 and 1911 okay and all these guys were 19 years old or 18 years old um I kind of want to argue that it’s more impressive of of Potger nowadays because a 19-year-old in 1930 that’s the equivalent of a 35y old okay we have financial inflation we also have age inflation oh yeah a 20-year-old today is the equivalent of like a 12y old in 1911 so one could argue that this is way more impressive than all those guys don’t you think
oh yeah yeah yeah the 12-year-olds were working in the mines and smoking and bringing home the bacon re literally uh dude like I would agree with you there i think one of the coolest things about this win for this guy is that yes there have been flashes in the pan and you could have any given any given weekend you can come out and win especially guys on the tour but what’s really cool is just being one of those names on a very very short list of young players to have won their first PGA Tour event tiger being one of those guys Phil Mickelson being one of those guys just to be able to like point to that list and you’re you’re like I did that alongside literally the goat uh the second coat
yeah what do you What do you think with something like this is this is this the start of a really impressive career that we’re going to be following or is this a a oneoff flash in the pan it’s so hard to tell
with with these sports
yeah i mean there are so few of these guys on that list that I was talking to the five or six dudes and Jordan Spe one of them where you were like “Oh whoa.” He won at I think he won even younger at 19 some and change
19 19 years old 11 months sorry I took it down yeah 19 years John Deere Classic
yeah yeah so like you look at that and everybody had their eyes set on him because wow you’re winning at that age like the chances of you potentially chasing Jack or Tig Tiger andor Jack is is much higher so you know the question the question still remains because you look at Jordan’s career and over the past decade it’s really been rocky um but you know at the end of the day I think I think being part of this grouping gives you some hope um and probably juices him to talk about being at the peak and pinnacle like he’s probably living on cloud9 right now
yeah 20 years old having won that like oh my gosh I’m going to have the best career of all time it’s only up from here caveat all the good players a lot of the good players were not playing in this tournament so it’s kind of like ah would he have won had Scotty been in the race or you know any of those other dudes it doesn’t matter winds will win
take away from our boy All Brick
yeah yeah yeah i know i know i know
okay all right so there we have it a little bit of golf we’ve also got a little bit of uh football we’re going to call it We call you guys talking football
sorry Mike tricked you it’s soccer got you back in son of a
Look at No no this is actually You’re actually gonna really like this it’s actually really cool okay so the US men’s national team which has just been just disappointing disappointing for years and years and years i The United States men’s soccer is in a abysmal state uh however they did win against Costa Rica in the quarterfinal here of the Gold Cup uh they did have to go to PKs to win now I’m just throwing this up maybe in America a lot of people argue “Oh soccer a little bit boring to watch sometimes.” However this is incredibly exciting to watch let’s watch this 60 seconds okay a condensed PK shootout that’s right down the middle for gets it in off the floor this is crazy burries it it looked like it was going to be saved he was right there and he missed dude can’t go high and again fingertips freeze good strategy that’s the best strategy right
that was That was great
that was your big plan
that’s the plan saved clap all right yes ah so the United States it’s all in the approach changing up the tempo of the approach is the most effective thing i should coach soccer well that little hesitation move there yeah the little hesitation changing the your rhythm on the approach is the most effective yes the approaches are great but I think what really came through was the was the goalkeeping here and I think Matt Freeze Matt Freeze had ice in his veins blocking that thing the one that was straight on the fact that he didn’t choose a side which is just the natural way to go about blocking those things because you assume you’re going for a corner or an edge like that was a crazy moment where they both went straight on that doesn’t happen often
that’s what I was going to say that I think is perhaps the most satisfying save from the goalie’s perspective and the most frustrating miss from the shooters perspective because that’s a ballsy move on both of their parts as a keeper if you just stand right in the middle there and you don’t and they end up going to a side you’re going to look pretty stupid shooter just now looks pretty stupid just going right down the middle so that’s pretty ballsy on on his part right there this but I have to say flowers to freeze but not going to root for him necessarily because he’s a Harvard guy
oh gosh Mikey these Harvard Yale guys oh you think about a a boat race i just
boat race
oh Harvard Yale now you guys we love you we love you guys this is my proposal to soccer okay to increase the um interest in the United States we add a PK shootout to the end of each half so two PK shootouts in every soccer game okay and you get a chance i don’t know what exactly the scoring would be they don’t count as full goals maybe you get a half point or a third of a point in the at the in the end of the half
but you add a PK shootout at the end of each half how exciting would that be with the opportunity
you’re down 3-1 all of a sudden you do this the the PK shootout at the end of the first half it’s tied now going into halftime what do you did I just great idea did I just save soccer that’s kind of like uh if in basketball before the end of the half like and then at the end of the game they do a free throw shootout kind of similar
yeah it’s like really you know except PKs are way more fun to watch
yeah true true
we need to write to the MLS i don’t think we’re going to change international soccer in that direction but maybe we got a chance with the MLS we could just you know hey Messi think about it
yeah these poor countries outside the United States that think they have a great sport in soccer and they they don’t understand about it you know what would also be great though too for for American I know this is concaf and so it’s the western hemisphere with like I think one invitation I think Saudi Arabia is one invitation from one of the international teams
