The Big Suey: The Bed of Nails Theory
42:05 Share

You're listening to DraftKings Network. How do you feel great on vacation? Like really good? Easy. You go to Aruba. You'll spend your time relaxing on cool white sand beaches and floating in healing blue water. You'll immerse yourself in natural wonder and find your center on an island where things move at your speed. You won't just feel great. You'll feel relaxed, renewed, and ready for life.

That's the Aruba effect. Plan your trip at Aruba.com. Now's a good time to remember where the story of tequila started. In 1795, the first tequila distillery was opened by the Cuervo family. And 229 years later, Cuervo is still going strong. Family owned from the start. Same family, same land. Now's a good time to enjoy Cuervo.

The tequila that invented tequila. Go to Cuervo.com to shop tequila or visit a store near you. Cuervo. Now's a good time. Trademarks owned by Becler. SAB the CV. Copyright 2024. Proximo. Jersey City, New Jersey. Please drink responsibly.

Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Levitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching band to nowhere, Fat Face and the Habitual Liars.

This interview is presented by LinkedIn Jobs. It is? All right. Pablo Torre is going to be on with us here in a moment. Pablo Torre finds out he's wasting an extraordinary amount of money chasing down journalistic investigative stories nobody but he cares about. The most recent one involves Putin, seven anonymous sources, a whistleblower, and max fixing in fencing.

Maximum fixing in fencing. I can't get anyone around here excited about the Olympics. Zaslow was complaining about the opening ceremonies in general. Maximum fixing? Make me watch this. Maximum fixing of fencing, yes. Not match fixing. Maximum fixing. Maximum fixing. There's no way to fix it more than this. This is the most fixing there's ever been. The most maximum. Someone say the boss.

Pablo? Oh, boy. Kind of, kind of true. Dan has stumbled into a factual statement, which is that no sport is more corrupt in the Olympics than saber fencing. And if I can't convince you on the level of, hey, do you want to know what the guy who owns the largest super yacht in the world, the yacht that got seized by the European Union because the owner was too tied to Vladimir Putin? And did you know that that guy is running fencing? No.

And that guy happens to be friends with the president of the Olympic Committee. If I can't get you in based on that premise alone, then we're just different people. We're just different people. I love the Olympics. Pablo, first of all, hello. Good to see you. How do you find out that fencing, as opposed to every other sport that no one cares about, is the one that has maximum fixing?

Because it's come to the United States. There is a... It starts with a scandal, really. My attention on it starts with a scandal inside of Team USA. So there are Olympians right now in Paris who have been very credibly alleged...

by people that I interviewed to have benefited from maximum match fixing. People who have been getting favors from referees in saber fencing that have gone to the Olympics as Americans because of it. And they're over there right now.

And so the thing about the Olympics, to broaden it out here even wider, is that, as you might know, nobody really cares about any of these things, save for, of course, like basketball, until this time, every four years. And so what that means is that in the background of all of these random subcultures, there is all sorts of intense geopolitical, pride-driven reasons to...

cheat, to humiliate yourselves, to do everything it takes to get the thing that has justified your existence as an athlete. And so I love anything that people care deeply about as long as it also has stakes. And so saber fencing is just one example, the one that I investigated, where you see this firsthand, where you see that literally the war in Ukraine is

helps explain why it is that there are allegations of match fixing emanating out of U.S. Olympic fencing. All of this stuff gets connected. Could have sworn you were going to tackle like the anti-sex beds or something like that. This one's, you know, kind of... It's not surprising. It's not surprising?

So this is a thing that I am frustrated by. I can't even tell who wins when I'm watching the thing. It happens so fast. That's part of the story. There's a light-up helmet, which was like a great innovation. But that's the thing, is that in saber fencing, so saber fencing very briefly, okay? I'm going to try to radicalize you guys into saber fencing enthusiasts. The beds are made of cardboard. Yeah, it's crazy. This is the second straight Olympics where they've tried to be like, hey, no one's f***ing on our watch. Every year we talk about the f***.

Cardboard every year. It's just like, yeah, I haven't heard you find out about it. It is the thing about getting in the Olympics is that it's not enough to simply presume that it happens from a corruption match fixing perspective. You got to get people to talk about it. And so when I talk about saber fencing, what I wanted, Mike, what I want to tell you is that.

Saber fencing is unique, okay? Saber fencing is the one sport, the one weapon in fencing where you can hit people with the blade, right? The other two...

are sort of like poking with an antenna. You can hit people in the head, in the torso, with the actual blade of the saber. It's the most like sword fighting. Like you could slice them? People die all the time. They get cut in half. Okay. Okay. I saw Rob Roy. File. The point of what I'm saying is that this stuff happens incredibly quickly to Mike's point. And the electronic scoring system, you would think, oh, that adjudicates all of it. That's all we need. We just wait for whoever's light pops up first.

