Episode Podcast Transcriptions 4 of The Markcast® podcast talking about the CFL, XFL, USFL and other “alt-football” news, stories, insights, commentary and more!!!

Episode transcriptions 4 of The Markcast®. The Markcast® is a sports-centric podcast, covering the CFL, XFL, USFL and other alternative football leagues. Tune in for the latest CFL, XFL, USFL and alt-football news. Episodes are listed in the order they were recorded. *Please excuse any spelling or typographical errors.

Episode 109 - Searching for Hidden Talent

We have Eric Merrida joining us from the free agent FA showcase, you know, with John Murphy, kind of people have been seeing all this posted online lately. How are you doing today, sir? I am doing great. Another day in paradise. Can't complain excited about next week. I just, I feel good, man. Happy. So this is the first of hopefully many of these rights. We have a showcase coming Wednesday, September 14th. So we're, you know, we're getting this out Friday. It'll be Friday the ninth. When this comes out gonna be down in Sugarland, Texas. Talk to me about kind of. What is your guys' thesis behind? Like, why are we doing this? Well, the first thing is. Me personally, the only way I can explain this is I'm pro player. I wanna do this for the players, honestly. I've been reaching out to teams. Probably the last 10 years about different guys. Some got more, more opportunities than others and some never really got a shot. So instead of me, Sending emails with four guys with three guys or figuring out what position they need. I'm like, man, if I can get someone to show up from a scouting department, A decision maker to see these guys in person. Then why not do that? Cause you know, highlights on, always tell the story. Game film. Some people don't even take the time to really watch the game film or even the highlights. So some people really can stand out and show the work they put in in person. So that was the whole. Method behind the madness. And I think it makes sense and, you know, let guys compete. And if there's other teams there, they're gonna have to compete with each other too, if somebody stands out. So that's what I wanted to create. It's nothing wrong with competition, you know? Well, it's an exciting time, I think for. Alternative, you know, non NFL or players trying to get, you know, if you're not on that roster. You know, here we have CFO going strong right now. We have the USFL just completed this season. XFL. And it having it's like. If people watched wrestling for years, having competing brands and wanting to get the best talent and be able to, you know, scout that and pay for that. And, and hold on to that is. The best for everybody and certainly the best for the players. And especially like, you know, with the excep fellow here, doing their showcases, not even being able to accommodate all the players that wanted to be right, cuz there's a huge talk about just a huge thirst in demand for, you know, let locations, things like this for players to be able to. Showcase their skills. Okay. So there's been a lot of variables that have kept guys outta. Of some of the exo showcases, for example. Obviously there was a situation with the L F B. Where players unfortunately were put out of their hotels right after practice. And they weren't able to get their things and whatnot. So there's about 200 or so players. Right there that didn't get an opportunity. Just because if they were on a roster at that point in time, they weren't allowed to attend. A workout for another league. Right? Of course this, the NFL call, they were able to go, but in regards to the XFL or anything like that, they didn't get an opportunity. So those players right there. There were a number of players this year and this year's draft class. Some that will be attending the showcase. That were injured during their, during the time of their pro day. So they weren't able to participate. Some of these guys are expected to run four threes and four fours. You know what I mean? And, and I'm sure if you connected with their film, They would've already had an opportunity or maybe already had an extra fill draft, full invite and whatnot, but they haven't been seen. And, and when you're a free agent and, and times are tough like this, you have to keep your name relevant. If not, you can kind of file to the wayside, you know? Everybody's waiting on time Brady to figure out if he was gonna come outta retirement or not, but everybody's not getting that type of love. That's a free agent that just grinded and, you know, maybe was the second tier receiver at their school, but it maybe has a lot of ability. And just in the offense they were used, they weren't used properly or what, whatever the case may have been, but they were team guy, you know what I. Mean at the end of the day, we want good players. We want team guys. That can come in and make an impact and be positive. So what kind of players are you? And again, you know, the hope is to have many of these, you know, depending on right. If there's interest demand from, you know, players to sugars, who all is gonna be, what types of players are gonna be at the showcase next week? Okay. So the main goal was if you have experience within the last four years, Of college for your draft class, for example. Or with the professional team, preferably XFL. Cause there's our, there are gonna be players most likely from the X FFL, 2020, and then us FFL. Failed. If they're free agents and they haven't signed their contract, yet there will be some of those. And then some players that were in this year's draft class that even spent time with NFL teams will be there. So it's exciting for them cuz some of them only may have got a rookie mini camp chance. Or they got a rookie mini camp chance. Then they got another rookie mini camp chance, and then they've got a contract and then they were released, you know, later, you know, during that process. And, you know, if you don't get to plan any preseason games, It's hard. It's really hard to make a practice squad or anything like that. It's almost a miracle just because there's so many guys putting out more film that's relevant and against good competition. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have been good if they would've got that opportunity. Right. So we wanna make sure we get. With the guns blazing great competition, healthy competition. In front of these Scouts so they can make a decision. Well, it's our, we ha so Emory, Hunt's going to be on the same show as this. I talking with them, he's he works with, you know, players in scouting and he's an analyst for, you know, college and, and all sorts of stuff. And, you know, that's what he's saying. You get some of these guys, you know, they might be in the trade, you know, coming into camp. They might get one Todd or two touch and three days, and then it's like, You're done. And it's like, how are you ever supposed to, you know, you hear, oh, so and so got signed or they're gonna be there. I know us is all football fans, you know, you're oh man, this is gonna be great. It's gonna blow out. And it is just not how it is all the time. And they might, might you get too shots and then they're maybe no shots, you know, you might not even have ball in you're out. So. Yeah, no, it's, that's absolutely right. And. I've had players in the past that, you know, they got. Two reps in practice. One of them was for a touchdown and then it's time to play the game. They play seven minutes in the fourth quarter as a wide receiver and they run the ball on every play. And you block, you know, but. You know, there's a lot of guys that can block, you know what I mean? but that doesn't mean you can run routes and cash, the ball and everything like that. So you don't get a chance to prove everything. Cause there's so many aspects. To be an NFL player or an XFL player or USFL player or. Even an arena, football, Canadian football league player. You, you have to do so much and check so many boxes. So who all are you guys gonna have at the showcase in terms of Scouts and people checking out the talent? Okay. So obviously I'm not able to disclose too much information, but I will say this. There will be eyes there from the CFO. They will be in the building. And then also the us F L. Will have reps there in attendance. To evaluate players and then. Yeah, I know. Everybody's really excited. About the possibility of like the XFL and everything being at the showcase. I am not able to disclose that information at this time. But for whatever players that show up, you will not be disappointed. In the people that will be there. There are many other leagues. Even Japan, the X league. I don't know if anyone knows about that. They pay a pretty penny out there. There's been players out there making about a hundred grand. The, the thing is they don't allow. More than two players to. Each team that are from the us, if I'm not mistaken. So. They want the film. They wanna see the footage. And they wanna share it to other European leagues and. Whatnot. So, yeah. Whoever comes out there will not be disappointed on who's there. And from a scouting. And from a league standpoint, if the XFL shows up, they will not be disappointed on the talent we're gonna have in the building. And the guys are really excited to show what they got. And yeah, man, I'm excited for them. Talk about the importance. Of, you know, like you said, advocate for the players here, guys, trying to get, having these leagues exist, having these guys be able to get other opportunities, play, make money, support their families, you know, not in the NFL. Well, to me, first of all, there's a lot of. Money to be made. From a player's standpoint coming outta college. I mean, you know, this, I graduated and. Unless you have experience . You know, there's not so many jobs that you can get unless it's sales. And a lot of these young men have no experience in sales. You know what I mean? And unless they're selling their Jordans or something like that, it's not really. A a bunch of education to prepare them for that first step out of college, right out of school. So if you have the opportunity. To play for a professional team, you know, no matter what the league is and you get to network with. Professional coaches, general managers. Personnel people. And I always tell this, even when guys are in college, you know, guy might feel like he's a D one player. I'm a power five guy, right? And you're getting a scholarship from a FCS school, right. Or a division two school. And you don't respond to the coach. You know, and I don't know if the guys pay attention, but. Chip Kelly's at UCLA right now. But before that, where was he at? He was in the NFL. And before that, where was he at? He was at Oregon. And before that was New Hampshire, you know what I mean? Like. Guys, move up guys, go from D three to the NFL offices. It, it happens. So you never burn a bridge life is about connections and that's why. All these people that are coming to this event are coming because. If you have trusted relationships and positive people and they, and they, you build a rapport with them, they're gonna be there for you cuz they trust your judgment. So that's what's happening at this event and that's why so many qualified individuals will be there from a professional standpoint. And even from an athlete standpoint, So I think it's huge. I guess it, it shouldn't surprise me, but it, it always says just how much demand there is and, and how many guys are all in on this? You know, we talked with the XFL and they were doing the Arizona showcase and they said, you, there was like third, 13 or 1800 guys on the wait list. The, you know, they just it's like, you can't even. Accommodate all this. And it's hard. Yeah. When you're trying to build these rosters and we talk about, is there enough talent and is there whatever, like. There's still guys that fall through the cracks, no matter, you know, you're flying around and doing these things, you're tax, like there's always guys, it just seems like there's always enough guys, you know, head down, hustling, wanting to make it work. And it really is. Yeah. Incumbent on, you know, people like you and other that have them means to kind of run these things, to be able to. Help figure that out. It's a really hard situation. Yeah. It's, it's really tough. And it's unfortunate and honestly, You know, that's kind of how this window came about. I'm like, look, I'm helping too many people. I know. Other people that are trying to help too many people. And they need their players to get a look, you know, For, for me as a former player, I was not a pro guy. Right. I had a dream the other night about playing football. I pulled my hamstring in my dream chasing a post route. Okay. That's how much I still wanna play. And I was in high school in this dream. I have dreams by the all the time, but. The thing is the opportunities are so limited. And most players, if they're given a fair shot, To see if they're good enough to see if they can survive in this league or these leagues. And if they were given that fair shot, they would be willing to accept it if they didn't make it. But they can't accept if they never get that opportunity. So that's why anxiety. Depression, all that is real about this game when someone tells you no, especially when you never. Have that true opportunity to showcase your ability and your talent. And that's that's really, I just like, man, can I get these guys one shot? Can I get, can you come out here and watch these young men and look at 'em and tell me that they're not good enough. Cause once, once they do that and you do that, they can understand, they can accept it and they can move on and see what they wanna do next. But I guarantee you, there's gonna be guys that are gonna be offered contracts from this event. You know what I mean? I guarantee it, cause I know I I've seen the players. I've I've been watching guys for a long time. I've seen a lot of guys making, I've seen a guy, a lot of guys that didn't make it for, for one issue or one, one situation. So it's huge. Well, it, it is hard and it's, it's something. Like we, you know, we saw like Avanti Turpin here, you know, you got, you try, like guy had to work for however many years to come through to get, but it proves that, you know, ultimately, you know, talent can went out. If you're someone that has that ability. I think it's good that you guys are working and like, you know, with you and John Murphy, People, you know, with the connections, cuz like I get hit up all the time online. Hey, here's my tape. Or can you send this out or retweet my highlight? I was like, I don't know what that does. Anything I working with you guys showcase, coming out, having trusted in individuals there Scouts, putting this together. I mean, I think that's the way you gotta do it. I know it's a hunt, you know, like a hundred dollars to register for that, but. You know, you gotta look at where you're kind of putting your eggs here and, and figure out what's worth it. But I, I see all the time guys, it's, you know, retweeting everything online and I just don't know. Yeah. What that does. Yeah, so. Social media. It's it's I guess a blessing and a curse, right? You know, if you, for like Kavante Turpin. Just that story. There's so many guys like him, right. That. Knew they were good enough. They just needed a shot. Right. But. For whatever reason they had to go to a lead. That maybe they didn't feel they should be planning. Right. And it's nothing against that league, but just like guys coming out of high school and they wanna go to power fly, you know, there's you there's so many players. I, I talked to ANFL coach. Like two weeks ago and he is like, Right now, you, you want me to look at this player? I have 1400 guys that are already on my list, so I'll get to him. I'll I'll look at him, but it's gonna take me a while. You know what I mean? Why is this guy that important that I need to watch over the other 1400 that I still have to check out you know what I mean? So it's, it's so much, but. My thing is this I've I've had players go to these workouts. To these showcases to these camps. And I'm not here to speak about anybody else's business, but. Sometimes it's just a money grab, right? And I want guys to be able to be seen by these people and be picked up. You know, I don't want you going to another workout after this. I want you to be like, man, three different leagues offered me a contract. Or two leads offered me a contract and one interested. And they told me that the drafting, you know what I mean? I want this. I want substance behind this. I want these guys to really get a fair opportunity. To be seen doing their 40, doing their 5, 10, 5 getting their official measurements. And competing one on ones. So that's my goal, man. And, and that's, what's gonna happen. It's it's, it's destined, you know, so. So we got, so it's coming that Wednesday, Sugarland, Texas is the first one of these, you know, I information's online. I think your guys' Twitter is, is good for that FA showcase. Yes. We'll put the links and everything else on there. Obviously you're still looking for guys up until the, that any the else before lets you go really appreciate you taking time today to come on. Before you have all your other work you have to do. Oh man. There's there's so much I can talk to you forever. Just really excited. Like I said, we're, we're, we're open to going to other locations as long as they're a good amount amount of players. There's CFO Scouts. USFL teams that are interested in different areas. So we're open to do it wherever, whenever, however, we're flexible. We're taking all sponsorships. Promotion whatever's gonna help the help the cause, you know, cause at the end of the day, The more quality people there, the better opportunities for these young men and the, the better chances for them to succeed in life. Cause you know, one day football will be over from a playing standpoint. And there's so much more to life. Than just being in between those lines. Right. So I wanna make sure that these guys get a chance to, to build. Build relationships and build a positive futures for the next generations. And hopefully they won't have to do these anymore. You know what I mean? So, Well, I'm really curious you, as we've never like really lived through the spring football off season right now, we are with USFL, but you know, before with, you know, XFL everything else. Yeah. How it kinda looks like, because it felt like, you know, we did our USFL draft showback, or they had the draft, you know, back in what was that March? Or whatever the hell that yeah. Before the season, you know, now AFL is coming back, they're doing, you know, you're, we're inviting some 20, 20 people, if you were part of it, you know, coming back. But like, it seems like there was like this pent up, all these guys that had been kind of screwed over the last three years right now. And I'm curious as we can continue to go here now. Year two USFL year, one XFL know, presumably we can do, like, what does that look like in terms of, you know, trying to keep finding new guys that, you know, maybe I felt like there was just a bunch of, not like retreads, but like, you know, we're still like Brandon silvers. Okay. He's coming around. They're coming to our, we're talking all these guys. They'll be curious to see what, what new faces and. Emerged from the work you guys are doing and others as part of this. I fully agree and I fully understand, and, and, and honestly, What COVID did to a lot of situations, you know, I don't know if you remember when the XFL was gonna play that last game. That was canceled due to COVID. It was gonna be the most televised. Sporting event, probably in the last, who knows how many years? Cause it was the. Event, the only one left. Right. And they couldn't do it. And honestly, if I feel like if they played that one game, They might, they may never have stopped cause it was rolling. Right. But. It's it is just, it's just. Crazy that the opportunities are slim. Slam, but I think now they're finally starting to get through. Some of those COVID classes. And I think. Over this time period. Now, like these, these guys that came out in this year's draft class. So because there was so many, there was so many players in this year's draft class. 2022 Due to COVID due to the extra years. Due to the trans portal due to guys sitting out a year and then coming back to play. So it was a little. Overlap of talent. So I think 20, 23 things will start clearing up. But as of right now, it's still a mosh pit and there's so many guys that didn't even get a chance. You know what I mean? Like, oh man, I was, and I conference player. And I was on the emergency list for the USFL, you know, the last four games of the season. And I played in a great conference. Well, what did I do wrong? You know? Well, I don't really have an answer for him. You didn't do anything wrong. Have you kept working? Are you ready? Come me out here. Show it prove it. And let's kick the door in. Because now because of guys like Kiante Turpin. And players from the USFL U sing was a 20, 30 guys got picked up from the USFL. That's just the USFL. You think that number's not gonna go up for next year? So we need to get in these leagues right now. Right. And the XFL, you know, what's gonna happen, right? It's gonna, it's gonna be big time. Mr. Dwayne, the rock Johnson is doing big things. You know what I mean? And they had a ton of guys at their showcases and if they would've had one in 50 states, they probably still would've had over a hundred guys at each of the workouts. And I'm pretty sure they would've been a list at least 10 guys that are ball ball. You know what I mean? But some of those guys will never get a look and, and. You know, I, I had a player that was going to a workout and his flight was delayed cuz you know, I've cancellations have been during that time period. And he couldn't get in contact with the team or a personnel, cuz you know, it was all email at that point in time. And, and luckily for him. They had private workouts, but they can only. Manage so many guys, you know what I mean, in there and then, and luck and I'm, and he's happy and blessed that he got another opportunity. He wants to come to this, but he can't make this, you know what I mean? What's the next one. What's the next one. You know what I mean? So it's, it's rough, but if guys are willing to just keep working. And stay ready and be willing to do these workouts. Be willing to play another leagues, to get to their main goal, whatever their goal may be. I feel like the door's open the door's open, but don't, don't sell yourself short by not wanting to play. And, and going to take a job at subway, nothing wrong with subway on the side. You know what I mean? But. Don't don't turn down your dreams. Without giving it your full 100% go. You know what I mean? So this, I had a friend that was a back and quarterback in the arena of football league that went directly to the 49ers. You know what I mean? So it's never, it's never what you think it's gonna be everyone's path is different, right? And just because there's a little bit of adversity in your, in your life, which we've all experienced in our own type of way, you can't give up at the first line of defense. You gotta keep fighting. You gotta keep putting. So. Well, Eric, I think you did a good job today selling. I really appreciate your time. Look forward to it and, and talking with you guys in the future and helping to promote everything else. I think it's wonderful. Players need to have opportunities presented like you guys are doing. So thank you so much for your time today. Hey, it's an honor. I appreciate it. I'm excited. And everybody that's helping out with the event. Thank you so much. We're gonna have seven seeds, barbecue in the house, serving the players after they don't have to worry about paying anything like that. Section 28, helping them with the gear merchandise. Athlete innovations, former assistant trainer for the Cincinnati Bengals will be out there with us as well. We've got Scouts from the, the hula bowl in the, Well, I'm excited today. The Elks are kind of like the second team of the mark has obviously the BC lion number one, but we have David Bowles here. Six 30 sideline reporter for the Alex. How are you doing today, sir? Very well read. Thanks much for having me on the show. Yeah, busy day outside of CFO football. But now I obviously, you know, our IP, the, you know, the, the queen and everybody over in the UK mourning that, but we do still have a mark episode to put out tomorrow when the CFO C season to, to play. So, yeah, we'll, we'll move forward. Yeah. Sorry. Yes, sir. So curious with you. Yeah. First time having you on, you know, lots of stories right now, you know, Alex's not being able to get everything together. Obviously we have the Vernon Adam stuff going on, everything in Montreal, what is to you kind of the big, biggest thing you're paying 10 attention to in the C right now. There's two things. Obviously me being the sideline reporter for the elk. So obviously focused on, on my team right here in, in the Alberta capital. And I think there's a couple different storylines of this team. Obviously there's been the trade of Dave beard recently, you know, the long time elk stud on the line there. And it seemed like this team is definitely preparing for next year. While looking forward to a bit of a youth movement, having Jesse Gibbons being brought in from Hamilton via trade and looking at what they have in trade forward with he's able to come back this year and seeing the growth and Taylor Cornelius's game as well. Seeing the evolve, the steps has Siemens taken this year, certainly been. A thing that I've been impressed by. I'm wanting to see too, but in terms of the other side, it's been the Hamilton storyline. Sorry, it's been the Hamilton tiger cats cuz. This is a team that went to the great couple, the last two years. And lost to the Winnipeg blue bombers last year, if you may recall, pretty heartbreaking fashion. And now this year, we're looking at a ball club that. Is three and nine. So it's a bit. That one's kind of surprised me cause I don't think Golan Stein hour by any means it is. Is a back coach. As a matter of fact, I think he's a great coach. It's just very perplexing. You see the tiger cats, a team that is, you know, like great football last year, just to have this little drop off. And I mean, Obviously maybe an anomaly or we'll see what happens, but it's definitely been the, one of the bigger headlines for me seeing a team that's been so competitive to have, get, get into such a funk. Well, it's crazy. I mean, OB CFO slash season, that was our first season covering all this stuff. I was there. I was in Hamilton and, and I, I really did think that, I mean, they seemed like they could win, you know, they, they, you had the Rouge point and all of that and a couple things go the other way, but to, you know, to live through me, Thinking that, Hey, Hamilton is a force to be reckoned with here, and then to see how divergent the paths are right now with Winnipeg, seemingly keeping up with everything they've had, you know, As much as they found a cloud, their way through a bunch of these games, Hamilton has, has really just fallen apart, especially with Dave Evans, which I really thought they were in good shape with coming out of the season. Well, when you touched on would Iteg two is that I was talk about with the show of the fells here, here at Edmonton. I mean the bombers last year were. Just marching to the beat of their own drum and just, you know, putting up a D a demolishing offense, whereas. I'm gonna look at the game. They played here at Edmonton where they didn't exactly like the world on fire offensively. I mean, Zach Calero only competed it's completed seven passes, but they still picked up a w. It, it seems to me and having watched them in a Regina too, even on, even on the Sunday for, for the labor day game. It doesn't seem like the ball members are just so much destroying teams like they did last year. Just, you know, Kind of obliterate them. It's just. It's the old adage of like we see in every sport is when you've got your foot on. You got your foot down. Don't let off. Is that. We've seen the bombers get a little bit of daylight and then break back into it. And then they've obviously been able to, I mean, that's what good teams do. They, they close out wins and they find way, ways to win. And. You've certainly gotta give the bombers credit for. For doing that, but I mean, it it's just from Hamilton's perspective, it's just weird to see a team like we, like we talked about go from such a strong performance, be such strong offensive competitor to being one that's very. You know, still pulling up those good numbers, but they're still looking at a three and nine record. And at the end of the day, I mean, that's. That's not a record. That's exactly heavy in the playoffs. And the, the elk two, I think at three and nine are, are looking at next years. We've talked about as well. Do you, do you think that was always the plan at Edmonton that, Hey, we're gonna get Chris Jones in. We're gonna do all this or is it now we're halfway? No, we're really looking to next year at this point. My impressions is when they hired Joes. I've talked about with some of the guys here too, is that I, I never expected this to sort of be a makeover overnight, something that was gonna be asked to be done as like first game of the year, bang. We know something drastically different last year. It's, it's a process and we've heard coach Jones talking about it too, on a occasion. This is that. Things take time, you gotta build up, get the right roster. And there's been, even from last year when I was in the PA booth, there's been a lot of change and you can certainly see. Positive strides to be made on the made on the elk. So offensive line and Elk's defensively as well. Is that. It's not going to be that one year, everything gets done in a matter, but it's, it's building for the future. And we're seeing that with Trey Ford, having a more active sort of dynamic. Running game from the quarterback position. They're still trying to find that right balance running back. They've gone through a few of them. Sherman Beatty. I think it was ju. James on the weekend who had a couple great Ron steel, a Cornelius showing some mobility. So. There's certainly strides being made. I always think this was gonna be a couple years project. Some they weren't gonna reinvent the, the wheel overnights. How big of a derailing factor, do you think trade Ford's injury was. I don't know if it was necessarily a derailing factor, but I would've been curious from my end to see how he would've fared. Had he been able to have more time this slot, as you know, there, Reid, the more time you have to practice, the more time you get comfortable and off edge just scheme, the more time you have at practice, the more familiar you develop. That chemistry with your receivers. I mean helps too. When you have two pretty good receivers in Dre, Walker. And, and Kenny Lawler, but I would've been very curious to see how he would've developed that rapport with his receivers and PRS and be able to work with. Such talented guys like that and, you know, help maybe get the offensive rolling. Do, are they in a different position? Hard to say, but it would've been very cool to see that kind of mobility and skill as the Elks, March down the field in the very various games they would've had of for. 'Em for, is this, you know, it's weird, you know, we know Cornel ASU was in XFL and then played, you know, had some playtime last year with Edmonton. And then obviously this year, and I just can't ever figure out like, are, are the Elks, are we behind, you know, Cornelius, is this you just a Phil gap or waiting for trade four? I mean, it was weird. To me that we spend all this money on, you know, Kenny Lawler in the, a season, the Ohio pay receiver. And I'm like, who is like, who is throwing him the ball. It's like buying the Ferrari and parking out front of like a trailer park. It's like, where are we? What are we doing with this? I think there's certainly a level of trust with Taylor tion. I mean, even from last year, the guys growing immensely, like the thing that struck me when I first met the guys, he's a tall dude. Mean six, five. He's not a shrinking violet. And just watching me in the few times, I've had to in practice, I've had the opportunity to in practice and even during games, the guy has got a gun for an arm. He can just sit there and let it go. And they're just really look like there's a lot of force. And, and he, even this year, he we're, I'm seeing him run the ball more, which wasn't something I. Saw we saw a whole lot of last year under Jamie LaSandra or even at, at certain points earlier this year. So. I think there is a report develop there because E in an interview that Wilder did James Wilder Jr. Not James Wilder. Pardon me? Kenny Lawler did goes Mylon, simple. My quarterback can get me the ball. I'm gonna help catch it. And I mean, it's, it's a pretty decent theory because there's been times where I've watched. Cornelius, just sit there. And he, all he has to do is just sit there. And if he gets time in the book and he can rip it and I mean, that's all your receivers want. He can get them the ball, let them take care of the rest. And. He certainly got the arm strength and the skill to do it. And as we saw even last week in Calgary, the, at the labor day classic. Certainly got the mobility there too. With Jaylen Marshalls received touchdown. Just curious, you know, I think Farhan was reporting that, you know, tray four can come back like next week. So is eligible the week after just curious, like, do we really just go all in on him, try to develop him for next year. I'll just be curious to see what the game plan is here for Edmonton down the stretch. I could see them sort of rotating him in and out with corns, kind of giving him. A show because they're three and nine right now. And obviously there's a few Chan, there's still a few games to go. And I'm coach Jones is extremely competitive fella and obviously everyone pro football is competitive. You want to have your chance to win every, every week. I can see so scenarios where they give four, a chance to get the ball, as well as. Corning, at least Ford does look a little more bit of, of an athlete Ford's story, where you terms he's more of a Maverick. He runs the ball, sort of got that. Verine Adam's junior fields, Tim, in a few games I've seen him. So I can see scenarios where they rotate him in and out for running place. Kind of throwing a little trickery to the offense. It's very much it's seems like we said, I bit of a, a looking. Forward point to next year, but I'd be curious to see if that is the scenario where they sort of mix the two in for starts or. Kind of mix forward into more endgame scenarios and add a little bit of a new, let's say texture to that. Elk's offense. What do you make? I know, I can't remember what it was about. I saw Victor posting this week, Victor que about, you know, it was the re-up party or come something, get your season ticket section. That's not a lot of comments. Like, you know, a lot of expletive, a lot of bad words, a lot of things, you know, not renewing tickets, so win, but it's. Like, it's not, it's not an overnight thing. I mean, people are still blaming the name stuff, which is just crazy. I, I can't even wrap my head around that, but what do you make of just the mentality of, of Edmonton's fan base right now? I, I think it's certainly an interesting, but I like where Victor's coming from though, because. I mean, yeah, the whole team, the Elks have won home. The Elks to football team has hasn't won a home game in a thousand plus days. And yes, there was Corona that's that's affected it. And I mean, there, there are. Some people who, who have their grievances with whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, I mean, I like what he's doing, because you've got to, in some ways you've gotta be able to branch out and reach new people who may, you know, maybe they weren't fan of game, but you've gotta reach out to fans and say, Hey, you know what, maybe we didn't get it right before. Well, we wanna have you back you if the there's any, anything can do it, who you're. Engaging people. And at the end of the day, if people will want to tell you their thoughts, However it may be. You're getting. You're getting the feet, you're getting feedback and you're engaging them. You're getting them maybe care about something or, or offer there an opinion on something they may not have had to other words. So it's good seeing what Victor's doing because it's something we do need more of a sports people who can. Maybe in a, in a higher up position, reach out and can connect with the fan base. And that's how you grow the game at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, they got tough stretch down here, you know, stamps coming in, then going to Saskatchewan, you know, they look like they're kind of hitting a little bit more now and then obviously the bi-week and then the Owlettes, I mean, It'll just be curious. I mean, what do we. I don't know. I never know how you approached the, of the season that way, where, when you're on the sub 500 and, and are we. Do we just go for broke or I try to rebuild. I mean, BC's going the other way. And they're bringing in Vernon and really trying to make a run outta it right now. Just we'll be curious to see what they decided to do in them then. Em 10. Yeah, the BC game of curious. So obviously, I mean, Nathan, Rourke's not there and I mean, ROS sort of been prior to his injury. He was a lot of everyone was lucky, you know, I. Probably had the run for the most outstanding Canadian, but he was, I think it's safe to say he was in the conversation for most outstanding player. I mean, he was that good. So. It depends if Michael O'Connor, you know, plays and how and how well BC's offense adjusts. I mean, obviously more games against Saskatchewan that could be. That could been strict. They held the elk, sell them pretty tight here. The Calgary one should be interesting because in the two games they played against the stamps. It's not like they've gotten blown out in Calgary. Like the first game of the year. They. They hung pretty tough. There was, if I remember correct, there was a bowl, Levi Mitchell, deep ball towards the end of the second half, when the elk settle law momentum, that kinda really. I don't wanna say seal the deal, but it got close enough to it that it might be splitting hairs. And even last week, they all held them and check pretty close, right to the final Whistler that Renee peritus Misel gold towards the end of the fourth quarter, really allowed Edmonton to have their final shot at the deal. So I don't think they're gonna go down without a fight and, and it's good. Cause you wanna see a competitive football team week in and week out. And I strongly expect on any Chris John team in any professional football team that. They're gonna give the fans something, watch at least until the very end of the season. What do you, you know, we talked to Hamilton. What are you looking at in the east here? I mean, Yeah. I was like I said, I was on the Al west flight deck. You know, we're talking Montreal lost a lot of steam here, the last couple weeks, Hamilton. Toronto seems to be the only one that can really kind of get anything together there, Ottawa. Right? I mean, what, what do you make of the east? The east is interesting because. It used to be, it used, it seemed to me in at least it used to be a lot stronger, but I mean, The Argos kind of a, the Argos to me are a bit of an interesting one because. There's a lot of talent there. MCCA Bethel Thompson certainly evolved as a quarterback. And I mean, Dan Evans has. Not quite been himself this year. I think it's fair to say, but I think the, obviously with the Argos leading these, you've gotta keep an eye on them and, and that's from where I'm coming at is they've got a capable running game. They look like they've got a pretty good quarterback when he is on, is capable of at least leading that offense. It's just a matter of consistency. Cause the Argo had a few wins over Saskatche when I think three today, two or three of them about right. It's just a matter for me of seeing if they consistently strain it together. And I mean, Montreal did manage, they're the only team to beat one a beg this season. So I've gotta give them. It, I have to give them a sharp look, but it's just a consistency thing for the east. If I can see a consistent blood from both the Argos. And the Hals then maybe. That changes the complexion of the battle out east a little more. And then whoever the crossover team is possibly out west. But if be your trail were able to string together consistent. Some consistent performances, buildups and Ws towards the end of the season. It'd be very, a very, very interesting dynamic. We have heading into the playoffs. It's just crazy. I really thought the owls had a lot of momentum and then obviously the Gary stern of it all and with Vernon now going, and it just the winds of fortune. Changed so much over the course of like 72 hours there. Like I really was. I thought they were kind of my team in the east. I thought they were gonna make a run for it. You know, they put Winnipeg gave them the w or the L there, but it just doesn't seem like getting anyone, like you said, can get any consistent consistency going into the east right now. Yeah. And I's sort of the thing is like, I mean, Trevor Harris too. He, he looks like a pretty good quarterback. And it's the Danny machos system. I think that's somewhere of Danny Mao's guy. But it's, it's just the weird thing out there is it's these to sort of kind of confounded by expectations a bit. Cause I thought the a would be a solid team. Thought the LS could be pretty good team after what we saw from, from ver Adams Jr. At points last year. And I thought the tie cats were good as we've met, mentioned sort of just. Kind of emerges the cost of the east and give the, give the bombers, perhaps another threat or, or what it may be. But. Sort of the way everything shaped down, even with Ottawa, not hap just by the fact they, that I'm solely in the off season and Jalyn, Alan, it's been a bit of a. Expectation confounding and sort of the fuddling. Shakedown of the, of the east, but it's still fun football. I mean, that's those, some of the best games, like there was that Ottawa Montreal game, the 40 to 33 game, they had a couple weeks back was one of the best games this season. I mean, Pretty close to even those Calgary wouldn't beg battles as well that have, you know, been separated by a touchdown or a last minute go last minute. Play. It's so that, that is almost a more exciting games this year. I mean, I get too stressed when it comes to BC playing anyone, but you know, that Calgary win pay kind of back and forth there. And now with Jake Meir, I mean, do you. You know, we had Jake on preseason. I was really high on him, cuz I, I had always said, you know, he was kind of my caliber recorder back last year. Cause we came in and Bo was her and I'm like, who the hell is this? The mayor? And that's kind of running, running shop here, but now he's come out. I mean, I don't know if we see Bo the rest of the season. I, what do you make of all the Calgary stuff going on? I'm intrigued by the K quarterback scenario, because it, it seems to me that maybe we've been down this road before, cuz Nick Arbuckle couple years back is that our buckle came in, looked pretty good in that Calgary. System. And he got kind of that. I'd say adulation, and then he obviously he's gone onto forge his own path in the CFO. Then we saw a Bo come back. But I like that. I like what mayor showed. Like, he looked pretty comfortable in that game versus Edmonton. He was sitting back in the pocket. He was making good, accurate throws, and he didn't look flummoxed by it all. It's. The, the only analogy I've got here is it seems to me like the stamp beats, just pumping out quarterbacks the way the red wings used to, you know, put out defensemen, it's just this consistent line at talent you just look at and go, wow. It it's genuinely, it's quite interesting that they've been able to mine this much talent. I mean, Bo Levi, Mitchell still. I mean, you got what he's done for. Calgary's pretty good. But when you look at Jake may, I mean, it doesn't look like the stamp eaters are sitting on a bad backup option whatsoever. Possibly even stir by the future stuff. Yeah, it's great. I mean, when you saw that last year and kids, there was all these concerns with Bo and his leg and everything, and he thought, man, whatever happens. I mean, they're set here for the next, however long. I mean, especially once a, you know, extended mayor's contract and all that, it's like, they're really just speaks ments to the coach and the management, everyone they have. Over there, keeping everyone in, in check. Certainly. Yeah. And. Then a good coach can certainly make break a team. And, and obviously we're seeing that with lot. I think there's the coaching and the CFO's obviously awesome. Like I've had a lot of respect for. Whoever I've sported in the past. And even now in Edmonton, I mean, always had a lot of respect for the work coach Jones did when he was here, when he was in Toronto, when he was with Stan Peters, when he was now and, and was with the riders. Sorry. And I mean, looking at the leadership and Calgary mean Dave Dickinson. It's you're Jake may. There's not too many better guys. To learn the art quarterbacking from than one of the best players in recent memory to ever hold that position in, in Dave. So. It's certainly good to see young quarterbacks driving this league. I mean, as a Canadian, it's always nice seeing, you know, young, Canadian talent thriving, hopefully going forward in the league with guys like Trey Ford. If guys like Nathan Orke, we can continue to see young fellows from this country, continue to merge and. Show that they are capable talents at at the highest level. Moving into the rest of the season here we're at like week 14, which was crazy. I was recording my promo this, I thought, God, I can't believe we're already week. Like what the hell is happening here? What do you, what do you looking forward to the rest of the season? East west, kind of however you wanna slice it before I let you go. I would say, obviously I'm gonna look at it, the hometown angle. And I gotta say the big one for me is seeing how this. This week, specifically seeing how the band, seeing how the badge bowl goes of Winnipeg versus Saskatchewan. And then the one I really wanna see is the caliber versus Edmonton game here in, at comma while stadium, because. The first game, I'm gonna talk, we'll start with the Calgary. Cause that was a close game. And I mean, Just listen to the call we had on shed with Morley Scott and Dave Campbell. I mean, that was a very good football game. Tightly contested. Smart football. And I mean, it was athletic. It was fun. It was sort of what you wanna see on labor day. I wanna see if that can be brought back here because as mentioned the elk, we ever won a home game here at Commonwealth and thousand plus days. What a time, what a time to break that streak versus. You know, your RO your arrival in the battle of Alberta. So, I mean, that's, that's the big game for me. And the other one is the bingeable. Cause I'll set the one in, I was at the labor day game in Regina. Had the writers got out to a fast start. And then as I mentioned him, you don't let good teams up when you've got 'em down. It just seemed like the bombers kept getting. Themselves back into it. And I'm curious to see how that Dickenson offense adjusts. And curious, see how that defense adjusts now without Garrett Marino with him being released, because. I mean, obviously he he's had some, he's run into a few matters of controversy this season. I'm curious to see how win a big responds to perhaps the hit those leveled on colors. That's been seen as controversial and see other riders rebound from. You know, G giving up a lead and, and. Seeing the offense sort of go away on them in that second half that maybe they could have. Had some opportunities to not see, go. Yeah, I guess, and I hadn't addressed the Garrett Marino thing either, and we might as well just talk about it here for a quick second. I. I had people, first of all, incredible be amount of traction that, that late hit with he had on Coro Scott on Twitter that I think one of the, I, I had tweeted Monday more day, Ty Kat's fan the account with 197 followers. The video of that late hit at the time had like 97,000 views. Whereas the CFO. Tweeting that, you know, the game winning and field goal, whatever, from that game. With, you know, however many, 250,000 subscribers had, you know, 30,000 views. I bet this is not the right, the kind of attention that the CFO wants here. I'm so glad that. The riders did the right thing and Brosy did the right thing with the memo coming out and saying, you know, I have the right to revoke, you know, any of these contract signs, any thoughts on the Garrett Marie though? And just, it was, I, I cannot believe how much that blown up outta Sunday and the Monday. I genuinely think that I, I don't necessarily. Know what to make. Cause I don't wanna judge a guy's actions. Cause obviously all these, like off the field. But he, there were, so there was so much leading up to it. There was obviously the CU the. What happened was. That Jeremiah was solely first. And if I can remember correct, there was another incident throughout the year. That happened in practice, something like that. And then there was this. And obviously things build and, and that's what it led to. But I, I was in the state. I mean, when that hit delivered a thing that just kind of caught me is when he put his hands up and I just thought in instinctively went. Yeah. I don't necessarily know if that's gonna absolve you per se. So. It's it's amazing that that's what cuz like you said, it's not what you want attracted. You want people saying, oh this is the play for this. You mean? So Kenny law made a great catcher. Look at that picture on Carter made there. It was awesome. Or look at that, throw by call God. He can move in, run in through. He can run in, throw in the run. So. If that's. Obviously they riders did what they had to do and the CFO respond in their fashion, but hopefully going forward that. If there is stuff the leak can drink, attach to it's more great plays in the fact that there are as mentioned young, Canadian talent succeeding that we're seeing. Clubs like the Argos come up and build themselves up to a great level. And that, you know, the bombers might very well go for a Threepeat who knows. I mean, there's a lot of great storylines in the league and hopefully we'll see more of those storylines emerge as we go on. No, I hated it. I had people, you know, say to me like, well, is ITT this what? Like the media. Like isn't this what you want? Like more, I, it absolutely not. Like if it never like ever advocate, you know, anyone getting hurt, whether it was intentional or not in any sort of the way to draw more attention to this, I just thought it was so poor that he, when Marino came back against the lions, he had this kind of, he was trying to. Head dive into like Whitehead on the first playback from his suspension. And I just, I I'm glad that this was handled and I think that it was a bad look and I'm glad that universally Twitter seemed to come together at the end and say, this was a good move. Yeah. I saw it just, I was going back to my, my hotel of time and. I try to look. I try not to use Twitter too much. Ticket for what it is, but I, I, I was looking at it going and going. The comment section can always be a bit of a, let's see a, a minefield and. Everyone seemed to be in calm condemnation of it. Even. There are folks in, in the stands at mosaic who kind of, I, I can remember seeing their reaction and. It the, I kind of remember one guy going, oh, that's not great. And he was a diehard bomber fan. The guy, there were some, it's a mix. It's a good mix. You got a lot of people coming in from Winnipeg for the game. And the one guy beside me, you know, just the bomber flag, you know, the bomber Jersey like pro Matt to ABA guy. All I heard him go was. Didn't like that, and that's kind of thought, okay, let's keep an eye and see if that's a common reaction. And it did seem to sort of play out that way on Twitter, although, and. Much harsher forms than, you know, it's just a, you know, a gritted teeth and a sigh yeah. I, I didn't, I hadn't even. Tagged him in, in anything. And I got blocked by Gabriel. I said if only Garrett was a soft on the field as he was on Twitter, then maybe we wouldn't be in this conundrum to begin with. So oh my. anything else so far, let you go really appreciate you coming on. Like I said, big game this weekend, I keep an eye on Calgary, just cuz of everything going on with BC and kind of what we have going on right now. Cuz I think Winnipeg is far in the way, you know, wanting the division, but like to be competitive, there are any other thoughts before lets you go. I won't say so. I just think it's, it's been a pretty interesting season. I mean, this is the first full year we've had out of COVID this CFL and it's nice to see people. I mean in a year when it didn't play. And there was questions possibly about the league's. Ability to survive that it's just good to see people still coming out in Canada. Still actively devoted to football and still making sure that this league is. Is being paid attention to, and I mean, there's been plenty of games where we've seen that, Hey, this game is gonna be okay. I mean, Obviously those Cal Winnipeg thrillers. There's been a couple games with the Elks where I just thought, wow, this is good stuff. And. What 27, that 27 ons answer points in Montreal were they put up? So. It's just good in general to see people not only invest in the success of the CFO, but investment success now and down the line, both in terms of what they see on the field, how they're building the game going forward. David. I really appreciate your time. Say hi to morally and Dave Campbell. I think Dave was our first ever Canadian media person to ever come on our show back last year with all the XFL talks and everything else.

Episode 108 - Who Should Buy Into the XFL?

Well, I'm excited today. We have Brendan coffee here, sport the coat sports finance reporter. Talking, all things, XFL, Redbird, everything else. How are you doing, sir? Hey, I'm great. I'm great. Thanks Reid. Good to see it. Yeah. So you guys have the article come out, sport co exit fell, looking for, you know, investing obviously now in the news this week, Redbird, you know, finally acquired Aylan. I kind of wanted to get just all your thoughts on the exit L Redbird and general. What do you make of the ownership group and the FFL? Here headed into 2023. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's well, everyone knows, you know, the rock is the rocks and ball. He's the big name there. You know, obviously he brings a lot of Goodwill and he, and his business partner and ex-wife Danny Garcia. Are running it, but Redbird, which people may not know, certainly outside of finance. Is a large private equity fund, an investment fund. That's been. Investing in sports properties, media properties, some consumer and energy. Vehicles for about the past decade. And it's runback guy named Jerry Carnell, who, if you're in a sports business, you know, you know, you know, Jerry or you know of Jerry. So, you know, they bring a lot of, you know, it brings a lot of connections, brings a lot of insight, has a great track record of success. So, you know, we we've been tracking the USFL of it all in Fox and kind of that whole business model right here, you know, Redbird with the FFL coming out, that they, you know, Fox is trying to, to eventually find out these team, right. Get these. Franchises out, get, you know, people owners in, but with the XFL coming out, your guys is reporting that they're looking for. Investors here headed into the season, right. Potentially giving up 35 to 45% of, of the company. Mike Mitchell was kind of reporting on, on that as well. Like thoughts on that coming out before they've even kicked off. Yeah, well, you know, they, they're, they're looking for, you know, To get to get the XFL to kick off and then bring in, bring in new money, new investors to, to help grow the league. You know, they bought it two years ago for 15 million and, and. Maybe up to 9 million in, in assumed debt from wick Mann, right. And, you know, They've been funding it till now. And, and I, I think it's pretty, pretty par for the course. In, in a business arrangement like this, I wanna bring in new money. Right. And, and that's, it's not just about the money. It's about probably bringing in, in strategic partners that will have more of an interest in, in making sure the XFL is successful. Now, who would that be? I mean, that that's all speculation. You know, but you could see certainly other, other investment funds, maybe you get. You've got, maybe you get a media partner in there too. You know, there's a lot of demand these days to get to invest in sports. Than sports related properties. So I don't think they'll have a problem finding a partner. I think they can pick and choose who they want. You do you feel confident of them in terms of cuz. You know, Fox is trying to do the same thing in a different regard me. So I'm just trying to, you know, the appetite to, to find people to wanna invest in these, you know, B list, alternative football leagues. Well, you know, you have to take a step back and look at sports in general, and there's a lot of money, a lot of institutional money. That wants to get into sports and what's institutional money. That's that's everything from private equity. To venture capital, you know, to everything like pension funds and insurance companies, places that. Wanna find a place to put their money. That they could be pretty confident is gonna be stable and, and grow over the long term. And so, you know, I think we've all heard about the, the great growth and valuations of, of the, of the mainstream, the, the, the major pro leagues. Right. The NFL and lb MBA. How over the years, you know, teams at first, Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Dallas Cowboys for 140 million. In 1980 design that now is the most valuable sports franchise on earth. Right. I, I forget what we, what we have at Portico, but I think it's. It's 7 billion or more. So that kind of, of. Growth that outpaces stock market over time. But that also is, is, is pretty shielded from. You know, recessions and, and consumer worries and things like that. It's. You know, was his, has a lot of appeal to, to institutional money. And you see a lot of. These funds, just getting a lot of investor money. So Redbird for instance. Yeah, which, which is part of the X FFLs we've said. They're raising a new fund with that. They're they're confident. They're they're gonna get 2.6 billion in, in new money to invest. On top of the existing fund that owns part of the XFL. That is 2.6 billion. And, and, and an earlier fund, be it before that, that has about another 3 billion. So, and there, there are a number of other private equity funds that they'll want to get into sports. So to some extent, you, you, you know, the, you, they have this money, these funds have this money that has to go to work. So, you know, something like the XFL. You know, we'll, we'll get some interest for sure. I guess, and this is I'm obviously not the genius sports reporter person, you know, the ER, in terms of covering this, but like if Redbirds managing all this money, And then the XFL is like, Hey, we need more, like, why isn't Redbird investing more? Or is that, does that happen? Is that, you know, it seems like. They're reaching out to this, you know, RJP right. Partners or whatever, to come in to help raise that capital in, in terms of like looking inward. Yeah, well, yeah, there, there, there they should. They're. They've hired PJT partners to. To help them find partners, you know, in, in this business, it it's very much. Strategic relationships. Right? So. You know, there are a few aspects to it. The main one is, is the relationships. I think they wanna find partners who are gonna be invested in the XFL. Helped make it helped make it a winner. Right? Cause there, there are competing. You know, other football league out there as you know, right. That there's, you know, us F L and CFO. And of course the NFL. Along with college, you know? So, so they want people who are gonna. Help the XFL grow over time. And I, I think in part by. Bringing in outside money, you know, it, it does take a little bit of pressure off, you know, you know, the rock and, and Dan Garcia and, and Redbird too, with having to, to continue to put more money into the league. So. You know, to an extent there, there is that right. An investment. Fund like Redbird. While they want the XFL to succeed and, and, you know, are confident that they will get to succeed. You know, it's also part of the plan to. Kind of diversify the risk a little and bring in others to, to help bear the load. Cause that's the, you know, the feedback. I've gotten kind of even, you know, on the podcast. And guests and stuff. It's like, we'll see this just proves, you know, rock and Danny, you know, rich people stay rich cuz they don't, you know, they wanna bring in, they don't want, I mean, and you're saying that's not necessarily the case. Yeah. You know, the indications we've gotten at at Portico isn't that they wanna. Cash out. It's not it's, it's not, they, they don't want investors to, to pay them for their equity. They will surrender. Their equity. To, to people who bring new money to help fund the excess. Now that, that that's, that's what I've heard from, from our various sources. It's about cashing out. It really, it really is about kind of expanding the pie. And so. I don't know what the exact ownership is between, between the three parties. But say that each owned a third. Well, maybe they each give up 10% to, to. Create to create space for new investors. To buy in with equity, you know, and, and, and for fund like Redbird, you know, that's actually kind of a positive because when you get a new round of investment, Then you get a new, a new valuation for the league. That Redbird can then put on its on its books and say, Hey, we've already returned. You know, 10% or 20% or 30%. On this, on this continuing investment. Does it, the fact that. And I believe you're your report came out, was spoil the Rico. And I think Mike Mitchell, who does kind of he's our ex FFL alt football report, I think had reached out and it upwards of 35 to 45% of the, you know, equity stake that there will to kind of like he said, surrender for that. I've heard, had a lot. Of people like, wow, that is a lot of equity in something to give up this early. I always try to equate like the shark tank. Like, that's kind of always my, like, you know, and I'd rather own 10% of something that, but, you know, than something, whatever. But like, what do you make of that large of a percentage of equity being given up potentially. Credentially, you know, I think to some extent it, it's, it's practical because if, if you wanted to bring in, you know, and again, it's speculation. I could throw names out there, but, but say they want to bring in a, a. You see a lot of cross investments now between sports organizations buying another sports organizations, right. We just had the, the Yankees buy into red birds purchase of Eclan for instance, which closed today or yesterday. You know, by giving up that by, by freeing up that, that much. Equity. You're probably getting to a minimum investment level that a lot of. High net worth investors are funds. Investment funds. Would want, you know, like we can't be bothered with 1%, you know, and giving you $500,000, you know, we're looking to spend 5 million, 10 million or more. And. Depending on how you know the value they hang on the XFL come February when, when they wanna close this new round. Of investment, you know, they wanna be able to provide that to, to the type of investors they wanna. Attract. Yeah, this is all speculation. So now you're good here. You're good. This is welcome to my life on, on the Mark House. This is all that we have right now is speculating, but it's interesting feedback though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's not, and it's not unusual. Right? All the, you know, the, the major pro leagues, at least in the us and Canada. You know, they have minimum ownership requirements. They don't wanna sell, you know, tiny fractions to. To people, you know, I believe the NBA is a minimum 5% ownership level. Like, you know, you can't have an owner who owns less than 5%. If you wanna sell part the team. And similarly in, in the, in the NFL and, and. Well, baseball might be a little bit different, but, but you get the idea and, and they. You know, I, I think they want to do that too. Is, is they, they don't wanna. They don't want a gazillion, tiny people that to buy into the XFL. They they'd like to have a few, you know, maybe have a dozen. In terms of. It just like the amount of money right. Talking with. Spring football VINs, man, you know, had allocated like 300, 350 million right. Coming. Into EXL 2020. And obviously COVID all that stuff kind of fell apart. But now, you know, red birded them coming in, you know, it was like a hundred million knowing that they're gonna have to bring in more money. Like just curious your thoughts on like the, the expense of like launching a professional football league here and, and everything from the ground. Up. It is both USFL and XL are trying to do. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the XFL expenses are, but, but right. We know from college football, right. That it's expensive to run a football team. You know, so there, there are capital requirements, you know, having, having the TV deals, you know, the, the, the, the Disney deal helps a lot that that probably brings a, a whole lot of. Revenue and, and, and a little bit of cost certainty into it. But yeah. Yeah. I, I, I can't imagine it's it's, it's it's cheap. Thoughts on Redbird with AC Milan now kind of doing that, you know, acquiring that, working with the Exel, like. Red Birch, just trying to like expand their profile here in huge ways, kind of on the worldwide stage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they do. And, and. And, you know, the investment themes be. Buying like ACM alone. You know, or, and the XFL and, and some of the other things they do, I think don't wanna stake in a, a T 20 cricket team in India. You know, other soccer team, they don't, you know, they're probably best known for, for having a, a sizable stake in, in Fenway sports group. Right. Which I was the red Sox and the PI group, the Pittsburgh penguins now, and, and Liverpool. You know, the macro theme. For all of that, not just with Redbird, but with EV with all the sort of major investors you're seeing is, is. Is this idea that sports. Is is a great media play, right? It's not, and it's not that, you know, Jerry Nell and red don't care about, you know, this, the competition and the sports aspect. They do, but when you talk to people in, in the sports. Business investing side. They really view sports as I media play. So XFL is a media play. AC Milan, you know, is a, is a media play. There's, there's a lot of expectations that, that soccer will become. More more important to, to viewers in the us. But, but as I said, with all of these it's it's. Every sports property. Is is a way to provide content to the media companies, which are willing to pay a premium. For that content because it's the one thing people watch nowadays. Regularly. Live the sports. Curious your, your thoughts on. Just, you know, obviously you covered the finance of it, but just, you know, spring football in general here. Right. We have two competing properties here in the spring, both looking, both believing, you know, I mean, Fox is all in on this red bird. And just your thoughts on that here in 20 22, 20 23, we're gonna. Have you all these major networks kind of competing in the spring for football? Yeah, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. And you would think, you would think that that time of year is, is pretty full already. You have almost every league going. At that time, but I was just looking at the us FFLs ratings over the, the course of the past season. You know, and while they took a nose dive toward the end of the season, they were, there was still. Better or comparable to. Things like the NBC's NBC's primarily. Broadcasts and you know what the Yankees get on a, on a New York Yankees. Get on a really good game, you know, match up. During the regular season in, in New York, New Jersey. You know, so, you know, so for just the, the ability to command that many eyeballs, even when it's spring football, it's not established, you know, there's plenty of other things to draw people's attention. Yeah, that that's pretty impressive, you know, is it is, you know, I mean, if you're asking me if there's room for. Many alternative football leagues playing at the same time. I dunno. That's tough one. I, I just, I, I. Appreciate your insights where you say. Sports media, you know, it's such a hot ticket to get into right now. Like you don't anticipate. XFL or potential USFL Fox getting investors, wanting to kind of take the right cuz here, you know, Fox. They spent the whole season trying to, Hey guys, come in, buy one of these teams. To get lawsuit. Oh, you're frozen on my end. Best sports property is a hot enough to. Oh there you you're back. You're back. Oh, good. Here. I'll edit this. Don't worry. Okay. Just. Just the fact that you. Don't anticipate either XFL or Fox having issues. Attracting people, you know, to invest because sports media is such a hot property right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and you, and you see it, you, you see, you see it across sports. You see investments in a lot of money going after. You know, things that, that have a, a. That at least the first glance have, have less of a likelihood to pay off as oppos, as opposed to, you know, football, you know, which, which. You know, which people love. And we know from the, from the NFL. At least is, is almost full of P you see a lot of money going to things that. At a first glance. You don't know. Well, you know, what is the, what is the financial. Payoff down the line. For instance, you seeing a lot of investment in minor league baseball. You know, not to go on a tangent, but there's a lot of question about what, what the, what is the financial payoff for minor league baseball in the, in the long run? It's, it's much more clear for something like football. If you can get the league. To, to get traction. You know, in the spring, especially where you not head to head with the NFL. You know, you, you have a real good shot of, of having a good profitable product. Any other thoughts today really appreciate you taking the time. Hey, no, I, I appreciate it. It's fascinating. You know, it it's, it's great to see these, all these new leagues form me. It's an exciting time to be a sports fan. It's exciting time to, you know, to, to, you know, write about the, the finance and the business deals. You know, which I do on my end. Well, I tell, you know, we get a lot of like, oh, like we wanna talk about the Xs and those and all that stuff. This is the more fascinating thing to me. It's like, you know, what is us fellow or foxes, you know, or red birds, you know, five year game plan here. That's more interesting to me than like the, the backups starting quarterback for the Birmingham stallions or Well, I'm excited today. We have Rick Cella joining us creator, NFL draft Bible, advanced scout, NFL. I. I was looking through your, like I was researching this morning. You have quite an extensive background and resume really fascinating stuff. Thanks Reed. I mean, you know, when you've been at it for two decades, you hope you. Move and shake and get to know some people over the course of time, but you know, just like you were saying before we hopped on air, it started off as a labor of love. Always got my backbone in this industry back in the day from. Covering the late round or undrafted free agent guys story of the underdog. So I've always been. You know, kind of looking for the under the radar. Prospect. I always say, Hey, anybody can tell you who the top 100 guys are. It's the Scouts and things that we do at the NFL PA collegiate ball, where we're not targeting the senior bowl. Prospects we're we're looking for guys that could be late round steels, or even undrafted free agent gems. And that's why, like, I really, really. Respect the heck at a CFO. Scouts because it takes a certain eye. To not just recognize talent, but recognize a guy that might be on the fringe or might not have all the intangibles or might be. Eligible not for this year, but maybe two, three da years down the road. For the CFO. And so, yeah, man, I, I dabble it's my 21st year of covering the NFL draft on NFL draft Bible. We're now partnered with sports illustrated. So fortunate. To be a part of that. It's my fourth year. As you mentioned, as an advanced scout at the NFL PA collegiate bowl. And you know, this past two years or so linked up with Don ye who created the hub football camp and during the COVID pandemic, it created a absolutely wonderful platform for street free agents, trying to get into NFL, this facility that they think we had about. One in four guys, sign a NFL or CFO contract. And. I think 85 guys selected in the USFL draft. So that was pretty cool to see. And yeah, just a big, big, big advocate of alternate football spring leagues and talking football outside the NFL. Well, this is gets, you know, I was trying to figure out like, what the heck are we talking about this week? Everyone I've emailed, talked to there. At NFL, we've got, you know, cuts and all this stuff. And so I said, well, I just clearly that what we need to be talking about. This, the NFL cuts. As it relates to, you know, who could be for the USFL XFL, you know, what does that mean in terms of like the viability of these spring leagues and whatever we saw 51 USFL guys originally, you know, make it onto kind of the, the. The extended rosters cut down now to just one, in terms of Kavante chirping with the Cowboys, Michael Abernathy got cut yesterday with the Packers. Thoughts on the success of the USFL, getting guys onto the rosters and then with all the cut downs that you've seen here in the last couple weeks. Well, even if it's just one guy that's considered a success, right? Because you just got paid Kavante Turpen just got paid. And that's the whole point of a spring league is to get you an opportunity. And you know, maybe those other 50 guys did not make the final 53 man roster, but they got another look. Probably because they laid down some solid film in the USFL and you know, I'll tell you what, I think a lot of guys are going. Recirculate on the practice squads, but at the end of the day, even if it is just one guy on the 53, man, Roster that to me tells me that the mission of the USFL. Was accomplished and just think about this. A thousand guys just got cut. I bet you all thousand of them would sign up to be that one guy and compete to be. That one guy that gets the opportunity to make that roster spot. So to me, The fact that, you know, 50 plus guys. That were initially overlooked. Got another opportunity. That's what it's about. I mean, once you get into camp, Hey, it's on you. But I think that it's going to be a trend that continues to increase and continues to serve a really vital purpose. Especially when you talk about the lack of development with quarterbacks and offensive linemen, you talk to the scouting community. About those two positions and the lack of development and how maybe they're not pro ready coming outta college. Well, a developmental league, a spring league can serve as a useful purpose for these guys to get valuable reps and game experience because. That's what it's all about. What's crazy about kabati Turpin is, you know, the journey he had to go on from, you know, being in the spring league and going to elf and doing the fan control football, and then doing the SFL. I, I think I have my, my course. Right. But you know, the, it wasn't like he was his sure shot. I know he had some stuff I think in college that maybe personal stuff. That maybe was held against him originally, but like just. There wasn't like he even just went to the USFL and got a shot. It was four different steps to get. I mean, it's, it's. His journey is incredible and it just speaks to how hard it is to really make an on an NFL roster. Oh, no doubt. And you know, the speed element, right? You can't teach speed, but there was some off the field stuff. So he had to go out and prove that worth. And I think the first. League was the fan controlled football. If I'm not mistaken where I saw him and you know, his game didn't really translate to the indoor. Style I thought. And so he didn't really like go into the fan controlled football and light it up. I don't think it was the best opportunity to showcase his skillset. But it just goes to show you the love of the game, the willingness to compete. And so he goes, Hey, Send me over to Europe. We'll play across the pond. We'll go light up the European legal football. Hey NFL. You still don't want to gimme a shot. I'll go play in the USFL. And, you know, you saw it in the preseason with those two kick returns for touchdowns kind of sealed the deal for his 53 man roster spot on that Dallas Cowboys roster. Oh, by the way, Michael Gallop. His status now, in question for week one, all of a sudden, maybe Kavante terpenes playing meaningful snaps at wide receiver. In addition. To returning kicks. And I'll tell you what, man, NFL teams are always trying to find that diamond in the rough Kavante Turpen is a name you're gonna hear. On Sundays because special teams. One third of the game, you flip the field. Kavante Turpin can do that. And so I think he's gonna have a significant impact with the Dallas Cowboys. As a, as a Washington commander's fan, I am a little upset. He chose the Cowboys to go play out so that I, I won't hold that against him, but I am glad to see someone getting success, even if it is with the Cowboys. Yeah, well, Hey, I mean, listen, Washington. Is gonna have a situation on their hands there, and maybe they'll have an XFL team back in, in the Washington area. So we shall see it's gonna be interesting, but now he's gonna face your squad twice a year and you gotta account for that. Were you surprised in, and I don't know how thoroughly, you know, the list of like, you know, guys from the USFL and they were on these re like other guys that they didn't make it on. That got cut. You know, I know that there was obviously injuries and, you know, things, just some of the guys, but I thoughts of anyone else that didn't latch on? You know, Victor Balden was a guy to me. He came to the hub. Was lights out. Nobody could guard him. He just was able to create separation. Flash the speed went to the USFL. I think it might have even led the USFL and receiving, I believe. But Arizona's wide receiver. Corpse is so deep. I mean, they've got receivers on top of receivers on top of receivers. Out there in the desert. So I think it was a tough situation for him to make the squad. Haven't been able to keep up with everything if they brought 'em back on the practice squad or not. So that one. You know, I can't say it surprised me, but I do know that Victor Boldon can play in the national football league as can my guy. Greg Greg, the torch torch. I mean, he's another one kind of unguardable. Return game experience came outta wake forest a little bit early there and continues to. Develop and enhance his game. Every time I see him, Greg Dortch just looks better and better to me. And you know, all these teams out there looking for a developmental quarterback. I mean, Louis Perez. Is just developed every step of the way from the Alliance league to the XFL, to the us F L we even had him at the hub. We actually had a hub camp. At his hometown high school or hometown college out in. In California. And so I got a chance to get to know Louie personally. Great kid. Very co coachable. Highly intelligent can make all the throws. And again, it's just a matter of getting those game reps. So to me, I think Lewis Perez. I see some of these quarterbacks getting recycled in the national football league, Lewis Perez has got as much upside or if not more potential than some of these guys, I kind of see hanging out on the practice squads. Well, that's what I'll get. I mean, and I'm not, yeah, I'm the, the KAIST of, you know, I NFL fan to just kind yelling at the TV, but. I just like, does Leah at this point, like, does he, do you just have like alt football stink on you at this point? Like, okay. He's been around. I mean, like. You know, I still hear every day, my, you know, good morning football talking like, you know, is Daniel Jones the future. And I'm like, I, I, you know, I know there's politicing and contracts and those rookie deal, all those kinds of stuff. But like, they, that you wouldn't give someone, you know, I know like how slow you came in as well. And he, you know, with Jack Jacksonville, fert, at least the one preseason again, but you wouldn't give some. Of these guys try something new versus kind of recycle what you have. Yeah, I think in a way, you know, one of the hardest things to do as a player is to kind of. Reverse the label. So a lot of times. The last time as NFL scout might see you is at that pro day. Workout. And maybe they're not keeping tabs on these alternate leagues. Like they should be. But I think what happens in the case of a Lewis Perez is he kind of gets labeled, Hey, you know, he was only a one year starter came outta Texas a and M commerce. Is really a lot to work with there. And. You know, when he's on, he's really on. And so you've really gotta, just. Consistency for him is key. But I think changing the narrative and. You know, changing that label, that Scouts might. Have put on you last time they saw you. I think Chris Odo. Odom is a guy when I was. Working with the guys at college showcase. And we had Chris Odom at a Arkansas state. He came in. He, we gave him the defensive MVP of the week. So he dominated there. Said no doubt. This kid can play kind of was in that tweener hybrid. Size and he was labeled and he was miscast. Goes to the us. I felt, think it led the league in sacks. There. Whose camp he was in. I know he was recently in a NFL training camp. Again, not sure. I, I haven't been able to keep everything so fresh here as we record this. I'm not sure if he was brought back to the practice squad, but Chris Odom can play. The fact of the matter is. Teams or Scouts. They remember the last. You know, college grid, iron showcase, maybe the last time they see them. Yeah, he puts up numbers, but ah, you know, he doesn't have that prototypical. Size. So to me, It's such a fine line. And the size, the size cutoffs. Are a real thing in the NFL. Like I try to sell players. To teams and Scouts. And they'll say, ah, his arms aren't long enough or ah, you know, Doesn't really have the height that we need and it's like, bro, did you pop on the film? The kid can play football. And so like, I've always been a big believer if he can play. You find a home form, but the size. Whether that's height, whether that's arm length, whether for some position it's hand size is a very real thing. And I will say it's more of a real thing. I think with the older Scouts, I think the younger Scouts are more open-minded for mind op observation, but you know, it, it. Being labeled and, and, and the misconception or misperception that Scouts have about players is unfortunately, Hard to overcome. Yeah, Chris, I, all them was with the Browns. He had the ACL injury. So he, I think he would obviously, and that, I think he'll, you know, at least be kept on, you know, kind of in the IR, but that's someone where he would've made the roster. You know, we talked about the one, one us of all guy. I think Chris owe would've been at least number. Two on that. If, if that wouldn't have happened for him. So that's unfortunate cuz. And now that relates to my, my question here. I'll get to. Well, I guess I'll get to it now. Timeline we've had debates for months on the podcast. You know, XFL February to April getting players out, you know, pot, right? This is the plan next year. USFL getting players out. End of June, July getting into the training camps. Is there a better or worse time between those two leagues and ti in terms of trying to get guys to latch onto these NFL rosters? Well, you know, I don't know what's been reported. I know that I know a lot of information that I'm not supposed to know, and I don't know what I can say or can say, but I, my understanding is the XFL is gonna have a draft in October, I believe November 16. Yeah. Okay. So. To me. The way I kind of see the landscape. Is XFL will have their first dibs on the premier talent. That does not latch back onto the NFL. And I say that because. One, there comes more hype the rock. The NFL partnership. That whole. Situation and the fact that they're gonna be able to pay their players. More, I think will. We'll have the better players kind of holding out hope. For the XFL first and foremost. Now I do see the USFL as plugging in players. They're signing guys to contracts. And, you know, hopefully they can retain some of their guys, but I think the USFL is funded by. Fox essentially. And. The TV contract that they have. All their funding is basically viewed as. You know, the XFL, I do think has some kind of entertainment element, but the, the way the funding of the USFL is more on an entertainment side than it is on a football side, the way the, the Fox. Suits anyway. See, this is, is cheap reality TV. I don't think it costs them. You know, more than a couple hundred thousand to fund that league. And, you know, they did it on a, on a dime. And they did it on the whim. And remember there was zero marketing. And zero hype leading up to the kickoff of the USFL. Give, give credit where credit is due because they were out producing the NHL in terms of the ratings game. And so the SFL will be back. They'll continue to fund that. But I do think that since the XFL has more money, more cache, more glitz and glamor. The the, the bigger players are gonna tend to hold out and wait there. But at the end of the day, the USFL did something that we haven't seen. Since the original USFL, which was complete spring season. From start to finish. And there's something to be said about that. This spring league, that was the preface of the USFL day. You know, they crammed the championship loose Forez, you know, played in that's true championship games. You know, the mega bowl. Let's never forget the mega bowl. I just wanted to make sure, but, but I'm talking in terms of like, All these guys got released from the us F L in June. Everyone gets signed to camps. We're talking every week, 5, 10, 20. You know, now they're all cut. Like, is that, were they too late to the party? Were they too beat up? Were they too, were the teams are like, that's what I'm saying. If XFL gets players out in April and they're able to get into the early stuff and, you know, early June and everything with the NFL camps school in versus us FFL, you know, having played. 12 Weeks. And then jumping immediately in like, do you see one or, or the other is better or worse? No. I, you know, I don't think one is better than the other. I think that, yeah, I think what you said about. Are these guys to beat up. I mean, you do have to be worried about even if it was like a eight game season, but you tack on training camp and playoffs. I mean, it's a three, four week. Season, then you go straight into an NFL training. Camp. And then if you happen to make a roster or practice squad, You're essentially playing grown man tackle. Professional football year round, which could never be. Healthy on, on your body cuz you never a hundred percent when you're in season. So I think, you know, there, there is a little bit of a concern there for me. I always thought personally, a developmental league. Would be good if it coincided with the NFL season and played on. Tuesday Wednesday and Friday nights, because now you're. Neck and neck with the NFL season, you're in game shape. I would love to see an allocated. Process where the old world league. European league, you had teams allocate. You know, like allocate some of these practice squad guys to a developmental league in season. Played Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday played to the football audience. People are craving football seven days a week. Now whether that's the fall or the spring. I still am a big advocate of it. You know, I don't know if there's a advantage. With how the XFL is doing it over the USFL. I think a lot's gonna be played out. I also am curious to see with all the ni. L and money floating around with some of these college players, 14,000 players sitting in the transfer portal. 40% Of these guys never sued up ever again. I wonder if the XFL or, or, or even the USFL considers some of these players, because I think it's only a matter of time. Before, one of these quarterbacks, I mean, look at the kid at USC. I mean, he's got two years until he can even be eligible. For the NFL draft. If the XFL were to come along and say, Hey, bro, come play for me. $5 million this year. Then you can draft to me. You'd sell so many tickets. Jerseys boost your TV ratings. Like I'd be throwing big money at some of these college players. If I were one of these leagues, but Hey. We shall see how that plays out. Yeah, I just, you know, just, we're trying to find the best. I, I was a big proponent of the April USFL timeline. I thought that that was better for TV ratings and, and, you know, you're. Maybe not competing against marsh madness. And then we had everyone b***h and moan that were playing against the NHL and MLS and kinda all this stuff. So I don't, I don't really know, but just, you know, from your scouting and background, I just, you know, we debate a lot, you know, layman on the, on the podcast about it. So I was just kind of curious if it is just too lay. Cuz the us L has proudly proclaimed. This is the best time of year. To get players into the NFL rosters. And now we see one guy make it Chris O them probably would've been a second. So that's why I'm just trying to figure out, like, is there a disconnect there or. Is it just politics and bad luck from the NFL side, with the, with the players. No. And I think that. The us F L came together so quickly. I know it had been talked about, and they kind of teased us at the end of the spring league saying there was gonna be a USFL. But if you remember. I think they were kind of holding their breath on the trademarks. There was a long gap there before they kind of officially announced. That there was gonna be a USFL. And I think. They were somewhat trying to play catch up there with the player signings. And trying to find the balance between. You know, it's hard to find known commodities from street free agents. Right. And so I know like talking to some of the XFL guys, it sounds like players that. Have, you know, can't come out like within the past three years. Is gonna make up like 95% of that league. So I think, you know, maybe the USFL. Takes advantage of this undrafted free agent class, because it is the largest. Undrafted free agent class we've ever seen in terms of volume. Quality of U DFAS that COVID 19 pandemic gave everyone a extra year of eligibility. So last year, We saw the smallest draft class. This year, we saw the biggest draft class. And a lot of these guys that went on drafted would typically be considered late round picks and previous years. So there's a lot of talent out there on the waiver wire. I'm hoping from a selfish. Standpoint that, you know, the majority of the player pool is made up from, I would say the, the, the COVID. Pandemic draft class up to this year's draft class. I think those are the players that really need to be identified and looked at. These veteran guys. Hey, I don't, I'm all for it. But those guys usually are. Coming off an injury or a hiatus and need to kick off some rust. I think the NFL really wants to focus on some of these younger guys. I mean, if you're over the age of 25 now in the NFL, you're considered old. If you're 30. Outside of the quarterback position. You're a dinosaur. So, I mean, I guess what's next steps since for this, you know, we get all these guys, you know, didn't make it USFL. We're gonna go back. We're gonna figure out between the XFL USFL. Bringing in, you know, a bunch more. So then is there like a surplus of talent then now in, in the spring football that we're trying to like place? I mean, what, what do you look at in terms of, of that and, and having two competing leagues. And I, I said we did a lot livestream the other day, like. XFL, you did all these showcases and we're like, we're flying to Hawaii. We're gonna, you know, we're, we're working, we're doing, you know, Jackson state, right. We're doing H B, C U S L didn't do any of that stuff. They field did the team of a, you know, 18 teams of, you know, league of eight teams now. Like you said that maybe they were playing catch up and they're gonna do a lot more now. Headed into season two, but like, What, what do you make of that? And just kind of both of these leagues acquiring talent. Well, I think with the USF USFL, you got a guy in Brian Woods. Who goes back to what the UFL or whatever it was called. And. You know, he knows, he knows this game. I mean, being in this segment, I can say, especially hardcore for the last four years with the NFL PA ball kind of being in that U DFA segment. You, you know, the agent community. Knows who Brian Woods is. The agent community knows who guys like myself and Dan Vanette are because they know that we give players. Opportunities. So I don't think you NEC I'll be honest with you here. And, and, and people are gonna get upset with me. I think a lot of these tryouts and workouts are more of a money grab. Because, you know, you, you. Spend, if you're a player, a hundred, 200 bucks. It's not like, you know, hub football. We, we have a select. Invitation process only. So. We're not looking to just open the doors to anyone. We're not gonna invite you out just to have bodies there. It's a vetted process, whereas you know, these XFL workouts and I love everybody working for the XFL, but you know, do the math, you, you, you charge a hundred bucks, 200 bucks. You have 200 plus players at each of these workouts. These leagues don't have money coming in and XFL is paying a lot of money for some of these executives they hired. So to me, the workouts almost. Are a revenue. Boost, you know, maybe to help offset some of these salaries cuz they're bleeding money right now. You, you have USFL does not have. This extravagant front office infrastructure. USFL is more of a centralized player pool. I believe where, you know, XFL is gonna be responsible, independent GMs, independent coaching staffs. Independent evaluation process, cuz they're already calling me independently trying to pick my brain. So, you know, I think you SFL is more of a centralized player pool. Hey, get into this database system where the XFL, each team is gonna have their own kind of scouting, breakdown and wishlist. And I think that's a pretty cool element. It's crazy. And I, yeah, even getting into all this, I didn't anticipate on this today, but it is just so interesting. Like, I have Amone USFL for, you know, the year now. Like it's so cheap and we have, you know, it's a PR department of one and the social media team of a couple. And we're, you know, we have one director of player personnel for the whole league and all this stuff. And the next fell was like, we're gonna have 87 people on all eight teams doing all of this stuff. And you're like, Okay. Like, I don't, I don't, I think that, I think the truth exist somewhere in the middle there, but it is very interesting to see how both of these leagues are, are looking at it. It's gonna be interesting to see how you sustain that model, because I mean, look how fast. Before the COVID the XFL burned through like 500 million. Like it was water. Well, not that quite that much, but , it was a lot. Well, yeah, there was a lot of money there that they burned through and then they went and got the Carolina hurricane zone and they burned through his cash to pretty fast. So that's what I mean, like USFL did it on a couple hundred grand. XFL is gonna cost you millions, millions, hundreds of millions. If not to sustain long term. And where does that money come from? Does it come from ticket sales? Does it come from. Merchandise does it come from? Reality TV cuz the rock has this. Big movie production company and he is the number one grossing actor. So. It it's almost like they need to lean on that entertainment value, that entertainment dollar. In order to generate the, the revenue necessary to pay all these people and their salaries are gonna be much more competitive. I mean, I know the rock has a lot of money and they bought, they acquired this. XFL 10 cents on the dollar. It seems like for the logo and the equipment and. It seems like they've made smart sound decisions, putting teams. Into cities that are thirsty. In, in those markets. And I do like, I mean, listen, They're not stupid. They're based they're headquarters. They're gonna practice all week in Texas. But, oh, by the way, three of the teams are based in Texas. So. That means six teams really don't have to travel that far for those home games. Each week if you're playing three games in Texas. So I think that they've tweaked the model. To. Try to minimize some of their risks. But again, you're talking about Boku bucks. That's the main reason why none of these spring leagues have ever sustained because it does cost a lot. Significant amount of money to sustain over the course of time. Last question for you, cuz I know we're hitting up the wall here and I appreciate your time. It is curious. I had bar trivia a couple weeks ago and they said, have you, the rock has had so many flops that if you. Do the math, like he actually only like his gross per movie average over his career is actually quite low, just cuz he's had so many like tooth berries to as many like fast and furious, but. I last thought, you know, XFL working with the NFL, you know, alumni academy and all that. Right. I like, I've almost equated it to like, it's like survivor redemption island. Like if you, if you don't make it in the NFL and you get in this and you get a shot with the XFL, like thoughts on that, working together with the. XFL before I let you go. Yeah. I think with the NFL academy has done, you know, they tried to. Implement a, a developmental program. They were last year. With coach Mike Tyson and chip Smith. Really honing in on developing offensive line and running back. So that was kind of their major point of emphasis. And now with this XFL partnership. It's almost like the equivalent of the ninth team, right? Hey, go up to Canton. There's a whole campus up there that you can train and, and stay ready now. You know how many guys want to. Stay in Canton during the wintertime kind of isolated it's in the middle of nowhere, but. It is a developmental program. To stay and continue your professional playing career. And I think what's also cool is like rock said, If you don't get picked up by the NFL and you. Participate in the XFL this year, you'll automatically have an invitation to come back and play another season. So I think they're gonna be ultra selective. I like, you know, the partnership with the NFL now they have. Kind of a training ground to test out new rules. And, you know, I don't think the NFL will ever invest. Into a spring league, but just the fact that they put their name. And attached it to the XFL was a big, big step because they've been reluctant to do that in recent history. So. I think it's a sign of things to come. I think they'll continue to explore how they develop that. And I heard what you said about the rock, but just like football man. You're only as good as your last game. I think he was the number one grossing actor. Last year. So he's still got some money in the kitty there. No, I, it just, it was, it was like one of those snuffers like Emma Watson with the Harry Potter franchise, like out draws to rock like five to one that the box office. And you would never just, you know, cuz like you said, selective, whatever, Rick, I really appreciate your time. We have Matthews joining us CFO here in just landed in Montreal, getting ready. We're covering the big game tomorrow, but crazy weeks so far. What have you made of first of all, thank you for coming on the, what have you made of all the craziness of this week? I'd lo I'd be lying if I, I didn't say. Especially, cuz it has to do with the, all that. ELOs that it, it doesn't surprise me, but. It after everything that's happened with this franchise over the last 10 years. Really ever since kind of the end of the empty Calvi era. There has always been something that has happened over the course of one season to the next to keep it interesting in, in Montreal. Now I'll start with, obviously the issue with Gary stern. You know, family. Estates and, and those sort of things are all are all are, can be. Very very tricky scenarios and, and those are. Very personal matters. And if Mr. Stern feels that he can't fulfill his obligations, Day to day obligations as he said, but it's probably good for the franchise that he steps away. It's not good for the CFO, obviously. Because it probably means they're gonna have to find a new owner or ownership group to take over the aloes. And there was certainly a ton of positive momentum a few years ago, especially building off of them. I was here for that 2019 playoff game. When funny enough, they lost to a team quarterback by Trevor Harris. And there was, you know, being at personal Mo hearing the energy of crowd, knowing how they had taken to Vernon Adams Jr. And then to feel that positive momentum. After, you know, the team was essentially purchased. But then to see, first of all, the, the firearm Kahari Jones and Jenny with Denny Latosha taking over, and then everything that's happened over the last week. It does put a damper on it. But that doesn't diminish the fact that the owls. Have an opportunity here to still not only get a host, a playoff game, but. To get first in the east. I mean, the east is, is. Is that close at the moment? So I know Trevor Harris was a quarterback and what he's liked as a leader in the room. He is one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the regular season in terms of completion percentage and what he can do, getting a team to the playoffs. That we've had in the last 10 years. So certainly the faith in Trevor Harris as well placed. However, that's the ability, that sense of stability. It's been a long time since we felt it in Montreal. So. The league again is not maybe starting from square one with the team necessarily, but. I imagine the league itself, the head office, commissioner, Randy, and Brosy, and the other. Eight teams were probably a little more anxious about the situation. This morning than they were last week. Well, yeah. You know, especially cuz you know, we had followed and we had Gary stern on a while ago too. And like, you know, even trying to get him to, you know, purchase a team, you know him and his father-in-law, you know, it felt like Randy and bro really had to sell. Right. We gotta get some in here. We gotta do the, this, and now it's like, Randy's gotta, you know, put back on the. Salesman hat kind of and go at it again. And I, you know, obviously I don't know if we do it, you know, here or season get through the season, whatever, but it just certainly seems like something else to pile onto the commissioner's play at this point. yeah, it, it really is unfortunate because. Randy and Rosie, every time he feels like, and I, and I, and I really do feel from him every time you feel like let's take Atlanta, Canada, for example. I've been lucky enough to cover the last two touchdown Lennox. One in Moncton, one in Halifax or Wolfville. Nova Scotia in the north coast. Both were great experiences. The fans were fantastic. The community in, in, in both cities was, was awesome. Really embraced the game. And then you feel like they're that close? The Halifax council is, is talking about a stadium. They've passed initial budget for it. You're seeing the initial renders for it. And then. Pandemic hits and it really takes just the steam out of the whole thing. Now we go back to willful and you feel like the momentum's building again, but still. You know, a little. There's still a little nerve nervous about the situation. Just given obviously everything that's happened around the, the pandemic and wisdom to the healthcare system in Canada, especially Atlantic Canada. And you take a look at the, the Montreal situation. You take a look at the situation in, in BC, you take a look at situation in Edmonds and every time there feels like there's positive momentum. There's just something that seems to. I, I don't wanna say. Affected so much that, that it becomes a negative cuz you know, BC is still a tremendously positive situation with a new owner in there. Irrespective what happened to. Nathan Rourke. And new presidents in Emmit and game change in Edmonton. Certainly looks good, but the team still isn't winning and, and certainly not winning at all. If, if at all at Commonwealth. So Randy and bros kind of. Is kind of expecting challenges. I think at this point, But Montreal is still an important franchise as I go back to that, that playoff game in 2019. Not only having a, a French Canadian. Franchise on top of a, of a, of a, a bilingual franchise in the auto red blacks, but to be able to have a franchise that. Brings that kind of passion that, you know, the Montreal sports community can bring. CFO has shown that it can work in this city. I mean, when. Anthony Calvio was here for those, for those years. It was the, really the hottest ticket ticket in the CFO for a long time. So. It is just trying to find and maintain. A culture with an ownership group that is invested in the long term here. Partly that has to do with sustained success in the field, which the owls haven't had in a long time. And part of it is having an owner at the league can have that says, okay, like we're invested here, we're invested in the community because we see an opportunity here. And, and, and I would like to think. You know, Bob, Wetton all had the team for, for a long, long time. And through all those successful years, all those great up appearances and those great up championships. But you have to be able to, if, if, if you're the league. Sell someone on the idea of this is this is not like, well, if you invest, it could be successful. This has been successful. If you have the, the right football people around. The community embraces it. The city loves it. It's always a great day out there is. And I was talking to Marshall Ferguson last night. On a beautiful day. There isn't a more. Pictures place to watch a football game, especially. If you're sitting hillside, looking out towards, you know, old Montreal. There, there really isn't a more pictures place to watch football game than Ville Wilson. Muslim. And there isn't a better atmosphere when the crowd is really into it. And I know rough riders, fans, and blue bomber fans will take exception of this, but I have been here at playoff games. It's awesome. So really it just comes down to the league yet. Again, another challenge of trying to find an ownership group, but. You have to give Randy and Rosie this credit. He is somebody who irrespective of the challenges. Has come out time and again, Excited and willing and. Really invested in trying to solve. These little quagmires that keep popping up across the league. What happened with Vernon Adams in Montreal? You know, we had him on, he got his big, you know, we're bringing them in, signing them. I mean, I'm excited. He lives down in Tacoma, you know, he's from, you know, not 20 minutes from where I live and you know, it never really felt like his team. It felt like they put in Trevor Harris. I know injuries. And stuff, but it never really felt like he, he was given the fair shake this year in Montreal. You know, great. It's, it's interesting because. I was also mentioning to our CFO and CS crew, but Vernon Adams Jr. That. He has squeezed so much life outta the CFL experience. He has been. With so many teams. I remember when he was a Thai cats. He when he was a for string quarterback and they still had fourth string quarterbacks in the CFO. He was willing to do anything that he asked him to do to stay on the team, to be a part of the culture, to get his opportunity. He has worked from the time that, you know, he, hi, his rights were, were traded initially from BC back to. Back to Montreal. And then he spends time with a rough rider, his name with the Thai cats and they Montreal again, it's. Any always comes in with a positive attitude. I will never ever say that. Be Jr. Doesn't have the right attitude. To play in the professional game because he does. And we have seen him. When he has a tremendous amount of self belief. There isn't a throw. He can't make. He is the, one of the most exciting, it's the reason why they fell in love with him here. He is one of the most exciting players at the quarterback position. In our league. But you cannot deny that the moves that have happened, how many times he's been put from one place to another, the amount of work he's had to put into it. And then obviously finding himself in the injury situation in Montreal, and then Trevor Harris comes in and now he's battling for a quarterback position that he didn't think because he thought he. Was the guy, it takes a toll on you. Undoubtedly. It takes a toll on you. So. He now goes to a, what will benefit him is this he's going to the, a BC lions team that really is. You subtract Nathan root from it is still a great team. They have got dynamic play makers. They've got, you know, Ryan Phillips in that defense. They are really can cause teams a lot of problems. If he comes in there and has a tremendous amount of. That self belief that somehow that often has gone up and down with him and, and Rick, Campbell's a fantastic. Head coach. I mean, great cup winning head coach back in 2016. He's got a culture there in which he can feel he can thrive. Not only that. This he's not as you, as you just mentioned, he's not too far away from. Where he usually spends his off season. So. This should be a great, great situation. And knowing the leaders in that room. You know, you take a talk about Brian Burnham, knowing the connection's gonna ha you know, have to have with Brian Burnham. It's he's gonna have people in there who are gonna rally around him and make him feel like he belongs. And yes, this is . Again, I go back to that situation of kind of self-belief the BC lions are Nathan Roach's team. Everything he's done this year. Undoubtedly. But Vernon Adams can go in knowing where BC stands in standings right now and say, you know what? I can do something special this year with this team. And it could really benefit me in the long run. As long as I go in there, knowing, as he said to me many times, I know I'm Vernon Adams. I know what I can do. And I just have to focus on myself. And my abilities will show for themselves. I just, I'm afraid, you know, we're Vernon. Fans, you know, I had heard, you know, the night before. Okay. You know, look for him, you know, BC, all this stuff, I, you know, texted some people we're doing back flips. Right. We all love in and Adams. People still, you know, on Facebook. Oh, he's not, you know, he's got this detractors, like, I'm just worried. I, I get sick or swim time. Like, it really is like a Vernon. Can't make it work with this receiver core at this team with everything this year, you know, being eight and two right now at ahead in the stand. Like, I, I mean, this could be his last. Real shot. Don't you think? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a fair point. But I could tell you I've been around this league a long time, as I'm sure you have watching and, and covering in your own way. There's always a place for somebody, you know, the there oftentimes you see in press releases or, or I'm on the sidelines. And being like, wow, that guy is still in the league. And not that it's a, it's a fault of the, a person's abilities or that they're not a good person. No, no, no. But you feel like they have been around the Merry go round so many times that there's gonna come a point where someone's gonna say, you know what, man, you've had your shop, but. I think with Vernon. Because as I said, so many people have seen. When he has those games and he just plays free and yeah. You know, may, perhaps he. He, he can be plays off schedule. He breaks, contain. He throws a 40 yard dime, you know, on the run. Those games, they tease you because you think, wow, this guy. Can be everything that you wanna CFO quarterback to be. But it's all down to him. And as, and as you say. There does come a point where. Coaches and GMs. Start to say, as we enter an era. In, in the CFO where. Listen, Levi Mitchell is no longer, at least at this point, not the starter. You know, Trevor Harris has been around this league quite a, quite a long time as well. You know of that core group of successful quarterback, you know, even Cody Fu Jaros. Now there are some detractors. Emerging in, in Saskatchewan. Leagues will be end. This quarterback situation, Hamilton leagues will be looking for new, fresh talent because right now the only person in the league who can perhaps say that his job is. Is uncontested as I just go meant in my mental role of ex throughout the lead. Might be exact colors and that's it. Right. And that's on a team that's looking to win a third straight, great cup. So. You, this is really all these teams. Across the league are under show me moment and. The one thing about it, quarterback is, is, is the important position in football, but in the CFO, given how dynamic. The game is and what it requires of a quarterback. A quarterback is even more important. And how they can affect a game in an affected offense. So if you're Vernon Adams. I mean, man, a lot of teams are looking for quarterbacks, but they might not want retreads anymore. They might be looking for fresh talent. So. As you say he's gotta be successful, especially with the weapons that he has around. Are you surprised of how quickly? Because it was all week. It was, oh, BC, we got Michael con, like, we're fine. Like we're, you know, the utmost confidence in the room, you know, obviously he went down, you know, the hit and all that stuff, but like, then it was, we're making the move right now. Like we gotta get burn. I, it seems. Like it was a very quick about face there with the BC team. Yeah, I, I can tell you that being around Rick Campbell and, you know, McElvoy. But especially Rick Campbell, he's never gonna show his cards, but I think. Coach Campbell also understands. The talent that he has around him. I mean, When Nathan RO went down, the first person, I mean, I felt for was Brian Burnham. I was like, you know, Yes, he had Michael Reilly, but that team with Michael Reilly wasn't as consistent, they didn't have the pieces. To be bonafide contenders. And I imagine. You look to the way Brian Burnham was playing and making Cassius for Nathan Rourke and thinking, wow, man. This guy says we've got a team now. And I imagine Rick Campbell looked at that room and was like, wow, we've got a team here and we can't waste this year because you don't know what's gonna happen in 2023. So. I imagine that there're always plans in place, maybe not for, you know, ver. Specifically, but looking at the option saying, who can we bring in here because, and it's no, it. Not to cast aspersions of, of Michael O'Connor at all. But it is a lot to put on any quarterback, all of a sudden to come in. If you're back up and be like, okay, well, Nathan Rourke just set the world on fire in a way that no. Cornerback American or Canadian has in a long time in this league. And you've gotta go ahead and, and try to go and be successful right away. And then he gets injured and now. You know, Rick Campbell and Neil MCWE and that front office has to say. We've gotta make a decision. And if Vernon could be the guy and he works with the elements in the room, that's great. But I can tell you. Front offices always have a plan. It's a small league. And everyone at some point knows everybody else's business. But there was, I imagine. This was not something that just came up. Willy-nilly this was this, this was not impulsive. This was, Hey, let's see what happens. And if we've gotta push that button or we gotta pull that lever. To bring in, maybe it wasn't Vernon their first option, but I imagine. He was at the top of the list. We'll do it. And then one thing about Rick Campbell, think about 2016. He had Trevor Harris, Trevor Harris had led them. To pretty much a successful regular season. Rick Campbell is decisive. He pulled the trigger and brought Henry Buron. Berson when he felt okay, we've got a group here. And we can't waste this moment. And. I don't think it was any kind of commentary on Trevor Harris's opinion. He just looked at it and said, okay, I've got. Right now I've got Henry burst with right here and I've got Trevor Harrison. I'm making a decision. I'm gonna be decisive. Rick. Campbell's the decisive coach. It led to a breakup championship for 2016. I'm not gonna make a big pronouncement say could it it'll lead to a breakup in 2022, but he's made that decision because he believes this team can win now. Last question for you. I just am so curious the timing. Of, you know, the Gary Sterns departure, right. Farhan was coming out saying that maybe Gary was, you know, blocking trades, things like that. When we had Gary on, he spoke, you know, glowingly of Vernon Adams, that his grandchildren spent time with Vernon and all this stuff. I said, well, what do you think about Trevor Harris? You goes, I don't know if I've even met him at this point. And I'm like, okay, this, this seems weird. Dynamic that way. Knowing maybe that Gary. It just like if Gary doesn't step down over the weekend, right. Vernon's not in BC right now. Like I'm just curious, like chicken egg and, and kind of how all that, your thoughts, all, you know? Yeah. It, it is. I, I, I know you and others will be looking for a, there, there. And that's, and that is given the nature of the league. It's not outta the realm of possibility. I can say this about Trevor Harris. I've known Trevor for a long time. When I first cover the league, I, I was fortunate enough to cover the 2012 Argos, which is coached by Scott Milovich in which the third string quarterback was Trevor Harris. The fourth string quarterback was Zach. Trevor is all about football Trevor also much like Vernon. Realizes what this is. This could be one of the last opportunities for him. And. And the one thing that I can say about Trevor, not to deviate from your original question, but is this. Trevor's won two. Great. Trevor Harris is won two great cups, both as backup quarterback. And he. Has always had a tremendous amount of self belief and commitment to the game. I it's not saying that Vernon doesn't, but I think Vernon. Understood and embraced the idea of being the face of this franchise, of being the face of the Montreal Allo. And with that. Comes and you look at it through other examples across leagues. So I, I, immediate one that comes to mind is Simone Lawrence. Simone Lawrence is the face of the Hamilton tire cast and he's involved and very close to. The the front office staff and the ownership group, he's very prominent in the community. And I think Vernon in a lot of ways was like, okay, if I'm the guy I'm gonna have we heavily invested. In this community. It's not that I don't think Trevor Harris is invested in Montreal, but Trevor Harris has invested in his playbook and invested in winning. Does that move half and at Gary stern is the, is the. Still part of that ownership group, still kind of the primary guy in, in, in a situation of influence. I think it's a good question to ask. I'm not sure because I do know given all of the big, confident pronouncements that Gary stern would make on social media, that he believed in this team and he believed in Vernon Adams. But that's not the way the CFO goes all the time. I can tell you. And I remember. When Johnny Manzel was was here. In Montreal and his first pass professional pass. And the professional game in the CFO went right into the hands of Larry Dean. And it was just like, you have. All of these grand plans and then they can just. Fall apart right away in the CFO. This is a league where it keeps you on your toes, where you have to adapt and you have to be willing to change very, very quickly because you might be forced to change very, very quickly. The Allos are now looking for a new ownership group. They're now looking for. Someone who is going to be invested, as I said to the community and this team. And consequently, they're looking for a new face in the franchise. Cuz I don't necessarily think that that. Trevor's invested in his team, in the guys in the field, but he's invested in winning that great cup. And if it means winning it in Montreal, he will win in Montreal. But this team meets a face for Adams was the face for a very short period of time. Now he's off to BC. Himself to try to prove something and win a great cup. At the end of the day to bring it back to what we originally talking about. The Allo Wes are still left, lacking, and still left wanting, not just the franchise, but the fans as well. What. Everything can change in the CFO in a week, in the day in an hour, I've seen all of, all of those things happen. So. It'll be interesting to see what go, what goes on. But yeah, it revisions history sometimes being 2020, oftentimes being 2020. Yes. I think things would've been different at Gary stern was still. Part of the ownership group. Well, Matthew, I really appreciate your time fitting this in good luck covering the games and everything else you have going on this weekend. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do covering the league. Well from a, I have a bilingual David Côté on last week, and now we have an, a Australian accent to Cody grace on this week. Thank you so much for coming out. How are you doing, sir? I'm good. Thanks, man. I'm excited. Be on cheer for having me. This is good. So global player coming into the CFO. Calgary, you know, I, I don't love it when Calgary is successful as a BC Alliance fan here in the west, but certainly it's good to see you guys doing well this season. What's the season been like for you so far? It's been good. It's been obviously been a lot. You know, we've had ups and downs, but I think. You know, we've got a really good opportunity coming in the next month to really. You know, play two good teams, you know, play four games and. We've got BC twice in Edmonton twice. So it's really good opportunity for us to come in, you know, towards the playoffs and that, that second half of the season. So. You know, we're excited about what's coming and, and, and what we can do. I certainly looking at Edmonton, you have to feel a little bit better in the than BC in terms of kind of. You know your chances on that, but obviously the home and home with that does that like. Any special concern or anything, you know, when you do the back to back home at home and kind of how you approach those games. Is labor day. You know, that's always dangerous for anything, you know, and Edmonton. You know, they, they, they can be dangerous, dangerous, especially on these robbery games. So, you know, you never. You never take a, sit a foot back on them, you know, it's you they're dangerous. So. Yeah, we, we look at every opponent the same and, and definitely Edmonton. Some, you know, coming on Monday is gonna be a tough kick. A really excited for you guys, obviously Jake Mayer, we had him on kind of pre-season and all that stuff. Do you, do you feel, I, I know there's been in the bow and all that, but just like locker room. And how does it feel now? Like kind of coming off a, you know, him playing well and, and, and how do you guys. You'll thoughts kinda looking forward now. We are confident in, in all three of those QBs that we've got, you know, they're all. Great leaders. Great dudes. And. You know, I think, and it, the example that Bo. Bose set, you know, and the outcome he's kind of happened with Jake going in as well. You know, we've just gotta follow that lead, you know, and. You know, her was there. We have great confidence in, and you know, it's, it's a great locker room to be in, you know, with those type of scenarios. So, you know, we've got confidence in. In all three of those guys, you know, whatever the rotation is. What's it like transitioning from, and you've probably been asked to a million times, but transitioning to, you know, two Calgary, you know, you're from Australia. And what is, what's it been like? Do you, do you enjoy living in the, in the city? Do you enjoy Calgary? Yeah, Calgary Calgary reminds me a lot of home. Like the people, the culture. It's very relaxed. Very. Very friendly people. So it's been a good, good adaptation to it. You know, I haven't really had to. Really go outta my way to kind of feel comfortable. It's just naturally been, been a good kind of sit down and, and, you know, I'm happy to be here. From what I've heard, it's, it's the better place to be in terms of, you know, kind of making that transition from Australia. It's a Canada, you know, there's so many. So many Aussies and, and Kiwis around this city. So it's been good for me. It's, you know, it's never been an issue, you know, traveling gets to know people, ING them very lucky to be in Calgary. That's for sure. Well, it seems really warm. I mean, like I said, we've had a bunch of players on and everyone speaks to that and it's a really good place to live. And you know, it, like, I know that that was one of the big reasons Jake may was even Sam, like he just loved living in the city. And obviously you guys have tremendous coaching staff and management and everybody there. Well, what do you make of, of. Your coaches and coordinators and people working with you and the team that Calgary has put together. Yeah, man, they push us, you know, it's, it's. Specifically my special teams coordinator, mark Gillum, you know, he's, he's always pushing us to be the best specialist that we can be, you know, and it's, it's not necessarily us just. Just being specialist and kind of sat sitting to the side, you know, he expects us and, and the coaches expect us to, you know, be. Be forms of leaders, you know, and, and Renee is kind of shown that as, as. You know how good he's been and, and. You know, it's, it's not us necessarily talking and, and being those vocals guys, it's just doing our job and. And creating opportunities for other, for others, you know, people on that team and by executing. So. You know that that's always been kind of the standard that the coaches have set upon us. And, you know, it's, it's, we just let our actions talk and you know, all that stuff kind of takes care of itself. You don't. You know, you just listen to coaches. They always given us good feedback. You know, and we try to show it come game day, you know, it's. It's we we've been a good group. From from the specialist. Kind of point of view in that. How have you felt like your season's gone thus far? Just you personally and, and how you've been playing. It's how to slow start. Obviously I missed the first couple of games. Due to injury. So, you know, it's, it's. You wanna, you want those first early games kind of get, get your rhythm in the flow of the game and. Kind of boosted confidence with those first couple of games, you know? So I. Took a seat back and, and watched another guy part. And, you know, that's, that's, it's always a challenge. Watching someone do you know what you are doing? And you know, you just gotta be a good teammate in that regard. And. I feel like those type of things always pay itself forward. And now we're starting to get in a bit of a groove. So. You know, as, as a pun unit, you know, I always try to push those guys and I expect those guys to push me. You know, we're all, all 12 of us play together. So, you know, we're starting to show that. You know, one of the better units coming around as well. So we're always pride ourselves on that. And. And yeah, it's it's. Always just a week at a time. So yeah, I'm excited for what's coming forward. We got some great games coming up and great opportunities for us. Coming in as a global player. Does that put more pressure on your shoulders chip? I mean, you want to showcase the best you can or are you just head down and you just kind of put no matter what. Nah. I mean, it's funny the whole global label, you know, it's, there's always been, you know, there was Australian guys in the league before I was there, you know, it's just now they've. Kind of created a, you know, a label and, and kind of created that, that program. So it's, it's just another. You know, just another player really for me, I kind of see that and it it's been good. I guess to kind of highlight, you know, the, the other people and nationalities that are in the CFO now, but you know, it's always been there. So it's. It is just one of those things, man, you know? No. I do think, like you said, though, I think it's important to kind of denote that. So people know it just cuz it highlights more than anything, but not have it be. You know, like some big sticking point that's gotta be on, but I do think it's important to know that like, Hey here, the CFO, we're welcome to all these guys, you know, collection of wonderful talent kind of from around the world. So yeah, as creating lot opportunities for, you know, guys from. You know, those countries that don't grow up football, you know, obviously Australia, but you know, you've got Brazil, you know, UK, you know, Germany and everywhere. So it's, it's good to kind of see. I guess for the fans to kind of. Get that content in realizing that, you know, there's. There's guys that didn't grow up with it that now in Canada, playing. What do you do when you're not punting the ball and, and, you know, deal with all the wonderful coaching staff and everything else, or what do you do outside the game? Man I'll I'll live right next to the river. So I'm always down there. You know, I love my bike riding. I kind of get out and about, so there's a lot to do around Calgary, you know, obviously got ban and lake Louise up there. So, you know, you try to plan little things in the afternoons, but. Usually, you know, I'll do those in the days off that we've got. But in the afternoon, it's really more about recovery, you know, after we've had practice. So, you know, you try to do what you can, whether it be yoga or things like that, you kind of fill with your, your afternoons that you got free. So, yeah, that's, that's what I do. And bit of a bookworm. So. Yeah, my nose on the book. So yeah, things like that. Just keep in mind busy and you can always learning and, and trying to, you know, Get your body back ready for the next day? What kind of bucks? Man, I'm a bit of a philosophy nerd. So I get into bit of Roman stuff like Marcus Australia type stuff, Seneca. So. It's. Yeah, I don't mind that stuff. It's it's quite unique. And. How they were thinking, you know, thousands of years ago, 2000 years ago and how it relates today. So. Yeah. It's, it's not something that people really know about me, but yeah, I try to dabble in that when I can where'd you study in school? I was Excel science major. So. I was getting to strengthen conditioning when I was going to school and in the us. So I was, yeah, a bit of a meathead. Lift and things like that. So, yeah, I thought I'd take a step back and. Put my nose into some books and things like that to, yeah. Well, you could be, yeah, it could be a modern day philosopher here. I like that. So . Something like that. I mean, good locker room vibes, good feelings. I mean, how, how are you guys just in general mindset here at what we're like? Almost more than halfway through the season. I mean, we're a young, young locker room, so it's, you know, there's a lot of energy. There's a lot of. Good vibes in there, I guess is kind of the word to say. So. You know, we, we know. What we want and what the standard is. So everyone. Kind of just feeds off that. So it's, it's never been a problem. Having, you know, any locker room. Kind of lulls or anything like that, you know, we're, we're a young group and there's plenty of energy in there for sure. Okay. I wish you luck here the next couple weeks.