don’t know how they got it talking about increasing increasing the popularity right in the United States how about when we’re in major tournaments like the conquer we have our full roster playing for the United States team we didn’t have who’s like the the dude I I don’t understand the the the mechanics of soccer and why that happens so frequently is like some guys are playing for their national team and others aren’t and it’s just it it that’s part of the reason why I don’t think Americans are solely like focused and like bought in because there’s such like confusion as to like wait a minute you’re on this team but you’re not playing and you’re not even there and like what does that even mean i think the uh US women’s national team does way better job with their their management and just the overall approach and everything that they do because women’s soccer United States is pretty successful and pretty popular especially compared to the to the men’s and it’s also an interesting conversation about like I don’t know if we talked about this on this podcast or why soccer is not as popular in the United States and why we are not as good like think about that we’re going to PK’s with a tiny country Costa Rica it’s the United States like we should have we have all of these athletes and talent to draw from i don’t know what the status how many more people how much larger our population is than a country like Costa Rica but the fact that we struggle so much in this sport it’s one of the few team sports at least in the men’s side that that the United States struggles with in international competition and it’s just What do you think do you think we’re ever going to we’re ever going to be a soccer powerhouse i think there would have to be a massive shift in in the major sports that are already like captured in America so MLB NBA and NFL i mean like it would have to be that the NFL just completely changes to flag football or something like that where it starts losing its allure and some of the athletes that would be primed for a football uh team you know especially in the skill positions would go and play something like soccer i I get the sense that it’s just a very American to have an aversion to anything that’s very international or very European yes and that’s I think why it began like we wanted to innovate we wanted to like change what we broke away from and make it better and that’s what we did and that’s why we’re focused on those three other sports
our version of soccer goes back to the Revolutionary War 1776 okay and and and that’s why we’re bad at soccer okay we choose to be because we don’t really care about it that much
but it isn’t she watch and I would like them to implement uh my PK uh system for more excitement and condensed excitement all right there you go hey MLS check it out last thing this is uh we used to talk about this guy on the on the pod like every week okay almost every week during college football season and that is because he’s such a big fan of one of our favorite teams the Notre Dame Fighting Irish however our boy Shane Gillis is back in the sporting news because he is going to be hosting the SBS this year july 16th Shane Gillis will be hosting the SPS thoughts on this guys and also thoughts in general on kind of these uh sport award shows i think they’re great they’re so much better than like the Oscars or movie award show actor award shows sport award shows are so much better and it’s funnier and the people can take the jokes and getting a guy like Shane Gillis who actually played football
okay in college
be it a small window but he did enough to be able to tap into that humor and kind of hold his own it’s going to add another layer of of just very fun to watch
him i’m excited i think that’s uh it’s a great point with like the award shows with athletes definitely being able to take jokes away more like remember when Ricky Jerusale did the Golden Globes a few years ago and funniest award show performance of all time they cut to all of the actors and actresses in the audience and they were all so offended at every single thing it was just roastome i think the athletes are going to I think Shane Gillis is probably going to cut pretty deep on some of these guys and it’s going to be hilarious but I think a lot of them are going to be able to roll with it scott what’s your thoughts
oh yeah yeah they this is going to be prime usually I’m not like the biggest fan of award shows anyway but I would say sports one make sports award shows make the most sense because they’re all merit-based versus like
oh the subjectivity of like oh you acted so well
great job
you acted so well like uh so it’s just yeah it’s one of those things where I I love the story of sport because it actually comes through you can see people persevering over like things like that and then adding the humor element of Shane because he comes from the athlete mindset dude this is going to be prime it is going to be prime and Shane G we can’t we can’t disrespect Shane Gillis’s football career he was a great high school football player and he did go to Army West Point uh division one he quit very very soon very quickly he said uh and then he ended up playing at Emory never really got the burn though did he but he was kind of that guy i thought it was Elon
or Elon excuse me sorry Elon
i I don’t know which actually
no no I think you’re right i think it’s Elon i think it’s Elon which is in North Carolina I believe uh and so he was there and he kind of the kind of the perfect role on a football team college football team to become a comedian like a backup offensive lineman man like kind of the perfect mold the perfect soup and potion be like you’re going to be really really funny because you don’t see the field and your whole your whole interaction with football is just joking around with the guys and that’s the value you add
i I do love that about offensive linemen is that they develop character so early and they’re able to just fight through it because
let’s face it like that’s just you got to find a way in the world when say it Scott dancing around it you want to say it you want to say it your father was an offensive lineman you want to say it
oh yeah yeah i wouldn’t say he’s the funniest guy in the world which is
funny he was pretty funny when we did our podcast you had me off it
offensive linemen you know perhaps they’re not the most physically appealing at certain points in their life okay and they have to find other ways to win in the marketplace okay we’ll say it this way right we’ll say it this way that’s why these skills are