But this shit happens within milliseconds to the point where by rule, a human being, a referee needs to adjudicate who had the right of way. There's like a defensive driving aspect to who should get the point here. There's a human interpretation. And in a human interpretation, there is just enough room to plausibly hide a corrupt judgment. And what I've reported here is that approximately half of the top, the best referees in the world of international saber fencing are corrupt referees.

And so you have a system in which Russia, for instance, is rewarding its gold medalists with seven figure bonuses. And the U.S. does not do anything like that. You have a system where Russia is using a literal oligarchs to run a sport and bring rewards and great glory to a country using a system.

I would call using a perfect crime of an obscure sport that can result in lots of actual benefits for the people who participate. And so Saber Fencing to me is a this is a true crime podcast. It's not a hey, isn't this sport awesome? It's look at how this is hiding right in front of our eyes on NBC. And nobody really understands that it's happening. That's crazy. But did you see Snoop Dogg's running with the torch?

Pablo, this is why decency loses all over the world, all over the globe, because I'll tell you why. I was thinking about this over the course of the weekend, the idea that you're not really fighting a fair fight if only one of the political parties has to address shame and, hey, I'm getting old. I've got to get out. I've got to be impacted by shame. Oh, saber fencing. Looking good. So it's not lightsabers? The other party doesn't have to have anything to do with shame. You're sitting here trying to get them interested in cheating at the highest levels.

They have no interest in what you're talking about, even though it is really hard journalistically to uncover cheating of this kind. I want to update the story. Actually, I have been talking to people since the story came out and there are literal investigations by governmental bodies that have resulted in

because of this episode. That doesn't scare you? Internationally. It does scare me. I don't want to die over saber fencing. It's not important enough to me. Not at all. I'd be really scared. Thank you for acknowledging a genuine concern that I have, which is that we had people on the record who are speaking out against Vladimir Putin's

oligarchs. I don't know how you guys became numb to this, but it is actually dangerous. Who's numb? I'm worried for you. I'm asking you if you're scared. But also, there is human feces in that river, and I don't know if they fix it in time. Also, if you're coming after Pablo, he's in the New York office, not the Miami office. Just FYI, Putin. To Zaz's point, you could argue plausibly that the cost-benefit on this, given that the benefit

has been a resounding lack of support from the shipping container was not worth the cost, which could plausibly be, I don't know, whatever that thing is that they inject into your food that makes you die. Like, that probably wouldn't be worth it in the end. - Hormones. - Poison. - Yeah, all of that.

Seriously. I am somewhat concerned about that. No, but when you sit here and make the jokes about this is dangerous, I would argue that general numbness to all sorts of malfeasance, that you can't journalistically get anyone interested in what is an obviously interesting cheating story, suggests to me that cheating is way too rampant throughout sports and that morality, that all the walls have fallen down on morality around sports. Dan, it's the bed of nails theory.

When there are a zillion corruption scandals happening, which is a metaphor, of course, that applies directly to finally bed talk. God, the bed of nails. If they meant that beds of nails, people would not be having no sex. Maybe. I mean, some people are into that, but cardboard. If you've ever seen Hellraiser, they're into that. You were saying, Pablo?

I just wish that people realized that just because there are a thousand nails, it doesn't mean that each one of them is worthy of our concern.

Like, we- Dad, I guess what I'm saying here, I'm not- Part of the whole premise of my show is that I'm gonna tell you a story about something that you on its face don't give a single shit about. When I take on saber-fencing, at the cost of perhaps the freedom and livelihood and health of various sources that I interview in a real way, it's not because I'm like, "Oh, this is gonna be box office gold."

It's going to be because you're going to be surprised by what's inside of it, which is a story that you can understand and appreciate even if you don't care about it. And the Olympics writ large to me is exactly this. Again, what do I care about? I care about stakes and really I care about people's egos being on the line. And nothing embodies that more than the Olympics where everybody gets together,

to cheat, to occasionally f***, and also, also, to try and manage what it means to be the best.

And in that mixture of things, there are scandals all over the place, but it's just really hard to prove. And so this was my attempt to prove that this one nail of saber fencing is sharper than anybody realizes, and it's actually a metaphor for everything else that's happening. And the fact that you guys would rather talk about the cardboard bed

Makes me realize why the Olympics have remained exactly the same for about a century now. There's breakdancing now. Speaking of cardboard. Do they spin on the cardboard, do you think? That should be like the...

the home field, right? Well, we'll see. Maybe it's clay. It can't be cardboard anymore. It can't. You can't get to the Olympics. It's in Paris. It's clay. You can't come out on... How much pressure is on us to win this? ...floor and just put out a piece of cardboard and spin on your back on it. That is not... Is there shit-talking?