Episode 107 - Spring Football’s Identity Crisis

Well, here we have TSN. Insiders CFL, insider Dave nailer, back on the show. How are you doing? Very well, very well. Good to join you again, Reid. So my first question for you did. How did the guitar, did you bring the guitar? To the CFO on TSF, like, or, or do you guys just go crazy, you know, doing six hours in the studio and you're like trying to find something to do. Yeah, we do get a little fidgety, especially on the double header nights, you know, in, in six hours. No, I am a very amateur amateur, good guitar guy. Most of my progress in the guitar happened about. More than 25 years ago when I was single and living in Saskatchewan. And, you know, other than playing golf and covering football, I really didn't have much of a life there. So I, I played a lot of, you know, guitar and it was actually one of our guys in the studio. That had the guitar. And both times he just kind of surprised me with it and said, you know, here you go, you wanna play something for the three minute break? So it was his idea. I tried to do a little better the second time than the first time. Don't know if there will be a third, but. Mil was really crashing the party the last time by singing Karen Carpenter, which. Deeply offended me cuz Karen carpenter's one of my favorite singers of all time and, and bill should not be trying to do Karen Carpenter. I'm better on the guitar than he is singing. So that's all I'll say. Yeah, no, just, yeah. So anyone that does it, Dave, we, we was the thrilling. This was before the Nathan work injury, but this thrilling game, you BC lions versus Saskatchewan and they cut to break and we have Dave ER, sitting there playing a guitar, set I to have Dave. Breathe the, so not a great week for the CFO, right? I mean the Nathan work thing, and I wanted to get your thoughts here in a little bit on us FFL and XFL kind of stuff to you sure. Like. How big of a deal is an Nathan work injury, just to like the CFOs, a league and everything right now. It's massive. You know, I can't think of a story where everybody climbed on board, you know, and, and I mentioned this as something I did for sports center this week, that the CFO fandom is a little different than some leagues. People tend to be. Big fans of the league, as well as their teams. You know, they, they wanna see their team win, but they wanna see their league thrive. And I think everybody recognized what Nathan Rourke represented. You know, the, the fact that he was Canadian was kind of the headline of the story when the season started. But to be honest, that kind of faded away. He's just the best player in the league. like, it doesn't matter if he was born in Kazakhstan. Right. It's it's like, he's the best player in the Canadian football league. And. I, I think the excitement, you know, there were four games every week, but you kind of circled the one that, that Nathan RO was playing in and. He reminded us what truly consistently elite quarterback play in this league looks like. A, and so I think all of those things. Were were really kind of. And also taking the CFL conversation to places that maybe it didn't go, people noticing the league that didn't notice it before. And we're talking about him. And, and I know there's some people that were sensitive about, you know, how much you talk about him in a possible future in the national football league. Why, while he's in the CFL, I, I'm not one of those. And I actually believe that I giving you an example. A lot of people who don't watch college football, but are big NFL fans. If they hear about a quarterback, who's going to be in the NFL next year. They'll pay attention to when that guy is playing, but they're not gonna watch college football. On its own, but just for the sake of, I, I really think the same thing. Was happening and maybe would've continued to happen with Nathan nor through the fall that people are like, Hey, if this guy's gonna, I'm not a CFO fan. But if this guy's gonna be in the national football league next year, I wanna see him and learn about him. 'Em and, you know, I, I think we're always a CFO. Community saying, how do we get people who don't watch our game to watch our game? And I think this was another opportunity for it. So I'm, I'm not, you know, shy or, or awkward about, about the NFL conversation. I absolutely think he would've got a shot at the injury not happen. I think the question was what kind of shot. And, and I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. If he has to play another season in the Canadian football league for Nathan Rourke, I obviously it's great for the league and the BC lion, but even for Nathan RO and you know, I'm, I'm gonna reference Warren moon here. And Warren moon is talks what this fact that. The fact that he did that he played six seasons in the CFO. He was able to walk from being the number one quarterback of the Edmonton, then Eskimos to the number one quarterback of the Houston Oilers. He wasn't competing to get on the practice roster. He wasn't competing for a backup job. He walked through the doors, the established number one. Now I don't know if Nathan worked will ever do that, but the long he plays in Canada and the more success. He has while he's still relatively young, you know, the, the higher you can. Slot in down there. And I, I, I think there's. You know, again, if he comes back and plays another, the re no, in those days, Warren moon probably was making more money as the starting quarterback at Edmonton than he would've as a backup in, in the, in the national football league. That's probably the biggest reason why he didn't go earlier. But, but the nice sort of side of effect of it was he got, he was a fully finished sort of. Product by the time he left the Canadian football league. So I, I don't think it's te Nathan works 24, you know, if he's, if he plays a, a season next year and, and. At a level similar to what we've seen. And is, and is health is good. I don't see any reason why, you know, that would interfere with his, with his path. The question now is gonna be you. Would somebody still sign him? And I think maybe they would. But there's gonna be big, big concerns about that injury. I think there's legit concerns about, you know, Never mind is he coming back this year? Cuz you know the surgery. Isn't until Friday, even. So they don't really know until they look at it. Is it gonna be ready for training camp next year? I mean, that, that sounds like a, an outrageous. Thing to say when they're talking about coming back late, but. In me talking to people in the medical community, not about this, his injury specifically, but about this type of injury, generally, you know, it can extend a lot further than. You know, there's a pretty big range and, and the, and long end of that range could, could be significant. So. You know, I, I hope that if Nathan RO does go to the NFL, whether it's this off season or next that, you know, he. Waits until he's getting a good opportunity, you know, to at least compete, to be a number two that he's not gonna go down and think, well, I'm better off, you know, being on an NFL practice roster than I am playing 18 games in Canada. And I, you know, knowing what I know about him, I don't think he would think that, but I also know the guys, a lot of people would look at it and say, just get a foot in the door, but, you know, just for my own rooting interests and, and what I think might be best for him in the long term is, you know, I hope he's playing in the CFFL next season. Yeah. I mean, not to, you know, throw any shade, you know, our friend, Matt baker, anyone in BC, but you know, when they're talking about like a late season return for, for Nathan war, it's like, I don't, I don't, he hasn't even undergone anything yet. I don't, I don't think that happened. It. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm not a doctor and I'm not a train trained, but, but I, I mean, I, I. Have, you know, I have a good friend who is a, is a former. Head trainer of a, of a major program in, in division one. And, you know, I shot him an email the other day. And said, I said, what did you think of the Nathan RO injury? And the first actually reply, he sent me back was hilarious. He says, I think it shows us that we can't have nice things. Yeah. . And I, and I said, well, that, wasn't what I meant. I meant from a medical. Perspective. And then he came back and said, look, you know, if that's, if that's truly what they say it is, you know, he's gonna be, he's gonna be a wild. It's it's the worst thing about football is, is just so unpredictable and anything had happened at any time. And anyone can get heard in any, you know, I mean, you see guys, you know, Zach Wilson running, non anything just it's it's horrible read. So, so often when a guy who's a former first or second round or the N NFL, Shows up in, in the CFO. The first thing I'll do is go to his bio and guess what? The first two or three years of his NFL career looked like. Injury injury, injury, injury, right. That's that's so much the part of the story guys were graded out to be, you know, high NFL picks or mid round NFL picks. Well, how did they end up in Canada so quickly? So often the story is just guys that can't stay healthy. It is, it is the. The toughest part of this game and, and this business is, is the way injuries. And I, you know, you can just feel the deflation, even in our studio on the panel the other night, when the camera shot went to Nathan Rourke going off the, and then sitting on the bench, it was just like, oh boy, you know, our season just changed, not our season to BC lion our season, the CFO, and. TSN cuz we've spent so much time, I think rightly so. You know, talking about Nathan RO. So the Michael O'Connor of it. I mean, obviously, you know, BC wants to, you know, we're hyping up and it's not all the world is collapsing, but I mean, How, how suitable of a, of a replacement is see? I mean, obviously it's never gonna replace me the work. Look, I I'll be honest here. I was. Critical or skeptical of the decision to make Nathan RO the starter in BC at age 24 off of two starts. In his career. I was obviously. Completely wrong. okay. Like I'm out there and just saying, whoa, like, and I had a great conversation with Rick Campbell. During the lion's first by week where he really walked me through. You know, in detail, all of the things that went into that decision. And by the time I had finished talking to Rick and I'd watched two or three games of Nathan. I no longer had doubts about that decision, but going, you know, approaching the season. I very much did the other part of that decision. I question was the decision not to back him up with anybody who had much experience. And I know they signed Antonio Pipkin before train camp when or during training camp when he got released in Toronto. But. Yeah, I think part of why they weren't able to was they were very upfront. With any quarterbacks they talked to in the off season, it was not, you can come in and compete with Nathan. It was, you can come in and compete to be Nathan's backup. Like he's our starter. So if you're coming here expecting to start games, Gains. This is not the place for you. So, you know, give the lion's credit for, for saying that front, because as you may know, in this business players, don't always get the straight good. Sometimes when a team's trying to sign them and get them to land with them. So, but the bottom line is it, it leaves them. You know, woefully inexperienced to the, at the backup quarterback position. And I'm not saying Michael O'Connor isn't good enough to play. But the body of his experience in the CFO. Is basically garbage time, you know, garbage time in games. I think he has a start at the end of the 2019 season, which was garbage time for the Toronto Argonauts, you know, at that point of the year. So. It's very, very difficult. And the thing that is gonna stand out in a lot of people's minds is, Hey, he was the number two in Calgary. When Dave Dickinson. Oh, excuse me. When bully by Mitchell went down last year and Dave Dickinson leapfrogged the number three quarterback over top of it. And I remember a lot of. People in Canada, immediate people who really wanna cheer for the Canadian quarterback thing. And I get it. We're you know, horrified when he made that decision. Right? Because it was like, Hey, the American guy's gonna play in front of the Canadian guy, even though he was third on the depth chart. Well, when Jake Mayer went out and through for 300 yards, First CFO player in history, throw it for 300 yards in three consecutive games to start his career. We all kinda went okay. Maybe Dave Dickinson knows something about quarterbacks, which we probably should have given him that benefit of the doubt before. I, I don't think nationalism or any of that matters to Dave. And, and it was, it was the right choice. But it didn't really help us answer the question. All of what Michael O'Connor is. And, you know, I think one of the things was, you know, beyond the skillset, there's that other aspect of playing quarterback, you know, do you have the intangibles, can you lead in the huddle? Do players not naturally follow you? All those kind of things. And I think those are things that are still yet to be proven. So. It, it's a real nice story. About two Canadian quarterbacks at one and two is Rick Campbell told me many times that had nothing to do with our decision, but I, but you know, this guy was a high pedigree guy, right? Like he was, I mean, he, you know, he was Penn state, right? He, he was one of the top high school quarterbacks in north America when he came outta high school in. Florida where he finished, grew up in Ottawa, finished in Florida. Was a Penn state guy who I believe James Franklin came in at the end of his first year as the new head coach there. And that's so often happens in college football. You didn't recruit the guy. You're gonna recruit your own guys. And the guy who was there before you sort of feels like his best to move on, but. Look, the other thing, and I'll just mention on this is there is not a great history, a quarterbacks being successful coming outta the eSport level. We have one already in trade Ford this year. Get very, very unique athlete in, in the context of, of viewport quarterbacks as athletically off the charts, compared to anybody I've ever seen. He won his first in start this year before he got hurt. But you know, if we're sitting here talking about the, you know, the history of youth sport quarterbacks and they're success, In the Canadian football league over the last half century, it's gonna be a pretty short conversation. Speaking of, and obviously this'll air, you know, after the big Jake Mayer start tonight, but with Calgary, but. Surprising. I mean, I guess not surprising cuz of how he played last year. You know, we had him on, in the off season, but like I Bo Levi, I mean, what do you, you know, he posted that. Like his statement, right line. I thought it was funny like Danny Austin retweeted it and like Danny got like, he I'm like the. The amount of interest in like even Danny retweeting, Bo Levi statement from Instagram, I just thought was crazy. Cuz he really is, you know, one of the mainstay figures here on the CFO for years, but are, are we moving on from Bo Levi? I mean, what do you make of that? You know, the question for me about bully by Mitchell is, you know, how. A guy has an injury and then he is recovered from the injury. But even when he's recovered from the injury, the accumulation of injuries mean he's not the same player that's example we saw that probably was Matt Nichols, right. Who went to Ottawa and showed up as the ghost of Matt Nichols. Right. He couldn't couldn't throw the ball the way he could. And he, even though he quote unquote recovered, I. Don't know if he was ever gonna be able to throw the ball again, the way he had, which is why he then retired, I guess. The question with bully by Mitchell is, is I think. Has the accumulation of Nick's and bruises and surgeries and injuries. Made him a different player by his early thirties. Than he was, you know, in his late twenties, I was looking at some numbers for him. I, and it's interesting. His he's been about a 66% completion percentage guy. Most of his career. This year, I believe he's at about 61, which isn't huge, you know, but, but it's, it's a little bit. And the one, the, the one that really jumps out to me on him is, is the touchdown interception ratio throughout his career. He's been a minimum, two touchdown interception guy, like I think 29, 19. He was a little less than that, but. Throughout his career. It's it's two to one or higher. Really right from the, from 2014 when he takes over. But last season and this season combined he's 19 touchdowns, 19 interceptions, you know, like a one-to-one ratio, which is, it's a significantly different from where he was. And a as I'm sure. You know, a lot of quarterbacks feel when this happens to them. You know, they're, they're not individuals that they're doing it by themselves. You know, they're not tennis players. They're not golfers. Their quarterbacks and, and that depends on the offensive line. And that depends on the guy running the right route. And that depends on your running back, being a good at pass protection, all those kinds of things. But I think what our guys were sort of pointing out the other day was that there was, there was a bit of a kind of Chuck in it up quality to Bo Levi Mitchell that, that we haven't really seen before. Right. And he's more of a guy who hits people in stride and there was just kind of that. Aspect to it. You know, I think that the comparisons were made a lot between both believe I Mitchell getting pulled. And Cody Fujio getting pulled. The difference in terms of the decision this week, I think is before Mason fine came into that game. Last week, he completed 13 passes in his CFO career. Now, if you're gonna sit your starter down for a guy who's completed 13 passes, that's a much bigger leap than it is sitting your starter down for a guy who looked really good in. Three starts a year ago. And you know, based on my conversations, the last 24 hours. Look really, really good in training camp. Like I I'm, I'm led to believe there was not a lot between believe I Mitchell. And Jake Mayer in training camp this year. And obviously when it's close the veteran, the guy who's proven himself is, is gonna get that is gonna get the not, but if you were just evaluating them blindly, you know, and didn't know who was, who, you know, I'm, I'm led to believe the there wasn't a lot to, to choose by based on the way they performed a training camp. Yeah. What the hell is going on in Saskatchewan? Like what is, I mean, it's, it's so funny. I've, I've talked to Cody Fu all season. I've never seen a more. Polarizing figure that like, doesn't do. I mean, he is like the least polarizing, but everyone can't stop. But I said, I, I, Marty York is also on this episode too. I was talking with him earlier this week and I said like, Cody's so weird because like he gets Paul and like he's should be named Cody fine. Like, oh, it's fine. Like they pulled. Me like, okay, I'll be back me. What is going on? Well, it's funny. I, you know, he's polarizing, but it's like everybody who has that job is polarized. I remember talking to Dion Duran about this, you know, and he was most successful quarterback. They had in their history and he was, I remember going to practice one day and Saskatchewan, he turned me and said like, just they ever support their quarterback in this. Market do they ever get, like, they keep us, it was something along that effect, like, like, does this ever end kind of, you know, that he was constantly being second guess and I think that's. In some ways that's just a product of the fandom, but you have some dynamics here. With Cody Fujio who, you know, Chris Jones was right. Cody Fujio coming outta college was not regarded as a great pass. You know, that's why he was a number three on two CFL teams. Before he got to Saskatchewan, it was essentially a short yardage guy. And. You know, I know the point Chris was making was to try to illustrate what Steve McAdoo had done with him in Saskatchewan. But his, his point being that that was not Cody's reputation as a player when he committed the league, I think is, is correct. He became a much better pastor than people expected. Nobody would've forecast him to be the Western nominee for his standing player. You know, and at, at the, as the start of a season that he wasn't even the number one. And I remember talking to him a little bit about that. And about that reputation of being a run first guy, because that's certainly what, you know, his college stats showed, but, but he was really showing that he could throw the football couple things happened this year in Saskatche one, their offensive line play has not been as good as been in the past. That's been a big issue and you that's a stand standard across for football, right? When you're offensive line. Is not protecting you the way it, it, it has. Quarterback's not gonna look as good. And then you have a receiver unit that's been decimated, right. That, you know, Kyron Moore. As a kind of all over the field guy, like Kyron Moore can do it. All right. He can catch the ball out of the flat and be a yards after catch guy. He can run routes. He can run deep routes. He can stretch the field, he can do everything. You know, some, every guy he's one of the more sort of versatile receivers I, I can think of in those league. And. And then, you know, shack Evans, right. Who for a while, looked like he was becoming an elite receiver until. The same thing that chased him by the national football league has chased him, is heard him in the CFO and that's not being able to stay healthy. Right. He was a fourth round picked I think, at the jets. Right. Who I, I don't think he ever played in the NFL game. It was injuries that, that sent him here. It's pretty rare to see a guy. Drafted that high, who, who never played a game. But again, it was, it was injuries, you know, duke Williams has. Been okay for duke Williams, you know, I mean, I, I, you know, you had, you had a really poor game against BC the first time the lion's visited there and like he's, he's made his plays, but it hasn't been the best of duke Williams. So you gotta receive, and, and then I can't tell you why they don't get the ball, the key on Shafer baker over the last month, or so it just seemed like just as he was developing into it, elite guy, They haven't been able to get the ball to, I don't know if defenses are taking him away or, or what's happening, but I think it's, I think, and then I'll defer to my colleagues a little bit who point out that Cody. Isn't getting the zip on the football that even he used to get. Right. And, and David Sanchez is sitting next to me on the panel is pointing out how receivers are constantly coming back to the ball. And so you got a little less toque on the football and offensive line. That's not what it was. And a receiving unit that personnel-wise just, hasn't been. What it, what it once was and, and, and that's, and lately they haven't been able to run the football either. You know, earlier in the year, they were really able to run it a lot better, but Jamal Morrow who's now hurt his last couple games. Haven't been anywhere near, as productive in that again, puts more pressure back on Fujio. So. I, I think what Saskatchewan is facing. Is the west division for quite a while now has been Calgary, Winnipeg and Saskatchewan, right? That's that's the top tier of the west division and down to the bottom. There's Edmonton and BC. BC has taken the elevator ride up to the top of the division and somebody's gotta go to make room for. And it feels like it could be Saskatchewan. You know, especially with the schedule that they face right now. Now, again, they're not gonna face work this week, so that's an opportunity for them. And I think their defense, which is, you know, More solid than their offense could really give Michael O'Connor trouble just based on his lack of experience and how aggressive that front seven can be. And then you've got, so you've got, and then you've got them back to back with Winnipeg right. Which, you know, Winnipegs look beatable, but only one team's actually beat them. So. I, you can see how there's a, there's a path to Saskatche for Saskatchewan to. The bottom of the division or near the bottom of the division. And that I think is why everybody's on edge there. It's not, you know, just the quarterbacks play or this it's looking at the schedule and saying, hold on a second. Are we even a playoff team, you know, if this doesn't go our way in the next month, And then it's about not the long term. It becomes about the short term. And when the decisions about player personnel are more about the short term than the long term. Cuz you got up in football games. That's that's when you can see some things happen. Yeah, no, I mean, I, here we were talking, you know, is Saskatchewan, you're hosting the great cup and we're gonna spend all this cap money. And now it's like, they're not even, you know, it's not even in the conversation. No it's and of course the last time they hosted it, they want it. Right. And, and they, and they, you know, that was the sort of perfect scenario for them. But. That's gonna be, there's gonna be some intensity in that labor day game and the banjo bowl the following week. Cuz I think the rough riders may feel a little bit like they're playing for their season at that point. Before, what you go, I wanna get thoughts, cuz I could go down this rabbit hole over the, you know, the Gary STS of it all and everything else. Get your thoughts on all that. But. You know, I wanna get your thoughts. You know, the other alternative you football league, we talk about USFL X have felt like a us F L completed it season. I had you on, I think before, you know, anything had even happened. Talk about that. Here. We've seen a lot of players get signed to the NFL. A lot of players get released now, you know, as, when did the, what do you make of the USFL of it all having completed this first season now going into year two, you know, I it's. I'll be honest. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it, you know, and I gotta also be honest what I, what I did find it on the, the prospect of watching games in completely empty stadiums. I did not find compelling television. It just, you know, it's part of, it's part of the act, man. It's like, and we even say in the NFL part of the. Reason there gains look so compelling is because, you know, the stadiums are full in every corner. I. And I, you know, I always talk about a TSN. When I mentioned the labor day game in the banjo bowl, those will be the two most compelling. Television visual games that we put on TV. Because both stadiums have closed ends and every seat will be full. Right. So just as an entertainment product, you need fans. I, I don't think you can create a viable entertainment product with nobody in the stadium. You know, like they got 40 guys signing the NFL, you know, into camps, which I, I know most of them won't make it, but that certainly tells you that. The quality of players in the league. Is decent. I doesn't mean that necessarily. Every position group is a strong cuz we know the hardest thing to find for most football teams is offensive line and quarterbacks. So just because you got 40 guys signed in the NFL doesn't mean that, you know, you're, you're creating that level of play. I, I, I don't know what to make of it. I know this thing evolved outta the spring league and that's where they got the hub model. Yeah, I, I I'm, I guess a much bigger believer in the XFL because. Of some of the people that are behind it because of the affiliation with the national football league. And, you know, they, they've obviously taken a much longer runway at this than, than the USFL did all that said the SFL is legitimate competition for the Canadian football league when it comes to play. And I know teams that, you know, Lost guys to the XFL or no lost negotiations to the XFL this year. And, you know, when you throw the, or excuse me. So the USFL this year, When you throw the XFL on top of that. Look other than Nathan Rourke and Zach COLS, it is not a stunning era of quarterback play in the CFO right now, even though we've got higher scoring games, you know, I would never look at the play in the league and say, it's really crisp, really sharp and really elite right now. It's not. And then you've got the possibil or the, not the possibility, the reality. That the next two. Years, at least of that next class of guys that are coming outta college, that don't get to the national football league or get cut in the national football league. Where do you think their first stop is gonna be? It's gonna be the XFL or the USFL, right. Be, and then, and the numbers are. You know, first of all, these are guys that are not looking for a second career in another league. These are guys that are looking to get to the NFL. 10 Weeks versus 21 weeks. In the USA versus Canada. You know about the same dollars for an entry level player. And then, you know, obviously the ability to, to finish your schedule in the spring and walk right in football shape to an NFL camp, as opposed to finishing in November and having to go through an off season. So. Those leagues are set up to accommodate guys that are on that bubble. The CFO is not, CFO is not established as a. Development lead. It is a standalone. Lego. Those leagues are primarily development leagues. I would say even, even the XFL, the way they're, they're defining themselves. So. I still don't know if people wanna watch spring football. I, I don't know whether, like, look, I think after we went through the AAF, we all did a bit of a pause on trying to prejudge these lakes. Cuz when I was talking to people between that one, whether it was CFL GMs, they were worried about the AAF, whether it was agents, the one they believed in was the a and boom. It was gone in six weeks. So, yeah, I I'm reserving my judgment, all of these things, but I think just the existence of these leagues. Represents, you know, a, a talent. Diversion for CFL teams. With the, with the most important players. And we may, if these leagues survive. I think eventually we may see guys. Coming to this league, you know, at 26, 27, 28, that used to come at 23 24 25. And when you talk about quarterbacks in a time to adjust to the game. And when we all talk about it takes two, three years of really practicing and being in the CFO system. So you're able to run an offense. At a, at a, you know, competent level at a high level. So if you've gotta wait two to three more years to have those guys show up, it's it's got people. People here don't wanna talk about it because one there's nothing you can do about it. And two. Every single threat of the past has turned into a paper tiger so, so that's actually two pretty good reasons not to spend too much time dwelling on it. And I'm sure there's CFO fans that every time I mention the XFL, just say, why are you talking about that? And so I get the, but in, in the show term, this is going to be. This is an, this is an obstacle. To getting the next best players. Into the CFO. And just to clarify, I think it, they topped down at 50 or 51 player assigned to the NFL. The us, there was a 51. Yes. Which I saw was 40 about, you know, 10 days ago or something. Yeah. That's a lot. I just wanted cuz I'm sure so much angerly freak out and yeah, yeah. Yeah. I saw the meme that said 40 when they hit 40. I'm sure they, but, but that's a big number. I mean. What's the CFO in an average off season. About a dozen. Yeah, maybe a dozen and a half. In a good year. And you know, part of that is, you know, half your league is Canadian. And you know, and I'm not how I say this, but I'll get myself in trouble. some of the, you look. Some of the Canadian players would be on the team regardless. A lot of the Canadian players are there because there's a ratio. Right. And, and those are guys are not gonna be. Studied by NFL teams for opportunities. So, you know, that's, that's part of why the CFL is producing less talent for the NFL. Part of it is we have older players in our league. I often say. The best players in this league aren't of any interest to the NFL, cuz they're not 25, right? Like there have been all kinds of guys. That played at a level that was good enough to play in the national football league, but they were 32. So. Everybody in the USFL is young, right? So. There are some factors that produce that 51 number compared to the 12 number in the CFO that aren't just apples to apples. Right? There's some different dynamics. The league being set up to end in may guys are in football shape, they're outta contracts. They can walk right into all the, those kind of things, you know, lend itself. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't look that as a. Scoreboard like 51 to 12, but you know, it, the fact that they put 51 guys. Into NFL camps. It can't be ignored either. Yeah, it just, and that'll be my last question. I'll let you go here. I. It is odd, cuz like you said, you, the CFO is set up. You're gonna go make a career there. You're gonna spend time there. You're gonna live there you be a part of the community, you know, XFL. You know, USFL, like you said, it is a show and they're very open about that. You know, we interviewed coach Beck, the St. Louis coach at the, at the showcase here a couple weeks ago. And he said the biggest accomplishment for him would be if all of his guys got signed to NFL rosters and he had to, to start again and you're like, Yeah. Okay. But like, I don't know. I don't know, this is sustainability of that. You know, I had people, you know, comment on, you know, the USFL and they were like, Hey, they're, they're killing my team. You know, I, I want, I, and I don't like subscribing to this, but you know, like that's my Birmingham stallions team and now they're gone and now I gotta, what, you know, you're losing that continuity. And so, I don't know, I don't know what this sustainability is to two, you know, alt football spring leagues, where there maybe isn't a lot of continuity every year because players are moving on to other things. See, I think that's essential. And the CFO struggles with that to some degree, because there's some guys that come up here who wanting to get to the national football league, they stay for. Year or two, it doesn't happen. They retire. Right? That's that's what happens to some guys. And other guys come up here and, and, you know, kind of find a, like it a lot more than they ever thought. And they they're here for 12 years and they move their families here and they rate, they stay and they raise their kids out. And hopefully they have sons that become Canadians in the CFO in 25 years. Like we seem we've we really like this American players, you know, retirement, Canada, raising. Their families here with Canadian sons. We're, we're big on this. It's a long con it's a long con playing the long game, man. But. But it's, but I, you know, I think that's, you know, that's gonna be the, the, that would be the challenge for those ladies. Cause it like, that's what NFL Europe was, right. Like basically 80 new players every year. Wasn't it like pretty much, I, I think there was like when, when the goal of your. Team is to have as many players on your team, not on your team next year. I don't know that that's really inviting to fans. Right. Cause what if fans want to do they wanna buy a Jersey? Right? They wanna. Know, they gotta know who the players are. They wanna know their stories. They, they wanna identify them. And like, and I don't, I think sometimes this issue is overdone a bit. Cuz you look at college right now, right with the three years and leaving college turns over very, very quickly. And people somehow identify players with college and their stars and all that thing. So I don't think you need everybody playing 10 or 15 years. But I don't think you can turn over your most important players. Every single year and develop or sustain a fan base. And that's, that's really one of the biggest things. And when people go back to, it's funny, I'm, I'm old enough that I actually can put in context what the USF, the original USFL was. Right. And it's the only one of the, these lates that wasn't about that. Right? They were. They were about building teams. They were about competing with players for the national football league. Now you blow your brains out financially doing that unless you had Saudi money or something these days, right? It's not, it's not really an economically viable. Model anymore because of how Gargan you in the NFL and its revenue streams have become. But that, that to me, Is is the two hurdles that these leagues have, I think to survive are one. You know, convincing people to watch football. In the spring, which is still not really been done. And, and, you know, I, I like football as much as anybody. I watch as much football as anyone. And when the super Bowl's over, I need a break. I'm not saying, you know, I can't wait for the XFL next week. And again, the product is gonna be compared to the NFL playoffs because the. When you're playing. So it's, you know, even optically it doesn't work to your advantage. That's the biggest one. That's still unproven. And then the point that you make that is that if these are development leagues and the goal is to like, why don't people get totally obsessed with triple a baseball because the team's different every year and the best player. The, the goal of the manager is to get the best player off the roster, to the major leagues. And. That's a, that's why, and I'll this all end on this. That's why. Every time and God knows, I get this a lot. You can imagine I get a tweet from somebody saying the CFO needs to become a farm league for the national football league. And I'll always like, I will not even give it shades of gray. I always write back worst. Idea ever don't have enough characters to, to explain why. Stop it. Yeah, because when your team's goal is to develop players, First and not win the great cup, but before winning the great cup. That's a different model. That's a totally different business. And I don't know how the XFL is gonna walk those things because. Obviously, you're not gonna have players coming up in mid season cuz when they're season is so you can, you can harness that group of players and say, Hey, our goal is a championship. But when the mandate is, is that open as you described it saying, Hey, our goal is to get as many of our players to the national football league next season. I mean CFO coaches. I'm sure if you asked them would say, Hey, we got a guy who's got that kind of talent. I, I hope he's able to, you know, get an opportunity and, and take care of his family, but you'll never hear a CFO coach say it to start of the season. My goal is to get as many guys as possible into another league. It's just, it's just not part of the. You know, the, the identity of the league. Well, Dave, I could talk to you all day and we go, I should go. I gotta hop on here. Another interview. Thank you so much for your time. I have flights booked for Regina, so we will, you know, we'll be there again. Hopefully we can do our COVID test next to each other again, like last time. So, well, you truly read my mind read because before you got. Off here. I was gonna say, tell me your flights are booked for Regina because, because this is an experience. I know you've been to one great cup now. Right. And it was a scale down version. Hamilton's a good CFO town, but there's nothing quite like Regina in November in a great cup year. I, I think very conceivably, I will be. Hopefully in Dallas covering the Exel draft and then hopping on the flight the next day to get to Regina. We have Jake Russell with B Washington post talking alt football. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing great. How are you doing? We're good. You know, we're getting. Now ex FFL is back in the news. It's, you know, it's been a long slog of the last, this is year three of me doing this podcast. Have you never had an EXFO game to actually podcast? About. So I appreciate. Work it is. So, you know, obviously you have the story come out, you know, exit fell. We finally announced all the cities and all that stuff. I, I always initial thoughts just in terms of alt football, spring football in general. You know, we talk USFL here in a little bit too, you know, what are your thoughts on the non NFL football leagues? So growing up a diehard football fan, I'd never really had that much. Access to alternative football leagues as a little kid. I don't think the CFO was televised. I was well aware of the CFO, but if it was televised, I wasn't really aware of what stations it was on. Cause they had the Baltimore stallions when I was a kid, but I didn't really watch it then. And then. The in man brought along XFL 1.0, when I was. 12 Years old, something like that. And then I was like the peak of my. NFL WWF then now WWE fandom. So when you combine like the best of both worlds, it was like I'm watching every single week. I'm watching every single game. So I was hooked with that league back then. I was really disappointed when it only lasted one year. I mean, even back then, I have, I still have the XFL preview magazines. There was two of 'em that came out the grocery store. And I still have those this day. So, so what, the little chances that I did get to have a spring alternative, I would watch it I'll even watch the arena football league when it was. At its peak when it was on NBC every weekend, you would see stars like Damien Harold playing for the Colorado. I think they were called the rush. That may have been Chicago. Actually. I forgot what the may have been Colorado crush. Tomato tomato, but either way I saw, I, I tried to watch as much as that as I could because you know, growing up in NFL fan and loving the sport and loving the game, like I, there's no such thing as too much football for me. If, if you know the great thing about it is if you have an, a alternative to watch in the spring and you feel overwhelmed with football, turn it off. Go do something, go for a walk, go for a run, go do something healthy, go do something with your family or friends. But if you want football, it's there for you. So I just don't understand why people complain about, you know, about spring football. Like if you don't like it don't watch it. I just don't understand the negativity towards it. I mean, that's just the same thing with pre much every other. Sports alternative out there. If you don't like it, don't watch it. And then the results will show in terms of ratings and, and viewer interest. But for me, I'm, I'm ready for the, the third iteration of the XFL to come back. I was disappointed when the second one went, you know, One went, bye bye. Because of the coronavirus pandemic that, cause I thought that one had a good chance to stick around based on, you know, the, the financial investment put into it, the, the television marketing that they had, the, the TV rights that they had back then, and basically. Taking itself a little more seriously as opposed. Come mountains and, you know, run a promo even though. The rock was my guy back then as a kid, you know, it was, I don't know if that would really fly today. If you wanna be taken seriously as a football league, having him call, you know, the opposing team, a Rudy P whatever. . But I thought with like the rules innovations, the camera angles, the different technologies they were trying. I thought it was, they were doing really well, even though. As expected the TV viewership went down from week one to week five. That was kind of to be expected with kind of any startup league, because initially people wanna see. What's new. They wanna see what innovations are going on. They wanna see how they're, you know, enacted. And of course, naturally as time goes on, they'll decide whether they wanna watch it or not. And. Typically the ownership goes down, so that's kind of expected. I'm sure. You know, this time around the rock and Danny Garcia and Jerry Cardinal are. Well aware of that, they're, you know, they're prepared financially for X amount of years. I believe it's a three year deal. With the TV deals they have. So I'm pretty sure they're prepared for that. They just want something that's sustainable that can last over years and they wanna build a fan engagement in person to start. I'm curious what the exit fell this season is gonna look like. Like you said, a lot of people watch, especially the 2.0 for the rules, innovations and all that stuff. We were down when they announced the Arlington hub and all that a couple weeks ago talking, you know, Russ, Brandon, right. Who's the president and I I'm. I, I don't know if I'm worried, but I'm just, I'm curious. How much of an NFL influence is gonna be on it in terms of like, we want this to look like the NFL, we, we have players, right. That we want to get into the NFL. A lot of people I talked to about the USFL during the season thought it, it wasn't different enough, right? Like it was the NFL, just not as good cuz you know their words, not mine, but you know, so I curious, like if that is what we people loved about XL 2.0. If that's not there, this go round. I'll just be curious to see what people's reactions are when the roll book comes out. Yeah, me too. I, I think. Obviously they've done a lot of work. I'd have to imagine over the last couple years, looking at every single game, what worked, what didn't work. And I would imagine. I'm just guessing here, you would think they would have to keep that kickoff rule that they had last time. I thought that was one of the better innovations that they had, you know, with everybody waiting until the returner catches the ball before they can actually start running. I thought that was a great idea. It was unique. It was different. And. Combination of that. And. Player your safety. And it also encourages kickoff returns, which the NFLs basically trying to, you know, relegate from the sport, which is disappointing. I mean, at this point in the NFL, it's like, why even have kick returners if you're not gonna have kickoff returns, if everybody's just sticking their arms out to this, the side to say you, I'm not touching the ball. Cause it's. 10 Feet over my head and going out the end zone. That's not fun. So I think that with the XFL, that was a combination of, you know, fun. Action and safety at the same time, in terms of, you know, how fast the players are going to be at the time of collision that that helps the players and the fans, I think simultaneously. So I think with the new iteration, with the new leadership group, I think they're gonna take a look at everything. And I, I feel like even though they have that partnership with the NFL alumni association, I feel like they're still gonna. It's smart for them to want to be. Kind of a feeder league to the NFL that would help ensure business that would, you know, ensure stability. Ensure a nice, you know, healthy working partnership with the NFL, but I feel like they're separate enough from the NFL that they have the wiggle room to try out different things, to try out different roles like they did last time around. And I think that's kind of what the NFL would want too. I don't think the NFL would wants to try out necessarily. Not too opt. I don't think we wanna try out too many new rules on their own without having seen how it works first. And I think the XFL will be a good ground for that. For the NFL to see, okay, this works, we might implement these rule changes. What BLE implement, implement these roster rules, et cetera, cetera. So I think with what they're doing right now, I think they're gonna. I think it's gonna be a fine balance. I don't think it's gonna be. Two NFL fight. And I don't think it's gonna be anywhere close X if a 1.0, I think it's just gonna be. A continuation of XFL 2.0 with, you know, a better. Polished learning curve from last time, I think it's gonna be a, a more polished product than last time, even though it was pretty solid compared to X about one to one point, oh, I just, you know, curious and I just got done with our other interview with Dave LER talking like, you know, when the us L is channel champion and we got 50 guys on. NFL rosters, right? Like that's their boasting point, which is great. I mean, obviously like what that, you know, and whether those guys, you know, latch on, you know, as cuts go down, but, you know, were your goal is, is pushing these guys on, you know, the continuity coming back to next year. Like, I just don't know if, if. If that should be a concern, if your number one goal is getting guys, you know, onto the next show and not worried about, you know, building your own league, I don't know. Do you, do you worry about that turnover and them that like that is their selling point moving forward? I, I think there has to be a balance between. Okay. Part of our. Role as you know, Not necessarily a minor league of football league, but you know, something that will never match the NFL, at least in our lifetimes. Yeah, I have to balance the idea of. You know, we want our players to advance. That's the whole point. That is one, one of our biggest attractions. Is having players come into our league for the shot to play in the NFL. I don't think anyone grows up. And dreams of playing in the XFL or the USFL. No offense to those leagues. They all grow up dreaming of playing in the NFL. That's that's. That's the peak, that's the ultimate sport in the world. Not just, you know, not just America. So I think they have to, there's a balance there with, you know, that's part of our attraction. Is these players coming on here? And, you know, we just accept right away that it's going to advance. And I think part of the problem is. They haven't had two years in a row to show what it would look like. There hasn't been really a, a league that big, since the USFL going three years in a row, I believe with the chance to show that, you know, we have top players who can become stars in the NFL. And they're balancing that with. We need to have a sustainable business model. That'll stick around long enough that we can have this platform for these players. I I'm the XFL, the, the people in charge are well aware that they're not. Competing with the NFL. I mean, just take the simple fact alone that the XFL is blocked for 15 million. And the NFL's worth, I believe, 10 billion, something like, or there it's worth. I could be way wrong, but NFL's worth a way, I think, way more than 10 billion actually. The Cowboys they say this week, the Cowboys alone, 8 billion. That's right. Yeah. So I'm probably thinking pre last pre this week, NFL's worth a lot more than 15 million. So the XFL is well aware of that, but they just wanna, you know, I think right now, They're trying to, they're worrying about themselves and how are they sustainable? How do they attract fans? How do they stay in business to give these players a chance to move the NFL? And I think that's, that's the bouncing act. They they're well aware of when they bought the team or bought the league. And that's, you know, I think it's a smart, smart process going forward. You know, obviously Axel returning to DC. Was known wasn't public. You know, I mean, we had been reporting that Mike Mitchell for months that, you know, they, some of the teams were returning and some of the new markets. I thoughts on the XFL, you know, returning to DC and, and we were there for the kickoff at Audi field and all that stuff. But, you know, just in terms of like watching DC is one of the, the eight cities that were chosen for the XE L's return. I thought it was a smart move on their part based on. The fan engagement that they had back in 2020, because. Back then it's crazy to think how much has changed within in the, in the football world, in DC, just since then, even outside the, so a lot has changed since then, but even back then fans were clamoring F alternative because back then. The then Redskins were, you know, they just had one of the worst seasons in a long time. They, you know, Were second overall pick in the draft or coming that April, they eventually select the chase young. So the fans were upset, you know, with, you know, having Bruce Allen, even though he was just fired, they were upset with, you know, having him been around for so long and upset with Dan Snyder, even before the Washington post expose came out that summer of 2020. So they just wanted something new and fresh and the XFL provided that for them. And it, you know, when I was there, I covered the three home games. And just being there, you would see fans of all stripes there wearing all jerseys from around the NFL. And even like any L jerseys and baseball jerseys and basketball, and like . They just want to come here to have a fun time. They don't even care about necessarily which team they're playing. And I believe the XFL gave 'em a product they were happy with. And the fact that the defenders were three and oh at home did not hurt either as opposed. I mean, they had as many wins as in five weeks as the reds skins had in, in. 16 Games of previous season. So that gave fans a taste of what, you know, an alternative, you know, Happy football lifestyle would be for them as evidenced by the beer snake. I don't think you see the beer snake at FedEx field anytime soon. even, I mean, especially, I think they mainly sell 'em in cans too. So you can't really stack cans. You can only, you only do that with cups, but with fans, the fans that were really excited with the product, they were engaged the whole time from start to finish the safety regime, more you even commented about, you know, About how he'd never seen anything like that, even though he'd played in the NFL, he said, I don't think these fans are being paid to be here or what, but they brought the energy. So, you know, the players noticed that and the fans, you know, Also back to the point about the fans wearing jerseys of all stripes. It's just. That's also a Testament to how bad things had been with the NFL franchise in DC, too. And how. How this generation of fan is not gravitating towards them. They're gravitating towards, you know, I, I guess it's nationwide too. They're gravitating towards individual players and fantasy teams and stuff like that. And there's less. There's less of a. Of a desire to grow up, rooting for your hometown team or your local team now. Which is a foreign concept to me, I guess I'm, I'm 34, but I'm like an 84 year old type of 34. So I'm like used to that, that mindset. It's always strange to me. When I see people walking around the area wearing like cowboy stuff or Kansas city, chief stuff, I'm like, Have you guys even been to those cities? I mean, But that's what the XFL did. They brought together those types of fans. And they eventually all became DC defenders fans. And having a fun, exciting and winning product. It, it kept everybody engaged. And I think that's what the XFL saw when they were viewing the cities that they had before. And. Where they could move to next. They said, you know, even though it's a smaller stadium, they filled it up. It's not like they had, you know, with the New York guardians playing in MetLife stadium and it looked like. 1% Filled. I feel like if they, if the New York guardians had actually played like red bull stadium or something like that, they would've probably been much better off, but. For the defenders, you know, they had, they averaged about 16,000 fans, a game and 15,000 plus one games, 16,000 plus another. And I think 17,000 plus the first game. And, you know, filling out that much of a 20,000 seat stadium, I think is. Really strong numbers. And I think, you know, with the league coming back, they have a chance to probably. Maybe sell out a game or two possibly, maybe even hit 18. Shoot for the stars, aim for 18,000 and beat the previous tennis record. You guys, they had last, last time around, but I feel like the XFL saw what they had with the DC fan base and the excitement that they had. And they said, you know, this is a smart idea to bring it back to the district of Columbia. Speaking that you know, people of fans that don't live in, I am a, a shouldn commanders fan. I live in Seattle and I am a very horrified for, we don't need to go down the, what details on that. How does that work? So I, I kind you're the kid like I'm I live in Washington, so . No. I, you know, I've been to Seahawks fan for a long time. I covered them when I was in news when they went to the Superbowl and all that stuff, but I I've kind of fallen out of love with the Seahawks. We had Taylor Heineke obviously, you know, go from the battle Hawks to the FFL or to the, to the commander. I, I kind of that's when I kind of made the leap was when, when. Heineke made the leap into the end zone and all that, that I did, I wrote through him last year and now I have all my commander stuff. I have my Letterman jacket. I'm all in, I'm all in for the season, but I, I'm not as confident as riverboat Ron here with the, how, how, the, how, how Wes is gonna do. yeah, you had to been excited when they signed Jordan, Tom for a few days last year in the, a practice quarterback well, even they even signed col Boozer. That was from the, from the guardian for like 10 minutes. And then he retired and I don't know quite the back story with that, but he's a friend of the show, cold Boozer. So we oh, nice. The booze small world, but you know, speaking of fans stands DC, all that stuff we talked before I hit recording you, us develop all that. Curious your thoughts on that. I know you had articles about that. You covering the, the championship game and all that at thoughts on the two competing all football spring. You know, flavors that we have right now. Hmm, well, correction, I did not cover the game. I just watched it while I was working, but, but I did, I did actually partake in watching that my thought with the USFL was. I was engaged in like the first couple weeks. But as soon as, you know, Non Birmingham stallions games were played. You just saw the lack of interest. In on television with maybe 500, maybe a thousand people at most there for those kinds of games. And I just thought that's just not very smart. I know they're doing it to save money and that's their company line, but I just, it's not a good look. And then them playing fake. Crowd noise during those games. I'm like, I know there's, those people, there are not making that much noise. I know that for a fact. And just watching that, it just. Was not as interesting and entertaining. And I I'm I'm of the mindset. I'm like, if you're trying to build a fan base, In, you know, X amount of markets. You should be playing and marketing in those markets. So those fans can be up close and personal with those players and the team and the coach and get to know them and actually build some sort of rapport. And, you know, willingness to wanna buy tickets and go to games. I mean, I know they had their reasons behind keeping it all in Birmingham, in the regular season and, you know, Canton, the playoffs, but. For me, I just, I don't know if they did that to save money because they were also simultaneously trying to rushing out to beat the XFL by a year. That kind of was in the back of my mind too. When I watched him like this just. Even though the product itself wasn't too bad. I felt like it was, you know, from the higher ups, it was kind of rushed. Be just simply because if I may be wrong in that, but that's just my observation. From, you know, outside looking in. I, you know, I didn't really, I didn't cover the league. I just watched it from afar. That seemed to be my observation. They were just trying to get it in, you know, a year ahead of the XFL and not take their time and roll it out, you know? Properly. I mean, they did a lot of things, right. I think they did a decent job with uniform rollouts and stuff like that. But just watching it. I was less engaged with watching that product and knowing the XF fellows around the corner too. And I feel like, yeah, if you're, if you're in the business of, you know, having. Teams in select cities. You know, if you have a city name before the team nickname, you should probably play the games in those cities. And even though the XFL isn't completely. Operating the way I would hope they would with, you know, having the teams' practice in Arlington all year round. I don't know how great of an idea that is. I dunno how much fan engagement you're gonna get that way. With, you know, players not being in town during the week. But at least at a minimum, at least they're actually flying out and playing the games. In the home locations of those teams. So I think that's very smart for them to do that at a minimum. Maybe next year, once they have a little bit of a base underneath them, then they can start practicing in the home locations and establish a practice facility for every team individually, as opposed to two teams playing in one location, practicing in one location like they're doing now. But for now, I think the XFL, even though it hasn't kicked off yet, I think it has. The USFL beat in terms of marketing. It also helps to have one of the most popular actors in the world owning, owning the league too, and spreading the word almost every week. And, you know, giving fans update on updates on what's happening in the league. I don't know how long new S F L is for this, the football world. But I'm not, not rooting for the demise. I hope they stick around and I hope they do well, but I just don't see them. How they're set up right now. Surpassing the XFL in, in, you know, popularity and, you know, And I guess. Getting the news out. I mean, obviously the TV deal that XFL has with. ESPN is a major, major benefit. Cause you're not really gonna see too many USFL highlights I'd imagine on ESPN anymore, especially since they have that deal with the XFL. So I think the XFL has leg up on them right now. It's just interesting, even cuz this week. That, you know, there was the USFL lawsuit, right? Where the, the guys that owned the original marks back in the eighties, they were suing the, the new us L that just all was resolved this week. You know, they little privately. And so, you know, one would presume. USFL now is going to be able to say like, Hey, you know, these are players from the, you know, the great old days. Mm-hmm whatever, you know, cuz originally they started out with Doug flu and then they, you know, they couldn't do that anymore cuz of the lawsuit. So even that like them. Settling everything this week, you know, I think. Hopefully season two of the USFL is going to look and feel much different. And like I said, it goes back to, like you said, you know, this rushing, like. You know, let's get all these affairs in order and then move forward. Versus, but I guess now you have a, you know, would you have a, a rickety proof of concept though that you have, like, this is a viable thing. I, I, I see both sides, but I definitely like, there there's the benefits of them having something now that they can show mm-hmm even if it is kind of a crude drawing on. The back of a napkin, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. And I think with. You know, it would've been ideal for them. If they could have the old USFL stars to market this past season throughout the whole season, that would've helped. Brought back some nostalgic eyeball. I would imagine for fans. Oh, you know, Doug flu's here. Oh, Jim, Kelly's promoting this league as well. Cetera, cetera. I feel like that would've helped them out quite a bit, but with, you know, like I, like you said, I can kind of understand them wanting to get ahead of the, the, because that just sounds like they're anticipating. A strong, a strong push by the XFL the next year. So they would need to get as much of a headwind in front of them as possible to start the league. But. I feel like they're a little bit, you know, it's a little too late to get a full grasp on the USFL now with. You know, having teams playing. And I feel like I read somewhere that they're gonna have like two or three or two or four cities or something like that next year that they're gonna play in. But I don't, that's still not good enough, in my opinion. You know, you don't, I, no matter where they play, I don't feel like you're gonna get too many Philadelphia stars fans driving out to Detroit to watch the stars play. You know, I just, I just don't see that really happening. Like I said, I feel like the XFL has them. Beat. And that's just my observation. Just my opinion is not a bias or anything. It's just what I've observed in the business models. And. In terms of ownership and marketing and promotion. And how well known the ownership group of the XFL is, and that their ability to put promotion in and, you know, word of mouth behind it. I feel like the XFL already has a, has a big lead, even though they haven't played a game yet. And there's still what, six months away. I still feel like they got a good lead on the S F L right now. So now that we've. Announced the city, right? I mean, they were now officially announced, you know, we're working to get social media, people hired people in the local markets hired, right? Like they're gonna have a team team. I can't remember what the official, like it's not team presidents like it was before, but they want like directors of marketing in each of the city or whatever. Like mm-hmm, . You know, we're two weeks away, NFL kickoff. I'm already. Scheduling interviews and people saying like, oh, I, you, I can't talk XFL anymore. Right. Because the NFL is start. Right. You know, cuz some of these reporters sports reporters and I'm sure you well, Wallet, like, is there enough time here to get like, are, are, you know, we reannounce the guardians or whatever the heck they're called, you know, they probably can't be the guardians anymore cuz of Cleveland. But like we, we reannounce the DC team. The midst of all the NFLs going on for the next six months. And then we kick off in February. Like, are you worried about the timeline here of when we're getting these things rolled out? Sort of, but I feel like. I feel like that's a scenario where they can do something like midweek, maybe like a Tuesday or Wednesday when there's less NFL news going on. Maybe a Wednesday because the Tuesday. Is the day after Monday night football and people will be talking about Monday night games. And Wednesday is a day that typically, you know, I don't know how many people are previewing, a Thursday night football game on a Wednesday. They probably wait till Thursday to preview Thursday football games. So maybe something like that would work for them. They still got a lot to announce. They've got, you know, coaching, a full coaching staff for every team to, to announce. And I still believe they haven't even announced. The Las Vegas stadium yet, which is a little surprising to me. Cause I feel like they didn't have a full coaching staff announced either besides the head coached initially and now they don't even have a, still don't have a stadium officially announced. So I feel like they're a little bit behind the ball. They still got that. They got the name, a logos, the unit uniforms to roll out. And then they have the draft in November, I believe. So they got a lot of stuff going on, but I feel like they're well aware of obviously of all people. Dwayne Johnson knows the NFL schedule and is aware of the monstrosity that is NFL coverage during the late summer and fall and early winter. So I feel like there they're well aware. Of that. And they're going to. Pace themselves. I feel like the, I believe the. The full coaching staff announcements will be coming up before those other announcements. Some waiting to see what the full DC XFL staff will look like. It's, I'm still. I still haven't gotten over the fact that Greg Williams is a defensive coordinator. That's still amazing to me that they, that he's coming back to DC as the DC of the DC defenders or whatever they're gonna be called. I don't know what they're gonna be called this time around. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be very interested even though I feel like I can, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can pay attention to the NFL and my fantasy team and, you know, pay attention to what the news is coming out and compartmentalize and say, okay, this is going on and I'll pay attention. This is well. So I feel like I do a good job of paying attention to that. And I feel like. Die hard. XFL fans have the ability to do the same too. They can, they can watch the NFL and pay attention off season XFL news at the same time. I just worry. I worry about getting the casuals in there, you know? I mean, we're like, I think sometimes, you know, like my Twitter and even with the USFL and like, oh, You know, it was the biggest story in the world last year, you know? Okay. The USFL, like who's, you know, who's starting this week, da da, it's like. You know, I don't know what, what casual, you know, interest that the, the Bel was hitting, you know, Above a certain level of like, you know, we're following this every week on Twitter. Yeah. Some, you know, it's like pretty much every fan base. You know, the, whatever the story is, even in the NFL or any sports team, you know, whatever the biggest news happening is with that team. Pretty much, no one outside that market really cares that much about it. So you sometimes, you know, it's, everyone's guilty of it. You forget what kind of bubble you're in and, you know, How I guess, niche the. The inner workings, the inner group of people who actually pay attention to this stuff day in and day out is it's, it's not as vast as you would think. So, like you said, it, it is important for the XFL to reach out to people who aren't paying attention to the day in and day out, you know, the news of whatever's going on the league and that's. That's the role of people smarter than me for, for them to figure out. Cause I. I'm not really too worried about trying to find out the. How you get the niche fan or the, the. Outside looking in type of fan the casual fan. I, I should have said. How, how do you get the casual fan and that's for them to figure out not me, but I'm gonna be curious to see how they do it though. That'll be interesting to watch going forward. Jake. I really appreciate your time. It's a, you know, it's exciting moving forward with announcements, everything else keep, you know, we'll keep up to date with everything happening and hopefully get you back on. Really appreciate your time with the Washington post and sharing your thoughts today. All right. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Well, I'm excited today at my quest to. Continue to discover, you know, CFL talent to come on and chat. I, this gentleman has popped up a lot on Twitter, Marty York and Marty and I connected last week. I said, I wanna get you on to talk about, you know, things happening in the world of the CFL today. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing well. Read so pleasure to be on. The mark. So Marty, you know, formally the, one of the original members of the TSN panel right. Many years ago, covering the CFL for a long time. How, how are you doing now at current time? What do you up to. I am the director of communications for Ben able at Canada. It's an extremely gratifying work. Yeah, I'm now in almost my eighth year in the role. And, you know, we're keeping very busy with all the current events, but. It it's a far cry from my football days. That's for sure. Both started, believe it or not, I was just a taught, but those started when I was. When in 1979 with the global mail. Which you may not know being in Seattle, but I think you do know cuz you're on top of it is Canada's national newspaper. And then yeah, went from. The globe to TSN and then SportsNet. And have never stopped. Following the CFL. In fact, I still talk. To CFO people all the time. Well, it's good. Yeah. You, you know, we're covering this, you know, from Seattle, always appreciate getting, you know, other smart, smart people. I always am looking for smart people that can talk about anything, especially, well, then why'd you contact me? so that's good. So, you know, I want get you thoughts to kind of, you know, current stuff nowadays. Obviously I have my, you know, my VC lion hat on their, you know, their, our team. I call them America CFO team because, you know, we're the American podcast. You know, big win on Friday for us certainly came with a cost. What did you make of the Nathan work injury and how big of a deal that is for the landscape of the CFL this season? Well, unfortunately, it's, it's a huge deal. And really, I thought we would be. Talking about Nathan RO and at completely different vein. He exceeded. I think just about anybody's expectations by coming out right from the start. And he was dynamic. He was outstanding. He was the. The prototypical CFO. Quarterback in terms of being able to gun the ball. Rifle it like a de Brock. Did. And run the ball. Extremely well, he's a legitimate dual threat. And so. I, I, I think it's really sad that he now has this ankle injury for the league in general, not only for the lions. This was a, this is a guy who people were talking about. It had, people were excited about the CFL. I don't wanna say again, but you know, even in Eastern Canada, Because this Canadian kid read. Was excelling and he was dominating. He was shredding defenses. So all of a sudden he's out now. And just puts a little bit of a damper on the league. I mean, I don't think there was any question he was on route to becoming the. Most outstanding player. I know he is. He's a brave kid and he was saying that he hopes he'll be back this year. But some of my sources tell me it's highly doubtful to recover that quickly from. The sort of ankle injury. Foot injury and the surgery that he had. So it's all going to be up to Mr. O'Connor now who, and we'll see another Canadian quarterback. We'll see if he can fill the shoes of Nathan Rourke. And I just hope for the sake of the league. And for his own sake, I hope that Nathan RO has a. Speedy recovery and comes back with the same. Scintillating performances that he had this year. Yeah. I was trying to explain that, you know, I talk, I film weddings in my, in my, you know, when I'm not doing all this stuff and I, you know, talking with people over the weekend and. Explaining this injury, cuz the news came down on Sunday, you know that he was gonna have to have the surgery and all that. And like you said, trying to explain just. Like for the league in general, like obviously it's horrendous for Nathan and the team and everyone there and his family and friends, but just the CFO in general. They really was kind of the guiding story of the season. And I just think that's, what's, you know, everything is depressing and everything's bad about it, but that's what upsets me too. Yeah. It really was, it was the story of the season. I forgive me if I'm repeating myself now, but it was definitely the, these story. And the way he blended with his receivers was something else. You don't usually see that. From a first year starter in any professionally. Especially in the CFO where, you know, he's coming from us, college football. And, you know, there's the extra man on defense and that sort of thing. But. He, I mean, he took advantage of having guys like rhymes and Burnham. And this is. The BC lions are very good team. Well, they be as good without work. I don't know, but we're gonna find out aren't we. Soon. When do you make of Michael O'Connor? I mean, he, you know, obviously has been around for a little while, you know, brought him in, like you said, the second Canadian, that was really cool to have that parody there across, but thoughts on him? I mean, it's obviously huge shoes to fill. So read. I mean, the thing about O'Connor is. You've heard a lot of positive reports about him, you know, the. The word is that there, he has a lot of promise. He has a lot of ability. It wasn't like he was some. Nobody at the college level, he accomplished quite a lot. But he's a different kind of quarterback than work. I don't think he has the speed. I don't think he has. Quite the same gun as Rourke does, but I, I do hear he is a very good passer. I saw little bits of him. With other teams in the CFO in the past, I saw 'em with the Argos a little bit and. You know, this will be his first. Real test as a starter, I think. And. It'll be very interesting to see if he can carry on what RO started. Rourke started. I saw a lot of, you know, our Twitter followers listeners say like, oh, you BC's got a trade or go out or what's still out there, you know, who's available. Right. Like we saw the Cody Fujio stuff. And then with the refer riders last week, and Boley believe I met Mitchell and we got the know Nick AR buckle what's going on, but I don't think there's any other. Like better alternative. I, I mean, what do you, I mean, do we, we just ride with O'Connor right? If you're the BC lions, I, I agree with you a hundred percent re I mean, There is a conspicuous. Dearth of experience. Quarterbacking within the CFO right now. You know, I, I don't mind Shilts with Hamilton. He has his detractors. Evans doesn't seem to be picking up where he left off in Hamilton. The other Evans in Ottawa doesn't seem to be the answer, although he's a great runner. We'll see if he can maybe become a running back. I don't know, but. Our buckle has not. Succeeded anywhere, except for those brief spurts he had in Calgary. And there is Zach Calis. Who's great. But the backup is somebody we haven't all heard of. And there's just a, a shortage of very good quarterbacks right now, Adams as hurt in Montreal. And. There's all kinds of controversy about Bethel Thompson in the Toronto area. Some people. Don't think he's good enough to lead the Argonauts. Anywhere I happen to think he's a very good passer. But he certainly lacks. In that other area of running and that is so vital in the CFO. So, yeah, you're just back to your point, Reed. I think you're right. You know, there really aren't many better, better alternatives in the league right now. The O'Connor maybe if Strubler gets cut by the jets. And I don't think that's gonna happen after his performance last night, but if he, but if he gets cut by the, by the jets, I could see a free for all in the CFO bidding war for him, because. He certainly has a lot of ability and I think he'd be a welcome. Addition back to the league. It's it's odd for us, you know, obviously we're newer to covering the CFO. Right. And we got into this with the XFL, you know, the whole lock story bore you about, but like, you know, covering this now. And it does seem like sometimes, you know, Mao's kind of whatever Evers, a kind of, whatever, you know, are buckles kind of whatever. And then it's like, okay, We're gonna move them around to another team and then like, maybe, maybe they're gonna be better now. And it doesn't ever seem like, I mean, Mazzoli was doing. Good before he got hurt. He was probably the better, you know, looking than certainly Dan Evans was, but it wasn't like Ottawa was lighting the world on fire before he got hurt, you know? No, I've always liked Mao. I like them in college. I, your way, kind of at west. He was, he was. Again, one of those dual threats, and I think that's, that's really important in the CFO with the wider field, et cetera, and only three downs. But. I, you know, I, I thought Mali was. Okay. I mean, the way that he got, I think Ottawa would be better right now. If Maoli stayed healthy. The way he got injured was absolutely despicable. One of the worst things I've seen in all my decades of following sports. And I didn't see enough remorse from Marino either. So that was something that really bothered me. Well also, and then, you know, he played obviously on Friday against the lions and his first play out, I saw that got posted on Twitter, went pretty viral. Him diving head first into lucky whiteheads return. I mean, this is your first playback on the field after the longest suspension in CFO history. Yeah, and I, I don't know Marino very well. I don't even know his background very well. I've known him to, you know, since he's become. Newsy a news item and I've looked into his past performances a little bit. The fact that he had no remorse tells me. The kind of guy, he was, I do know Ole a little bit and I do have a lot of respect for him. And when Ms. Oley came out and complained the way he did. And then added that. There were racial comments made by Marino? I mean, I, I don't know if that's true. You don't know if that's true, but. I can't see why Ms. Olie would make that up. And. Other red, black players. Nate Behar for one. Came right out and said they heard it or. That this guy's comments were ridiculous. I would've liked to have seen a longer. Suspension for Marino based on what he did. And. What he allegedly said. Combined, those two things bothered me a lot. And you're right. He did go after lucky, white head right away. I don't know if somebody said something to him because that was right at the outset of the game. And then after that, I didn't see him being nearly as. Rambunctious, let's say. I wanna ask a couple more nuts and bolts and then we'll talk some big pictures. Step here. You mentioned MCLE Bethel Thompson before, you know, we're friends, you know, fans of his, on the show. We called him the king of the CFO last season. Everyone laughed at us. Yeah. But you know, the art Arna are not good right now. They're, they're struggling. I don't know if it's, you know, because of McLeod or in spite of McLeod or whatever, like. What, you know, Mike Mitchell, he has been on the show covers ya Granot, you know, for us here in the states, like, you know, lots to me, like, is it di witty? Is it Argos trying, you know, every year we're trying to build a team and you can't build a roster over that. Like, what do you think the Argonaut's big struggles are? Well, the, you listen to the critics in the. Toronto area who care about the CFO and who care about the Argos. You, you will hear a lot of. Criticisms aimed at both. Did witty. And, and Bethel Thompson. In fact, the veteran sports columnist in Toronto, Steve Simmons. Came out and said that he. Both. Of them should be. Fired. I don't go that far. I, I. I mean, like you said before, there there is a shortage of quality quarterbacks around. You're not gonna find people that quickly to replace Bethel Thompson. And I don't think he's that bad. I really don't. I'm. I he's. I think he's got a good arm. I think he's a good passer. It's his, it's his running ability. That is questionable, but that's what he is running backs for too, I guess. So. And I, and I, I think sometimes he gets stuck in the pocket. And in, if he could move around a little bit more by himself, some extra time, he's got a, a good core of receivers. They're pretty sure handed for the most part. I think Gittens is outstanding. And so I, I would absolutely like to see. Him move a little bit more if he is, cuz I have seen him, you know, once in, while it'll dart out of the pocket and he'll scramble for. For some yardage, if he could do that a little bit more much the way. Edmonton has instructed Cornelius. To just get out of the pocket and run for his life. And he seems to have improved because of that. It's just you organized, I don't know if it's, if we're getting ready for Chad Kelly season here, you know, I mean that. Interesting with Chad, you know, I think. We have the USFL here back in April. That was our, you know, the non-IT L the other one. And, you know, Chad Kelly. Uncle Jim Kelly, you know, famous in the, in the us of L and I know that us of L had, you know, Reached out, tried to make an effort to get Chad to come. We always thought it was interesting. Like, man, you would. You would take a backup role or wasn't even presumed a backup role yet with the Argonauts, as opposed to taking what would be presumed to be, you know, a starting position. A franchise, you know, with the USFL here, right. Be the face of the league. So interesting. He went to Toronto, but it could be pan out for him. Now, if McLeod kind of craps the bed, Yeah, I think that, you know, I think you're right. Reed. I think, you know, a lot of people are calling for Chad Kelly to. To maybe. Replace Bethel Thompson. I wouldn't do it myself yet. Although, you know, in, in the li. Lit, he's done a lot of second and short kinds of plays, even third and short kinds of plays. And he's been. Somewhat successful at that. His uncle, by the way is one of my favorite people I knew quite well. And even when he was in the USFL, because. When he was playing for the Houston. Gamblers. Hi, his coach was most Davis. Who he also had a college in Portland. And most Davis was the Argos offensive coordinator way back in the early eighties. And they implemented the run and shoot offense. If Chad Kelly can be anywhere close to Jim and Kelly. Then that'll be an improvement for the article. That's for sure. It just, you know, and obviously the USFL was going through, they just resolved the lawsuit this week, you know, that they were, that new USFL was being sued by the old USFL. Yeah. I, I don't know what. Lineage, they would've been able to talk about. This first season, you know, with Jack Kelly and all that, but it is very interesting to me that he chose to go up to the CFL and make. A really, you know, that's, we've had, you know, nailer on and Farhan on everyone talking about, you know, it's, you know, three, four years to really be a quarterback in the CFO to kind of get, yeah. You know, it took Warren moon. A hall of Famer. Three or four years to. Get established as the. Edmonton then Eskimos. First string quarterback. And so. That should tell you something, but. It's not, that's not happening as much anymore. I mean, there are guys who are well, Rourke is an example. He did sit behind. Riley last year, but. You know, he just took off this year and, and it's not happening to the same degree as it used to. With quarterbacks there, apprenticeships aren't lasting as long. Now as they did back then. This will, I guess this is a good segue. Anyway, cuz I was gonna ask you about, you know, not having the long apprenticeship, Jake Mayer, you know, we, the mayor, we had him on our show back, you know, we have like, we had Nathan work on our show preseason. We had Jake Mayer on. I said, I see big things for all you guys and look at it now, but. Jake Mayer, you know, Bo Levi, like, are we, is, did he, has he thrown his last pass for Calgary? I mean, it kind of seems like, I don't think so. I, I I'd be SU I'd be stunned if. If they just suddenly decided to. Unload Mitchell. I think they're gonna stick with him. It's not like they're that bad. They're still. You know, the third best team in the league. So he did not have. A stellar game last week. There's no question about it, but. They still won and. And mayor is one of the few. Quarterback backup quarterbacks. Who I think can be dependent on in the CFO. You know, he proved himself and he proved himself quickly too, when Mitchell was hurt. So he's another example of a guy who emerged, you know, almost right outta college. And he's, he's a great backup to have. If Mitchell stumbles. You could be sure that they, that Kitson goes right to mayor. Because there are question marks circulating. Around the CFO right now. About Mitchell and his future, but he's gonna be a hall of Famer. He's he's one of the best quarterbacks the CFL has ever seen. So. If he's, if, if the injuries have caught up to him, if age is caught up to him a little bit, although I don't think so. We'll find out and then mayor will come in and we'll see what happens. Someone tweeted. They said that, you know, maybe Bo just broke the all time passing record and it was like, I'm good. Like I'm, I'm fine now. I've, I've done what I need to do. I think those who have, who know a bull by Mitchell and. Have talked to me about him in the past. Will tell you he's extremely competitive. Like he's, he's a cool dude off the field. But on the field, he's extremely competitive. I can't imagine. him not trying, just because he said any record . I asked this question, a lot of people ask it to you as well. Are you a Cardi? I can't even say, are you Aja though, guy? Like, are you a Koger fan? So I like them when he was. With the Argos. I liked him in college. I think he was at Nevada. And I always liked his two-way ability because I keep telling you that I think that's a key to success and for quarterbacks in the CFL. But I clearly. See a deterioration in his play. With the rough writers now. And fairness he's had knee injuries. And I think that they've really affected him. But. You know, when he was a backup with Toronto, he could run. Very very well. I don't, I'm not seeing him do that. With the refer anymore. And I'm also not seeing him throw very well either. So. I think the rough writers have some problems. And it starts at quarterback. I think they're gonna need to make some changes. Well, that's, you know, I mean, there was the stories in the off season, you know, Regina is hosting the great cup. Like they're going to, you know, pay over for the salary cap to make sure that they're gonna be in all this. And now I was like, I, you know, writers are very on the outside looking in here, this great cup, race, race. Yeah, they are, they are, it's gonna be. Tough for them. I mean, the crossovers, the possibility. Is going to help that they may end up in the Eastern playoffs, but Edmonton could too. I mean, it's crazy, but. As bad as they've been this year, they could end up in that crossover position. So I'm, you know, I've I've, I've always thought that the rough writers have a, a really good organization. They have the best fans. No offense. The best fans in the CFO. But I don't think right now that. They're very good football team, and I think you're gonna see changes there. Yeah, it's just, it's hard, you know, Cody, like even this week, like he's, oh, it's fine. Like, I mean, he should be called, you know, Cody fine, Mason, fine. Like, it's like, oh, that's fine. Like they pulled me from the game. It's okay. Like I'm coming back. I don't like it just, it doesn't, I, I just feel like he needs some more fire there. It just doesn't feel like. I want someone like Bo getting p****d off that he got pulled from the game. Yeah. But you know, Yeah. I mean, I think you're your best quarterbacks are your fiery ones. It's good to remain. Unflappable when you give up interceptions or things like that. But. You want to get back in there and yeah, I'm not seeing that fire in Sohar. I think it's a really good observation on your part read before I let you go. I wanna get, we'll talk a couple big picture things, but before I let you go, you know, outside looking in here, right. You know, we have all of these CBA. Talks a lot of uncertainty going into the season right now that we're, you know, midway through the season scoring stuff. Like what do you feel about like the health of the CFL? You know, we had a couple hard kind of seasons there. Well, I'm concerned about the, the health of the CFL, but having said that that's not much different than what I've been saying. Since I started on the beat as a very young guy in 1979. I. I, I, I get a little bit disappointed because I do like the CFL and, and those people who know me well, Know that I'm not a cheerleader in any way. I. I mean anybody who knows my coverage of major league baseball knows I don't sit around. And root for the Toronto team. It's not my nature, but I do root for the CFO. Because it's Canadian and I do want it to succeed and I've had. Some great memories in my. Years covering the league. I know, I think I covered 25 great cup games. I've known just about. Every player. That went through the league. So I do want to see it succeed again, and I wish. Back in the main, as a main staple. In, in, particularly in Eastern Canada, because it's not that bad in Western Canada, but I do get trouble nowadays when I see a lot of empty seats at these games. I even saw them in Vancouver and that bothered me because the lions were playing great football. Entertaining football Rourke was, you know, just as we've already said something. That you know, something special. And, and I still saw empty seats in Vancouver, and I saw I've seen empty seats in Winnipeg and what a dominant team they are. Not as many as elsewhere, I might say, but. Still you, I'm seeing too many empty seats. There, there are more empty seats. Than filled seats at in Eastern cities. Specifically Toronto. And I find that really. I, the only word I can think of is sad. And I do know that the league is going to. At some point say, you know, we can't afford to lose this kind of money anymore. Right now. It's. Instinct. As it has been since. You know, for decades, we'll see if they can. And I, I guess that's a challenge for Randy and Brosy because I don't think he wants to be the. The guy under whom the league. Folds. Yeah. I mean, What do you, you know, we had a commissioner on the show, you know, before the season, we were excited to kind of get that, you know, working hard towards that. Like what do you make of Ambros? And, and I mean, it's been a lot of. You know, we have the COVID year and we have the X, L year, and then we have the CBA year. I mean, it's been a lot on, on this plate. How do you think he's navigated all that? So, I mean, if I had to give him a mark out of 10 or something like that, I'd probably give him a seven because. You know, in Western Canada league is still topical. I think it's not as popular. As it may have been at one point. Or it may be as it should be. But I still think he's done a pretty good job. We're not hearing these. Crazy stories about him that we've heard about some of his predecessors. And the fact that they weren't handling things properly. The only thing that. That from a negative perspective that I heard about. Randy and Brosy. Was that. And for some reason, this hasn't been covered in the mainstream media at all. But I was told that there was an investigation conducted on him. Because there had been complaints about. What some people perceived as bullying. Tactics. And so some people in the league had complained about him. And, but you know, he's still there. So I'm assuming the investigation concluded. I do think that he, you're not seeing. As many public comments from him as you have in the past. Whether that's related to the investigation or not. I don't know. Yeah. You know, I, I hear that a lot where, you know, and now that the season's gone, I mean, like I know he was on ours and he was on the, the tie cats and I know he's making appearances, but. It, it doesn't feel. I, I don't know, cuz I, I don't know what the CFO commissioner does every day, but I'm like, yeah. What, during the CBA talks or whatever, that's like, are we, are we talking? But you know, they had like all the NDA stuff with the XFL and no one could talk about it. Other it's been a weird, just like its been a weird, like. Three years to grade. Coverage on if anyone, but that's always been the case. Reid, when it comes to the CFO, you know, If we used to call it the CFO, the crisis football league. I mean, there's always some kind of. Odd issue involved. I, you know, I was covering the league when it expanded to the United States and, and people think that that was a, a failure and that it was, it went miserably. But the truth of that matter is that John tore, who was now the mayor of the. Of Toronto and was the volunteer commissioner of the CFO at that time. Was was brilliant in that regard. Because everybody who came into the CFO. From the United States. Had to pay franchise fees. Of of seven figures and those franchise fees. Kept the CFL afloat. And so if it wasn't for that, I don't know that we'd have a CFL right now. I mean, I was covering this team when. The Montreal aisles, a professional football team. Actually, they were the Montreal Concords at that time. Ran out of footballs. They didn't have a football. So they couldn't practice literally. You know, there was, and, and Tori came right out and said, I don't know if we're gonna be able to pay the players. Next week. So there were. Very serious threats to the leagues existence back then. So now, I mean, Considering, you know, they've come quite away. Way, and I don't think Ambross doing a bad job. I mean, at least he, I don't know what he is doing when it comes to bullying. I hope he's not doing that. That's something I'm just not privy to. But if he's, but if you look at the stability of the league, I mean, he's trying what he can, I don't blame him for at least. Exploring the XFL idea he was getting. Pressure from. Owners in the league to at least listen to the ex XFL offers. So I, you know, it's, that's part of crisis. Management I look at, I think it would be disastrous. I would hate it if the CFO. Were to merge with the XFL. I would absolutely know that if the Canadian. Rules were to be eliminated. I don't know if I could stomach that. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the NFL. I I'll watch the USFL. I like football period. I love college football. But the CFO rules. Are they're to me special. And that's what makes the game. As exciting for me. As it is. So I don't wanna see. The game and nothing personal against you reading , but I don't wanna see the game Americanized. So I hope Brandi and bros. Brosy stays continues to stay away from that. Yeah. It's, it's the interesting, I. First off. I mean, you were. The, the podcast we did during that time during the March, what was that? Yeah, March, April may kind of, I mean, It was, I mean, that was the best time the podcast about anything because he just, everyone, any theory was out there. No one was saying, you know, the course, they came out later and they, you know, asked Dan Brosy, how, how long did the merger talks last? And he was like five minutes or something. Well, I mean, we got about 50 hours. That was, I don't think that was totally true. I, I think they lasted longer and largely. Because MLSE. ER goes, owners wanted it to last longer. They thought this was a chance to make a little bit more money. Yeah, I just people, but you know, we got a lot of like, how would you feel if you know, someone, some Europe team bought the NFL and then I'm like, I don't, but I'm not, but I'm not a Canadian that values the Canadian football league, as you know, part of my heritage and my identity. Like I don't view the NFL as, as this mainstay, you know, American thing. That is part of my core of. You know, I mean, I I'm a fan of the, the Washington commanders. That was the football team. That was the, like, I don't, you know, I, I mean, change. Happens to all of us. And, and, but I certainly understand. And her, the lot of the Canadians being very upset about the three downs and all that. Yeah. I mean, that would be distress for a lot of us. Let's put it like that. But if you're a businessman or if you're a commissioner, you have to consider options just as John Tory and his owners did. Back in the mid nineties when. The league added American franchises without those franchises. I don't know if there'd be a league today. Before I let you go. You know, so talking about that and obviously, you know, Expansion and the CFO, whatever, you know, I think you have to get to 10 teams clearly before you look outside of anything else, but like agree. The idea of, you know, having American, you know, or if we look at smaller border towns or whatever, you wanna look at it, but you know, trying to do an American expansion now versus 30, you know, well, 40 years, I mean, it's a long time ago that we. Like trying to do that again now with the way the world is now versus the way it was in the eighties or nineties. Right? 92. When was it? 90? I get. 95. I believe I get my use. Sorry, I got double check. I got my USFL don't don't murder me. I got my, there will be a lot of people watching your podcast who will be saying, ah, your doesn't know what he's talking about, but I think it's 9, 5 95. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I would like to see the CFOs satisfy. Canadians first now I think it it's really important. To expand the league, like you just said, Reid. And I think a Canadian city is where the league should expand to. And, you know, I mean, I've been hearing. How effects for ever in the late J brick, who was once the general manager of the allots and once the general manager. Of the Argonauts. Tried to put together a group. That was going to form. What he called the Schon. The Schon is that's how he pronounced it. And, and unfortunately it never happened. And this was, I don't know, 40 years ago. So it's OB there's obviously some stumbling blocks to. Expanding to Halifax, but I certainly would hope that we see. Another Canadian team. In the next little while, maybe that would generate some extra interest. Well, that would be it. That would certainly be a ratings boost. If you could get the tent CFOs, right. That would be well, Marty. Well, I am thrilled today. We have the big man of the Alette David Kote. How are you doing today? Hi, I'm great. How are you? I'm good. So if you like even had to pay for a meal or a beer this week, or has everyone just like treating you for your big, big performance? No, I, I still have to pay. Everything. I, I got some beer from my friend, but other than that, I'm paying. For my food we have like a, there's an American stand. Like I still put on my pants, one leg at the time, you know, like I still, I still it's just normal. I big, you know, game winning field goal to, to win the game against. Oh, God who the hell did you guys beat now? I'm Daniel 10. The tiger cats. There you go. The big, I I'm still in mourning from my Nathan work. So we have the, you know, the big game. When you kick against the Thai cats, talk me through kind of how is every everything going? He following the big game. It was a, a great game all the way, all the way long were. We're exchanging points and everything. And. At the end of the game, they made a 51 yard, Phil gold to take the lead. So as soon as they did that, we know we had a think like 50 seconds to. To go throughout the field and try to KK game whenever. And. Our offense did that. They got to got us to three first down. And made made us in a position. To have a kick and. And their rest is as, as we, as what we've seen during the. On the Instagram or all social, social media, the kick and everything was perfect. The the, the long snap, the old, the, the blog, everything was perfect. And it, and the perfect night with all the fans and everything. So it was a, a great moment. How do you handle that kind of pressure being put on your shoulders? That's probably Iran around means more nervous than me when that happened. I don't know if. It's I'm a lower, like low profile guy. Like during life. So I'm not very like, Stress or inverting, but let's say I'm like in my zone during the game. So I'm very, very focused. Like not on the score or. The outcome of the game, but. I was just going out there doing another field goal like I did previously or, or like I didn't practice. So. Honestly, I wasn't really nervous. At the time of the cake. So that probably helped me a lot. And then afterward now, I mean, I'm sure you've had reporters talking to you and everyone else in your team. I mean, what's it now? You know, a couple days removed from the big game. I had some friends that reach out to me some. Old coach and all like. I'll let people, I know Eric Quebec and Montreal, bunch of guy, even other. Kicker from the league that reached out to me just to say congrats and. So that's really nice. That's a, a good time to. Especially we're in BI week now. So I receive a couple texts here and there. That's, that's nice to have this appreciation from other people. Well, cuz I worry because you know, we've been, we've had. Been big supporters of the all outlets all season. I've had a lot of your teammates saw. We had Gary stern, the owner on a couple weeks ago, and yeah, you guys had the big win against Winnipeg and then I'm like, you know, we're gonna go into Hamilton, you know, fight Hamilton. You gotta keep them momentum going. Like was there. Following the team's first win, you know, against Winnipeg going into Hamilton, was there added pressure to kind of keep that momentum going? I'm telling you, I don't think. It was like more pressure. I think we're very confident about these things since the beginning of season. And the, the win against Winnipeg gave us a great boost. We're re really confident and we work hard during the week. And. We knew that if we, we played well, we were able to, to beat them. So. It wasn't as easy as we thought to then not to make it like the landscape, but. We made it through and like we we're coming through and get the win. So that's the most important, important thing. What's the season been like for you so far up till now? Now we're four and six. So it's been like up and down and. So, yeah, I think it's the first time of season where like, I mean, two wins in a row, so that's, that's good. For me personally, it's nice to win, obviously, but for the team too, it's like a good momentum and a, a good boost of energy for the. The back nine of the season. You, you guys have had a little bit of, you know, Shakiness, right. Coaches changes all that kind of stuff. Now, do you feel like you're in your groove, that you guys are going on? A good, good path. Yeah, I think so. It's, I think it took just a while to like figure it out. And because I think on paper, we have a really good team. Like we, you check all the dev chart and everything. We have some great players, like all over the board, but it was tough during the game. Life, you probably saw it was tough sometime you, you watching game you're like this thing is probably better than that, but we're not doing like the. The the right thing at the, the right time. But I think. Yeah, those two wins. It's a, like a, a major change in the season. And I think it's, it's good for the rest of, of the season and it's, it can help us for sure. What do you like about the CFO and the time that you've spent there so far? Honestly, it's, it's really nice. It's like the atmosphere, the guys, you, you make new friends. You. Create contacts and everything. And. Honestly, what I've been saying is like, when you're playing in college, but. You just don't have school with that. So you, you. Which is like the perfect mix. The school is important and everything. If you want to reach. Pro all you need to go by school, which is perfect in my opinion. But once you get there, you can focus. Only on football, especially me, like. I'm not from Montreal. So when I go there, I'm I'm in my, my thing. I'm alone. I don't have anyone to like, worry about, I don't have kids, so I can only focus. Like on training, get my body right. And work. And so that's, that's really helping me. And that's very cool. That's a nice job to, to have. Mentality now. With your team, right. Everyone in the locker room. And I know you guys are on the bi-week this week, but you know, obviously you've been talking to people, whatever, like you do feel like you guys, you, like you said, the, the pendulum swung good momentum here for the back half of the season. Yeah, I think so the guy. Like we were at to have bi-week to get a. Arrest and everything. Cause we we've played six week in a row, but I think we're thrilled to go back on the field next week. And. And we can't wait for the next game to. To like, continue to build on, on this, this two win streak. Streets, Tim capper. Who's he hosts outlets, SciTech podcast, right? He's covers your team. And he's a friend of the show put out that it was the. Most people you guys have had for a home game. I believe since like 2017, I wanna say, I don't wanna miss quote, but it's been one of the higher crowds you guys have had, like, you guys feel that energy and the crowd and, and, you know, I know Gary stern is out there going crazy on Twitter and, you know, yelling at mil Stegel and everything else, like. What do you make of just we're trying to fill the stadium kind of build back the Ettes. Actually it was, it was also my it's been a long time since I've seen a, a crowd like that in, in Montreal. And that that's a good thing. So the people are starting to. To coming back at this stadium. We're always talking about team in the west. Saskatchewan EG big crowd and like, They disturb you and everything, but I think last game. Our team, our. Fans disturb Hamilton. I think they had a, a fall start late in the game because they. They weren't ready or they, they were confused and that's probably because of the fans. So. That's very nice to have them be on our back and. That was a boost in the game, for sure. Like the, the last three minutes of the game, it was very loud and wrong was on their feet yelling. And that was a, that was really nice. And that's good for the, the organization as well, because it's been like a couple tough here. So to have people back in the stand, that's gonna. Create a great movement. I think. Are you pro airhorn or anti airhorn? Anti-air horn. honestly. When I'm on the field, I'm pro because I don't forget them. But when you watch the game, like after water, you saw kids it's I think people find it really annoying. It's very tough to like, To, to, to say my choice, but. I will say if I'm on the field and it. Don't disturb me so you can continue. So it disturb the, the other team or , but I know people on TV have a tough time with that. I think I saw that on, on Twitter. , I'm not from, you know, I'm from Seattle. I don't know a lot of this stuff, but we had this poutine helmet now floating around in, in the stadium, right. 90, like, is that, do you, do you like the, it of this poutine helmet? Do you enjoy poutine? I don't, I don't know any of anything about this. Yeah, that's, that's pretty good. You should try it sometime when you, if you're coming. More on the east side, on, on these coast, but it's, it's really good. And I think that was a good. A good publicity with the team to have the, the and everything. That's a good Sona to, to buy at the stadium. You eat, put in and you have the ball for turf gate at home. And when you receive people. So that's a good thing, but. Putting is really good. That's really healthy, but that's really, that's really good. Yeah. It's really not healthy. Right. It's really bad for you, right. Yeah, I know that's that's not good. Only on ring by week. . Yeah. What do you guys like in the locker room, just hanging out with the guys, the mentality of the team when you're not on the field, what do you guys like to do? Or what's what's the general vibe. I see that's a very good vibe. People are saying like later in the locker room, sometime we can. Believe that after practice, if Ron is leaving on their side and nobody's talking and it's just like, We're doing our job and we're leaving, but. People are staying like. We watch together. We're talking about the lives and everything, and there's a very good like chemistry. In the team and I I'm surprised about like, The imagine the image I had from the, the proof, but was like everyone on his own, because it's like their job you're competing against another guy, but that's. That's really not the case. And that that's pretty cool. That's kind of what we, we. We found, we find during a. A college season. I mean, not as much because you don't have the like class and everything with the guys, but. There's a good chemistry. And even that after practice, we go to restaurant, we. When we have some off time, we go play golf. We're doing some activities together to like, to. Try to build the, a chemistry. So you guys coming back next week, you're playing the red blacks are coming in, right? Playing the playing you guys. I feel good about that. I feel good about this wind streak. Now you guys are on. I, I think I do think there's gonna be some momentum there. Thoughts. I mean, I know you're on the by, we don't wanna talk next week yet, whatever, but heading back in and, and what are you looking forward to down the stretch? Honestly, the. That that's gonna be a tough game because. Like what we said, every game is tough. And the, in the C this year, there's no like, Big win by 35 40 points. It's always a closed games. And OWA are a really good team, even if. The record are not like. Is not so showing that, but I think it's gonna be tough game, but if we can build on this moment, term of two wins in a row. And come after, by week, have some time to rest. We had some time to rest during the week and we're gonna be. More fresh. I think it can be a. A good opportunity to like move up to a, a third win in a row and build on that for the, the rest of season, because. As you know, the, the, the, nobody in the east right now is like, Going away for, with the, the first place. It's I think that. The first name is four and six. So I guess so. The the first place is wide open. So. It's gonna take that way to, to go in there. The last fresh of season with two wins in row, a bike week BI week to rush and. Then a good game at home. Again, that's going to help us for sure. Well, I hate to tell you you're gonna run into a brick wall when the BC lion come into town. So the wind will stop. We're going to be playing with all the love of Nathan work on the shoulders. You know, if we're gonna be an anchor mode coming in, but it's should be good. I'm excited. You are a phenomenal for being, you know, like you. Said not only speaking English during the season being French speaking, phenomenal job. Do. Do people realize, I guess. The work and, and how hard that is to be able to kind of do lingo and do all these reporter interviews and everything else you have to do. I think people realize it. They're like some, some guys on the team tried to lean to learn a couple world in French here and there, but. And they given this. Some slack too, sometime we don't like understand most of it and I'm able to speak. But as you, you see, I have big. Accent and sometime word are, are tough to pronounce, but. I'm getting by and that's pretty cool. That's very useful to me to, to be able to speak French and English, like. French. It's it's really cool when you're in Quebec city or in Montreal, but. If you don't go in France, you don't need French. So you need to speak English, English at some point, if you want to, to work or to, to travel. So that's just a, a plus. The only time I ever use French, I had a layover in Paris and I was so excited. I was getting impress this girl and I was gonna order it like a, a gin and Tomic and I completely did it wrong. And they had no idea what I was saying. And they said, why don't we just get that for you English. So I, I used you much better than I am and, and the credit. There. So, yeah, it's tough too. it's tough. Sometime French is way, way offer and then English with the pronunciation and everything. well, David, I really appreciate your time today. Taking time on the bi-week another's a lot of other stuff you could be doing. So I really appreciate it. I do mean this, the. Alouettes big fans on the podcast. We've had a lot of your teammates on, and so I really appreciate that.