economics okay look I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale so I went to college okay all right uh last thing I wanted to talk about just because it kind of comes back into play we were talking about last week with all the torn Achilles were happening and we were talking so much about like sports specialization and how sports have really changed especially youth sports uh and high school sports in these last 20 years this guy’s a great tweet high school sports were fun 20 years ago you could play multiple sports enjoy your summers date and have a job nowadays it’s a full-time job for everyone in the family travel plus summer league plus training and workouts make sports fun again now he’s kind of making a little bit of a joke here but I think that there’s a lot of credibility to this and this kind of circles back to that conversation we were having about just the hyper specialization of a player a young player going all in on one sport and then dropping all other sports and all other movements that you would develop playing some of these sports uh and then we think that it’s probably leading to some of these increase in injuries thoughts on this do you agree that it is uh it is not as as fun as it was
oh yeah dude what one thing I do have to say though is I think we all benefited from the fact that we focused on football which has its own limitations right the only pipeline to college and to the professionals is high school college boom NFL whereas like all these other sports have travel leagues and they’re spanning months and months and months if not the full year and they’re just variations different clubs all that kind of stuff so it’s it’s more confusing and if you don’t enter into it you miss out um like but with football like we got the we got the benefit of just focusing on some camps playing in our high school years and then this but overall this guy is this guy’s right like something has changed it it’s sad to see sports go the way of like general economics and the market as we’re talking to right here like everything seems to be going in this direction where hyper specialization go to college focus on this only go do that versus like being dynamic
yes you got you got to be dynamic in your you got to be anti-fragile okay and the way you do that is you’re doing a lot of stuff okay and becoming fragile as athletes maybe these athletes are really really dominant at their sports but there is a fragility that develops from not having more variety in your movements and also and not even just the physical aspect of it but we were just talking about with Shane Gillis in the locker room and like also the social aspect of it you develop a lot of different things being on different teams playing with different types of athletes and different types of personalities so there’s a lot of stuff I just e even though for us you know in high school well I wasn’t I wasn’t playing varsity basketball i was playing JV2 basketball but I was still playing basketball in the winter and it was it was good for my development and I was and then I was a hurdler in track so short stint on varsity and then I got pumped down
oh man well okay going back to this and we got to touch on it because Wimbledon just started today we had Mevidev go down he lost at Roland Garos first round and then he this happens again here in in Wimbledon big upset but talking about the dynamic nature of athletes and we just had Roger Federer retire so on and so forth
but he was one guy who always talked about playing all sports growing up and he didn’t really focus on tennis until much later in his career i think it was like upper teens look at what he’s able to do and obviously there’s an argumentation there’s an argument against it where you look at Tiger Woods and how he focused and where he got to so cuts both ways but at the same time I think there’s more success to be had more experience to be gained by going the route of playing more and being dynamic in that sense and Roger Federer is one of those it’s also interesting because like he’s the best tennis player one of the top two best tennis players we’ve ever had and it’s it’s kind of I believe more rare in the tennis world than some of these to
not specialize very very early you know you’re seeing some of these athletes that are like “Okay age six you are a tennis player and that’s what we will spend our entire year doing.” How was it with your mom dude because she was uh a national champion tennis player in college do you know what her her sporting situation was like growing up did she specialize in tennis really really early
yeah i mean growing up in Southern California it’s it’s it’s more a part of the culture and where she grew up especially in the LA area it was just like that was part of life that’s like what you did you know there’s obviously surf culture here there’s skateboarding culture there so like she just grew up playing and my grandma played uh a lot uh as well with a bunch of her friends so she started liking to play and then entered into a couple local tournaments and everything and then you just started building up from there um you know she played other sports but it was just like the most fun for her she’s a very she’s a very uh she was built for individual sports let’s just put it that way and I think some people are right like some people are like that’s just the way you your mind is it works and and functions and like that’s that’s why I always say hey it’s great to get the experience of getting out of a solo sport just so that you can get team aspect things
yeah and that is great but it’s also great for team sport players or athletes to dabble into sports that are more individual so like I I liked track for that reason because you had kind of the camaraderie and everything and you know you would you would hang out with people at track practice and the track mates but when it came to down to it it was an individual sport i got a little you get a little bit of a different dynamic socially than when you’re on a football team or on a basketball team so I do think it’s good to have kind of all of that
so biggest waste of time track meets
biggest you you’re talking to a you’re talking to a track family Scott okay
i know i know but I’m but I’m saying like when you had one of the later when you have one of the later events
you’re running
yeah what’s what’s the what’s the latest event the track meet structure we should have it memorized like the one
4×4 relay was the last event
4×4 you’re like “Yeah I only have the 4×4 and it’s a Tuesday night and I’ve got a biology test tomorrow morning and I haven’t studied my
9:27 p.m what are you doing?”
Nothing harder than than nothing harder than high school there’s nothing harder than high school in America okay sports in the school we We made it out we made it out and you know what Europeans you might be better than us at soccer but that’s something we have over you we know how to grind in our high school years all right there we have it we covered a lot of good sports today guys we’re We’re like how diverse are we so versatile i’m like a Swiss Army knife swiss Army knife no you Scott you don’t like my diversity
no I think I think we’re all pretty Italian on this thing on this show
diversity of thought and diversity of sports scott get your mind out of the gutter
all right so there we have it thank you everybody for watching and we will see you on the next one