Is that allowed in the Olympic version? Are we the breakdancing favorite? We should be. Like, didn't we – did we invent it? I think we did. We had break in one and two. All right, but South Sudan might have someone that's just as good. Brazilians have a good team. Wow, I hadn't even considered that.

Capoeira. Capoeira. Yeah. I'm not positive the United States. Put it on the poll, please, at Levitard Show. Should the United States be the favorite in breakdancing? I want to assign to everyone on the show here some category here so that we can cover the sport correctly. The only way we covered it yesterday was Greg Cody out of nowhere taking out Michael Phelps. He had a point, Dan. We only care about every four years for two weeks. And it's like, all right, swimming. Who cares? Are you saying we should all take an obscure sport and breakdance?

be the correspondent for the show? Yes. That's a great idea. Want to do a sport draft? Oh, that's a good idea. According to Jason Poo of Medium, the favorite in breakdancing is Phil Wizard from Canada.

That's a great name. That can't be his real name. Every name that Billy just mentioned sounds fake. Jason Poo reported that. Matt Sullivan just helped me out. He told me that the favorite B-boy is from France. See you later, Pablo. We've got conflicting information. This cannot stand. See you later, Pablo. Bye, Pablo. Tell the world my story if I, you know, disappear one day.

Summer's the best time to run the way you want. Dial it up with new challenges and programs and bring your workouts with you to make the most of outside sunny days. Stugatz, guess what? What? You know what you can do with Peloton? What? Get the app, go outside, ride a bike. Well, I thought you ride Peloton inside. Well, you do. You can ride Peloton inside if it's a rainy day or if it's cloudy or you just don't want to get outside. Maybe it's too hot.

It's summertime. Go outside. I record a lot from my office with you and you've noticed it's sitting there yet. It hasn't been used. Well, now's the time. Summer's the best time to start that push. Right. Can we do it together? Not on the same bike, but we could join a class together. I used to do that. We used to have Guillermo Tan. I'd invite people. We'd all take a class together. Okay. So I think you're starting to get concerned about my health and my age, Billy. I,

I sense that with you. We're beyond starting. Okay. Whatever road lies ahead, your training starts here with Peloton Tread and Tread Plus. It's not just a bike, a treadmill too. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to do it with Billy Gill. I want to be in your class. I want you to be my instructor. You know what? I won't be your instructor. You don't want to spend more time with me. No, I can schedule a class and we can ride together. I won't be the instructor of the class. We can have Camila could be our instructor. I like the Grateful Dead class. My daughter, she uses the Peloton. Mm-hmm.

She was on it once and an instructor who was playing Grateful Dead tunes. Let's do that. Okay. Why don't we go for a run outside? Guided run Peloton. Me and you, that's something we can do together. Okay. Turn on the app. Me and you go outside. Enjoy the summer. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at one Peloton.com slash running. All right. Don Levitard. Pablo leads all of podcasting in reading while smiling. If you listen to ESPN daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life. Stugatz. Coming up next. I'm

I'm going to tell you. The Savannah Bananas are changing faces. Savannah Bananas. How do you know I'm smiling? That's how I find my vocal range. Sometimes I just say, Savannah Bananas. Savannah Bananas. Yeah. This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugats.

Chris Cody, do we have anyone monitoring what it is that Stugas did? I guess, did anyone monitor? Because it's over. He's doing a morning show on WFAN because Zaslow was asking. He wants to hear some sound of what kind of lies...

Stugatz has told in New York and what kind of things he has done to disrespect both us and the audience, mostly the audience, I would say. I couldn't get enough of him and Taylor, that story from the other day. Oh, my God. I will check with Taylor because he's the one monitoring it.

But you're telling me Taylor has soured because Taylor, this was fascinating to watch. Hosted him. We have a lot of people around here who work for Metal Lark who are super fans of the show. And so they get into the world that they've been listening to for a while. And for a while, they get delighted when they see up close that the things that we talk about being real are real. So the first 12 hours,

of whatever the Taylor experience was with Stugatz in New York. He was delighted how shameful all of that was. But now you guys are telling me that Taylor's broken, that he's dispirited because Stugatz made him all sorts of promises about how Taylor was going to be doing things with him. And then next thing you know, Stugatz just ghosts Taylor because he can't be counted on to tell one syllable of truth anywhere in the last 20 years.