Episode 106 - The XFL Is Hiring...A LOT!!!

Well, I'm excited today. We have Nathan, Rubbelke joining a St. Louis business journal. We have, you know, coach Anthony backed running the mock in your city right now. Lots of XFL excitement going, how, how is everything for you? Going well, mm-hmm, , it's fun to see the X of hell coming back. So how I I'm just kind, you know, we were talking off, like, I didn't really have a theme for this week's episode yet. We talked with far we're having you on now. What is your biggest takeaway now? You know, you were talking Exel again, it's coming back to St. Louis, everything else. What strikes you as someone that covers the business of St. Louis? Mm-hmm well, I think the excitement's still there. You never know. After two years of being away. If, if the XFL was gonna generate excitement, You know, a lot of things have happened in between there. We've got a MLS team coming to St. Louis, but. It's amazing to see the, the enthusiasm still for the battle Hawks as at the grocery store last night. Saw battle Hawk shirts. So. You know, it'll be interesting to see if they can get the same engagement. In St. Louis for, for the XFL. Here in 2023. But. They're definitely that fan base didn't go anywhere in the last two years. That that makes sense. It's fascinating. I mean, I live in Seattle. I don't think I've seen the, I think there's one gentleman that works at whether the grocery stores, I go to the he's got his dragons. Landard every time I go in, we kind of give eyeballs, but I mean, it's, it's remarkable St. Louis, if any of any market really did capture that and has been able to, to ride that out. Mm-hmm . Yeah, it really is. And I think a lot of that went to. The team they had here for the, for the last iteration, the X FFL, Kurt Hunsicker, who was the team president, really built a grassroots campaign. And, and of course you had the, the, you know, the, the people kind of wanted to stick it to the N NFL here after the Rams left. And so I think that was a huge driving factor of it of saying, Hey, you didn't say, you said St. Louis, wasn't a football town. Let us show you that it, that it actually is. What have you made? You know, and, and obviously it's coming more into your purview now as a reporter, but you know, I mean, obviously you heard, okay, Danny, the rock, you know, we're buying all this, we're moving forward. Like, what did you think? Oh my God, the XFL is coming back. Yeah. I mean, I guess there was a sense of skepticism at first, you know, obviously you see the names behind it and there's no reason to doubt that, but given what they've done in their careers, but. You know, starting up a league, like this is hard. And, and so, you know, there's some skepticism of whether it would happen, but clearly it is. And obviously, you know, there's different stops and starts during this. Obviously there was the talks, you know, the, the CFO. At one point about maybe partnering to some degree. And so, you know, for me, there was an excitement, an intrigue about what it eventually looked like. And I think it's gonna look a lot like. What's some differences, some big differences, but I think it's gonna look pretty similar to what it did in 2020. Which I think from a fan engagement perspective, it's gonna be familiar to few folks who went to games in 2020. And so I think that's gonna help. You know, get the fan base back engaged as we start, as they start playing games here in about six months or so. Yeah, it's, it's weird and it'll be intriguing to me to see what, what do they pick and what do they not? You know, obviously we redid, you know, the logo and, and I think, you know, the footballs are being changed and stuff, you know, the, the kind of the design of that, it's just weird. It it's like by buying a house, we're gutting everything. We're keeping stuff. I just am curious. Like, what do they deem as you know, untouchables, like obviously St. Louis coming back. That was an no area, but like, you know, do the battle Hawks come back. Does that logo come back? Does it change? Mm-hmm I just am curious, like, how married are they to any one of these ideas? Yeah, me too. I mean, here in St. Louis, like I mentioned, I saw that shared the grocery store, the battle Hawks, it really took off. That, that team name, that logo. And so I know there's a lot of angst. Here when they made the initial announcement, it didn't give team names. That people, why in the world would they change, you know, moving the battle Hawks. But, but that might not matter in a market like Seattle. And it might make sense to rebrand. So yeah. I'm like, I'm like you it's intriguing. And then the rules, I mean, I, you know, I covered the business of sports, but I'm, I'm, I'm a football fan. I really, I really liked some of the, the different roles I brought in 2020. And so I'm very interested to see what stays, what goes, will there be a kickoff? Will there not be a kickoff? There's a lot of answers here in the next six months that, that we're gonna get. I think. I really fascinated about that. You know, when I went down to Arlington a couple weeks ago for the announcement, I was talking with Russ brand and the president, and I'm curious, like, What his NFL background, cuz he's like, you know, we like the rules. We like some of that, but we don't want this to be a gimmick league. Like I'm curious how much of the. NFL in him permeates kind of into his role. Mm-hmm I, I, I don't know. I mean, they said that the rule book is locked in as of, I think the announcement they had in Arlington. So obviously they know what they're doing at this point. Mm-hmm but I am curious, like you have a lot of NFL brain trust. Mm-hmm in that room of where do they land on that? Yeah, it's something I was thinking about too. You know, I think, and the good thing for the NFL is that this can be kind of a testing ground for them with new rules, new policies, similar to what the, you know, baseball has done some things with the Atlantic league and the minor leagues to. Bring in bigger paces, electronic strike zones. So maybe. Maybe this turns into, you know, something like that for the, for the NFL where it's not gimmicky, it's really trying to test new innovations, but. But I'm like you, and in terms of just what it's gonna like on the field and. I think people in St. Louis here are interested to see what kinda the NFL influence will be. League wide in this iteration, just cuz there is sort of a, a mistrust of the NFL here in St. Louis. So that that kind of remains to be seen and I'm, I'll be interested to see. If that sway is St. Louis fans, one way the other, if it even matters, it might not. Whether you, as someone that covers, you know, business with sports, what do you make of alt football, spring football, non NFL, any kind of iteration of that? Mm-hmm yeah, I find it pretty fascinating. Like I said, it, it takes a lot of work to get these that this going. That's a very capital intensive business model. You know, in addition to covering sports business, my other. Beats that I cover here to St. Louis business is technology and startups. So I cover a lot of startup businesses and, and what they're trying to do with the XFL is much different. They're trying to start something new. I think it's challenging. But it just depends on how you look at it. I mean, from a TV perspective, I mean, I think the USFL is pretty pleased with the ratings. That they got. But from a, you know, local revenue trying to draw fans that that's, that's hard with so much competition these days. And so trying to balance those two, I guess, and I've had chance to talk with the team president or, or team director of team operations here in St. Louis or any of the leadership with the XFL for this iteration. But. It it's gonna, I guess it comes down to what matters to them. What, what, what rev, you know, what revenue generators should they carry most about it? Is, is, is it mostly about TV or do, do they also want. Pack stands because those might be competing. Goals at some point for where they put marketing, where they put spending. And so I think that's interesting to me in seeing what they wanna accomplish, what, what their key kind of performance indicators are gonna be. Where did the USFL land on your radar? You know, I, I, I gotta be honest. I, I didn't follow that crazy amount just because we didn't have a team here in St. Louis or I guess affiliated with St. Louis. But I definitely tuned in to a couple of the games. But I will say I was very impressed with the TV numbers that they came out with. I think that boats well. For the XFL. Coming up that this clearly an interest when people watching and I, I think the XFL. I think actually having teams in these at least playing games in these cities. Will draw engagement, even higher. Because the end of the day, if you're not getting viewership, these leagues aren't gonna work. Even if you're filling up a stadium here in St. Louis. You're not getting TV. I pulse, I, I just don't think these leaks are gonna work if they don't have that. That kind of revenue coming in from the TV, TV rights and TV advertising. I just I'm fascinated. Because for, you know, for, I guess the better part of a year now, right? Fox sports owned, USFL mm-hmm, , I've beaned all this, like, you know, they're not spending enough, we need, you know, more social media stuff. We need, you know, all, all these different things. Now the XFL has come coming in, you know, we're flying the teams. So the Mar we do that right. Originally, you know, they're gonna do the. Modified hub. But now even this week, they're listing, you know, multiple social media roles for each team. We're gonna have people with the teams. We're gonna have people in Arlington we're hiring. People to be in each local fan base, you know, events, managers, whatever directors having, they're calling it. Like now I'm on the other side, like God, the exo fellow spending a ton of money, you know, where it's it's it's it really like, I don't want, I don't wanna be the one that said like, be maybe the USFL was better on, but knowing. How much, you know, the exit felt the reports came out last week, right. They're looking for more investors to come in. Like mm-hmm I. Mean, like you said you cover startups. Yeah. Technology, like, I mean, is that were, where is like so much money. I just get scared now. Yeah. You know, it does, it doesn't really worry me a whole lot when I look at the league and, and what you're trying to accomplish. I mean, I kind look at a, as sort of a, a startup. You know, if, if you say you're a software company, And you're developing. Some sort of software, you know, you might go out and raise a little bit of money at the start let's cuz I need some money to get this going, but then you're gonna create, you know, you're kind of minimal product. They could go to market at that point, you're probably gonna go out and raise more capital saying, Hey, here. We built it. We see opportunity here. Let's raise capital so we can grow it further. I kind of see that's where the XFL is at. They've got it. Kind of all, all the pieces put together. And now they sort of need, you know, the capital probably to, to do some of the initiatives you just talked about in terms of social media and hiring. And so I think, I think that capitals kinda helped them grow. I mean, it's a risk and like any startup, but I think I, I wouldn't be worried about it. I think it's just a, a, you know, a growth initiative for them that I'm sure they had. They probably have figured bringing in capital. I would capital's at some point, I think. Later on the question is, is, is it sooner or later than they wanted? You know, if they didn't plan to bring on capital till year three and they're bringing on capital in year one. That might be an issue, but I think them bringing on capital is, is probably. A movie that makes sense for what they wanna accomplish. Well this interesting, and you're probably a good person to talk to cuz I've been, you know, The, the investment kind of the report came out. They're looking to give up 35, 40 5% of it. And like, I have all these listeners, you know, message you be like, is that, is that too much? And you know, my, the closest I know to investment is I got a client onto shark tank back in the day. Like I, I did. I very proud. I did try to audition video. Got if you watch shark tank, the good. Hangup lady, the one that like the magnet that hangs posters to your wall, like I got her. Oh, wow. But so that's all I know. And I'm like, well, 35, 40 5%, you know, shark tanks always will. You'd rather own 51% of something worth a billion dollar versus hundred percent of something. but like, where do you follow in that? If. They're right now giving potentially 35 to 45% of the stick. Mm-hmm no, I, I think it goes back to sort of the shark tank model. You you'd have to think as a fan that they're thinking that mentality. That we're giving up equity. But because we think it's gonna be something that's worth much more than it is today. I, I, I don't know, they thinking process not having talked to them or, and I know they haven't, I know the decline comment in the report last week. But you'd have to hope that, that, that, that that's that case that they're trying to fill something larger rather than. We need a capital now. And so we're just gonna go out and raise it because we need it. But I, I think it's the season starts. I think they'll start talking a little bit more about the, the strategy behind the finance financial. It's gonna be a question. That's not gonna go away. And so at some point they're gonna have to address it. I think. Well, it's just to me it's, especially because you know, the season, we haven't done anything yet. I mean, we've done. We've done. You know, six showcases and that, and an event in Arlington that was like, I think when we were there for that, them officially announcing the hub. That was like their first actual press conference. Mm-hmm that they had had, you know, they had the, the, the live with the city is and all that. But like, I, it is, is, seemed weird that like, we havet. Done a lot, but yet there's, it just feels like there's a ton being done. I know. It's fascinating to see these two competing leagues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've been very quiet thel, you know, it, you know, it's sort of like when they announced that, you know, they're talking to the CS about opportunity. And then I went by time. You're like, is that gonna happen? Because they, they, they they've really kept a lot of things in the room. About their plans. And, and I know they'll start talking more about that as, as games get closer, but, but has been hard to kind of track what their strategy is. Where I feel like the USFL, maybe it's been a little bit more open about. You know what they're doing and why. And so, so I'm hoping the XFL kind of gives us a peak behind the curtain, a little more into the business operations. As we get closer to games launching. That's my hope. It, it does feel like. Especially with like Danny Garcia, Brandy, like we wanted to be a fan, you know, fan first league mm-hmm fan driven league, but yet. I always joke that, you know, she had an interview with sport, the co you know, months ago, and it's like, oh, we got all this cool stuff we're working on. We can't wait to show anyone. And then they bring out the first logo and everyone's like, I really like that. like, okay, well maybe, maybe, like you said, maybe we should engage a little bit more if you want to. Cause it to me, I was talking with some of the people. In Arlington kind of behind the scenes. I'm like, I just can't imagine you being involved in something, this niche, spring football and not like. Knowing what everyone's talking about, wanting to engage with all that. Mm-hmm like, it's just, it's not that big of a world here that we live in. Mm-hmm mm-hmm yeah, no, it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, so much of the success is gonna be audience development and, and pulling in the audience and, and it's a loyal audience and sort of this, all football. Space. So I. I would think you wanna engage them from day one and make sure. You have their loyalty. But, but I'm sure they have a strategy. And, and, and you're seeing more of that you were down at the event in Arlington, you said, and it seemed like there's a lot of excitement there from what I saw. On the livestream. Yeah. No, and that's good. And then, you know, obviously we have Anthony backed kind of running around St. Louis, right. Throwing out the first pitch at the, at the, but, but I like that. And they, they had said. I guess it was two weeks ago. We have the XFL St. Louis show. I'm sure you've at least permeated your view of one of the fan podcasts, which Jason hosting added. You know, he had said, Hey, you know, Anthony Becks gonna come on our show here. And I thought, what a great way, you know, already to engage kind of like let's reengage these fans. We've had before mm-hmm , let's send the head goats there. Now we're seeing rod Woodson riding in DC, running around Anthony, be like, what do you make of them now? Like, let, let's send the coaches in there. Let's get these guys running around and, and trying to engage some of the local media there. I think it's smart. Cause I think people want to hear what's going on. I think the coaching hires are all made a lot of sense. You know, Anthony was someone. You know, he wasn't a superstar player. But it was a name I recognized when I, when they announced the St. Louis, I said, oh, I know that. I remember that guy. And, and I think it's like, you can tell he has an enthusiasm for St. Louis. As he's gone around and done interviews and throughout the first pitch. And, and so having someone who has a connection to the region, Who's out here interacting with folks. I, I think that's an important step. I think it's, I, I kind of view this as you know, and I saw that this week that he was on interviews and at the Cardinal game. I said, okay. I think we're gonna start hearing a whole lot more. In the next six months as he lives to the first game, I think this is sort of. The first kind of dipping their toes into the markets in their respective cities. And I think we're gonna see a lot more here in the next six months as, as they gear up for those first games. Yeah. I, I almost hope, you know, because right. Everyone, the USFL lot of trouble. Non, you know, non Birmingham getting anyone in there mm-hmm and you know, that was my first question to Danny at the event was like, yeah, how do you guys, you know, how are you gonna compete? She goes, well, obviously, you know, we're playing games there. I'm like, okay, well, that's, you know, that's fine. You're playing games. Like, how are you in engaging? And I almost hope that they like over like, We're over trying at this point mm-hmm, , let's, let's send back there every other week. Like I almost have to their overcompensating for that, because like, you can't afford to have that blunder of, okay, well now we are playing in the cities and people still don't care. you know, like, I mean like you, they got, have packed. Crowds, you know, for these games to justify kinda all these decisions they're making mm-hmm yeah, I agree. And I think it I'll be interested to see. How other markets do, I think St. Louis has a leg up just on the success. They had an attendance last game or last, last go around. I think that there they're indebted to, to Kurt Hunsicker, who was the president of the St. Louis Battle Hawks in 2020. He, he, he was that guy out everywhere that you could not, not see him out somewhere, you know, preaching the about battle Hawk's brand. And so I think he laid a lot of the groundwork. For this 2022 launch. Like I said, fans in St. Louis are really tied. They really loved it. But, but I'll be intrigued to see. Something that made to St. Louis work so well in 2020 was the games were like a big party. People cared about the football team, but it was about. I mean, I was, I was amazed. I, I went to the first game. Probably four hours before kickoff. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know. I thought I might be the only guy down there. I turned the corner and you could already, you could smell the, the, you know, the barbecue and the tailgate. And you could see the tents already out. They have to recreate that. And I didn't go to any other games outside St. Louis. So I don't know if there was any other markets like that, but if they can't do that in St. Louis, I don't know if they, they have to do that. If I don't see that in game one here in St. Louis. I'll be worried about the whole league, if that makes sense, because St. Louis was such a north star for the league in 2020. There was one of the events we had here. I think it was. Yeah, it was like after it wasn't that the summer showcase, but they did something in the fall and it was like Jim Z was here in Seattle and I think the uniforms were out. They had 'em on mannequins or whatever. And I remember going with my buddies. I'm like, Like we could be the only three guys here we could really, like, I don't really know. And it was at Memorial stadium. And my buddy lives right by there. It was the same thing we walked around and there was a line out the door, you know, people waiting go. And I thought, oh, thank God. Like, thank God was your afraid that it was just gonna be us here. . Yeah. I mean, I was, I got, I was impressed by the, by the figures they, they had. I think, I guess it was a couple things. I, I think. Maybe a headwinds for St. Louis in 2023 here. Like I said, we, we have an, a major league soccer team coming to town. That's gonna launch her on the same time. At six FL season. I mean, I'm sure the gains, we had different days, but it will, you know, Create some competing interest of what people go to. And then secondly, I think, like I mentioned earlier in here in the interview, you know, so much of. The battle hall success was people wanting to show that St. Louis is a football town. You know, a couple years have passed the NFL's settled to lawsuit at St. Louis. So some of those feelings might not be as strong, but I think they're still enough of the contingent of football fans that feel. Aggrieved by the NFL back in 2016. That there, I mean, it could be, I mean, it could be high school football game and I'll show up to show St. Louis a football town. So I think there'll still be a really rapid fan base. But there are a couple headwinds that may. That may influence attendance. We'll see, it's all. It's all. It's all speculative at this point. You had your report out talking about the, you know, the rent and everything with the dome mm-hmm coming back. Like any, any takeaways from that, just in terms of. You know, the us FFL had such this sweetheart deal, you know, in Birmingham, right. Everything. We're kind of keeping this all in house EXL, having to write negotiate. We still don't know where they're playing in Las Vegas. Right? Presumably allegate mm-hmm . But any takeaways from that in the, the exit FFL have to kind of negotiate those leases and the eight markets. Yeah. I mean from St. Louis, I mean, they got the same. Price tag for rent as in 2020. Which I think speaks to. St. Louis wanting the XFL back. I mean, Giving them the same terms essentially. Sort of highlights that. This is something that the dome here in St. Louis wanted back. It was a draw for them. And once again, I guess, you know, the current ownership of it indebted to the, to the prior ownership for, for getting that done. But I think it speaks to. This was something St. Louis really wanted to see come back. And, and they sort of rolled out the red carpet for them and making it happen. And so, yeah, I'm intrigued to see if other markets played, you know, hardball a little more in terms of raising, you know, rents and negotiating a little more. I, it makes sense. I mean, inflation has gone up higher cost operate these type of venues, but I, I haven't seen any into the reporting yet on any other venues, but that's something I wanna keep my eye on. But it seems like people are, it seems like all the cities really want this. And, and why wouldn't you, I mean, it's, it's bringing people to your big venues. It's getting your, your brand on TV. Even if it, you know, there's no really equity, you know, financial equity for the cities. It's a win it's. It's a win-win for them. Any of the other markets, you know, I, the fire return, right. Obviously see state Louis, but like, Does Vegas, you know, does that concern you as a market? I mean, obviously San Antonio, you know, pretty popular in Orlando with the AAF, but I've seen a lot of people like really edgy on, on Vegas. And it just, in terms of even it being a big market, like thoughts on, on the them, you know, place in interest there for versus like new Yorker LA. Mm-hmm , you know, I think it makes sense. To try somewhere like Vegas over in New York or LA. I mean, those crowds are pretty, pretty poultry. In the 2020 iteration in LA in New York. You know, Vegas, Vegas is a, you know, someone who covers sports business kind of fascinates fascinates me as a whole and sort of. I mean, it seems like the night school, the nights have done well there, but you know, it seems like every, every sports league is trying to. Find their, their way into Vegas now. And. I'm, you know, it's interesting to see how it all play out, but I think it makes more sense in those big markets. I think there'll be more interest there. I don't know part of me, we should, they would've picked. A salt lake or something. I, I like the idea of going places that don't, or maybe a San Diego that has similar. Kind of situations in St. Louis and losing the NFL, but solving a really rapid football fan base. I really would've liked to seen that, but. So, yeah, I'm a little, a little mystified by it, I guess. And I think it can work out for them. But I personally, maybe I would've liked to seen a. A different market in that spot. Well, especially cuz it's not like, I mean, obviously Vegas to Dallas flights are fine, but you know, certainly San Diego, the Dallas isn't the, isn't the challenging flight either. You know? So no, I do think that that would've been. I don't know, especially like, I just go back in this, like, okay, are they playing in the Legion? We got 65,000 seat, whatever arena, like, are we just blacking off everything? Like I just worry the optics there. I mean, I think you're gonna get. I don't know. I don't know what the casual. Like if I'm, you know, I, I, I go like, I'll watch the, the golden Knights playing in Vegas. Right. Mm-hmm even if I'm a, somewhat of a hockey fan, like, I don't know. Do you go, are you in Vegas? Do you see that the. The Outlaws are playing. Like, are we going? I don't know. I don't know. I'd be curious to say, yeah, me too. I, I, yeah. I'm curious to see that across. Now, so there's talks about MLB going there. Now da is potentially relocating. I just. I'm just curious to see how, how it'll turn out as a sports market. I'm very skeptical, I guess. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think skepticism is, you know, we have a weekly podcast I have to, I have to be skeptical on it. I can't be all at any other thoughts. I have one final question, but any other thoughts before I let you go? No, I'm just, I'm just intrigued to see how it comes back. You know, like I said, it's a startup business. I know it's a third iteration of it, but. But intrigued to see how it goes and what it looks like. But I, I think it'll do well here in St. Louis, just like it did in, in 2020. You Mr. You know, trench St. Louis Battle, Hawk, nation mm-hmm Kaka. All that stuff is, is a battle Hawk. Is it a helicopter or is it a bird? You know, I, I would say it's a bird. But, you know, it's funny. I did it. I did an interview about why they picked the team name. And. I think it, it makes a lot of sense having Boeing here in McDonald Douglas, they picked that, but I'm going with a bird. I think it's a bird. I, the jury's still out that. It is the great debate of our time is about aha. I hope I'm on rectify this. If they, if they bring back the battle Hawks, you know, whatever they end up calling it, I, I would like to have a little bit more qualification there if this is a, or is this that helicopter? I, I think, but I think they been the right name. I, I saw the other for, they filed patent. Office us patent office. And I think the paddle Hawks was the best one. Of the other ones. I can't remember this. I know Seattle was like the surge or we had, I can't remember what were, do you remember what the St Louis ones were? Oh, man. One was the archers. I remember that one. I don't remember the other three. But, you know, I was, I was skeptical when they first put battle Hawks out, but then currently former president explained it to me. You know, we're trying to. St. Louis's history and flight. And, you know, having being home of Boeing. McDonald Douglas. So it made more sense. I don't know where the call came from. At all but you still hear it around. So I, I think it paid all, I think they made the right moves. Despite the ambiguity of it well, I have been told that Kaka is the law. So I guess, I guess I did. When, when KA, what was the name when Randy Crackower had his big, like all the news coming June 1st and they're gonna now announce everything. And then they did. I would. So living that week, I was gonna call the episode. And yeah, should be good. I appreciate it. All right, cool. Let's do it. It worked out cuz otherwise I'm like, s**t, I'm gonna have to sit for a week and then I'd rather just so I appreciate you moving it to today versus tomorrow. So yeah. Too easy, man. No problem. Well, I'm excited that we have Steve Gera at co-founder president and breakaway data. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me on really appreciate it. I'm excited to talk to you and. Hopefully talk a little ball with some of your listeners and Watchers. So we, you know, we run the gamut, right? We do CFO USFL in the FFL for people that maybe aren't following the work that you're doing with the XFL. What's your like 32nd pitch of like, this is what we have going on with the XFL coming up. So yeah, what we have going on with the XFL is pretty much the, just like the, we, we were run an entire package for our company. So we're an athlete data company. And what we do is we do really like two core things. One is we put. Performance data in the hands of athletes. All right. And that means we, we have an app, right? We have an app that elite athletes can download has their game. Statistics has their club training data and then has all their personal fitness wearable data think like apple watch or whatever else it is. Right. So you're in the lead athlete. You look. You're using data to inform your performance. We put it all in one place for you. The second thing that we do too, is we also, we have a product called field labs, which is a on-field biomechanics lab, which is. Think of, so the 40 yard dash is incredibly useful for telling you how fast people run in a straight line. What we do is we put an eight camera array around an athlete and then football player. Could be a defensive end when we have them run the hoop drill. And so we figure out exactly how much, how fast they get off the line of scrimmage, how much bend they actually get. What's their accept. Do they accelerate or do they decelerate when they're actually in that like Vaughn Miller bend and when they come out of it, how's their burst. So what we do is we quantify all that. And we help. And then that data is basically useful. Three ways. One. Scouting two coaching in personal development for the athletes and then three on return to place. When an athlete gets injured, we can actually tell you, Hey, do they have the same amount of get off speed as they had before? Before the injury. And so that's what we're doing for the XFL. Well, it's great. You know, and people are excited. Obviously we cover USFL as well, and you know, there's been the debate. For, I mean over a year now where USFL and is there enough talent right between us? LFL right. You have CFL and all that. You know, we were fortunate. We went to the Arizona XFL showcase, you know, saw some players, talked to the coaches there. I know that you were a bunch of the showcases. What do you make of the, the level of talent involved that the XFL scouting the head of their season? Yeah, listen, there's a lot of really good talent that doesn't make any NFL rosters like full stop. There's there's plenty of really. Good talent to have some compelling, you know, leads, especially with the XFL. Right. So I think here here's, here's what I'd say is that after going to those showcases, I was really. I wouldn't say surprised, but I was, I was just, I was excited. About really two core things. One how much talent's actually out there. And then B. How much, how much excitement is out there from, I mean, cuz the, the folks, the guys who were showing up to these showcases and the guys who were playing at this level, They love the game more than anything. And here's the thing. A lot of them may not have. NFL measurables. Right. And that's the point of breakaway data and that's the point of our field labs product is to show a player who may have a bad three cone drill. But a three cone drill. Come on. What does that really tell you? What I wanna know is how does he change direction? How does he flip his hips? How does he actually move? Right? And the three cone is incredibly, is incredibly useful because historically we can compare three cone and other, other combine data against Sean Merriman against. Lawrence Taylor, we can go back and we can look at how all these players stacked up against it. But in today's game when coaches are so creative in creating one-on-one matchups and schemes, the name of the game in today's football is how do you find those undervalued talents who may not have. Quote, unquote, NFL measurables. But are really damn good at one thing. And there are a lot of athletes out there right now, and a lot of football players who are really good at some very specific things. And we were able to uncover a lot of that. The two, two different position groups keep coming up, you know, Need of quarterback and need of offensive linemen, right? When it comes to the different leagues. I wanna talk O line in a minute, but obviously ex toll announcing this week, Jordan Palmer, right? Coming on, being involved with their quarterback, thoughts on Tofe, you know, working with him, kind of him tailing the, to go through all the quarterbacks with him. Yeah, listen, I think it's really smart. I mean, quarterback play is essential, I think, especially for continuity. And you think of, even in the NFL. You know, rookie quarterbacks typically struggle. It's only, you know, outta every, every once in a blue moon, you get a rookie quarterback that comes in and just everything just kind of sinks. Right? That's that's, that's tough. And so it's gonna be the same thing and if you're playing ball in the spring, and so if you can have. Good training. Good continuity of, of coaching for your quarterbacks running into the season. I think it's, I think it's honestly one of the smartest things that. That, that Russ, Doug DJ, you know, Danny and, and mark have, have, have engaged in doing so. I'm really excited about it. And I, I don't know, listen, there's a lot of really great quarterback coaches out there, but I don't know if you can find anyone better than Jordan right now, as far as like actually being able to take different styles of quarterbacks and get the best out them ally. Cause that's really what he's, he's, he's a amazing. At doing that understanding, you know, a specific QB and then how to. How not to try and make them play the way that Jordan wants to see them play. But what I've seen is he just accentuates the best qualities out of quarterbacks. He does a tremendous job, probably best in the business right now, in my humble opinion, as, as far as getting the best out of them. Have you had a chance to talk with Jordan yet kind of planned stuff, maybe that you're looking forward to adding your skill set to with breakaway. Yeah. So we we've had some initial conversations. We actually, we saw him a couple of about a month or so ago at elite 11. And we talked to him a little bit there. So we we've we'll, we'll be doing some work. We'll be doing some work with him. And in, in some of the folks, you know, I've obviously with FFL, but we're excited cuz he, he, the best thing about. What we do is so our field lab, it's, we're not a bunch of eggheads. So I, I coach the NFL, Dave, the CEO of our company. He played in the NFL. So first and foremost, we're not a bunch of, we're not a we're, we're not a bunch of scientists. We have a good idea and then decided to bring a product and the football. Alright. We're we are, we, are we. All about ball first and foremost, but how we've actually built the field labs product is. We bring the tech in the overarching idea, but we let the coaches. Design the drills. We let the coaches. Then tell us also, what metrics do you want to see? So like during the showcases, we actually created a drill specifically for Terrell Buckley. So TB one and one specific drill. We created that for him, did the same thing for, you know, Wade Phillips. So, and I, I imagine we're gonna be doing the same thing with, with George and with the QBs as we go. I actually have one of our listeners. Max was very excited to have you come on, kind of research some additional questions to bring on. We have one of that we asked, we asked Terrell about that, you know, coach Buckley at the Arizona showcase any other coaches. You said Wade, Phillip, like. You working on custom drills for them, trying to figure that out. Yeah. So like, I mean, coach Beck. I mean, Anthony, you know, he, he has so many questions for us every single time that we show up, which I absolutely love. You know, and he's asking actually us like about the science behind some of the block force measurements. So one of the measurements that we can, that we create is we take a, we take a player's weight. We know what the, we know what the player's weight. Right. And then we can tell the velocity and force that they put into a bag when they're in a blocking. Drill. Right. And so, so Anthony, you know, he was, he was a really excited about that, asking about the science behind and whatnot, but then he was started to ask us about like some other, like. How we can do block force with reaction for like running backs, because one of the hardest things to figure out. Is, and one of the things that no one ever tests, right. Is how is a, how is a running back. Kind of like tactically and technically proficient in picking up run bullets. Right. So how is he picking up blitz and doing protections? And what we can do is we can actually, we manufactured a drill and we actually tested this out. And this was, this was for Anthony, where we had. Basically three players with bags. I stand behind them. All right. Or, but I stand behind the running back. Who's actually, who is actually executing the drill. And then I move the bags. And so the bags present themselves, and this is a pretty common drill for running bags. And then the running back has to like, you know, just come in and actually block, right? So it's him reading protection either from the right middle or from the left, essentially. Right. And so that was another drill that we created. We tested out and I think one end up incorporating and the long haul and some of the work that we're done. I think, just think that's really cool, obviously with coach Buckley and back in like, Them just being excited, I guess, for the whole process and learning. I think you get that when, just like the players, you know, you were trying to find man 54, right. Guys that maybe got overlooked, but maybe coaches too, that really wanted, maybe didn't get their fair shot with trying to, you know, be a head coach or be someone to position. Like that seemed like they're more excited as well to be a part of that process. It's it's it, it it's, it's refreshing for me as someone who I, I was on the NFL staff. So I was on, I was oftentimes like the crazy. Coach who had a lot of ideas that were like the older coaches would look at me and some of 'em would be really excited about 'em and some of 'em would look at me like I, you know, had a horn grown outta my head and. And so what excites me is when I see. Kind of the innovate, the spirit of innovation and the spirit of how can we do things just a little bit differently. And, and also too, I think like for coaches, like, like for Anthony and for, for Tebo it it's, I think it's a real, because they really appreciate younger players. Right. I would say Wade's the same exact way though. You know, really appreciate that. You know, these younger players who have grown up not only playing the game, Like physically going on in fields and playing the game, but also playing Madden the game. And, and then how those two worlds kind of blend for some of these athletes, because it's kind of become table stakes in one world, you get all this information and you get all this and you, you, and you can kind of like, you know, you can do all this development around the way that you're, you know, kind of playing the game visually. Right. But then in, in the, in the, in, in the, in the physical world, you don't necessarily get all that. Right. And we're trying to bring elements of that. So I think a lot of it though, is that an appreciation from those coaches? In the, into the way that players like to be communicated with today. In terms of circling back, you know, quarterbacks, right. Obviously a need huge to need spring football, offensive lineman is, well, we had Eric Alco on months ago. Now he was the former DPP, right. With XFL 2.0. Any of the showcases specifically reached out or struck you as, you know, better off offensive lines, talent, or what do you. Make of, kind of the guys that you've seen so far. Yeah. So, I mean, it was. The offensive line talent. I, I would say at Arizona was, was really solid. I would say Dallas was, there was definitely some standouts at Dallas. Really impressed with Maryland really, really impressed with Maryland. And I'll tell you what the, the, the, for pound for pound, the, the, the, the showcase at probably impressed me the most was the one at Jackson. Man, so much talent brimming on that field, down in Jackson. I mean, that was, that was really impressive. So listen, I think like here, like offensive, lineman's one of the harder ones, right? From a depth standpoint, just because how many huge. Fast long armed. You know, bendable humans are there on the planet, right. There's just, that's, that's just, that's always gonna be a tough one. And those, those. Those big boys are always gonna be at a premium and they're always underappreciated too. Right? I mean, I think, and that's like, one of the things that we wanted to do with the field labs is actually show like the dynamic nature of offensive line play. Because a lot of times it just gets buried because you know, fans watch the ball to typically most, most fans are watching the ball, right. And we're the truth is, is that like the most exciting part of football for me is actually watching what's happening in the trenches. And so listen, I think that there are, there are a lot of really good offensive linemen out there. And, and I think more of the point is there are a lot of really good offensive lineman out there who have like the raw capabilities. And they need some personal development. They need some, some folks like carry Gordon, like Sean Hayes, and some of the folks were at XFL who are now gonna be taking some of these players that have been identified by the Scouts and giving them, you know, some training programs for, Hey, when you show up in January, this is, this is what we need to be able to do. We need to be able to bend better. We need you to be able to, you know, you know, execute, you know, your, your kickback better. We need to be able to do, you know, scoop blocks better, etcetera, et cetera. I think, I think the level of coaching and the level of kind of. Performance development that the XFL is committing to is that's the thing that's really gonna make the difference for positions like that. It's so funny, you know, we interview obviously very positions and guys on the show and it always fun when, like we have an aligner, someone on my wife watches this show, and then we'll be watching the game and like, she'll pay attention to that. And I'll be like, oh yeah, I know him. Like he was on it. You know, you, you pay more attention. It. It, I don't know. I feel like it makes her a smarter fan too. Kind of seeing some of that stuff in the trenches. Speaking of Shawn Hayes, you know, that came out, I'm a big w E fan for years, right? In NXD in the developmental center, they had their centralizing, everything now wish with Sean going to the, the XFL. What do you think of make of that? Like centralizing all of the training. That way, obviously they're doing the hub to, to keep costs down, but, but to get all the players there and, and maybe be able to help them, you know, transition to different teams, easier if there's injury kind of moving guys around. I think it's just gonna, I mean, the whole, the whole name of the game, I think for. You know, for successful spring league football, right. And this is where. XFO is on a really great, you know, plan we're on a great trajectory, you know, in the last iteration, it was really exciting. And we were part of that too. I think the thing that, that really gives you an advantage over is as frankly, just like kind of the quality control. Of of the athlete development, you know, and the quality control around everything from return to play quality control around. You know, the different ways and, and, and it's just really what it is. Is it allows you instead of having. You know, eight teams spread out all over the place. And so your knowledge is all of a sudden, very distributed. Who want to go win some games? And, but the great thing is is that by having all the knowledge. Of the league in that, in that tight confinement. You you're gonna, we're gonna see a lot of dividends on everything from return to play. When players get injured to personalized athlete development. Because now you're, you're gonna be able to reach back and forth between all the different people who are gonna be involved and you're gonna be able to solve and get some good solutions for, for specific athletes across all the different teams. And that's gonna raise all, all ships. I think there was somewhat over 1500 guys that had signed up, you know, didn't make it into any of the showcases. And I believe the leagues come out and said that you they're gonna at least one run more, you know, kind of fall. And I know Nick Novak has the specialist, one kind of, and other plans to incorporate. If that number can continues to grow of guys that wanna be with the, you know, Trying out doing the showcase. Yeah. Listen, I mean, I think so. We're so we're, we, you know, we're partners with the XL. So when the XFL tells us to show up somewhere and, and start getting Blairs, man, we're gonna do it. But, and we're really excited about that. Right? The other thing I'll, I'll tell you too, is that we we've had like a lot of people reach out to us. Like we weren't at Hawaii. We didn't go to Hawaii for, for a couple of different reasons, but. Ultimately like there, what, you know, be because, you know, we, we actually ha we're here in LA. What we're talking about doing, and I've, I've told this, I've said this to on a few other podcasts and a few other areas is that I think what we're gonna end up doing is we're gonna, we're gonna host an event out here just by ourselves. Right. And we'll share that information with the XFL and we're gonna, if you're, but, but we're probably gonna open that up. We, we have high schoolers. We. Have seniors who have come out and actually done our field drills, like we have elite 11. We have some college, well programs that we've worked with. We have a couple in it. We have a, we have a number of NFL players in our database as well. So we, we've got a lot of folks that we can kind of cross compare people to. And so I think at some point in September, maybe early October, and there'll be more, we'll be releasing this probably at some point on some of our channels, but I think we're gonna hosting event in a lot of people to come out and do their own thing. But listen, Between what Jordan's doing between, right? You said like what Nick Nova's doing and between like the X FFLs plans are people are gonna see a lot of, a lot of us in, and we're just really excited to be supporting this league because for us it's all about co-creating from the ground up with them. And they are just absolutely like the, the best partners. I mean, just amazing. Football minds between Mark Ross, Russ, Brandon, and. And Doug whale. So every single time they give us a shot to go do something, we get really excited. Right. And they got a great tech they're technology team is awesome too. Like Scott Hardman and they folks who are running that side of the business, Brad and everybody, they they're, they're just, they're excellent. Couple quick questions here. I'll let you go. I appreciate your time. This was interesting. Max helped me come up with this, like, so you guys have all this data. Incorporating that like into the broadcast. Into maybe the draft with Disney working with that. If the commentators have a, this guy's able to do like any thoughts about you guys have any work or thoughts or totally outta my control, but man, I hope we do it totally outta my control. Cause it's just some real great story stories we can tell. About cross comparing athletes, showing how an athlete kind of moves from, you know, cuz there are gonna be some athletes that we identify and that the, and listen. The break away and field lab and the day that we're creating, that's just one part. There are a lot of parts and still to this day, what you do on the football field and how you go play the game is the most important thing. Right. And we are not gonna rep I mean, we are, we are just another data. Point and another information source for the Scouts and the Scouts and the coaches and the DPPs like they know what they're doing. They, they know good ball when they see good ball. We're just one other data point. Now what I think would be really cool in, in what I'm hopeful that we're, we're gonna ha have happen at some point, is that yeah. Some of this story that we're able to generate about an. Athlete who maybe they, maybe their get off was lagging, but man, they did these other three things really, really well. And if now by giving that information, To the performance staff at the XFL, they now help that player get, you know, improve their, get off either through technique. And that's coaching or through athlete development, right in the weight room. Then that's a great story to tell because now that's, that's what spring football's all about is taking these players. Who in, in, in trying to give them a pathway to get to the NFL and, and, and, and, or just to have a great career. Playing spring ball and, and, and playing at the highest levels that are attainable for them. And so what we're hoping is that some of that information can, can not only help the athletes, but also can tell stories about those athletes. So that would be great. We're hopeful. Yeah. Is, I mean, I've, I've interviewed a bunch of different Brock broadcasters for the leagues and the other talking the amount of work. You have to do in prepping for an adult football or spring football game, in terms of like knowing things about the players and knowing their backs stories. It just so much more work that goes into it, cuz you're trying to educate everyone. So if you were able to have some of this data and numbers and be able to kind of help just conceptualize a better, I think that that would be cool. I agree. Yeah. Hopefully just send that note to ESPN, make sure that they . Well, last question for you today. I'm not even gonna paraphrase this, but he said, you know, among the tie wave of new innovations, besides your own, what is on the cutting edge, techno cutting edge in data for football that excites you the, the most and where it can take the, the future of the game. Like, what do you look forward to most in, in. Terms of future innovations you guys can help provide. Yeah. Oh, gosh, that's a big question. Listen, I, I still think like one of the things around. One of the one, one of the main innovations and there's pro probably two fronts. Right? One of the main innovations first and foremost, I think is still. Is getting. Athletes to really. Lean into their own and own their own development. Right. And most athletes do, right. I'd say, and in pro predominantly all athletes, like there's there, if you wanna be an athlete, there's very few athletes who go out there and, and they don't, they not, they're always willing to do something to get that. Right. And so one of the main innovations that we're excited about, and this is the one that we're trying to, you know, really kind of spearhead in the space is. Is making all of the information at an athlete generates accessible to them. So that they can have more thoughtful conversations about their own athlete development. Right. And that's a simple innovation that is not, that's not cutting edge. That's not, there's no new technology that we're generating for that because the truth is, is that there's just tons of data out there about athletes. And they don't have any way of actually grabbing it, all, putting it all into a mobile application, then looking at it. And that's what we're trying to solve, which is instead of going, you know, really deep with, into a new technology, it's like, how do we take all that information that already exists and just make it more useful and, and make it. Cuz there's a lot of true information out there, but there's not a there's there's, there's not all that information. That's true is useful. And we wanna make it all useful specifically for athletes and their coaches. The second thing. Yeah. I, I, I'm really excited about. The. Kind of the innovation that I'm starting to see happening around returning athletes from injury. Back to the back to the playing field. You know, for, for a long time, it's, you know, players have to go play hurt. They have to go play injured on a regular basis. And the level of information that we've had about how an athlete moves either biomechanically. Or their internal or external load when they're coming back from injury, that's been pretty limited. So it's still been pretty much eyeball test. Right. And so you have an athlete go out there. And they return to play because they think they can, we think they can. But now what you can do is. Through, like everything from like field lab, and there's other pieces of technology, player, tracking data, et cetera, et cetera that you can now evaluate. You can go watch them during a workout. And instead of just using your eye, you can also have data that backs that up, that decision to play them or not to play them. And that's where I think it just, you, you just have a more informed athlete. You have a more informed. So you may still go play that player. You know, but now you're just more informed. You know, in, in, in, and that that's gonna definitely help, I think, long term, as far as helping athletes get back and, and then. Sustain on the field once they actually do return to play. Okay. Well, I appreciate your time today. Steve. It's been good. You know, sometimes in like X value, we're announcing all this stuff. It's like, okay, what, what does that mean? I think a lot of viewers and stuff appreciate, you know, you coming on and sharing some time and kind of putting the real story behind how useful a lot of this data is and the work you guys are doing so real. Appreciate it. You're welcome re I really appreciate it. Yeah. And then yeah. If any players are watching, I I've said this on some other things, too. If any players are, are watching this in, in the they're they're they need help or they have any sort of questions for us, you can always feel free to just reach out to me direct. My emails like readily available on the Internet's pretty easy to find.

Episode 105 - "Next into the Shark Tank, the XFL"