That's the worst part, right? It's not that he didn't come through. It's that he just got ghosted in the end. And he's underperforming for what Taylor wants from WFAN, which is he wants Yankees talk. He wants Yankees talk and he wants Hard Knocks talk and he's getting neither. But he doesn't know anything. You expect him to do some research? You expect him to work? A little bit. If he wanted to work, he would have taken the job they were offering him there. Now you've got two for him.

Have I? Yeah. They offered him a job and he turned it down. And he turned it down because it wasn't enough money and he had to work. Are we sure there was an offer? Allegedly. Everything's alleged. Even the fencing thing alleged, by the way. Is it alleged? He said alleged like 11 times. I feel like Pablo did the hard journalistic work that you can now diminish with an alleged because... For his sake, alleged. For the record, I like Novikov.

I think it's a great restaurant. I love caviar. We didn't even get to the video of Pablo singing karaoke when he was with Sports Illustrated like 15 years ago. What? Dying because of a fencing scandal is the dumbest thing to ever happen. Like if he becomes a fencing martyr, he's an idiot.

How did he die? He uncovered a fencing scandal. That no one cared about. We were very close to being killed by buffalo in Africa. That would have been a pretty dumb way to die, wouldn't you think? Yeah. That would have been heroic, actually. I wish that there was some weird Marvel multiverse where that would have happened and the entire American sports media world would have to publicly acknowledge your tragic death at the hand of a

Cape Buffalo. Like this universe's levitard was killed by a buffalo. We need to get to this tomorrow. Here's his monument. My dad is back in studio tomorrow. He's skeptical of your and Ron's story in Africa and how close to how real the danger was and stuff. He thinks that it was oversold. Well, Ron was certainly in more danger from the story that was recounted.

The day that it came out, I wasn't in the show. I was watching online because I remember I was here playing the NCAA game while you guys were doing this. And I was like, oh my God. Is that why you were whispering? Yes, that's why we were whispering because Dan was here doing very important work. But also, I didn't... But also, that's Taylor's normal delivery. Yes, but I also didn't know if Ron had actually died because in the preamble of Dan getting to the point... You thought Ron was dead. No, man, but the lighting was dead.

Dan was in black and then he's like building up like he was my great friend. I can't believe it. He's like my brother. And I'm like, oh my God, did Ron die? Luckily he didn't.

I, uh, I have rarely, uh, been as scared as I was in proximity to some of these animals that could at any point move in a direction. And my choice wouldn't be to run. Cause that's the worst thing that you could possibly do is run. No running. You cannot run. Uh, catch you though. It will, if you run and then they see fear or flight, they will chase you. But so, uh,

I was not in any peril when Ron was very nearly almost killed. But right before that, we did turn a corner in the dark. It's one of the most haunting things I've ever seen where you're in the dark and there are three buffaloes staring at you and they're breathing cold air so you could see their breath. And if you move or make the wrong sound, they're just staring at you, waiting to see what it is that you're going to do. And if you move out of the way, they're going to come after you. This was the middle of the night, right?

It wasn't the middle of the night, but the particular time I'm talking about was like 7 p.m. Get in your private pool. What are you doing? Walking around in the dark of Africa in the middle of the night, sneaking up on Buffalo. Like, you kind of have it coming. And if we were to read a story, Ron would be like, that person was crazy. I

It's like, yeah, duh, you shouldn't be doing that. Natural selection. Yes, but these are camps and the animals don't necessarily respect where it is that the human beings have put up the limitations of the camp. It's their land, not ours. Just while I try to paint out this multiverse, have you almost died in any other ridiculous fashions? Yeah.

You can chew on that for a little bit. Running across the highway in Las Vegas. Yes, I almost died. That's another thing not to do. Why'd you do that? That's correct. That was a dumb thing to do. I shouldn't have run across the highway. You think going on safari is a dumb thing to do, Billy? I would feel safe with Ron McGill, but going out for a walk, I wouldn't be walking, even if it's with Ron McGill. If it's like 6 a.m. and it's dark and I just hear, hey, Dan, I'm going to go walk out. You want to come with me? Joe Biden is out there. Come on. Come on.

with me. It's not a walk, guys. You have to get from one place to another. I'm not going for strolls with Ron McGill in Sunset Stroll. I have to go from one place to another. You can see it's breath.

It's awesome. I like the voice, even though it doesn't sound like Joe Biden to me. I just find it pleasant. It's great. Come on, man. It's kind of like your Harry Carey in that it's super limited, and then you start doing more of it. It's worse, but I still like the voice. It's got a little twang to it, too. Yeah, it does.