Well, I'm excited today. We have Daniel Kaplan with the athletic. On talking all things, everything from XFL, USFL, everything else excited to get your opinion. How are you doing today, sir? I'm great. How are you? We're good. So, I mean, first off, I, I'm always curious, you know, cuz like we live in die by all the, this in the football, you know, us here on Twitter and everything, but. You cover a lot of different sports stuff, you know, a lot of different stories. What is your interest level of excitement, kind of in the alt football landscape? Well, it's, it's a lot of dejavu cuz there's so many of these. Spring leagues and that have come and gone and. We saw what happened with the Alliance of American football in 2019, the XFL, the pandemic, the 2010s you had the UFL, the F XFL. Which was started by someone who's now behind the. SFL. So it's a, it's an acronym graveyard out there. So, but. USFL has made it through its first season and plans the second season. So that is something to note and we, as we know the FFL 3.0, although they don't call themselves 3.0. Is launching next February. And we'll probably for the first time to see. Some overlap in true spring football leagues at the same time. Playing, which is extraordinary. Really. It really is it's peak. You know, for if, if, if I was gonna tell myself a couple years ago, like this is really the peak time to start the podcast about all of this stuff, cuz it does seem like we have the most resources the most time, the most smart people kind of behind all of these leagues right now. There's a lot of resources behind the leagues. Now there was the XFL, the second version of the X FFL had Vince MCM man's money and he was willing to spend. Half a billion dollars and he pulled the plug because of the pandemic. So I think we would, if not for the pandemic, we would still be watching that, that version of the XF L he was seriously committed. The us F L is owned by Fox sports. So they just see it as programming contents. And they're trying to keep costs down. We know about the hubs system or the they'll played all their regular season. Games in Birmingham, there may be a second hub, but. Cost cost cost and the. The reason so many of these leagues have gone under. The primary region is cost. It's very expensive. To have a national football league. a football league. That's national. And there's travel. There's headquarters. There's equipment. There's there's housing, the players there there's just so much that goes into it. So if you can put everybody in one place that keeps cost down. On the other hand, you get the. You get the visual of no fans in the stands that we had with Birmingham this year. Yeah. Did you, what did you make of us FFL? You know, 2.0, now here, back in, I always call, you know, it's the inaugural season, but you know, we know all the lawsuits stuff, but what did you make of us F L last season? Well, I mean, if you look at the track record of players getting signed from the USFL to NFL training camps, it doesn't mean they're gonna make the team, but they're getting to NFL training camps. They certainly served a purpose, which was to provide a platform for under the radar player who, you know, wanted to show that what they could do. From a business perspective, it's hard to get a grasp on it. The TV ratings were passable. So some games did better than others. But, I mean, sponsorship, merchandise, licensing a ticket, its attendance, all of that. Is is, is this nil? Is almost nothing. So I don't know economically how this works for Fox. We ran stories at the athletics. Citing consultancies that said they had sold 65 million of. Advertising. So I don't think they probably spent $65 million on it. So it's possible that this is working out for them. The traditional, the traditional. Startup football league, which, which has teams in separate cities have they aren't each team has their own headquarters, their own marketing staff. All of that. I mean, to get that off the ground and the conservative estimate has always been 250 million. Dollars. So the USFL is a much, you know, smaller, more compact. Model I, and I. This is just my own, whatever. Like, because so much has come out, like you said, In the last couple months in USFL, right. Reported sold 65 million, like you said, did they sell that or did they, did they spend that amount of money? Right? Us F L is profitable and I'm like, So much of Fox, like, I mean, us F L was basically a writeoff for them. Right. We're using our social media people. We're using our production people. We're using our TV people like absolutely you made money, but like, I make money on this podcast. Because this laptop is bought by my actual company. And not, you know, if my podcast was spending all of this money, then we would also be in the, in the, in the red, right? Like foxes is using a lot of their other resources, which is a credit to them. But calling it like, well, they made money this year. I don't, I don't like how those book, cuz I think the book. You know, tell a different story just in terms of how they wrote off a lot of that stuff. Yeah, I don't think Fox is going into at least year one for as terms of making a profit. They were just looking for filler material. During dead parts of this year for Fox sports, one for Fox, the streaming. So. It's, they're not looking to make a, a lot of money and it, and the XFL is, is a different story because one of their investors is a private equity fund, Redbird capital, and they are looking to make money. And that that's a they're they're doing sort of the quasi hub where all the teams. Train in one spot Arlington, but they'll go to their home cities. For game days when they have a home game. So they'll be interesting to see if that can work, not build. Not having the players in the market during the week. What do you make of today? Coming out the report from sport deco, that XL is working with investment bank, PJ. PJ T partners seeking investors. Ahead of the season. It tells me they need money. It, it. And look, if you're gonna, they they're planning. 8 8, 8 Markets just because it teams are not gonna be training there. They still need marketing staff ticket staffs. The leases of these venues are expensive. So, I mean, they're playing in Seattle lumen field. They where the Seahawks play. That's not cheap. So there are a lot of expenses and we, we know they spent $15 million to buy that of bankruptcy. I I'm not privy to their. You know their cost calculus, but it doesn't surprise me that they're looking for more money. We, we saw this with the Alliance of American football. Desperately scrambling to come up with funds before they, they kicked off. So hopefully I, I, I think you have the rock and his, his ex-wife Danny. Garcia and Redbird capital, but. You know, I, how much Redbird is willing to. Put into this is, is question is a question given that they're looking for equity investors. Are you at all? So, you know, we're here August. Eighth now, you know, we're kicking off in February. We're just, you know, we finally just announced the city is right. Even though that had kind of, you know, been rumored out for a while. Now we're hiring, you know, local. Staff right now, they posted the job listings last week. Like. Does this feel short in terms like we're we're six, seven months out, like now, I mean, it feels like we finally got it's happening. I mean, it's happening and. The question is whether there's enough room in the marketplace for two of them. I mean, what we wrote about is the super Bowl's gonna end. A week later, the XFL is gonna kick off and then you can have uninterrupted spring football probably to early the mid-July. Is there really? I mean, Everyone figures. There's an unlimited appetite. For football and among the American consumer, this is surely gonna test it. That's a lot of football back to back. Where do you fall on that? Whether do you think. I think there's, if the NFL could get involved. And create some sort of feeder system. I think it would, it would be a big, big help to one of these leagues. I don't think both can survive. That's for sure. Whether, whether they merge or, or whatnot. I, I, I don't see how two sprint football league can survive. You talked about that in your article with you bill Shay about, you know, does the XFL, do they merge with the USFL? It's it's so weird to me and the XFL, like all these leagues, like I, I don't know where they fit in because they, we want to stand on their own. Right. The XFL wants to stand on its own, but yet when we went to the. Showcases last week and interviewed the coaches they're talking about, you know, the biggest compliment would be the players making their way to the NFL. Right. Getting the next step. Same with USFL, right? We have 39, you know, 40 whatever. Players being signed the NFL teams right now, as of when we're recording this, like us valley very much looks at that as a success. Right. Like we got players as they should. So I just don't understand, like you said, I mean, these leagues are conceivably feature leagues anyway. Like I just, it, it is that enough for that to exist. Like we're. This show on the way to get to the show. Shell. Well, if, if they're providing the, the service to the NFL, the argument has always been that the NFL. If they continue to supply players, the NFL will wanna more formal. Relationship. If they, if they prove to be a fertile breeding ground for. NFL players, NFL. Hasn't had a. Minor league. So to speak since NFL Europe days. And it produced some great players, like Kurt Warners, the most famous one, but they shut that down because the owners didn't wanna spend the money on it. It was also part of a new direction in marketing, the NFL and Europe, they decided to put real game there. But you, you took given the limitations and practices and training camps. Because of the NFL CBA since 2011. A lot of these players don't get coached up as much as the coaches would like. So I, I could see the day. If these, these two entities would merge or one, one survived that there'd be a more formal relationship with the NFL. But you think that they would have to have some sort of, you know, XFL here, we have this partnership, the NFL academy. I mean, what do you make of that? Were they're saying like, Players get cut from the NFL. They can go into our system. I, I kind of equated it to like survivor, like you go to redemption island and then you can work your way back to the NFL. Like, is that, where do you view that is the XFL now with all those recent announcements partner with the alumni academy. Yeah, well, I mean, I asked the XFL about their relationship with the NFL and they took, I said, is it true that players get cut? You get first dibs on them? Cause there was some talk about that on Twitter. And they told me, no, that's not true. But look, if you're cut by an NFL team and you, you have an opportunity, the XFL, I that's, that's an obvious. Yes. I, I, I would assume that's, that's an easy one. Do you, do you view them as having the leg up because of that then the, then the USFL, even though. To me like USFL, they're owned by Fox Fox with, you know, they're with NFL more than anyone. I mean, both of these leagues seem like they app just as much. Partnership with the NFL as the other. Yes, that's true. They, they, they both have. You know, ties to the, to the NFL. I mean, remember the rock was on the field before the super bowl. I think that that would a strong signal. There's gonna be a connection there. There's former NFL executives. Teams working in both, both places. I, I, I don't think the NFL is gonna choose one or the other right now to. To have a formal relationship, but. I, I, I think the market's gonna determine which one of these survives or they. Survive as a single energy. Cause I, again, going back to the consumer appetite, the TV viewing numbers and. Ticket sales. I, I just don't see how both of these can survive. Certainly back. And then I wanna talk about the extra fell, the, the TV. They're their deal and all of that, the TV broadcast partnership, but you know, you talked about the USFL. Existing as a TV product, but then, you know, obviously merchandise sales, ticket sales, kind of everything else. It it's hard cuz you see people evaluate, right. Okay. An MLS. Game gets 500,000 viewers, a SFL game gets, you know, 600,000 viewers. So the USFL should be valued as such and such. But like you said, they're lacking in a lot of those other intangibles that. You need to be able to kind of build that fan base around it. Right. Well, that's another, a whole nother podcast, the values of MLS and whether that's a Ponzi scheme is some. Some of suggested and yes, it's true. U S F L draws MLS. And it's one of the reasons MLS has gone is gonna go all streaming next year. So, yeah, the, the economics, it's very challenging to. Have, you know, eight, eight teams. Selling tickets, selling merchandise, you know, selling sponsorships. And make making that a go. I mean, even, even though the XFL. 2.0 And 2020 was doing very well mean. It still was bleeding money. I mean, it still was wasn't it wasn't like that was making money. It was a three, four year time horizon. And hundreds of millions of dollars expects to be lost before the first penny of profit. So us L is trying to get away from that, with his hub hub. System, but I, I just don't, I, I don't know if that's. Any more, can't see that as a viable economic model go. Long term? Well, my, my thing was always with the hub is whatever money you're saving now. You're you're spending eventually, right? You're gonna spend it, whether it's year two or four or five, at some point you gotta rip that bandaid off and go. And I guess you, we were saying, you know, there, they're thinking about moving to two hubs, you know, next year, I think they have to at least be in two cities, but do you know what I'm saying? Where like you're, you're, we're just kind of. Existing right now. I don't know if we're really we're growing in that model. I think one of the facet to diverge a little, one of the FA fascinating. Things is Fox of course owns the USFL. ESPN will broadcast the XFL. ESPN completely ignored the USFL in its first season. Didn't as far as I could tell, didn't write any stories about it. It can, can the us F L exist. Without any tension from ESPN. And I think that's an open question. Well, I, I, I mean, Fox seems to think that the us develop can exist without. I mean, they don't work with anybody. I mean, they like, they it's Fox and we put it on Colin coward and stuff. I mean, we don't. Fox really keeps that all in house. And they think that they're, you know, they're broadcasts across, you know, the world that is enough to sustain and they don't need to work with the other, you know, networks of any kind. I mean, NBC a little, obviously, cuz they're paying for it, but like, you know, yeah. They're not reaching out to, you know, B ABC, ESPN. ESPN has made apparently, I mean, I would imagine age four to have a barrier between. You know, the business side and the editorial side, but the editorial side completely. Ignored the USFL in season one. ESPN's the biggest. Sports and media entity out there. And if they're ignoring your product, ignoring your sport and your league. That doesn't give you your exposure. I mean, if you're looking for sponsors, you're looking to promote to hype. And there's, you're not, you know where to be felon, espn.com. I think that's an issue. Is that surprising to you that they would make that decision? Cuz I heard a lot of that made this year. Right? ESPN doesn't like you said, clearly at the end of the day though, there's still the, the broadcast arm and then the editorial arm. I think that's interesting how you put that. I mean, did that surprise you? That they were like we're no I'm mean we, they launch when they didn't have hockey for years. They, I mean, Obviously, they, they, they did some hockey highlights on sports center, but there, there was little. Little coverage of, of hot hockey and ESPN. Once they got it back, it was, you know, they put their full marketing muscle behind it and that's good. That's, what's gonna be interesting to see ESPN. Put its marketing muscle behind the new XFL. You talk here in your article because F L came out, they announced, right. We have a five year partnership with Disney ESPN. Are gonna be on, you know, we'll be on like FX or whatever as well. But a lot was there was a lot of questions cuz we don't obviously know the monetary value. Behind that right. Is ESPN pain. Is it a production? You add your article talking about a, a sizable in. Substantial income from day one, your source for the ESPN. Talk about your take of the XL ESPN deal. Well, if they indeed, if my source said, have a substantial, you know, Fee from day one that that's a, that's a home run right there. That's that's now that was just one source, but it's a source who knows a lot about, about, about, about this stuff. And that, that impressed me, that it phase P is actually paying money to put, put on the XFL. Cuz I dunno if you're listeners know if you're a startup league traditionally, you you'd have to actually purchase the ad time on the network. And sell the ads yourself. So maybe it's a profit sharing deal. I, I, I, I don't know. But again, my source did tell me that that XFL. Is in the, is in the black right away with that deal. Well, it's interesting because, you know, obviously with Fox, they control it so they don't have to worry, but like, To me. It was always interesting this year because. Fox only, you know, Fox and NBC and they, you know, NBC is paid, but Fox owns it. It, it wasn't like for the most part, Fox gave the USFL like preferential time slots. I mean, they really did feel like they were using the best filler a lot. I mean, they would get like the prime time Saturday games, but, you know, you would think that Fox with this ownership behind it, cuz the concern would be obviously with FFL. If they're paying ESPN, or if it's a, if they're they're splitting it, you know, ESPN isn't as incentivized to. To put it in good time slots, but if they're paying for it, I mean, what do you make of. Fox owning SFL doing that versus them. Now, if ESPN is presumably paying the XFL. Well, it, I mean, it's obviously two very, very different models. I mean, ESPN has traditionally not been in the ownership business. They, they owned some ex the X games for years, but they I've covered sports business for many years. And our remember talking to people who said the broadcasters should. This was like 2002 broadcasters should just buy all the NFL teams. I mean, it wasn't practical, but the, the, the, the, this has been talked about in media forever. Why not just own the own, the content, and then you don't have to worry about losing it higher rights fees. Whatnot. Now, obviously it creates conflicts of interest when the broadcaster owns the, the team it's covering. But that, that aside, it, it, it, it's a model. That's been talked about a lot, but. You Fox is trying to control costs again. And. What we, what we see is this hub system, which is not good TV. Do you do you. Ever foresee ESPN. Like you said, wanting to dip their toes back in and have some ownership with the extra valve. EXL. I, I don't, I don't think so. I, I, I don't think he's ESPN wants to own the leagues there. Their they're covering, I don't think that's in their business model. They it's. I, I suppose it's, it's always possible, but I, I, I've not heard anything about ESPN equity investing in the league. From someone that covers sports business XFL, right. They announced their cities. Three in Texas, right? A lot's been made of that. What, what do you think of them ignoring New York? You know, your market. Ignoring LA two of the, you know, the two largest medium markets in the country. Well, New York and LA were the two worst markets, I believe for XFL 2.0, I mean. I mean, try going to MetLife stadium in February and March. It's, it's not a lot of fun. It's out. It's outdoors. It's freezing. It's and you're watching. You you you're watching minor league football. It's. It is not a surprise that they had trouble getting people indoors there. LA is, and then entirely pickle market. It's a. That follows front running teams. So it is not a surprise. They avoided New York and LA, but the much of these coasts seemed have been ignored. But does that surprise like that they would just basically abandon those two, at least for the time being, I mean, obviously we can expand here and, you know, year five or whatever, but that they would just off the bat and, and have the three in Texas and not pick like Ohio or Sandy Diego or, or somewhere else. Well, I think it's a cost. It's also a cost issue. I mean, when Vince McMan announced the XFL, he, he talked about needing to be in NFL cities. I think the only NFL city they weren't in was that they were in that wasn't an NFL city was St. Louis, which of course was the most successful of the team. Is so I don't, I don't think it's a surprise. They're not on the major cities from a cost perspective, but from a glamor and branding perspective. It's, it's, it's tough when you're not on the biggest markets. You had said, you know, Vince with Exel, you know, 20, 20, before everything shut down, they were still going through burning through a tremendous amount of money. Right. Cuz fans look at the attendance and, and the ratings and they go, oh, see the XFL. Like they were on the path to success, like half co and all that, the shut down, like. I mean, did you see them finishing 2020 going on? I mean, just the, with how much money they were going through to kind of get to that point. Oh, they were committed. They were, they were very committed to it. I mean, I I've talked to executives there who. You know, were preparing year two in the year three. Business plans they're they. The battle Hawks, the game, their LA their game that got canceled. They were expecting to fill the dome. The entire dome they're opening up the. Upper levels. So I, I don't think anyone within the, that XFL had any doubt that they were gonna be successful after the first few weeks. Cuz it. They probably would've had a tweak, some markets. The, the guardians would've had the lead met life stadium, for sure. They'd have to fund a smaller venue. But. They McMann was committed to funding that. Do you though knowing what we know now, I we've talked about, you know, some of the downfall, you know, the, the cons with the USS F L is doing. Is the XFL, like, do you think that this model, even if it is the right way to go with going to the cities, having all that, is it too expensive? I mean, is it too big of a swing to try to get it all at one time? It's it's, it's hard for me to say not seeing their internals and what, what they expect to lose in the, in year one. In fact, they're out there looking for equity investors already. Tells me that you know, that it's, it's a costly proposition, even with the training camps in. In one spot. I mean, it does, it does help. They don't have to have a, a training camps. That, that those are eight least. Eight leases they don't need and everything that goes into that. But. It's there lot travel costs, lease costs, you know, that's what we discussed. Marketing staff business staff. Ticket sales, all, all of that. I mean, that's that costs money. And if you wanna do it right, it costs a lot of money. Any other thoughts from before I let you go, I really appreciate you spending this the much time as you have on here. I mean, Big name coaches, you know, obviously all their hires, we got like, you know, the Hines awards of the world. I mean, any other thoughts of kind of the, the moves, the exe fellows making in terms of trying to, trying to basically one up the us FFL, cuz it is kind of a tip for tat right now, you know, with players, signings with coaches, with all the other stuff. Well, it's gonna be interesting to see. I mean, you talk to people in scouting and. And player analytics and they, they talk about, there's just not enough offensive linemen, defensive linemen quarterbacks out there. For one league, well enough, two leagues. And it's gonna be interesting to see how, how that holds up the USFL actually, as you know, expanded its player roster during the season because of this problem. They wanna keep that roster small for cost reasons, but this is why football is so expensive. It's you need, you need, you need large. Lot, any large player, roster and another, is there enough quality players out there? That's that's the question, everyone. Presumes that there are, because college football is so big. But, you know, the quality of play some of those years, FL games was, it was so, so was Matt. In your day to day world. What, what comes up more often XFL or us F L. Probably exit fell. XFL just because of the brand name people. You know, and also people are want, you know, cuz of the celebrity owners of the rock and. Just just to see, see what happens again. I, I just think that's interesting and I don't, I get accused. I'm the big, like anti-US fellow. I love the XFL. That's when you know, I, I get harassed all the time, but. You know, I mean, three times around you have the rock exhibit, it's just interesting us develop completed this season, you know? And, and like I said, you still would say the XFL, you know, permeates more in your day to day life in terms of what people are talking about. Yeah. I mean, we're still pretty far out from the xFi launching, but I, I, I just think when you do the hub system, when you don't do the. Traditional model people look at you as sort of, I mean, the guy who I'm forgetting his name, but the guy who started the. The USFL before he sold it to Fox. Woods. He, he did something in Texas every year. I forget what it was called, but it was, it was what? The spring league gallery, the spring league, right. He called the spring league. It wasn't a league. It was just a place where in San, I think it was San Antonio. You know, hundreds of players would come and they would pay. To play there. And he, he would put on, they would play games and they would coaches and they, they were paying to get game tape and it was all in one place. And I think Fox sports actually, Fox sports won actually would televise some of the, some of the games. It's it was. Pro he actually, I think it was profitable with it, but it was, it's a, it is a tiny little niche thing. It's not. You're not gonna, you're not gonna be. Covered in the major newspapers and media outlets with the friendly model. And that's, that's the hub system. And yeah, no, we had, so the, the, when they finally did, they did the fall. During COVID the college, you know, they weren't gonna play whatever. And so spring league did the fall one like in November and they were in San Antonio and they had the big COVID shutdown. Brian Woods came on the show. We talked all about like, and it's crazy now that he. Is now I think, you know, he's still the president of the football ops, you know, at USFL. It's crazy that like in the cyclical world and it's all connected. And now here we are talking, you know, two and a half years later about us F L season. Two's pretty funny. Yeah. It all goes around. Anything else before I let you go, Daniel, I really appreciate your time. No, I'm I think this is good. Well, keep up the good work, keep us informed. I'm sure. We'll check back in exciting times. Like I said, it's peak all football right now with, with all these different brain trusts and money and resources, trying to make this thing work. But do you think last question? I mean, Is there a place for string football, all football in your, in your, in your mind. I think there's a yes. I mean, given the, the explosion of media outlets and. Mediums out there. There's, there's certainly a, a place for it. I, Got well, I'm excited today. We have Paul Reese, our sports central back on, you know, generally known as the us USFL. If I could speak this more, the historian, but you know, you cover all the alt leagues. Your fingerprints are infl, everything else. I would definitely wanted to get your thoughts on all the new XFL. Development. And then everything this week with the investors and everything else, how are you doing Paul Reese? I'm well, thank you for having me back on Reid. I'm excited. Well, you know, we we've lived through the whole us L thing had you on a bunch of times, but now I like having you now you can be in my repertoire. Like we need smart people to talk about the XFL stuff too. So we'll get you involved. The big news this week, and I wanna get your thoughts on, you know, obviously. Cities, anything else you wanna talk about XFL? Y but news coming out from sport deco and then Mike Mitchell over at UB reporting as well, that XL is seeking investors to own up to 45% of the league. So the, the title of the episode this week is the FFL is looking for more money. Should I be worried? So. Paul, should I be worried? This is spring football. You should always be worried. So Redbird capital. From day one, I think that their investment was pegged at something around a hundred million dollars. Sounds like a lot of money, right. For spring football, not so much. So they were always going to need additional funds. Exact same situation with Fox. You know, they, they talk about 150 million commitment and I think that was over three years. Always going to need additional. Funds in order to stay solvent for a few years. This is I think where the benefit, and I've always said this of, you know, Fox owning USFL. I don't like. Their worthy. That's come out here that like, well, the league was profitable this year. I think it was profitable because a lot of their resources were, you know, double booked from other things that they were already spending money on. But at least their model did seem as frugal as it was that they got a out of it. They. Spent, you know, I think they made 65 million in ads. They did not spend necessarily that. And, and so they were able to say that they were profitable in year one where the extra felt like they, they gotta bring in everything for this. They don't have all the resources Fox has. And at. Look at those Fox pronouncements with a little bit of skepticism, that what they did. This past season as frugal as it was. Was still awfully expensive. And so it, they can count in all kinds of ancillary benefits. Which may or may not actually be tied into the USFL in order to make that look better and keep in mind that there they're trying to drum up additional funds. So they wanna make that investment. Look as good as possible. So I would. Certainly view that with some skepticism, but both entities are going to. Continue to seek funds. They're going to be knocking on. Some of the same doors. And so they're both looking to. Put forth their best pitch. Yeah. I tried to talk about this on Twitter this week. Like, you know, I run the wedding video business, right? So like the laptop we're speaking on, you know, this microphone. This is all, you know, I use it for the podcast. But I I've expense it and purchased it because of my wedding business. Whereas if I had to buy a $1,400 laptop and a microphone for the mark, the mark would not be pro you know, so it's, that's what I was trying to explain on Twitter this week is like, Y like, yeah, it, Fox is making money, but they're making money because. A lot of the things that they are spending money on, they're already expense because of other things. So they're not on the us FFL books, the same way. Every single thing, the Exel does is going to be on the books. Now that's not right or wrong or whatever. They're just trying to explain how they've got to that. Like, this is a profitable league in year one. Right. Right. And I don't think, you know, I don't wanna give the impression that any of it's sturdy or anything of that. Nature. They're just going to put the best possible spin on it. You know, I saw some talk about ad rates. Well, They kind of throw in that you got political spending was up. Well, that's a huge part of the max. It's not just, Hey, we have the USFL, we're making lots of money now. They, they spent a lot of money, certainly. And as you may mention, they do have resources. They can. Call upon. And I think did call upon just past year that were double booked. They were people who were being paid. Anyway, they may have been pulled away from. Some of their regular duties in order to do the SFL. Maybe that works going forward. Maybe, maybe not. So the thing to me though, Is, you know, XFL looking for these investments. Now before the season has even kicked off. That's where alarms me a little bit and that, you know, This news has come out now. Now it could have been like the Fox SFL thing where they've been looking for money for a while. The report came out. I think it was in New York post, had the report on it where maybe XF L's been looking for money for six months a year, but it it's just come out. But. Regardless, you know, we had Ben Fisher on a couple weeks ago and he's saying, you know, at least with the USFL, for as much as, you know, we bemoaned or had issues with some of the things they've done. They at least have a game plan now of this is what we did in year one. This is what we're looking to do in year two, where X FFL, it is a white, you know, it's a whiteboard right now. This is in theory. What we're going to do, this is what we're gonna sell. This is how many tickets we're gonna sell. This is how many ads we're gonna sell. It's weird to me that there're looking for money now. That they won't even get through the first season potentially. Now obviously they say Redbird is committed regardless, but that, you know what I mean, where the timing feels odd. The, the optics on it. It's, you know, you do wanna put a spin there, not, you know, maybe not terribly great. It's very likely. That they've been looking for a while. Maybe they were even in discussions with someone and they haven't progressed to the degree that they thought they were going to. Or have just come to a standstill. And have kind of broadened that search, which is. How then somebody talked and all of a sudden there's a source of the XFL is looking for funds, but it. It had to have been part of their makeup from day one, because $100 million was never going to be suspicious. Sufficient. For multiple years. So. I'm I guess I'm maybe less alarmed by that. You know, and now that there isn't concern, you know, as I mentioned, a hundred million dollars for several years is not going to be sufficient. But that's only to say that. The reasonable expectation I think was that they needed more money. And so therefore they would be looking for more money. You know, correct me if I'm wrong. Redbird manages funds, right? Lots of investors involved in Redbird. Is it weird that like we're looking. Outside of like, we don't wanna allocate more money in, in other, you know, we've committed the a hundred million or we've, you know, so we're gonna like, you know, we manage, I think it's 6 billion in assets. Is it weird that we're not moving in more money into this that we wanna see if other outside people are, are interested? Don't know that I can say that it's weird. If I would say, you know, anything is weird. It was their initial interest. You know, they they've been on board since very early. It's the only reason why, you know, the, the rock and Danny Garcia. Were able to make this deal go. They they're the real money behind it. And the thing that keeps striking me is that. You know, there are these entities that are like, Hey, you know what? This is not a half bad idea. This spring football thing yet. Get it takes so much. Money to make it happen that everybody's looking for. Outside help, but they, they, there's something that they see. In developing. Their own sports property. With the rising rights with all the other sports properties. Television rates, especially, but. That they see that they want a piece of, and that they think they can get a piece of. And it's. It's an odd, odd time we even, and I think that that's what was the final push for major league football trying to launch this last year is like, Hey, if we're ever gonna do this, we gotta do it now. Even though there was completely underfunded. To me. I, I would love to know I would be the fly on the wall. First off the CFO XL merger talks, right. Would do anything to go back in time to be a fly on the wall there. But I would love to know, you know, if XFL, like, we're we going to do the high, right. Really the actual hub. We see FL now we have the modified hub and now it's like, holy crap, we're gonna need a ton more money than we thought we were going to six months ago. Or, you know, we saw the first game of FL and then we, I, I would love to know where the timing of that and then nuance in that this discussion went and, and how close they were. One side or the other to this whole, you know, sliding doors, different scenario. Yeah. And I'm, I'm sure that there have been so many different scenarios that have been brought up. You have to. Peg down your player pay. It certainly looks at this point that the XFL is going to pay significantly more than the USFL did this past season. So that, you know, is that gonna have a domino effect as the us F L then going to say, Hey, we can't continue to pay 45 grand for quarterbacks. We have to step up our game. Or are they going to just hold steady? Hold the course and. Hey, we'll essentially take whatever's left over after. All the NFL guys and all the XFL guys and the top level CFO guys are gone. Well, at that point, you know, if the XFL exists. And, and the contracts in the one year in the two year, right. Cuz we had Kyle slow got released from the Jacksonville. And does he revert back to the USFL cuz of, you know, which contract was he on? But it does seem like. Us, you know, you could, the NFL cuts XFL, maybe XFL cuts people. Yeah. I mean, USFL could take a lot of those, not like. Not good enough, but just people that didn't make the cut for whatever reason or another could all wind up. That's kind of the last. Yeah. The last stepping ground is, you know, miss NFL, miss XFL here, you wind up in April and the USFL. L this with the economics will tell you. It certainly is the way that players are going to look at it. If I can earn six figures for a quarterback in the EXL, that's where I wanna be, because I would have to be in the USFL for two or three years. To make that same amount. If I can make 70. In the XFL. I certainly wanna do that as opposed to making 45 and paying part of my room board in the USFL. So those are absolutely the economic considerations that the players have to be working through right now. And so they're going to look XFL, not to mention. The XFL gets the, the jump on the season. They will start first. So you will throw your lawn in with the XFL. If that doesn't work out, you have the SFL essentially as a fallback. Well, and the be, yeah, I, I think it just to, you know, make sure that we're clarified here. Like, I, I think the, I think the base pay for most players in the XL in the USFL is not that dissimilar, but I think it's the increased housing. In, you know, room and board and food that is provided by the Exel that. Adds that little bit to it, cuz I think it's 45 versus. When they say 55. I can't remember that. I, I, we had Greg parks on last week talking about it, but the actual base pay, but it's, the XFL is paying for the housing and all that stuff on top of it. Right, right. And. The, you know, the other advantage that the XFL may have is having teams in home cities. So you are. At least four times as likely to be near a player's. Where the player lives, then you are with the us L just because you're in, in home cities. So it, that gives a chance for family and friends to, to stop by for. You know that maybe it's a little bit easier than everybody going to Birmingham. But very, yeah. Birmingham is the, what is it? The magic city. It's magic city, but it can't magically transport you there and find lodging for you. Yeah. This, I I've seen a lot of comments. So the XFL, you know, we're seeking the investments to own up to 45% of the league. I've seen a lot of concerns about like, wow, that's a lot of percentage. You know, Danny and the rock Redbird, right. They're all split. And I'm like, okay, well, it's not like, they're not the 40 fives. Not gonna be the majority, cuz they're gonna structure another way that they're getting part. But regardless 45% of a hundred percent is still a lot of percent like does that a lot? You that're were going up to that amount. 35 To 45% that investors can be a part of it. Not at all. You know, I think what Redbird capital, the rock Danny Garcia are looking at is controlling interest. And as long as you have a controlling interest in the league, which is more than 45%. You you'll be able to dictate what happens. And so, you know, I, the. Foxville will be looking at the same considerations. Unless somebody is willing to put in more money. They're not going to be able to, to get that head seated at the table. I wanna look on here. I have the quote from Mike. Talking first off. It says, Mike has more updates on you. We talked with Dan Kaplan about the TV deal. Exels five year deal with Disney has ad splits percentage, just not. Confirmed with the network covering production, broadcast out and cause with escalators through the agreement to go through the initial. Right. Speed. Do you have thoughts on. Just the difference where, you know, Fox owning the content outright here, ex XFL being paid to help produce it. Splitting ads. Potentially not being paid. Dan Kaplan has a source saying that they are being paid, but, but where the XL sits in the TV landscape getting money right now. The XFL getting some TV, right. Is, is something that hasn't happened, you know, in a while I think. What we've seen have been kind of these ad split. Deals. And it sounds like that's part of the current XFL deal, but they are. There is some, some real money. At stake there box has essentially eliminated the min middleman. All Fox has to do. Is make money or not lose too much of a deal. Whereas traditionally you've had the network. That's had to make money on the deal. And the league that's had to, to make money or at least not lose too much on the deal. So there there's two different levels there. When the league is different than the network. As it is with the XFL. And ESPN slash ABC. You don't have that with the USFL. It's all one level. So you eliminate kind of the middle man and their necessity. To, to make some money. It's a, it's a cleaner structure. We'll see if it ends up being a better structure. It's kinda like my wedding business. I, I used to have other people that would go out, you know, film weddings for me. I would go back and edit them. I've just because of life. And I've gotten very tired of dealing with, you know, middle people. I'm just gonna do everything myself, move forward. So maybe I can charge less, do everything. Myself, like you said, when you have that other person there, I gotta upcharge. Cuz I got to pay them. I gotta deal with all their stuff. So it's, it's curious that way. The. The, I can't find the quote for Mike on here, but it was basically talking about how, while the USFL they're actively trying to get people to, you know, purchase teams, purchase franchises, bring the teams into their markets. Like Tampa bay or Houston, which I still maintain. Us develop should have called them teams, a, B, C, D, and then found investors in cities where they want to be. But. The XFL is selling off. You know, or equity in the company. They are not yet doing the teams. Right. So they are still the teams, all that stuff is still essentially located. Although they have had interest the XFL, according to Mike's article of people wanting teams. Where presumably the USFL has not. What do you think about that? Where the USFL like. Actively we're trying to sell our teams XFL. We're not doing that yet. They're giving the interest from people wanting to own the teams. And I think people can see that, that track history. With the XFL that they've been in the whole markets. And so even though technically this version of the XFL. Hasn't kicked off yet. People do have an idea of what to expect in these XFL markets. Then includes some folks with money. The USFL, you still have. I think what a lot of people saw last year was the spring league. With team names attached to them with city names attached to them with some historical interest. I think that that did play well with a certain. Section of viewing public. I'm not sure that we saw that translate into. You know, the, the section of the public with real money, like, oh, I need to bring my Philadelphia stars to Philadelphia. And it could be that their selection of teams are like, People in Philadelphia with money are, think, are you nuts? We got the Eagles and. They may be right now. This is a terrible time to bring a team in. It's a it's. Maybe it does speak to the pre presentation too, of the USFL. And I, you know, we, we had empty stadiums for three quarters of the games. And I don't think you can get past that point with a lot of people. You that does plant some dope. Okay. If I bring this thing into Houston, Am I gonna have an empty stadium. If I bring this thing. Somewhere around New Jersey. Am I gonna have an empty stadium? And what, so what Fox may have done is planted those seeds of do. With their empty stadium last year. It just seems odd that, you know, the one is actively Corian, you know, it's kinda like if you're. You're you got you and your single friend, and you're trying to find someone date, then they don't wanna date anyone, but yet everyone's coming up to them. It's just, it's an odd dynamic that way be you would just think that it would be like, you know, the us AFLs. Entire first season was an infomercial to get people, to buy a team. And now they still, you know, Maybe they'll be in announcement, you know, today that Alex Rodriguez has bought the generals, but I don't, I don't know if that's happening and I don't know. If it was like you said, people turned on the TV and, and it didn't look great. And, and people just are remembering the XFL as being better, which isn't fair to USFL, cuz that's not, you know, XFL 3.0 is not gonna be 2.0, but there're able to. At least benefit on the good work that Oliver luck and everyone did back in 2020. You know, and I, I do wonder too, if people look at the situations, say, okay, I'm gonna buy em in New Jersey generals. What does that mean besides spending a lot of money? Do I have any control over the franchise? I might be able to pick from a couple of different stadiums that have been allowed. But everything else. Is probably still going to be controlled by Fox. Maybe I can pick my head coach. Have some input on player selection. Is that enough to spend. Millions and millions of dollars on you would think at least tens of millions of dollars. Whereas in the XFL. You have maybe a little bit of star power too? Well, my ancillary benefits is I get to say, I know the rock. I get to hang with Danny Garcia. No, I. And it could be that what the XFL has envisioned is a little bit more autonomy for the owners. Where I, I really have a lot, a hard time seeing Fox doing that, that Fox is going to want that. Fine grain control. And I could be wrong about that, but I, I do wonder if Fox's majority ownership there may be giving people some pause. It's just interesting you, these ownership, like you said, you know, what are you really owning with that? You know, we had. Ben Fisher on a couple weeks ago. And I was saying, you. Let's figure out the evaluations here, cuz people are saying, Hey, USFL is drawn 500,000, 600,000 viewers. MLS is drawing that much. Shouldn't these teams be valued in, you know, Ben said. Yeah. But when you owned an MLS team, you have you decade of season ticket, whole holders in fan bases and. Merchandise and lifestyle that you, every, like everything else that goes into it than just a TV view and. It's like in the CFO, you know, the, these like a Marto man, we have Gary St you know, these guys that own CFO franchises, you're really owning it to host a gray cup. That's really the only time like I've been told, it's really the only time you see a big, like finance boost is what I'm like. Hey, we're able to host a gray cup cuz most of the time you're just. Spending money for, like you said, what, what do we own. Especially with USFL, where, where, like you said, Fox is gonna oversee or maybe ex FFLs is too it's I, it's not as sexy as NFL team where like I can merchandise to my heart's contend to kind of do whatever I want that way. And the TV contracts. MLS, I think has some tie in with soccer, United marketing. And so that there's some ancillary benefits there. Whereas this. This one it'd be, you would be buying the right to spend a lot of money and lose a lot of money. so, I mean, It's still an unproven concept. And it could be too that the X F L's choice of markets. The Seattle dragons aren't that far removed from having played games. People can remember that atmosphere. So it could be that, that. There's just a, more of a tangible. Benefit in the minds of those who would invest in the FFL as opposed to the USFL. It's when you're talking about like you're buying the right to spend more money. I don't know if it was Mitch Hepberg some comedian talked about like people handing out pamphlets, like a, you know, when you're walking down the street, someone like, oh, here's the pamphlets like here, you throw this away for me. Like, you know, like just buggers, right. That's right. But it is it's so. Weird because like, I, I think the safer bet, right. Is investing in the league, like with the XFL, right? You said I'm not, I'm not paying all this money to bring New Jersey in. Right. I'm paying to be a part of this. You know, we have Danny the rock and all that, but yet. You know, to me, maybe the moral long term sustainable thing is to get people, to take these, you know, teams into their cities that the us fellows doing. So it is fascinating to me how both of these leagues from play structure to, you know, pay and huh. And invest, like they're all do the same thing. Just like, oh, Little different and there's pros and cons to how they're all doing it. Yeah, and they, I mean, it boils down to single entity ownership is that they want to maintain the single entity structure. Yet you wanna reap the benefits? Including the. Offloading some of the financial burden. Of individual team ownership. And it's very, very hard because what do you give the individual team owner then? What is his benefit? So he, but you wanna avoid a situation where you have a rogue owner. Who begins acting and what you don't feel is the best interest of. The league. So I think that they're still trying to find the formula there that. Attracts the investors. In that circumstance where you're probably. Realistically not going to have much control. But you could be in for some of the benefit. Should the league realize, you know, increasing rights values. I think that's a great point that like what, what is in it for I, what you just said, I thought was very fascinating with that, but yeah. You're you want to, we, we still wanna maintain control of everything, but yet we want you to spend your money in areas that we don't want to do it. I think that that's fascinating. It, it, you know, sports ownership has always been a bit of a, a glamor thing and some guys do it just for that. Hey, I own. Da da da and. They would put up with losing a little bit of money. And all the while that they were, you know, losing money in a real way. On a yearly basis and the new England Patriots are a perfect example. They're losing money year after year. But their asset. Was continuing to increase in value. So if you're asset increases in value, 10 Million a year and you're losing. Four or $5 million a year. You're always crying. You know, the poor mouth. Oh, I'm losing. Four or 5 million bucks a year. How can I, you know, but at the same time, if you ever sell the thing. You're making money, hand over fist. And you can borrow against that valuation as well. Now the band of the is like CFO. It's a total vanity thing. I mean, these guys, and, and I'm not saying that like Amar Doman like he, they really care and they really, you know, I don't doubt that he loves to BC Alliance, all that, but. Part of owning the team, like, yeah, I'm the owner. I come in, I get to call the shots, but if I'm doing that. I don't know. I mean, if Fox was auctioning off, you know, investments in the USFL where they were giving off. Maybe I would feel more comfortable investing in the league on the USFL side. Not a team within, I would in the XFL where, Hey, if they decide in two years that this goes belly up, I'm out, you know, 20, 40, 50 million. Dollars. And I think that's. You absolutely. Everybody's looking at that. Hey, if this whole thing quits and it's only gotta be Fox, it's only gotta be or Redbird capital who makes that decision. I'm out my entire investment. I it's not like I have. Something that I can just move to a differently. It's just dumb. It's I'm completely wiped out. So you really, really have to be. You know, I don't know what would motivate you to spend that kind of money. Do you really, really wanna fire that coach so bad that you're gonna plunk down 25 million or more? It's a tough sell. So I. This is where it would be interesting to be a fly in the wall. How are they pitching this? So you're part of the company now. You're not really gonna have any say because at the most you own 45%. Or we're just Fox and we're. We're gonna make the decisions. So how , how do you pitch that? I, I think it's fascinating because I think I, I don't feel like. Either is in the position of power right now. I mean, XL or USFL, I think that they both want, they, they need. Red birds that said they're willing to pay the money? I, I, yes. I don't think it's a singer or swim right now for either one, but I don't think that they are in any leverage on other side. I think long term it is a sink or swim. And, and by long term, I mean, year two. Or three that they do need additional investment, probably both sides. Do. To really make this work. And that shows you how. You know, profitable. The USFL was actually this last season. If it, if it had. Actually made money. You don't need anybody. You don't probably want anybody. But the, the, the real fact is you. Need more people. To expand the folks who are, who are appearing, bearing the cost. And I think that the USFL does, I think have a really. A really, really good reason to believe that maybe we can expand this audience. We, we played this pretty cheap this last year. And I think we have a good idea on what our kind of bottom line is. And. As far as number of viewers and. How we could grow that. I, I think it was with Greg parks last week. We were, or I can't remember who it was. Some I was talking to recently, we were talking, maybe it was Mike Mitchell, but. USFL, you know, XFL has a lot of tent pole things coming up, right. We have the team nickname announcements, you know, we have the uniform announcements, we have the draft, we have a lot of these things, right. The first kickoff game we have all that. USFL going into year to, to like spike in audience. If it's the supplemental draft in November that we're, or in October that we're trying to precede the XFL one in November, or if it's like, Hey, we're gonna announce Detroit as the second hub, or we're gonna announce. Like I don't, I don't know what USFL has as tempo items coming up to like, And then just, Hey, we're kicking off again and Hey, we're back. Right. The whole lure of the new entity. As the XFL essentially is versus the returning entity where you don't have the reveal of the team names and locations and all of that type of thing. As we, we saw the USFL do. Last year. So. It is a little bit different animal. The big announcement is the one that you mentioned, what is our second hub city for the USFL? I don't know how hyped. Anybody's going to be about that, except for. Possibly fans in that one city. Or where it would make travel a little bit easier, but. Really, I don't see that as, as much of a, a, a big deal, but. Fox is going to find their own ways of, of. Hyping. And that might include a couple of new coaches. That we've heard of. Major league football guy, Jerry Glenville. So. They could get almost anybody who's not working right now. You know, tell me about the hubs in to go back to, and you feel free to disagree with me because I posted it on Twitter and it was about a 50 50 response, but. If the USFL had just had the stars, the gamblers. You know, the, the bandits, right? Whatever, like not the Tampa bay bandits, like, would they be better off now at knowing that they have anywhere in the country, that they could set up a second hub versus the seven other cities? But, you know, I just, I think they kind of pinned themselves in a little bit when they decided to. Try to use that intellectual property because you, you tried out those names, you call yourself the SFL and everybody was going to be thinking Tampa bay for the band. It's everybody was going to be thinking Philadelphia for the stars and those who didn't remember it, would've been reminded of it through the media. So. I think they kind of painted themselves into a corner and having to use the team names. But I don't know that they would've been. Any further removed from kind of that spring league image, if they would've gone without the nicknames. Do you just have the Birmingham stallions and everybody else has a, just a nickname attached to it. No city name. I think it, it would've been weird. I, yeah, I don't. And like I said, I, I was, I was, you know, hung up in, in and beaten with a stick for that, but I've had a lot of people say, like, I think that makes sense. I just, I don't know if I did the local Fox sports, did the local hits on like Fox Houston? And their social media, you know, w KR or whatever, in, in Houston running a couple USFL spots on Twitter, like. Did that make that big of a difference? I, I, I don't know. I don't. Mike had the demos of what people in each city's watched them, but some of the cities they were watching the us didn't even have teams in the league, so, right, right. But some of the cities that did. There were a couple and I think new Orleans was one of them that, that fared well, and that don't know that you would've seen. That number, you know, the same. If it wasn't called the new Orleans breakers. So it may have helped in some cases it certainly DED in others. I, I think in the New York sports landscape, you're. You don't have a presence there. You're lost. There's just, it's not gonna make any difference. I mean Ville had their presence there. I don't think it really made that big of a difference. It's super hard. It's super hard. There, there are some markets that are, are. Are just so much more difficult. And you wonder if that. Played a part into them. Not returning a New York area team this year. I know I any, any I've I've kept you long. Any final thoughts, anything XFL. I mean, you know, we haven't talked to you since we've had everything come out, the cities, you know, announcements, the hourly detail. I mean, all things we've known, but just, you know, finally official any other thoughts and any, anything you wanna make sure you get out. There's going to be a lot of spring football news that is going to be popping up during the NFL season. We'll see if. How successful the league is in, in being able to generate publicity during. The NFL season does that. Help or does it hinder? I mean, Last year we saw the USFL wait, essentially until the NFL was done before most things were announced. You remember even the. Hub city, which everyone kind of knew was Birmingham. Wasn't announced until. Super late and then information. Slowly rolled out through, through Fox sources. I, you know, the Exel is going to take a different approach. They do have some very powerful media partners with ESPN. So it's entirely possible that they can kind of parlay. Interest in the NFL into some, Hey, by the way, XFL launching early next year. Check us out. Your the latest piece of information. So I, I, I do look forward to seeing how the XFL makes its announcements. And what kind of traction they get during the NFL season. Well, it's interesting, cuz I was gonna bring that up and I was on the XFL, the STL XFL STL last night, kind of talking about this where. You know, we, we got the cities. You know, in August, you know, we got team names in August before, you know, they kind of got everything out. We did the uniform reveals and all of that in the fall. If I remember I was, I was working the day, that kind, all the, the, you know, the uniforms and stuff came out. But, you know, we knew the, the cities for a long time. And then we knew, you know, all this other stuff came out. Kind of before the NFL seasons and we're now we know the cities. I mean, unless they're gonna drop the city, the. You know the nicknames here, but where they're still just beginning to hire for the local people in the markets. Like. They just seems to be a lot to do in the next six months. Like, do you worry that. Because of, you know, leasing issues in, in Vegas or whatever else, you know, the Alamo dome, whatever the heck was going on. Like they waited too long to kind of get the ball rolling on a lot of these announcements before the NFL season. I do think that they're behind the eight ball there. That they, they probably would be three months. Further ahead if they had everything, you know, if, if they could do it ideally. Having said that I don't know that that cripples them. But it does mean that there is an. Awful lot to do in the next few months. No. I mean, it's like, yeah, I mean, we're hiring now. It's it's August 11th, you know, we're hiring for like the Seattle, you know, marketing people. That's FA I mean, it's just, it's quick. It's quick. I mean, gusta, standing, all that was on board. I mean, we had a lot of that stuff going. I mean, they had SI. And I hate being the Homer of, well, this is how they did the back in 2020. It's gotta be, but. I would've liked to have the nicknames out before the NFL season hasn't started. I think it's gonna get lost. You know, I, I do think, yeah, that, that whole idea of it getting lost, getting lost in whatever. The NFL injury of the week or the disgruntled player of the day or. The whatever's going on, you know, the. Oh, is the bi-week can help this team or. The NFL news tends to be. Dominating, whether it's real news or not. And that's what the FFL is kind of facing. And that's the challenge that they're going to have in, in maximizing their publicity. Especially in NFL markets, such as Seattle and Houston and Dallas. I mean, how. Help how much play are you going to get? When nano NFL is going on and it's, it should be. The first half of the NFL season. So. Even in Houston, they shouldn't be entirely out of it yet. Well, no, I mean, I'm already renting into that, you know, where I'm trying to. Schedule people to talk XFL and you know, they also are covering the NFL for various things. And I'm like, I know that this is not, this is not going to be the top of your radar, but like, would you, would you have time? Because it it's the same thing I deal with in the, in this CFFL when it comes to hockey, you know, you have to be careful when you schedule people cuz once. You know, hockey, Trump CFL in Canada in terms of media, vast media interest. And then obviously NFL here is going to, you know, crush the XFL. So. Right. Right. And, and it's entirely possible that they'll use that. As a springboard, if they can. Find the right outlets. And especially if ESPN is willing to be used. In that way, that. They they'll be able to kind of Trump up the announcements a little bit. So we'll see how it works out for them. Ideally though, I think that they would have already announced most of the major things. Going into the NFL season so that you would. Ideally be selling tickets and sponsorships and all the other things that you're trying to do in the local markets. Well, Paul Reese, I really appreciate it. Us of develop historian, you can get me outta here in 30. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta beat the beat, the traffic to the stadium. It's gonna be walkers there. Well, they, they were, they were saying they're selling this s**t to the tickets. Right? Darren tweeted that out their, yeah, right. That me? I never remember your guys' media guy. Yeah. Darren. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Darren one and Darren two, we were in, when we went to college to together now I'm Darren too. To oh, I'm kidding. We'll get you going here. I appreciate, and mostly, I mean, we can talk away the pick, but mostly just CFO stuff, cuz obviously this will go out tomorrow. So. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm excited today. Now, you know, we've, we've been live together and Hamilton we've been live on the internet with the show, not working. And now this is just an easy, good, old fashioned zoom record. I have Darren bomb me with bonfire sports here. How are you doing Deb? Good to be with you, man. I'm doing well. Good. Well, I want, you know, this is good. As someone had just tweeted last week, I said, you need to get Darren on the podcast. I said, well, lo and behold, here we are. So first off, how is everything going? Bonfire, sports, you guys, you know, you and Zach and everyone taking over when the peg content, how's all that going. Yeah. It's, it's been great. I'm blown. Away this year, how by the response of people, especially to our post game show, we've grown leaps and bounds from last season. Myself and the legendary Chris WBE doing pregame last year and doing it recorded this season, we decided to switch everything to live. So we do a midweek show actioner and myself on Tuesdays. Then do a pregame show with Chris. Live the. Day before the game gives it lots of legs for people to kind of absorb what's happening and, you know, take it in, in the morning or after work or, or late at night podcast. Video, whatever. And then we do a post game show. And a live post game show. Has been an absolute hit. People love to join. Because when you do live shows, we, we get the live chat going and pull the, you know, fans comments right up on the screen. Get people's immediate. Reactions to the game. Another thing that's been fun this season is I set up a text line. You can even call and, and leave a message with the bonfire hotline. 2 0 4 8 1 6 tips 8 1 6 8 4 7 7. You can tell, I've said that a few times. And, and, you know, people being able to text whenever they want, like, if it's the second quarter, And a coach makes a challenge that they disagree with. They'll text, what is he doing? You know, that sort of thing. So that's been a great response. Getting people engaged in the conversation. It's definitely helped that here in Winnipeg. This team has had such an amazing start to the season. Of course, being back to back wakeup champions, coming into it, lots of excitement, lots of anticipation and expectations. For 2022. So it's been a, it's been a ton of fun and, and bonfire sports has, has grown like crazy. Well, I think it's good. I think, you know, I, and I, my schedule just doesn't allow, we we've done a little bit, like, obviously you were on, we did like the pregame last, you know, from the games last year, but like my schedule just doesn't allow to do that. I think it's awesome that you guys, cuz I think there needs to be that outlet outlet. You know, I've heard that all the time, you know TSN and you know, Obviously they do, you know, the halftime show and all that. And they do a little bit, you know, with mill and, and Kate and everyone. But I, I think the CFO, that's such a fan driven league, you have to be able to have more of that access that, you know, the NFL's got 10 million different callin shows and podcast and stuff. Like I think the C needs to have that. I think it's really important. AB absolutely. And, and, you know, This is the other thing, like you talk about schedules allowing or not, you know, for those out there that aren't familiar with with me and my work, I've covered this Winnipeg blue bombers team on a daily basis. For 10 years now, I cover the jets in the national hockey league here as well for nhl.com. I am a reporter. By trade and, you know, went to journalism school and, and sports was the way I was able to kind of break into the industry and you know, who wouldn't, you know, who would pass up that opportunity. Right? So when TSN closed their radio station here in Winnipeg, as they did in Hamilton and Vancouver, a huge. Market here in Canada as well. A lot of us here in Winnipeg, myself, Andrew hustler, Patterson, Michael Remus, they started Winnipeg sports talk. They just hit 8,000 subscribers on YouTube. They do a show Monday to Friday. Every afternoon live and it's been. Very very well received. And I think people here in Winnipeg wanted a place to go to get their sports fixed. Now in this digital. Sphere as, as you guys know, and as you know, we've learned here in Winnipeg and really across Canada. Across the world, having that engagement, that real time interaction it's different than turning on the radio and just listening or. Calling in and waiting for your opportunity to talk very different than television traditionally with, you know, pre-game or game or post-game coverage, whatever it is, halftime for people to feel like their voice matters. Their voice and, and their, you know, chime in their hot take. Their question is going to be addressed. By people that, you know, cover this league and, and cover pro sports for a living. Really makes them feel, you know, validated and as they should be, if it wasn't for fans. Pro sports wouldn't exist if it wasn't for people going to the games. Buying the TV packages, frankly. Watching on YouTube or Facebook or, or listening to a podcast. It, it wouldn't be a thing. So to, to give those people a greater voice, Extremely important. And, and now in this, you know, digital media, Sphere we live in, it's a reality. Almost anybody can create content if they, you just have a smartphone, which, you know, pretty much everybody in north America has. Right. Well, it it's the evolution of, of it. Right. And it's, it's the necessity. You know, like I said, you know, NFL, the bulk of everything in the world revolves around, but it's these leagues like the CFL, you know, we deal with this with the XFL and the USFL, you know, a lot of that doesn't exist. And so it's up to the fans. I mean, I wish that the leagues, you know, like the CFL I wish would engage and maybe they do more than I know with you guys. And your shows. I wish the XFL and the USFL would engage more with some of the fan driven stuff here, because it, it is really reliant on us as the fans and the content creators to kind of make that. And I just wish there was more of a symbiotic relationship than when there is where I do feel like a lot of this CFL fan P. Podcast exists around the CFO without getting a lot of acknowledgement from the league. I mean, obviously like, you know, they've been great, you know, like getting Ambrosia on the show and stuff, but just from a week to week thing, I think that I would like more appreciation for the work that the fans are doing. So sure. It would all comes down to dollars, right? Like the end NFL major league. Baseball, the NHL, even the CFO it's it comes down to broadcast rights agreements. You know, the broadcast rights holder. Isn't going to have me on talking about my perspective. On the team or on the league, and then say Checko Darren on bonfire, sports.ca because that's money outta their pocket. That's viewers, that's eyes and ears away from them. So I, I think that's just a reality of the business, but, but again, this is the time that things are opening up. Maybe things will change. In the future, you look at all the different streaming services that are getting in to major league soccer. Like apple owns it all. You know, major league baseball with, with Amazon and Netflix and, and the rest, it's all beginning to change. So, you know, for people out there that, you know, have a fan podcast and, and want more acknowledgement. The fans that are listening and tuning into you that have subscribed to you on, on your channel. Those are the people you should care about. Supporting you, the league will be there. And the, the fact that they play the games is what gives you things to talk about. Right. So, you know, that's kind of the reality of it. I, I know it's not the easiest pill to swallow for, for a lot of people, but you know, when it comes to the Canadian football league, I found pretty much every team. And the league. If I need something, if I need a photo from a game, if I need to talk to somebody for an interview, they generally work very, very hard to make that happen. I think that's a reason why people appreciate the CFO for what it is. Oh, I think that the CFS phenomenal that I would emailing with max, this. Week with over at Calgary. And he's saying like, he's moving on a new John. Yeah. I was like, oh my God. I was just so sad because I'm like, these are people that I rely on, you know, really rely on to, you know, take time outta their day to kinda schedule, you know, cause I'm like, you guys are doing all your crazy stuff. Like, you know, thank you for spending 10 minutes, you know, humor and me to get something set up. And I'm like, right. Oh my God. It is sad, but no. So, you know, we can talk media stuff all day. I wanna get a little bit of football stuff in here. Yeah. Besides obviously Winnipeg concrete in the world right there. I think last year I had them as Thanos. You know, there's Winnipeg is an inevitable, but except for the, that. Biggest storyline right now in the CFO, in your mind. Ooh, that's a good question. Biggest it's gotta be these division. Like what's going to happen. It it's so wide open, you know, four points between first and the two teams immediately chasing them. The Ottawa red blacks. Haven't had much fortune. This year, but they got their first win. So they got the monkey off their back. That's a good thing, but I, I think it's, it's wide open in the east. Will Saskatchewan do enough in the second half of the season, they got three games against the blue bombers upcoming, you know, for people that haven't followed the CFO super close. Those rivalry games between the blue bombers and the rough riders. Like it, it doesn't the schedule, the, the records don't seem to matter. Those two teams face off. On labor day here in Canada. And, and then the following week back here in Winnipeg called the banjo bowl, those are just such heated rivalry games with rockus crowds and, and all the PO and circumstance around it. You never know who's going to win. We've seen crazy game where huge upsets. Multicore upsets and that sort of thing. So how is Saskatchewan going to, you know, play the rest of the season that, you know, their head coach shaved his beard. The other day and says, you know, okay, we need a fresh start. Everybody coming outta the buy week, they've got their fair share of challenges ahead of them. But what we see a crossover, the gray cup is in Regina this year. Can Saskatchewan do enough to cross over to, to the east wind to get games on the road and then be the visitor. On their own turf for the gray cup. It'll be interesting. That's kind of like the, the biggest story of the league and teams. I think Nathan Rourke and his emergence as a Canadian. As a standout, unbelievable quarterback, the game he had in week nine, throwing for a million yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions. It was really something to behold. Would he have 380 in the first half? He is special, a real treat to wa watch and you know, BC, a one loss team. Winnipeg undefeated going into week 10. The final two games on Winnipeg's schedule is a home and home against the BC Alliance. That's going to be a, a heck of a home and home series to see who wins the season series. And it might just be who, you know, has the easiest path to the grey cup. I'm really scared right now, obviously BC is my team. You know, I watch, I was telling. I had Dominic rhymes on he'll be on the same episode you're on from BC. I said, I said, I, we had an hour wait for our anniversary dinner on Saturday. And I stood out on the street in front of the restaurant and watched the BC Edmonton game on the ESPN plus on my phone. And I was very excited. But now you. Know, we're coming into Calgary. We did not look good against Winnipeg. Right? Luckily I was filming the wedding and I think I would've had my, you know, head through a wall at some point didn't. But I'm really worried that we're going to get showing up this weekend and then it's going to be all this is for not, but you can be Edmonton by a million points, but if we can't do it to, to Cal, I'm really scared. Yeah, I I'm looking forward to that game more than any other this week, you know, going to Winnipeg, going to IG field. I live in Winnipeg, born and raised here, but like going to that game and then seeing 30,000 plus is something I'm, I'm really excited for, but that kind BC game is going to be a huge determining. Factor Calgary has two losses, both to Winnipeg. BC has one loss. Two Winnipeg, one of the most difficult things to do in the modern era of Bo Levi, Mitchell quarterbacked. Calgary stamp Peters teams is to go into McMahon. And beat them and especially do it, you know, with them coming off a buy or coming off a loss, they generally don't lose. Two games in a row ever. If, if often at all, So, you know, it's been interesting watching the betting line in that game and watch it kind of shift a little bit, depending on you know, who people are putting. Their money on, but I think that's an absolute pick and game. Bo could very well be p****d off with losing two games to the Winnipeg blue bombers. You know, Nathan RO might be. Just wanting to continue to prove people wrong because it's like, well, can he keep doing this? And he does. So it's gonna be a fascinating game week 10 between those two teams. And yeah, I, I get ya. You know, I, I would be scared too. If I was pulling for the, for the lions, it's gonna be a, a heck of a game. Well, you know, cuz Bo he was like seven of 18 or something last week. I mean, he really didn't play good. That was, that was a. That was a scarier CFO game just in general, like, sure. Well, that, that happened to us at Calis you're in Winnipeg. When they went to Edmonton, you know, he was something like 43% passing. You know, you know, did not play particularly well, but they did enough to win the game. That's kind of the beauty of the CFO, right? If special teams steps up when your offense is kind of struggling, you can still win by 15 points, you know? So the Calgary's stamp Peters extremely well coached. They've got great. Special teams there by a guy who started as a strength and conditioning coach. Now being talked about as a future head coach, maybe as early as next season in mark Killam, he's the one who stepped in when Dave Dickinson had some positive co tests in, you know, a couple weeks ago. So, you know, it it's, it comes down to more than just the quarterbacks and the defenses going off against each other. In terms of back to going to the east, you know, we have Hamilton here, right? Dan Evans hurt, you know, they have four or five, right. He gets Argonauts. Is this. Are we seeing kind of the end of, of B 20, 22 season for Hamilton here over the next month? Yeah, I mean, a couple weeks ago on, on our show, I put the Hamilton tiger cats at number four in my power rankings behind Winnipeg, BC, and Calgary, and people thought I was crazy. I'm like, just, just watch, you know, Watch them play Toronto and you know, maybe you'll see, and they continue to have fourth quarter collapses. I don't know, like, am I crazy to say that maybe it's a blessing in disguise. If Dan Evans misses a gamer, two Matthew Shilts, isn't going to knock anybody's socks off, but maybe the tie cats will shake off the cobwebs and dig a little bit deeper. After, you know, being losers of the last two great cup games. And having outstanding seasons in the process. To say, okay, it's the second half of the season. Now we can turn things around that. East is wide open it's for anybody's to take, frankly Ottawa could figure it out. I think it would take Jeremiah solely to come back and quarterback them to that sort of second half of the, the season. But everybody says it in the C. The real season starts after labor day. That's the beginning of September here in Canada. I know you guys have a, a different labor day down in, in the us and, and I've enjoyed some labor days down in the us with family. So, you know, I like having two labor days. You can't really beat that, but the real season does start here in Canada. After labor day and, you know, I think for the Hamilton tiger cats. They've got all the talent in the world. They've got phenomenal coaching. I don't understand. Why they seem to just be stub their toe at the door to victory? I do think they will figure it out. I think they are the most talented team and most capable team. In the east and I, I know Toronto is extremely talented as well, but I, I just see them as a team that. The coaching, the discipline. It, it could be their Achilles heel when games really matter. Hey turns to Toronto. Yes. Also, you know, speaking of discipline and penalties, you know, Montreal, right. Having issues. You know, we, we had Gary stern, not like a month ago after the Kahar Jones, all that, you know, now we have Danny show, like still we're still, I mean, I see people tweeting, like. Number of penalties under Kahari number of penalty. Like I, I mean, what is going on? What do you think? I mean, we were talking before we got on recording about the whole mil steeple, Gary stern, you know, Twitter banter, but what do you make of Montreal right now? Yeah. I mean, we here in Winnipeg where mil Stegel is an absolute legend, like mil Stegel drive, you know, is, is real street down by the old stadium grounds. To, to watch him kind of come to Kahar he's defense in great passive aggressive. Aggressive manner saying, you know, like, oh, you know, these, these penalties start, you know, clearly Kahar he's fault. They've actually increased in Montreal. Since they've made that coaching change. Here's the thing. What people forget in Montreal is that week one game one first quarter. The east division, most outstanding player nominee from last season got injured and has done for the season in running back William Stanback. They had two quarterbacks coming into this season. That were kind of both vying to be starters. It's a good thing. They signed Trevor Harris because Vernon Adam's junior went from being on the one game injured list for a little while now on the sixth game. So it's Trevor Harris's team to take Trevor had been a bit of a journeyman in the CFL because of lack. Of consistency. He is a capable quarterback. He's dangerous when he's on, but he seems to just kind of have that. Lapse game every once in a while and, and, you know, have his supporters. Maybe doubting things as far as his collective career. So for the Hamilton, you know, sorry for the Montreal allots, you know, a coaching change, a new defensive coordinator, you know, Anthony Calvio as a very. Inexperienced yet legendary player, but inexperienced. Offensive play caller switching from Barron miles defense to a Noel THP defense has been a pretty systemic change. It's gotta be tough for those players. I think everybody in Montreal's just treading water right now. Trying to get from game to game to against Winnipeg is, is a, you know, a tough stretch for them, but it's tough to beat any team twice in a row, even. You know, a team like Winnipeg can potentially lose, you know, when, when you face teams in a home and home back to back. But again, whether you're Hamilton, Montreal. Toronto, I think. You, you don't stop playing now. You know, you could be a sub 500 team by a couple wins or a couple losses and, and still turn things around. You know, we we'll see how the second half goes. Anybody's for the taking. Do you think that Montreal can be successful? With Trevor Harris or are we just biting time for Vernon to get back? I think they'd be success successful with him. I think they need a more balanced attack to attack to help Trevor Harris. We've seen Dre anway, you know, I watched him closely at the university of Calgary. Playing in the Canada west, you know, the, the college conference I, I follow closely here in Western Canada, very talented tailback, but for him to be thrusted into the starting lineup, when you go through training camp, looking at like maybe one of the best players in the league as the guy, I ahead of you. You know, it's probably taken him some time to get his legs under him. Pardon the, the obvious fund there, but they don't tend to run the football too much and they really, really focus. In, in the passing game on one or two guys, that's for my dollar, the best receiver in the CFL. In gen Lewis and I loved his comments this past week spoke to herbs. Orlowski the Montreal Gazette Gazette and said I would trade all of my personal accomplishments for more wins. That's the right mentality. And, and the are the right thing for gene Lewis to say, because he has been a standout. Player, not just this season, but year after year, Jake Winneke has struggled a little bit. When you look at the way people learned who Jake Winneke was, that was 2021 leading the league with, with nine touchdown receptions. You know, I think Montreal has the pieces. They've gotta figure it out. When, when you have a. I would never advise a team to change coaches. Mid season, especially offensive and defensive coordinator. It's a huge, huge adjustment for teams to do that. Tough on the players. Tough on the support staff and tough on the new guys coming in. You don't have that training camp to learn. You gotta learn. You've gotta learn in game and, and you know, the 1, 2, 3 practices a week. 12 Padded practices is all CFL teams. Get now with this new collective bargaining agreement. So it, it's not like you can instill and install. New systems easily. So, you know, I don't think they're gonna have to, they can't wait for Vernon Adams. They've gotta strike, you know, try winning now and you know, we'll, we'll see how that shakes out. It it's been tough there. No doubt. Speaking of Twitter for, or I, herb has a, quite a few going with Gary. Certainness well on there where Gary writes something and there, well, we're hoping the win tonight. He's like, well, hoping isn't enough, Gary, you guys need this. I mean, they have, they kind have a little banter going back and forth. Well, herb herb is a one of a kind, he is in the Canadian football league or sort Canadian football hall of fame, media wing for reason, an outstanding. Writer. Very interesting unique, man. I always enjoy when he is in Winnipeg. He, he has a unique talent to throw a Barb at the perfect time. With exceptional tone and delivery. So for a, for a newspaper guy to, to have what herbs or Kowski does. Many are envious of, I think I hit him up like last year. I said, do you want, would you like to ever come on the show? Like, I'm not really a podcast guy. I was like, yeah. I tried to get him on TSN radio for years. He just, he just wouldn't do it. Right. So, you know, that's herb, that's the way he is. We're before I let you go here, I, the you're heading down to the same here. Where, where do you make of horn gate last? Week. I really wanna hear what you, you know, they've been around this forever. Maybe you guys have talked about in the show. I missed it, but I watched that game cuz I was watching the pro football hall fame game. It was horrible. I turned it off watched. I said maybe, you know, Al Letz will get the upset here. And that was the most unwatchable thing. And, and I've, I mean, I watched most of the, that game. It was really bad. When I was a kid, I begged my parents to like, get me one of those gas powered air horns that like you keep in your boat in case you get stuck on the lake or something. Right. And I, I remember bringing that to a jets game and it like deafening everybody around me and I was, you know, 12 years old or whatever it was like, I didn't know the difference. The reality is now they don't allow the gas power, but you saw it on TSN. They kind of have like the hand pump once. Okay. Clearly people. Are abusing that, you know, leniency that they've, you know, allowed fans to do that in Montreal. I think if you just have naturally aspirated horns, like the Vuze or something you have to blow into, I think that's probably a smarter thing that to go. Hat tip to TSN for adjusting their microphone, array and levels at halftime. It was a little bit more, you know, watchable and listenable in the second half. But again, kind of a, a beauty, little niched goofy thing in the C that it was. Last week here in Winnipeg. You know, I know this is gonna be running after, after the game, but 30,000 plus at IG field, the cowbells here on the prairies are going to be going like nuts. I, I think that's a much more digestible sound than those airhorns that got a little bit of annoying. Yeah. I mean, that was like the story that week is. The Argos, well, you have are the Argos pumping in fan noise, right? Like they're pumping it in. And then when the pigs mad it Montreal and the Montreal's mad and everyone's mad Montreal. I mean, it was like of any storyline in the CFO this week really has been fan noise. It's exciting. Yeah. No, it's cool. When fan can kind of, you know, again, throw barbs it's fun. Right. What does fan mean? Look it up in the dictionary. Fanatical means out of your mind. So if people go out of their mind a little bit, they have fun that that's why. Frankly. I thought it was a great idea to bring Zach Schnitzer on. Bonfire sports this year, he is a diehard blue bombers fan and had a very popular podcast. I'm a reporter. I put my fan card in a safe deposit box 15 years ago. Right. So to have that balance and, and those two points of opinion and, you know, engage in the conversation with everybody, I think is important. Again, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fans. So I say, let 'em speak. Well, there, you have a busy night ahead of you. I'll let you go fight traffic. I plug anything, bonfire, sports, all that stuff before you go. I really appreciate your time. Yeah. youtube.com/bonfire sports bonfire, sports.ca. We're looking for to have a little bit of hockey coverage, this coming winter as well, but. We have a heck of a lot of fun. Tuesday nights live at seven 30 the day before bombers games live at 3:00 PM central time. And then we go post game. Every blue bomber's game and, and have a lot of fun. But thanks for having me on, I love talking with, with you and, and love talking with the guys. I, I really enjoyed meeting you and you know, your, your significant other at great cup this past year. I sure hope we see you in, in Regina again, this winter. We do. I, I have, we have, well, we have an air Airbnb. Booked. And then Darrell has promised me that I'll, he's like, well, I'll get you a hotel room, but I'm like, well, I wanna have an Airbnb, cuz I knew that that was the big right. There's not enough space for everybody there. So we're a set, regardless. Dorothy's excited. I will say I'm the hockey front having the crack in. I've never had more fun watching his sport and not having to worry about podcasting about right. Like. Like I have no idea. Like I'm still learning, you know, like the double four, a pass line, all these things from the past, like, I, I know nothing about hockey, but I've never had more fun watching the Stanley cup playoffs because the cracking and the we, that we have season tickets for that. But I, I, I love that. I've never watched the NHL and it's been really, fun's not, I have the analyze. It at all, just to be able to have fun. It's good. That that's kind of how I enjoy watching NFL football or the NBA. Right. I can kind of just kick back in the Lazyboy and, and enjoy it. Organically. Don't always wanna be thinking about what am I gonna write? so I'm just now getting up, moving around and stuff like that. Sounds good. All right, well, let's do it here. Well, as a former. XFL dragons, fan breathing, fire. I'm excited to have this guest on Dante bird. How are you doing today? Oh, I'm doing great. Just, just happy to be on your show. This is good. I've either you've made the rounds. I've seen you round, obviously, you know, anytime we can get former players, it, you know, wanna be future players. Again, I'm excited. How are you doing? What do you up to now? We're we're in the middle of August here. Yeah. So I've just been heavy grounding and just training and focusing on me. Every day I wake up, I wake up with a goal in mine and it just seems like I'm getting closer and closer to getting back on the field. I'm very excited about the XFL. And I think it would be a great opportunity for me and a lot of other guys that's needing the opportunity. Well, it's exciting. I mean, this really is, it's like peak alt football now, you know, USFL, XFL, we have fan control football. CFO seems to be in the good spot. Did you have any interest in doing the SFL or were you focused on coming back to the XFL? Yes. I, I definitely had interest in doing a us FFL. But, you know, like it didn't work out, they end up passing on me. So I'm very excited about the next opportunity, which is X FFL. I think XFL is meant to be for me. And I think that I would take great advantage of that. So you, yeah, you were part of the 20, 20 out here in Seattle. Thoughts on the experience overall? I mean, obviously truncated season cut short, which was, you know, horrific for all the players and staff and everyone involved. But what was it like your time there? I loved, I loved, I feel everything about it kind of felt like. NFL ish. You know, we played in NFL stadiums. The crowd was nice. I know in Seattle we were seeing somewhere between 25 to 30,000 fans. So it was, it was a pretty crazy experience. It was different compared to the a or. You know, other leagues that played in the spring with this type of fans and everything that was involved, it, it felt professional. Thoughts on and you, I was trying to get in trouble, coach Z. Was he, did you like coach Zorn? Was he a good guy? Yeah, coach Lauren was, he was pretty cool. He was a good guy. I think it was his first time being a, a play caller, but. He, he was a, he was a good coach. Yeah. As someone that, that sat there, we were, we were front row on the sidelines that will tell you this. Nice as the guy, as he might have been, it was challenging to watch him play call sometimes and not know what was going on. Yeah. Definitely catching passes from Brandon silver is what was that like? It was pretty good. Me and Brandon silvers had played together in Memphis with the AAF. So we kind of had a. Some familiarity with each other. So it, it was pretty good to end up on the same team with Brandon silvers. Again. Yeah, he's the thing that furthered around too USFL with father, maybe coming back to the XFL again, just you there, there's all these talented guys out there. It's always, all our fans are always tracking kind of where everyone's gonna end up. So it's always a curious to say. Yeah. So, you know, XFL gets shut down. Right. Just like everyone, you know, we, we were devastated to, you know, you hear Dan in the rock, everyone's gonna buy it. Right. What, what is your immediate thoughts on that? My immediate thoughts was I, I just knew that how great the XFL was going to be and how big of a league it was gonna be behind the rocks following. And then. Him being with her and stuff like that. I just knew like, Everything's gonna be exploded like times two from the XFL, the first time around. So the, you know, we're doing the showcases, right. You know, cuz it was all this secrecy for a long time. Now we're doing the showcase. We're announcing this is, you said you participated in the one back in June. What was it like kind of interacting with the new staff, kind of getting to meet everyone and trying to out or not trying that like showcasing, you know, your skills. Yes. It, it, it was very, I, I loved it being there compared to USFL. I didn't really. Know anyone like they was keeping everything a secret between the coaches and directors and stuff like that. It was kind of what the USFL was kind of like if someone reached out to you, they reached out to you, but you didn't know. Who it was or who was coaching, where. With the XFL. When I went to showcase on, I knew a lot of familiar faces and I knew a lot of personnel with the XFL. Feel such as like will Lewis, who was the GM in Memphis with me in the AAF. And then. I knew Dave Boer and stuff like that. Like he was, he, I knew him from back when we was at university of Louisville together and stuff like that. So it was a lot of familiar faces. And then the, the coaching staff with XFL is just. Pretty strong, like. There's no coach that you wouldn't wanna play for with the XFL. Well, that's the thing. I mean, and I, I think when the USFL came out, they announced a lot of their staff. I think people. Were very excited anyway, cuz I think USFL also has quality. You know, coaches there, maybe Kirby Wilson aside, right? that's good. But then, you know, Exel comes out. Yeah, we got Hines war. Bob stoops is back Anthony Beck kind of oozes that personality for, you know, state Louis. It just, it feels like, I think a lot of people did the XFL maybe has, has stepped up another level on that, which is good. Cuz now that'll encourage you as FFL ever everyone else. But talk about, you know, We see all the coaches, you know, Hines ward, former, you know, all these champions, everybody, all the staff involved with the XFL. What did you think? Just, I just loved it. Even, even like Wade Phillips, you know, I grew up. Watching him coach and stuff like that. Like that's a legendary coach right there, his itself. Also to Terrell Buckley. He coached me at university of Louisville. He was a defensive backs coach. When I was at Louisville as well. And then. Like rod was Woodson and stuff like that is, is pretty crazy. I get so true Buckley. So you guys have some pastor there, so that's gotta be helpful here heading into all this stuff. Yes. Yes, sir. It's good. I mean, all, all you guys, I just can't imagine like the grind of going through, like you, you know, the AAF and then, you know, XFL and then XFL again. I mean, when you guys see each other at these showcases or these open invites or, you know, behind doing all this social, what do you think when you see all these guys that have you been grinded with now? For three, four years. It's, it's kind of like a family reunion, you know? Like, it's just like everywhere you go, you gonna run into players that you done played with or played against. At the pro level, it's just everyone at the end of the day is chasing the same thing. And it's just like, It's it's all like good energy towards want another. When we see each other, we, we still, we still surprised and. Blessed that we're still chasing it and just staying out there. Where it's a lot of uncertainty with professional football. I mean, Like I was hearing that USFL was going to get me a certain, certain points of the season and that I was gonna get drafted to a us FFL. So it was kind of a lot of insert uncertainty with that. So I was just training, training, and training. With, you know, kind of no light in the tunnel. So. It's you gotta have, when you, when you doing this type of stuff, you gotta have a purpose and you gotta have a reason of why you're doing it. And you kind of gotta keep yourself motivated because it's kind of frustrating, but you just gotta stay positive and stay consistent. Well, it's hard. I mean, we've had your former teammate or nest Laka on the show bunch, you know, kicker. And he said the same thing. Like you always, you know, you always have to be in shape. You always have to be ready to go. You never win. You know, if, if it's the arena, the leagues with him, if it's, you know, C call God guys it's XML. I mean, I. Just, I, I don't think people understand that that how much you don't really have an off season if you're always trying to be ready for the next opportunity. Yes, I agree. I, I was tagged in something today. Chato Cinco talking about this time of, in the CFO and how he was surprised with the quality of talent, just because, right. You always think NFL and then kind of bust, but it speaks to the level of talent and all of these secondary leagues, right. At FFL as L talk about the importance of having. Leagues like the XFL, like the USFL around for guys, like you. I, I think it's amazing that. It's starting to come about to where you got. Two two spring leads. So it's giving guys a lot of opportunities outside of the NFL. I know with my. NFL stint with Atlanta Falcons. I felt like I had a really strong and great preseason, but. Numbers wise, it just, it just wasn't fitting. So. With these other spring leads, it gives. Players and opportunities to get more film and, and to stay, stay ready in case the NFL job does open up. And just at the end of the day, continue chasing your dream and doing what you love to do. Yeah, it's such a, a numbers thing at the end of the day. I mean, even with the CFO where you could just be, you know, just that extra guy and, and someone's got more politics or the, the numbers just don't work out and it's too late to get on another team. So now we, you know, we, we have the eight city, right? We have Seattle. You know, St. Louis, right? All the teams in Texas, everything else. But where are you eyeballing? I mean, obviously you'd be happy, you know, be in the league, be a part of it, but where would you like to play? Man, honestly, at this point with me, Basically sitting out the whole lash season. I'm I just want to go anywhere. I just I'd be happy to play anywhere. I just know whichever team gave me is going to be getting the best of me. I do think I'm, I'm coming into my prime. So. I think they gonna be getting me at a good, strong point of my career. So I'm ready to go. When you hear the rock, do the, you know, 54th man speech, right. And I'm sure you've seen that, you know, the SBS and everything I was like, does that resonate with you as someone that, that is trying to, to get your spot as a player? Oh, yes, definitely. I think, I think a lot of guys who, you know, had the NFL. Shot or was in the NFL training camp. They kind of relate to the, the 54th. Story that the rock gives. So. It its pretty, its pretty motivating, but it's also true. It's not, it's not just something like a gimmick that he's just saying to get fans of all, but it's, it's actually something that players can relate to, to kind of bid on the cus to making teams and. And just then making it just because the, the number's been low or too many at the position contracts, and it's a lot of stuff that goes into that type of stuff. So. The, the story is pretty motivating. It is, it is true. What do you work on when you're not staying in peak physical condition and being ready to play professional football? I, I watch a lot of film. I'm also a personal trainer here. Back home in Louisville. So I'm over, I'm around it. A lot personal training. Coaching. I was 7 0 17 that I coach. Just working out, you know, I work out twice a day. I train people. I got. Work that I do to, to make money and provide for my family is just it's it's a busy, it's a busy day. It's pretty repetitive. The only time I get breaks is on the weekends, which fly by, but. It it's all worth it at the end of the day. What else do our people that know before I'll let you go about your journey, your story, getting back to the league. Anything else? Well, I think I covered it. What whichever team gets me, they gonna be getting the best of me. I'm the hardest worker. I have a very IQ when it comes to football. Can do whatever the coach needs me to do. And I'm ready to go. Injury injury, free, healthy, have a clean injury pass. So. Haven't really had no injuries or anything like that to, to slow me down. So. Is they gonna be getting the best of me? Like I said, . Let me ask you this, you know, you go the showcase, you see the guys talk about the quality and the level of talent around you as well, just that people should be excited to see, you know, on the XFL field here in February. Yes. I think, I think people are thinking with all with the spring leads and being multiple spring leads that the talent levels is not gonna be there, that they're gonna run outta players, but that that's not really true. I know I was seeing, and I've all always turned since house school that only 2% of college athletes. Make it to the NFL. So there's the other 98% of good college athletes that's getting looked upon or. The numbers just don't work out. That's needing leads like this. And like I seen at the showcase. There's there's some good guys. That's maybe looked, been, looked over, played in the CFO. Arena Lees or whatever they have to do. To get notice, but those guys were at the showcase and it, it was some good competition and some good guys, the XFL is gonna be a pretty strong league. Strongly. Yeah, I was infuriated during the NFL hall of fame game last week. Right. Which is like not the best game in the world, you know, it's like the previous season, the college football Reddit was saying like, This, the pro football game is why I don't watch the XFL. Meaning like, cuz it's like Subpart talent or whatever. I go. You're the college football Reddit like 98% of all college. Like what do you think all these guys do that don't make it in. Like you have to have other opera opportunity guys. Exactly. Especially because not. Everyone walks out of college, ready to play. I mean, even look at the NFL, look at Zach Wilson, look at Mac Jones. I mean, you get these guys, even the, the big superstars of the world, take 2, 3, 4 years sometimes to kind of figure their stuff out. Yeah. Like, like with athletes like myself, everyone peaks at different times of their career. Some people peak during college. Some people peak a, a couple years after college. Like everyone's journey is different. So. To to discredit the spring leads is, is, is pretty bad. You should want, you should want. Players to have an opportunity to, to do what their love. That's I mean, even just Don watch, but like, you know, you're still giving you hundreds of guys and staff and, you know, the stadium workers and the trainers and the coaches and the players and you know, their families and it's like, they don't watch, but you're, you're giving thousands of people, you know, men and women jobs because of these leagues. So let's. Exactly worry about it or . I hope I didn't peak in my podcasting already. I hope I you're peaking now or, you know, you're you're peak firm, but I hope I, I will continue to grow. That will be scary if I, yeah. . Yeah, I think every everyone's trying to grow every day. So. Well, I so appreciate your time wanting to come on. I wish you best of luck, whatever team, obviously, you know, Just for my own knowledge. That's exciting. Well, good. Oh, thank you very much, man. It's been the whirlwind. Well, it, yeah, that you're, you need deep for a while here until, until you get through this season. yeah. All right, let's do this. I'm always too much of your time here. Well, I'm excited today. We have, I ahead of, I mean, obviously. One of the biggest games of the season. I think, you know, BC at Calgary, we have Dominic rhymes here of the American CFO team, the beast Alliance. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing very good, man. Thank you for having me, man. I'm super excited to be on your show, man. And. You know, I'm grateful to be here. Well, I was excited about this anyway. And then today you were. Announced as one of the CFL, you know, top leading performers of the week. So first, congratulations. How did it feel to find out all about that? I mean, it's good, you know, be a top performer of the week, but I mean, it feels even better, like getting a good big w. At for the game and. You know, it is just been, everything's been clicking right. And often been moving the ball and, you know, coaches calling the right place. So man, I just be in the right position. So now I'm gonna be honest. So August 6th is my wedding. Anniversary. So I spent, we waited in line for an hour for our wedding dinner, anniversary dinner, and I watched a good portion of your performance on my phone, on ESPN, against Edmonton. First of all, I have reactions to that, that I sacrificed a good portion of my anniversary night. Well, I, I appreciate you sacrificing, you know, a little bit of your time. But hopefully it was worth it, you know, give you something to celebrate. As well as you celebrate your anniversary. So, I mean, I'm grateful you was able to watch us and, you know, have a good time. What was it at crazy game? You know, you had three touchdowns. I receptions at crazy stats. What was, what did it feel like on, on Saturday night? It felt, it felt good. Just like, as a team in general, everybody had, was like energetic. Everybody felt good. Everybody was focused in, locked in. I mean, Nathan was super locked in, man. So, I mean, it was just a good energy. That that night and, you know, we executed well and you know, the results spoke for themselves. You know, obviously you had success, you know, leaving your time in Ottawa, coming to BC, and now it just feels like, you know, you're leading the team in touchdowns really. Standing. Why? What is it? Is it, is it you? Is it Nathan? Is it you guys together? Is it that, you know, the offensive linemen, what do you credit the, to success that you're seeing personally? My quarterback, my quarterback is doing a tremendous job. I mean, I think back when I was back in Ottawa and I had a, you know, tiny bit of success, you know, during that time I had three different quarterbacks. They was trying to figure it out. But, you know, I got Nathan who was a bonafide. Stud and I mean, he helps us out a lot. He puts the ball. In perfect places for us to make plays and, you know, just being also. Being put in another, you know, position to be able make plays. I think this year, they, you know, they moved my position around from last year. So they given me a lot more opportunity to make plays. And I think that's why you can see the, the biggest change in my game because I'm giving. Getting more opportunities to make plays down a field and jump balls and, you know, whatever they want to use me at. Well, I think it's exciting cuz you know, I think like, like Whitehead big spot, you know? Okay. We resign and Brian Burnham, all that here you are, you know, Keon Hatcher, right? He's been on the show, but here, you know, you're leading the team and all these stats and really excelling. Like it's just remarkable how much talent you guys all have, you know, on the offense right now. And it. Really does seem to be clicking well, is it 46 to 14 last week? Yeah, man. I mean, We're loaded at receiver. Like if you look across the board, man, we got. All star level receivers at. Every spot at receiving like. It don't matter which game we've played. We always had a receiver that stepped up and, you know, led, led. The group, and that's the, that's the best thing about our group. Like we're selfless. We don't care who gets to shine. We don't care who gets all the accolades. We just want to, you know, perform as a group and help our team, you know, be energetic. You know, that's why we do our dances, cuz you know, it helps energy. Energetic energize our team. And, you know, that's a big thing for us. Cause you know, at receiver we feel it's on us to make plays and keep the. Team into it and, you know, scope points. So. I mean, it's, it's, it's a credit to all the hard work everybody puts in on that offense. It's interesting that you say the same thing that you guys all. It's kinda all for one on that. Cause I think lucky has said similar things as well, this season, right? Like I'm okay at being in whatever position I need to be. So long as the team succeeds, it does feel like this is all for one mentality of this year. Yeah. Cause at the end of the day, you know, we went through our growing pains and, you know, we went through, you know, tough times last year, people got injured, you know, We was losing and, you know, it's, it's tough. So at the end of the day, you know, we got together as a group, we saying we're gonna do whatever it takes to win. So, you know, if it's your game to, you know, make all the touchdowns, get all of yards, help out, offense, move the ball. It's gonna be your game. We gonna ride behind you. Like we don't care who gets to, we just want win. And. Think that's the best thing about our group. Everybody wants to win, they want to compete. So I think that's been, you know, like a, be a big key for our offense. And especially at the receiv position, you know, we want to make plays for Nathan and, you know, just help our team win every game. Is it odd how much attention you guys are getting this season? I joked before we got on, you know, in the off season, like if I wanted to talk to anyone from the lions, you know, we're getting it all set up. Now you guys, you know, it's like on TSN, we're doing all these, you know, it's a lot of media, you know it attention around you guys. Does that feel weird? Do you feel like it's deserved? What, what are your thoughts about it? I mean, I think it's a great thing for. The team and the city of Vancouver, cuz it gives a buzz, you know, to a bigger city in Canada. You know, it gives attention to, you know, the wonderful things, you know, the owners. Doing for the city, you know, where the coaches. Are coaching and like where the players are doing. We putting in the light to work for. Each and every game and, you know, executing them, putting on a good show and, you know, get some wins for the fans. So, I mean, You know, it comes along, stuff like that comes along. You know, you're doing the right things, you know, on and off the field. So, I mean, it's a, it is a good feeling to have that around the city now. Does you said, you know, Nathan playing lights out, you know, especially last week, but for the most part this season, you know, we had him on in February. I said, I'm hitching my ride to you. I wanna ride this young quarterback. You know, I don't want the Oli Levi of the world. I want someone that we can grow with. I, does it surprise you with all how well. He's acclimated this year and just how much success he's found. Oh, no, I mean, If you, if you seen him last year when he was behind Mike Riley and like his work ethic and how hard he was working, like you like, man, this kid's special. And then, you know, once they named tend to start in the offseason, I mean, I think all the receivers was excited cause we know the ceiling for this kid. Like. He barely scratched the service and we know how good he can be. And, you know, just to see what he is been doing this year's like, it's not a surprise cuz he, first of all, he puts in all the work and then, you know, he wants to be better. And that's the biggest key, you know, as a young player, just want to be better. Each and every weekend, I think he's been showing that and he's gonna continue to show that. So, I mean, I'm, I'm happy for Nathan, but you know, this is only the beginning. He has a lot more to him and, you know, I'm, I'm excited to see him grow. Now, you know, it's all right. And well, the slap around the Elks a little bit, right? I mean, that is kind of comes with the territory now, but big test this weekend, didn't we didn't do as great against Winnipeg. Luckily I had to work that day. I think my head would've been through a walls somewhere kind of watching that game, but, you know, Obviously you guys have had this game circled on the calendar, right. You know, big Western matchup coming that be a thoughts headed into the weekend. We, we treat it as. Another game, you know, like our offensive coordinator, Jordan says, you know, nameless face, nameless opponent, we're just gonna execute and do what we do. You know, wanna pay a game. I felt we started slow. So we know, you know, coming to this game, you know, we wanna start fast this, they have a great team over us, so we know the things we need to do. Execute. And we know when we had our best, you know, it's really nobody in the lead that can stop us. Like. Hands down. Nobody can stop us when we come to play and we, you know, executing at a high level, you know, great things happen for our team. It is, it's a big test. I mean, I've heard a lot of, you know, it doesn't matter and you, we, you can be OWI or you can be it's it's these big dogs we really gotta show up against. So you feel confident, you feel like the coaches have gotten, you guys fired up enough. Oh, man. I'm mean the coach Aret have to fire up the, the play, the locker room. We, we definitely know, like, you know, what we, what we're trying to do on Saturday, what we're trying to accomplish, you know, this one small step and, you know, for the long journey of the season and, you know, we want, you know, finish this week, want to know and, you know, whatever we have to do to, you know, get game plan while execution wise wanna begin the field. We have. To do it at a high level. So, you know, we gonna make sure we focus in extra. This, we go. Though, what do you do? You know, obviously focus on the games is that we were talking before we start record you, you got engaged recently, you know, congratulations of that. What do you do to kind of fill out your time? Always, you know, obviously fans that listen to the show, love you guys and the access and every everything you, what, what does that do do when you, when you is not catching, you know, Le team leading touchdowns. Oh man. I'm if I'm not, you know, in practice or at a game. I'm hanging out with my teammates. I mean, I think that's the biggest thing different this year. You know, a lot of guys, you know, we hang out on a regular basis, like. Say, we'll go get something to eat or. You know, we'll go to like a little arcade and play some games, go to the pool and just hang out. Like, you know, it's a big family here. So most times when we're not, you know, in football, we're hanging out with each other, just, you know, creating that bond like a family. And I think it's, it's, it's been paying all tremendously because, you know, once we got on. Field, you know, you're playing for your brother out there. You're not trying to lift your brother down. So. That's probably what I'd be doing for the most part or. I don't know, whatever, what, whatever activities is going on in Vancouver. Oh, we have Mo drawn a couple weeks ago. And I think when Keon was on before was talking to about how this training camp felt different, really felt like you guys gelled, you know, coming out of the gate. Thoughts on that. Do you feel the same way and, and why? Cuz I've asked multiple people of why it feels that way and, and everyone's kind of had different answers to it. The continuity we was, this same group was here last year, besides, you know, the change at quarterback. It's the exact same group. And you know, when you were the same group, you know, everybody's strength, weaknesses, you know, What this person likes to do, you know, he doesn't like to do, you know, what, what that person needs to work on. And I think once we came to training training camp, we held everybody accountable to a certain standard. And, you know, we do that. We. We try to live up to that standard each and every practice and each and every game. So I think that's the biggest difference just being around each other for, you know, last year. And now again, this year, we're just familiar with each other. Well, I love it. You know, cuz so much is made the CFO, you know, jumping. Roster's ride. And, and obviously we want players to get the most money and kind of get where they need to go, but good to see that, you know, a team that that's sticking together through it, you know, and obviously we retained a lot of key items in BC, but you really feel like that has a lot of fruitfulness right in now and terms of the action we're seeing on the field. Oh yeah. I mean, You, you look at a team like Winnipeg, they, they, they don't really have too much turnover and. You know, when you don't have too much turnover and you know, guys play together, like, you know, you get, you get a winning formula. But, you know, you know, people do try to get their payday, you know, just to, you know, you have to feed your family at the end of the day, but you know, for the most part, when you, you keep the same guys around, you know, good things happen. And I think that's been the biggest key for us, you know, having the same guys around and everybody. You know, not wanna repeat what happened last year. Everybody just wants to win this year and everybody has a certain standard and goal they want to achieve this year. Well, that's good that, you know, and I think here, we just need to turn BC into that place where, you know, guys, wanna go and get paid and win and, you know, I think win to pegs, have their time in the sun now. I'm ready to talk about some other storylines in the season. So I certainly appreciate, you know, the lions giving us something else to talk about this year than win the pig. Winning again. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, what place wouldn't you want to be in Vancouver? Whereas one of the most beautiful cities you've ever seen, you can see the mountains when you just driving. Across the city. I mean, and then you get a winning culture. I mean, it's, it's a recipe for success that people want to come to. You know, a great city, you know, a great. Time, like night lifetime, like to get some drinks with your friends and family and, you know, get some great food in the area. I mean, Why wouldn't you want to come to Vancouver? A couple last questions. I'll let you go. I just thought to the top of my head. Yeah. I saw Mr. Doman giving you guys the post game, you know, locker room, rah he's. He was on our show before the season. Talk about that. Having the owner come in, I, you know, a couple of the, our listeners commented, like, you know, you don't see that in Toronto, you know, you don't see that in some of these other places, having the owner come in to dress you guys after, you know, a huge win, what was that like? Oh man. It was, it was exciting. It was, it was a good feeling, man. Cause especially when you got your owner. You know, doing everything he can, you know, to bring the fans in the stands and, you know, trying to improve everything around like the team and around the city. I mean, it just motivates you more to, you know, to, to put a good product out and, you know, to create a winning culture. Cuz you know, at end of the day we wanna create a winning culture and BC again and you know, doing. The things we we're doing right now is, you know, headed towards the right direction and to have him, you know, backing us all way. And like for him to be super involved, I mean, the players we love in the locker room, like, you know, that's what you want in own. He he's, he's, he's investing into the product and, you know, the results are speaking for theself. Well, I love it. I mean, I thought it was really cool and I mean, he just seemed like really fired up and he's, you know, he's hitting his hands and his family's there. He's got his skins there. I just, I, I really like that. I just, obviously, you know, he's been the huge storyline for you guys as well. New ownership coming in, you know, through last season into this season and the work he's. Doing. I just thought that was cool. And it felt like he's really, I, I all in, on, on kind of the success you guys are having. Oh, yeah, he's definitely into it. And he's, he's dressed pretty good while he is doing it. So Hey, that, that makes it even better. But yeah, man, can't say. Enough good words about him, man. He's he's been tremendous and you know, he's a big part of the turnaround as well, man. Last question for me. It's okay. If you don't have an answer, but just speaking of well dressed, I saw a lot was made at Farhan L friend of the show on the sidelines in like, Slides during the game, like he had, I think he had like forgotten his shoes or something. Do you have any fashion? Statements about what Farhan was rocking on the sidelines at the game. Oh, I mean, I'm not a big fashion guy. I'm a guy that's, you know, I just like to be comfortable and I seen it. I, I was like, Does he have on slabs, but Hey, if that makes him comfortable. Hey. I, I, I advised him to keep doing it, man. He's doing a great job. That was all I saw, like all I saw on Twitter that whole night was far Han's footwear. I thought, you know, I mean, at far Han's so funny cuz he was like, it's not about me. It's all about the players and the game. And then I'm gonna show up and in flip flops in the suit and, and try the rocket. So I be bet he fell his best that game too in them flip Flo . Oh, well that thank you so much for your time today. I kept you over. I appreciated it and you know, good luck this weekend. Mm-hmm . Talking BC coming up, just pretty easy stuff. How does that sound? It's going pretty good. I, I like that. I like to sound of that. Yeah. All right. So let me hit record here. You're sitting at the stadium. That's nice. Yeah, mate, the stadium man. Well, I'm excited that we had Deidrich mills here sitting at McMan stadium here. Beautiful day in Calgary. How's it going? It's going pretty good. My guy, just to enjoy this nice weather out here. I good little max social, you know, your, you guys is social PR guys set this up after your big game last week. Talk about monster game filling in for Kadim care. And then how how'd the game go for you? It went pretty good. You know, I just was ready when my name got called. I wasn't playing at first cause I was on six game. So I was out for like the first, first half of the season, part of it with a. You know, a, a wrist brain, not a spring, but a fracture, slight fracture, something that wouldn't hold me out as long. I mean, But when I, my number got called and I was ready to go, I on worked up, worked so hard for those, the weeks that I've been off. And then when my number got called, I was ready to go. So, and I just went out in the game and showed that I was ready. What has it been like? Yeah, obviously you were on the, you know, the six game IR, you know, pull you back on, but what's your time been like so far in the CFL? My time so far in the C L has been. Yeah, I've enjoyed it. The game is different from this, from the states. But I, I, I, I don't agree to. To learn it and to, to know it. And I actually love, love it now. I mean, so. My time here, the CFO has been been good. Was there a learning curve coming in. Not, not as much, it was pretty much, it was, it wasn't so much of a learning curve. It was so much as like the motioning, so much motion going on. Like with the, as far as everybody on the offense, moving around, like all skill players, like receivers and running backs, moving around and it was kind of something, it was. Kind something new for me. And, you know, you know, in the states how I line running backs don't really move in information. We usually, or nobody really move into the ball snapped. So, but just seeing people move before the ball snap was is, was a big surprise and kind of threw me off at first. But I grew the. Get a hang of it and now I'm, I, I, I enjoy it for sure. Now I see it. It's actually helped the game out a lot more. So. Coming in, right. Obviously, and then having, you know, the, the slight entry coming back, what was it like, you know, You're brought into Calgary signed, go through preseason, you know, first game kind of you're out. What was it like frustrating or what kind of emotions were you feeling? At first, you know, for sure. Frustrating. Especially when I, I got, you know, I got, I kept getting good news about, yeah, you, you, you, my timeline of recovery of my injury was like faster than the day is baked. And so, you know, me, I was ready to get back right then. And. There. And then me, I didn't even think nothing of it. I could have just take my, take my wrists up and kept playing with it, fractured it all. So, but. But I know, you know, it just, it just wasn't. It was, it was some, it was something hard I was dealing with. But at the same time, when my, like I said, with my know I was, I was just being patient and, and I wasn't like, I wasn't like. You know, complaining about other players playing and stuff in front of me, but it's just, I was, I was also being that teammate for my, my, my team. Supporting them actually supporting other running backs and letting them know what they do, what they, I see that they doing wrong and what I see, see holes that they should hit next time or some it's just that we, you know, we, we, we help each other with, with each, with each, with our game. Calgary firing on a lot of cylinders right now. I mean, how are you guys feeling about the season? I think we feeling, we feeling pretty good. We got a lot more to go. But, and, and, and we, we gonna work on that and you'll see, see, see more throughout the rest of the season. Talk about, you know, I've had lots of Calgary guys on, you know, the coaching, the staff there, just kind of the environment you guys are in being, you know, with that locker room with, you know, everybody top to bottom, if that organization, what's it been like to be a part of that team? I mean, it's been lovely. It's it is a different team that I haven't been part of. I I've enjoyed every, every, every single part of this team, as far as staff coaches. Players. Everybody's like every, it's like a brotherhood here. You know what I mean? If it's abundant hood everybody bond. No matter. We do a lot of team events. Like as far as like outside of football, we hang with each other outside of football, the bond we do cookouts, you know, stuff like that. Just little, you know, we all go out to one spot together and enjoy, enjoy each other for the night. No's just stuff like that. It's just, since I've been here, everything has. Been like a, you know, it's been a great feeling for me, deep down inside. Cause. I don't know, and I never taught I all I've been on. I've been part of some great teams, you know, but this team here is just different. And is. They they've showed me so much more, you know, about life and. Just about, you know, how to have fun with the game and, you know, just. Just enjoy each other, you know, stuff like that. Do you like the Calgary and the community outside the football up there? Oh, I love the Calgary community outside of football. It's very, it's a very chill place. It's not as busy as the states are, you know, states got a lot, lot more going on, but here it's like more chill. Quiet. Not not, ain't gonna say as quiet, but it's, it's a lot more quiet than it is in the states. And it's a lot more chill. You got a lot of people. A lot of people are here. Very friendly. They're very nice. You know, you don't get that too much. In the days and stuff like that, but here it is like, I, I enjoy these people. I enjoy everybody, you know, walking past people and they speaking and stuff like that. So I, I love it. So, you know, I always try to be the impartial interviewer here, but we have a big game coming up against BC. BC is my team. I've called them America CFL team. So, you know, I, my hope is they do some ungodly damage to you guys this week weekend. But, but for, since you're on the podcast podcast, How are you looking forward to the game? That's kind of why I wanted to get a Calgary guy on the soup. What do you looking forward to in the matchup this weekend? Man. I'm just looking forward to going out, playing, playing this game, having fun with my teammates and enjoy it. And, you know, hopefully come out, we come out with a victory, but it, of course, you know, me I'm always do to always do. You know, when I get on the field, everything and everything, that's going on with me, all, all blackout. And whatever's going on in that field. Just what going on in that field is me in that field at that moment. So you just walked outta your medians, right? To, to come on this. What did the coaches say? And what's the staff saying ahead because I mean, this is a big Western matchup this weekend. That's a big game. Yeah, for sure. We just gotta do all thing play. Yeah. Do all, everybody do their job. Do their parts. The results will take care of yourself. You guys feel bullish? Are you, do you feel bullish? No, no, not, not really. No. I mean, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just ready to play. I, I treat every game. Like it's like, it's the same. I don't look at nobody as bigger or smaller. So. Everybody to me, they, anybody can get beat any day. So, you know, I look at every game. It's the same. As someone that's newer to the CFO, right? Join the Calgary team. What, what do you want people to know about you outside of the football field? That I'm a hardworking guy. I'm somebody you can always count on. Very dependable. I just, I always smile. Never really see me frown and like, I talk a lot of trash, but. Not in a bad way. It's it is. I'm always, I'm always, I'm always good with it. I'm always been now. I'm always. Been playful and joyful for real, a lot. Well, you can talk trash as long as you back it up. I think that's always right. Oh, I always back it up for sure. I'm gonna back it up for sure. Well, I, these are, I appreciate you coming on today, like I said.