Zaslow asked for a clip from Stu Gatz. We do have one. It's him promoting his book while admitting how terrible it is. Oh, no. Shit. He's trying to promote his book now on WFAN, but he's doing so poorly by just ripping people off. Good timing by you. But at the end, the money wasn't enough. And that's the truth. That's the God's honest truth.

When they're paying me this much money to write this crap for Random House, I mean, it's going to be a New York Times number one bestseller. And like, I mean, it's going to be a good book. The portions I wrote, not so good. The portions that everyone else wrote, fantastic. That's how you sell it right there. This crap. This crap from Random House. That's not great.

It's not a great situation, what he does to our listeners. Do you feel any responsibility for him? I can't control him. Do you? No, I don't. So you're the one who's producing him. Yeah, but you created him. You're his partner, man. We did. You kind of let this happen. You birthed him. We did. We all created this.

I don't think the audience is going to find it so funny, though, when at the end of a contract year we've got a real problem with him. I don't think the audience is going to throw back its head and laugh then. It's a real Tua situation. Do you lock him up now? What do we do? Should you just give him $55 million? Like I said with Tua, do it with Stugatz. Could be more in a year from now if you don't do it. Let him play it out and then run the shit out of the ball.

It can't be more a year from now is the point. Have you not seen what's happening to the industry? But what if it is? But it's not. How about the threat, though, that this is going to be his last contract? I mean, straight up, this is, and then he's going to go away silently into the night. You've got to believe anything he says. The words have to mean anything. It's not going to be necessary, too. He's going to become a professor. What is he going to do? Where is he going to go?

I actually think that's a pretty good negotiation tactic on his part. Come on. Give me what I want. It's my last one. Give me what I want.

I cannot get anyone around here interested in the Olympics somehow. Zaslow doesn't believe in the opening ceremony. Make me watch the opening ceremonies. I'm going to sit around on a Friday. My wife's going to say, what are we doing tonight? I'm like, oh, we got the opening ceremonies. We're going to plant ourselves on the couch for four hours and learn about all these other small countries. Watch people walk around. Get the hell out.

Get out of here. Make me watch this. Well, what happened to this? Because this used to be something that America gathered around the television to watch as a spectacle. Holy cow, Morocco. Whoa. I'm totally enraptured right now. Morocco is all over the world champion Argentina now. Is this preseason Olympics? Hakimi just scored, who is a player of repute. So the Olympic rules in soccer are kind of different. You essentially get three roster spots of dudes you've heard of before. Well, why is the soccer started before the opening game?

Why has anything started before the opening ceremony? This is not a real game! It's a friendly. Oh, it's a real game? A friendly? Guys, I hate to break it to you. This is actually another cup in the Olympics. Yeah, this is the Olympic Cup competition. This is essentially the league's cup. Let's be honest. Can we be honest for a second with these cups? A little watered down. A little watered down. It's too American.

Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Should there be Olympic games before the Olympic ceremony? Because I'm not sure when that started, but that shouldn't be a thing. Like, is there going to be closing ceremonies? There's more games? We have more games after the closing ceremonies. In a year from now, it's an Olympic game. It's going on right now. Team USA actually does play today on USA Network. That doesn't count. In soccer, they play the host nation, France, who's got to be considered among the favorites. Tough group. Yeah.

Yeah, Lacazette is playing. Yeah, dude, I couldn't believe it. How old is he? So you get like three guys that are over like 20, and you have to be strategic with the roster placement that you do. Sometimes you have a longer-in-the-tooth veteran that has eluded, that big national team success has eluded him, and it's like one last job like Jason Statham. Ring chaser. Yeah. So still playing? But like Alvarez is playing for Argentina. He's a first-teamer. That's...

This is a shocking result right now, Morocco 2-0 over Argentina. Zaslo, can I do anything to even make you interested in Team USA basketball? Okay. I've really thought hard about this with Team USA basketball. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I don't want them to win. But I'm going to sit here and tell you,

I don't care. Like I've, I've been trying to get emotionally invested in it, care in some fashion. And all I can, all I can manage to think about is I'm supposed to root for Jason Tatum now. Like,

Like, all of a sudden, Joel Embiid's flopping ass. I got to root for him now? Three Celtics, like Derek White. I'm supposed to hope Derek White continues to kill these other countries the way he killed the Miami Heat. I'm not rooting for these guys. I don't care about these guys. I can't bring myself to root for anyone that's not Miami Heat. I care so much more about the Miami Heat than I do Team USA. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But you're not sorry. Bam Adebayo's on the team. I'll root for him. Yep.