Episode 104 - XFL v. USFL: Show Me the Money!!!

Okay. Well, I am not purposely, but I am drinking the Zillow right now. As we talk. I have Greg parks on one of my dear friends in idols. I tweeted out today. I'm excited for that with you set the bar very high. You set the bar very high. No that's but that's good. VE. Board.com great parks here. You know, one of my favorite people,zoomver.tag honestly, to talk to about, you know, wrestling is like, you know, I'm sure you have a million people asking your opinions on that and then EXL up here as we go. How are you doing today? I'm doing great read. It looks like you're doing great as well. We're yeah, we're trying to stay cool. I was gonna put the shirt, another shirt on, and then you, you hopped on and we're, we're riding now. It's, it's warm here. It's warm for Seattle, but we're outside. We're living life. It's not as hot as it was. It was 110 and Arizona. And then it was one of three in Dallas when I was there. So that definitely that. Than that it looks beautiful. So. We, I, I think it was a year ago. Right. Like last week that we had you on the first time I had my Facebook memories pop up and I said, you know, nothing's happened with the XFL. We need to get Greg parks on cuz we've been pushing and pushing. Now a lot of stuff has happened with the XFL. Obviously we had Mike on last week had to big talk with that. I said I needed to get Greg's thoughts on that. Plus I wanna talk, you know, obviously your thoughts on the hub and the cities now that we have all that, for sure. And then also the, the player pay and structure kind of versus the USFL, cuz. That all came out last week. I think it was lost in the law that the Arlington news, like what the XFL is gonna do. So we'll cover all of that today. First up, Greg, how do you feel now? Like everything's out the elephant is, you know, the, the air is been led out the balloon. Like we know what's going on now. Well, it feels better, you know, you had that, it, it was sort of a cloud. Lingering over everything because. There was a real palpable sense among a lot of fans of, okay, what went wrong? Why aren't we getting these cities? You know, the, the, that sense of dread that as an XFL fan, you have built into you just because of the way that the league has gone. The previous two incarnations. And, and so that's, that's out. You know, you still have the situation with Las Vegas and the stadium. That that needs to be worked out. And perhaps that's the reason. The league waited as long as they realistically could to announce the cities, they wanted to try to get that stadium deal worked out. Ultimately, they couldn't, they had to announce something. I mean, they were really getting down to the time where, where they had to get this stuff out there. If only to start the season ticket deposits, which is going to be very important. So, you know that that's still a situation that's gotta be cleared up. We don't really know. What the hold up is on that, but we can just assume. Based on the stadium situation in Las Vegas, that there is some snag in the negotiations with Allegiant stadium, which is where the Las Vegas Raiders at the NFL play. And is really, you know, by most accounts, the only realistic option in Las Vegas for. The Las Vegas XFL team to play. So it, you know, that that does give Allegiant stadium a lot of leverage when you've already announced Las Vegas, but I just think. The XFL had pushed these announcements out so far that. That was, that was their limit. They had to announce the city's and they had to get them out there, even if they didn't have the stadium. Situation in Las Vegas squared away yet. Yeah, the timing made sense. You know, the showcases we wrapped up, I was hoping just from like a selfish standpoint, we'd get a little bit in between the showcases, but it made sense. We did all six. We did those in. More neutral locations, not to give away any of the stuff. I don't. The, the Vegas thing I talked with Mike about it last week, too. Like I wouldn't live and die with being in Vegas. To really have to be all beholden on them now and what they decide in terms of what the agreements are gonna be like. I think San Diego, I think a lot of other, you know, people talking to Ohio. So I just think there were other options that, I mean, do you feel like Vegas, is that strong of a mark? And I mean, obviously WW ego's there now, the Allegion. They have the big loop there, but is that, that worthwhile of a market? It, it doesn't seem to me. To be that way. And so I'm not sure what went into the decision making process that led them to. Las Vegas as a city. You know, with the XLS deal with Arlington. They do have a smidgen of leverage in that they could say. Okay. If we don't get the deal we're looking for from Allegiant stadium. Will just play this year's Las Vegas home games. In Cho tell stadium because they've already, I know, I know they've already got things set up there. But, I mean, that is kind of a fallback. Last resort type of option. I think. Because they, they have that deal with Arlington where the, you know, Arlington is the hub, the home base. Of XFL operations, home base of training camps and, and things like that. So they do have that in their back pocket. If they wanna use that again, that's probably an absolute last resort. Especially with all the other cities playing in their home stadiums. I really gonna have an egg on my face. Cuz I tweeted yesterday after brunch, we had some mimosa there's the new tiger woods meme with John Daley where it's yeah, I saw, I saw that tweet of yours. Yes. Yeah. And I said, you know, XFL, you know, we're playing innate city and the us FFL or two to four, you know, hubs, I'm really gonna be egg on my face. If the XL has to move one of the cities back to the hub, that would be, it's like the reverse SFL. Yeah. And again, you know, we, we don't really know the details of the negotiations with presumably Allegiant stadium in Las Vegas. We don't know if it's something that. Really is substantial and that would really. Lead the XFL to trying to find an alternate location for the team, at least for this year, or if it's just kind of. Eyes, haven't been dotted. Ts haven't been crossed yet, and they, they didn't want to officially announce anything until all that was wrapped up. So assuming, you know, and I we've had debates on the podcast for the last two weeks about, you know, is it Allegion or Sam boy, or they can't play at Sam boy cuz they haven't the agreement with Allegion. So. Assuming Vegas gets worked out, cuz I would hate for them to come out tomorrow and say like, Hey, we're playing in Allegion or whatever. You know, we know the eight cities, right? Seattle Vegas, the three in Texas St. Louis DC. Orlando, now that it's all out in the blue, do you think that that is a good swath covering of this, of the United States? Even with the Texas triangle located, you know, in, in there. I, I, I don't know what the. Purpose of the cities was, I don't know if it was, and I think Danny Garcia had made mention in one of her. Statements that they, the league really took their time in looking into what cities. Were sort of deserving, I guess, of an XFL franchise. I think the biggest. You know, you don't have LA in New York, which is a, it's a problem. I don't know how big of a problem it's gonna be. I think sometimes that gets a little blown outta proportion. But I think that is something to. Have a conversation about if we're talking about the locations of these cities, but you also have the Northeast that's not really covered at all. I mean, you have DC, that's close. You know, so. It's it's not, I, I don't think it's great. I think the, the three cities in Texas. Kind of have prevented the XFL from. Getting a bigger footprint across the, the entirety of the lower 48. Anyway. But that's, you know, if they have their eye expansion, which we've heard. Ownership talk about at different points. Since they've taken over, they, they seem to really wanna be aggressive in terms of expansion. If. The, the financial realities of the league allow in the next two or three years. So it wouldn't surprise me if in, in three years, The league looks very different in terms of their, their footprint across the United States. I always laugh where it's like, you know, we, we really spent a lot of time looking at these cities, except we don't have the venue locked up in Vegas, like, but we've really spent a lot of time. Like, it's always just, it was the same thing when the Danny was on that sport, the interview. And she said, we have all these great ideas. Like we just cannot. Wait to share 'em and then they come up with the logo and it was, you know, kind of hoop. Like I, you know, it's the same here. Like we have really meticulously researched whatever the venues we wanna be in yet. We don't have a stadium agreement to play. And when now we're, it's all of over like 20, 20, again, we're even announced we're, we've announced this cities, right. I, if I'm remembering. That correctly. Right? Like he announced. And then it was like, oh, now they gotta deal with MetLife and stuff because he agreements weren't, weren't all in place. Right. That was, I think that came out in the lawsuit with Vince McMann that. Oliver luck had. And I don't know if it was, I don't know if he had actually announced just the cities or the venues too, without. Having the deal in place. I think he had actually announced the venues. Without the deal in place, which, which is what gave the venues, the leverage. We, we haven't reached that point yet. I mean, the thing you could say is at least the XFL ownership has learned something from Oliver luck's missteps in 2020 that they didn't actually announce the lesion stadium before they had any kind of deal. Yeah. That is wild. We're playing, we're buying them out live, then they're like, wow. Okay. Now you are gonna pay a lot more of the play here than do that a week ago. So, you know, obviously S F L hasn't been as high on your radar. I mean, to injectivity with EXL and all that stuff, but. You know, everyone's aware of the issues, challenges, if you will, that us L had this season, you know, attendance, fans, local engagement, all that, you know, I asked Danny and, and Russ and all that about it in Dallas. Knowing that they're going the same, you know, initial route having the team's base in Arlington, but playing in the cities are, do you feel like their game plan that they're going to. Maybe benefit, not have the same worries that the us F L had or, or what do you think about them trying to do the hub, but like it's the modified hub we've learned from mistakes. I, I. Think the modified hub is a nice sort of middle ground. Between what the USFL is doing and what XFL 2020 did. And if it saves the XFL a significant amount of money. Okay. Now that all is dependent upon that local engagement that you, you asked Danny Garcia about. And I think the XFL. Realized that that is something that people were going to question. Because in the press release. That was put out by the XFL that. Named Arlington the home city and gave all the details. There was a line in there, I think from Danny Garcia about. The X FFLs plan to keep those local cities in the loop and to keep them engaged. So it was almost like they were coming out ahead. Of what they knew was going to come, which was criticism either from people like us or the local cities themselves. About, you know, how are you going to get these, these fans engaged when the players are not living in the cities? When the coaches are not in the cities, when not practicing in the cities? So it seems like, and, and based on her comments to you, they do have some plans now, obviously nothing. Concrete, nothing specific about those plans, but I think they, they do realize, and that was, that was a good sign for me. And that gave me a little bit of a sigh of relief to see that in the press release and hear her talk to you about it is. They recognize that importance because I think XFL 2020 did just absolutely fantastic job of the team presidents getting out in those communities. You know, you had some teams that would set up booths at local high school football games and anything to get that brand out there and, and be recognized by. People who would be most apt to attend these games? And the, the burden now is on XFL 2023 to. Do the same thing or, or to do something in those communities to be recognized as a. As a franchise that, you know, people will wanna go out and support. I do in Seattle here, we do the Seattle wedding show where obviously we're like the videography sponsor for weddings, but. That same. It was. So would've been November of 2019. We did the Northwest event show, which is a way more corporate. And they have like tour vans and, you know, event plans, all this stuff. They have like a Seattle dragons booth in the event show. I mean, it was like they were everywhere. I mean, it really was. And, and that, that wast cheap. I'm trying to think. I'm, I mean, it was probably four or 5,000 bucks to get a booth. There to run that, to be able to hand that some like, wow, I mean, this is, these are investments that were made. It's weird to me that. We're, you know, we're, we're keeping the players in the hubs. We're saving money. I understand that. I understand the concept. But then like RAs and Danny, and they've said like, well, we're gonna have staff in the markets. Right. We're gonna have people that work. So I'm like, so, so we're like, some people are living. We're not having the players live. It it's. I mean, I guess you're still any money saved as money saved, but it just seems weird that like, we're still gonna have people there working, but not necessarily the players. Yeah, that's certainly a good thing to have boots on the ground, I think is the phrase that was used in the, the press conference in those cities. I think you, you absolutely have to have that. To have any kind of relationship and to have any kind of serious marketing and advertising in those cities, you have to have somebody or a group of people there representing that team, a staff in place. You know, there's been lots of discussion online about where the money saving is going to come from when you have to fly out all the teams. On the weekends instead of just housing them there is did, did they get a sweetheart deal in the hotels and housing? The players. As opposed to, you know, having to find housing for the players in these individual cities. Is it insurance based reasons, you know, worker's comp based reasons to have them. All in Texas. So there there's just so many. Potential avenues for the XFL to save money. By being based in Texas and basing the players in Texas, that we may not even be considering, you know, if it was not a money saving deal, I'm not sure why the XFL would do it. So, you know, it has to be, even though maybe Danny Garcia and, and Russ brand would not have admit it, that. Has to be the reason they're saving money somehow doing it there. Yeah. I would love, you know, if anyone ever wants to come on and explain where these cost savings are coming from, I would certainly love that. Do you from a competitive and I've, I've gotten a lot of this on the call-ins and seen this on Twitter. Like. They the competitive disadvantage. Obviously we had Birmingham and they had the home field and the, the fans and all that stuff was made a lot of with the USFL. But, you know, if you're the non Arlington teams you're traveling or flying. Every, I mean nine outta 10 there. I mean, once this schedule comes out, we can count that, but you're traveling to significantly a lot more. It feels like. Then then maybe the Arlington based team. I mean, they're moving around, but every other team is they're traveling every weekend. Do you worry about the competitive advantage there? Sure. And I think that's the second of the two real concerns I had about doing this kind of hub, the first being, you know, just not being in those cities and. And perhaps losing out on some marketing opportunities, but also the competitive disadvantage that teams like Seattle. And DC will face. And, you know, I think the XFL tried to make it as. Equal as possible. I mean, they're in Texas, they're in the central time zone. So, you know, if you're flying to Seattle, it's only, I think an hour or two. One direction in, in DC, it's an hour on the other direction. So it's not like they're based on the east coast and forcing teams to fly out to the west coast and a significant time change. So it does seem like they're trying to be centralized in terms of where that teams are as well. But absolutely. I mean, I don't know how you can. Argue against the potential for a competitive disadvantage. Especially for the Arlington team, you know, to a lesser extent, the other Texas team San Antonio in Houston. But certainly, you know, Seattle DC or Orlando. St. Louis are gonna be the ones that, that are gonna have to travel a lot more often. And so that could be problematic. You know, I, I think that. You won't see coaches use that as an excuse, because that was something that I'm sure was discussed as they were brought on board and they were okay with it. So. That it's not like something that was sprung upon them the last minute, same with the players, you know, they're all gonna know what they're getting into when they sign on with the league. So, yeah, I, I think. I, I hope it's not as big of a deal as we sort of. Think it might be, but it is something to consider. I would just love to know, like what came first here, chicken or the egg, like was the XFL, were they doing the Arlington hub? And did they turn on that first week of USFL games? And they were like, Oh, my God. Like we can't, like, I just, I wanna know cuz my group reported and then, and then it came back and then it was this modified and we still. That's kind of what we've all lived with right. For the last few months is a kid. Somehow they're doing this modified, but I would just love to know like, The steps in which that was like, did they turn on that second game and were like, this is we can, yeah. You know, I don't know how you could have been surprised by that though. That was something that I was, I was waving that flag. Very early on when the USFL announced, you know, we're doing this single city hub. And I said, that's gonna look terrible on TV. Like, and, and when you're a, an organization like the USFL that is trying to get their foothold in, in the audience and trying to. Be legitimate in the eyes of fans who are already casting a doubting eye on, you know, secondary football league, spring football leagues, whatever you wanna call it, you know, for them to tune in. And their first impression of the USFL is playing in a, in a stage and front of a couple hundred people maybe. That's not a, a good signal. And you saw the reaction from Twitter. I know you saw the reaction from people who didn't know about the USFL playing in a hub and, and saying, you know, what kind of. Mickey mouse organization is this. And so, you know, that's, that's something that I saw coming and I, and I can't believe that. The people in charge of the XFL. Would've been surprised by. How bad that came across on TV to people. I think a lot of people were really surprised. I mean, I think like I know you're saying like, I, I mean, I remember having conversations. I think we had Roys Johnson. He was one of the guys with the al.com that was there and kind of covering all the city stuff. And he goes, well, you know, whoop probably get like 20, 22 for the Birmingham. And then maybe like 10, 12, 15 for the non Birmingham game. Yeah. I'm like, I, I don't know. I'm like, okay. Like, I, I trust all that and not to, to. Belabor the point, but I don't know. I think something had to switch there because it seemed to me like even being the Darrell, moose Johnson was saying like, well, it was even worse than we thought it was gonna be. I mean, I don't think that anyone expected 50 people at at yeah. And, and that's the another advantage at the Exels going to have, and I don't. Know what the S F L's hub situation is going to look like. I know there's a couple balls up in the air. It seems like on that they. They could potentially move to a two or four city hub just as. Easily as they could stay in the, the one city hub next year. So. You know, again, the advantage. And I think I've talked about this on, on here before is the XFL is going to be playing in front of 20, 30,000 fans. In those home cities before the XF, before the USFL plays a second season. And so. The onus is now on the USFL to kind of respond and say, okay, We don't want it. It was a bad look last year. It's gonna look even worse now with the XFL, which is our main competition. Going out and having. Their games in front of sizable crowds that we would expect sitting here. So. I that may push the USFL into doing something different. I don't know. I really go back and forth. I, I, I think both leagues have tremendous there's pros and cons in USFL going first. And, you know, I always thought, okay, XFL is gonna lay in the way, learn all these mistakes. I still think that I think USFL, we have been Phish Fisher on a couple weeks ago talking like, Hey, when the comes to season. Two, they can talk to advertisers and go, these are the games that we're doing. These are the ad rates we have. This is everything like, you know, it it's easier to pitch. It was like when I was trying to get into weddings and you're like, I gotta go film something. And even if it's a really bad wedding, you know, really cheap wedding, like at least now I have something I can sell and. Use that to kind of get in more people where the XFL it, you know, I, I, I go back and forth. I was incredibly bullish leaving the, the Arlington announcement last Monday, having talked with everyone there. I, where do you fit right now in, in between both leagues and your thoughts? There's certainly some advantages to waiting a year and certainly a lot of disadvantages. And I think you brought up one of the, the important advantages that the SFL has is. They could say, Hey, this is what we drew. This is what you can expect and, and charge. Ad rates based on that the XFL could cite XFL 2020. Numbers, but you know, that's three years ago, by the time they kick off and a lot changes. In television in three years. And so, you know, I don't know if you can still point to that, even though a lot of the cities are the same, even though the game by the sounds of it is gonna look very similar to what it looked like in 2020, I'm not sure how relevant those ratings back then were. You know, certainly the ESPN machine being behind the XFL will be important, but the other. Thing that I think was advantageous to the XFL and just seeing how. The S F L did things. And I know we're gonna talk about this a little later, is the contract set up? Right? So. The XFL could kind of see what kind of contracts the USF level's offering, what the pay was. And they could kind of set their rate based on that. Now it's a little different because. X FFL season one is, is basing theirs on S FFL season one. When S F L season two contracts could look a little different. But the, the way the seasons run are also gonna be advantageous to the XFL because. We know that the us FFL has in their contract, that they will let players out to play in the NFL, but are not going to do so to let them play in the XFL. The XFL doesn't really have to worry about that because by the time they're season ends, the USFL is gonna be 2, 3, 4 weeks in into their season. And what player is gonna go from. You know, training camp in January all the way through early may, a season. And jump right into playing more games for the USFL rather than. Trying to find work in the NFL. So I, I don't think really that's something contractually the X FFL is necessarily gonna have to worry about people trying to leave their league and jump into the SFL. But. Given the distance between the USFL off season and the next season of the XFL. That is something that, and we've seen it based on how they structure their contracts. Something that the USFL probably is concerned about. That's actually really fascinating. I never thought about that. And I've had a lot of, and we'll get into the player pay here, I guess, too. Cuz that makes sense. Timing wise. You know, we had. Rod Woodson during the Arizona player showcase, I was asking them USFL and all that stuff and him saying. Yeah, the way SFL is structured, their contracts is not really player friendly. It's more league friendly, which obviously I understand they need to do, you know, their job. Well, like you said, the XFL, if you get out in April, You could go do the NFL thing, all that be out and still come back and do the XFL again in, in, you know, of your caught or don't make it, or whatever, you know, in, in December where. They don't, they don't really have competition. I, I know that, that there was some verbiage and maybe we can talk about in the article that the XFL, you're not under a contract until like training camp start or whatever that even if you're drafted, you could still go, but it doesn't seem like there worried about that. Does that seem weird that that XFL. IST worried at all about us. FFL may be sniping. The XFL isn't releasing their, their showcase lists, right. Presumably to keep them protected, but yet mm-hmm, you could draft somebody in November and then the USFL could come in and take them and their league. Right. The, the problem then of course, is, you know, if you sign with the USFL, rather than the XFL, you have to wait a lot longer to play a season, right? Because the USFL starts well after the X FFL season starts. And if you're a football player, you know, the more downtime you have, it can be disadvantageous to you. So I, I, I think from that point of view, plus the idea of, you know, and Doug Whaley made mention of this on the zoom call that, you know, there might be players that they offer contracts to prior to the draft, if there is competition from the us FFL. So they certainly recognize that the USFL is after the same batch of players. That the XFL is after. And so I think they, they could offer, we know that they'll offer contracts, quarterbacks, who they're gonna work with. In the months leading up to the draft a couple times. A month is, is something new that the X FFL is implementing that they didn't have in 2020. But, you know, there also could be higher level players that they're able to attract that they would want to get under contract early on prior to the draft so that the S FFL does not have them. So is so to kind. Of point our direction this now. So Monday. After. So it would be, you know, last Monday, following the Arlington announcement. Neil Stratton who's with inside the league. He hosted a call with Doug Whaley. Who's the senior vice president player personnel. And I would, I would call a friend of the show, Russ Julio here, senior director player. Administration and officiating to talk about player contracts, the roster size, pay, all that stuff. Things that stood out to you. I know that we, I, I think Mike Mitchell had his tweet thread here, but obviously you have your big article here talking about all this stuff, things that stood out from you that you saw from the zoom call. Well, any kind of difference. In XFL 2023 is execution of the contracts and the rosters and all of that stuff. Versus XFL 2020 is gonna stand out. So like I said, the idea is to. It's going to be a league that. Rises and falls on quarterback play just like any secondary league is going to, and I think. The personnel, people recognize that. And Doug Whaley mentioned. Signing certain quarterbacks, if they can. Before the draft working with a quarterback guru. Couple times a month leading up to training camp. Mini camp will just be quarterbacks, receivers running backs, the skill position players on offense. Because they know that quarterbacks and offense are gonna drive interest in this league and they want them to be as prepared as possible. Once the league starts, we've seen with the XFL in not only 2001, but 2020 as well, where the quarterbacks who started this season, even after a full month of training camp and, and mini camp, we've seen. Those starting quarterbacks, ineffective and replaced within the first couple weeks. And I think the league would rather not have to go through that quarterback carousel they'd rather have. Pretty well established names and starters and, and. Have them ready to execute at a high level once the regular season starts. So that stood out to me. The other piece that stood out to me too is, and this was almost an aside by Doug Whaley, but having the draft in mid-November couldn't give a date because they were waiting on their television partners. And so we know that the XFL 2020 draft was. Very low budget. It was basically done. Via conference call that they did have it. I think on a streaming on YouTube at the time. I listened to that as much as I could during, during school, during my planning period, I just cranked it up a little, a little louder. But it seems as if there's interest from. ESPN in broadcasting this now we don't know it could be ESPN plus it's not necessarily going to be on the mothership. ESPN, but even that is a significant departure from X FFL, 2020, and will allow them to get their foot in the door a little bit. And. Really give them probably their first opportunity to put on any kind of. Televised event for this version of the XFL. So we can kind of see. How they're planning to. Have the, the structure and, and what the, what, what a televised XFL event is going to look like. We'll get a sneak peek of that perhaps in November. So those are the two things that, that really jumped out to me. No team nine, as they had in, in 2020, which, you know, given the, the desire to save my is not really a surprise. They'll have. Free agents in for workouts during the week, similar to what NFL teams do during the regular season. So that's another. Change from XFL 2020, but those are the big things that jumped out to me. Well, the team nine thing, you know, I always thought USFL needed to do that. And they, they never did what, like the ex fellows who were, we're just gonna have guys here training, you know, practicing kind of in the hub. We're all in the hub crazy to meet that USFL, like, oh crap. Our quarterback went down. Like we gotta bring in someone that's like, You're all in you're all in Birmingham. Like how do you not just have people like working out. I think the ESPN thing is gonna be fascinating. I was gonna mention that earlier, too. Just. How, you know, people have been waiting, you know, we're wanting to hype, they've bought like, we're all waiting. We're all waiting. Once, you know, it was like the SPS Jimmy Kimmel, you know, it seemed like once. ESPN now we had the B, C U showcase, right? DN Sanders. Mm-hmm once ESPN was ready to like talk about F L. We're like ready to talk about it now? Like we're going. Yeah, I think the draft is huge. I think that was one of the biggest mistakes that USFL had. I remember, I can't the, the impressions I got on that tweet when I had the comment back from the league, like we have no plans to broadcast or stream or do anything. What was crazy because you, you know, here, you're trying to attract this niche market is like, no, I we're not like you stay away, stay away. We're here. You're gonna put it on ESPN. The chances of bringing in, even if you're only gonna broadcast that first couple rounds, like, I don't think we need to go through round eight and like, okay, who is the secondary, you know, like linebacker that we're bringing, but. Getting some of those big names on the ESPN too. I mean, I see some of the stuff that's on there during the weekday. Like I think you could carve out two hours to the ASL. Sure. And you know, it it's. From the us L's perspective, you know, not streaming it or anything. It, it can't have cost much to just even put it on YouTube. Like the XFL did. So. Like you said it's a, it's a niche market and there are a lot of people. Who are interested in that sort of thing? Why not throw them a bone? You know, if it's not gonna cost you much. So, yeah, the, the ESPN part is very interesting and it also gives an opportunity because these players may not be players that are household names. To a lot of football fans and it gives. Those football fans, an opportunity to perhaps meet some of these players for the first time. If I'm a fan in St. Louis, and I know the battle Hawks are for whatever they're gonna be called are going to be playing in St. Louis. You know, I might wanna tune in. So that I can put a face to a name so I can put a story to a name that I'm gonna be seeing. When I attend the games in the dome and in February. So this an interesting, like, I, I, and I go back and forth that, you know, I always think Fox USFL, right? Like Fox, they have everything, right? Like is Fox broadcasting. You know, we can film, we have all the equipment we can bring in 55 cameras and drones and all that. Like ex, F L is different. I. Had my Uber back to the airport with some of the guys that do the social videos for seven bucks or whatever. And it was interesting to talk with them. Cause I'm like, This, this isn't nearly right. What. Their scale of what they're working on versus like what Fox is, right. You know, Fox and where this nationwide or broadcast around the world. Like mm-hmm . But these guys, like they know how to create content that people wanna watch. Right. That's gonna drive interest. Like that's all they're doing is shooting stuff for, to, and Instagram and build things to get interest like. I think sometimes having peop I idea thinkers like that in your organization. Would lead you to be like, we need to do more with the draft. We need to do more with these things. Whereas Fox is like, well, we're not gonna put that on prime time of date. So we're not like we don't care about that. I don't know. It just seems like they get it more. It's definitely a different mentality. When you're talking about a production company, like seven box versus. A gigantic network like Fox and, and especially. With Danny Garcia and the rock who, you know, that's their production company and they're also owners of the XFL. So, you know, it's kind of, it it's in their best interest to. Get the league out there and get it known. Whereas Fox has. 7,000 Other tentacles to worry about within their division. Let alone putting on a SFL draft on television. So, you know, I think it's it's the red tape is a lot less. Going the way that the XFL is going through seven bucks, at least for now, you know, we don't know. If the XFL is gonna be hiring their own. You know, or, or working with ESPN more in terms of production or, or just going with seven bucks. But. At least right now, it it's, it's smaller. Certainly than the, the. Everything that Fox has at its disposal. But in some ways it might be easier that way. Yeah. Just a little more nimble. Hey, we wanna put this on YouTube. The Texas live. That's a good word for it. Yeah. Just more nimble. So rosters 66 players going into training camps 50 for regular season active do game day. Active rosters will be 45. That is. The, I guess I'm trying USFL was 38 and then moved up and then, I mean, similar. Game day rosters. Right? Thoughts on the 45 players on that. Yeah, I compare it to XFL 2020, which I think was 52 man rosters in 45, 46 active on game day. So. Very similar in terms of the setup. Again, no team nine for free agency. So you won't have those players. Pushed onto XFL rosters. As you did just before the league shut down, right? It, it, the deal was. If you were practicing with team nine. Halfway through the season, they would cycle you onto XFL rosters, and basically bring in a new team nine for the last half of the year. So there won't be that. Although, you know, the deal with the NFL alumni academy will allow those players. That are in the academy at the end of the NFL season, an opportunity in XFL training camps. So, you know, again, no, no surprise with the rosters. 66 in camp seems pretty reasonable. That they mentioned that they won't probably draft 66 players in November. Because, and this is another difference from XFL 2020. They plan on having. Two to three supplemental drafts in the coming months before training camp, which XFL 2020 only had one. So I think a lot of that's gonna be dependent upon. You know, what are the level of players who are seeking XFL contracts after the draft leading up to training camp? Do you have guys who, you know, are being cycled on and off NFL rosters, who at some point say, you know, I'm tired to, I'm tired to working out front of NFL team teams in not getting a contract. Let me just go to the XFL and play. And earn some money that way. So toward the end of the NFL season, you may have players who make that decision as well. And they would go into the supplemental draft. So there, they're not really planning on having quote unquote free agency leading up to the draft. It's not like, you know, you'd be, you know, or Orlando would sign a player to, to pad out their training camp roster. It. Sounds like the supplemental drafts will be where those supplemental players come from. Well, there's different cuz you FL they're already signing, like they're already bringing people into the draft for next year and the signing free agents. Yeah. So U USFL, they went from 38 to 40 and then that total roster was 45 to 50 with the, you know, with those, the. Active, what players on that contracts that they're play getting paid 59,000 per year. USFL was 45. 5,000 Per game win bonus of a thousand per player players get 800 per week training camp. So all slightly more. I think USFL was 600 don't quote me training camp. And then about 45 a year. Minus food and housing, which they had to pay for Uhl. It seems like they're covering a lot of those meals and stuff. And it was weird, like three meals, a snack. And then during the season throwing and get like thoughts on, on that. Cuz cuz that's to me, me is to be big difference is likel didn't come out in say like we're paying. Six figures per player, right? Like we're paying slightly more than the USFL where they kind of set the base mark last year. Yeah. In the 59,000, I think is kind of the average player. When you take into account, they're getting paid $5,000 a week, $800. For the five weeks of training camp and then whatever win bonuses come, you know, that would probably average out to about 59,000. As, as the base and you know, those quarterbacks that we talked about earlier, they're gonna get more. Probably significantly more. So they did mention, and I didn't put this in the article, but Doug Whaley and Ross Giglio did mention that, you know, These, these contracts are not negotiable. Like they're, they're not looking for agents to come in and say, Hey, I have this guy with five years of NFL experience. Can you bump up the pay? It doesn't sound like there's gonna be a lot of room for negotiation now, whether or not. You know, the, the XFL can. Can nav a player and say, You know, it's, I'll compare it to. What the XFL did in 2020 with Antonio Calloway, right. They gave him a big, a hundred thousand dollars signing bonus. Instead of adding to the salary. So maybe that's a way that the XFL can get around. Not negotiating the contracts. They may give signing bonuses to players who. Have extensive NFL experience and wanna try their hand at the XFL. So. You know, that's kind of two, be determined. I don't know. How much room there is to, to add on salary like that. But yeah, it's slightly more, I would say in, in all ways than the USFL, but again, you know, if, if you compare it to USFL 23, That may be the more apt comparison. Because players right now, that's what they're gonna have to decide between. They're gonna decide between not what the SFL already paid, but what they will be paying. Versus what the XFL will be paying. And I don't know that the us FFLs come out and said, Any changes in their contract structure, but you know, if they're. Going to be competing for players with the XFL toward the end of NFL training camp, it would behoove them to come out and say, Hey, you know, this is what we're gonna be offering next year. So the players and agents have something to compare to. Is this interesting? You're gonna run into this like, You know, cuz the players that are already signed are on two year contracts. That contract, if it was like before midway through the season, you had the NFL op. Outlaw then if the second half of the season. The contractor reverted back to us, us L contract, then we're gonna have players this next year that are gonna be signed, like right. The, like the generals they're signing. Prents so presumably that's still under the 45,000 staff and that's, you know, as, as a, as a player personnel, no nerd. That's very interesting to me. Because, you know, they're signing contracts with the league. So, and they will, I assume the us F L will hold another draft next year. So what determines whether or not a player goes into the USFL draft versus gets signed as a free agent. Like if you're signing a USFL contract in my mind, you should be going into the draft. So are they, you know, so I, I don't know how that works. That's interesting to me to see these teams. Signing players. And then you're wondering, okay, what's gonna happen with the draft, the one advantage. Of the us F L does have timing-wise and we saw a couple players take advantage of this last year is. The USFL starts after. I believe the NFL draft or right around that time. So that's when the XFL season is ending. So they're not gonna be able to take players. Who were not drafted, who were not signed as rookie free agents. And who wanna play. They're not gonna be able to sign those guys, whereas the USFL it's almost perfect timing for them. If I'm a player who didn't get drafted, maybe got a trial at rookie mini camp, but didn't get signed. I may say, let me latch on with the SFL team here for the rest of the season. See if I can get signed. Before training camp starts. And so that I think that's the one place that the us FFL does have an advantage in terms of, of getting players who are not drafted that same year. Yeah. Cuz then, and then they would be locked into the USFL for two years. If they keep their contracts the same, it wouldn't revert that, that. You know, now that we're seeing in and I'm pleasantly happy to see a lot of USFL guys get signed to the NFL. Right. I Kavante Turpin did the Cowboys won. I know there's, there's been a lot of like people trying out and then, and then the signing solve that commanders, I think have three, which I'm. Happy about the Washington commanders. My team they've got five XFL players on their team too. We're so they they've, they've gone really hard into the alternative leagues to find players. Well, we need the bolster up cars that wins. It's like anything we can do, we really need to like, it's like Roman reigns, right? Like we gotta fill. We gotta really, we got, we got this week. A weakness. We gotta fight. Better time of year now that we're even talking contracts and all that February to April XFL or April to July USFL, given everything kind of, we know now. Yeah, I still think it's February to April and. I think the first week of may actually is when the. XFL championship game is slated to take place. And that's another point that Doug Whaley and Roslio made on the call is that the end of the X FFL season. Will dovetail right into. NFL's phase two off season, which phase one is just conditioning. And obviously these players would not need to go through that. Having just gone through 10 weeks of an NFL season. But you know, this is when you start getting into the playbook and getting into things like that. So it, it dovetails per perfectly for XFL players to get in a. Full off season work with an NFL team, as opposed to kind of just, you know, getting on at the end of a roster. In, in July, that being said, I have been impressed. With the number of USFL players who've been signed to NFL rosters. I was one of those who was. Concerned about the. The the time of year that the USFL decided to play. And I thought that would be. Prohibitive of a lot of players getting opportunities in the NFL, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how many players have ended up signing with NFL teams. And I mean, and we don't, I mean, we don't know how many you're gonna stick. Right. I mean, I don't wish ill, right. I mean, obviously these are signs to say, I mean, I remember last year, you know, Kobe Boozer got signed in the commanders was on the field for 10 minutes and then, then retired. Like they, you know, I mean, this can, I mean, you can have things happen. But I like, obviously the commodity chirp in one and a couple of the others, like they're really stand out. I think Chris Odo is still weighing his. Options at this point where he wants to go. But yeah, I mean, not all of them will latch on, but I am glad cuz I was afraid it was gonna be like there's no more chairs at the musical chairs. Like Ron, a chairs here. We don't for sure. Any other thoughts, anything? I mean, we've been going 45 minutes. I don't wanna keep you forever, but just any other thoughts you want to get on the contracts XL? Anything else? I don't think so. You know, obviously the next thing that we're gonna be looking at now, Is team names and, and things like that. And there's gonna be. I know there's going to be a lot of. Consternation from XFL fans. If. If the league goes into different direction with some of the team names or even the, the colors or. Are logos. So just be prepared for that, that reaction on Twitter, but you know, the, the XFL logo that came out. And I'm warming to it. I, I didn't like it at first. I'm still not a huge fan of it, but I'm getting more used to it. You know, I, I think that gives a lot of fans pause about, Ooh, if this is what they're coming up with for the league logo, what are they gonna come up with for the teams? You know, that sort of thing. So. That's something you hope comes out soon because just like needing to get the cities out there so they could start taking season ticket deposits. You wanna start getting the, the logos and colors out there so you can start selling merchandise. I mean, that's, that's easy money to make on the XFL shop. Website. So, you know, the sooner you get that out, the, the more money you can make on that. So hopefully that comes out soon and then we, you know, continue to see players. Get draft invites and, you know, potentially have another showcase in October. 1300 Players. Ended up on the wait list for showcases well, which was said on the, on the zoom call, which is just it's mind boggling that that many players have, have an interest in playing in the XFL. So they are looking to do another. Showcase around the time that they're doing the Nick Novak kicking showcase in October, out in California. So, you know, just, you know, continuing to track that I have a new column up. On on, on Monday today when we're recording this on XFL board, where I'm starting to dig into. The NFL team rosters and see what players could end up in the XFL. So make sure to take a look at that. I I'll be getting more into that part. One is posted for a SFC teams. Part two will be posted soon where I look at NSC teams and then once the preseason start and end NFL put out their depth charts unofficial as. They may be. I'll start looking at XFL players who are in the NFL players who played. In 2020, who were in the NFL, see what their chances of, of making the teams are based on where they sit on the depth charts early. And. Early in training camp. So. Still a lot. I have coming out on XFL board and, you know, we'll, we'll continue to, to write things up as more things come out, but you know, it's that, that whole city thing was just kind of a load off everybody's shoulders. I think in, in this, it gave a definite feeling of Oak. Okay. Now we can really move forward and, and have our eye toward the goal of February. You talk about them wanting to sell merchandise. I mean, haven't, you already purchased like three or four of the, like, I have not. I have not. And you know, in 2020, the XFL did the same thing. They put out. Merchandise with the city before they had announced the team names. I, I don't remember exactly what the look was like. I don't know if it was comparable to what they're putting out on XFL shop these days, but. No. I, I, you know, if they, if they had a team in Naples, Florida, maybe I would be going out and getting one. But no, I, I I'll pass on that one. It was better. Maybe I'll wear that. Maybe I'll dig that, that I'll wear that for my intro this week. I have the XFL Seattle one. I also have. Okay. I also have a Seattle shirt signed by our forever quarterback, Brandon silver, silver 12 on there. I have that, but no, there was certainly bad. I've made the joke laugh week, everyone. Oh, I can't wait to see like. Brock and Danny, they're gonna revitalize, like we're gonna have a new vision for everything. And then it's like the worst shirts, like there's there's. So I, the, the logo is warming to me when you, and I know you were at the showcase too, when you're in the showcase. And like all the coaches have like black and white and the has like, it felt very. This is a real thing. Like, it felt very like any given Sunday, like I'm watching the, the sharks, right? Yeah. Like I'm, it felt, I don't know. It just felt very intimidating that all the coaches and everything, obviously once the, once they get their, their colors, did you, did you know the spoilers, right? That we have five of a, with the. Coaches with the colors behind them. And then the three new ones. I mean, I'm kind of resigned to five of eight of the teams returning. How do you feel. You resigned to that? That makes it sound like you're not happy about it. Is there I'm happy? Is there anything, but yeah, I I've, I've come to accept that. I've come to a piece with at five of eight. Well, I hope so. I, I thought the branding was really strong in 2020 throughout the league. So if all five. Nicknames return. If the color schemes all return, even if the logos. For legal reasons have to be changed on some of them like Houston, for example. You know, that's, that's a change that. Has to be made then, and that's fine. So, you know, it, it also does give the X FFL sort of a template. For the other three cities. Like, you know, it, it gives them okay. These five teams are named this. This is their color scheme. You want the other three teams to blend in? Well with those names and teams. So it, it sort of gives them at least a baseline for. What they should be seeking out when they're looking for team names for like Las Vegas and Orlando and San Antonio. Why is the what's your Vegas team that everyone has a Vegas suggestion. See I'm I'm into the nostalgia. So gimme Outlaws. Yeah. From 2001, like, I, I don't believe that's gonna happen or anything like that, but it would be. You know, this is a league. That I think. Would be wise to it is what it is because of what's come before. In a lot of ways and granted they were not successful by most. Traditional metrics. But I think it would be, you know, you've got the, you've got the teams that are returning from 2020. You'd have the Las Vegas team returning from 2001 and you'd have two brand new teams. That, you know, XFL 20, 23 puts their stamp on. So to have all three versions represented as teams would be really cool. But you know, I also acknowledged that there were not a lot of people who. Liked XFL 2001 and especially liked the branding on 2001. That was definitely an acquired taste. So I could see that, you know, but I mean, Outlaws would fit. You have renegades already. You have rough next. It would certainly be a team name that would fit with this version of the, of the league's branding. So yeah. Gimme Outlaws. I think a hundred percent. I think it should be the Outlaws. I, I wouldn't have the, I have a, I have a, he hate me Jersey in there or new, old stock. I don't think yet we can update the logo a little bit. It is funny when you talk about, you know, finally coming the rock had the comment during that pressor on Monday where he's like, well, he know. They tried before and we've learned like, we really think that, like, we think this is the time it's gonna work. And like, it didn't feel like super confident rock. And I'm like, do you really feel that way? Like, it just, it felt like, well, yes, this is like, we're very sure now that this is actually the best time to, to, well, it, and you can kind of. Also understand, you know, the XFL is. This version of it, especially is very forward looking. Right. I, I don't, I don't get a sense that they're looking back and even Oliver luck in 2020. I know he was asked at one of the showcases about incorporating. Anything from 2001 into the league. And he was like, he was pretty. Nonplused about that. He wasn't really like on board with that idea. And again, you can understand why, you know, you don't want to, you wanna differentiate. That version from the league that failed not only failed, but failed in spectacular fashion. So I, I think that might be one of those things that once. The XFL 20, 23 gets up and running and really gets a lot of forward momentum and they get to year two and they get to year three and they are. Financially solvent with TV deals or whatever the case may be. It might be a safer time to really look back nostalgically at. Even XFL 2020 and in 2001, but I think. Certainly there's a lot of risk in doing that before you. Really have your, your foot in the ground. Yeah, I, I think. I know, I, I, I like the Outlaws. I like that Santo. I think they have good. I think they'll be enough. However, they announce it. I think they'll be enough. They bring back. We have the new team. I think they'll be enough in that. Mm-hmm well, I'll let you go here soon. I promise. I just, I, I want them want work to be done now. I've been thinking about this. The whole interview that, you know, we've announced everything in August. Now, the NFL season, we have the hall of fame game this week, like NFL season is starting. So we need to like, I mean, does Vegas know they have an XL team? Like does Seattle know the Dragon's like, you know, my neighbor knows cuz I wear my hat, but like we need to, we need to start cultivating these fan bases now, cuz I don't know. I don't know what the buzz is like for the Seattle team right now. I think we need to start incorporate in some local events here. Sure. And you have a lot of these teams who are playing in cities that have NFL teams, and those fans tend to kind of turn off their brain to everything else in the sports world while the NFL season is going on. And I think that is also part of the reason why. The XFL needed to announce their cities when they did. Before training camps got into full swing before. Everything was so NFL focused from not only. ESPN their own television partner, but really all other. Sides of the sports media world. They wanted to kind of get that out there and that's, what's gonna be interesting. When you look at the logo. Reveals the Jersey, all of that kind of stuff. That's going to be happening during the NFL season. What kind of attention? Is the rest of the sports media going to give the XFL? What kind of attention is their own broadcast partner going to give to the XFL? And the one thing I will say is the fact that they want to do the draft. On an ESPN property is a good sign because that's gonna be in November right in the. You know, the, the dog days of the NFL season. So the fact that ESPN is not, you know, the, the fact that ESPN is not turning off. All things XFL during the NFL season is a good sign. And gives me a little confidence that it it's. You know, they're going to be a true partner. With the XFL, not just when it's convenient for them. Well, and I'll, I'll create a size, the same thing with Fox where I think USFL is very much, felt like an afterthought to Fox in terms of, well, we'll have some people do social media when we have time and we'll work on these things like, yeah, ES ESPN needs to prioritize it at, this is gonna be one year main slate. You know, you gotta. You gotta do your homework here in the off season to get ready to build interest, you know, for when you need that property in February, March, April, you gotta do a little bit of a legwork here during the NFL season. Yeah. And the frustrating thing is we don't know any of the details about the. Financial arrangement between ESPN and the XFL. We do know. That Danny Garcia was on record very early on saying that, you know, the looking at a, a TV deal without significant income was not something they were looking at. We we've seen Mike Mitchell's reporting. That red bird was not gonna lift a finger on the league until they got a significant TV deal and then low and behold, they start. Moving forward. They start putting money into the league. ESPN is announced as a partner. One plus one equals two would tell you that ESPN is going to be paying a substantial amount. That word was used in a recent article on the athletic that talked about the potential merger already. Between the XFL and the USFL not ready to go there yet. But, you know, they had a source presumably with the XFL that said that ESPN's financial investment in the XFL was substantial. So if that is the case, I mean, it's, it's an ESPN's best interest to do as much as they can to prop up the X FFL and get all the bang for the, their buck that they came. Well, if you, yeah, if, and just to spoiler here, the wrapping up for next time, if you, if you enjoy that article and the, and the author that wrote that article, you might wanna check out the show next week could be a good, could be a good tease on that. I'll figure that Greg, I'll let you go get him back to school here at the fall. I'm sure you've been incredibly busy with. All of the WWE and the Vince McMan in the summers. It's been a busy time for you, how's it not? It has, this is the. Sixth podcast I've done in the last week and a half probably. I've written. I have three articles waiting to be published for XFL board. I wrote three. The weekend of the, the city reveal. So that six plus my two. Columns for the torch PW torch.com. And so I've, I've used this last week and a half as just kind of hunkering down and. Doing podcasts and doing writing. I go back to school on Wednesday. So maybe even by the time people. Listen to this, I will have been back to school already. So trying to churn out as much content as I can before. My attention is focused elsewhere. Well, I appreciate that very much, Greg, you know, doing the Lord's work here and yeah, I, I, I need to get back into wrestling it it's now maybe that Vince is out. I, I really have the hard time kind of supporting that the last couple years, and now, now been and everything certainly turned. Your world upside down. It, it did. And summer slam on Saturday night. Felt like the first show in a post Vince world. There are a lot of things. On the show that, and, and, you know, you never really know. How much you're reading too much into it as, as being post Vince, but there, there did feel like. There were things on there that made you go? Hmm. I don't know if that would've been of SPNA decision to make. So that gives people, I think some confidence that. You know, people like yourself, who've, who've turned out, tuned out of the product at stale. You know, there's not a lot that, that attracts you to the product anymore that maybe. Things will change. And so I think that's part of what WWE is banking on as well. And they God that the XFL and all this, that I don't think the XFL could have handled the Vince. I, I think that would've been bad. Yeah. You know, that's something that I do think about. Is. Had Vince. Either not taken the XFL into bankruptcy or purchased it out of bankruptcy. Like it seemed to be his intention. What would the fallout be? I mean, we would be. So we would be 21 and 22. We'd probably be two more years into the league at this point. So you would hope that it would have. Grown enough roots to survive. A post Vince world, but. You know, if, if Vince isn't and, and Vince stepped back from XFL 2020, he was, he was more the, the financial guy rather than the guy who's face was out there. Making the decisions. I mean, that was Oliver luck. So maybe it would not have been as big of a deal because he was not out there at front and center. But it does certainly make you wonder what. The fallout would be XFL wise. From this. And it was always, it was always my thing too. I mean, Vince's. In his late seventies. What happened if he passed away? Would that spigot of money? For the XFL have turned it off. I don't know. I don't know the, the machinations. Behind setting up his kind of shell corporation that he did. To create the XFL and whether or not, you know, that would've been something that. Could've kept going with, with money, getting put into it from, All right. Let me get my laptop here. All right. Well, the last time I had this guest on you almost walked off my show because I had a, a BC lions Jersey line. so I've, I've borrowed my wife's it's a university of Washington, but it, if you squint on the zoom connection, almost like, looks like a, on the blue bomber hat. How are. You doing in the hall of fame? Excuse me. Hall of Famer mil Siegel. How are you? Man. I'm doing great. I'm doing great. We're almost midway through our season. There's been some. Ups and downs for CFL teams, but everything is going well. So I'm excited about the last half of the season. It, it seems like CFO much better spot than it was a year ago. I, I think around this time that we talked, you know, getting ready for the season, you know, it was the late start last year. What have you made. Of the, the quality of the game this year scoring everything across the board. Oh, meant a lot better. We're a lot better place than where we were this time. Last year, you know, scoring is up. Games have been exciting, even for the teams that haven't won many games, you know, they've been in the game. So at end of the day, that's what, you know, we asked for that's what the fan want. Of course, if you're a fan of. A a team like, you know, Montreal or any team in the east who's not doing well. You would like your team to win more games, but the games have been exciting. And that's all we can ask for. Yeah, I've seen you go back and forth. Now, friend of our show, we had them on a couple weeks ago, Gary stern kind of chirping back and forth. I know that this will air, you know, Friday. After after the win pick game this week. But talk about, I guess, first of all, this pseudo rivalry that Gary stern now seems to have with everyone on Twitter, calling games, you know, in their favor, you know, guaranteed victory is one way or another. You know what I, I think it's great. And a lot of people don't like it because the fat he's an owner, but I think this is great. This is great for the mantra west. This is great for the CFO. It's great for everyone. Who's a Canadian football league fan. You know, you have a owner who's engaged and with fan who's on Twitter. On social media, not saying what those other owners are doing, they shouldn't be doing, but I'm just saying, this is great. I love it. I love the fact that he's having fun. He's enjoying life. And at the end of the day, we're, we're talking about football. We're not talking about anything that that's important. You know, some of the things he say may be little. Crazy. I don't know, but the fact that he's doing it. I 100% agree with it and I enjoy every bit of it. It does seem like it's this new, this year, you have a Mar Doman in there. We have Gary stern really kind of stepping up Victor queen. I mean, talk about the new, you know, these new leaders and management roles really. Trying to figure out how do we get the CFO now into more of the modern, you know, into Twitter? Into kind of getting the younger fan base. Everything else. They, they understand what it takes and social media like it or not. That's where it is. That's, that's where the young. Individuals are the fans who they're trying to get. On board on the CFO. That's where they are. You have to meet 'em where they are. So I understand 100% what these. New owners and new presidents and what they're doing, how they're doing it, you have to appreciate it because they understand they're smart. They understand what it takes to get these young individuals. So I'll do whatever I can to help out. You know, if it, if it calls for me, go going back, we're Gary's stern, you know, creating some content, whatever it may be. I understand what they're doing and I'm 100% behind. Speaking of Gary stern, the outlets. What do you make of, you know, the, the coaching changes. Now we're trying to get back on the right foot. They're still struggling there. I know Matt Dunnigan, there was like the witch hunt thing this week. I mean, what do you make about the coaching changes and get ready to hurry over there? I, I wasn't surprised. I mean, I said this at the beginning of the year, you know, I said that GM's he wanted to be the head coach. You know, this was his dream job. He grew up. In Montreal, his first coaching job. Wasn't assistant a grad assistant basically, or a GA as they call 'em as what the Montreal Wentz. And he went on and coached and had success in Edmonton as a coach in a GM, but his ultimate head coaching job, what he wanted more than anything was to be for the Montreal Wayz. Now I wasn't, I didn't say he, he was, he was. Hoping that Kaari wouldn't do well. But once that door opened up, once that team wasn't doing well, and it was just four games in. He stepped in. So I wasn't surprised about it. It's a difficult task, you know, they have some talent, but they don't have enough talent right now. And the person who brings in the talent is the GM, if I'm correct. So he it's all on him. He said he doesn't wanna be the coach going in the next year, but let that team have some success. Let him. 'Em go to the gray cup or do some, some damage into playoffs. I guarantee you, he will be the head coach next year. It just seems like, you know, going into the off season, you know, they had a lot there. Vernon came on the show, we were really excited about Vernon. A lot of the guys they've retained and I, what do you make of their struggles? And just not being able to get everything going this year. It's a lot, it's a lot. And, and it boils down to the quarterback. Play, you know, they thought Vernon was gonna be the guy this year and that didn't work out. But Vernon had to know that they didn't 100% believe in. I mean, that brought back Trevor Harris and it's good to have a backup. Like Trevor Harris, but they brought him back because just in case Vernon was gonna slip and he did slip a little bit and Trevor has played okay, but he's not playing well enough right now where you can say that team has an opportunity to compete and beat anyone, you know, and it's not a all in the quarterback. They need some other things. To come together, losing their star running back early on. That definitely hurt 'em because he was the bread and butter and only that offense. But as that team, that team was gonna. Ride his back and he got hurt early and that's definitely hurting him, but you know, they have enough pieces there where they can't get a playoff spot in the ease. Only two teams are gonna make it, but they have enough enough pieces to get it done. So we'll just have to wait and see it's starts this week with Winnipeg and then the next week they. Play Winnipeg. So if they can compete in possibly. Win. One of one of those games that would be a big thing going for them going forward. It just seem weird when we had Gary stern on it was right after the Kaari stuff and they were still kind of going back and forth and he had so many kind words to say about Vernon as you know, leader and helping. I think he brings his grandchildren, you know, Gary stern, all that, and that he's like Trevor Harry, I, I don't need even know if I've met him in person. Gary Stewart was saying I'm like, that just seems so weird. A weird dynamic to have, you know, and, and I know Gary, it is in Toronto, just it's an interesting situation, but it didn't seem odd to me that we're bringing in this quarterback now that the owner doesn't necessarily know. Replacing, what is really the fan favorite leader of the team? I mean, I've talked with multiple, you know, awes in the off season saying, you know, Vernon is our leader. He is our guy that we wanna go to the battle for. Yeah. And, and, and it has to be disappointing for Vernon. You think about what he's done in the last two off seasons. On his own dime, you know, he's, he's flew all the, the skill players out to a location and they trained a form from chemistry and he did all this stuff. And now you look up and I think now he's even on the sixth game. He's not even as they say part of the team because he's on the sixth game. This is not his team right now. This is Trevor Harris's team. And that has to hurt him. You see him on the sideline and he puts on a good show, but I know down deep down that has to hurt him because this is not his team. Going into this season, he was expected to be the franchise quarterback for years to come. So it's a tough situation. I hope he bounces back and I even hope Trevor plays well because we want all teams to be successful. Of course, every team's not gonna win every game, but it helps the league. And it helps everyone involved when all teams are able to go out there and win some game. So let's hope the best for Trevor Harris and these Montreal, ENTs, if he is the quarterback for the rest of the year, I stand in the E is, you know, talking Argonauts, all that, you know, getting back to 500, we had the weird, you know, they're leading the east and it was like one in four, whatever it was, you know, Andrew Harris playing good this season. What do you make of, of the Argonauts, Andrew Harris, you know, passing your record. With, with yards from scrimmage in the success that he's finding there. Yeah, it is excellent to see, you know, a lot of people thought that there was no more gas in the tank, the Winnipeg blue bombers. They did all from a contract, but it was one that. Maybe someone of Andrew Harris caliber. Should not be offered, but he felt, you know, he still had some more Toronto. And pinball and, and those guys over there filtered too. And you can see he's playing well, of course he didn't have the game. He would've liked to have this past week because they keyed on him, but the man can still get it done. And, and for them to have some success, he's gonna have to continue getting it done. The cloud Beto Thompson is okay, but he's not that quarterback's gonna. Lead you, they need Andrew Harris to meet, to be the main guy there. That means they need that offensive line to pick it up. They have some guys who can play on defense. Of course they make some plays that aren't always. Good at, at those certain times, but like the guy Chris had Edward he's one of the best Sam linebackers in this league is just every now and then he'll get some penalties at inopportune times, but I would ride with him, but it's gonna be on Andrew Harris back to lead this team. We know we, he can do run the ball, but he's also potent. Outside when he catches the ball alert. I like curly getting his junior. They got some other receivers. So they have enough where they can win the east. That's not saying much, but they do have enough where they can win the east. Are you an MD MBT guy? Do you like McLeod? I like him. I'm like him. I sometimes he, he doesn't make. Good plays. I that's every quarterback, like I say, he's not a top tier quarterback, in my opinion, he's the middle of the pat guy. But he, he, he plays well enough where he can win some games and keep them competitive. It's just, when you're a top tier quarterback, every time you step on the field, you give your team a chance to. Win. And right now he's not there. In terms of coach ditty. You know, I've seen a lot, even this year that he had some, some gas last year, clash management stuff were coming into this year, too. I mean, is he the right person to be at the front of that team to kind of get them going? Or is he still too an experienced. No, it, it, it, it takes Tom, this is his, if I'm correct his second full year. Being the head coach second and a half year where that may be, and, and it takes time and he's made some, some bone head plays. He'll be the first one to tell you that he said that, but I think he's the right fit for there. He's the right fit. He's gonna make it happen. The the, your head coach is only as good as your players. I always say this, the head coach has never won game. He's lost game, but if you don't have the right pieces on the field, I don't care how intelligent, how smart you are. What type of game plan you devise. If the prayers on the field aren't good enough to get it done. Not gonna get it done as a head coach, but I think he's the right fit for their Willie. Get the opportunity to show that. Well, it remains to be seen cuz if they continue losing games in the fashion and losing, you know, changes are gonna be made. But in my opinion, I think he's the right fit for the Trump artist. Yeah. I mean we saw, yeah, the red blacks get their favored first win. You. Know last week, which was good. We have a lot of listeners of the show, red flags, fans and Jenna, especially out there, red blacks, finally getting in the w column. That, that was big. That was big. And as I said on there, Paul police will finally get a good night's sleep. You know, he's, there's been a lot going on, you know, he lost his, his star quarterback to a gruesome injury and you know, now his back is starting to get better, but it's still difficult. You know, a lot was expected of that. They went out and spent. So much money in free agency. And a lot of it was on that quarterback and they were planned well, they weren't winning, but they were planned well and they thought they were on their pathway to getting better. And then they do that, but they got their first win. Caleb Evans played his best game to date as a professional athlete. And when you start. Playing. Well, it becomes addictive. You start saying, okay, I can go out there and play well. And, and, and the greatest, the most important trait to being successful is confident. So I guarantee you after this game, His confidence is up. It's not gonna be easy this week, cuz now I think they have the Calgary stamp Peters, which in my opinion is the second best team in the, in the, in the CFO. But it helps to get that first victory. Underneath your belt. So this transitions perfectly. So you're, you're saying you would put Calgary above my and America's team at the BC Alliance that you think that Calgary is the second best team. Yeah, there's a second best team. Of course. Nathan Rourke. Is playing better than any quarterback, but as far as teams go. Calgary's a second best team behind Winnipeg and, and, and Winnipeg is number one. It is not even close. And you got Calgary and BC is not too far behind Calgary. What do you mean? You know, this time last year, you know, whenever we talked, you know, different feeling around the BC Alliance, right? Certainly have to feel more confident this year of you're BC Alliance fan. I am scared that we we're front heavy. Like we were last year and we're gonna follow off a cool cliff here, you know, especially how we lost to Winnipeg so bad. What was that three weeks ago? I mean, thoughts on, on BC overall as a team, you said not as good as Calgary. No, not at all, not at all. And I love what they're doing. I love what they're doing on, on defense. My good buddy Ryan Phillips. He really has 'em planned with they're they're they're flying around. They're making some plays and Nathan Rourke. Can play. I mean, he makes everyone around in so much better that offensive line over the last two years. Was struggling. They not say anything bad about Michael Riley, but they put. Nathan RO in there and it looks like they are all, all stars now. So they're playing some great Butler. I like him, but they're not a Calgary's position yet. It's gonna be. Remain the scene when those two finally play each other, that's gonna be one of the better games. This season, but they're not there yet. It, my opinion bold believe Levi Mitchell was back up to playing bold Levi, Mitchell football. And as long as that case, They can beat anybody. You see, they were right there with the Winnipeg blue bombers. They didn't get it done, but like I say, I'm putting BC right behind the Calgary stamp Peters. Obviously if, if when pay goes in that Montreal loses here will look like fools, but assuming that Winnipeg here continues undefeated, do you think they can go. All the way I just was messaging with Darren bombing, you know, big, he goes, I think you could do prop bets now on them going all the way through, I mean, thoughts on, on Winnipeg this year? Oh my goodness. It, it it's been crazy. What they've been able to do. And I, I, I spoke this and I said, there's three opportunities where I'm gonna give my opportunity to lose game it's this week, because they're the only team went and had to buy they're two row games in a row. They flew to Calgary, had to fly back to Winnipegs a short week. I'd have to fly to my Montreal, that other one being in labor day, classic, which. Saskatchewan they're gonna get up. I don't care how they're playing. How well when a play gets planned. They get up for that game. And of course, into the season where they have the west wrapped up in, they're sitting a bunch of players, but they have a great opportunity to go undefeated. But the question remains is if they're on the verge of going undefeated, if they wrapped up the west, what is Michael shake gonna do? Is it gonna sit those players or is he gonna give him opportunity to make. History. And I think be the only the second team to go on defeated. So that remains to be seen. They're not thinking that far or they're thinking about. Is this upcoming game against our Ettes on Thursday night football. I really, I was watching the end of the Calgary game last week. I really hoped just for some sort of entertainment from not Winnipeg fans, that Calgary would get it. It just, it. It Winnipeg always seems to find, find the way to win. They always seem to find a way to come back. What did you make of Calgary? Like you said second best team, but just not quite being up to that level yet. Winnipeg team is tough. They're not only physically tough, but they they're mentally tough and it starts. With coach Oche I, I talked to Brad Fary Brad farty is the equipment manager there. He's been there for over three decades. And he said, this is, and he's like, he didn't wanna disrespect any other times, you know, the Winnipeg blue bombers were there, but he said what they have right there now. Is something special when it starts with coach Oche, you know, he he's created. An atmosphere there and it's almost like I equated to when you were in elementary school. And you went in line to get, you know, for lunch and you would have kids who wanted to break in line. You'd have kids who wanted to give other kids money so they can get their food up front. When a Winnipeg blue bombers get in line, everyone knows their role. Everyone doesn't care if they're in the front or they're in the back because they understand what their role is. And that's what they're doing with the Winnipeg bombers. And as long as they're continued doing that, as long as they continue having that attitude. It's gonna be difficult to beat him. Of course, you know, things can happen injuries. Bad plays. But as long as they sit on that path, it's gonna be difficult for any team to be. Are you a Cody FIJA though guy? I won't say I'm a Cody Fujio guy. I've like that. He's tough. But when he's not 100% healthy. It's difficult for him because he relies on his mobility so much. He relies on his ability to be able to run the bond. He can't do that right now. So that's difficult. He, he's not a true. Drop back quarterback because he likes to move around and he can't do that right now. And until he can do that. It's putting that team in a bad place. They may need to sit him. I know they have a BI week, but they need to sit him maybe to sit him so he can get healthier so he can move around. So it's gonna be difficult if he's not mobile. I just never seen, I was talking with Danielle last week from the, from the references. I've just never seen such a controversial guy. That's like very like milk toast, like the most normal guy in the world. But then it's like this Latin, I mean, what do you make of that? Well, some, some people may call it passionate. Some people may call it. I, I don't know, sensitive, whatever you may be. I think it's right there in the middle. I think he wants to do whatever he can to win games. I mean, he's a big fish. In a small pond. It, it is tough when you're in Regina. Vagina where you're winning thing is perfect. You could do whatever you want, but when you're losing and you're the starting quarterback, it's not an easy place to be. You know, it's the gift and the curse. And right now they're losing and he's not playing well. So there's a lot of tension. I mean, it's, it's tough for him. You hope he gets back to winning you hope he. Get back healthy and, and get that team to the place or wanna be because there's a lot of pressure. The great cup has been in Regina this year and they're expected to be there in the path they on right now. They're not gonna get there. Yeah. I don't see it is. And I remember even like preseason that they were like, oh, we should overspend the cap in Saskatchewan. Like we need to go like basically buy whatever we can't buy the grade cup, but they're not even closer right now. No, they're not. And, and, and is different because they, they still have time. But it's tough. They're in the west and it there's a good chance and I'm sure they would never say this. They they're better off maybe crossing over to the east, you know, coming in forth and crossing over to the east because it's tough in the west. Those top three teams, when it paid Calgary, BBC, they are crazy. Good. Crazy good. Because. Good coaching staff. And more importantly, they have good quarterbacks who know how to win and why to play. So it's gonna be tough on those rough riders. Anything can happen. They have some good talent, but they may have a better chance crossing over to the, at east and getting to the great cup that one. Just surround the other conversation over here before I let you go, you know, elk coming in, playing BC. You know, a lot was made off season, you know, Victor queen coming in, we're doing all that. Now we're doing like singles mixers. Right. We're trying to do that, I guess, first off, do you like that idea? Like we're gonna do singles mixers in the quarterback club or whatever. You gotta do whatever you have to do. Be like, I, like I alluded to earlier, Hey, they understand, you know, you, you're trying to attract the different crowd. You know, it's not the same crowd as it was 10, 15 years ago or even five years ago. And you have to do whatever you have to do. I think you're doing a, a pool team night and Montreal. Thursday night, eight, these owners and GMs understand you have to go a different path. To create a different atmosphere to get these different fans there. So I'm 100% behind. I mean, if they need to have a milk St. Grow his hair out night, I don't care what it is. I mean, I'll have a col-de-sac, but whatever it takes to get these fans. Backed into the CFO. Hey, they have to do what they have to do. Well, I saw that I think Gary tweeted or was responding. And I said, I said, you need to explain to me what this is. It was like a 90. Canadian $90 Canadian or whatever, but yeah, the helmet with the poutine and it like, is that a good 90, 90 Canadian? Is that a good deal? I mean, I don't know. I'm I'm I'm, I'm never had, I've had P team was, it was in front of me, but I, I don't know. So I guess that $90 gets in the game because it gets you unlimited P routine. Does it get you real helmet? Does it get you a autograph from Gary stern? Cause I'm sure that's priceless right now. So it all depends on what you get, what you're giving. I'm sure. It's well worth the money. You'll see. Exciting game. Some great things or great at that atmosphere in Montreal was excellent. You know, that the background and everything. So I'm sure they're doing everything. To make sure that that atmosphere is great and that $90 in that pool team, which is one of the Montreal favorite delicate contestants. Hey, go out. Enjoy it. I'm sure you have a great time. Yeah, I think better being Gary ST's private suite in the, you know, owner's box there, if I'm paying $90 to get EPT and go, but just around that, you know, Edmonton struggles this year, right. You know, even quarterback issues and Cornelius started to again, trade four was out like, you know, it seems like Trey was really. The finally on the right path, he gets her final thoughts on Edmonton. Before I let you go. Well, you know, that they won a couple of games, no one would expecting him to do much damage this year. And of course, when they implemented trade four, they thought, you know, well, this is it. You know, we have a young quarterback. We can believe in, of course it's gonna take us some time, but because he is mobile, because he can run the ball, he gives us a chance, but. He got hurt and they implemented Taylor cornels and we saw him win a game. And you never count a Chris Jones team out. I'm never gonna do that. Yeah. He's making a bunch of changes weekly, but Chris Jones. Always has a plan. That man is very smart. He's won great cups as a head coach, as a defensive coordinator, he knows what he's doing. It may not look that well on the outside looking in, but Chris Jones. Spends too much time at his job at that office to not say he doesn't know what he's doing, so I'm never gonna count him out. It's gonna be tough. They're in the west. They don't have that legit quarterback. They have some other pieces they're trying to get together, but I'm never counting out a Chris Jones team in each and every game, regardless of who they're playing. Because of what he's been able to do. It's just weird, you know, and we're colored, you know, our friend of the show, Matt mangle, you know, he was on there as the puncher got released. They bring in John Ryan who was like not, it was not playing at all and then got signed. I mean, what did you make of that, that Chris Jones? Like, why want that now? Like he was, I could have had in two weeks ago, but now we're gonna trade. For him and then release Matt mangle. That's what mad scientists do you, you never know what's gonna happen. You know, they, they go back in the lab and they're creating things and they don't like it, things blow up and they come back out and they say, okay, what am I gonna do now? That's what Chris Jones is do. So we should never be surprised by some of the moves he makes. I mean, he may call me up later on and say he needs a, a extra DB, not even receive a DB. He may do it, but. That's what Chris Jones do. But as I alluded to, I'm never gonna count him out. I'm never gonna say what he's doing. That makes sense because he's been successful. So how can you say what he's doing is not making sense sense when he's been successful in the past. So give him some time it's not gonna happen year. Let's be honest. It's gonna take a lot for, to happen this year, but years to come. And I guarantee you, Chris Jones were having successful team in that. Well mill, I think you very much for taking time again, busy schedule doing all this to come on. I just, you know, be nice. I see. I was kind of researching this morning. I see a lot of articles like this, the CFO panel, like each other, whatever. I just hope you guys all have fun. I just hope that you guys all get along. Like I enjoy. It, but I'm just like, I don't want that to be the overshadowing, you know, lingering thing here. I mean, what, what do you make of that? You know what we talk about football for a living. So we never take each other serious. I know some punts take this job serious, but man, I'll talk about something I've been doing since I was four years old. I talk about it and I get to watch football. I'm gonna enjoy life. I'm gonna have fun. I let my hair down all the time. I enjoy it. Sometimes have to be critical of others, but. At the end of the day, we're all gonna have fun. And we love each other. I mean, how could you not love this beautiful place? I don't know what, what you're gonna say about your face, but how could you not love this right here? . Last question. You said nothing was off the table. I wanna know your opinion on Matt. Dunigan beard. So what, Hey, had to go with it. He had to change it up. Would I ever cover up this beauty? No, not saying that is ugly, but you know, every now and then you gotta change your looks up. You know, you wanna make things different, but I have no problem with even know, Matt keeps himself in shape. Yep. Okay. Let me get this going here that always hides my record button. Well, I'm excited today. We have Sarah Sayid here with the parlay and fan Canada. I'm always excited to get more female voices on here. We had Danielle Ponticelli on last week as well. Cuz the CF is kind of, so male dominated a, a lot of older kind of white. Journalists. I like getting a, a wide range of opinions. So thank you so much for coming on. How are you? Good. Thanks for having me. So talk me through, so you're with the parlay covering C what's your role kind of in the CFL sports media for people that aren't familiar with your work. Yes. So I do pick videos daily and pick videos are basically like something we do in house where we will. Run down, like what a certain matchup will be for any sport. So I do a lot of women's sports as well as CFL. So, for example, the tiger cats are playing the Toronto Argonauts. This is my pick for it. Like vetting pick. Why is this my pick and, and kind of sharing those. Clips on social media. We're not a sports book, so you can't place an actual bed on the Barlay, but we just like to, you know, make some fun content. We. Also do sci. So I also do like. Like profiles and other kinds of stories and fun, fun content on social media. Not just betting things. So that's kind of what I do at the Barlay well, that's great. Yeah, we were talking, so Steve MacAllister when the year, you know, the higher up are there, he was on our show. I mean like a year ago and nine months ago, talking about this as well, so great to get more of that on what's spurt, kind of your interest in this CFFL and wanting to be part of that. You know, well, I think that to be part of what you cover. Yeah. I have a really weird. Career path. I started in the fashion world. In the journalism space there. Then I went to the veterinary world, also journalism. So veterinary news. And then I went back to school during COVID cuz I wanted to do broadcast news. You know, did some internships and stuff. And then I, through there, my, my prof was a sports guy. He worked at TSN and he just like showed me what it was like to, to do some sports reporting and sports storytelling. And I kind of fell in love with it. So. The parlay kind of found me, but the reason I gravitated towards CFO was a lot to do with just me. Loving football. And obviously Canadian sports are really exciting to be a part of. So it was kind of a win-win for me, especially as a person who's really into history to kind of see Canadian history. Plus football plus, you know, being able to have access to these incredible players. Was just like, that's kind of, it was like, I fell into it, but I also. Was so excited to find it. That makes any sense. yeah. So you live in Toronto, you cover, you know, primarily the Argonauts and then also work on kind of the special features throughout the CFO. Is that correct? Yes. So what do you make of, of the Argonauts this season? The, the kind of coming back, I think they're at 500 now, you know, Macau, Bethel Thompson. He is a long time, you know, we're a supporter of him at the show here. What do you make of the Argonauts through the season and what you've seen. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of funny because I find that. The like last game with the auto against the auto red blacks, I was very surprised that they lost. I it's the inconsistency that I would say it kind of gets me, but I do think there is solid team. I think like just overall. When they, when there's that connection, like I know like example. McCoy Bethel Thompson was struggling to connect with Brandon Banks at one point, but then there was a switch up there and we're seeing like Curly's junior killing it. You know, obviously went to McManus, who I was telling you. I was doing a profile on. He was killing it. And so it's just like an Andrew Harris, of course. So it's kind of just, I find like the inconsistency this season with the Argos, maybe finding that connection with each other. As a team and once they do they're all good. But once that one connection is lost or the momentum is lost, it's a little bit. Questionable but, but they've been great to watch though. I've really been enjoying watching them. Well, it's good. So, you know, the, the whole big thing with, you know, CFO and last year they passed, you know, the 2, 1 8 or whatever, wanting to bring in all this gambling and sports, Betty and fantasy. Moving everything kind of into the, the, the modern era with the C. What's kind of the reaction that you get for, you know, your videos and your pieces. And when you do these daily picks, I haven't gotten any like negative reaction. I know a lot of people are not necessarily like who are sports fans, maybe don't. Want to have as much betting content out there. But at the same time, it is kind of an amazing thing to be able to be a, to, to have here in Ontario and just to be a part of, because. Like, even though. Yes. It's a lot sometimes to see like commercials everywhere and all that. If especially if you're not a sports better. It's like you're, it's just only gonna grow. The, the sports that we have in Canada and in the GTA, you know what I mean? Like having the chance for people in Ontario to, to bet on the leaves, to bet on their Raptors, to bet on the JS. And also obviously the CFO, like it just makes that attention to Toronto sports and Kenny Canadians sports that much bigger. And Americans can get involved and things like that. And, and we kind of feel more connected also to just like the big leagues. So yeah, it's, it's. I don't know if I get any negative reactions so far, thankfully, but you know, It, I get, I get why people are apprehensive. Sometimes . It's funny. I mean, even in the USFL here in the states, we cover that and you know, it's almost, yeah. The sports betters I've talked to almost liked it because nobody knew what they were doing when it came to like USFL, Betty. And so they were really able to capitalize on that. That's interesting, you know, as someone, you know, younger demographic, right. Female. We talk a lot on the show about, you know, Toronto and kind of the Argonauts being kind of lost in the mix of the city. There. What reactions do you get from, you know, your friends and coworkers and family, when it's like, you know, I cover the Argo dots or, you know, cover in part the Argonauts for the CFL. Yeah, people in Toronto don't care that much about the Argos and, and that's just the straight up truth. And it's not because we don't have great fans here. We have amazing Argos fans. I've met a lot of them and like, they are probably the best people I've ever met in my life. It's just that, you know, the. I guess because we're so used into the GTA in the greater Toronto area to have these. Big leagues that are affiliated also with the states. That obviously have a lot of funding, a lot of advertising, a lot of. Just brand recognition and team recognition. It's kind of like the art, the, the CFO kind of just falls through the wayside and because, you know, Toronto. Has all these other teams, like people don't think of the CFO as like necessarily like in Toronto and then the GTA. As necessarily being something that they wanna invest time into. But, yeah, so I, I definitely get a that's where I get the reactions where people say like, what, why? But at the same time, I always tell my friends, like, People won't go to the J's and pay 20 bucks for a ticket and don't watch the game. you know what I mean? Like, like sometimes sports is. About the experience and connecting with people. And I brought my friends to. An Argos game, literally last weekend. And they had so much fun. You know what I mean? It was like the same thing as being like. At a Jay's game or something like that. And I think for me, when I, when I see that it gets me excited, cuz I'm like, hopefully, you know, that's kind of something that can continue. In Toronto to kind of bring the team. Up. . What do you, you know, what would you like to see more of in terms of the CFO and engaging those young fans, engaging new fans? I mean, we hear all the time, you know, it's, it's kind of an older league, right? It's older, white league, a lot of, you know, I think that. Strongest part about the CFO in terms of their history and the legacy is so important. Right. But I do think it also kind of hinders sometimes of, you know, trying new ideas. Now, obviously we have Victor queen coming in, trying things in Edmonton and, you know, Gary stern with the Alette going crazy on social media and stuff. But you, what would you like to see done by the. To help engage. Is it more content like you're doing anything else? It it's hard to say because like, like you said, they, I feel like everybody has an idea of like, what can we do. My opinion is that the younger generation really is. The future. If you talk to leaf spans, they would've been fans since they were. Like literally born and have the leaps won. No so, you know, like it's more than just like some cuz some people say, oh, they need to win. They need to do this to that. They, they do win. They do a good job. They ha they wanna great up like a few years ago, you know? It's like, not that. It's not, I wouldn't say it's necessarily that aspect. It's more to do with the emotional connection that fans will have to a team. So, or to the league. So you see that a lot with the riders and the bombers and the tiger cats too. So I definitely think it's out there. And like, even when I was talking to Argos fans, they were a bit older. Generation. They were saying that because I asked them that question. I said, how, how, what do you think about the younger generation getting into it? And they said, That that they would want. Like that they don't have a, they don't think it's an issue because they. Have always wanted their kids to be involved in their grandkids are going to games right now. So that's kind of nice to see. It's kind of has to be passed on. In terms of the league itself and what they can do. Like, again, I'm not like a marketing genius or anything like that, but I do think that, like you were saying, like, people like Gary stern getting on Twitter and interacting with people that that's the world that we live in now, you know, it's like, It's kind of having those connections to the bigger names. And being able to have those conversations and even just joke around like on Twitter or something, it makes people want to be involved in that community. Do you know what I mean? So I think. Definitely just being more. Active online and open and open with the younger people too. I don't really know. How to get the younger people, maybe play, have some football. Events, but you know, well, no, but I think that that's helpful. I think having you, you know, I think you were tagged into like the, their calling, you know, the new female women of Twitter, right? You Christina, Constable Danielle Ponticelli, you know, in terms of. Trying to branch out and generate some new content like you are through the parlay, you know, trying to figure out digestible ways that people can kind of get involved, you know, with the CFO, in terms of your, you know, daily picks and stuff. How do you go about kind of putting that together and, you know, sending that content out. So we have a great team at the parlay. So it's definitely not just me that does those videos. So what I'll do for the CFO picks, for example, Is I'll write a script in advance, you know, obviously do research. What do I think the. The likelihood of which team to win is what the players are looking like, what injuries are looking like. What's the momentum where the, of bi-week where they. Did they lose badly? The last game, things like that, obviously looking at the odds. So I'll see. From there too. Like what's a bet that maybe. That that that is actually. Gonna be like valuable to bet on. So combination of those things, the ones I know with the script, I, we have some editors. We've send it over just to confirm that everything's all good. We have studio, we go into, we have a teleprompter, read the teleprompter. Record the video. And then we have other editors who work on like making the video all pretty. And great. And, and then, yeah, then we just posted on social media. So it's really a simple. Way of doing it, but it's also like, there's so many great people that help me out with that for sure. And yeah, . Well, no, I think it's good in, in terms of trying to get dealer. Yeah. A lot of feedback. Are, are these helpful videos? Do people enjoy them as have you heard? Like, oh, I, yeah. I made, made a lot of money on these. I haven't gotten anybody telling me, like I've made so much money off of these. Hopefully nobody's lost money off of them. That would be horrible. I do not. I I'm sorry if anybody did, but. No. I mean, I've gotten like. The feedback that I have gotten, like just in general is people just. Wanna see more of it. Like, so a lot of times I'll just do the like one or two videos a week. And I did have like somebody. Replied to me on Twitter. One saying like, do you do this for all of the teams for all of the matchups, da, da, da. So, you know, there are people out there who are looking for more guidance with bedding, especially with CFO. CFL, but I mean, Like it is, I'm not gonna lie. Like it is a little bit nerve-wracking to put my pick out there sometimes just because things change, right? Like you can't predict sometimes what's gonna. What the outcome of the game's gonna be, and it could be something as simple as weather. It could be like, Maybe that the, maybe their flight was for some reason, a little bit more delayed or something happened. And you know, like so many factors go into it, but you know, just as long as you can, as long as I can back up and explain why, like, I try to be confident with my best. Bets well, but it's important. I think it's important for the CFO. You can't just. You know, say, okay, we passed sports betting, this is gonna be great. You know, you need to figure out different ways to drive that interest. Right? Know, TSN edge does that as well. In terms of, I've talked with Aaron, I think, over there about that, trying to get more content out that way, but is it it's, it's one thing to. To, to be a present. This is, this is something that you're able to do, but there's another thing to be able to say, okay, here's content now that you can use to like, work around that and, you know, feel like you're educated and partaking in that, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not just a one step process. There it's a couple different steps to get people. Actually involved in the games, playing fantasy gambling, things like that. For sure. And then also the odds change. So, you know, you never, like, if you're reading my pick or watching my pick video, you might. Go onto the site later on whether it's span be 365, whatever it is you use and look at it and then the odds might be different and you might make a different choice, you know? So it's, it's kind of one of those things where. Like I said, there's so many factors involved and like so many different steps. Like you said, that like it's really up to the better themselves. And, and you never know, like if that's kind of what makes sports betting fun is like, you know, Especially, it's like, you kind of hate, let's say like a player does. Scores and you didn't expect them to score. You didn't bet on that. Sometimes it's like frustrating, but at the same time, it's, that's, what's so exciting about the whole thing. . You talked earlier, you know, CFO in the crowd engagement, right? Getting fans involved. What, what is your favorite part of, of the CFL game and being able to cover it? Oh, my God, definitely the fans and the community, like. It's I, when I went to touchdown Atlantics a few weeks ago in Halifax, it was probably the most fun I've like ever had. Because there was obviously Saskatchewan, we're a fighter fans as well as Argo fans and they were. So passionate about the game, passionate about their teams and also just like. Want to truly, truly have fun and connect with each other. Even they were just like also hanging out with each other and doing things and there was events going on and, and like, they were really. You know, so excited to be able to be supporting the league. And I think like for me, just I'm so extroverted. I don't shut up. Like I cannot stop talking to people. I love, it's just part of my personality. So to be an environment like that, to be able to speak to all these different kinds of people about what they're thoughts are on the CF and. What, what they hope the future is, what they, how they feel about it now and all these different things. That's my favorite part, for sure. And also just even connecting with the players, I think like at the end of the day, They all have stories to tell, and it's just like really great to be able to tell those stories. Are you, are you feeling good for the, a, that sphere kinda as we've moved past the first third of the season? Like, how are, how are you feeling for them just in general vibes? I I have good feelings. But at the same time, you know, Playing the tiger cats coming up for like a few games. It's it, it could be. The, like I said, the momentum could be crushed. Perhaps depending on the results, depending on even the environment with the fans and stuff like that. I know there's, that's a huge rivalry. Entire cap fans are very passionate. So, you know, it could kind of go both ways, but you know, so far I feel like, like I said, when the team is like locked in it's you can see. How, like how well there did they just flow on the field? Like, it just makes sense, especially when you have, like, I always talk about Andrew Harris, but when you have Andrew Harris like doing what he does, for example, Or just like, Like I said also too, like Gans Jr. Has been killing it. Like when you have these key players. Who are consistently showing out. You know, it's probably. It, it it's a good team. It's just that it's probably more than just the. Like skills themselves. It has to do more with like the emotions behind it that could prevent them from maybe. Getting to where they gotta be. That's my opinion. I'm curious, you know, as someone. Newer coming into the league, covering that kind of the reaction that you've gotten. Across from you, other media members, other fans and stuff. Cuz you know, I mean we're American and, and when we got into all this last year, it was a little bit of like, okay, who are you? Like what's going on here? You know? Okay. Welcome to our world. What's it been like for you kind of joining the, you know, the CFO media for lack of a better word. Yeah, it's been great. Everybody's been so nice, welcoming and helpful. I'm not. Shy to say that I'm new and I'm also newer to sports. So I'm okay with. That, you know, I'm the kind of person that will ask questions that will do the research. That will try my very best, you know, But also sometimes I just don't know things or I, I wasn't there when an event happened that everybody remembers. And so I have to do that extra research and I'm okay with that. Like, I don't think that, that, I think that that's, it's part of life sometimes, you know, you change career paths and you do different things. As long as you're passionate and you're willing to like immerse yourself fully and gen like in a genuine way. I think it's all good. And everybody that I've met has been so supportive of that they've honestly like. Been excited to teach me things. They're like, oh my God, Sarah, like, You know, this is some advice for this or. You know that they'll tell me about some history that I don't know or they'll connect me with somebody. So that's. I've really thankful for that. I will get well. So Sarah here with parlay fan deal candidate. So people want to learn more about, you know, your daily picks more of the, see more of the features you're doing, right? You do a lot of specialized features, you know, on players, right? You did the touch shadow of Atlantic, you know, trip and the, all that stuff. Where would you have them check out where they get? Can they. Get all that content. Yeah. So definitely follow the parlay. It's at the parlay, P a R L E H. You can definitely follow me on and you can follow Parley on Twitter, Instagram. TikTok me. I'm Sarah. Ann said. So Sarah, a N N E S a I D. And also like I'm on everything. So yeah. , this is great. Like I said, love meeting new voices, So it's, we kind of cover all the leagues. I haven't done a lot OFM B just cuz I kind of knew it was b******t, but now that it's all coming now that's it's I it's fasting to tell a lot of people. I that's why I have haven't spent the last two months talking. About it. So no doubt. Yes. And honestly we regretted even talking about it to begin with as well. So yeah. Simone, Eli. Yes, Simone, Eli. And it's with, I have it here with w K R G. Yes. And that's in, is that in Birmingham? No, I was in Birmingham unless five years. I'm actually in mobile now. Mobile. Okay. Yeah, we, we were in Birmingham for the us kickoff, so that was my okay, cool plan. I know I did that. So I got you. Cool. Well, I'm excited today. We have Simone Eli on with w K RRG out of mobile, the, the, the Crusader against all that is Frank Murtha and, and ML female. Now, Simone, how are you doing I'm? I'm doing well. I'm still kicking. I haven't been like, you know, Doug up in a backyard, Simon somewhere at. The hands of Frank Murr after all this MLF B talk, but man, it's just, it's just been a whirlwind. My goodness. Well, yeah, so obviously, you know, I had hesitated against doing a lot of L F B coverage the last few months on the podcast, and this is kind of why, but. You have come to light, you know, Twitter and everything else really shining the light. You were there for a lot of this. And you know, we're talking about the collapse. Now, the collapse of MF B first off, I wanna just know how did you become involved? Cuz we all live in the all football space. Like we all know in, in, you know, we've been. Tracking the AAF equipment that they bought back in, you know, 2019 or whatever to this. So how did you get involved in this MFP nonsense? Well, honestly, It was because we found out the MFP was gonna come to mobile. And so we're in the middle of what I would call like the dry season. There's not a lot of it, you know, in sports, but the dead of the summer when nobody is in school and there's no college football or high school football or things to talk about down here in the south, we'll pretty much take any, anything that we can get. And so we find out. Through the mobile sports authority that MLF B is gonna come here. And I'll never forget it. We're sitting in the office one day and we get that phone call and I'm like, who, the ML of what? Like what, what is this? And so obviously coming off the heels of the SFL and the success that they had, you know, we're thinking, okay, well maybe this is a thing. Well, it took about throw 30 seconds of a Google search to realize that this is really not a. Thing like this has never gotten off the ground. You know, if you go through like the Wikipedia page of the M F B, like they have a title for every, every season, like the almost season and why this one failed and the money wasn't here, Frank worth of this. And so. My, my sports director and I names, Randy, Patrick looked at each other and we're like, there's no way. There's no way they're gonna bring almost 400 people. To mobile Alabama house them have a training camp. Like we were so doubtful from the beginning and we said, there's this just not gonna happen? And so sure as heck they showed up and I'm like, all right, well, They're here. Maybe this is, is actually gonna roll and then practice begins and it's like, okay, well, Maybe this is legit. So that's really how things got started. And, you know, in mobile, you know, we're a good size market. We're not the biggest market. Obviously Birmingham is in the state, but when you have something like this coming to the city to a stadium, That has kind of gotten some bad pub recently because of some shootings that have happened at high school football games. And, and it really not a lot of revenue. Building for that stadium. So if you see anything coming to the stadium or coming to the city, you know, we're gonna bite it's sports, it's, you know, it's football. So we wanna see what it's all about. And so that's really how things got started, man, just to when it comes to our coverage and our knowledge of the league. . I love this. I love this already. You, my favorite person in to interview about this I'm I'm so excited. Cause it's so weird. So, you know, cuz we got into, you know, I started podcasting after the XFL 20, 20 went bankrupt so that I miss the whole. AAF existed. Then the FFL and then AAF would bankrupt and M F B had bought a lot of the old pads and equipment from AAF. And so from the second that Paul, my old co-host and I started the show people. What's up with L F B what's up with M sure. And I never got like, cuz we've talked about the spring league and there's fan control football and we talk about, see, I mean, there's a, there's all these different, but it's this legend. Of the LFB cuz for whatever reason, like they own the old helmets. And so people think that that, so I've never gotten it from day one, even this year when they, you know, they're, they're going to camp. I go, we don't have a TV deal. We don't have disorder broadcast. You know, there was rumors, oh, they're gonna be on like Amazon or Netflix. I'm like, I don't see them being on Amazon. No way. But even when they were in training camps, I'm like, I do not believe that they're, I I'm firmly believe they're not kicking off and then low and behold. So it, it kind of all the news came out about this time last week. Yeah. I mean, with all this kind of broke that. Sam shady, Sam, Jess. He's one of our sports reporters comes on. He had gotten a call from, I think, a couple players or agents that were like were locked out of our hotels. You know, we can't get, or we're, we're being asked willingly to leave. Like how did that all go down for you guys? Okay. So as it's a crazy story and it was, so I had just been coming off my sister's bachelorette trip and Nashville, and so quite Frank, I was not really. Paying attention to what the heck was going on in mobile. I had been gone for like an entire weekend and. I got back and I'm sitting there again with Randy and I look over and I'm like, Hey man, what the hell's going on with with this league? Like, like there, I saw something on social media, like. They're having a Jamee they're doing, am I not lied to you? My husband is a high school football coach down here. So like, Any, like there's some local guys doing stuff with equipment. And so like, he was sending me so things like, Hey, you know, this is actually kind of happening. And so. Looked at Randy. And I'm like, Hey man, like what's going on with this league? Since I've been gone, he's like, oh crap. I gotta call from a guy, you know, with mobile sports authority. Yesterday. He wanted to tell me something, let me, let me call him. So this is Thursday. And so he calls him. And I he's just brain starts laughing. He's guy told you me. I told you. And I'm so I start laughing. I'm like, I, well, I don't know what's going on. But I know some crap is going down already with this leak. Shocker. He because off phone come to find out, this is when we're getting news. That these guys are getting kind of kicked outta these hotels. So we look at each other and we're like, well, well, crap, this hotel is like a five iron from our TV station. So we get in our personal vehicles and we ride over there, ensure as heck there's 20 football players sitting in the lobby. Half a dozen coaches, a couple league officials, if you wanna call them that out there, everyone's like got their panties in a wad and I'm like, wow, like this is, this is seriously like unfolding right now. Right before our eyes. We're watching it. And it was crazy because there was, there was like a, it was split in that moment. It was like, all right, here's the people that want nothing to do with us. Cause I let 'em know who I was and, and you know, like, like I'm not trying to go in there and be secretive, like I'm with the media or whatever. And then there was like folks like, okay, no, I wanna tell you what's going on. And I'm like, well, I wanna hear about it. Like what what's. What's happening. So that's really how we got word of the, the first kind of pulling out. So we went down the road here. It is all these folks and, and you're seeing a, a couple different things. You're seeing some guys just sitting there looking like super, just down and depressed and you feel for them. I mean, you're like, what the heck? And then you're seeing some coaches getting an Ubers. And piecing out. So the, your questions become. How are these getting, where are they going? How are they getting out of here? What's the next step? And that's really how things really started to unravel here a week ago. Yeah, there was a leak at this time last year, it was like the NGL, I think, is what they call like very similar thing where they, all the players showed up and it's like, they ran outta funding. Yeah. It is funny, you know, cuz I used to work in local news too. Like some of the things you get, like this is why local news exists, like national media and everything and all that, but you never get the like, oh it's down the street from our house, like seriously conversation. Like we're you and being able to get that. So, you know, you're in interviewing play, you know, Frank Murtha. Wright has was never in mobile. Never mobile never came here. No. Yeah, he, he never came here. And so when, when I'm there, I, first person I talked to, wasn't an assistant coach and I said, okay, like, what's going on? That's when he tells me we are just in. So we came off the football field, we come back to a hotel, they delivered us lunch and we're in meetings and we get a knock on the door that says, get out, like, y'all need to. Evacuate immediate, like not evacuate, but whatever. They were like, get the heck out of this, outta this medium room. And get your stuff out of the rooms. So by the time these coaches are going up to their rooms. There's staff members up there, security up there taking, you know, locks off doors. The, the key, the key. That goes on the magnetic deal, telling players to get out. If players aren't in there, they can't go back in to get their stuff. Apparently some hotels were saying, they're gonna charge them to try to get their stuff, to get, come outta the rooms. I mean, it was, it was a mess. And the thing is, is that you feel for the guys, cuz you also have to understand that the, that these hotels are trying to protect their business. You know, they made an agreement. From what I've gathered and, you know, after multiple days is they made an agreement with, with the league that, okay. Let's just say the league owed the Marriott $500,000. For the total stay? Well, they pretty much said, well, You can pay us on like a, in like weekly. Installments on this. I don't, I don't even think they ended up having to put much down, up front. And here's my thing. I had never stayed at a hotel in my life. Maybe I'm wrong. Where I have not paid. To stay there, like immediately, not only are you paid the rate, but you also have to pay the incidental fee. Like, I mean, it's a significant thing. I always, I'm always stressed out, checking into hotels. Well, These guys are all in these hotels for almost two weeks and the coach is even longer. With hardly paying any money. I mean, and that's crazy to me. So yes. I mean, there's a lot of folks that are like, all right, well, these hotels are, are in the wrong. We're kicking these. No, they're not. I mean, they're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every single day. Because there first, there was an issue with a credit card. Then they were trying to get a bank. A transfer from the league, you know, I mean, they were just kept egging in mind, then the money's gonna be there on Monday. Like all of this crap. And, and it never came to fruition. So of course they had to, to protect themselves at that point, they're already at a huge loss and they still are today. And it seems like that's not, not going to, to change or be improved whatsoever. So, so it was just great. And then that's kind of when, like the. The reality set in of like, These guys having to figure out their own way and to fly out of mobile is a pretty penny. I rarely do it because it is so expensive to go anywhere. Even if you book well in advance, if you're booking the next day or even the same weekend that, I mean, you're talking one way ticket $600 plus be because it's the smaller airport and only goes a certain. Places. It's not like a hub. You, I mean, it's not like new Orleans. A lot of folks try to go to different cities in the area to get a cheaper rate, but. I mean, these guys can't afford that. I mean, they were hit at $50 bro for, for two weeks. On on the field, like, and I'm not like, not like a direct deposit. It was like here, man. It was like, it was kinda like one of those, like, and when you get done, like at kitty camp, like everyone gets to granola bar. It was like, Hey man, here's your 50. Okay. Here's your 50, like, that's how they got this money. And that's how they got, I mean, these dude's have nothing and not, they're expected to, to pay their own way. And, and I. Think some other coaches ended up putting some up in hotels, but man, it's just, it was unbelievably unfortunate to see the. Initial fallout. And then it's really only gotten worse every day. You bring up the hotel thing. So this exact same thing happened last year. We had the spring league that, that, that became the us felt right. Spring league last year, they played the hub in Houston and rice stadium. And then they played in Indianapolis where the COLS play. They played in the oil, whatever that Lucas saw stadium. Yeah. Lucas. Same thing. They owe the city of Indianapolis. $1.4 million. They've never paid it. They've never paid it. Like I know, understand how these leagues come in and the, I, yeah, I I'm charged like Expedia. I'm charged to deposit a that's I'm saying they have my car down five, like that here, take 1.4 million. You can come stay here. No question. And, and the thing is, I'm not trying to like, say like, whoa, it's mobile compared to Indianapolis, but like any sort of economic impact in this city, which does great. And like mobile sports authority has really done a good job bringing in, you know, certain events or certain groups who have brought revenue to the city and things. But like, that's a, that's a big law loss and it's not just the hotels. It's also the bus service and it's also. A catering service here, the probably I'll, you know, over a hundred thousand dollars, the bus service out, you know, just as much, if not more. And the hotels, I mean, we're looking at over a million dollars that these, that these companies need to be owed. And a lot of companies. Privately owned family owned companies, you know, really can't like just consume that, absorb that and just. Just move on, you know, so that's, it's really, it's unfortunate situation in that regard. But then you start to wonder, okay. It, it takes three seconds of a Google search to realize that there was a huge risk in this, you know, that this was never really gotten off the ground in the past. And so, you know, where does the fault lie in that? I don't know. Should you have asked for more money upfront? Well, Common sense says yes, that didn't happen. Lad stadium and, you know, got their 30 grand. But I also find that weird man is like, okay, lads stadium got 30 grand. And so do the three other places. Except for the three other places. Didn't house training camp, but they all got the same amount of money. So I never understood that. Why. Why they all got the same amount of money, why it was all front? What really lad was like the, the beginner training camp, you know, before games were even supposed to start this week, I guess. But, so I don't know. I mean, it just seems like. A lot of folks got the raw end of the deal from the mobile. Services here from the players, coaches. Although we later found out that, you know, some of these coaches were making some pretty good money, you know, then I ended up talking to one this past week and that was just a whole, a whole nother can of worms. You know, I it's, when they told, when they came out and they said that they were, you know, not being paid for training camp, that's always a red flag for me, cuz like even the XFL they've announced next year. Right. They're coming in February. Yeah, I think it's 5,000 a week that you're getting paid, but the training camp, you're getting 800, right. Some skin in the game. Right. Obviously we're not paying everyone five grand. You go through training camp, but when it's coming out, they're saying, yeah, you're gonna play here for three weeks before you even get a paycheck. Like that to me was always a red flag from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, no question. I mean, and the thing. Is these guys, they, they were hooding. Cause that's the word that I'm I was, I was told genius. They were hoodwink. They were sold on something. That you know, their hopes and their dreams are to play football and to stay alive and in some sort of semi-pro or professional. Capacity. Yeah. They're, they're willing to take a chance and I know some guys missed out on some combines and some other things they could have gone to. Potential other opportunities for this one. And honestly it just, it was sold really well to them, supposedly from somebody. To get them here, but you know, it is so crazy. What has happened since then? You know, this, this past week I got an email, pretty lengthy email from an employee coach. From one of the teams. That talked about them getting that check reversal, which was just crazy to me. So on Friday, Everyone got their standard pay their standard contracted pay. And this is what doesn't make sense to me. Okay. So. Their contracted to work from July 1st to September 30th, every single week they're paid on Fridays. So beginning July 1st, they were paid every single week. Well last Friday on the, I think it was the 29th. Everyone got their check. You're talking, you're talking staff, right? It's a we're talking staff. Yeah. Players still only got their 50 bucks. So staff, I mean, they got paid on Friday. Well come Tuesday of this week. That was reversed. So it's literally deposited into their bank accounts and it is reversed on Tuesday. Taken out their accounts. And this coach told me, he called his bank and said, can you stop this? Like, this is money that was owed to me. So despite like the fact that it's totally wrong, they signed a contract to be paid through September 30th. They're not gonna do that, obviously. Cause don't have money, but this was ours actually worked the week before I. Mean that they actually worked and were due. And instead this money is just taken back outta the bank accounts and technically legally. They had five days to do it. And so in that regard, I guess they were allowed to do it, but it's just crazy to me that in that same breath, Frank Bertha is, is just. Putting out statements that are honestly just lies either actually lies. Say one. That their first goal was to help coaches and players get out of the city and get home. Is. Completely not true. I sat there and interviewed multiple players at the airport who paid their own way, but to call their aunts, uncles, whoever. To pay for these tickets had no way home, nowhere to stay the night before when they got kicked outta the hotels. So it was just not true. All the coaches paid their own ways. And then to say, to even put out there that this is just a postponement of the season is total. BS it's total BS. I mean, I can get up on a high horse right now, but it was alive from the beginning. We're seeing the fall continuum. Then they're pulling paychecks from everybody. I mean, Why even try to continue. I'll tell you why. Cause he thought people would continue to try to invest into this, into this company. And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I know a bunch about stocks cuz I don't and I don't care about the stock market. My job is not to care about the stock market. My job is to report the news and the facts that we find them out to be in this entire situation and this fallout, especially for our city. And it's it's, it's unfortunate because he is trying to sell something to people that he knew was dead. He knew wasn't gonna get off the ground. And I mean, I had one league official telling me in the hotel. Oh, we're bringing 'em back in two weeks. We'll know the hell. You're not y'all don't have it dime. Well, that's the thing is, and we said this last week we had, I had Mike Mitchell on kind of, like I said, right, this is all kind of came out. I said, Anybody that would come back in two weeks is insane. I mean, it's like, this was your window. I under, you know, whether it was. Genuine or not, they were trying to do it or not. Right. I don't, like you said, with the sock market, all that, and Frank mur really was sitting there and he is like, we are making this happen. Nobody is coming back now after you've defaulted on payments that had to be kicked out because what trusted all all do I have that you're going get, I think in pay me at all when I, and if I do work, then you're gonna take money away. Then I earned anyway. So no question and you better find a different city cuz there ain't a, a one single hotel or caterer bus service in this city. That's gonna house you like, then it happening. I mean, once burn, I mean, and they're not coming back. And so, I mean, it, it is totally unfortunate and I, I actually found something out later. I haven't even put out yet. I was gonna share. So the Wednesday before the Thursday, the D-Day Thursday of everything blowing up the Wednesday before the Alabama airborne cut five players. And so those five players were sent back to the hotel. To leave. I mean like they, like the coaches told 'em, Hey man, like we gotta get these. They told like two officials on the ground here, get these guys some airfare. Here's where they need to go. Like, you need to get them outta the city. They're not part of the team. So the team gets off practice field. At least five guys are still at the hotel and the coach is like, Hey man, like why. Why are they still here? Like they're, they're not on the team. It's just like, well, what did you want? Like same day travel. And they're like, well, yeah, like they're not with us. Well, they're like, well, can they just, can they come to dinner tonight? And then we can get 'em out in the morning. like, bro, how are you gonna have these people that just got cut, come to dinner with a team they're not even on, but again, like not for football minds, not people that understand the game. Anyways. Well, they book 'em flights, bro. Okay. So they book 'em flights on Wednesday. All right. The day before. Everything went to, to crap. Maybe this is what pushed him over. They book 'em flights for the next day out of Pensacola, which is about an hour automobile. So come Thursday morning. Alabama airborne is practicing at lad stadium. All right. These five guys that got cut the day before. Are in a freaking car going to Pensacola to fly out. Well, they do at the same time that they go and fly out. Everything is getting shut down. And so these guys who got cuts like a busting in disguise, they got their stuff paid for by the league. And there they are on a first flight out of Pensacola that day. So come to find out the guy that took them. Had the keys to lad stadium. The team has since been back in the hotels, they didn't even have the keys to go to lad to get their equipment out of their lockers, to leave. After the league starts to shut down. So it is just crazy to me to, to hear that. Guys who were cut end up getting out. The guys who were still on the team are potentially going to be on the team. Going training camp had no ability to get out. I mean, it's just, it was total chaos. I mean, that was just one thing behind the scenes. Cause there, there were so many other things like the bus service and it wasn't on the, the bus, it was on the organizer. Like there was people not being. Able to go to practice cuz there wasn't enough bus room and again, it wasn't the services, it was the organizers. This was never organized from the, from the onset. It's always been such a mess and man, it's just. It's just crazy. And it's crazy. It's like, you know, Randy and I sat here the day, it all went down and said, there's no way this is gonna happen. And sure as heck I said, there's no way they play a game. And guess what? They're not it just to me and I, and I laughed just because the chaos of it. I mean, I don't, you make light of any of the players getting caught and all this, and that's, what's so frustrating about all. This is like you said it, these guys had to put their live lives on the hold, MIS combines, miss other practices. You can time off of work. Maybe left a job. Hey, I'm gonna come out. I'm gonna work for three months. And then to be stuck out there having put in time, have no money, have to spend your own money to go back. Like that's the most fresh, you know, I'm a contract worker too. That's the most frustrating thing is like, well now, like I gotta pay money outta my own pocket to get outta this situation crazy without being paid. Yeah. I apparently, I was also told that people. Who came to mobile. So not coaches, but players. A lot of their flights weren't booked until the day before. Well, anyone who books, flights. The day before knows that you're gonna pay a pretty penny so that in and of itself, I think it was kind of a red flag. For a lot of people realizing like, okay, they don't have their stuff together. The guys are inviting into training camp to kind of go through like a tryout service. You know, they're like the travel agency was trying to get names and all these flights are getting books late. And so they were honestly way behind the eight ball, even more so than probably what we think right from the onset. And honestly, I just think that Frank Mertha and whoever his cronies are we're gambling with, with people's. Lives. They were trying to, they knew there was a huge risk. They knew the money wasn't there and they were hoping people were going to invest in something because they had this motto of cleats in the grass. And if you go back and you look at. Videos marketing videos, or you wanna call it? From several months ago, they're like we're gonna have cleats in the grass that was like their sales pitch almost to folks to like invest into this company. And because they ended up having a Jamboree, which had like 10 people there. And because they ended up going through some practices, like they thought people would be like, wow, this is real football. And nobody bought it. And literally, and figuratively. And, and here we are today, it was funny. They did part of that social media was they have like, it was like a five step plan and it was like, step one, stupid. A professional football league, like step two, mark. I'm like, that is, that is the LAR step for step one. Like, but it was, and then it was other things like, you know, market and grow, whatever was like, step one, establish professional football. And that's, I mean, it's the most like this, he makes sense. Like in the, like the org organizational plan from the onset. Was was a, it seems like a scam. I don't know how else to put it. It seems like it was a scam. From the beginning and it's, and. We laugh about it. And we're like, oh, I told you so, and all that realize we're impacted, you know, guys who don't have a whole lot, are they gonna see that? I don't know. I saw one report that said maybe some guy. Guy saw some money. I have yet to hear that. I hope that they do cuz you know, a thousand bucks. I mean, shoot, that's a lot of money to me. I don't wanna go pay. $400 For something that's not my mind to pay. So if I did, I would've expect to see that back. And so. You know, I hope for the, for these guys' sake that they do, I hope that they get other opportunities, but. What a complete disaster. And, and honestly like, I, I don't see the money coming back for the city vendors anytime soon, if ever. So just around this out, cuz I could talk to you about this forever. This is fast. No so. Have you talked to Frank at all, or is this all been through statements? Okay. No. So that, that's another thing is that I have reached out to just about every single number, email, whatever that you can possibly reach out to when it comes to anyone in the. Corporate part, if you wanna even use that term loosely corporate corporate MLF B if that's a thing isn't, you know, a website anymore. About anything. And the only thing we got was initial. Statement, which was no comment. That was the Thursday. Of the mess, then they, then we were told kind of under the table, Hey, there's gonna be. A co a, a statement tomorrow. That is going to one show that we have the money and talk about like a future plan, which is not what it was at all. The official statement that we got was, Hey, we hate this happened. We're gonna postpone the beginning of the season, which is total crap. And we're gonna help guys get home. And that's literally, other than that, it has been radio silence. So I don't know. Lemme make sure there's lawyers involved. I'm sure that there's Hey. You know, they're trying to not be responsible or liable for things. I'm sure. And. The vendors here, you know, aren't really talking a whole lot because, you know, they don't wanna get in bad. They wanna see that money come back to 'em. But is that gonna happen? Very very doubtful. So that's kind of where we're at now. It's like this holding pattern and. I don't know. So somebody tweeted something a minute ago about them losing entirely, any funding that they had, that was, that was gonna be back, back the league. And so it's just going up in flames. I, you know, I really hope that for the future. That this is an attempted again, because. Cause history says that it will be attempted again, history says they're going to, to make another effort to. Pretty much sell these guys on their hopes and their dreams and convince somebody in some city somewhere to do this. And it's, it's not gonna work. It's never worked and it's not going to. Yeah. Yeah. I, we saw the tweet too. It said that the $10 million equity line they had was pulled. So yeah. Yeah. It seems like. But, like I said, you know, if, if you're banking on that they supposedly had money. I mean, that's the question of like, You know, they came in, I've heard they had 30 million, whatever. Like where did that go? Did they ever have all that? I know Frank Murtha paid. Salaries to write to himself and everybody else. So, so. Is, I'm just gonna tell you right up front. This is something that I was told by someone that I would say is a credible source in the league. Now I haven't asked other folks about it. This is somebody who I've gotten a lot of information from and is trustworthy information. But this is just seems, I'm not saying this isn't trustworthy. I just think that. I, I don't know. I don't know how much there is to this, but I'm gonna share it anyway. This is a podcast, not a newscast. So I can do that. I feel like I, this is a safe space for me to share something that could have potentially be hearsay. Is that okay? That's I mean, we're, we're practicing this. So this is, you know, second head account of, yeah. So what I was told was, you know, they, they purchased this equipment and the equipment. Wasn't San Antonio. Is that, is that true or not true? That the equipment wasn't Texas somewhere, I would say when the AA app showed down, I think they're, I think they're yeah. Continue. I'm in the research. Okay, well, so what I was told was that the equipment was in San Antonio. And that the league. And again, I don't know, I I'm telling you right now. I don't know. I picked all of this up, all this MFB up stuff. Just like how we started this conversation. When they decide they're coming to mobile. So a lot of history with alternative football leagues, other than like, you know, the Birmingham stallions a couple years ago, you referenced and the SFL, like it's not really our mojo down here. College football is so I don't have a huge ton of like history, but long story short, I'm told. That major league football tried to kick things off in Texas. And they wanted it to be somewhere. Around this equipment. I don't know if it had to do with the equipment being there, but they wanted to like kick off training camp and have all of the things begin in Texas. Well, apparently they looked into trying to do things at the Alamo dome, but it was too expensive to do with Alamo dome. Then, then looked somewhere in San Marcos and they felt like it wasn't good enough city to do instant Marcos. Well, the reason that this supposedly matters. Is that one of their top investors who was good for 10 million. Was based out of Texas. Instead, if you're not doing it in Texas. I'm not in and. Again, I, again, I'm not like I'm not stating this as fact again, I'm telling you, this is something that I was told. I don't know about all of these stocks and investments and what was going on behind the scenes. But what I was told was one of their primary investors was based outta Texas and said because of the way that it would, it would be with tech taxes and some other things with the state. If this isn't happening in Texas, Then I'm not in, and at that point it was a little too late to, to, to completely backtrack on trying to start the league with, or without this person's money again. That's just something that I was told. I'm sharing it because you were just referencing, where did this money go? It sounds like that could be a big chunk of it. What that really means. I don't know, but that's. I think that the initial thought process was that it was gonna start in Texas. So there could be some, there could be some, you know, clout in that, but this guy was good for a lot of other information. And so. I could see that it being, it could be, there'd be some truth in it. Yeah, no. And that's this with what I remember. So back they purchased the equipment. This was November 1st, 2019, MLF B they bought a lot of the AAF commander stuff that was obviously based in San Antonio. So that, that, that definitely correlates with what my memory was as well. So they said they sold about 50% of the stuff date, including it's team laptops and of other AAF inventory. Nice. Nice. Well, it just seems like it's all shuffling around. And it's just been, I don't know, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate for the guys, unfortunate for the vendors where it goes from here. It doesn't really seem like there's gonna be, you know, Anything positive, but I don't know. This has been a very fun. I really appreciate it. I hope that there's some other upstart football thing in mobile, so we can bring you back on cuz I would, if this was the one and done to have you come on and talk us through all this, this has been like the most exciting thing I've cover since I had, I was in mobile. I have been here a year now. I. I was in Birmingham the last five, and obviously there's a ton going on in Birmingham. And we had, you know, the XF L and the stallion and all the crap, whatever. And so down here, I mean, this was kinda like a wake up call. Somebody tweeted at me and said, Simone, thought she's gonna go to mobile and just lift this quiet life. And then the MLFB started and I was like, you know what? That is the Truett thing I've read. So here we are. You know, and I honestly, I think it's pretty. Cool. I it's opened up like this whole new world of. People who are super, super interested. In like alternative football leagues that I didn't really know. Existed because my life is consumed by Alabama and Auburn and high school football here. And so to see. Just how many people are super interested in this and knowing what's going on. I have definitely grown a sense of appreciation for that. It's so weird. I've I've even talked, you know, we're Accel, XFL is coming on board now. Right. They're getting ready for their February. I've even talked to some of their people and I'm like, This, you really need to be ready for like the fan base that you're targeting here when you're in the, when you're in the alternative football, like it's a very weird, hard, it is core passionate fan base. So yeah, it definitely is that.

Episode 103 - XFL Hub v. USFL Hub

Well in a week that I interview Dwayne, the rock Johnson. Chairwoman and co-owner of the xFi, Danny Garcia. Exel president rest, Brandon Anthony backed Bob stoops. I'm trying to think of all these wonderful people. It only makes sense that I follow it up with our own Exel insider. I use that term. Mike Mitchell, how are you doing today, Mike? I'm doing well read, thank you so much for having me on it. And I'm definitely not in that league. But I appreciate you having me on anyway. It's gonna be fun to talk about this stuff. Yeah. And so I wanna preface, obviously, you know, XFL back in the news, we're having a lot, you know, we've added a lot of subscribers this week, so if you're hopping on, thank you so much, you like it. Subscribe. It it listeners of our show. Obviously we had the big XL announcement on Sunday, the cities and all that at town hall. If you listen to the show, if you followed Mike's writing on XL news hub. We've known all this city since April. So that, that is where Mike kind of fits into this. He is someone. Talks with people in the league, does his own research. But he is our, you know, EXL insider. So if you're coming on board, thank you. But then just to say, you know, Mike was right. We've been having all these coaches in the city and all this all, and I know you don't like to take credit, but I just think that's important to point out there that, you know, these, this was something that you put out there, you stood by it, you reported it. And now here we go. And I mean, it had to feel right to know that it all came out. Yeah. Its it interesting. You know, it's like if I had. Predicted it myself, if I'd said, well, you know, I think they're gonna have a team in San Antonio in Las Vegas and all that, then I'd feel a little bit more prideful about it. Basically. I'm just the messenger. Somebody gave me the information and then I checked it with few other sources, actually five. And then wow. When I heard Las Vegas. I was like, really like, I, you know, it's like when I got the information, so I totally understood when I released it@xflnewshub.com. When I put it on Twitter. Whenever it was late March, early April when I put it out there, the coaches, the Hines wards and everybody else, people, you know, I fully understand the response from people out there saying, you know, really like being shocked. Cuz that's was my initial was response when I heard not so much saying Antonio, because I think. Redbird capital did a lot of research and obviously Danny Garcia and others. And they looked at this space. And, you know, when you saw San Antonio, how successful it was in the AAF, it made complete sense to go back there as a city that wants a pro football team. They responded extremely well. That market was so into it by in merchandise, we talk about TV ratings, but that's also a big factor. Buying merchandise paying attention to the league. Local sponsorships, the AAF hit a home run with the San Antonio commanders. Now the commander's name's in Washington with the NFL. It's funny how that works out. But yeah. You know, when I got this information, I just relayed it out there and I totally get the skepticism. As some people going, wow, they got rid of New York. LA cuz you know, I, I did, I wrote an article about the XFL, the current version. Abandoning a lot of the aspects of X FFL, 2.0. And in that article, like quote, tweeted it on Twitter and said, okay, these are the cities. I've heard the three that are out. Are New York, LA and Tampa. And so that there's a whole big discussion on that particular move itself. But yeah, it was it's, you know, in overtime, the Aaron Wilsons and other people months later, but still. Release the information, you know, I remember when the reports came out initially about Reggie Barlow joining the league, and he's like one of the first coaches that we heard. He was attached to San Antonio. So when I got the information that he was gonna be with DC, Which is a team I'll be covering for XFL news hub. A lot of people are like, no, no, no, no. And the people who. Are close to Reggie Barlow said, he's going to San Antonio. I said, Hey, don't you know, this is the information I got. He's in DC Hines. Ward's gonna be in San Antonio. And it makes sense. Cuz Hines ward saw firsthand as a member of the Alliance for American football. How popular San Antonio was and he wants to be in that market. It's a great market to be in. So. Fascinating times up ahead. And you you've done a great job, you know, interviewing all these coaches. It's been a whirlwind the last week or so all the information we've got and there's more coming. Yeah, it's crazy that, you know, we, we still have nickname, logos, colors, all that stuff coming out. So just to kind of, you know, set the stage here. You know, lots of stuff today, we have the MLF B shutdown down, you know, collapse, whatever we wanna call it. We have the XFL lawsuit. All this stuff. So we're gonna kind of go chronological order. I think that makes the most sense. We'll you know, we'll talk city announcements, we'll talk venues, coaches. I, you know, that's been played a little bit, obviously I wanna get your thoughts on that stuff. Sure. And then I get the, you know, the bulk of the discussion. I think I really want this focus on this hub. You know, we have the comments from Danny Garcia and Russ Brandon on the site, you know, courtesy of the media, scrum that I was a part of with that. And then on obviously the ML B and all that stuff. So. You know, cities come out, they had the big town hall. It, you know, it's one of those things where we've all. Grasped there's no New York team. There's no LA team. Obviously the general public, the casual is not like, what do you think the reaction was? You know, three teams in Texas. Obviously the people at Texas live were excited because, you know, we live in Arlington. That's great. But I mean, when have you seen the general reaction now to we've pulled out of. Markets one and two media markets, you know, there's a lot of differing opinions on it. Like a lot of people are raising their eyebrows, like the rock. That New York and LA are not a part of this. And the one thing I can say is two summers ago when Redbird capital Jerry card, Danny Garcia, Dwayne, the rock Johnson bought the XFL out of bankruptcy. They've had two years, you know, during that timeframe when they bought it, Danny Garcia mentioned that, you know, there might be some changes. In that we're gonna reset and reassess, and they've had two years to decide what their markets were gonna be. So a lot of time and research. Has gone into the markets that they have chosen. So it had to be a difficult decision because for, for the people that don't know Danny Garcia, when FFL 2.0 launched. She was looking to purchase one of the teams and the team that she wanted to purchase was the New York guardians. So, and obviously they have ties to that. And, and then that particular area and all that, both Wayne and Danny and, and so she had interest in the New York guardians and lo and behold, Janet Duke. Was the president in New York audience is a big part of X FFL, 3.0, she's back with the league, which is tremendous. But, you know, for them to make that decision to not go into New York in LA, and there are a lot of different, you know, opinions back and forth. It's not black and white. There's a lot of gray areas on this, whether or not you should choose those two markets. Two big tele two, the two biggest television markets out there. But I, I think a lot of their thought process. Beyond the financial part of it, because it's very expensive to run teams in New York and LA. A lot of it has to do with the simple fact of engagement. So you go by the numbers. And I was actually a few minutes before I got hopped on with you. It was fortunate to, and I'm still going through it over it, but I was fortunate to get the top 10 markets. For the XFL on ESPN and ABC. So I'm going through those numbers now, New York and LA are nowhere to be found. And I understand that even if it's a tiny percentage in New York and LA it's still. RA it's more people. Than would be say Tulsa or something like that. But also you have to figure in like, how invested are the people who are watching your league? Are they watching a casually or are they really into your league where they're gonna buy tickets and. View all your social media and be wrapped up into your league. There may have been some New York and there were, you know, obviously I covered the New York guardians. There were fans that were into the league. But it by and large. It wasn't that strong. It was. Mostly ignored in the tri-state area. By the media and all that. And you didn't have, you had good crowds, even though it looked like an I saw when you watched New York guardians games. Same thing with LA. They had good crowds too, but it didn't look great at, so, you know, so they had to make, you know, circling back. Red bird, Danny Garcia, Dwayne Johnson for better, for worse. They've had two years to make these decisions on what cities to choose. And I'm sure it was difficult for them to, you know, let go of the big cache in New York and LA and Tampa, which is a good market too, even though they didn't do very well in the FFL. You know, so I, it was a tough decision, but th there's a method to their madness. There's a reason why these cities have been chosen. I was gonna make a joke. I was, you know, at the time. Right. Tampa like scary. Right. It was like 12,000, whatever, Rick man, this is like terrifying, like. I think a lot of leagues right now would take 12,000 fans at a lot of their games. I'm not trying to throw any shade, but it is, I mean, context is king and it was, you know, I was obviously with the dragons and, you know, I think we have like 20. Six. I can't remember, you know, Battle Hawks. Right? They were gonna open the dome. We all know that stuff. You know, the, the game that got canceled there, but. You know that 1214 for some of those games looks pretty good. Now in comparison, just of what we've seen in a recent times with other. Spring, alternative football leagues agreed. And you know, it's not so much the number, you know, whether it's 10, 12, 15,000, it's also the type of fans. You haven't attendance. And the Tampa crowds are great. The Viper crowds and Tampa are great. So oftentimes with these kind of leagues, you get spectators more than fans. And that was a cool thing that the XFL had going in 2020 is even if the crowd was 15,000, which I think is a good number. And, you know, it's not easy to, to Dr. When you're a new league with players of people are not familiar with you don't have a built in brand identity. You're you're just getting started to draw 12 or 15,000. Fans, even in places, you know, in places like LA, where you're competing against the sun, that's very difficult. So I, I think those are decent numbers. I think people have to temper their expectations. Now we're living, I can't really say a post COVID world cuz we can, we still have shade, you know, issues with the pandemic and everything else, but we've got a better handle on it. But now that we're in, you know, in a pandemic world, You know, getting 12, 15,000, 17,000, 20,000. If you're lucky, those are great crowds, especially if you're a new league because other established leagues struggle. To to draw. I'm not talking about the NFL because we know what the NFL is. Right? Absolute monster. But, but you know, with these kind of new leagues, you know, you, you can't, you can't scoff at, oh my God. It's just that when you have larger stadiums, there's sometimes where you have an 80,000 seat stadium. If you only have 12,000 fans lit, it looks like a, you know, non Birmingham styles crowd. And that we saw this past. Spring spring. So that's kind of the story there. Is this hard, you know, like you said, even CFO is struggling. You they're, you know, famously gate driven league. They had monster ratings on Sunday for your Argonauts, you know, versus rough riders, right. 600,000 plus, you know, they can't even get 20, 20, 2000 in that stadium right now. And that's real, the only professional team. That they have in, you know, in Saskatchewan like that. So it's. Every league is struggling. I mean, it not just USFL, not just XFL. Well, you know, we'll talk about this with the hub XFL. Fell plays in a lot more importance on getting fans in there, just because of obviously, you know, the TV deal and the production and all that stuff. It's just weird to me that they couldn't figure out red bull arena or they couldn't figure out somewhere else in LA. Like even if you're you're knocking have. Both. It just, it seems weird that we couldn't at least establish one of those just to keep it going. Yeah, we can't go back into the future now and change it up. I'm sure that, you know, but it would've been, I think New York red bull would've been terrific if they had pulled that off. And those crowds are great. The guardians crowds are great. Great. They were invested in the games. They were, they were, there was a lot of energy, but it just, you know, on TV, it didn't look great because obviously cuz it size of the stadium. But yeah, we can't go back in time and, and make those changes, you know? Little scared the other big, you know, they have the cities and we know Vegas and San Antonio, the Texas triangle. Right. I, I like that. It's kind of a branding thing. I think that that really works that rivalry. DC St. Louis and all that. Weird. Most of the venues were pretty self-explanatory right. Lumen field in Seattle. We had on our life stream on from the Arizona showcase. Some of it suggested like Husky stadium. And I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that. That would work, but weird that LA or that Vegas. Still hasn't announced where they're playing. What I mean. Are you leaning towards Alicia? What do you think about where the Vegas event was going to be? I think you, Allegiant stadium has all the leverage right now. And I'm sure it's not surprising me. That a red bull Redbird has had a, some difficulty closing that deal. Because I'm sure that it's difficult right now to dot all those eyes and cross those Ts, the cliches involved because the XFL doesn't really have any other options in Las Vegas. They, so it's a Legion or bust. And so they're gonna have to figure that out. I'm sure they're haggling. It's not the these venue deals are not easy. To make, because you have to work on the splits and how you're gonna do all that. And that's a big part of it. Concessions, all that. So I think allegiance, their only choice, and we saw the Las Vegas Raiders. At Allegiant stadium, they led the national football league in 2021 and ticket revenue. So that market is booming. And, you know, the, the venue has leveraged so they can ask for splits that are more favorable to their end. Redbird is not used to. I don't wanna say losing, but they're not used to going into an endeavor where they don't get anything out of it. So, so I'm sure there's some haggling going on there. You know, from why understanding Jerry card. Cardell made a big push for Las Vegas to be a part of the league. He sees the growth of that market and how. The gambling and everything else. And, and he loves the cache of it. And if you look at the portfolio of Redbird, Everything they've got involved there, you know, throughout the globally, too. And all the partners they've had the Yankees now the Rangers with the X FFL, obviously. You can see why they would want Las Vegas. But, you know, getting that stadium done at some point, I figured it'll get done. How many concessions are gonna need to be made from the, the boring business end. That remains to be seen, but I, I, you know, they got no choice there, you know, once you announce Vegas, you assume you're gonna be there. That's why, you know, when I announced the, the cities way back when I was told the situation is fluid. Because of the simple fact that there was always a possibility that there could be a snag in venue negotiations and that all of a sudden. Las Vegas would become San Diego, which I know some people hope for. But, but that could happen. So I made sure to put that in there because that's what I was told in terms of it being fluid. So you can't go ahead and announce Las Vegas there, you gotta a massive egg on your face. If you announce Las Vegas, you can't get a stadium deal done. And then where the hell you playing. So, and then you go to another state. That's not a good look. I'm sure that's they need to, they need to get that settled. It's great that the other teams are selling tickets already or deposits. We're talking about whatever's, whatever it is now, six, seven months out. You wanna do that? You wanna get a jump on that? And they've already gotten strong interest. In these markets and that's gonna grow once they re reveal their identities and you started hearing players. And things started ramping up. They're gonna, they're gonna do, they're gonna do pretty well. Even in this COVID world. They're gonna do well selling tickets, especially in those markets like St. Louis and San Antonio. I can't imagine those guys not averaging 27 K plus. Maybe more right out the gate. Yeah. I mean, isn't the deal too though. Cuz Allegiant they're pricing there. I mean, they leave the league in revenue, obviously because the Raiders in Vegas and all that kind of stuff, but they also just, it's very expensive to get tickets outta Allegiant. Right. I mean, that's what I've heard. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a big ticket. It's a big ticket and they can charge, you know, there's, there's a market for it and they charge, you know, lack of better term. Up the Wazu so, yeah, so it's it's yeah, it, it's definitely something you, you need to, you know, you need to be worrisome about, about the deal that they make with the XFL. You want the XFL to get some cut out of the deal. But, you know, that's. That stadium's a large stadium too. It's not as big as MetLife per se. But it's a beautiful stadium. You just might have to dress it up a little bit because if you're, you know, if you're, if you got 30,000 fans in that building, that's great. If you are able to pull that off, that's tremendous. I, in a 65,000 seat stadium, Might not look so great, but I'll tell you what, though. If you could draw a 25 30,000, that's still the game's gonna look good. You're gonna have great energy from the crowd too. So. USL have any of those tarps left over? Can we get some of those U S L tarps for that? I will say it feels with the Vegas thing. You know, I was not part of XFL media in 2020, but it was my understanding that maybe Oliver luck got a little ahead of some of the announcements and, and the venue deals weren't all necessarily in place. And so then. We announced the cities and then it came out, oh, now the stadiums have more leverage. Right. And, and I feel that with first all, is that true in my understanding that situation correctly? Yeah. You know, the XFL made a lot of really good deals of venue deals. Maybe that partially Vincent man and his team. But it was beneficial. The more tickets that St. Louis sold, the more money the league made. So he, they bet on the fact that they were gonna do well in these markets, Seattle and otherwise. And then, so. The one issue that was involved with venues at the time. And this was a direct, this had to do a competition. Is when the XFL was picking cities and picking venues, the AAF was in existence. So they were getting ready to launch their season as a matter of fact, and they did launch their season. So sites like San Diego and others. The XFL decided to pass on that. Now they did try to get in Oakland, but the Oakland was too demanding. They made too many demands to the X FFL. It was an unfair deal. So the X FFL had a shift and they ended up going to Los Angeles. So that was, that was kind of the story there, but they would've gone in San Diego. They would've looked at another places. They were interested in Orlando back in 2020. But again, the AAF had Orlando. So, and again, we didn't mention Orlando here. We were talking about Vegas and San Antonio, but Orlando's another market that did really well in the AAF. So I'm not surprised that the Redbird went to the history of spring pro football and looked at the markets that did well. Rays wise, merchandise wise interest. Wise and decided to have them a part of XFL 3.0. You said that I'm just worried that now, like you said, Allegiant Vegas. Has that leverage? I don't know if Vegas. Is that important of a market to fork over that? You know, like I would argue that it would be more important to lose money being in New York or LA than it would be to, to sacrifice margins that way. I, I would advise. If you're going to be in Vegas for the gambling, for the sports aspect, and hopefully the xFi will do this. Us fellow. That was the big thing was like, oh, we're gonna rely on sports, but, and all that yet, we're not going to engage with any of these individuals at all. We're not gonna talk with the Yahoo sports. We're not gonna talk with any of these fantasy riders, FF, but like a good portion of our audience is somehow still gonna come from sport better. Even though we released, you know, Ross reports. At three in the morning. So if they're gonna be in Vegas and they wanna deal with, with the gambling, which makes sense, if you're going to sacrifice to be in Vegas, you need to make sure you're really ringing that towel out to get as much as you can from that it's, you're correct Reed. And I'm assure that that's what they're, they're in Vegas for. I think they're gonna embrace the gambling community. The DFS community, all those communities and they're in Vegas. Specifically, you know, the cache beautiful stadium, all that growing city, the ability for growth. Absolutely. I think gambling's a huge part of it. I expect the XFL to, to go all in when it comes to connecting with media outlets, media partners, gambling partners, all that I think I saw fan dual and a few other sites touting the XFL cities. So there, you know, They're ready to be partners in that space. For sure. They're not gonna hide in their little boardroom and not do anything. So. I'm sure we'll talk about this, but very high on a lot of the things I'm hearing right now, part of that is just. Self-admittedly hearing it firsthand from people involved. I mean, I just can't help. And, and I think it was, you know, when Mark Perry was on a couple weeks ago and you know, people say, oh, Reed's complaining. Cuz U FL wouldn't give him the time of day. It's not like, it's not just me. It's everybody. I mean, this isn't a re issue. This isn't. Every single person I interviewed from every single outlet for the course of the season issue. I mean, I vocalize it the most just because I gotta produce a weekly show talking about these leagues. And it's very challenging for me to do that when the league doesn't facilitate any sort of communication whatsoever. So like, Obviously I'm gonna be more biased, but I am very like bullish right now. And again, words matter of, you know, actions speak a lot more than words, but. Very bullish, at least on the, on the messaging. I'm hearing from a lot of the people involved right now. Yeah. And they've taken a lot of time, you know, red, bird's taken a lot of time to. To put together planned formalize it. They're they're making a big bet. They realize they're gonna be spending a lot of money. They realize that it's gonna take significant funding and maybe some losses in the early going, I heard Hines ward talking about that San Antonio show earlier today. How Redbird realizes that, you know, but they're going, they're going in head first, we're taking the plunge and so they have a plan. And so, and you can hear, you can hear from what the league's been saying with the talking heads have been saying there, the plans that they have in terms of content. Producing content, all that they're gonna unveil a lot of things that I think are gonna be great. For the league, it's gonna be great for fans. So, you know, as far as like the USFL goes, it's like the elephant in the room. You know, it's, it's kind of fascinating, you know, there. Anytime this pertains to you. Anytime that you care about something, you talk about it. So like I'm a New York jets fan. So I talk about them constantly, right. About them obviously. Yeah. I know. I love the jets, so it's not when somebody says, sorry to me. It's I get it. They've lost a lot lately. Right. But there might team, so there's just the way it goes. Right. So, but when you care about just talking about fandom here, when you care about something, you talk about it. Now, if you did not, if you stopped talking about the USFL. That means it doesn't mean anything to you. If you praise them for their play or their players or their broadcasts or all these signings that we're seeing, which is great. Kavante Turpin getting a three year deal. At this, by the same token, you criticize 'em for certain things that shows that you care. If you don't talk about the things that you'd like to see that are better, that, and if you don't talk about any aspects of something, then that means it doesn't, it doesn't resonate with you. It doesn't, you don't care anything about it. So, It, you know, I understand you've gotten criticized and other people get criticized. The XFL is fair, you know, fair game too. If they make any mistakes, if things don't pan out, if certain things are not done correctly. If there are any missteps along the way, all these people that are passionate about the league, can't wait to see it. Be in play all that. They'll be critical. Sometimes unfairly critical people jump the gun on too many things. There's too many knee jerk reactions, but be that as it may, at least people care when you're passionate about something. You know, I brought it back around to sports teams. If you're passionate about, I love the New York jets, you know, so I, I will. Praise them for certain things they do. And, you know, unfortunately over the years, knock them for things. They, I haven't liked. But when I, you know, when the moment I stop talking about them or critique in them, that's when I'm no longer a fan. It was interesting just, and, and we'll circle back to the venues here. But when I wrapped, when we wrapped the, the Arlington show and I was, luckily they let me be there for like three hours, cuz it took forever to do the stream and I had the post everything and they were great. They let me stay in this suite and kind of do which they didn't have to do. Right. I mean, they didn't have to leave that area. Open for me to do that. I ended up hitchhiking a ride in the Uber with some of the team that was, do they do the social for like seven? I don't know if it was specifically like seven bucks or, but they're with Danny DJ and kinda all that stuff, which the rock now that I've known is the rock. And then Dwayne, the rock Johnson. Now it's just DJ. That is what. Everyone calls him in the, in the corporate sense, but. They're talking and they're, you know, I'm like, what do you guys do? And they're like, well, what do you do? I'm like, why are you here? And okay, you're from Seattle, like what's going on? And I'm telling, oh yeah, do you know, do this podcast? And they go, you know, They really care about a lot of that stuff you guys do. Right? They said they really, you know, this, a lot of conversations are had about, you know, the work that you guys do over at new sub. I'm talking to you, Mike now. And you know, a lot of the guys who do that. And they said like, they, they listen and they pay, they pay it to attention to that here. And it really means a lot. I said, well, that's good. To hear. I obviously, I like to hear that, cuz I can't imagine. You being in a niche world, like spring football with the SFL or the XFL and like, Not being a part of that. Like it's just too niche of a market. That's why I just with the us felt like you have to know what's going on with this stuff. There's not that many people talking about you. You know, but you know, funny back in 2000, I wanna say it was 2000 early, 2020. I wrote an article about how the XFL needed to. Attract the mainstream media. And basically what I did was I, you know, Basically, what I said was the fan sites or the, the dedicated sites. It's great to have them. But they, you need to, you need to gain the interest and have, you know, major outlets covering your leagues. I got in trouble with that within our own community. Because, because I said, you know, basically I wasn't trying to intimate that we weren't important cuz we are. But, and then I got in trouble with the league. Because there were people who reached out to me in the league and said that, you know, maybe I was doubting that they would be able to get gain interest beyond just fan sites or, or dedicated sites. So. My point is about all this is that. You know, you BA you need to embrace. Not distance. It doesn't, it doesn't pay you. You know, these leagues have a hard enough time as it is. Getting attention. The only time leagues, like the XFL, U S F L and others get attention AAF in the past. Is when either something negative happens, like, unfortunately we're going through a major league football. Yep. Or when is business related? Oh, look, the attendance. Isn't that great. Oh, look the ratings. They're not that great. Look, it's down this week. You know, that kind of thing. So the it's never about the games or the players, and that's why, you know, it, you know, You need to embrace, do not distance yourself. When you have people that are dedicated and following the league, embrace them. You should shoot for getting USA today. And. ESPN and all these major outlets to cover your games and actually. Beyond the business aspect of attendance and ratings, where they actually are focused in, on, you know, San Antonio and aqui glass. You know, or some or focused in on our Orlando's run defense and week eight. Rather than focusing in on the ratings and attendance. So, you know, the league will have made it when you have attention. For the games and the players rather than the business aspect. So, you know, that's. In the beginning stages. Anyone who covers your league? Embrace. Any content creators, embrace them, you know, and XFL 2.0, did that. So they embraced a lot and they ended up getting mainstream attention too, but, which was great, you know? So my, my article was about, you know, I realized that they needed a be, be, be more than just a dedicated site, but you have to. Have an appreciation for the dedicated sites. A lot of people who are covering the league, Yahoo sports and other outlets, they did less frequently wrote articles about the players and fantasy football and the teams as the season war on there was less interest than you saw that reflected in ratings and everything. Else and in specific markets and you know, and then people started covering it less. You don't want that, you know, it's very, you want everybody, anybody who's gonna promote your league for free shake their hand. So that's kind of like my feeling on it and. And that's the best way to handle it. If you're a new league, this is a crowded sports landscape. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Nobody pay attention to your league. Nobody talk about it. Nobody. I mean, we got to the point during the us FFL season where Toby Johnson, one of the best players in the United States football league, hopefully gets an opportunity in NFL. He's a little bit on the older side, he, 30 years. Old, but he was tremendous this year. He was first team, all USFL player. He went in the middle of the season and said, What do I gotta do to get a picture of myself? In uniform now. Whose fault is that, you know, like, so that's the leak. So like, you know, I presented him a picture and then, you know, obviously been covering the generals all season long. And so, but that shouldn't happen, you know? So you, you need to be inve you need to. You need transparency, you need information. You need to be more invested if you are. If you're giving off to the public, that you're not really interested in it, then why should others be interested in your league? So that's just the way it goes. So, yeah, so we, we had the press to wrap the, the city announcements. You know, we had all that come out. I thought that was very well done. We had said in the Arizona showcase like big elephant in the room at the media, like, let's get these cities out. Let's let Anthony back talk about St. Louis. Let's let all these guys do all this kind of stuff. In terms of, of, of the cities and all that. Anything else from that? You know, obviously the ex FFL invited, you know, they had Jay was there Brandon, so you were talking about access and stuff. That was good. You know, people ask. You know, I didn't go, like I went to the Arizona showcase and not, you know, obviously work stuff, but like keep in mind, I was in Birmingham for the kickoff and they didn't, they had no media stuff there. So we have the announcements, all that stuff. Are you glad. That they did just the cities now, and that we still are because there was rumors. Right. Okay. We're gonna get some of the nicknames and stuff. I think you had finally said earlier in the day that you had confirmation, like we're not, we're not getting sitting or nicknames at that point, which I think was the right call. You glad that they're pushing at that for a little day. You know, it's interesting. I, I think they don't want, I think they have names in mind and they're finishing up designs. I think copyrights, they have to get ready to do all that. I think they didn't want to haphazardly release just five of the names. And then all of a sudden, what about these three? I think they wanna roll 'em out all at the same time and because there's probably gonna be some tweaking. Of former logos designs and all that kind of updated looks. They want to do that all at the same time. So, I mean, in the. Read into it, what you like, but in the, you know, then the XFL personnel has been referring to each other as renegades and all this kind of stuff on social media, but read into it, what you like. But in the video we saw clearly the name of the defenders. We saw the drags, we saw all the, you know, the five. The the big five we're expecting. I think those teams are all gonna have the same name. So now perhaps I can be surprised at the end of the day, but I think we're gonna have the rough next to dragons the renegades, the battle Hawks. It would be a crime if they didn't name that they already owned the trademark. Yeah, that's a cool trademark. They have an awesome logo. It's a fun name. At Kaka, you've got pat McAfee and other people in the media, you know, screaming that out. It would be a foolish if they didn't pick that name, rip the X FFL. If they don't, if they're the St. Louis scooters or some other dumb name. That go ahead and rip them. But I think those five names are coming back to, you know, the fun part is what happens with the three. And so I can understand why they're, they don't want to. Bits and pieces release, you know, just release the battle Hawks into the renegades and then not release the others. I think they have a presentation and a, a rollout that they want to do where they present all eight of the logos. And all eight of the, the colors and all that stuff. And they wanna do that all at the same time. So that's coming from what I understand. I'd figure before August is out. We're gonna get that, you know, so, and I think people, you know, hopefully they'll be happy. I'm sure they'll be some criticisms. You know, whenever the XFL, I I've been through both iterations and the AAF and all that. When whenever a uniform is released and fans knock it, the they'll say, oh, it looks like an XFL uniform. So, hopefully you're not gonna get everybody that likes a design, but hopefully when these uniforms come out, that people go, whoa, those are really cool. Right. So hopefully that happens, you know, there'll be critiques. There'll be people who will like nitpick and all that. But it'd be great if the, I like the XFL 20, 20 uniforms, but. It'd be cool. If there's some updates here, a little bit more. Variety, maybe an alternate helmet, alternate uniform, something that was pushing forward back in 2020. So we'll see what happens. I just laugh cuz there's a lot of. You know, oh, the rock and Danny and you know, the rocks got soundbites. Oh, you know, we're trying to redesign all this stuff. We have all this school stuff and like, Every piece of merchandise they've released so far has been terrible. The city. Shirts are terrible. Fill up. I don't know if you were tagged in that tweet today, Phillip, one of our long time listeners. Got the must be the Arlington one, cuz he's a, or he's a Houston fan for giving me full up for not remember which of you're in, but. I, you know, he posted the photo and just, he's like, I think this is gonna come off in the wash, the print on here. And you're like, okay. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for when this, well, all this cool merch is coming that we're talking about, you know, Rock got cool for 50, you know, rock and Danny have cooler stuff that they've had personalized for them than they're selling on the, on the shop right now. Yeah, those I, those generic. City shirts that they got are they're pretty lame. Yeah. They're pretty lame. Some of the hats and hoodies with the XFL logo are fine. But, you know, but yeah. You hope, you know, I don't know what's going on with these leagues. Like MLF B and the USFL, the early going. There the, the . The some of that early merchandise, pretty awful, you know, that XFL included now. You know, so I, you know, it's, we'll see when they get to the actual logos and when they get to the actual colors and the jerseys and all that. Fair, you know, then we'll these, these will be forgotten. I somewhere, somewhere in my home, I have an XFL New York shirt and hat. Dating back from way back when, when New York didn't have a team name, those were okay, but they didn't compare to the guardian stuff and all that. So we'll see how it goes. You know, I. Rifle criticism. Yeah, the, the, not a great look, but you know, from what I've heard for quite some time now is they have a, they've had a design team working on it since they, since, before they shut down, shop all the team merchandise. So. Proof is gonna be in the pudding when it's unveiled. I will be, I'm happy to, I will criticize that. I had a bunch of us fellow people like. Are, are you gonna defend the thing read? I'm like, No, it's terrible. Like these leagues need to hire. Like I don't, you don't need to hire them even just like get five or six guys on zoom calls and show them stuff and be, what do you guys think about this stuff? Do you, I mean, you, I think you would get two. And I said this with the logo too. We're too secretive. And we're, we're, we're working on the logos and we're all cloak and DERs and then it's like, here, you guys go. And you're like, I could have told you that now I am the XL logo's growing on me, cuz I see them at the showcases and the, the black and white did it all looks cool. It's a whole logo. The hoodie. The, the hoodies are pretty sweet. Those, those black hoodies with the black and white. Anyway. But I'm not a designer or anything like that, but I can say they're very limited right now, even if you're gonna release shirts and, and all that, you know, you've got the formation of that letter X. They can't release any colors because they can't reveal what their colors are. So it's gonna be in Plaino black and white font. So it's just gonna say X FFO Houston, and it there's. No, I mean, suppose I suppose it could have added something else in there. To spruce. So the design, but they went as generic as possible because they C can't reveal the colors yet. Can't reveal the name. So it's just the XFL, the interconnecting Xes with the, with the name of the city. I was gonna say, even. But like they don't even have even a black. On black, white text on black city shirt, whether it's better than this white on black, like they have a couple like black XL. They have I'm looking here. They have a black tank top. You can get a black sports bra, black yoga shorts. They have black shirts. Do the city least in that variety. I don't get that. This white generic. And I'm looking on here. That's the only one you can get. What is it gonna say the in terms of, so you do believe the five team and that we're not, you know, that you can be wrong about this, but you do believe the five. I do believe EV from what I've heard too, there, all those, all those trademarks are coming back now. They might be altered. I, I expect a lot of these like logos and uniform looks to be altered, but we might see a different. Likely to see a different rough X logo. And we go, we're gonna see a little bit, we're gonna see a little bit of a different Renegade's logo. The XFL got hit by NFL properties. Trying to remember everyone that was involved here, the Houston Astros came after them. The Patriots. Came after the roughnecks for one of their logos, they, they thought was too closely resembling their Patriot, the flying out. So the flying Elvis, right. So, so I expect those to be tweaked, to be changed. I'm gonna miss the rough X logo. I thought it was pretty unique. But even though it was a little bit of a knockoff, but I thought it was pretty cool. Anyhow. It is what it is, but yeah, I expect those five team names to be, to be back in the fold. And then we'll see where the other three go for everything. I've heard Wildcats and guardians not making their way back. I haven't heard some, a lot of people expect speculating that Orlando is gonna be the Vipers that very could possibly be, but I haven't heard. Anything, any confirmation on that I'm expect, you know, you, if you're in San Antonio, you're in Vegas, you gotta give them. Nicknames and team brands that are specific to those regions and not be recycled from other, you know, the Las Vegas Wildcats, or what have you, the San Antonio guardians. I mean, those names sound all right, but you wanna give those specific specific cities that own identity and leave the door open. For Los Angeles and New York to potentially join the league in the future. I'll tell you Arlington renegades doesn't work. You know, you got the, what do you call it? Alliteration. You got the R sound in both Arlington and renegades. It doesn't work. It's a little tough. It's a little tough. What if it, and I, I had seen this pat. I, I can't remember if someone messaged me, like what if it was the Dallas renegades of Arlington? . Yeah, I don't, you know, what was that? The Los Angeles, what was it? The Los Angeles angels of Anaheim. What was it? How did I go? Yeah, I forgot. It was a few years back. They did that. I, you know, Arlington's been chosen for a specific reason. A lot of it has to do financially. The reason why the Dallas team is now called Arlington. Is through an agreement through the city of Arlington. And the XFL to name. The Dallas franchise Arlington and the people who live in that city, they take a lot of pride in being from Arlington. They don't like a team playing in Arlington and not pulling themselves Arlington. So it's kind of interesting how that works out. But I, I could tell you this from what I've heard the last few years. Behind the scenes XFL 2.0. Was offered fi financial agreement with Arlington to, to. Call their team, the Arlington renegades, instead of the Dallas renegades. And Vince command and the leadership there in the X FFL 2.0. Turned them down because they wanted to keep the cache of having the Dallas name. Now red bird. I don't know this. I can't confirm it a hundred percent. But I'll tell you this, you know, Facts speak for themselves. So the XFL 2.0, did not change their renegades team name from Dallas to Arlington. But XFL 3.0 is calling their team Arlington. So you take from that, whatever you. Want, but I, and the fact that they're in Arlington for three years, They're in bed for lack of a better term at rev entertainment through the Texas Rangers. There's a lot of agreements in place. Between Redbird and a strong partnership with rev entertainment to be in Arlington for three years and to name their team. So it'll take a while to get used to the Arlington renegades, but. It is what it is. People are gonna at mistakenly call in Dallas all season long. It's like people call the chargers San Diego. So, you know, I mean, not quite the history with, as the San Diego chargers have, but people still to this day, call the chargers San Diego. If it was me and I agree. So I'm glad that you said all that, that the, there, you know, you believe that they're paying money and all that stuff. Cause I didn't know how much you wanted to get into that. There's definitely a agree. I don't know. I don't know the specifics. There's definitely agreement in place because I know the, I know the fact of 2.0. And I see the evidence of 3.0, and I've been digging on this, you know, the story, see what I can find a lot of NDAs and people that can't say anything. But evidence speaks for itself because typically you, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to Arlington beautiful city. But you you'd rather have a sports team named Dallas than Arlington. And, you know, they, you know, some people Fort worth would rather would love for their teams to be called Fort worth rather than right. And a lot of the teams in, in the NFL and other sports they play in. Places that don't even match up with the name of their city. You know, like the jets and the giants, I'll get some heat for that. And then, you know, Washington for the longest time doesn't even play in Washington. So there are a few others, but that's kind of the story there. So it'll take some time getting used to it. It's not a big to me. It's not a big deal to me. It's not a big deal. If it was me now. And, and then I wanna move into the Arlington hub discussion after this, but if it was me. You know, a lot was, you know, we're having the big announcement Monday. Right. Following all the cities coming out. I thought maybe we, you know, maybe we do do the Dallas team name or whatever. I didn't know. Like, cuz we knew the hub and I'm like, I guess that's not public yet. Right. Okay. Like, because these are things like what, what do we actually know? And then what needs to be in announced or what's public is I'm like, oh, so they're gonna do, they're gonna do the hub announcement, all that stuff. I think since. You know, you're in Arlington, we're trying to, and this will go into the hub discussion and how are, you know, how are we gonna fight kind of everything that the USFL, you know, All their challenges, but like, Showcases haven't been in the local markets because you didn't want to give out any of the locations. I understand that we had the big Arlington announcement. I would do you know, I don't care if it's, it doesn't need to be the whole executive team fly Hines ward in there have a couple people. I would do eight events. In the markets somewhere in a bar. And announce the team names that way. I, I, I get wanting to do it all in the show and if they end up doing that at Texas live. I'm happy to go down and cover that, but I would figure out some way now, like, okay, now we can actually talk about being in Seattle again, like let's go to Seattle and announce that dragons that'll get, like, let's start building now getting people in these local committees. Yeah. You know, in today's days and a, and you know, during the pandemic, you know, unfortunately, We had to see this happen, but a lot of things were done remote. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that you could actually do a rollout at the same time. Cue to cue to Arlington. Let's go to Arlington. They unveil their logo Q to DC. Let's go to Reggie Barlow in Washington. Let's see what they got. Cue to et cetera, cetera. Right on down the line there. So it's not outta the realm of possibility that that's how the rollout can happen. You just go to the satellite feed or whatever feed you got going. You just go to the next city. Right. So let's, you know, who's involved in same Louis Anthony Beckton St. Louis. He's introducing it right. So, I mean, you, there's a lot of fun ways you could do it. You know, the XFL when they announced their five year deal with Disney. They talked about tent pole events. And I know that's not quite the draft, which we're gonna get on ESPN. Now, probably on ESPN plus, but that's not been confirmed yet. But, you know, the reveal of uniforms and logos would be like a fun thing to, I know it'll be all over social media, that's a given, but it would be a fun thing to see, you know, you know, On ESPN plus per se or something like that half hour thing it'll most likely be on sports center. We'll see that because. Back in 20, 19, 20 20. I remember ESPN sports center doing big uniform reveal for the XFL. They went through each color, the name, everything else. So I, I, I assume that we're gonna see something like that and you can incorporate all eight cities if you w with if advanced with all that. So that would be great. I just, I, I, I feel like a lot of that was done on social though. Cuz I remember like Brandon silver is like running in. And it was, was it Brandon? And then, well, you know, that was separate from it too. That was done on social, but the ESPN stuff is sports center was they did, they went through each uniform, let's take a look at the defenders and they, they had mannequin set up on ESPN and all that stuff. And then they went through all of them while, you know, they went through each. Uniform color scheme and the theme behind it and all that. Then of course there was the X FFL videos, which were pretty hilarious, you know? I don't know if you remember those read or not, but you should go look 'em up. On YouTube. Each individual team got a video. The battle Hawks one was one of my favorites. I watched that so many times had voiceovers attached to it. And some people in the media had fun with it, cuz it was very VIN man. WWE ish. The guardians one is terrific by the way. That's yeah, everybody has their own personal taste, but if you ever get an opportunity. Go look for the, the team name reveal they had the X FFL, the AAF had fun ones too. You know, you can argue a little bit cheesy. But even the AAF had fun videos that were attached and made that, you know, released their names and all that. So it's fun when, you know, when these leagues get started, it's part some of the fun stuff. When you find out the identities and all that. What they chose, sometimes it falls flat on his face. Sometimes things grow on you. I'm a little bit of a traditionalist, but when the battle Hawks were introduced, I'll have to admit. I was like, Hm. I don't. I like the uniforms and the colors, but I was unsure of it. It grew, it grew on me so much that it became my favorite brand. So at first I was like, what's a battle Hawk. That's what is that? What's not a bird, it's a helicopter, but I know that, but they. But they, but they embrace that. The birds, their whole scheme was, I know. But their whole scheme was that the, that birds themselves are battlers and their fierce and they're tough and all that, the Hawks. So that was a big VI that field I had to, I know it is actually, I know. That's a SIC man name, choice. And it's actually fun. So, and the helmets are great. The logo's fun. The brand is fun. It's all fun. I remember I posted one night a poll about that, and I think Andrew Murray said that that might have been the best poll I ever posted on social media was, is a battle hockey bird or, or a hell helicopter. Cause it is a helicopter in. The, in the intro video, it's like, it flies like a bird click on it's the helicopter. It is the Val Hawks. It's not a bird. It's the helicopter you can at me until the end of time. That's is what is what it is. What it is, but it, it works somehow. Despite it not be in a, for me it anyway, every everybody's it's subjective thing for me, it works and it didn't, and it didn't initially. So, so, but I do, I think just, and we'll get. Exit valve of your listen, if you just do the Texas live, like, I, I think that is a mistake. You have to have people in these markets. Like I said, either do 'em separate do 'em all one night, like Mike says bounce around to the feeds, but like, you know, we're to talking to about way to, we can reverse course here with all the. Birmingham, this of it. Like, this is the way I think as soon as you can now, like we gotta get Jim Hala in cuz they did that. Like we went and met Z. We did events outside of the lumen field. Like we, there wasn't a lot of people there, but we went that's when I met van and I think Ryan gusta was walking the around and we had the media people there. Like we got start doing. This like Ryan Gustus did his like Monday morning meet thing. Every, do you remember that? Like he would do like a weekly, he was tremendous. What a, what a great, what a great guy. What a, and the dragons did such a tremendous job connecting. To their fan base to the community. They, I wasn't surprised that they drew well, even though they had horrible weather. So they, they did such a good job with that. You know, you. They're gonna do. We saw a Texas live, how the XFL, the energy from that crowd, that was amazing. See the, you saw how. Amped up and happy. Danny Garcia and all the XFL coaches, everybody were that that crowd was chanting. The X L's name. Two years after went away and all that, they had a great crowd out there. So I could see that energy was great. Imagine that energy also in St. Louis. So I'm, you know, you, you, one live event with your, your head St. Louis people Beck, then otherwise the coaches, Greg Kowski, Abraham whomever. DPP their bowler, put those guys all in there, you know, have a nice little event there in St. Louis. It doesn't have to be the, you know, the most largest. Extravagant place, have a nice little reveal there. I think that would be awesome. And people will come out for that. You know, so even if they're seeing the same logo they saw two years ago, So the Arlington thing I was there. Right. I was, I, I think that was one of the best decisions. I've made, being able to go to that. You know, I, I knew that Danny and DJ and stuff would have media stuff or us Brandon was gonna be there. I was a little worried at first. I, and I'll be honest, cuz it was a lot, you know, I watched the Birmingham press conferences. And I watched Arlington and, you know, we, we have a commitment here. We wanna have a home here. Russ Brandy came out, you know, we have the three year deal. We wanna be a part of this community, all of that. And I thought. Yeah, this, all this suburb us of L said, right? Like Birmingham is the best spot in the world. All this stuff. You know, but, but somehow through. Magic. We're gonna have people in Houston care about us, even though. And so I asked Russ, you know, I asked Danny and I asked Russ, I said, you know, obviously we saw the challenges USFL did. I don't know. If, if exit L was gonna do a full on hub, this was always the plan we've gone back and forth. You said, you know, they're looking at the modified, but. You know, how are you guys gonna fight against this? And Danny's response was kind of snarky. It was. And if you guys haven't seen the videos around the YouTube, but Danny said, well, you know, We're playing in our cities. So we're not gonna have a problem, which. Okay. I mean, that's a pretty like, basic answer for that, but. Russ, I've got, you know, Russ brand and president ha had a lot better, not better, but had a lot more nuanced answer of like, you know, we're really gonna have staff in there. We're really gonna put in the time. We're really gonna have events. We're gonna be there early. We're gonna stay late. We're gonna be there on the day, days off. Like we on understand that we need to put time and money. And energy into this stuff. What do you make of. Now, you know, we've seen the USFL XFL. Now this hub, all the messaging. And again, this is just words, right? It, it will have to see the action, but what do you make of how is the XFL gonna not. Suffer the same faith. I think they're deeply embedded with rev entertainment. And so, and rev entertainment is heavily involved and in Arlington's deeply embedded with the XFL. So they're gonna be doing a lot of things together. And they have a full on plan. What they're gonna do in that surrounding area. And all that. There's gonna be a lot of business. You've got thousands of people that are gonna be in that area for five weeks, not just four. In January and then throughout the entire season. So the benefit, the businesses in that area are gonna benefit from it. I wanna cycle back real quick and it's in the same topic you wrote an article this week at XFL news, hope.com, which is awesome. And I thought it was tremendous, you know, the Q and a that you, you know, you have on YouTube there with, with Danny Garcia and Dwayne Johnson, I thought they were great. You mentioned the snarky comment by Danny. I also think sometimes, you know, there's certain ways that questions are worded. So you get certain responses and there. Was a, yeah, I thought Danny Garcia, I just wanna say this, you know, one of her best responses during that whole Q and a press conference, whatever you wanna call it. Was she volunteered a complimentary words about the S FFL. You know, without being asked about it, because one of the questions was what makes you basically I'm paraphrasing here. What makes you think. That this legal work, when so many others have failed. So that was specific to the XFL, but to Danny Garcia's credit. She said, and I'm paraphrasing here too. So please forgive me on this. People can check out the video. See how close I am here, but Danny said, she thought the SFL did a great job. You know that they, they did a great job in the sports landscape that they had good viewership competing in. They just completed their season. I thought it was not only like classy, but it wasn't a diplomatic thing. She was just being truthful. So very easy could have not brought up the SFL. So, you know, some people out there may have read some of her comments and thought, oh my goodness, that's pretty snarky saying, Hey, we're playing in cities. They're not. So let me tell you something. I think she was, she, she. Went out of her way to compliment the USFL, which is a fact. That they did well in the ratings and that they did a good job completing their season and that it, how they competed against other sports league shows that there's an appetite. And when she was asked specifically, How are you gonna exceed? When I was succeed, when others have failed, she went out of her way to make an example that USFL did not fail by saying what she said. So for anyone who feels that maybe she might have been snarky in some other comments? I think because people were thinking, you know, the way the questioning was to her was, you know, you guys are gonna be in a hub. How are you gonna attach yourself to markets? And so her response was well, well, we're going into our markets. And they plan on being in their markets and connecting with them and look at the coaches. If you're following social media and you see Anthony Beck, Anthony Beck, not that he needs to win people over, cuz he is a tremendous person. Coach all that. He's doing a tremendous job connecting with St. Louis and that's just through social media in today's day and age, you can connect with people through social media. But I think there'll be boots on the ground. And they'll, they'll be events and there'll be things that are done over time that help, you know, Embrace the markets even more. And so. So I, I, I thought your article was well done though. And I thought you did a tremendous job. With your interviews and, and, you know, it was great questions that were asked and the, the Brandon and others did a very good job responding. Let me, let me give you, and I'll give a plug here. I talked to them on the phone today. J you know, dirty over with Exel St. Louis show. Wanna know how they ingratiate yourself in the, in the, you know, the market there. If you're Anthony back. He's going on their show next week. Like, There you go. I mean, and, and plug that and Jason, I think he wants me to come on and ask a question. I don't know if my schedule be like, Spoiler alert to these leagues, like wanna know how to get someone involved with your, whatever. Get 'em on the show. You don't think. And not that you know, dirty in those guys and, and. Arlington and we will, right? Not that they're all not gonna be in love with St. Louis, but like, Wow. What a great way to start off on the good foot. Your head coach interacts with them on Twitter. Agrees to come on their show next week, do a fan Q and a. They're gonna be fans of that's awesome. Like they're, they're locked in now for life. Not that they weren't gonna be anyway, but there's no, even like, well, they're gonna be in St. Louis. It's not gonna be the same. We have this thing, like right away. There you go. That's a really easy way to like, and it doesn't cost you a Penn. And I remember, you know, because you know, it's, it wasn't too long ago, although it seems like 10 years ago when Jonathan Hayes was announced, As the head coach of St. Louis, there was just some disappointment. A lot of people had selective history with this. Because they, they figured he wasn't really connected to the market, you know, they should have went after Mike Mar. So I, I remember people talking about Isaac Bruce and all that. And so like with Anthony Beck, maybe there's some people in St. Louis. I had some people reach out to me who work in the media in St. Louis who were like, how come it's not hazard? Or what have you. You know, because he has some history in that market or, but. I think Anthony Becks already won them over. Even though Beck was with the Rams for a little short stretch there, he was seen as more, been more tied into Tampa, New York and all that throughout his career. West Virginia, obviously. So which isn't too far away, but I think it's a tremendous that Anthony Beck is doing what he's doing. I'm not surprised he's such a high character guy and shout out to those guys at XFL, SDL, they've been doing shows just like you. While there's been no league. So, you know, and I've, I've been meaning to get on their show too. I'm busy writing about four different leagues. But I would like to go on there show too. And I think that's just so awesome, you know, reward the faith and, you know, you got so many sites out there and content producers that are loyal to these leagues, which is amazing. Like people look at you cross side that you're you talk about the X F I one I tell people about right about the X FFLs, like that league, does it even exist? So it's like, they can't believe how passionate you are about it. So believe it or not, this crazy league that was around played five weeks of games has a lot of people that. Want to embrace. And if they, they do that, you that's how you reach out to your community because people in St. Louis are listening to those shows. So if you, you reach out I'm. Do it's the early stages. We'll see what happens. There's a lot of work in front of them, but I'll say so far, what I'm seeing from these coaches, the way they're reaching out to their markets, I'm already impressed. Well, I, and I totally agree. Like I said, I don't, I don't wanna be that like, okay. The exit belt comes now. You know, drop in whatever. I, I just think that it it's just little things like that. I always talk about these like unforced errors. And like you said, you know, Back. I, and like I said, I, I mean, eventually it went through the PR people and all that stuff, but I think that dirty, just. Reached out to Beck. And he was like, yeah, let me go talk. And his assistant, whatever figured it all about, but like, That's what just kills me about these leagues is. There's all these things that don't cost any money at all. And it's gonna like, they're gonna be fans if you're flying. Now. I said it with Mark Perry, like right. If, if. I guarantee you, if, if in any course of the last nine months I had emailed you as to tell, been like, Hey, we really like to talk to this person. And they had responded with like, well, here you go. I guarantee you and it's just personality. It's, I'm happy to admit it. I'm a, you know, Like, there's no way that you're not going to be bought in on something when they're working with you to help do it. Doesn't matter. Why am I hire on the CFR right now? Why do I like the BC Alliance? Why do I like the, you know, the stamp Peters, cuz they're media people work with us. It's just, but nature that BBC you're gonna be more locked in with the people that are trying to work with you. And I just. Sure kudos to Anthony and those guys over there in St. Louis, but like just very happy that like already we're off to a good start. Yeah. I love it. That Anthony Becks, like mantra now is hashtag is Phil the top. So that's brazen and bold, but I love it. That that's what he's shooting for. I mean, they were almost gonna do it in the XFL anyway, but back in 2020 and no one dirty, like we know dirty, he's one of our community guys. He's gonna ask Anthony the team name within like a minute of that interview. So, which is great. I think it's awesome. I, I think it's really awesome what these guys are doing and Anthony Beckton in particular. Do you worry? And my concern is, you know, we got a lot of money XFL, like you said, you know, red bird, all this stuff. But a ton of money, right? Coaches have been on staff now already. We're not kicking off until February. You know, I have to ask this, get your opinion, you know, having staff and all the cities, having eight PPS for all the cities, having eight what's the other like team operations. Cordinator and it's like this team, mom, whatever. These are all positions that do not exist in the USFL. These are all positions that. You know, honestly, if you have a hub where you find people in. Maybe it's easier, the get way with some of those not having those positions. Like, do you think that you XFL. Excep L is really committed with the money that they're gonna spend here for the next. At least three years with the Arlington stuff. Absolutely. They don't want, they don't want to, you know, Yeah, of course they wanna save money. That's why they're in Arlington for three year hub. That's why they've named the Renegade team in Arlington. So that's part of it, right. But you wanna make sure that you can't. You can't run an engine, run a car without gas in it, without all the right things. And right. So it's like, so that's basically the XFL, you know, they wanna run a proper operation. Now they're not gonna go crazy and have 25 coaching assistants. You can't do that. But, but you wanna make sure that you cover all the bases and that that's what a director of team operations is for. And as these teams slowly, but surely start going into their markets. Full time with practice facilities and headquarters and all that. That's gonna expand too right now. You know, the XFL is not at the point where they're gonna have. From my understanding team presidents and everything that we had in 2020, cuz they're not in the markets. Fully, you know, they're playing in the markets. Yes. And they'll be doing stuff in the markets, but they're not there yet. So. Yeah, you could see, you know, they there's certain positions that you have no choice, but to fill, and that they're for the betterment in the league. It's gonna be interesting to see the social media teams. How much is invested in that area. And that department wants the names come out and how they perform. We know how great the XFL was in 2020. The industry knows how great the XFL social media team was in 2020, because. They're in other pro leagues right now, running teams accounts. Social media is gonna be hit. You what I would do too. If you're, if we're not gonna have team presence, we're not gonna have all this stuff. I'd reach out you, whether you have the social media people or not. I'd get some like fan councils going in these markets. Right. And, and I'm not saying this is like, I want to be on this, this crap, but like, Find, you know, five, 10 guys, girls in Seattle, find them in, in Vegas, find whatever. Get them organizing community vet say, Hey, we'll give you guys, you know, field passes for the games, give you some season tickets, whatever. Like, so, you know, you're not spending 80,000 or whatever, a hundred thousand 19 president, you know, let's get 10 people and say, you gotta throw two events a month or you gotta throw one event. Every three. Weeks, try to get some people in. I, I, I, I think there's ways that you can do it, you know, through social media. I. It is all these prongs approaches, cuz it's not just the TV, it's not just social media, but you know, trying to get people in these markets. I was talking with dirty today about this, trying to do stuff online, engaging the fan base. But I think you need that people in these markets. Doing like what Ryan was doing in, in XFL 2020 in Seattle, like doing some giveaways. Hey, here's some like, and you know, if you're not gonna have social media in Seattle, Hey guys, here's some giveaway boxes, go film it with the phone, stocking people on the street giving to the way, like with start gendering, some content that wouldn't cost any money. Yeah. And they, they need to do that with TikTok too. Hopefully they get to that, you know, and towards Twitter and everything else. So there's a lot, there's a lot that needs to be done to connect and yeah. I'm I'm happy that we're at a point where community events are possible. Not that C's gone away, but I'm happy, you know, where it's possible for community events and get togethers and all this kind of stuff. Things have opened up. And that respect not to the point where it was pre. COVID but, but, but it's getting better in that front. So yeah. Any opportunities you have to connect? With your local teams, the better, like, I would almost have a position like. Like team liaison. I, and I know there's a couple people there execs to have that, but like, that's your, like, that's what their job is to like reach out to the fan bases, help organize these events. Like I would do that. Hire someone 80 grand. You're not gonna have people in the LA market. That's your job to work with fan here. Start planning these events to come out. You know, do some screenings of some stuff. We uniform get people out there. Mean greets with the players. You know, we, we can fly 'em up or maybe some of 'em are local. Like. You just have one person work with fan bases and do that. I think that that's a really unique position that, you know, USFL could do that as well. But I think that that is something that is needed. When you are still going to be in Arlington six days out of the week. Yeah, it's a good thought. You know, when you know on paper right now, it's just five home games for each team. Right. You know, if you get into playoffs, you got a couple more maybe, but one more at least. So, so those are the five events, you know? And so you want to have a little bit more than that to connect to your market. Social media. You, there's a lot of different things you could do with social media to connect with markets and all that. But yeah, I it's good thought Reed. Yeah. Would definitely be a beneficial, I think having someone in that type of position. Sure. I don't know you were spoiled. You were spoiled because Ryan Guston did not that the other presidents do a great job, but Ryan Guston, Kurt Hunsicker to others that did tremendous jobs. Brian, Michael Cooper Wright. Was he one of 'em tremendous. Yeah. For Houston. Yeah, there was like, but Ryan, they were all great, but Ryan was tremendous in Seattle. He. You great job. I just remember he would do those like cuz he was at Luman, they had an office. And he would go on, like I said, he would do those. Like, it was like every Monday, like Mondays with the president or whatever, he had always film it and the sun would be like rise over his shoulder and he'd be like, so back there and I'm like, God bless you, Ryan, but you're doing it. Like you're trying, people are watching, you're trying to do it. And I, I think I. Remember cuz we would, that's how we got our season. Tickets is we were connected to messaging on there. I'm like, could you just let me come down and film this for you guys? Like, oh my God, like, can we just like, like I wouldn't even charge you. Like, can I just come down and film this? Just so it looks a little bit better than whatever you're doing. How do. You, how do you think? And, and we haven't had you on since us FLC isn't wrapped. Right. Bears rumors, two hubs, three hub, four hubs, all this stuff. How does USFL respond? And now, now that XFL has laid all their cards out. They had definitely aware of them coming. I mean, it's not like Fox, wasn't trying to raise 200 million in funding. I know that story just recently came out, but they've been trying that since they launched the league. So this is an ongoing thing over a year long now, trying to raise funding. The reason why they're trying to raise funding. I mean, we know Fox has. The money look how much your paying Tom Brady. Right. But. But they're not gonna like Rob from Peter to pay Paul, which is like a very old fashioned cliche. But they, they, they basically, they understand what the marketplace is and they understand that in order for them to take the next step, they're gonna have to go into more markets and they're gonna have to spend more money. And because the X FFLs around. You have to consider the competition as well, because they could be presenting the XFL will see how it goes, but they could be presenting a league that has energy, a lot of fans and stadiums in their local markets. Good football, etcetera. And then if the us of L would returns in year two and they've got the Mallers taken on the. Gamblers in Birmingham in front of 45 fans, it's gonna look lame by comparison. So the USFL knows that they're gonna have to step it up. They have a great financial plan. It's fun right now because we've, it's been so long since we've seen an actual off season. In a, you know, I lived the us of L way back when. It's been so long since spring leagues had an actual off season. So they're, they're doing offseason business now, adding some extra guys to the roster. They have a draft plan for 20, 23. It's not gonna be as big. So all the football stuff is fun. We'll see how things go. They'll be in the market for players too, looking at NFL cuts and all that. It's all depends on finances, whether or not they're willing to, you know, we saw the XFL salaries really released this week. So we have an idea. There's they're fairly comparable with the XFL pay is better. So it's and they're the XFL quarterbacks are gonna be paid six figures and above depends who they are. Some might get more. We saw that in 2020. So the us of L has to be mindful the XFL, they got past phase one. Phase two cannot resemble phase one or their most likely won't be a phase three and four. They need to take the next step. They realize that that's why they're trying to raise money and funding. And that's why they're trying to go in other markets. But they put out a very good football product, a good broadcast product. They did a good job. Where it's exciting watching all these U SFL players get signed. I think Kavante Turpin is gonna be a difference maker. For the Cowboys this season, not only do I think, you know, obviously they sign 'em to a three year deal. That I don't really think he's gonna make the roster, but I think he's gonna be a good slot player. He's exciting. Such a useful player. Dynamic. So the us of L has got a good football product. Now they gotta build upon that. So they need to become a fully fledged, traditional football league in markets. Otherwise, you're not gonna get people in New Jersey. They're gonna have any interest in the generals if they're playing in the south, nobody, you know, so it, it is what it is. We talked about that topic a million times over. But, yeah, it's fascinating. This, we didn't get this with the Alliance of American football in the XFL. We thought we were gonna get this type of show down. And now these two leagues, the U SFL and the XPhone in different times of the calendar. Slightly there'll be head-to-head in April, which will be interesting to see how the. The two leagues counterprogram against each other, whether or not the XFL schedules, weekend games, weekday games to avoid weekend games to the USFL or vice versa. So it's gonna be during that April may period. It's gonna be funny to see, you know, how the lease compete against one another there, but they're gonna be competing all off season. They're competing for credibility. The S F L has a big, nice check mark. They finish the season. They end, they built they've built in, they have some. Built in teams now, some built in identities, they just need to establish genuine identities within their markets. I think that's a big play for them. I just, you know, the us L plan. If there's no step file, the USFL plan, this is fine. You know, take it. Take your time. Take two years, take five years. Several like. I I'm just the biggest proponent of like, you only have one chance for a first impression and. I absolutely the us fellow championship game was good. Good ratings, good attendance, all that stuff. But. By that point of the season. I think even like pat McAfee the next day, they're like, oh, did you watch it? Like, no, like, you know, they've already kind of fallen off. And so I just, I wonder. Us develop comes back. It, it, I, I had already said that I think they should have had the teams. Then you could have announced, like we're having. I've already said that I think that the us fellow should have just had H generic teams or seven and one, and then had Birmingham. And then you could at least have the seven cause what's like. Whether are the temp events for the USFL. Now you've said the draft is smaller, right? Obviously they have a lot of these players carried over. That was the big event before. I mean, look at the ratings, you know, we've like Stefan got, and everyone got, you know, high range for that. I don't know what the next pen temple event is, you know, minimal draft and then like, Hey, we're setting up a hub in, in Detroit. Like, I don't know, like, I don't know what events they're going to have that are going to. Bring in people that are not already have not already watched and sampled the us develop at this point. It's varied and I'm sure these conversations are going on. I spoke with a couple different people in the USFL this week, and, you know, they're grateful for the coverage that I've given@uuslnewshub.com and, and others. And we, we talked about a few specific things. I can't really get in everything, but yeah, there're mind of all these things, there's definitely. A lot of you know, that the XFL is gonna make their splash. You know, so the FL is gonna try to build upon what they did last year. I think, I think I told you this the last time I was on this show that the USFL feels that the fact that they've gone through one season, And that there go, I understand this might seem ludicrous to some, but they feel that a lot of people didn't give 'em a chance because they weren't gonna stick around. And then now the S F L players are signing in the NFL. It's giving credibility to their league. It's showing that their league is valid and that their actually coming back, they think more people will give them an. Opportunity. There were a lot of fans that, you know, didn't just ignored. The us of felt completely, you know, just thought like this, league's not gonna be around anyway, by week three, it'll be gone. So why am I even gonna pay attention to it? And some people who were scoring from the spring leagues of the past that folded that quickly. So I'm not saying that's gonna be a large gain for them in year two. They're gonna have to do more than that, but they feel like they're gonna be better in year two from the. Conversations that I've had. We'll see what happens. I agree with you, the primes that you're making. That they need to, they need to make a bigger splash in order people to see. Maybe that's announcing more than an additional hub. I don't know, but they're gonna have to make some announcements that real new people in they're gonna have some of their. Fans from year one coming back. They, they, you want to get more of the mainstream football crowd to show interest in your league. Maybe they should have done that year one, but we understand what their financial plan is. I guess I buy, you know, I guess I accept that, that, you know, I do think the off season signings help a lot. Right. They have the Mike McCarthy, I retweeted the quote today. Like, you know, they signed Kavante Turpen. There was a lot of good football in the us. It felt like I buy a lot of that. I just, you know, what was it? 3.2, watch the kickoff 1.5. Watch the championship game. Right. So, I mean, you had people there. You had people there the first week and they chose not to stick around and come back at the end and yes, the championship game. Still did really good viewership. But you lost half of your viewership over the season, which is every TV show loses. And I understand that, but like, I mean, I, I don't the next season kicks off. It's gotta be lower than one five. Right? What is your expect? Like what would be your expectation for a year, two kickoff game for the USFL? Ooh, we're so far out from that. You mean expectation in terms of what their ratings will be? Yeah. I think their opening night game will do pretty well. I probably do you know, in, in, in 1.2 million, 1.3 million, 1.4 million, I think they're opening. After that we'll see, because usually you mentioned this with TV shows your premier. Does well, and then the season finale usually does well, if anybody's invested in what's going on, who's gonna win the whole thing in football. So I think they developed a base, whether they can build upon that remains to be seen, but I think they'll do well. That sample audience, we saw that with the XFL, we saw that with the AAF. You know, you you're gonna get, you're gonna get a lot of fans that will just sample you. That are NFL. Diehards will go. I'll check this out. See what it's about. If it's for me, I'll stick around. If not, you're not gonna get all those fans. There's a lot of NFL fans that'll even though some of them support theses exist and they happy they're around. It's not on their radar. They don't really, you know, they'll check it out every now and again, but they're not, they're interested in NFL college football, so you're not gonna convince. A lot of it takes time to do that. Convince a lot of die, hard football fans to watch the NFL, to. To stay on board for the entire season. So we'll see what happens. It's hard. It's difficult to predict, but I think the us F L's first game. Will do well. And then beyond that, we'll see. I don't, I don't disagree that you can build a fan base up. Right. I mean, look at even like breaking bad, right? I mean, they breaking bad didn't debut, the incredible ratings. And then it grew to being one of the, you know, highest rated, you know, that finale. I don't believe that spring football. As tough as it is as expensive as all we know all the things that go against it. I don't believe that a leak can. It's really challenging for league to stick around long enough to reverse whatever that course is to go back up. Right. It's possible with, you know, a ton of money. You know, working like I've said with engaging the fan bases, doing the last stuff. And, you know, my fear is that the three, two, we saw the kickoff week. It, that will be the highest radiance we ever see for the USFL. Right. They'll never like, do you believe that they'll ever top 3.2 for that first kickoff game? Wow. Wow. Re that's so difficult to answer. I don't know. I'll say this a lot of, I know I would love it too. I don't know. I don't know. It's like, I agree. It's, it's difficult Reid, because I'll say this, you know, a lot of like new sports leagues, they have very humble beginnings. So it's like, so it's. You could say, if you're gonna argue in favor of the USFL, you can say that maybe they're just scratching the surface. Maybe they're gonna actually over time, grow in popularity. We'll see, you know, the competitor that they have on the market might take away interest. Depending on the type of product they. I'm I'm happy for both products to exist. I hope they stick around forever. This is football heaven for me. So I want both these leagues to exist forever. But we'll see what happens. I, it's hard to say, I don't think that's gonna be an overnight thing. You know, even in the XFL, we'll see what they do. Ratings wise. I'm sure they'll debut on ABC or ESPN. They'll, it'll be a hot crowd. All that. A lot of people will sample the FFL. If the football is good, the broadcast are good. They'll maintain a decent audience. People will go nuts. When the ratings go down and when there's dips, peaks and valleys throughout the year and people will. Talk. I remember the XFL in 2020. If you look back at how great they're now, if you look back on it, you see. Back then I was touting their ratings. So now if you could look back on it, you see how great their ratings were. But, but if you read media, It was the worst league in history and there they're, they've completely collapsed and they've lost all interest. And yet in all their markets, they had higher ratings in the NBA, the NHL, the MLB, all that while the games are going on. So brand new sports league. Out rating leagues that have been around forever. Not just competing, but out rating them. So anyhow. But, but that's kind of the story there. So, you know, I, I get what you're saying with the us F L we're gonna find out, but I did get, I think for them. They need to progress their league needs to progress in order for them to get popular. Whether or not, they'll be able to draw new viewers that remains to be seen. But I do think that their credibility, because they're coming back for a second year and because their players are landing in the NFL, that's the best thing for the SFL they should be. And I, people I spoke with this week, that's the best thing you want. Kavante Turpin on Sunday. Night football scoring an 80 yard punt return for a touchdown. It just makes you look, league look better. It's a, it's a sales point for all players and agents out there. Come join the USFL. Look what terpenes doing. So Chris OEM or whoever, you know, lands and becomes a star in the league. So, so I think that's gonna help their league. And, you know, but that, I do think that it's a mistake. I think. You know that just having an additional hub at the university of Pennsylvania or whatever you a Penn. It, I don't think that's, to my opinion, I understand the finances. They might not be able to do. Anything beyond that do once enough do do. There's a difference. There's a difference between do they want, like, can they do it and do they want to do, I think they can do it. I don't think they want to do it because I think that it's gonna cost a ton of money. I will say. You know, and I've, I have go back and forth with them, you know, fan control football. You know, they, their viewership went huge second season, right. I mean, they've really done a good job, but they also. Viewership went that for every week they brought in a lot of celebrities. They brought in more team owners, they expanded the teams, they changed locations. They got a new, like. They did a ton of work, you know? So I'm not saying it's not possible. I guess I'm I'm. Hypocritical, you know, whatever contradicting myself, where I said that, I don't think it's possible. Like, cuz I think FCF did it, but they also spent a ton more money and did a ton more effort in that off season. To get to where they were in season two versus. We're going to a second hub and, and that's what we're gonna do. Yeah. Phase two phase three, hopefully and beyond coming up. And that's why they're trying to raise $200 million. So that's kind of like where they stand. So, and, and Fox has the money, but. They're trying to raise the money in order to be able to make. You know, progress. So we'll see what happens. All right. I I'm going to, I, so I can hopefully find the edit easier on this. We're gonna talk really quick about. The XFL lawsuit. We'll Dom. Cuz we gotta get outta here. This is too late. Just wait to wait for you. I appreciate your time. No. So you shared today and I have the article here by fight full.com and the, the, the headline is report lawsuit filed against bids, man, the rock WW WW. And more over EXL trade secrets. What do you make of all? You know, I read through the article, I tweeted it. I said, mark, Kalon order continues. What do we make of the Exel? This cuz we still have not gotten any sort of response about the together stuff. I mean, I, I look at that all the time, the, the together and the XFL and they need your respond, but now we have. Another lawsuit against the XFL. You know, it's funny when you started doing research on these things with new companies and all that, you see that, wow, they've got a lot of litigation in the courts and no matter who it is now, it's funny with the XFL, you know, this recent one here. Still in the early stages. So a lot of details are unavailable. You know, there there's a claim in there that the XFL back in 2016, when Vince McMan was doing the ESPN documentary, along with the Ebersol's that. This individual, is it an Adrian Smith, please forgive me if I don't get his name correctly here, but. David Adrian or something like that, but I don't know his specific name, but anyway, this individual says that he's yeah. David Adrian Smith. You're correct. Yeah. Nor in the north district of Texas by David, Adrian Smith. Right. And he claims that he was in contact with people close to the, the VI man and all the, that. And that he gave trade secrets about, you know, what, what it would take to launch the league and everything like that, relaunch it, what they should do and all that. And that the Everalls and the McMahon got these trades secrets. And use them to launch the AAF and bring back the XFL. And so, and then the claim is extending. To the rock and Danny Garcia and XFL 3.0 saying that they were passed off these trade secrets. During the purchase of the XFL through bankruptcy. First off, you know, I like, I, I'm not a legal expert here, but I, I. I'm having a hard time figuring what these trade secrets could be. You know, unless if it's football related, then there are no trade secrets. You know, you, you, you hire coaches, players. You figure out what stadiums you want to play in. So what are the special trade secrets here? Production-wise production standpoint. These networks are part of the productions here. So there's no trade secrets. The, the OLS and the McMahons were involved with Disney and Fox and all that. So there's no special broadcast trade secrets. So I'll, unless these trade secrets are illegal, you know, way you could. Skirt tax laws and do all that kind of stuff. And then why would this Smith character. Amid to that in a court that he gave trade secrets or illegal. So it would make me think that what are the makes me think? What are these trade secrets actually? So it's like, what, what, what kind of trade secrets could there possibly be that could, you know, benefit the XFL in any way? So, you know, until more details come out, I, I, you know, There's certain terms I'd like to use right now to describe this. I'm just gonna park my brakes on it. Rhymes with BS, but. The it's just like, it just sounds far fetched to me. Like I can't, maybe I'm not smart enough or intelligent enough to understand what trade secrets could possibly be. That that are go beyond those areas that I just mentioned. How, how to run a league, how to get into a city. I, I don't know exactly what this individual's is claiming. And then the fact that it's trying to rope in everybody who's ever been involved in spring football when VI man, the reason why the XFL 2020 lost was not trade secrets. It was Sigman having a lot of money to fund it. And him having partnerships with Fox. And Disney and that's basically it. And then hiring really good people. So the, the there's no trade secret to why the battle Hawks had wings on their helmet. Yeah. So he claims that yeah, that. Email was in. December, or I just had here on May 10th, 2016. He disclosed the confidential trade secrets. Via email to Carol Riddick, including. Market analysis, opportunity analysis. Strategic analysis. I mean's pretty vague and other business information regarding the concept for minor league football, all developmental spring league football. So you maybe that is like you really well. Those two things, those two things. And I've heard them thrown around a lot by Theo's new coach and people working the us FFL. First of I could tell you real quickly, The XFL 2.0 nothing. The no. Nothing about their league was going to be pushed or billed as minor league or developmental. So I can tell you right now. So if that was his strategy, his trade secret, I had to push something as a minor league or a developmental league. The XFL had no interest in 2.0, being a minor league or developmental league. So. That part of his email or just Mr. Smith's email was scratched from the record and there was no interest whatsoever in that trade secret that was thrown right out the window. So I could tell you first, and from the conversations I've had that SIG band had no interest whatsoever and having a minor league or developmental league and would, would scold employees if they mentioned that. So that's kind of the story there, and those other things are vague. Like you mentioned Reed. Extremely vague. So unless more details become available and they go, wow. He invented the SkyCam, which was in 2001. Yeah. Or, or, you know, or some like, you know, marketing secret. I you're talking about people Ebersol's and the MC mans that. Their whole life have had marketing analysis from people. So I don't know what. The top of the line marketing. So I don't know what this individual, it, that then trying to rope in forgetting that right. Trying to rope in Danny Garcia rock has taken some kind of special secret sauce. And having it passed over to them. It just it's too vague right now. If new information, I will eat my words, if new information comes out and all of a sudden there's some like secret thing that, that comes out of this, that, you know, some traits seek. Secret that that was that's revolutionary in that it was stolen from him. Then I'm sure he sent emails. I'm sure he said, this is how I think you should run a minor league or a developmental league, and this is where you should market. And this is where you should go. But that opinion's shared by a lot of people, including people who write, bought these leaks. I will say too. And just to get off this subject is we don't want, I don't wanna go down the rabbit hole. Like thank God Vince McMan is not involved in the XFL anymore. After everything that's come out the last, you know, mean month, but just him saying WW and all that, but it means sliding door that. If that was still going on. I don't that would've been very challenging. Oh, without a doubt, it turns out for the best, right. It turns out for the best that. That you know, Vince command is not part of the XFL. He's gonna be part of its history forever. This league. Doesn't the fact is this league doesn't exist right now. Not for him. If he wasn't a crazy man and tried to launch it in 20 2001, if you wasn't a crazy man and put all his mom money into it in, in. 2020, this current league wouldn't have existed in order for it to be bought out of bankruptcy. And there is name value to it like it or not, even though it has a crazy history, we've got some of our Canadian brothers called it Weisfeld league, but, but you know, Say what you want about Visic man, you know, The lot can be said negative about him right now. But, but he, you know, without him, this XFL doesn't exist. It's just the way it is. I double time here. We're gonna do the MLF B stuff before we get outta here. I'll try to remember these edits. I'll put time codes on this stuff. So, you know, There was a reason why. I didn't devote a lot of time to ML F B you know, I, I have had conversations with people that run like the Facebook groups and stuff, and why. You need all this stuff. I know Adam right with the sports gaming podcast network, right? S S P SGN, right? That he, they really all in ONM B, we got reporters entrench all that stuff. So today, this morning we were sitting around and, you know, Sam's shade was saying like, Hey God, Here some rumblings, something might be up with M F B and he said, I don't wanna go public yet. And I'm like, I knew this day was coming right. We knew this was coming, that the M BS felt rushed. We don't have a broadcast deal. We're playing four games on this. Players are coming in. They're not being paid to practice. They're getting the $50 a week stipend. It came out that the basely the. League had not paid the hotel bill for the three weeks thus far that they'd been there and at least three of the four, right. It's Alabama. Ohio Arkansas. Right. There's forgetting I'm yeah, I'm forgetting the fourth one. Now it's escaping me too, for some crazy reason. Yeah. It's so here I got. Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, and Virginia, the Virginia. There you go, Virginia. Right? And so they're at least affected cuz that has Terry Shay in it. I know that the Arkansas and Alabama, so I think the Ohio one maybe is, is safe right now. But as far as I had heard, it's three of the four. Hotels had kicked the players out for non payment, said, you guys need to leave. Challenges going in getting their bags, getting things out. We saw a lot of social media. Terry. And I was saying, so Terry Shay, the coach of the Virginia team that that was reported by Adam. That he was opting to pay out of his own pocket, at least for the time being to get the players into hotels. What do you make of this? I mean it not, it is sudden, but it's not cuz we kind of expected it, but this downfall of M F B. It's still a developing story as you and I speak, but it's extremely unfortunate. That they've even reached this point, even if somehow some. Miracle comes along and players come back and they still have the four week season. Which it's not looking likely at the moment, but we'll see what happens. This is a black mark on the M F B. This is a horrible look for them. This is unfortunately the way players have been treated here. You don't, you know, I know Frank mur is, this is a passion project for him. He's been working on this for a long time. The MFB has been kind of laying in the weeds and the background. Trying to get things running and trying to build up funding. And they bought the equipment from the Alliance of American football and. And now they're they're while they've been on the sidelines, having difficulties finding a time to launch. Here comes Fox with the USFL. Here comes Disney and Redbird capital with the XFL. And now it's kind of hard to make a dent in this space, but I'll tell you what though, if you're gonna have a season, even if it's a shortened showcase season. And that's four weeks. You have to make sure you have all the funding lined up. Already, you cannot push forward. You can't afford this. This is, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful here because a lot of people don't know thatm F B even exists. So it, it's not registering with them, but this is a black mark on the league. This is a really bad look for them. So I know best of intentions is to get our football league out there to have a nice season, to have good players. Coaches, there's some really good young players and, and very great veteran coaches that are that's tremendous with Terry. Shay is doing everybody knows about the legendary Jerry Glenville. So the more the merrier, the more leagues there are in existed, the more opportunities there are for players. But it's very unfortunate that this has happened. We'll see what, what transpires from here. But I also gotta say, I'm not completely. Surprised because I've been following alternative. Pro football league since I was very young. And there have been so many. Leagues that, you know, we know about all the high profile ones, the us available, old, the AAF, all these leagues, FX, FFL. But there have been so many leagues that have failed to launch over the years. And that we don't hear about some, we don't even remember our friend max brought up the regional football league to me a few hours back, and I had forgotten about them. They were precursor. They came before the XFL, the original one anyway, so many of these leagues come and go and they, they either failed to launch or they're complete. Disaster. They limp to death almost immediately. And it people don't realize like with these entities, this is not minor league. You know, even though you've got that crazy trade secret guy talking about minor leagues, these are not minor league operations. The it, you know, it's not like basketball. Well, all you need is a hoop in a basketball and in a arena, you might not even need that. Where you can actually do three on three leagues and all that with football, it costs a lot of money. It's expensive. So even if you're running four teams, So it's not like basketball when you only have 10 players in your roster. So anyhow, but I'm not surprised this is ha this is happening. It's unfortunate. I had hoped against it. I think it was ill advised to try to run a showcase season because I think there's a lot of pressure to go out there. And if you, if you're gonna do it, make sure you have the broad broadcast partners in play your. Schedules out your streaming partners. Everything is told in advance. Everything is set up. You promote it properly. And then you have most importantly, you have the money to pay your players and take care of them, make sure. Okay. We're only gonna stay in a couple of cities. We're only gonna have four teams. This is the money we need to have. You know, if this was your plan, it's a bad look for them now, can they recover? I don't know. But it doesn't look good. Doesn't look good. Now. And so James Larson with, you know, Exel newsroom, Ville newsroom, he's been on this today. He just tweeted out about 24 minutes ago. We were recording this MLP will really be releasing detailed statement in accordance with SCC rules and regulations alongside their annual. 10 K financial statement tomorrow. Perfect. Frank Bertha and the M B cuz that's the thing is M F B is they're publicly traded. So if there's like money owed or things not going on, they're gonna be under investigation. I guarantee, you know, Frank's gonna come out, say. We're we're starting in two weeks. We had this. Hiccup, you know, the players are home, but we're gonna have the players back in two weeks and we're gonna kick off. And to that, I would say if you are a player and you are thinking about going back to this. Don't because this is just the first step, because if they don't have the money to pay their hotels, for whatever reason, The trade got held up and they didn't have the money at the time. Like that does mean that they're probably not gonna have the money to pay you two. And so I, you know, we were talking about to today, like, Who would go back to this in two weeks, if you had to sleep tonight at the stadium. Because they've paid the stadium lease and they don't have the hotel lease. Then you're gonna go pay your own way to fly home. Then come back out in two weeks with the hopes of getting paid. And what, what kind of game is that gonna look like? If, if they're playing here in two weeks after having gone home and then come back and the training camps were only two weeks in anyway, and I, I just, it's a mess. The whole thing, the whole thing is a mess. It's very unfortunate. And there are, there are hoping to make a good impression and say, Hey, we're here too. We're here too. And the impression they've made is. Oh, you're just like all those other garbage leaks from the past that didn't pay their players and do all that. When you got the SCC and all this stuff involved, you got to be transparent. What's going on? So, Unless they got some form of funding that's laid arriving. There's always, these excuses, you know, happened with the AAF too, when they lost their ownership before the first week of the season. And they didn't want anybody to know about it. And they had a real in Tom Dundon, they had clerical errors and you know, this, that, and the other, we had a problem with them machines, you know, so I. Mean, I don't know what kind of excuses you could make here. It's just really ridiculous. It shouldn't come down to this. You have budgeting, you have planning. You know how much it's gonna cost. So. I don't know what Murtha can say. That's going to. You know, unless funding was stolen. That was, you know, like I don't like, like what could excuse, can you come up with this for this? They're not even spending that much, they're spending money. There's no doubt about it, but it's not to the point where, you know, the, the costs are supposed to be controlled in this environment. So, and you can't even get to stage, you know, you can't even get to the field yet and you're having these issues. And like you said, Reed, it's gonna affect if players do come back because there's a lot of players that are dying to get filmed that just want to get out there. They, they want to play, they love playing football and they want to do it. And they're some players that will come. Back and do it, but the quality of play is gonna suffer and, and the, unfortunately. You know, you can recover from a lot of things in life. So there's. But th this is an awful, awful. Start for major league football. You kind of like to question the major part of it because this, this minor league type operation with the, what has just happened. I Mike we've hit about hour 40 here. My bladder is about it's max. So we're, we're gonna end the call here pretty quick. Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. You know, we'll get you back on again, but I wanted to get kind of your immediate. You know, we didn't get you. And I, I know, thank God you tried to call in for the Aero, Arizona, and I know, and you felt bad. It never feel bad. It's a call in show. We can have call ins and it's not work, but I wanted to get Mike. So this week on everything going on. So thank you so much. Thank you so much Reed. And thanks for not making me sing. Oh, Canada. Oh, I feel like forgot about our wage. We'll have to do that next time. My, you, you reminded me. I forgot. Yeah, my I, my, yeah, I drank this whole, I can't handle that tonight, but we'll do that next time. We'll get you back up on your wage. Yeah, you shouldn't have said anything. I never would remember that. Sorry. I just. You know, it's funny. I picked BC to win, but I got roped a bet because, you know, I represent the Argos. I write about them for CFO news.com. So I've been working on my singing. It's dreadful. So it's, I love the Canadian national Anthem. So, but I apologize. The next time I'm on. Oh Canada. No. Anyway, so you probably been waiting this whole episode, like afraid I'm gonna ask you about it. And then I, I totally like I've moved on. I totally, it just, it just hit me. I'm looking, I'm looking at your CFO hat and it just hit me as your wrapping up there. So guys for keeping you first so long, this is a long, great. This is to the audience too. I appreciate you for. Staying all the way through, if you did. And tha thanks. Thanks so much Reid for having me on. If you, if you, if you've made it to the end of this interview, if you tweet at me, Let me think about what, what do I, okay. Here's what we're gonna do. If you tweet at me. Canada. . I will I, whoever picks it up, I'll give you, I'll send you whatever you want from the XFL shop. If you've made it to this point in the episode, if it's one person, You gotta see the I'm still like on that basic level of like, you gotta see the rock in person. All right. Well, let's go here. You know, we usually do like 20, 25 minutes if that works for your schedule. Yeah. That's great. Go crazy. I think Mike, Mike Mitchell's coming on tonight. I think we're gonna do quite a bit of ex FFL stuff. So it should be okay. That's fair. You can got me short whenever you absolutely not. No, I just don't want you. Some people are like, well, how long do I have to, like, what am I in for here? Oh, I'm the problem with me is I talk too much. So whatever you wanna do, I like, I like to go cut me off. No, I'm gonna take the glasses off cuz they're glaring. Okay. We're good. Okay. Well, I'm excited today. We have Danielle Ponticelli coming on. She covers your rough riders with six 20 CCK RM. I'm excited cuz we have, you know, my team America's team, the BC Alliance coming into Regina this weekend. How are you doing Danielle? Daniella, I'm doing great. And I'm really excited about this matchup because it's, it's just one of those ones circled on the calendar. Actually a physical calendar circled the date. When the BC lines come to town. It's good. I mean, BC, you know, Started hot kind of waved a little bit. Now I have been busy traveling and interviewing the rock and stuff this week. Like is Cody for Jaro? Is he able to walk this weekend coming in? Cause I know he's been struggling with some injuries. Yes. He's had his left leg in a knee brace for most of the season. But he is in starting position. For the depth chart he's doing great. And he was on the sidelines last week. I saw him. Moving around. He wasn't putting a lot of, he wasn't jumping up and down or doing anything like that, but he was there, you know, helping the, helping the quarterbacks, Jake Dola, who got the start in his CFO debut. Always great to see making the most of that in interesting week. Let's just put it put, did diplomatically interesting week for the ride. But it's great to have Cody back. He's gonna be one of those guys. If, if it's not something that physically will mean he can't walk, he's gonna keep playing. And it's not a bad thing cuz you wanna have the best playing and he still is the best given all of that. I, yeah, I got a lot of questions. Wanna ask you about first off he's so Cody Frager though famously has. Blocked us on Twitter because I made fun of him for using chicken nuggets instead of curse words in his. So if you ever see Cody say, Hey, Cody, you know, let's, let's let it off. I'm reading a little bit. What do you think of Cody for jar though? Because very polarizing, I feel like as much as this CF you personality could be right. Like it's. Levi. And then it's Cody Frager. What do you think of Cody? Mmm. I mean, I have to be, I'm a little bit biased because I do work quite closely with the team. I think he's just a genuine, genuinely is that kind of person. Which can sometimes be a little bit. Hard to believe that is someone really that nice is someone really that. Composed. I don't know if composed is the word. But it is a little bit hard to believe sometimes. And then he says like, his makes his sprinkle of Jesus comment and you're like, that is Cody. There is, there is nothing, no bones about it. I would love to get to know him more. And I know I'll be able to have that chance. I think Cody might change as well as, as a per. You know, coming up this fall when he becomes a dad for the first time, and that's going to be something interesting to another layer to him. But yeah, it's, it's an, he's an interesting you're right. He is an interesting. Guy and interesting personality in that he's not out there saying things that are really controversial or doing anything that you know, oh, he did that. Oh, I don't know. But maybe that's a good thing. The riders have enough people. It seems that kind of like push the envelope in other ways. So having a, having a leader like Cody might not be the worst thing and certainly matches well with the type of vibe that head coach Craig Dickinson is, is setting and the kind of tone. So I do find a funny that we've had this. Discussion about sort of the Renegade riders and, you know, kind of being this. Bad boy, persona. And I've only heard that from some people that isn't certainly not from everyone, but then yeah. As soon as you got close to the team, you go, I'm sorry, these guys, you think these guys are bad guys. They're not. They're , they're like the most lovable kind care bunch. And Cody FIJA leads. Leads the team in a lot of ways too, with they have a, a faith group there's at least 20% of the entire club that. Are are very much lean into their faith and, and lean into to God and, and give a lot of their time during the we during their week to, to that part of who they are. So, yeah, he is an interesting figure, but I genuinely believe that he is who he is and I believe he's authentic. I love it because, you know, we came in last year and the CFO and we're covering staff and, you know, they always talk like we need stuff to talk about building stars. Right. That's kind of the thing. I mean, I, I love someone like Kim, I think last year he was throwing his receivers under the bus we called, I think we had an. Episode. That was like, is Cody FIJA though the man in black, you know, Westworld is very hot at the time. Like, I, I like him as someone that yeah. Literally is like the least controversial person yet people cannot stop talking about him. I very much enjoy that. It is. It's an interesting. You know, swing of the pendulum on that. How can you be. Not really all that controversial. And then still someone to just constantly talk about. And perhaps that's, he just, he knows already I'm gonna be, I'm gonna get so much heat whether I do right. Whether I do wrong when you're in rider territory, when you're the starting quarterback. The the I in the sky of everyone looking down on you, it's very. It looms large. I'll put it that way. And I think he, he does his best. I think one of the most humanizing parts of him was when he came out and said, I can't handle the things that I'm dealing with on social media. That's a tough thing to say publicly, because we all know people on social media can be trash, who we don't wanna say it, or, you know, be like, oh yeah, poor you, everyone. Deals with it, but to actually be, be open about how much that affected him. That was, I thought that that was a pretty big moment for him. Well in speaking of the riders and I I'm always. Kind of amazed with how popular they are, right. CFO in general, right. When we're covering now like USFL ratings. And then we see what the CFL is drawing in Canada with the 10th of the population that, you know, the makeup game on Sunday, they have, you know, the two backup quarterbacks from Saskatchewan going in this, you know, rescheduled game from. I think it was supposed to be Thursday, right. Ended up pulling in like 600, 2600 40,000 viewers. I mean, incredible ratings for that. What do you, you know, you cover the team and you're there and just. The insatiable appetite that the people have, you know, Saskatchewan have for the rough riders. It is insatiable. I mean, when. When you go anywhere. I have to just preface. I started out in broadcast in news. Right? So you always, when you, when you go into news, there, there used to be, I don't know if you remember this at all, but it used to be that sports would often lead. A newscast, at least in Saskatchewan, that was one of the ways it worked. And then of course they, they went okay. That's that's a no go. We can't go from sports into breaking natural disaster news or this terrible tragedy. We need to shake it up. So then they change it up and sports often fell. Back down well in Saskatchewan going to any newsroom rider news, you'll still likely see it right off the hop. The reason being is it is the news. Everyone is talking about, even if you're not a rider fan, you've been in a wor in an office where, oh yeah, something's a rider game day, week. Yep. Yep. So even if you're not into it, You're into it or you're surrounded by it. You're talking about it now. Hopefully that'll translate into more people coming to attend in person, but either way there's. In this province, I can also ask enough. It's such a special thing. It. It's just amazing. But then, you know, I, I, I went to, I got to go to Lincoln, Nebraska. I took a drive down there to go watch a corn Huskers game. And it was fantastic. Cuz talking, talk about a town that stops for football. And so it's not quite like that here. But that level of like love for the team and pride and you take a walk around the queen city on any game day. I always take my girl Maggie for a walk. And she has her little rider bandana on and we just get to see everybody. Excited to go to the games. It is still there. The love is still there. We just need to make sure that doesn't go away and that the next generation picks up on why that's so great too. Well, that's the thing. And, and as also someone that worked in news for a long time, it's good that I feel like we have that common connection of the, the local news and all that, cuz it is like, I think at writer, attendance is down. I mean, attendance is kind of whatever, but the, the TV ratings are still tremendously strong. So it is balance scene and we had. Gary stern on, I guess, two weeks ago. Now talking about how do we get people back out after COVID? How do we incentivize that? Because. Radiance this season, I think have been really good across the board. I mean, not even just last week, I think it's been solid throughout, I think week one kind of was slow and then it, it bounced up from there. Well, one thing I have to say about the Sunday game. So it was only postponed. It ended up being postponed by one day and I just knew. This is gonna prove that Sunday football in the CFO for TV. Is gonna be great. I was not surprised at all that that was great. I know on a Sunday when I'm at home, especially after I've worked a game on the Saturday, all I wanna do am I weird? All I wanna do is watch more CFO football now, to be fair, obviously when the NFL season kicks back, there's lots of, you know, lots. Of things that happen. Schedule schedule comes up and you want that a little bit of room there, but why not monopolize the Sundays up until that point? Why not make, and especially for families, they will always tell you in a province like this, where some people are driving three on average, three hour, one way to a game. Getting to go on a Sunday, wake up, take, take the family to brunch in your, in your local town. Drive to the game, grab some food there. Watch the game, your home. You're home by, at a reasonable time, eight o'clock or nine o'clock. That's great. That is doable. And that is what people are thinking about. Is it feasible for me to have an enjoyable time? I'm fine with spending the money. I just wanna have a good time. I will also give. Props to the Edmonton Elks talking about a singles mixer or social event. Where was this? I was thinking about this just the other day. You know, I don't wanna disclose my status, but I was thinking about this as a, as a CFO fan. One of the hardest things is being single and being a CFO fan. If you're not just comfortable. Going on your own now, do I have any shame in the game? No, I'll go on my own any day. But it is nice to know that there's an option. To share that experience with people. To maybe meet some like-minded people. Everyone talks about how, how not great online dating is. Well, hello. How about going to a CFO game and meeting like-minded people who at least, you know, you have the interest of football. In common with that's my take on it. I totally agree. Well, no, cuz it's I mean, not to say, I mean, we could segue into the date and stuff like yeah, my mom is, is single and she goes, why maybe I wanted to go to church to like meet someone. I'm like, well, no, you don't. You wanna go somewhere where it's people are interested in what you wanna do. And if you're a CFO. Fan. I think it's a great idea. Victor queen, you know, is pioneering out of you like CFO you're single come on down and hang out. I think it's great. And it it's just. Another reason for people who have. Disposable income to come to the game and spend money and be there. And then maybe next time, they'll try to drag out another friend of theirs who maybe isn't as into football or whatever the case is, but that's all it takes is you need to give everyone a reason cuz we need the families there. That's very important. Not everyone has a family. Or not everyone has a family that wants to go to a football game. Heaven forbid you got kids that just can't hack the cold weather. Okay, who can we get to fill those seats? How are we gonna make that work? Well, and just to circle back to the Sunday games, you know, cuz I think. I agree. I think during the non NFL season, Thursday games need to be wiped. I mean, tie cats are playing right now. I'm not watching because it, it started at four 30 my time. I don't, but I don't, I'm not done at four 30 on a Thursday to get ready to watch a football game. I think obviously NFL comes around. Okay. We, we figure out we do a double header set Saturday, Friday. I think that's what they did last year. The double Friday. With the late game and, and Saturday, but yeah, it's crazy to me. They, they have this huge ratings boost. I have to imagine they look at that next year with TSN and try to figure out how to do more Sunday games. Yeah, because you, you can't, you can't have Thursday and Sunday in the mix, because then you're gonna have wild swings where people go from a Sunday game to a Thursday game. We don't want that. It's already tight enough. We wanna just make sure that there's, it's easy to, to go back and forth here, but there's obviously logistical issues. There's obviously other things going. On, but it's great to have these discussions. I love that people are passionate about it, and I love that the numbers back it. That's why we have the numbers. Well, I just like tangible, like, tangible things so we can try, cuz everyone's always like. CFO needs to like, you know, fix marketing or like, that doesn't mean anything to me. Like, let's try more Sunday games. I like that. That's a tangible thing we can work on and kind of like thesis statement versus just kind of, you know, complaining about suffering every reason. And the hardest part of attracting people is if the talk around a literal water cooler, cuz we have them in the office. Is ah, yeah, there's just no one going to games. Okay. I'm not trying to say don't have that conversation. We need to have that conversation, but do you understand, like, it is a feedback loop, right? It's these things keep going. And I am not surprised that there is a dip, especially post COVID because of the fact that when you're out of a habit, it's like, Anything in life. If you're out of a habit, you're not gonna suddenly pick it back up. You need reason to, and we're, we're seeing a bit of that momentum returning last season was tough. Especially in rider nation, people were very divided. We had no mask or sorry, no vaccine mandate. And then there was one and then it was, people were upset and angry and you know, that's not a great. Vibe to begin with. So everyone did, did their best last season. This season things are picking up, picking up speed. And I think we're finally feeling that little bit of what it was like at games. Before, all of. Before that time, even though weirdly enough, of course the rider. Felt the full effects of COVID this season. Again, not surprising. I figured something like this would happen cuz now everyone has access to everyone. There's no bubble protection. And I'm it's it's I'm. Sad that it happened, but I mean, Hey, this is the that's the way virus is spread. Right. You talking about, you know, getting fans back in feeling like the same. I think even on the field, it's feeling more like it used to, you know, scoring this up. I think nailers was doing something this week talking I saw. Yeah. CFO news, reach tweeting, you know, scoring, you know, our average 47 points or whatever the heck. Dave and his numbers and stuff, but I mean, what do you make of, you know, we're entering the week eight of the quality of place so far that we've seen. So, you know, through this, oh, I love it. I love it. And I know people have been really hard on the east. Myself included. I get, although I also get a kick out of the fact that Saskatchewan always wants to help out its neighbors and, you know, throw a few winds their way, like come on as if we're the only Western team right now. That's still, then it's fall into an Eastern opponent. Three times. So, but that being said, it's, it's been so. Enjoyable. I love the. Anything that brings me back or brings me to that final. Minute of the game. That's exciting. That is exciting football. And if there, if my mom is any barometer, bless her heart. She is so gotten into CFO football because now she's got a son in Winnipeg, blue bomber fan. A writer, not only fan, but someone who works. In in that, and she's watching every bomber game. Every rider fam. Oh. And she lives in BC. So she's also watching BC guests. She suddenly watching more football than I'm. And she's loving it. So I need to start getting fur out to more games. She has come to one CFO game. With me as an adult and it was. The longest game, cuz it was the one where we had an hour and 12 minute. Rain delay and at mosaic stadium. So I did feel a little bit bad for her, but she stayed. She didn't, she didn't go home. She stayed we watched the game and we won. So. There you go. I wanna get your thoughts. I saw chatter this week as, so we're talking like mop candidates for the season, right? Nathan B. Started hot BC one last week, Hamilton was not the most exciting game I watched, like half of it in Arizona. We were getting ready for the showcase there. Thoughts on Nathan. And I've seen a lot of Andrew Harris chatter, right? If we're finding someone from the east, which is crazy, is, you know, I think people thought he'd come to Toronto. I know I did. And he's a little bit beaten up and battered. I mean, what do you make of Nathan, Andrew? Anyone else you think of mop candidate so far? I mean, those are the names we've been hearing a lot about. And rightly so they've, they've crossed some, some really great milestones. The fact that Nathan Moore started off hot, but also is, is learning and adapting. Again, I'm very eager to see how he performs against the riders. I don't expect a blowout. You know, but knock on wood who knows what's gonna happen. We didn't see a blowout either way. I should say. We didn't see that happen in against Hamilton. So we'll see how that goes. He definitely needs to be in that conversation and will continue to be he's gotten enough media. Attention. I think that alone, the story alone kind of deserves. That, I don't know if that's what wins. You wins you the mop at the end of the day, but. It's very, a very intriguing discussion. Andrew Harris is. Yeah, exceeding expectations, whatever you think of him personally, I know he is a pretty divisive character based on past things, but. You gotta respect what he is doing right now. He's a veteran player. Who's who's showing that quit is all in your mindset. It's not in, it's not in the bones, it's in the mind. So I think he's great. I mean, To throw out some Saskatchewan rough rider that. Pete Robertson was doing great. Like, I don't know if he was an mop discussion, but he was definitely to me, someone to keep my eye on because he was just. Dominating. And then of course he got injured. So he is looking. Better should be, should be back in action soon enough, but you just that's the best part of this. Back to the 18 game, regular season. We've just crossed the, the first third. Approaching the halfway point, and we're gonna have this discussion again, later on. It'll be totally different. I think. Well, am I still like, I, you know, as in newer CFO fan and podcast and all this, I still totally felt victims of that were, you know, I was convinced BC was going to the great cup after the first two weeks here. And I'm like, you, we can't be stopped. And then, you know, I, obviously the women, it really feel like into kind of circle back to the game this week and like, It just doesn't feel like BC has a lot of the momentum right now. I saw a lot of our listeners who are picking Saskatchewan to win the game. I think it was more of a, I think it was more BC heavy with the CFO rider. I think I saw a lot of orange on there when that graphic came out. I mean, what do you make of that in, in, in did BC lose a lot losing. As bad as they did to Winnipeg was that week four. I, yeah, I. I don't even know when it comes to picking. These sorts of things, these games, because you're right. The momentum right now is not in favor of BC, but I don't know if it's really in favor of the riders either. And I mean, they showed that the players that had COVID that returned to the roster last game proved that they could hold up. Through the full game. That was very impressive. Especially the defensive players who had to be out on the field for that was so lopsided with the possession time was like 37 minutes or something. It was a lot. Of time for them to be out there. I don't. I, I need to circle back to your question, mark or not mark. Sorry. Reed there's people. Screaming in this building right now, when you're in a radio station, I took gonna hear it in the background. Anything, just gimme a second. That's good. I can't anything. So that's not good. I'm so glad you, I can hear it's like right by my . I'm just, I thought I'd found a quiet room, but apparently I'm wrong. Yeah. So I, I guess to put it simply, I'm gonna take the very bland, boring middle road, but this is. Anyone's game. I know that there's a lot of hype. Including. I love that the riders are hyping Nathan roue. I don't know what to make of that. They're seeing the loveliest things about him. It's so Canadian. It's so great. And I'm, I'm hoping they'll change their tune and, and put a little bit of mean on, on the feet on would also love to see another pick. Six by Nick Marshall. Of course, we all wanna see a pick six, but he actually got one against Nathan work. When the BC lions came to town. Last August for our home opener for 2021. And I thought that was just so cool because I hear, I thought, oh, you know, maybe it'll be the first time you can get a pick six against. You know, Nathan RO already has one. So, and for what it's worth it for, for fans out there or people who might not know, and Nick Marshall is leading. The Saskatchewan rough rider all time. With five pick sixes and he did that in 45 games. That's pretty amazing. Now I think people, I think the CFO could afford to be a little meaner, some of the players and know last year, I think it was heading into one of the playoff games and Montreal was chirping the little bit. And Gary stern was saying, you know, we're gonna kill the Argonauts. I think that you could use a little, little bit more of that. I, I don't think. You know, maybe Cody just needs, like I said, he's the maned black needs to lead into that a little bit more. Yeah, I don't think he's going to, I think new dad, Cody might be a little bit kinder even, so get ready for that. Sweet Cody. It would be great. We, we talked about this on the sports cage, radio round table, post games show cuz some callers. Said the same thing. And this was, unfortunately, it was sort of around the discussion of some of the suspensions and it was not condoning what happened, but it was saying it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of a more tougher exterior, at least on the out outside, cuz you're kind of showing the world. This is what you're made of when you're on the field, we can still do the great stories that we get to do, or we get to meet the players, get to know them. Out outside of that, but that's a really good point. I, I likened it to the attitude era of the WWE, right. Maybe now's our time to have a bit of an attitude era. And I mean, we know how well that served. A pro wrestling, right. Having a little bit of attitude goes a long way. So I'm just saying. I was actually just thinking about that with wrestling, you know, I think you can be. And I don't watch a lot. And I'm like bronze Stroman, right? Like the big, he's like big badass, you know, he's gonna kill you, but he is like the lovable giant where like he's nice to the fans, but then he'll go out there and like sit on his opponent. I think that that is a good, you do. We're gonna take it on the feet, but then we're still gonna do our charity. Work, we're gonna do our community outreach, all that other stuff. Yeah. You don't have to do like strict K favor or anything because you know, you know that you're, you're a football player. It's not, it is what it is, but it will be, it's nice to have that, like, Get out there and the riders out there for a long time. Winnipeg actually. The swagger will era, which I think find an interesting sort of part of history there. They did so well. They didn't win the great cup during that era, but guess what it set the tone. For what was next? I still always get a kick out of the fact. There are people walking around with swagger bull tattoos. I love it. I hope that you've kept it nicely. Freshly inked. I hope you, because that was a commitment at the time we knew there was a shelf life on the swagger bill brand and you went fully in, love it. Speak the rest of day. You would know the mark is name. You know, the wrestling term for the mark. So there you go, just to make it all full circle there. When I called you mark well, cause everyone know, and like we, we have Mark Perry that he wor runs the site that we're hosted on. And there's a lot of like, are you mark? Who is mark? Do? It's like, we're the mark cast? Like we're marking out full. You know, CFO or XFL or this cause we were the XFL mark has, and then we just begin the, the mark has cause people. People yelling them. I love I'm. I'm always here for like wrestling, not only terminology, but, but what's a comparisons like. We really were the heel for a while, and there's nothing wrong with being the heel because a, again, it gets the crowds going. It gets people interested, but you wanna do it with a purpose when it comes to pro sport, because you do not want to alienate. Fans necessarily. And you also have to be careful that doesn't spill into something that's actually egregious. Where you want, where people are getting hurt. This is not about that. This is about coming out with an attitude and there's nothing worse. Than an athlete that gets under your skin, but toes, the line of the rules. So they stay in the game the whole time. They never get penalized and you're like, are you kidding me? That's a good heel, right? They know the rules they're playing to the crowd and it's, it's not a, they're not to making stupid penalties and actually getting upset and, and, and losing things for their team. Or you could be like, was it, you know, Tyre hill with the chiefs? Like he is he right? He's got the peace sign. And then it was in the super bowl and the Tampa bay guy, I think he picked him off or had the, you know, knocked it down and did the peace sign back. And you know, I like that, like this, the slow bill, you knows six months later, I we're knock gonna deal anything. And then I'm in your phase and. Yeah, I think it's like, that was kind of my thing with the whole rough riders and we had, you know, the injury and the suspension and the Misso. We kind of avoided talking about a lot of that the last few weeks. Cause there's been nice. Cuz there was a lot of divisiveness with that, but. I'm like the CFO. Guy's like, you don't make enough money to be injuring anyone in that way. Like, I understand playing hard and I understand like leaving it all in the field, but we see a lot of that in, in the us of L two, there was a lot of like penalties and fights and injuries we had there. So like, none of you guys are getting paid in that for this. Like, you need to really look out for each. Other to make sure that you can complete the game and be back the next week. 100% And I'm, I'm glad you brought that up because I, I have really great chats every week with former rider and former Edmonton player. Eddie Steele. And he talks about that a lot. I actually really like his insight into the, the finance side of it. Cuz he always breaks down to like, when you do this to me, this means I can't feed my family. I can't do. And it's so true. It's not just about. One penalty or someone acting stupid. It's like, how is that going to affect? Everything down the road. And if you don't make it to the playoffs, you don't get those bonuses, all of those things. And it does matter on that level. I think anyone who says it doesn't is lying to you. Money matters. And it's important when you're in a sport where your shelf life is determined by our healthy, you can stay your prominence on a team and you better hope that there's no one coming for your position. Next season. Yeah, it's a livelihood. I, I just think with all that, it's, it's, it's your livelihood you're taking outta the way. That's what upset me more, but I know there was all the other stuff that happened and the racial connotations, all that stuff, but it just, I mean, the CFO's too tight, knitted that community in that way that I just think that players need to be better behaved back and forth. I just. Don't think there's place 100% and there's. You know. Yeah. We'll just leave it at that. But I agree with you. Anytime you, you get close to. To hurting someone in that way. That's it, I mean, on, on a very, very. Amateur sport level, I've played a roller Derby. And I have seen many. Fantastic leg breaks and interest. We don't get paid anything. And we decide we wanna roll around on concrete and hit one another. I don't know what's wrong with us. I think we all like a little bit of pro wrestling as well. but we're, I'm going with this is I ive been in that position where I've seen a team teammate hurt. And I know someone intentionally did that. And I have lost it. Like I have been kicked out of the game. so like I understand where people feel that sense of protection for a teammate. And that's a very basic level. That's super minor. Like I'm not trying to say, I know what a pro football player is going through, cuz I don't, but I get that sense of protection because you feel like are. You kidding me? This is, this is outrageous. From a pro football perspective, you've gotta trust that the league is going to see to the penalties. And address it. And that's the other part of this. There needs to be a better trust. I think more than anything, you gotta trust that the league is investigating things and trust that they're going to do enough. And speaker our minds, if, if we don't feel that way, but it is important to trust the process. Cause a lot of people were, why isn't this done yet? Why is the, have you, have you seen any investigation? It always takes time. Right? This isn't CSI. It's not gonna happen in five hours. It, it takes time. Well, Danielle, I could talk to you for a hard time. I think this is great. We've, we've four, a down, a lot of different paths, but I think it's good. Any final thoughts today? Anything to talk about? I mean, I obviously hope we could get you back on here in the future, but any other thoughts as it pertains to we a week weekends stuff and what that we got TYCA and then. We've got, I had it pulled up here. We've had Calgary. Yeah, Winnipeg Calgary. I am very much looking forward to that. There's so much debate over. You're going, you're looking at a team that could go eight. No, like, are you kidding me? When it, where was this kinda energy? When I was living in that city, what the heck is going on? I just suffer through some bad years. What is happening. I mean, every CFO. Then, if you're looking at a span of longer than five years, you've suffered through some. You've suffered through. I mean, that's that's sports, right. There was a time in my life. Not that long ago, but long enough ago that I it's in the rear view where I would sometimes not wanna watch a certain sports events. Cause I'm Nope. Do this to my emotions. I am. Going to be angry. . But you, you go through it and then you realize like, okay, well we all went through it together. So that my thoughts are, I'm very excited for that game. I don't know who I want to win. I guess I always like to knock people down a peg a little bit. So maybe knock Winnipeg down a peg. Wouldn't be bad. But I also just like, I'm not a cowry fan, so . Whatever. We'll see, it's gonna be a great week. And then the riders are on a buy and that this couldn't be a better time buy for them. Yeah. Honestly, Saskatchewan is a really good. Schedule compared to a lot of the other teams, the fact that this is their first buy, and then they're going to have an, some others down the stretch when they need it. It's good. It's tough. I love Calgary. I think max, over there, the desert PR is great. We've had lots of players on the show. I have a love. He feud with Daniel Austin that covers the Calgary stamp Peters . And so I think that I'm always like biased against them because like Daniel and I are, I don't think are we were on good terms and we're not like we kind of go back and forth. So we're right now, very poor on, on stand Peters. But. I also win the peg that's my wife's team. I cannot hear the end of it when win the peg wins and beats yeah. Beats BC. So it really is a lose, lose situation for me for that game. so you're like, I actually am not looking for, to that game. Oh, that's so funny. It's yeah. I mean, that's the thing, right? Every time they win, it's just another, okay. Yep. Yep. But it facing adversity in a season, I'm always gonna be that poetic believer in facing adversity, facing a loss in the season is gonna set you up nicely down, down that championship run because you're going to face. Hardship the problem is that what if I, blue bombers have been so tested? they have faced the adversity. That's why they're crushing it. That's why they're undefeated. It's like, Gosh, darn it. You faced all the adversity. You still won. And now you keep winning, but that's, that's kind of the magic of this. I think if there's any. Even casual football fan in Winnipeg, if you are not going to every Winnipeg blue bomber game, this season. I don't know what you're doing. This is the time. Jump on the bandwagon, cuz it's gonna be a Rocky ride a little bit later right now. It's pretty smooth. I, you gotta enjoy it while this I, I do. I, because I watch most games kind of apathetic. I me happy, but just kind of I'm I'm very neutral and I watch all this. I mean, that's probably not the right word, but BBC lions losing. And then the Washington commanders, I can always tell when it's like the teams that's those are my teams. I care about. Cuz I can watch a lot like, oh Calgary and you know, you get excited and I watch a lot of NFL, but Washington football team and the BC lions are the only ones that I really get. Like you said, we're where I'm so angry. I can't even watch it in anymore. And, and you just, you feel personally hurt you're like what. Is going on with me. It's okay. It's, it's just, and I will never say it's just a game because it is just a game it's way more than that. And we know it's way more than that, because if the pandemic showed us anything, it's, you know, sports, sports is a glue that it is almost. It's hard to describe what it does. To people, individuals. Communities. I mean, gosh, like. We really, really did miss that. One-on-one connection with the riders and the community here. And that's been amazing to see again. No. I, I absolutely agree. I, yeah, I've I live in Seattle. I've successfully divorced myself from the Seahawks. Now they have drew lock. I don't have to worry about that. I am happy to live my life and they can go down that they can pay DK. Matt KA, I just saw $30 million guarantee that think drew lock can throw him the ball all. Year long. I don't know what we're doing with that, but I didn't know. I so appreciate your time today. I hope we can get you back on. This has been a delight.

XFL 2022 Arizona Player Showcase Head Coach Interviews

So how's everything going here? It's going well. I mean, it's, you know, all the showcases have been enlightening, you know, we, you, you got, you know, 200 something guys and, you know, hopefully you can find a couple of hidden gem somewhere along the line. I think there's some talent out there. So you know, I'm glad that the X FFLs put it on, it's given an opportunity to see some talent around the country. Yeah. Do you think in terms of finding hidden gems, there's enough talent that you've been able to find through these six? Well, then will be six. Yeah. I, I think you have to look outside the box even with them. I think some, some of the guys, I, I, I kind of like are probably out of position and they're, you know, when they're at the XFL during their training, they're probably not the position I would look at 'em for, but you know, if you can think out of the box that way, I think you can find a couple guys here and there Guys play that side of their positions here currently. Well, I mean, they probably did in college but they're not in college anymore. They're probably a little bit bigger, stronger. So you gotta think a little bit different. The game has changed a little bit. So I would think most of the coaches are looking at it that way. And I, you know, for the most part, you know, we got some guys that got a little speed, we got some quarterbacks that can sling it a little bit. And now we're trying to find guys that can protect the quarterbacks that can rush to pass it. There's been a lot of questions, you know, obviously U SFL completed the season, right. They've got a lot of guys locked up coming in. Do you think that there's enough quality guys out there you've been able to find, you know, even with CFL fan control football, you know, U SFL that you guys are able to feel these eight teams? Yeah. I mean, UFL, has them locked up all the talent? They got some guys, they got some of the quarterbacks, you know, some of the other guys probably signed two year deals. It's unfortunate because they're, they're really thinking about the players, you know, are really thinking about them, not the players. So hopefully, you know, we can, there is enough talent across this country. Really American football's played in almost every, every space in the world. So we're just trying to find that be it here international. It really doesn't matter. We're trying to get, find those guys who wanna have an opportunity to play pro ball. What do you mean that they're thinking about themselves and not the players? The USFL? Well, they're trying to keep, they're trying to stay going. I mean, that's what they're, I mean, at the end result is that they're getting paid to perform. So they're trying to lock up all the talent, you know I know that their, their outs are getting into the NFL. Other than that, they're gonna be there. You know, if that's what you know, they have to do, that's what they have to do. I don't think that's the way the XFL is gonna do things. But at the end of the day, I think there's a lot of talent, enough talent around the us that you can, you can find pretty good players. You just gotta look, you gotta think out of the box again, you know, the hardest thing to find, I think for even the U SFL XFL national football league for that sake is big offensive, a linemen that can move and defense a line that can get out to the quarterback. Rob, you have such a success NFL there. What, what sort of reason can you for some of these guys just about chasing the dream and trying to get there? I mean, just keep pushing for it. I mean, it's, it's a dream with theirs. I mean, this is a great platform has been tried, right? UFL a long time ago, XFL, this is gonna be 3.0 Alliance. This is the only sport that doesn't have a feeder league from the, to the NFL. It's needed coach in international football league. All these coaches who have coached in the national football league will tell you it's definitely needed. Cuz there are players who aren't like a year away, maybe two years away to being able to get to their best, to be at their best to probably get the opportunity back to the NFL. So I think that having a place like the XFL and what they're gonna do for the players, how they're gonna house the players, how they're gonna feed the players. You know, they don't have to spend their money during the season, but also toning their skills for, I would think that everybody's ultimate goal is to play in the national football league. I wouldn't think that's gonna be you know, that's not gonna go away at all, but it's our job is to get them to play at their bells, to be the better version of themselves each and every week, each and every day. And hopefully it does give them opportunity to go to the NFL, which makes it better for us because now we're telling them that we can develop talent talent, good enough that they can plan the N bowl league. Are you someone that reach out to like the, a coaches or other groups and everything has success that reaches out to those people that you know, in the industry and maybe gets to fix their brain for some, you know, how do about this? Yeah. I mean, I, I know quite a few of those guys already, so we've talked, I mean the coaching circle is not as big as everybody thinks it is. So it's a lot of communication that goes on. You hear about a lot of different things. You know, I haven't physically reached out to a lot of those guys, but a lot of those guys are already my friends. Yeah. So we've talked about that stuff when it was happening. You know, at the end of the day, you know what, you know, red bird capital and, you know, DJ and Danny Garcia, what, what all the stuff that they're doing is muchly needed for these guys to hopefully hone their skills and play at a high level. And if say that they say that they only play here. And to say that the USFL still continues to play, then they, they still have an opportunity to play pro ball. And that's a lot of guys dreams. And before the XFL coming back, you know, and the UFL coming back there, that gene was it was, it was, it was long away. So there's been a lot of lately with the, between showcases and new ownership of the rock. And you being a coach, you know, there's a lot of things. You can be excited about this new league, you know, there's, there could be different rule changes, you know, there just opportunity for players like you've already spoke about what is your number one priority as a coach going in, in the season, what do you want to get outta this for you and the players? Well, I mean, for me, I'm not, I've had a great career. I've been blessed to be here. It's all about the players for me, mm-hmm, <affirmative> I'm trying to make them better individuals, first of all, to be better in the community, to be better fathers, to be better brothers, to be better sons. But then the end result is to play between the white lines and we're trying to make them better versions of themselves each and every day. And we're trying to tell 'em that the small things really matter. And if we can get 'em to do that, cuz they have all these kids have talent in some capacity, the game's not played with talent. Everybody has talent in some form of fashion, the game has played more mental to physical. So we're gonna try to get 'em to tap into that and hopefully touch into their subconscious. You know, they don't think about breathing and walking, they just do it. So they've been playing ball forever. They just sometimes get everything to make it too big. And we, we wanted to come back to being small where, when they're on pop Warner, when that ball went that way, all 11 guys went that way. That's all we're trying to do. Just tell 'em it's the same game they've been playing for. Just go out there and have fun. Absolutely. With this being your first head coaching job what exactly is your long term goals other than the August of winning. And do you see yourself ever head coaching in the NFL? Is that something that is a Goal? I mean, God opens my doors to walk through. Those are the doors where I'm gonna walk through. I was very blessed to have Doug and those guys call me to have this opportunity. I'm not looking to knock any doors down in the NFL. I play, I coach at NFL for several years. You know, I'm happy to be here and I, this is really a perfect scenario for some of us coaches who, you know, I have a foundation, I have my family, I love my faith is my faith in my family are my anchors, but football's been my lifeline forever. That's what I've been doing this since I've been nine years old. So but I, I love being here. I love being with the guys. I love that Doug and Russ and, and Dwayne and Danny Redbird capital gave me the opportunity. So I'm not looking past this. If I look past this, then I'm looking past the guys who I'm gonna be coaching and that's very unfair. Thank you. You briefly mentioned the something about international players and taking a look at those guys. How much have you guys looked at international players? We've, we're definitely looked. I mean, obviously there's some legalities with that being, you know, you know, coming over and work visas and whatnot. So, you know, the first year might be a little harder not unless some of the guys already have the work visas. But I think as years go on, I, I think it's gonna open up the doors. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> football's played in every continent in the world. American ball is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So, you know, hopefully as the XFL stays around that it'll give those individual players an opportunity to come over here and show their wearers. Yeah. You know, so I, I think it's exciting to see what the future holds that I Think go appreciate it. Appreciate it. How are you? How's it going? How's everything going? It's great. Yeah. showcase has been great. You know, the process of just putting my staff together and getting guys you know, better passionate about what they want to do and just, you know, building the the list of players that are out here and available. And then of course, when the preseason goes with the NFL, we'll, we'll look at a lot of those players as well and start putting our boards together and, and try to make the best team possible Being put in this position, you know, first time head coach like this, what's it been like for you just personally kind of hasn't been a whirlwind. It's been great. I mean, this is something I've been pushing my chips in the day, Danny and DJ bought the team or the league, I should say. You know, I, I loved my time at the AAF. I loved working with Mars. He took me under his wing and kind of, you know, solidified to me that I could, you know, do something like this and make this move. And you know, it's just all about, you know, leading people you know, being able to find players, see players, see talent and develop talent, and that's what I wanna do. So, you know, that's what I've been working on. That's what I'm passionate about. That's what I've been kind of filtering through the last couple months since I've gotten the gig. And it's an exciting time for me. You're right. This is it's new, but I think all my collective experiences that I've done around the game of football will help me. And then of course, you know, getting on the field, coaching the games, going through the process that those experiences will add up over time. And, and hopefully I can do my best to, you know, follow through on that end of it week in and week out. So you know, with this league, there's obviously a lot to be excited about, you know, giving players opportunities that they wouldn't otherwise have. You know, there might be some new rule changes you're kind of redefining game football, but you being a head coach in this league, what would you say, are you most excited about, you know, coming up in 2023? I think the biggest thing is just, you know, knowing there's a collection of players out there that for whatever reason, not getting enough reps in the, in the, you know, preseason or training camp with the NFL, not getting the opportunity to go, maybe you know, going through an injury in college, working their way back, you know, guys need a little bit more coaching. They need a little more detail to their game. You know, we can offer those things. This is what this league is about. And I saw, you know, 40, 50 guys from the AAF go to the NFL at least get the training game. Yeah. And they kind of like maxed out their dream and they got that second chance. I see a lot of that here. I mean, this is my goal. I mean, honestly, people get mad when we say developmental league and all, all that stuff. But honestly, I mean, if I get my whole team in the NFL next year, I'm good. Give me a whole new batch of guys. Cause we did our job because we're maxing out our players, our team should win, you know, where I'll be coaching and that'll be a great thing. So you're right. There's gonna be some tweaks rules and stuff like that. I think for me personally, it's, it's about, you know, how high powered of an offense we can be and you know, how strategic defensively and have some fun and get guys that are passionate about playing the game the right way. And, you know, starts with me getting my, getting the right staff together so we can teach these things what we want to do quickly because we only have, you know, five weeks to training camp and then we gotta get out on the field and put a product out there that, you know, looks really good. So I'm excited about that process. Well, you, sorry, will you have a hand and pulling plays Well, you know Bruce and I will be kind of building that offense. I've given him the, the handles on doing all that stuff. You know, we'll collectively been piecing everything together. You know, it'll be fun. I'm excited about it. I like what we have so far. And then, you know, our tweaks and stuff will happen when we get our personnel in place. You know, we're not just gonna throw an offense out and say, this is what we're running. We have to make sure we have the personnel to do it. So quarterback the receivers, the skill set guys, we have the offensive line that we can put together. That'll dictate a lot of that, but you know, we're, we're not gonna settle on, you know, being a stale, mediocre, boring offense. We're, we're gonna max out what we can with the players we have at the positions we have, and we're gonna make sure that we can and week out, you know, we get the best players, the best opportunities, each guy to really max out and do the, you know, the best they can offensively at least. Yep. What was that down like in the moment? And then also, what Did you that experience? I mean, you know, it was all new for me. It was my, really my first true experience doing a full-time coaching gig. Yeah, it was kind of crazy cuz it was all unexpected. It was all unexpected for all of us, but you know, I kind of knew going in the circumstances that could happen. And I think that's kind of been the Mo I think across the board, whether it's COVID financials and things of that nature, that's why when this happened and DJ and Danny got involved, red Burke capital, you see those three components that are important and that's how you kind of make it at least get those sticking points to make things last. And then it's up to them hire the best people, you know, get the best players possible so that we can make this league, you know, not just be a one year, two year thing, make this a long term deal. And I'm on for that ride. As long as I can that Move on a lot of great football people. Obvious Did maybe the difference you're talking about the difference that you see, It's always come down to the business side, having the people that make the best, the right decisions that's best for the longevity of the league. And I think OB obviously the, the resume's pretty strong for, for Redbird capital the rock and and, and so I'm excited to see how they kind of play this thing out. We're gonna do our part, you know, we're gonna get that product out there and the fan bases, I'm excited, I'm excited about the announcements Sunday, it's gonna be, I'm gonna be fired up for that and ready to immerse myself with my team and my community and my fan base. I was brought in for a lot of reasons. And that's something I'm passionate about so that city's gonna be seeing me quite a bit, as much as I can possibly be around them during the off season. What is your long term goal of being a first time tech coach? I wanna be the best XFL head coach. I can year one. I know I have a three year contract, but it's every year to me just like in the league, I was a first round draft pick. My mentality was I have to prove myself every year, so I didn't come in just taking that hand out and moving on. There's a lot of qualified coaches out there that can, can do a great job and doing great things. But every year I feel like, you know, I'm gonna do it one year. How do I better myself the second year and be better, be better, be better. And that's on me. That's just my mentality of, of the way I've done thing where I was media playing, all that stuff. So you know, my goal is to just get the very best staff. It's my job. They get the best staff so I can help these players, these players, like I said, the inadequacies that they have, we gotta fill those voids as best as possible. So we can max out each and every guy. And if we can do that, the product's better. Right. So doesn't really, everybody's worried about the name. Like we gotta get this name guy, we get some star, some stars and can create our own stars with the personnel on the guys that we see coach 'em up, put 'em in the right systems. Then I think we can build some of the star power up a little bit on some of these teams and have some guys that fans can lean on and cheer for week in and week out. And I think that'll be fun and important for the league. Gotcha. Now, when you said about staff, were you a hundred percent in, was the coaching staff or head coaches primarily in control of who their staff was with the league? Yeah, so the league had a, a large amount of guys that were obviously check the boxes, qualified, pass them on to us, but you know, I was able to go and, and, and get my staff put together. There was no pressure to hire this person, that person I just wanted to get the best 10 people that I could find. And you know, that that's the most important thing for me, you know, regardless of Ray color, anything, the best guy, the best gals is the best coach that I can get, cuz that's what the players deserve. And I'm looking at it from a player's perspective. That's what I would want coming to a league like that because I'm here for a reason. I'm trying to max my skill set out. If I'm going somewhere where, you know, quite frankly it's maybe a, you know, my buddies and stuff like that. I'm not doing justice to those kids. So a lot of these coaches I have relationships with, but also, you know, they did something in my career, whether it was a teammate, a player, a coach that I felt like, you know, these guys made a difference in players and myself. And I know that's gonna transfer to the guys in this league exponentially because I was already there and I got there. Right. So these guys are all trying to get to that, that pinnacle. And I think each one of my staff members are gonna help those guys do that. Thank you. Yep. Thank you very much. Yeah, you got it, man. I mean, how does it feel to be back? Feels great. I'm looking forward to it had a great time, my last stint with it and we've got new ownership, which is incredibly supportive and they all have great passion for this. So I'm looking forward to being a part of it. You have a staff that tell a lot of people, you know, fans of the former league and football, you know, with the hazes and everything like very excited. We're very looking forward to that. What did, what went into your thought process for assembling your team? Getting the best coaches I could I'm have a relationship Jonathan Hayes and I played together at Iowa long time, very close friends, but Jonathan and Jay, both working with Marvin Lewis for such a lot, I wanna say maybe 13 years at Cincinnati Bengals. They just have a great history and again, I, I have a history with them as well. I under, I know they're incredible people and men on top of being great coaches. So I'm looking forward to, to us all getting together and working. So in 2020, when you were with Dallas reneg gates your offensive coordinator was Al mummy and I understand you had to install the air raid system. Do you plan to bring that back this time in turn 23? Or are you gonna do something different With hay? No, we'll be doing something different with coach Hayes and what, what, you know, the, probably very similar to what they were doing when he was with St. Louis. Gotcha. When you were with the XFL in 2020 compared to now, what is the, is there any differences you see? Well, it's too early to say. I mean, we've only had some meetings and some of these showcases are very similar, but we'll see how it unfolds. It's just too early to, to, you know, to critique that right now, When you were, you know, asked to come back thoughts that went through your mind. I mean, was it a no brainer yes. Slam dunk or, Well I, I think as much as anything, no, you, you have to understand what, what it's gonna look like and what are the parameters and, and will it fit me in the right way and or in the same way that it fit me the last time. And, and what, what did you know? The another big part of it was what's the ownership look like and their commitment. And that's what really gave me the, the true confidence to do it and wanna do it because I believe in the ownership's vision and their passion for the sport and their commitment to it. So you know, that as much as anything made it easy to commit Quality of talent, the player you're seeing out here, I mean, you've done all these showcases or five to six through, I mean, have you been impressed? I have been, there's a lot of really good football players. You think about it. And, and NFL rosters are so small and you know, with only what 32 teams, you know, there's a lot of really good football players that are right on the outskirts of making it Indiana NFL and you know, and in these showcases and around the country, we find, you know, we find those kind of guys, April 20, 20, all this crazy stuff goes down the world ends. Did you ever think you'd be standing back here again, getting ready for another season? Sure. You never know. You know I don't look that far ahead. It, it, you know, I, I know this, the league was doing really well, so why not? I mean, let's face it the whole COVID and the way the whole country's all the countries shut down. A lot of businesses failed. So ours was in a good position, but couldn't overcome that. So, you know, now that we're moving past that I, I can see where this is gonna do really well. Landry Jones was assigned to the renegades you in 2020, is there any quarterbacks out there that were looking at eventually Back? Not to, not at this point, I'm sure the league is, you know, fielding and talking to agents on behalf of a lot of quarterbacks and that's something I'm sure we will work through here in the coming weeks. Good. Thank very all guys. Have a good one. Think things have been going really good. It's always good to come and observe and watch these young men that have a desire to play on the next level. The grit in which they compete is always fun to see. And I think from the first group that we had earlier it was a really good group of guys that you know, we're in shape and really wanted to come out and show that that they belong. I had a lot of my listeners, you know, EXL coming back, running these showcases, right. I is that a waste of time resources, we're going to Hawaii, we're going all over. Do you feel like being able to do all these different showcases or like helped you find guys that you weren't able to find otherwise? Yeah. I, I would never see it as a waste of time. You know, obviously there's a lot of really good football players that for whatever reason, didn't get a chance to go to NFL. And if we come here and we find two, three guys five guys that we feel like are legit guys, then I think it's worth it. So I'm glad that we have been able to kind of cash our net and go from Maryland and Florida to Mississippi. And now here and then of course, Dallas. So and then it, it gives whether some of these guys come and have a good showing. It gives them whatever they need to be able to move on, whether it's getting an opportunity to play on a team or whether it's, you know, Hey, I tried out and, you know, things didn't work out for me. What tells you that this League from last fall, you can have some last thing Out. Yeah, well, we see that there's a, a need for spring football. People obviously can't get enough of football if you just look at all the different leagues that are around right now there's quality football being played and there's quality athletes that still wants an opportunity to play. So everything starts with leadership. We feel good about our leaders of the XFL that go around and we feel like they're gonna put us in the right place and lead us the right way, where we'll be successful. We got former XFL, NFL executives. Our guys who've been in this business for a long time. So we're encouraged By that. What's the vibe of positive as can be, but, you know, what's just the, the mood and feeling guys getting this Opportunity. Yeah. I think it's excitement. I think every guy that gets an opportunity, I mean, many of these fields are, are, are invites invites only. So you gotta be feeling good about yourself to know that you were one of the people that were selected to come and be a part of it. And guys have come in you know, just like this early group. I mean, there's a good bit of guys that we saw that we liked. We thought have the skill set to be able to play in this league As a coach, who are you looking for? What kind of talent are you looking to find? We're just looking for talent. I mean, right now, obviously, you know, building the, your entire roster or building your entire league you, you, you want people in every position from quarterbacks to kickers to old lineman D lineman. So it's really about watching these young men run around, seeing how they run in the 40, seeing how they run and the skill specifics drills. And really it's, it's, it's every position that we're looking for. The rock had this big thing, you know, number 54, right. We're finding men that haven't been, you know, practice squad, Hey, they're gonna be hung or right. Come out, fight harder. Do you find that, do you think the guys here have that extra chip on their shoulder? What's it been Like seeing that? I really do. And that's the grit that I talk about. I mean, you could see it on their face as they compete the Grims the, the try, the finish it's, if you drop a ball, you still wanna finish through the line. And for the most part, every guy that has been here and at the other showcases, that's what they've done. You can actually see how bad they want it, and they're showing that by the way that they're competing. So it's been fun to see it's been fun to know that they're guys that still can live their dream through the XF fail. So as a head coach you know, compared to this is the third edition of the XFL, right. What do you think, you know, with the XFL you being, having previous coaching experience before, what do you think makes the XFL different in terms of, in terms of coaching? Do you think it's more about like opportunity or, Well, I, I will tell you this, the grasshopper, the only insect that, that can't go backwards and I kind of have a grass of mindset. I'm part of this one. I don't have anything to do with the one in the past. So it's all about looking forward and going forward for us coaches. I do think the coaches that they have in this league right now are guys that have a lot of experience guys who have won a lot of football games and I'm just happy and blessed to be a part of it. What made you choose essentially to come to XFL compared to all the other leagues, as you said, are out there? Right. Well I've been in college coaching for a long time as a head coach. And for me, when I chose a job or taker job, it's all about the leadership. And as I looked at the leadership of this XFL with Ms. Garcia and red bird capital, and the rock Dwayne Johnson along with all the exec executive Russ and mark and Doug, I mean, these guys have done it. Everything they've touched has been really good and successful. And I just saw it as an opportunity to come and be a part of something that's gonna be great an opportunity to coach on a professional level and an opportunity to be around some really good people Experience here versus your other previous, just in terms of how they've been able to like, help support you and have the right people around you here. Do you feel like you've been just as supportive as you have in any of your other coaching experience? Yeah, I do. I mean, it's, I mean, the support system is the, is one of the most important thing. I think from a media standpoint, they have people in place to guide us and directors there. We have our trainers and managers that are on, we got a director player personnels. We have a direct of team operations. So things are in place and we're just proud that they are building it with the right infrastructure and allowing all of us to be able to have success that we want to desire. Thank you. All right. Well how's everything going today? Oh man. It's awesome. I think all these, these showcases that we're putting on is awesome. Not only for the players and giving them opportunity, but for us to, to, to evaluate and see some what you would say second chance guys, hitting gyms, and this morning. So field, You find that, you know, the rocks come out a lot lately, number 54, right. Do you think you're getting a lot of those guys that share that hunger Without a doubt? Even, even for think about us as coaches too, you know, I personally could be number 54, right? And, and the coaching thing where I've been in the collegiate level for what 15 years, part of some great defense recruiting classes and never getting that opportunity. And now here comes the XFL. So between the players showing that and the coaches showing that great mix, great mix. We were hearing you, or I was hearing you invented a drill out here the other day. <Laugh> how did that come about? And what are you looking for In that drill? Well, they give us the option to, to help if we see something that can, as a recruiter, which I've been for a long time changes direction with the DBS is very, very important. You know, everybody kind of does drills. If you look at the combine drills, it's back, Back, Back. When are we ever going to get? Cause a lot of times you talking about that corner didn't make that play or that DB, because he didn't do what he didn't come back. Well, you training this way and you don't get in the side, like change the direction stuff. And so that's where that came by. That's from plan, experience and recruiting. You was fun watching that video of you, you doing that Drill. I get in and I did one last week and I was a little bit so afterwards too. Yes, man. So in terms of evaluating talent especially here at the showcases, what is you know, what are you looking for guys? Like, what is, is there like a list? Like you have any priorities, like what stands out to you in a player? What, who would you want to play on your team in terms of characteristics? Well, number one is, is he competitive? I think everybody says the skill level, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> we know, can they run? Can they jump the basic stuff? Right. We, we testing that, but the competitive nature is he going in the front of line is either back as he's communicating, can he follow direction? You know, coach jump out there and explain something real quick, do it on purpose. And if you're the first one, can you follow that? What's worse. If you are that 10th guy and you mess it up. So it doesn't matter how much talent you have. If you can't follow erection, if you can't bend, if you can't change direction, then it's pretty tough. Cause that's, that's the football give difference in the football. That's what it is. Gotcha. Thank you.