So you're rooting for one guy? Yeah. Yeah, I hope Bam does really well. These other guys, like Kevin Durant all of a sudden. I'm supposed to care about Kevin Durant? I don't like these guys. Root for them. All of a sudden, I want Jason Tatum to do well. Are there any Heat players playing for other nations? I mean, I thought Niko Jovic was playing. I'll root for him.

I have made the argument before that there is nothing better that I can put on sports than patriotism. The only reason that the 1980 Olympic hockey team in the U.S. is regarded as the greatest seminal achievement in the history of upsets in American sports is not because we care about hockey. It's because we draped the whole thing in the flag and it was an upset. What's better to put on sports? If I'm going to condense your sports, give you two weeks of addict fix.

It's all gonna be just sports running up and down and now I wrap it in the flag. I thought patriotism was supposed to lure people into the tent. All I could think about with these guys is none of them care. And I'm not saying that none of them care about the United States, but none of them care about actually playing during the time that I like watching basketball.

And now all of a sudden I'm supposed to be rooting for these in particular guys. And I know I'm supposed to root for the name on the front and not the name on the back, but I'm sorry. Like I can't help myself. I can't bring myself to root for some of these guys. It just, I, again, I hope they win, but like, I'm not,

going to lose a second of sleep if they don't. It doesn't sound like you hope they win. Not a second. It sounds like you're afraid to say that you hope they lose. No, I don't hope they lose. I just don't care. I don't care. Sorry. Well, if you don't care, then you don't hope they win. You're totally indifferent and you're throwing out there that you hope they win just because you're trying to soften your position. Zass, I can see you more as a three-on-three hoops guy for the USA team. Jimmer for dead on the team. Oh, okay. Where's he been?

In a minute. Three on three basketball. All right. Perfecting that three on three skill.

Howdy, listeners. It's Mike Ryan, and I've told you for quite a while about GameTime, my number one destination for the secondary ticket marketplace. No one does it like GameTime. There are often times where I'm using GameTime, and I'm like, man, this experience cannot get any better. And then, boom, GameTime now has a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play even easier. GameTime filters out the fluff to only show you the incredible deals on great seats for your team so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Go

Go ahead and try it out for yourself. Pick an upcoming game on the app, browse through it on GameTime Picks, and you want to talk about great deals. GameTime always brings it, whether it's their all-in pricing, seat views, the lowest price guarantee, or their ticket coverage. They make this experience possible.

so easy. And for my money, it's the best ticket marketplace app out there. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code DAN for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account. Redeem code DAN for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest price. Guaranteed.

Don Levitard. We love you. We've got you. We've all got each other. Let's go right now. Stugatz. One, two, three, Brett. One, two, three, Brett. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz.

The name of David Sampson's podcast is Nothing Personal. Every day at 8 a.m., you can catch David Sampson, and I suggest that you do so because, as I've told you many times around here, there is no one doing a solo show covering the terrain that he covers inside and outside of sports business.

Let's start here with the matching of the Amazon NBA offer. David, you, Skipper, Pablo have been talking about this for a while. There were too many poison pills for it to actually be matched. Do you believe this is just a bunch of nonsense? What is this now where you have a matched offer after it would appear that WBD did a whole lot of things wrong here in the negotiations publicly?

Well, the intrigue is pretty cool. I'll start with that. And it was really telegraphed over a year ago when David Zaslav said, we don't really need the NBA. And it turns out that maybe Adam Silver may have gotten upset by that, but don't buy into that. The

The NBA just moved past WBD. When you have an opportunity to partner with Amazon, you're going to do it. It's not just about toilet paper. It's about expanding your brand internationally in a way that wasn't open to these leagues before. Unfortunately, there's a provision in the old media deals that allows the old partners to match if any newbies come.

So TNT decided they're going to try to match the Amazon deal, except it's not what TNT said in their statement where we hope the NBA just executes the contract we sent. It's way more complicated than that. And there are lawyers involved, except there are lawyers who have been involved for a long time.

The deal that was cut with Amazon was cut in a way that, in my opinion, will make it impossible for TNT or Warner Brothers Discovery to actually match the deal. What they're trying to do is get into a negotiation, either to get a smaller fourth rights package, which is not going to happen, or to get their old package back, which is not going to happen.

which is not going to happen, or to try to get some sort of remuneration in order to soften the blow of all the debt that their company has, which has had a quashing impact on their stock price. So there's a lot at play here, and it's a very, very expensive game of chicken that WBD is playing because I think the worst case scenario for their company and their stock price, the worst case scenario is for the NBA to actually accept

and for TNT and WBD to have to pay $1.9 billion a year for 11 years. So we'll see how this plays out. But my guess is it will not play out into the season. You will see resolution prior to the start of the season. Your take is the strongest that I've seen on this because I've seen a lot of people theorize that the NBA is just going to find another package underneath the couch cushion and everybody's going to be happy. You're saying flatly this will not happen?

Yeah, I don't believe that Adam Silver has the votes for a fourth package. We talked on Nothing Personal and maybe on this show with Dominique and Pablo last week or two weeks ago about James Dolan and how angry he is, how he was the sole vote against

against the new media rights deals because he doesn't like that there's so many national games. It's hurting his RSN, which is MSG. So if you're going to create a fourth package, you're not going to take away from NBC or Disney. Those packages are done. Amazon's not going to sit back and watch their package get decreased. That's not their intent. So the only way to do it is to take from your stable of assets, which are local games. And I don't think Adam has the votes for that.

David, I keep hearing how WBD may take the NBA to court over this. They may sue them. They may have to go to court. Is it kind of weird if you're going to take, you know, the NBA to court to force them to continue to be your partner? Like, that's weird, no?

It's a funny concept, but people do it. It's called specific performance. It's when you sue somebody to say, hey, you're not doing what you promised you'd do, and I hate you, but please do what you promised you'd do. It's like forcing a spouse to stay married to you or forcing a partner to stay in business with you or forcing a co-host to stay doing shows with you when it's not what that co-host necessarily wants.

You may be able to do it, but it's sort of ugly and the end result is not going to be good. A bit awkward. But David, there is precedent. NBA TV uses RSN broadcast and then shoots it over to a studio team. This would be a diluted package, but it's not like it doesn't have a precedent. Do you think that that's a workaround? You're talking about the old side by side.

And that's a funny one where you can get it in the local market. The NFL does a lot of this. Don't worry, it's free over the air in your local markets. That was a lot of what the antitrust suit was about. I just don't think the NBA has the appetite for that, Mike. They have...

really worked hard to get these three packages. And I understand why WBD has to, in theory, save face, but dollars will rule the day as they always do. And just look at the performance of the company and look at this financial status of the company. And they're in no mood. People talk about, oh, they'll fight this to the death.

They'll spend whatever it takes to make sure that they stay partners with the NBA because Charles Barkley is upset with them. That really doesn't come up when boards meet and they look with the CFO about what's happening with the company. So I just think that this is an intermediate step to try to get them a little face saving and a little bit of money.

David, if we believe that Barkley is actually going to retire in a year from now, does that matter to either side? Does it matter to the NBA when it comes to, OK, we're going to accept your bid of matching? Should it matter to Warner Brothers Discovery as to whether or not they chose to match the deal? John Skipper had a great line in the in the sporting class, which LinkedIn sponsored as as.

Pablo, one of his things, the host of the sporting class that made me smile. John Skipper had a very funny line about that, which is no, no one cares. Charles Barkley, he makes a lot of noise. The fans love him. He's got great ratings. People are watching. But when you're putting your package together, you want the games and you are paying for the games. You're paying for the live sports content, the ancillary programming that comes with it. It's fun to talk about, but it is not dispositive in any way. Right.

Let me be clear on the reference you just made, because the sporting class is the business podcast that you do with Skipper and Pablo. It appeared recently on Pablo Torrey Finds Out. And you're telling me that the only thing that was sponsored, sponsored by LinkedIn, was Pablo as the host of the sporting class. Is that what you're alleging?

No, I'm saying that the previous segment you did on your show was sponsored by LinkedIn. And part of that was a LinkedIn resume. And part of Pablo's resume was host of the sporting class. I'm glad all of that made you smile. What did you think of Cheryl Miller's comments that the WNBA is being undervalued? And did she say mistreated? Well, that's been that's what the union is coming out and saying. Now, Cheryl Miller is trying to say that.

And the reason why I'm smiling is they should be thanking their lucky stars that this 12-team league, which is going to be 14 teams, has a $200 million in allocation to it, up from 40 plus 20, which was the old deal for a total of 60. And now they're going to be at 200 plus maybe 60 for 260. And the reason I'm smiling is that Cheryl Miller is trying to claim

and the union in the WNBA is trying to claim that this is a total underpay. And what they're ignoring is that nobody was bidding for the rights without getting the NBA.

The NBA made it so if you want us, you're getting them too. It was not, hey, you're going to get the NBA. Anyone want to bid for the WNBA? No, it wasn't that. It was an amount of money that these networks were willing to spend, and then an allocation was decided by Adam Silver. His choice, his right, goes back to the networks and says, 200 million of this is for the WNBA, and now people are all up in arms on what an underprivileged

pay it is, not based on ratings, not based on revenue, not based on desire, not based on anything but hope, aspiration and fantasy. And I just am surprised that that is the tack that the WNBA and its spokespeople are taking, because the other way to look at it is, wow, this is a great thing that the NBA is recognizing that the WNBA is worth more, that it's valued more. But

we're now in the next 11 years going to grow up. And 11 years from now, we're going to be on our own and we're going to get a huge package on our own. So, David, are we supposed to believe then if Adam Silver didn't do that, the WNBA would not have gotten a deal that looked like this? It's a guarantee. There's a reason why the WNBA is baked into the NBA deal and why it was last deal and why it still is this deal. We talked again on this show that this was going to be very telling whether or not

the WNBA in this set of media rights deals that the NBA just completed will the WNBA be separated or will they still fall under the umbrella of the NBA that will be far more telling than Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese or any of the other great momentum they have and don't get me wrong there's incredible momentum but when the rubber hits the road the WNBA got tucked in under the NBA again

Why is it hope, aspiration, though, and fantasy when we're all seeing that this is something that has more value than it did? And how should Adam Silver react to what Cheryl Miller is saying? Like, how do you imagine he thinks about those comments?

Oh, I think he'd rather her not talk at all. And my guess is he's been advised to say nothing and to just put a tourniquet around it. There will be a time when he meets the media when the deals are announced for real. Remember, he hasn't still announced the actual deals. He just said it was done, but he was very circumspect. There's more to do. He didn't mention the names of the

companies when there's a formal press conference he will mention the WNBA and he will mention them in glowing terms what an amazing asset it is how much it's growing how proud he is they're going from 12 teams to 14 teams over the next two years the commissioner would like to see Engelbert up to more 20 teams 25 teams they want to make it a full thriving women's league and I'd

absolutely want that to happen too and once it does they'll be able to gauge their demand right now there's there just wasn't the demand for it what is the movie that you're reviewing this week i'm surprised to hear you say that just because i believe that if it became an open case of uh putting the wnba out there as a free agent there would be a demand for it like that there would be a demand i didn't say no demand dan i said there wouldn't be a demand at the level of 200 million dollars

And I guess you can't know those things until you throw them into the streaming services because I didn't think the NBA was going to be worth what it's worth. Everybody told me it wasn't going to be worth what it was worth. And then the NBA just held its ground and ended up being worth all of that. But that's also not right. John Skipper, from the beginning on the sporting class, predicted exactly what the new NBA deal would be because he recognized the value and viewed it as a triple, meaning triple the rights. And that's exactly what happened.

And by the way, if the WNBA did have an independent market, you can bet your bippy that it would have been independent and that they then they would have gotten more than 200. It's a bit. But they didn't. What is a bippy? What is a bippy? He's done this. I think it's like a body part or something. I don't know what it is. I forget YouTube channel.

Stu Gatz here for my friends over at SimpliSafe. If you're like me, you're constantly thinking about the safety of the people and things you value most. After a friend told me about a break-in in his home in which many of his most valuable possessions were stolen, I knew I needed to secure my home with the best. I've trusted SimpliSafe to protect my home for six years now, and the level of security and customer care has been incredible. I sleep better every night knowing SimpliSafe's 24-7 monitoring agents are standing by to protect me

and my home. They'll also send emergency help when I need it most. I want you to have the same peace of mind that I and so many listeners experience every day, which is why I partner with SimpliSafe to offer listeners 20% off a system. Just visit simplisafe.com slash DLB. What I love most is that SimpliSafe just keeps getting better.

Protect your home this summer with 20% off any new SimpliSafe system. When you sign up for fast protect monitoring, just visit simplisafe.com slash DLB. That's simplisafe.com slash DLB. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

Howdy, listeners. It's Mike Ryan, and I've told you for quite a while about GameTime, my number one destination for the secondary ticket marketplace. No one does it like GameTime. There are often times where I'm using GameTime, and I'm like, man, this experience cannot get any better. And then, boom, GameTime now has a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play even easier. GameTime filters out the fluff to only show you the incredible deals on great seats for your team so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Go

Go ahead and try it out for yourself. Pick an upcoming game on the app, browse through it on GameTime Picks, and you want to talk about great deals. GameTime always brings it, whether it's their all-in pricing, seat views, the lowest price guarantee, or their ticket coverage. They make this experience possible.

so easy. And for my money, it's the best ticket marketplace app out there. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code DAN for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account. Redeem code DAN for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest price. Guaranteed.