The Rock, Dany Garcia + Russ Brandon on XFL 2023 Season, Arlington Hub, XFL Rulebook, USFL

Questions. I got a question. Birmingham, USFL had a lot of issues, right. Having the hub city, right. But still getting local fan base interest. How are you guys gonna work with Arlington with having everyone here, but then still developing like Seattle St. Louis's local fan base connections? Well, all our teams are actually playing in their cities. So I think as compared to the us F L, where they played all centrally in their hub act, our teams actually will practice here then will disperse to the cities and our coaches will be spending time. And the XFL, we will be committing to our communities and our cities, building relationships for have staff in our cities. So each one of our cities about XFL staff developing real relationships. So we won't see that as a problem, Danny, or pardon me, either one of you sure. Spring football really hasn't worked, you know, it's gotten close. Why do you feel like this time 20, 23, this one's gonna work? Well, I would say to you from 2020 spring football was starting to work. Yeah. Rush. And then the pandemic show. I never, and then I would even say for the SFL who just finish your spring football, they had some nice numbers. They had some really good consistency. They were competing really nicely against other sports that were clear in spring. So, you know, the passion is there. It's just about having the consistency and making sure you have great quality product and that you're engaging with the community. I think that's really, really important that you're there and you're committed. We were really aware going into this one, you know, this being the third iteration of the XFL we were around with Vince McMann when that first iteration happened. So we were keenly aware of some of the challenges that spring football had, but also aware of the the real appetite was still there from the consumers and from the fans. So we decided the acquisition happened in first quarter of 2020. So we could have been ready by 21. We wanted to take our time look and examine and analyze all the challenges, many of which, you know? So I think we got a shot with this one. Yeah. You, first of all, thank you for luck, Adam. And Ock by the Way. <Laugh> thank you, man, man, that was something else. I appreciate it. Arlington, You know, you talked about Brian, how the city of Arlington, you talked about mayor Ross in this relationships, but there's also a lot of excitement building in this entertainment district. You've got the hotel construction, Lowes. Arlington's gonna be your, this has a chance to be a really great opportunity for the XL and Coton. So could you both just talk about the partnership and why Arlington is the right fit? Sure. Yeah, yeah. Act I'm sure. I'll, I'll start. First of all, the, oh, okay. <Laugh> no problem. First of all, it is about a relationship once we started, I mean, from the initial conversations with Arlington rev, tainment leadership in Arlington, there has been this dynamic appetite to do more, right? So we have been committed. They have been just as committed. The conversations have been exciting. Every idea we had had, they had an additional idea. So there's really this combined vision to do more. And the XFL is committed to not only advancing the ecosystem of football, but all of sports. And so Arlington leadership, rev entertainment are committed to the same thing. It was a perfect match. Yeah. The city of Arlington rev entertainment, the Texas Rangers everybody who we talk to, they, they really met us halfway. You know, and again, you, you come to the table and you hope that there's a good amount of ambition that will meet you halfway and hopefully see the vision that you have. And it's been really across the board that Arlington at around every corner has met us halfway. And to your point, there's a lot of great stuff that's happening here in Arlington, man, it's really building nicely and you could feel it like it's, it's a real thing with the construction, with the cities, with the city and everything that's happening. So I think it's gonna be the perfect convergence of, of brands coming together. And again, as I set up there at the podium it, it, this is not a one off event. We're looking to really build something with the city of Arlington and overall in the great state of Texas with three football teams. How important with the game, like the game 2020 is the global changes, or you guys gonna keep team right. Olympic 23, You're gonna see a lot of similarities to the game. We just completed and finalized with our coaches on today's Monday on Saturday, our rules. So we've got them blocked in, we'll start to roll them out, but there was a lot of great work put into that game. I think it showed up beautifully. We were really pleased with the product on the field. The fans responded very, very well to the access and to the changes. So we think are just a touch, but it you're gonna have some similarity. And I think that's really important that we have continuity. We also brought on Dean Blandino, who many of you guys may know? And again, I think in the effort and the spirit of really taking our time doing it right, analyzing the games from 2020 even with the limited season that they were able to play, see what worked, what fans responded to and build off of that. And we were also excited to kick the tires a little bit creatively and see what else we can do and how we can make the game more compelling, more exciting, maybe faster and more exciting for the fans too, as well. And that's been the fun part too. I'm sorry, because you know, we have, we don't have 32 owners who have to agree and vote on things like that. You know, we're pretty nimble. So We're reachable, we're always available. <Laugh> we're involved. That's true. Yeah. I think you're impressed. We're having a relationship with rev entertainment and the city of Arlington and bringing this hub vision to reality. Oh, please. Well, the, the rev has been really amazing in partners. Again, you know, when you come to the table with something like this and the goal, there are ambitious goals that we have revenue entertainment has been phenomenal from day one. Not only seeing the vision, but also I think adding to it as well. And that's always a fun part when you, you launch off into a venture like this, you personally, for Danny and I, you, we really enjoy the power of possibility. Like there's, there's nothing we can't do. And rev entertainment really reflects that our relationship with them. They Be great. And I'll add to that too, because you have that great question about why is this league will, why we feel we'll have more success. We specifically committed to co-creation right. So the co-creation aspect of our values does mean in bringing in more partnership and bringing them in with the decision making, right? We're not in a ti, an ivory tower, making our decisions without listening to our partners or our community or our fans, or our coaches who are deciding on our rules or our athletes. And so those partnerships make a huge difference. <Laugh> you will hold that. You'll hold that forever. You'll hold such I out, I got it. I got it. Hold it One more question in there. You've already touched on this once, but when you first got, got here and saw the three stadiums are here, saw Texas live, saw the energy that's coming up right here. I mean, and then you saw where your venue is gonna be in the middle of all that. Talk about how that made you Feel. Not only extremely excited, but also really motivated. You know, we I've, I've been a lucky guy over the years. I I've known Danny since I was 18. We we've had the privilege of working together for a very long time and working with many businesses over the years to co-create, as you said, but also take part in, in really big events from WrestleMania here at, at, and T stadium to multiple events throughout Texas, over the years in sports in entertainment, when we got here yesterday and we had that event over at Texas live man, that was special. And I had just come from ComicCon. As that gentleman had said that morning, we were there, there were 6,000 screaming fans at, at that particular there in hall H and that was incredible. And I will tell you that a day later, we wind up here at Texas live, where there's maybe just a fraction of those rabid fans at Comic-Con what we experience at Texas live. And to know that that's gonna be a reflection, hopefully fingers crossed of the experience we're gonna have here in Texas is it very, very motivating. We can't wait. We're in a city in which almost 48% of the population are Hispanics. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Why do you think this sport may attract Hispanics? Why do you think they should come and watch these games? Yeah, Well, this Hispanic, you know, I'm Cuban American and Garcia. Football is for everyone, foot football is, and our, our vision for the XFL has inclusivity. Diversity has diversity in who we hire has diversity on the field, this sport, and the way we are positioning it, even the access to pricing is so that everyone can come. And this is a family. This is not about an athlete being so far away that you can't touch. This is about being in a community. And that community field that is very Hispanic, very Latina, it's very Latino, but that's who we are. And so our vision and our mission will be to continue to draw people in and we'll reach out to all our communities. So they know they, that we care and they're important to us. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna create a fun experience for our fans. Especially all of our Hispanic fans here in this area. That's the goal is to just create a very fun experience. And as Danny was saying, have real access to the players that they haven't had before. It's quite ambitious. It's also fun too. And so I think, and so, and so ideally when, when fans come here to our stadiums here, caw stadium and our stadiums, we're gonna have such a rocking time. So our goal is for them to have the best time at our games when they leave, we want the fans leaving, floating that happens. So I believe that's what we're gonna do. Thank you very Much. Thank you. Everyone Questions I ask these guys about rules changes. Here's will it, the game look that much different in 20, 23 than it did? Yeah, so I think from our standpoint, you know, we're gonna spend a significant amount of time. Actually, the other night, we had a four hour meeting with the all the coaches, all eight coaches and Dean Blandino, who's our head of officiating, the rules and innovation. And you all know that Dean's a long time, you know, head of officiating for the NFL. And we're talking about just that, you know, how can we, how can we look at the game differently, spent a lot of time. We made some good decisions, I think but what we're gonna do over the next few months is we're gonna drop that up to the, to our fan base and start telling people, you know, how we're looking, will the game look different? No, the game will be played on that field and played, you know with Florida hounds. And, you know, we're not, we're, we're gonna be innovative, but we will not be gimmicky Is the timing of this. It seems like for his involvement doing this involvement, something that started 23 years ago, it seems like the timing of this is finally lined up what they wanted to be 23 years Ago. You know, it's, it's funny, you know, being a part of the NFL when I've been in the NFL most of my whole career, basically. So watching it 23 years ago and, and sort of the evolution of it sitting in owners meetings for 22 years, there is a need for spring football. And we, we've always known that as, as football executives and people and having Dwayne and Danny and Jerry Cardinal, who's not here are as owners gives us a tremendous foundation for that. So I, I think the time is perfect. I think our location is perfect. Being significantly involved in the state of Texas, I think is perfect. And I can't wait to get to Arlington, be an active member of the community. Perfect. Very excited for that. Can I ask you? Cause I wasn't here last night. Yeah. Obviously a lot of excitement, right? Yeah. Las Vegas. I was blown away last night. What Do you, you know, obviously pulling outta LA pull out New York, what do you say to the fans here? I mean, Tampa right. To Orlando. It so know not having LA New York is First Program. Yeah. You know, we, we took a lot of time and effort looking at the the cities and, you know, a lot went into it. So, you know, we looked at, you know, what San Antonio had done previously and their thirst for football and the opportunity to go to San Antonio and Orlando. We think they're tremendous markets. So, you know, from that standpoint, you know we, we obviously love LA and we, we love New York. It was just a decision that we made as a league. And we think it's the best holistically for what we're trying to achieve. I've asked the same question. I asked them, obviously we saw a lot of issues, you know, USFL and the hub. And even though you guys are here, I understand we're playing in the cities, we're going out, but do you, do you worry about not having that same fan interaction with the players, living in the cities, interacting with the Two players? You know, I, I, that's funny is that, you know, when you're in the NFL, the only day that you really have to interact is on Tuesdays, right? So, you know, we, in the way that you can connect with your fans is far different than when I started in, in, in football, you know, through all of your digital and social content and everything around those lines. But we have plans and Janet Duke who I'm looking at over there is our head of marketing. We have plans to be very active in our communities and be a very active member of the community be in and out of our communities. Whether we come in early, we stay late in the off season. We will be we'll be fully embedded in each market that we're in. I've read the press release. Just kind of reading between the wines. Yeah. I'm sorry guys. I it's alright. It sounded to me like what you guys might be doing is I see some similarity like MTV, like in terms of big brother, like that kind of access, are you trying to do sort of a reality TV with a football team during the, during the season? So What, you know, one of the nice things about being here is that we're like almost a 24 7 content engine. So, you know, we have, you know, listen, people love access. They love, you know, like watching the MLB all star game the other night. Yeah. When the guys were in there talking and different things, we can be innovative in that aspect. And that's what we want to do. Listen, there's no greater storytellers than Danny and DJ. So, you know, they get it, they understand that better than anyone, right. So we're gonna work with their content teams, the Garcia companies seven bucks in our content teams to give the fans what they're looking for and that's more access. So that's what we're trying to achieve. A friend of mine in Mexico, who's a reporter. He was asking, is the, is the XFL gonna go international? Are you guys gonna planning to have international teams or, you know, games First, we're gonna get this up and running. Yes, we have with all eight teams, but we are, we are definitely we have vision, you know, and, and, and hopefully that would be a part of the vision as was we get this stood up over the next year or two, but nothing's off the table on our end. We're we're very focused on 2023 and getting that kicked off and then seeing where it all goes in Your agreement with ESPN. Do you know if they're gonna have it the broadcast on ESPN, the port too. That is a great question that we can get an answer for you, but that is a very, very important partnership for us. Our ABC ESPN Disney partnership. I think that's the foundation of who we are. The XFL was very famous us, why I was asking, Thank you guys are gonna be very interacted with community. And the previous XFL, they had local restaurants like prince Lebanese as backstage food. We all be doing the same thing here because I know the Rangers have picked them up. Hertado S We're in the infant stages. But yeah, I mean, to your point, there, that's exactly what we want to do. We want to be super involved with our communities. You know, the cool thing is, especially here, we're gonna be in Arlington. We're gonna be living here, eating in local restaurants and, and have, I mean, they're gonna be a thousand people here in the month of January to February alone. And I think we'll have a significant economic impact here in the Community. Now also with being Texas and north Texas, not exactly weather friendly all the time. How are y'all gonna be working without concerning it's an outside service. So we're working with our athletic directors that I acknowledged earlier on indoors as well. Right. When we need that I've worked in Buffalo for 22 years. We practice outside most of the time, but you know, when we give some real severe weather, right, we'll look at alternative measures There. Right. I know Arlington high has a really Good, yes, they do state. Yeah. These, our, our team here of athletic directors, mayor Ross. I mean, they've been incredible, right. This guy right here. Yeah. Sean Decker, these guys, he's like a, like a family member at this point. So Now also somebody else mentioned, you guys are trying to do maybe like a big brother type situation. It seems more y'all are going to the eSport streaming type situation where it's creating content on a regular basis. Right. Are you guys kind of maybe using some of that as a model as well, considering that's been taking off like Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we, we're gonna be obviously over the air, you know, with our ESPN relationships and things like that. But the cool thing for us is because we're here and in one, one location, we have the opportunity to co-create Jan here and her team on a content side. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, it's gonna be 24 7. Right. So we're very excited about that. That's awesome. Really appreciate you. No problem. Thank you. Great to see you. Good to see you. Glad you made it back. Well, for those of you who aren't from Texas, welcome to Texas <laugh> I love good morning. Everyone welcome to chalk tile stadium. We're very glad you could join us today. My name is Ian fit, Simmons, ESPN reporter, field analyst, and host for ESPN radio. It is my pleasure to be your MC for this press conference, hosted by the XFL. As you already know, the XFL is a fan first fast paced professional football league that was bought by Danny Garcia, Dwayne Johnson at Redbird capital partners in 2020, they all saw the potential of this league and out of their shared passion for football, they set forth on a mission to build the XFL into a sports and entertainment property that athletes partners, fans would proudly embrace and love. And we have some special guests seated in the front row that some of you, I, I know pretty well a highly impressive group of longtime leaders in the game of football visionaries of the sport, and will be crucial figures in helping XFL players achieve their professional dreams. Coach stoops had the privilege of covering your teams at Oklahoma for years. That's the heck of a lot better than realignment transfer portals and coach <laugh>. I thought I would see you at the stage coach in Wilson, Wyoming for church, but Hey, well maybe next week, coach Phillips, Heather privilege of covering you here in Dallas. I was hoping you'd be wearing your boots cause yeah, a great opening line. It's good to have these boots back in the state of Texas coach and ball again, and Anthony Beck. We worked many a game together. We miss it ESPN man, but so excited for your, your future here in the XFL. Good to see you boss. Good to see you. Also Heidi grant executive officer of gaming and hospitality. Good to see you. Ma'am Chucktown nation of Oklahoma of which this iconic stadium is named after Trayton city manager of Arlington, ladies and gentlemen, Jared Schrom vice president of rev entertainment. And last night, the XFL announced the cities and venues its eight teams will call home when the season kicks off in February of 20 23, 1 of those teams will compete right here in Arlington at Cile stadium and with more on this and the opportunity that surrounds it, please join me in welcoming to the stage, a groundbreaking visionary and the true definition of a mogul. She is an entertainment powerhouse, global entrepreneur, immersive producer, pioneering chairwoman. And on top of all of that, she is the first female to ever own a sports league. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome owner and chairwoman of the XFL. This Danny Garcia. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. So happy to see everybody today. Good morning to my coaches. We had such a wonderful evening last night. We are so excited to be here. We wanna thank you all for being here at the city of Arlington rev entertainment and Cile stadium. It's our pleasure to announce that we have selected the stadium and the city of Arlington to serve as our football hub and base of operations. When DJ Jerry and I brought the XFL, we knew we had a unique opportunity to build a new future football. We always had a clear vision for the XFL to be more than just a football league it's for our players. The XFL is an opportunity to pursue and fulfill the professional dreams for our fans. The XFL is innovating and captivating. It's not just something you watch. It's something you experienced. And for our partners, it's a chance to align with our purpose and culture driven brand and be part of building a league from the ground up. This hub is critical part of the vision and will serve as a core engine for our unique football universe. The concept brings together our teams, all of our teams who will live and practice in this area, we're gonna provide centralized locations to service our players providing 360 degree support both on and off the field. During the week that's vital for weekend games, the teams will travel to their home. Cities, engage with their communities and compete. We couldn't be more excited to be right here in just a few months. CHTA stadium will be the home venue for the Arlington based team and the practice facility for our Houston team franchise Arlington will be our training facility for optimized player development staffed with onsite support from coaches and athletic trainers. And with our vision of building a global brand, the hub will serve as the Excel Bell's content creation center. And that's very, very exciting. So this allow the leagues, the teams, the players, to engage with fans through social media, emerging technology, like no one has seen before together. We're gonna create a new standard for accessibility. We're gonna experiment with different forms of interactive content for the fans and the players in new unique ways. We're gonna build a deeply immersive and personal fan base beyond the field chalk out stadium and our partnership with rev entertainment, we'll provide the opportunity to build our brand as a live event of a entertainment company rooted in dynamic football, delivering compelling content for fans across the globe. We'll have flexible space for in pension, in person fan events and lead tent point announcements, tent, pole announcements, sorry, more caffeine this morning. Allowing us to build a worldwide audience and develop deep community relationships. CHTA stadium is our home. And as we love to say, tomorrow's league starts today. We wanna thank you all for joining us. And I look forward to working with all of you throughout the entire season. Thank you so much. Thank you, Danny. It's remarkably exciting to think that in six months, this stadium will be the new football hub of the XFL, and there are endless possibilities when it comes to fan engagement league events here at chalk to stadium with more on the X's partnership with chalk to stadium and rev entertainment. Please welcome Sean Decker, president rev entertainment to the stage. John. Thank you guys. Good morning. Just for the record, I just got the I'm following Danny Garcia and Dwayne Johnson just told me not to screw this up. So it's pretty great day for me already. I I got a lot of time this weekend to think about what, what we'd say here and, and kind of what today means to our group. And a lot of things, kind of thoughts, emotions kind of came rushing as we thought about putting this together. What it meant. I thought about like back to 2017, how we made a commitment to the residents of Arlington that chalk to stadium would continue to be a beacon in the entertainment district. And I thought about how, what a big day it is for that. I thought a lot about the 90 day conversion of this facility and the massive investment that ownership put forth to make this a home for high school football games, hundreds of 'em with some of our partners here today that we're so proud of for professional soccer, professional rugby, and now the XFL, what a massive day it is for that. I thought about the city of Arlington and they're unwavering commitment to bring championships to this place, to this city, to this district, and ultimately how they've backed it up for more than a half a century now. And I thought about what a big day was for that. I thought about our great partners at caw. And I thought about how we spent a lot of time with like vision, with a dream, for what this could be and their confidence to put their name on this building after the Rangers moved out. And I thought about what a special day it is for that. I thought a lot about our rev team. I thought a lot about how I'm the luckiest guy in America to get to come work with these guys every day and how they have an unwavering commitment to work backwards from yes. And that what we've worked with, how we've worked with the XFL so far has been great, but this is really just day one. Lastly, I thought about our friends and our family now at the XFL and how far that's gone for us and how important of a day today is for that. It's I think anybody in the room that's been around could tell you this is a pretty unique relationship. The goal was never just to be a site for the XFL. The, all the goal was always to be the home of the XFL, the way that our staffs have assimilated together to work on this, to dream together and to have a lot of fun together, I think is unprecedented in sports and has been. And we're just at the beginning now. So a big thanks to those guys. Today's not possible without all of those things coming together, all those components in one way or another. And it's, it's a, it's a really big deal. I wanna thank our owners from rev and the Texas Rangers and Ray Davis and Neil Leman for their confidence in this vision. And this idea, I wanna really thank Danny and DJ and Russ and the whole XFL team for believing on us. We're just getting started. I can assure you that today is an absolutely massive day for rev entertainment in the Texas Rangers. It's a landmark day for the city of Arlington and caw stadium. We were so excited to have football here this weekend, and we cannot wait for what's to come and what starts right now. Thanks a lot, Sean. Congratulations. You didn't screw it up. Which by the way, on that note, both my daughters, when I was leaving this morning, these are 16 and 14 year olds. They woke up to see me off to this thing and said, dad, there's some really important people there. Please do not embarrass the family. So I'm Sean, I'm right there with you, man. I'm still I'm I'm in step coach as the X LFL makes Arlington's new home. It's only fitting that we now welcome Jim Ross mayor of Arlington to the stage mayor. Wow. I have this huge urge to say real loud. Can you smell what Arlington is cooking, but I would never infringe upon Dwayne Johnson's trademark shall. This is so incredibly exciting. And first of all, I want to thank Danny. I want to thank Russ and Dwayne Johnson for, for selecting Arlington to be the base. If you haven't discovered the new Arlington you're missing out. If you remember where Arlington was 15, 20 years ago, we were still that bedroom community lying between two large cities and we're no longer a bedroom community lying between two large cities with the addition of the Arlington team of the XFL and the XFL coming here. If you include our e-sports stadium, which is second to none, we now have six professional sports franchises here in Arlington. That's exciting. Nobody else can be saying that kind of stuff. We have nearly 1 billion of development going on right now. And if you haven't seen some of the exciting things going on with our new Lowe's hotel, what's happening here in chalk to stadium with the addition of the XFL and spark and everything else, Sean, thank y'all for everything that you're doing here. It is absolutely a blessing to be the mayor of Arlington. At this particular time, we do something better than any other city. And I think it had something to do with the XFL selecting Arlington. We're not the prettiest. We're not necessarily the best at everything, but we're really good at relationships. It's the reason why the Rangers came here 50 years ago and never left. It's the reason why all of the sports franchises are coming here is because we know how to treat people. And what the XFL has in common with the city of Arlington is they know how to treat people. They take care of their players. They take care of their coaches, but they also take care of the community. Because if you didn't notice last night, coach Phillips, I'm sorry. They booed you a little bit, but if you didn't notice last night, this is a community that is excited about the XFL coming here. They are excited and it's because of people like Danny and Duane and Russ who know how to build those relationships with their fans and with the city. So thank y'all for what you're doing with this community. I cannot tell you how excited we are that you're here in Arlington. God bless. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Next I'd like to welcome Russ Brandon president of the XFL to the stage. Russ, Jim, I think you're the prettiest <laugh> <laugh> thank you for everything. Does everybody know is building the league is a monumental task, monumental task. And our goal was to be an active member of a community. We looked far and wide and we chose the city of Arlington with our players scheduled to be here from January to may. We will be an active member of the community and we will be here day in and day out. Thanks to you Jim, in order to make it happen, we needed a true partner and we found it in Jim Ross, the mayor of Arlington. Thank you, Jim. In addition, Our partners at rev entertainment, Texas Rangers, can't say enough about Sean, Jared, the whole team there ownership. Thank you for everything you've done. This is it's not only a partnership. It's a family to make this all happen. So thank you. And part of the challenge in doing this was finding a hub that could house our athletes. And we found that here in the city of Arlington, we found these locations. We're proud to announce that we've partnered with some exceptional facilities around the high school area. We're gonna look at those now, Reggie Barlow with Washington DC and Anthony Beck from St. Louis will share be stadium, trail Buckley, and his Orlando team will share Northwest ISD stadium with Hines ward and the San Antonio team. And Jim Haslet with Seattle will share dragon stadium with rod Woodson and our team in Las Vegas. These are incredible facilities and ID to acknowledge the school's athletic directors were working in partnership with us. Phillip O'Neil from Mansfield independent school district in Vernon Newsom stadium. Bill was the first person I met when we came to Arlington. Thank you for your leadership. Joel Johnson from Northwest independent school district in Northwest ISD stadium. Thank you, Taylor feeder with Carol independent school district and dragon stadium. Thank you. We're so pleased. We are truly grateful for all of these partnerships and we are so excited for the XFL to be here in Arlington can't thank everybody enough. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Russ. Next to stage, I'd like to welcome a global entertainment, fitness and entrepreneurial trailblazer. He serves as co-founder and CEO of seven bucks companies, founder of the fastest growing tequila in the history of all spirits, Tara Monica tequila. I've had it. It's good. It's tasty. It goes down sweet, fastest growing energy drink in the market. Zah energy and he is social medias, most followed American man in the world. And I see we have a last minute edition here from DJ himself, people magazine, sexiest, man alive in perpetuity. And my wife and daughters would agree. Ladies and gentlemen, Dwayne Johnson. Wow. Ian, thank you for that. I appreciate it, buddy. Earlier Ian said, Hey, I just wanna make sure good morning everybody by the way. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see my coaches. You guys are looking good. They're still hungover from last night. Listen. Most important thing is Ian had said, Hey, I wanna make sure that I say you're Tara correctly. That I've been saying it correctly. How do you say it? And I said, well, you just said it, Tara. I said, so you've been saying it drunk all these years. He said, I have <laugh>. So thank you for that intro. I, I wanna start off with with something that coach not coach, excuse me. But mayor Jim Ross had said and by the way, mayor, when you get up here, like you, you, you can, there you are, you can say you can like get right into it. If you smell like it. Go ahead, man. It's Arlington, this is a big one, right? Actually I'm gonna hold on on what you said something and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna save it to the end cuz it was really important. And I thought it was such a strong, powerful thing that you said. The XFL has officially landed in a great state of Texas, the great football state of Texas. And we couldn't be happier to partner with the city of Arlington, the Texas Rangers, rev entertainment, CHTA stadium and establish our new football hub. And I gotta tell you, you know, this, this is Chatta stadium is, is a special place. And I found that out myself, not only will it be our main stadium for our hub here in Texas. But when I landed, I called up Sean Decker and I said, Hey man, you know, could you let me in? I'd like to work out. And I was, I was here working out at midnight the other day, the other night and around one o'clock in the morning, I decided to come out here to the field and just kind of soak everything in. Because I realized like what, what a special opportunity this is for us at the XFL, what a special opportunity this is for the city of Arlington and the great state of Texas, where we have three football teams. So I spent some great time out here, just me and no one else, maybe the ghost, if you believe in ghosts like I do. But you know, this is a state that loves its football and a community that knows how to support its teams. So when Danny first brought the idea, buying the XFL to me first of all, it was the easiest yes that I've ever said. And we both knew that it needed to be something different for the fans, for the players and for the culture of football. And we like to say that the XFL is a league of opportunity and a chance for all of our players to prove themselves from sun up to sundown. Now over the past few weeks we've had our six showcases and we've had 1300 players work out for us all invite only. And these invitations and our invitations to the draft are gonna be sent out shortly. And you know, this, the XFL is something that's deeply personal to Danny. It's deeply personal to me too, because I know what it's like to be that player who almost makes it to a professional team. You know, my goal was to play in the NFL. For those of you don't know, I played at the university of Miami. We became national champions. I played with some of the, some of the greatest players of all time, who are now in the NFL hall of fame, some of the greatest coaches who these men have played against and have coached with too as well. So my goal was to make it in the NFL and, and that didn't happen. And I always like to say that there are 53 men on an NFL roster. Well, I was always number 54. I was that guy who coaches said, Hey DJ, you're good. But you're not good enough. And, and you know, this is where the dream ends for you, but that chip, that, that put on my shoulder and that flame, that, that thing created being told you're not good enough at something that has never gone away. It will never go away, but that same chip in flame, that's who our XFL players are gonna be and that's, what's gonna drive them. That's gonna be their purpose. So it, it, it is deeply personal to me and now life comes full circle and it's kind of, it's always amazing to me, just how God and the universe works in that wild, ironic way, where years later now, Danny and I have the amazing opportunity to create these opportunities for other players who were in my position who didn't have the shot, didn't have the opportunity like I have. Like, I like, like they, like I didn't have but they have it now. So this hub is an extension of that. It's a league of opportunity, a hub of opportunity. And that's what Arlington represents is opportunity for these players to do something that they love, play with passion, live out their dreams, take care of their families. And we want to give the players every opportunity to, to succeed and show the world what they can do. And we're gonna develop them by providing tools and the training that they need. And, and we're gonna use this space here in Harton to Arlington to make sure that we harness the power of, of innovative technology and to create content and develop the next generation of loyal fans, their success, the player's success will become ultimately our success too. If they win, we win truly it's that simple. We wanna build a loyal fan base and grow the game of our global brand, the XFL, and together we're gonna create a new standard for the future of sports entertainment and live entertainment. You know, and this idea of live entertainment is something that Danny and I know very well came from that world. And it's not just something that you watch. That's another thing too, with the XFL. It's not gonna be something that you just watch. It's gonna be something that you experience. And that's what we can't wait to implement into our games. I want to thank everybody who has made this a reality. And I wanna wrap this up. This is what I wanted to say is, you know, mayor Ross, you, you said, Arlington might not be the prettiest or might not be the best at everything. But you guys know relationships. And Danny and I have always said this, we've, we've built our careers based on yes. At one time in the professional wrestling business. Yes. The Hollywood entertainment business a few other businesses, Mont tequila, Ian's favorite. But most importantly, we're in the relationship business. And that is what this represents. So this partnership with Arlington and our hub here in Arlington this is not a one off, it's not a one deal. It's not a one, it's not a one event deal. Like we, we are looking to build something great for the culture of football, for the fans, the players for the coaches. And that's gonna take some time. But we have the talent. We have the vision, we have the trust. We have the work ethic for sure. So thank you for that comment mayor and and thank you guys very much. And I look forward to kicking off our season in February and I appreciate you. Thank you guys. Difference here. He's working out at midnight. I'm I'm fighting Mont at midnight. There it is, right. <Laugh> thank you, DJ. It's all very exciting. The XFL season may be kicking off in 2023, but the XFL is officially here in Arlington, Texas.

XFL Hub Confirmed! All XFL 2023 Team Cities, Venues Announced!! LIVE From Texas! XFL Call-In Show!

Well, here we are. We are live from Texas. I am at least half, you know, half of the team here from Charlestown stadium. We have Andrew Murray back holding down the Fort in San Diego. I have a lot of stuff to talk about, Andy, how are you doing? I'm good. How are you? You are a mad man for your doing this schedule that you do, man. I, I am so immensely impressed by all the things that you've done in the last four days. I really have to commend you. Yeah, 12 hours ago. Right now I was filming a what do you, the Jewish, where they pulled up the couple in the air and they all dance with the chair, the hot and NELA. I was filming that hopped on the plane. Got here. Excuse me, interviewed Dwayne the rock Johnson, Danny Garcia, even got my first question to Danny. I have my first official Exel media stuff that the world is good right now. I imagine. So how was, I mean, how, so this wedding was it different from any other wedding or was it pretty much this standard fair? Well, I don't think that's what people wanna hear about right now. We have a lot of exciting stuff. Sure. So here's the deal. So we are live here today, Andrew and I had this scheduled already. We were gonna go live, talk about the Exel town hall, all the city announcements, the coaches, the venues, all that stuff. Then, you know, shocker of all shockers, they announced a bonus follow up press conference today, Monday at Chasta stadium. So I said, I'm gonna hop on the plant, get here, figure out what all that's about. So today Danny Garcia with Russ Brandon the mayor of Arlington, the president of rev sports entertainment, and the rock in announced as we've long suspected that Arlington, you know, AKA Dallas, but Arlington is going to be the official hub a three year lease here with the XFL. And then obviously traveling the teams players out to the cities to play on the weekends. Not super surprising, but it is nice to get the announcement. Andy, what do you think about you know, the, the news finally coming out? I mean, it it's something that it's so strange how, like there's a lot of things that we knew going into it, at least as far as our, our writing collective knew as far as Mike ni Mitchell knew who was so dead on about so many things, it's incredible how many things he got. Right. and it all got confirmed this weekend of the cities. Some of the venues, the coaches, where they were assigned a lot of details like that. And I guess for me, it's just, the timeline has been so funny considering everything that's happened. I, I I've attributed it like this. To me, it felt like that in 2020, the Cadillac got bought, right. And then they didn't drive it. And then 20, 21, they thought let's trade it in for a Canadian hybrid vehicle and see if this will actually drive across the country. And then in this year, they, at the beginning of the year, they go, what if we painted black and white? And then <laugh> finally here we are. They finally are starting to drive the car. Like the car has been turned on the ignition key's been turned and they're finally driving the car. For me, it's just, it's been a long time coming. It's been a long time coming for all of us. So I guess I can't help. But think the, the word I think of is finally <Laugh> tremendously excited. I lowered down my broadcast quality here. Hopefully it'll improve. I'm getting, I've been riding like a hundred megabit connection here at the Chatta stadium wifi all day. Of course, we get on to do this live stream and all goes to hell. Very exciting. You know, if you're coming to board, you know, thank you for checking out the show, please like, and subscribe, you know, longtime listeners here have known all of this stuff for a long time. You know, the cities, the, the coaches like you said, per Mike Mitchell, we've known about the Arlington hub are really excited to have it all come out. We had the big town hall last night lots to talk through there. And then obviously the, the hub stuff today, I don't know. What is the bigger news at this point? The, the eight cities and coaches or the hub? What do you think? I think it's, it's not so much the hub itself. I think the changing of the name from Dallas to Arlington kind of caught some people off guard. And I, I think just because they had to SHA shift the name around, I'm not exactly sure. Did you have any confirmation about why they changed it from Dallas to Arlington? Were you able to collect that at all? So Mike Mitchell is still working on that. The general consensus is perhaps Arlington might have paid some money. We're hosting the hub here. We wanna have the you know, the, have our name on the city. Obviously the president of Arlington was here today. Jim Ross talking through all that Russ, Brandon really talked a lot about wanting to make Arlington you know, home here with the Exel. How is my connection doing Andy? I mean, you're a little potato we <laugh>, but you're doing okay. You're your sound quality is good. It's just, it's more of just your overall complexion, not coming through an HD quality. That's okay. As long as, as long as you can hear me, I think that's good. Yeah, I believe so. Awesome. So anyway, you know, Russ really talked about that, wanting to have a home here, wanting to set up, shop, being a part of the community, obviously going out to the cities that way as well, you know, playing in the markets. That was my question to Danny Garcia. I asked her, I said you know, obviously the USFL had the issue we're, we're in Birmingham, you know, but we we're trying to attract fans. I said, are you guys worried about that? She said, well, no, obviously we're going to be playing in the cities. We're going to have staff in the cities. We don't worry about that as much. I think that's part of it. Russ, I also asked Russ about that. He said, you know really when you're like an NFL team and you're in the cities you're really only really out and about connecting with fans maybe on Tuesdays. I think people take for granted how much, like in the area, you know, football players are during the weekdays, right. You know, you're practicing, you're going to, you know, training camp and kinda all that stuff. So maybe that's overblown, maybe just having the games there is enough. What do you think about the XL trying to revert course from, you know, the mistakes USL made, and I'm gonna try to switch over my wifi here while you, I think it only makes sense. I, the biggest thing, I think that a lot of us took from watching the us F L this past spring is there was just no energy at the stadiums. There was no buzz. There was no fans, unless you were at a Birmingham home game for the stallions. There was no buzz. And I think here, the biggest thing that what we wanted to take away from was that that energy is already built into the league. Like people who watched the live stream yesterday, there are people who are into the league, who are already established people who are fans of teams, people who have experience with the league in 2020, having enthusiasm for the league. I mean, there were like several different instances yesterday where there were like XFL chance. And I think for me, that's the biggest education that there was already that built in fan base and energy. You might as well take advantage of it, right? I mean, you might as well go ahead and say, let's just play in the whole markets that we already knew worked, and let's go work around with the ones that we think potentially can work Las Vegas, San Antonio, and Orlando. So that for me, is it, it would've been, so I don't know, it would just been such an anti statement to the 2020 league and, and such a J just, almost like abandoning of what really worked if they were to go towards a full hub model. Like if they were say, if they only played in Dallas, for example, that just would be such an antithesis of like what they were trying to establish two years ago. And again, it's different ownership. It's different circumstances, a different world we live in, in some cases. But I think it just makes so much more sense that they're able to do this because there are people who are already buying in and have bought in to this league. Yeah. I see here, max, and you guys, if you have questions, comments in the chat, I've pinned to the top. If you wanna call in, I think my connection's better now. Hopefully I might have to bounce around between different ones. I have my hotspot and my phone, like I said, Andy can sit here. I think I just drop off and come back on. Right. Was that how it went before? When I disappeared? If you have questions, comments, max is talking about the draft. I was talking with some execs today. I do think that is a plan. I think they really liked what they did with the town hall with Texas live. I think that is a good, you know, it's right across the street here from where everyone's playing really convenient. That was even the other spot that I could go live here, that their media people had suggested. I'm just here at chalk tosses, cuz it's nice in air conditioned. I didn't wanna walk outside. But I, I think that I, I would expect to see something similar. I think they wanna figure out, you know, what, how do we use the rock? How do we utilize that? Right? Do we want the rock reading pick 256? Do we wanna just do the first round? How are we going to do that? But I, I, I would expect a little bit more, you know, them learning from the USFL. We wanna engage that. We want to, you know, take a part of that. Other comments here coming in one other thing. And then we wanna talk about today. Just before I forget when my not exclusive interview with Danny Garcia, but we were in the media scrum Danny asked about the rule book for the XFL. She said they had finalized. That was her words finalized the rule book. As of Saturday, they had a big meeting here for about four hours finalized and all that rest brand and confirmed that they said expect some tweaks and the rock used the words. They wanted to kick the tires a little bit in terms of what they had with the XL 20, 20, but obviously they were happy with Dean plan Dino and the work there. Thoughts about the rule book being locked in Andy? I think it's relief, honestly. That's one of the biggest things that was such a contentious issue for people besides the cities and what the team names were. I think the other one that was high up there sometimes even a bigger priority for some people was the rule book, because it was so unique. It was so innovative in how it changed the game. And really that's one of the biggest reasons that I, I feel that I was able to engage with the XFL a little bit in 2020 was because the rule sets were so different. There were people, there was different things, different ideas, different ways of playing the game. The pacing was different. The way of the one, 2.3 point conversions, which we saw a lot more in the XFL than we did in the SFL, for example, in this past season, which kind of took some of those rules, but no one really went for in the same way. Seeing that being able to be locked down again is, is a relief. I don't know if Sam Schwartzstein had any influence in that of any ways shape, shape, or form. I'm really curious to see if they talked with anybody from the previous iteration and talked to them about what do you really think about this? What's the data on this? Should we keep this around? I'm curious about that, but I'm, I'm relieved. And I think that was kind of like just one of those. I don't wanna say it was a Pearl clutching moment, but it kind of felt like it where people were like, I really need this. Like, this is kind of the thing I would like to keep on and if you're going to change it, just change it slightly. So I'm glad that that's, that news came out. Yeah. Russ, Brandon said they very much didn't want them to be a gimmick league. You know, we're gonna play four downs. We're gonna do things in normal way. Obviously rest, you know, many years in the, in the NFL, that will be interesting to see his, you know, where his voice comes in versus Dean plan Dino and kind of the previous regime that way. Yeah, yeah. Especially with, like you said, just a lot of that experience in the NFL league with a more a league that's been established and been around. And that's kind of the biggest thing for all this experience that everyone in this new administration has now. Right? I mean, Danny and the rock talked with people from the CFO league. That's been over a hundred years old. That's been around, they're talk, they've talked with established brands and now they start to think about, okay, what is the long term plan here? I think didn't Danny say something about like wanting to be a hundred year league or at least being a league that stays around for the long term. There's no, there's nothing about like, well, there's this new brand of football. Let's enjoy it right now. No, I think they're dead serious about keeping this long term and this being a legacy project. So it makes sense that they would have that balancing everything out, those older voices. We have a question about the Las Vegas stadium. Andy, will you tackle where you think they might play in Vegas and I'm gonna switch connections again here, cuz I'm dying. Okay. Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on this. So yeah. First of all, if you go to the ticketing website, you can't actually see that it is announced it's to be announced. The stadium's not announced yet. And I think that's something that needs to be figured out soon if people are really going to put down the deposits and start to invest in any seating or any arrangement to go to Vegas because everyone else has their stadium, everyone else has their whole thing that they are established with. But as far as Vegas goes, so my thoughts on are this, I, I know it could be more expensive to potentially lease out towards allegate stadium where the Raiders play. And I know that there's some sort of, there's some sort of agreement with Sam boy stadium. I was talking with Brandon Anderson, one of our other writers. He's actually a lot. I will, I will admit he's a lot more knowledgeable on this cuz he is covering the team and he is much more in tune with what's going on with U N L V and how they have some sort of agreement to not play instead. San boy stadium, U N L V to play there and playing in Allegion instead. But the way I see it is at what point at what point does ticket cost Trump accessibility because Allegion stadium is on the Vegas strip. It's more accessible. People are familiar with the venue as far as going to it as an entertainment product. Obviously Raider game home games are there. They have other things that go on there. They're gonna have like the NCAA championships there. They're gonna have all kinds of events in that stadium. So I feel like as far as like being able to market it and being able to say, Hey, this is a really easy thing for people to get to. That makes a lot of sense. It's just a matter of the cost the cost measurings and also the optics, right? Like it's a big stadium. How many people are gonna put in there? How many people are you gonna be able to get in there standpoint? Stadium's a little bit more accountable, but can you get as many people that go out there as you would to Allegiant? So in my opinion, I feel like I would be okay with Allegiant being the choice. I, I, whether they show choose to like tarp up the top or if they try to make some alterations and try to make it not seem as much of an eyesore on TV, but who knows, maybe people take to it like St. Louis did maybe all of a sudden they're like, oh, actually we're selling a bunch of tickets to this arena. Everyone wants to come in here and have a good time. So I, for me, I think Allegion is more of the play. I would be more favor of it just in terms of like the accessibility mark of it for everyone, especially with the whole Dallas thing, Dallas being the hub, Dallas, being an airport, being easy to get to and coming in and out of, I feel the same way about that stadium in Las Vegas. Being able to get to it easily. Yeah, we see, I have a couple callers coming in. I gotta switch wifi again. This is KMI. We have minor league rando and then we have max, max. I don't want to make this whole debate today about the Vegas stadium, just because we have a lot more exciting things. I'll bring max in in a minute. I know he's gonna sit, but minor league. Let's bring you in cuz you came in first. Why don't you say hi and then I'm gonna try to switch over again here. All right. There you go. Sorry. I have a bit of a cold, but can you guys hear me? Without camera? All right. Good. All right. I know I've had, I've had my moments with the XFL. I've had my criticisms. So I'll start with the positives from everything. One Orlando DC, St. Louis Seattle also big positives. I like those and I'm big, happy with them. Otherwise <laugh> criticism time. Three teams in Texas I've made the jokes. I I've I've said this so many times that there's no real logistical reason why there should be three teams in the same state and why. And I don't get the need for the contest with the USFL. When it comes to Houston, they should have moved Houston to somewhere. I, you could done Memphis. You could have done Atlanta or Athens. You could have done so many other things you could have gone to North Carolina. You could have touched the, the Atlantic coast over there with besides just DC. And it's just like, I feel like three teams in the same state. It's going to be a real Achilles hill for this league because it's a startup. And if you force, you know, you're basically forcing Texas on everybody. I mean, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying, okay, this can't be done in the future, but I'm saying for a startup league, I don't see this helping anybody. In fact, I see it's just a huge, huge negative. And I don't, I feel like they should have changed their mind. As soon as the league cities came out and everyone said, no, don't do this. Besides the people were like, oh, XFL, woo XFL, always. Right. otherwise I'm really interested to see what happens with Allegion. I think that's gonna be the stadium. I think that's gonna be a little bit weird on TV because it's such a big stadium otherwise audio field, good choice with DC. Otherwise I'm just trying to think everything, make sure I have all the teams in my mind. I said every team, right? Camping World, rather Orlando camping world. Yeah, that that's a good stadium. I think they did pretty well with the Apollos though. They'll do fine. If with, with the XFL I just, again, I just keep coming back to the three teams in the same state. I know everyone tells me, oh, Texas is huge. Texas is huge. It's just, you could have used one of those spots and reached another market instead of just forcing everybody to, to see Texas. It's just that, that's the killer. That's the killer. If you ask me, I want this to work, but I can't see it. That's, that's just my one big issue. Let me respond. And Andy start waving. Then my connection's too bad. I'll switch again. As long as you can hear me, I think that's fine. I think the Texas thing, all three cities are so close together in proximity. They have everything based outta Arlington. You can fly everywhere. I don't think ideally you want three cities in the same state, but I think if we need eight, it's a lot more expensive to have San Antonio in Ohio or whatever. Have it in San Diego. I think like we gotta have eight. So let's, let's put three let's fi figure out the cheapest way to have those. I, I think they probably were gonna do an extended hub format similar to the USFL. I think they learned the lessons from that. Andy, what do you think about the three states? The three cities in Texas? I mean it is, it's like the Texas triangle. I'm I'm going to hop on and say that I agree with you at first Myer league rando. I did feel a bit apprehensive about there being three Texas teams. Cause that's a lot, there's a lot of teams in one in one state for a league. That's not that big for eight teams. My counter argument to it is that Texas is the king of football. Texas has just a ubiquitous amount of resources devoted to football in general at all levels of football. I think in this instance, I Dallas being a hub makes sense as far as travel accommodations, as far as being able to get people to get in there and get out, that makes complete sense. The Houston angle. I mean, look, they're, they're gonna be battling with the gamblers. We have no idea when the gamblers are actually even gonna play in Houston that's to be determined. There's no, there is no timeline for that. As far as the us fellow, there is an idea of a timeline somewhere between two to five years, I suppose, but there's nothing said in stone yet. So until that happens, I think that the XFL is just gonna continue carry on their business and having that Houston team and honoring the roughneck franchise that clearly had some impact. I mean, cant Phillips caught a huge touchdown for Toronto Argos last night against SA Saskatchewan rough writers as the announcements were going on. So, I mean, there's already kind of legacy playing through in other Blas that, that came from that team. So I, I think holding onto the F Houston franchise makes sense and San Antonio again, was so successful in the AAF. It makes sense to add it on, but I do hear you. I, I think it is a lot of teams, but if there's one state, I'm okay with it being in It's that one, I don't think there's any real quick. I don't think there's any P in match, you know, measuring contests between the XFL and the us L over Houston. I mean you know, take away the eighties, USFL aside, the roughnecks who are much bigger draw here in the last four years than the Houston gamblers were with the us L I don't think that's on their radar at all. I think they said we were there before we liked it. We have a lot of accommodations there with T T D E C stadium. And I think we're gonna go back to it. I don't think there has anything to do with the USFL. I mean, I, I understand again, they have the, they have the history there, but I just feel like, yeah, as soon as the USF fell said, Houston's ours. You can, you can say, oh, well, you know, they have the history. I, I get that, but I feel like that should have been hands off. It should have been all right, USFL. Got it. We're gonna go into our own market. I mean, I'm just, I'm thinking about this and if you want to have a team close to Texas and you want to keep that kind of football, you know, triangle, you could have done little rock, which again, war Memorial stadium. MLF B I know, I know that's a thing are you could have done OKC, remember Oklahoma, the Wranglers. I mean, it's just like, Hmm. I, I feel like I, I, I just, I feel like again, it's gonna be too much. Oh, okay. I see that in, in the studio. I mean, I technically it's, it was technically because I mean, XFL 2020, technically ceased to exist and it okay. Yeah. It might be stupid, but it is still, I don't, I don't get the point. I feel like we're gonna see a weird split and it's gonna hurt both leagues. When it comes to Houston, I really do. I think it's not gonna help. I I'm gonna bring max in here. Max, I don't wanna get him the big Vegas thing. Right. So you can say what that, but I don't, that's just, we have like 1800 other things to talk about today than Allegiant stadium versus Sam. So we're gonna bring max in, Go for it now. I'm I'm not gonna just, I'm just gonna lay the facts. The Sam boy stadium is legally closed. The Raiders and U N O V signed a contract back in 2021 for 10 years to pay U N L V up to three and a half million dollars every year to make sure that U N V did not host anything, any events at all without the Raiders consent. And those were like graduations. Other than that, no events are allowed to be hosted at Sam stadium. So therefore the only option in Las Vegas is either like a high school stadium or Allegion stadium, which they're not gonna play at a high school stadium. So that's just the facts. Allegion is just massive. I'm just really scared of that. I have MetLife vibes all over again. Okay. So, well, yeah. Oh, go ahead guys. Sorry, but I was just gonna say The capacity is much smaller than MetLife. It's not 80,000. It's 65. So I just wanna put that out there. I just, it, it concerns me. So obviously we had the cities and everything came out yesterday. It concerns me. We have stadiums for everything T still TB D in Vegas. You know, was that holding up the announcement? Right? Was that something that was delaying, it seems weird that we've waited this long and we still only have seven of eight. What do you think, Andy? And then we'll get minor league. I mean, look, I, I, that, that scares me too, honestly, it's 65,000 is nothing to sniff out either, but again, it depends on do they have confidence in people buying into the league and buying into the product and buying into rod Woodson's message and all of that. That's, that's my only question. And I mean, Vegas is becoming more ubiquitous as far as like having more sports teams, but do they, do they believe that people are really gonna latch onto it and at least put a decent number of people, like say in the lower bowl, for example, are they gonna be able to fill that out? Like they did in St. Louis, if they really believe that, then fine go for it. But I want, I just want to see it first. Yeah, I guess I'll, I'll stick on that because you're gonna have to talk off some sections. I think we have to be brutally honest about that because there's no way you're getting 65,000 people into Allegion stadium for a spring football game, us FFL, XFL MLF B let, I think we all can agree on that. The issue is though how much are gonna to harp off because could it be a St Louis scenario where you happen to sell out the dome? Sure. That could happen. We we've seen this happen where these teams explode. But in other case, what I'm worried about is, I mean, we kind of saw with Birmingham, even as someone who who's very, I I'm happy with USFL, they, they probably should have tarped off the top section, probably tarped off some more of the side sections especially when it came to the, the op protective. Why did I forget about that? They probably should have focused in more people in one area, but it's just that I think, I think that's, that's gonna look weird on TV, cuz I, I, I have to assume probably one of the Texas teams is gonna be one of the opener. I'm gonna probably say Arlington, if that's where the HQ is gonna be. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and then Vegas is probably gonna be an opening day city also. I mean, how's that gonna look? Yeah, it's brand new, but let's say we've reached week seven. How's that gonna look if the team's bad, especially so that that's gonna be the real scary parts mid season. Mike's got to get comment here and then I have a question I wanna follow up another top. Good, good lively chat. I really appreciate you guys. If you have questions kind of going all over the place, but I really appreciate everyone doing that. He says the opening game has to be in St. Louis St. Louis and then Arlington from how, what Russ, Brandon president today spoke about with the mayor of Arlington spoke about like they are all in on Arlington, expect a Danny call caw stadium that, you know, the media capital that they're gonna pump all this content out of. I mean, I expect to see lots of social media stuff from here, lots of behind the scenes stuff, but I expect them to be very, very rarely Arlington heavy. But you know, if you have the two kickoff games St. Louis and Arlington max, what do you think about that? I mean, yeah, you still have the other two games of kickoff weekends, so yeah. St. Louis and Arlington's good. I'd probably put the other two in San Antonio and then take your pick of DC or Seattle depending on preference. That's all good to me. I will say briefly in regards to Allegion just briefly And then we're Moving on. Yeah, it's gotta look, I know, I just wanna say the it's not gonna be any more worse than Tampa. That's all. Okay. Andy, what do you think about the kickoff opening weekend? I mean, I say kickoff, that's like the first game or that first, you know, the first day, but what do you think about that? And then we have a question here about expansion, which I actually have some insights about. I, I mean, it's gonna be, I assume it's gonna be on a Saturday. Like it was last time that first like Saturday afternoon. So I would have to believe like everyone else. I know it's a broken record at this point, but it's gotta be St. Louis, right? Like that was the most standout franchise in the most popular franchise, as far as getting numbers into the stadium. I think just starting from that point, I think DC was a, not a bad one last time, but then playing the dragons. I think that was a decent opening game as well. But yeah, that St Louis venue has to be like the designation for the first one. I, I would think they might be tempted to try Dallas and say like, Hey, here's our hub. This is what's going on. But I don't think that would be the best idea to start with global life park. I believe that it must be St Louis from the outset. I just, I think that they are in love with this area. I understand the con the battle Hawks, and we love Anthony Beck and he's the face of the XFL now and all that, but they love Arlington. I'm just telling you guys, I just, you know, expect them to be, they will be the stallions of the XFL. The, the hard they're hardcore on that. I had a question here going back talking a Alan is talking about expansion. We had another question about you know, expanding out. I actually had it wasn't quite an exclusive interview. It was me. And one other reporter, we were chatting with president Russ, Brandon for about five, six minutes. And, and the question came up about that, you know, obviously Houston, a very Hispanic demographic, right. Interest in you know, expanding down to Mexico. Obviously we've seen the trademarks in the past, all that Russ said, first two, three years, we are getting this put together. We're not talking expansion. We're not worried about that. Like we, everyone that's talking, okay, team 10 and 12, like, we need to get off that. We need to walk before, you know, crawl before we can walk. He did say with international, in terms of Mexico, nothing's off the table. I know Mike Mitchell had talked about that before then wanting the Mexico team. But like, we, I, I, I love the expansion talk and that's great, but like, we let's play a season first, the same with the USFL. Like, let's get, let's get more than one city you know, into their local market. And then we can talk about expansion mind your league thoughts about I guess expansion, even though I don't wanna talk about, but thoughts on that and, and what I just said I'll be, I'll be brief because again, it it's, we're too far away from really saying, oh, we, this is you should post the team here. You should post the team here. So I, I, I like to hold off on that. I mean, I have a few spots. I've, I've always, it's been the half joke, half serious truth. I've always said hunt, Alabama should probably be, at least looked at seriously for a team, even though they're, they're, they'll be even small for the spring league. They're a city on the road on the move. But I mean, we gotta wait till 20, 25, 20, 26 at the earliest before we really start making that, that call because we just have to make sure that we have a foundation first. And that's something I like the FLS doing is they've said 20, 24 is when we'll start talking and they seem to be taking that seriously. So holding off, I think we should wait a lot. Brian has a comment here St. Louis had the largest waiting room queue for season ticket deposits. Last night, I was literally filming a wedding and walking to the boat to go like sail off to do like some sunset photos on the boat. And I'm like on there, like I had no problem at all getting my season tickets. I mean, I assume we'll get media, right. I mean, I assume I'll be in the locker room where I'm just kidding, but you know, I still wanted to get 'em. I have friends and stuff that wanted go. Andy, did you any thoughts about season tickets stuff? And I get maxes on stuff this well, but did you hear anyone having any trouble? I mean, the $50 down that feels very similar to what XFL 2020 did of like, let's just get your information, let's get you in here and follow up. No, I didn't see any, I mean, as far as any technical issues go, no, I didn't see that. I think everyone, a lot of people in our group hopped on quickly and got things squared away. Again, I think like you and many of us, I think it's just gonna be media availability. So essentially those tickets might end up getting given away to friends anyways. But I do think that is I think it was very seamless and I, I think they stuck to their timeline too. They said at the central time was say eight, 8:00 PM central time last night, they're like, we're going to drop this. So they were, they were at least very on point with that. They were, they were true to their word. I had if now if we, if all is fair and we're getting the same tickets we had in 2020, I, and this was not because of my media connections back then, it was because of my Twitter friendship with then team president, Ryan Gusteson, I, we were seats 1, 2, 3, 4 on the 50 yard line, row one. So I just, if, if all is said and done again, I think that we deserve those tickets back in Exel. I'm actually any thoughts about how they did the, the ticket, you know, unveiling. Okay. Here's the cities go now and we'll, we'll figure out dates and all that stuff later. Cause obviously they don't have the schedule set. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I wasn't expecting a schedule out at this point. I know 2020 did, but everything is running a bit slower this time around. That's fine. It was very efficient. Even in the St Louis queue, whenever it said, like, I just went to peak in it and saw there was like 50 people in the queue. It went by in like 20 seconds and that was in, so, Yeah, I didn't see, I mean, the, I, I went multiple times in cuz I saw like, oh, you could get the group seats. We could get the suite. I was like, I don't really wanna spend $500 minimum on the suites on this right now. But yeah, I never had any problem with getting on that. Anyone else? I have another question here about that. Oh this is a good one. So, you know, I had kind of pontificated today that we might be getting the Texas reveal. Right. Okay. We, we announced all the cities and venues last night, we talk, you know, we announced the renegades or whatever today, when do you guys think we'll start with Andy, we'll go around that. We realistically, like, when are we getting team names and, and logos and colors and all that kind of stuff. Well, like I said, they finally turned the ignition. So I would imagine pretty soon now my only thought is, do they do it all in one bunch or do they do it kind of like city by city? Like, do they do a press conference at every single city and say, Hey, here's our team logo, our, our names, our colors, yada yada yada, I, I have a sneaking suspicion. They might do it that way as far as just one by one announcements, as opposed to all together at the same time. So, but I would imagine if that's gonna happen, then it would be over the course of like say the next month, for example. So at the, maybe starting the beginning of August, I would think that that would be the case, cuz I, I don't know if they would really just sort of throw it all out there. They seem to be, look, they, they, it clearly seems to be based on the last night's event, they are all about having an event, having pageantry, having a way to get the message out and for the general audience to be involved as well. So I think that is something to keep in mind as far as their presentation. So I would imagine if they're gonna do it one by one, it would be over the course of say August, Let me hop in. And then we'll go to the minor league. When I was getting set up here, I wasn't whether the next I was peeking around to see if they're still around here. One of the next people were saying like, okay, well we'll see you next month. We're not gonna have anything right now, but we'll see you. We're gonna have some stuff coming. So I mean, obviously it's, it's July 25th. So I would, I would presume anything is sex month. I see them all in one SMA. Now I really liked like today I'm like, oh man, if they do the renegades and then we do one in Seattle and we do one in Vegas, like, because today was this, I think the next event will just be all of them. And I think they'll bust it out. What do you think mine are like It's a hundred percent. The XFL likes its big one off event. That's been the kind of mantra so far for them. So I think it's probably gonna be back in Arlington, probably probably the same venue as last night. And I, I, I think it's actually probably gonna be labor day weekend. I keep, I keep looking at the calendar. I'm like, that's a really good choice cuz you could probably bring in fans, you can have people travel and you could have them come in, come out. It's a quick event. Boom. You can, you can bring in people, put down deposits. They can probably get a like physical ticket, blah, blah, blah. It's all the fun and, and everything like that. So I think I maybe the Sunday before labor day weekend, which would be the, let me pull this up the fourth because yeah, it's the first Monday of every September. So maybe the fourth that, that kinda lines up with the next month. So I, I think we'll probably get uniforms and teen names on the 4th of September run there at least, You know what also happens on traveling weekends. People get married. If, if the exit bill could quit scheduling events. Although I don't think I have one the fourth. I know we have a couple on the third, but if we, I don't think we could have one, so maybe I can file the fourth. We need to quit scheduling them. I wanna respond to Jenna's comment here in the minute, but max, I wanted to get your thoughts and if anyone else, and we can accommodate more than four, if you're sitting there and you wanna hop in the, the link is pinned to the chat. If we have any other writers or anybody, they wanna hop in max thoughts on that. And then I wanna respond to Genesis comment. So I guess sometime in August would be team names in logos and colors and et cetera. When we saw that press release, we saw they had the colors on the arrows and all the five remaining cities match and tan and Orlandos matches Tampa from 2020. So that's perhaps a sign. We'll see. Yeah. I, I like that. The Hines ward looks like the Steelers and it's like, okay, <laugh> that lies? Jenna has this and I, I had a tweet ready on the plane this morning and I think it was about three Pacific, like five Texas time when I was landing. And I, I had the tweet, but it wasn't obviously the right time to send it. I go, the rock had like his big comment during the town hall. Like we're working on all this really cool, like we're redesigning. And we were, you know, all this new uniforms and everything and it's gonna be awesome when we have all these T names, like name one piece of like new merchandise. The XFL has released that like anybody likes it all, like the city shirts are terrible. Like I have the hat. I mean the hats and whatever are fine, but like basically like across the board, everyone hates right. These new cities that they announced last night, the shirts like have you seen one person like the like Arlington with the X and now it's like, oh, I really can't wait to see what this crack team comes up with next out of the merchandising department. Like it's not that hard. And then I don't know who is designed in this step, but I have always said, I am available for me consulting. I will tell you that those are horrendous shirts. And I owned the Seattle 2020, like football team won Andy thoughts on the merchandise and Genesis comment. I think they're just trying to make a quick buck before the actual logos come out. I don't think there's really a lot of effort putting into this. So I'm just gonna be brutally honest. I don't think this is something that is going be longstanding, that people are going to be like buying over the next year or however many years, because I think they're just trying to cash in on the idea of like, look, here's the team cities this will be a placeholder until we actually have everything ready. So I, I don't think it's actually, I, I wouldn't put my opinion. I wouldn't put too much thought into it because I really don't think they put too much thought into those designs. I had a lot of us fellow homeowner, like, are aren't you gonna defend the shirts read? I'm like, no, I'm not like, I'm not, I'm not buying it. Like I'm not, I I'll think, oh, Hey, spoiler alert though. And I don't know how many there are. But, and I don't get your hopes up, but I was handed by rest Julio, the, you know, director of player you know, scouting for the XFL. He gave me like three or four of the actual the, the tryout jerseys from the, you know, that the players were wearing. So we might have to have a blood feud battle from the exe NFL news, have writers to see who get mailed those, or maybe that could be a podcast giveaway. I haven't decided yet, but I have, I think there's four of, 'em like a couple blacks in the white, but you know, the ones at the players that's are pretty cool, like that doesn't exist. Right. That's great. I would love, I would've loved for that to be on the team story. That's awesome. Minor league Guinea thoughts on any of this stuff. And like I said, if anyone else wants to call in happy to keep this going, we got good viewership and good comments. So if you guys have anything else you wants to talk about, cuz there's a lot on the docket. Oh yeah. This will actually be my lesson cuz I gotta go out and I gotta go to a work lunch, but I guess final comments I want, I I'm I'm I I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic that besides the few things that I have talked about that are my big negatives I'm, I'm interested. I think they're just gonna be a few more big events. I think the drafts probably gonna be in Arlington. They'll probably make that in a giant event just like this and I'm I wanna see what that schedule looks like. I wonder if it's just gonna be like the USFL schedule where it's 10 regular season games, division championship championship itself. I think that would probably be the best way to go through you have little overlap and you don't have to worry about it that much when it comes to the timelines. So cautiously optimistic. That's where I'm at right now. All right. Well minor. Thanks for hopping on. We have another guest hopping on, so I'll kick minor off and we'll bring on friend of the show and Andy, if anyone needs to go to work, whatever, let me know. Let's bring on Jared. Jared, how are you doing? Hey, Doing okay. Those guardians are not coming back, but sorry, Jared. I love the logo from the guardians, but this is from a month ago or two. When, when they revealed the website, I hate the website being black and white. It's like they're taking it back to the 1950s or whatever. I, this is me though. I like the old XFL 2020 logo. I think they should have just kept that personally. I thought it was just fine as is. But yeah, the merchandise, I mean the gym, bag's horrible looking. I, I personally think I'm not dishing out that money unless it's affordable. The city shirts. I know they did that in 2020 before those looked a little bit better in 2020. I think if I remember right. I think they were black or something, but yeah, the, the announcement was really good. I enjoyed it. Something I've been, we've been all been waiting very patiently, you know, with the CFL talk last year and it's finally coming to fruition and I'm really, I'm, I'm excited about it, but yeah, the logo didn't need to be changed. I didn't think. So I did ask when they, I had my, my semi exclusive interview with president of the exo film Russ and I was asking them, I said what do you say to guardian fans of Wildcat fans? I think I said in the group chat, I was gonna ask that, you know, not so much to Tampa bay fans, cuz there wasn't too many of those, but you know, what do you say to the Wildcats and the guardian fans? I can't remember his answer cuz I kind of blacked out with everything the last two hours. But look for that, I'm gonna post the rock and Danny's interview and then Russ Brandon's interview on the YouTube. I'll probably edit it on the home the playing home tonight. But you know, max now that we're finally out of New York, LA I I've seen a lot of criticism, right? Because obviously people like, we all knew this, but not everybody knew this. You know, a lot's been made right. Are, you know, our friend Seth online and they're gonna lose all this viewership and everything. What do you make about them actually being out of New York and LA? Now Those facilities costs in LA and New York are not cheap. Y'all, that's, it's really hard to justify playing in New York and LA whenever you're drawing pretty average to below average crowds with extra high costs to the point where if I remember right, guardians tickets were more expensive than every other team in the league in 2020. You can correct me if I'm wrong to Jared. I didn't know about that. I'm not, I'm not from New York. I just like the logo. So I I'm actually from the Midwest, so Okay. So yeah the seat tickets from what I recall and the basic tickets were really like five bucks, more expensive, but anyway the media difference for non-New York and LA games were often minimal and often some of the games that didn't involve New York and LA were games that were the most watched. So I don't think viewership is gonna be all that affected to be honest with you. And I think the, the revenue opportunities from being in these other places instead, even Vegas, but particularly San Antonio instead is gonna draw fans. And I'm not worried about like three teams of Texas or none of that. So I think it's all gonna work out, honestly. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> Andy the Andy thoughts on this. Yeah, I, I think just the state tax situation is something that was considered as I think we've talked about before. I think max, you mentioned it as well as the venue costs are just outrageous for those two specific places. And I think that's something that if we're going to go off of what Russ Brandon was talking about as, as far as expansion, it's probably the same thing as far as costs, it's gonna be like, well, let's see what happens first and let's wait and see if we can actually, if it's worth putting the time and resources into those specific places and venues. So I think that's something to consider. I don't think New York or California are abandoned completely LA. I think those places will come back to at some point, but they need to make sure that they're actually making and generating revenue and be able to generate interest first before they go back into there. It is disappointing. I agree. I, I think the guardians were great. I, I, I liked watching the wild cats. I'm a San Diego fan. I want a team to come out to San Diego. There's a new stadium that is just about to open for San Diego state and is the perfect size. It's 35,000 seats. It's perfect for this kind of league, but I think they're gonna have to just take time and see and make sure that what they're investing in is actually worthwhile and going back into those markets. So it, but it is its point. I understand. Yeah. I don't see a lot of you know, and I was pretty critical about the USFL cities and what they chose and, you know, while these were the ones that we, that had nostalgia from the a, like, I don't see a lot of like us fellows in California, us. I mean, I get their New Jersey, but I don't, that's not New York. I mean, that's not, you know, I, I, I hate that whole MetLife and how they play and all that stuff. But you, I don't see a lot of that. They have the us F L is not even in half the country right now. I don't like the three Texas teams. Like I said, I think that that caught a lot of people off guard. I think it's just necessary evil right now. Like we have to put the eighth team somewhere, like, let's do it here and we can, you know, we can house everybody here and kind of get them around that way. Just real quick, mark had to question the draft, they, they say mid-November, they're trying to figure it out. Like I said, talking with a couple of the league executives kind of off, you know, Mike said they, they're just trying to figure out, like, how do we wanna position? Like, how do we wanna use the rock? How do we want to kind of showcase that? I, I think they're gonna utilize some of the Texas live stuff that they did before. I think they liked that venue. Like I could see them using that for all the announcements for the next, you know, two, three years. It's like, let's just bring in five, 600 people in there. They had a really good setup that way. Any other thoughts, max? You have thoughts on that and then we can go to Jared. Yeah. I mean, I'm hoping for an in person draft this time, you know, or at least from a viewing experience perspective, I won't give any of their perspective, but they're clearly saying they're going to be putting in more broadcast effort to this, which is exciting because last time around, we had the YouTube stream and nothing else, and it was kind of forced together conference call. Whereas this time it's like, okay, we're doing proper coverage. ESPN is already seemingly way more, all in, on than, than, than anybody was in spring football. Or even it seemed like Fox from a broadcast perspective is from on the us development. Having showing up to showcases was not something I expected to be honest with you, except for the HBC wanted to Dion. But other than that, I didn't expect anything. Well, even today they had Ian or I don't know all the ESPN people, but they had some ESPN guy today MC and all the stuff and bringing out the rock. And I have the, the video probably post later. I think the interviews will probably get a little bit more hype with Danny and the rock and set, but I have the full press conference. I don't know if anyone, cause I don't believe they stream that one today. I know that a couple of the local news stations fed it back. Jared, do you have any thoughts on anything we're talking about? Oh, so yeah, we were were talking about oh yeah, the livestream. I remember 2020s livestream being very hardly anything to watch you know, it was like fantasy football. It was pretty bad. Like, I, I was okay with it, but I'm really open minded and hopefully it's a lot more entertaining and goes, goes a lot more better for the overall audience and they can get a lot more into it. It's with the rock and Danny, so they should have something much better, you know, just give us something like what the ESPN, NFL drafts like a little bit. And I I'll be satisfied, The vibe I'm getting. And like what I was saying with, you know, with Russ talking both on, on the podium and off with this Arlington, Danny talking about them, generating all this content. I think they're really like learning from the USFL, like, okay, we need, we really need to like engage. We're gonna have the staffs in places we're gonna stream the draft. We're gonna do the team staff, you know, like, remember the Colin coward, like, okay, here, here's your four north division teams. Like, okay, now let's talk about MBA. And you're like, I, I just, I think, you know, that was special. I I'm, I'm impressed so far with what they've done with ESPN. You know, like I said, I don't know any of those people. I don't watch ESPN, but, you know, bringing in those people, the lady that hosted the event last night, what did you guys think? Cuz I, I missed a lot of it. Obviously. I was, I had this stuff on cuz I was working Andy, what did you make of like the town hall in general and how they presented that? Aside from the audio issues, because I had to Jack up the volume on my TV to like a hundred to be able to hear it, besides that I think the presentation itself was very effective and I mean that in terms of the engagement from the fans and that's really the biggest thing that, again, I, I pointed to earlier is like the fans that are there that are already invested in the product are there, they are there for the league, the teams, the logos, everything, people there looked like they were really engaged. They were chance breaking out. Like the XFL chance were breaking out our buddy van being like front row and getting into question was just wild to me. <Laugh> that, that to me was like the most kind of like out of body experience I had while watching the stream because we know him personally. But that's the thing like I'm already starting to think, like there are memorable moments being set up by this league through like things just as like a team logo event. And then also the, the, the banter between the co coaches that were introduced and then trash talking to each other, just a lot of comradery. The rocks seemed really engaged. Danny was really enthused. Laura Rutledge did a good job of hosting. It just, it had so much energy to it. It had so much vibe to it. That's really the biggest thing I take from it. Mark Perry, our chief and editor was saying that the traffic on the site was out of control. Like it was insane during the entire event. So yeah, it's buzz. It was energy. It was, it was a lot of just like community coming, coming together and, and being engaged in the event. That's what I take away from it. And that's really impressive considering how dormant this league has been for so long for that to just come right out of the gate like that. Yeah. We'll get max thought here. It is, I do think, and we talked about this in Arizona on Friday that now that kind of like the elephants out of the room, at least until we get team names, I think they're just gonna be a lot more open with that. Funny and until talking about the rock we were doing that we were getting ready for the interview and I ran over there. I'm front, you know, I got my microphone and everything. And some guy tried to clip a lapel mic on like the rock had like one of those faux polo kind of shirts, like the v-neck with the collar <laugh> and like, so he clipped it on and the rock like looks down and then he's like, I don't want this on my shirt. This is a really nice shirt. The guy's like, oh, it took it off. And then like the rock, like literally mad and they kinda like, kinda like laughed and I'm like, I think he was really mad. Like I think he uses that like laugh kind of chuckle as, as a cover. I think that he was pretty off story. I heard years ago with that Steve jobs doing the same thing that like one of my buddies had to put a microphone on Steve Jobs's photo turtleneck and Steve jobs got very upset about that. Max thoughts on the, the town hall and how everything was presented. Yeah, it was really well put together. Audio was not great though. Like it was real quiet. Like the, there was obviously loud there, but like the mics were not great. The feed was really low even on max volume on my phone. So the Laura was great. The coaches were great. Danny was great. Rock is great. Unsurprisingly, Jerry was not there. I mean, we knew he wouldn't be there, but like in general, I mean, he's not the kind of guy to show up to stuff and it's been interesting to see how much we know he is committed to this and yet he just, isn't a media guy and yet simultaneously he rolls up in Milan does shoots a whole bunch of stuff. So it's very fun to me. It's all good though. Now that I've got my connection issue, knock on wood. Seemingly, do we have better production value with this or the EXL stream last night? No question. This. Oh, good. Okay. Well, I was very concerned there for a minute cuz I literally had like a hundred megabit when I tested than Andy and I get on. If it was like going down to potatoes, I'm still streaming very low quality, but I think it's at least kind of caught up Jared thoughts on the town hall. And then I have a question here from a DJ. Yeah. I thought the venue was great. I would love to go there myself. It looked fantastic. Texas does it big, I guess. I would love to go to Texas in the future. I thought the present presentation was good. I was on another XFL show and I could not hear anything. And I thought that was the program I was with on another like window on my computer. But I guess it was really bad for a lot of people. So I had it on max as well. So I'm right there with you guys And you can, I mean you can plug, I saw you X FFLs STL show. I, how dare you ever go on any other XFL show, but they are friends. That's okay. You can play that, but I never, again, that will be your one time whatever <laugh>. DJB so I caught the last part of the conversation. Consensus if the rules will be the same. So Danny said as of, of Saturday, the rules are, are she her words I'm gonna post a video clip? The rule book is locked. They had a very productive, like four hour meeting Russ brand and said getting everything hammered out, utilizing a lot of Dean bland dinos feedback. And then obviously Russ coming from the NFL and his background, he said he does not want it to be a gimmick football at all. You know, they obviously liked what they wanted and the rock said, quote, unquote, they wanted to kick the tires of the, the rules that they had. Max, I don't think we got your, I think this was before you hopped on the stream, thoughts about the rule book and any of that conversation now that we know that at least they have an idea now six months out, but I guess that's fine of what they're working with. Yeah. I mean, I'll just briefly reiterate what I said before was that I was already pretty sure based on who they brought on the executive team, that the basis of the rules from last time was gonna stick around with maybe some slight tweaks or some stuff that didn't work getting thrown out and everything we heard today at the press conference seems to line up with that. So I'm definitely excited. So Yeah, I, I am, I'm sad. I am sad for our, you know, friend Sam Schwartzstein I, I don't like bringing in, you know, retaining the ideas and not the man. I think that that would've been good. I know that I saw, you know, all of our mutual friend Bailey that did the XFL social media account back in 2020 was finally his personal account was finally unfollowed by the XFL. You know, I think he said something of like, you you're, you're welcome for all the followers. I got your league and now, you know, obviously, you know, they don't need to follow him, but you know, they're, they're moving into a new, a new phase here, but it is weird that like, you know, kind of like the USFL we're, we're taking the things that we want from before. It's our money. We're putting our stamp on it and we're kind of doing what we want with it. It, it, it's more similar than not, I think the philosophies behind both the XFL and the USFL, Andy thoughts on kind of that dichotomy of, of how rock and Danny they're like, well, we wanna kind of benefit all the things that we got from this, with our money and purchase, but then we really wanna be able to do whatever we want with it. I mean, they can, they own it. So that's, that's, that's there's that, but yeah, I, I think, look, there are going to be alterations because it's, it's not, it's not their baby. It was Vince's baby. It was VI man's idea and he brought it forth. So they're go, when you adopt a child into a house, you start to do different rules, right? You have different ideas of how to raise the child, how to, how to nurture it, et cetera, et cetera. Look, I, I think there's going to be a much more consensus idea of like, how are we going to establish a brand and a long term identity? How long do they want the league to last, you know, like I said, there's much more ideas toward that. Whereas with the XFL 2020, it was more, I think the idea was more that there was three years worth of finances and then it was, well, let's see what happens after that. So it was kind of just more putting into the now and then as far as innovation, as far as ideas, as far as like trying to stick out, which was starting to work before everything shut down. So I think with this, it's just much more like trying to reform and re remold it into trying to be something that can last for a long time, which may not always mean that there is going to be potentially as much like experimentation and as much innovation, because these are, we're talking about business people. We're talking about people who have actually like been around and done things in other ventures for a long time. I mean, Danny, the Rockwell bring that experience from different backgrounds and as does, you know, Russ brand working in the NFL, people who worked in established brands and know what works as opposed to just kind of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. So I can, I think it's coming more from that perspective, Max, you're a big, you know, I mean to say it lightly a big fan of XFL 20, 20, I mean, what, what are you making now of these changes? And, and we're, we're, you know, it's not, it's not the baby that you loved back to three, four years ago. Well, I'll say for like, yeah, I'm not happy about what happened to Sam or about like them just kicking everyone to the side that was like on the ground, the foot soldiers, but you know, if they don't align with the vision and the company just gotta do what they gotta do, I guess I I'm really excited for like what the new ownership group like has perspective on because like the, these groups seem to know a lot better about like how to be ambitious without just like spending money on something that doesn't need to be spent on. I remember Vince in 2020 was like football must be played in New York at MetLife because that's where the football is played. That was a thing. So I, I think this group is a lot more responsible while being ambitious. And I like that Jared thoughts on this I enjoyed XFL 20, 20. I hope they would have kept the, the game ball for, for this that would've been great. They put all that time and innovation into it with that X grip or whatever technology. I think, like I said, I think they should have just kept everything that was good with 2020, including the rules and just moved it over to the, you know, for this and just get going and, you know, save your, you know, like fans might wanna leave if they wait too long. And I think they should have just had a little bit more sense of urgency, but without this talks of like the CFL, but yeah, what they're doing now is fine that they wanna have their own stamp and signature on everything that's different and wick man's out of the way. We don't have to think about him anymore and hopefully it's much better than, yeah. Hopefully it's up to the level of 2020. I'm done. Ken. Yeah, no, they didn't EXL didn't block Bailey. They just unfollowed them. I don't think they blocked Bailey. I think they just still retired the following that account. I will say for my, you know, I was not involved in any of this media stuff back XL 2020 you know, had I not have really gone down this now I'm sitting in this, I have to show you guys before we get off the stream. I'm literally like, it's not a soul here in the stadium now. They just told me to go, go out the security gate when I leave. I'll have to show you. But like, if you had told me three years ago, I'd be sitting here broadcasting from like the rocks press conference of like the Arlington hub. So I'm like in a different viewership now, right. Where we're kind of in all this. I don't know if I would like this or not. I like the little condensed eight team or we're doing it in February and March and it's Reed's time off and Saturday, Sunday. I mean, I remember like, you know, we went to the DC Seattle game and then I was flying back and the other game was on the TV at the airport. And like, I don't think I had ever watched except for like the super bowl, a game of football team that I did not was not like my home team, cuz I just, wasn't a real football guy. I became a football fan through the extra fell and I thought, oh, this is kind of cool. Like I could sit here, watch a beer, kind of see what they're doing, da da, da, da. And I watch the next one and the next one. And you know, I kind of fell in love with that. I don't know. I don't know if I still would love kind of all the changes they've made and you know, we'll see what the rule book is and, and kind of how that stands apart. But I, I just don't want it to be the USFL where it's, it's not maybe taken it far enough in ways that they could do it in trying different things. I like to utilize these smaller league to try to do some different stuff. Andy, any thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I, I think that's, that's a good point you bring up and I think that's why even, maybe they bring in the coaches that they do the coaches that maybe want to actually try and experiment and actually do things with the rules that they have. Look, I, I admire and I appreciate the coaches' staffs that were in the USFL. I think there was definitely a lot of how do I put it nicely? Not, not a lot of like old head ideas, but like people who had their ways of like running their teams, running their, their offenses, their defenses and everything. So even though the S FFL may have brought in some ideas, as far as the rules from like other leagues, I didn't see them utilizing it that way. Like I didn't see people willingly going for three, going for two all that often or going for the fourth and 12 on instead of the onsite kick, like people trying to get more points. It seemed like they were much more in set and well, this is how it worked for us in those other leagues. We're gonna do it this way because this is what we're comfortable with. I don't get that vibe so much from this coaching staff. I feel like there's a lot more willingness to experiment, especially just again, just the, the amount of like enthusiasm and energy you did, by the way, a great job of all those interviews you got from the Arizona showcase. I really got a really good sense from guys like rod Woodson from Anthony Beck got Bob stoops of things that they're willing to try out. And I get, it felt, I felt similar energy again to the to the live show yesterday. So I feel like there's gonna be a much more emphasis on that from the people that they selected, at least I'll get max. So yeah, one anecdote we were after the press and then we did the interviews, we did some photo ops on the field. They had like the mayor of Arlington and they had whatever and they, they had all the coaches come out. They did stuff with Bob stoops, right. Cause obviously he's, you know, here with the head coach, but then they did a full all the coaches, you know, Wade Phillips was here and you know, Jim Haslet wasn't cuz he has a commitment right now, but like everyone else and there was just a real, like cool vibe around him. Like they all kind of were getting in and Josh and Dwayne a little bit and kind of, you know, they were moving people to try to figure out the right angle with the goal post. And I think I have the clip I'll have to go back and look, but it just was a lot of like kind of that locker room boys kind of hanging out, like I think, and even though the rock, obviously wasn't really in the locker room, like this number 54, we hear all the time, but I think he, you know, gets obviously the respect that he has earned and, and, and kind of carries that, that weight with him. And I think that it just feels like a very cohesive group of coaches and that they all like genuinely would all go get a beer after work and kind of hang out. I just, it was a cool insight to see them doing that. Just kind of between that as a wedding videographer. I always think that's interesting too. You know, the interactions people have between the photos being taken is kind of really how they are. Max thoughts on any of this? The coaches, I, I was, I was a fan of like most of the coaches that got hired, if not all of them, honestly, even though some of them, you were like, ah, I have no idea what to make of this right now. I definitely think the return of June Jones as an offensive coordinator is arguably the most important thing just because he's going to be willing to go for three. So having even one guy who, you know, is gonna be willing to go for three and they bring back something like that, you're gonna see more aggression cuz the other coaches are gonna feel forced to be like putting that same level of production out there. That be good. Jared thoughty you and I know you watched USFL two thoughts on, you know, USFL and now I do, I, it just feels like a different crop of coaches here. To me, it's a higher level of coaches or at least Wade Phillips. I never expected him to show up cuz you know, he was with the Denver Broncos, my favorite NFL team in 2015 and sent, you know, got them to the super bowl and they won it as defensive coordinator. So I was really surprised rod, was it rod Woodson, legendary Raider, you know, that was amazing. I've heard of Terrell Buckley before, so yeah, I, I think it's on another level than the USFL, which is a good thing I it's been, so, you know, the Arizona thing I kind of was hit me highing on it. Especially after they had the town hall, like, okay, are we gonna go to this? Is it worth it? It's kind of this like, you know, it's like a lame duck showcase right before the town hall and nothing's gonna come out. I thought getting to just interact. It was the really small group where it was, you know, Brandon and mad and Evan and I, they were like today was crazy, you know, there's media all over the place and you know, there's just obviously pressure when Dwayne's there and when Danny's there and you know, but Russ was able to talk to us at the showcase kinda off camera too. And just getting to know these people, I, I, in a different way than the us L has ever allowed the people covering the league unless you're, you know, like RJ younger, whatever. And, and, you know, I saw a lot of like chatter on Twitter, you know? Oh, like all these XFL people they're going out to the showcases and they're not, I went to the USFL open. I asked for press credentials. They said they weren't giving them to anyone unless you worked for Fox. So I was there, you know, I paid my own dime. We did Andy and I did the show outside, but like I asked for that, they didn't do it. I asked for this, they did it. And that's the difference. I mean, like they're leaving Chucktown stadium open right now, at least this, wherever I'm in this capital one bank club, like, you know, they asked to do this, you know, Jeffrey, the guy came, you know, their media guy came over. He said, y'all set, you know, do you need anything? Like, it is just a difference of, and it's not a lot, they've got a, a ton of stuff going on today. I mean, everybody in the world this year and their media people still had the time to come over and take two seconds. So like, I just wanna make that point that like I was with the championship game and was not given anything. So Andy, any thoughts on that? You were Birmingham? Yeah. No, I, I, I distinctly remember something similar where it was just like the, any idea of getting any information from anybody, from any media, for any media availability was like nonexistent, you know, I mean, we were trying to fight to find like attendance numbers and now it's like finding Barry treasure. So I think this is something that I, I think everyone pointed to as far as like being accessible and being open and being able to like engage with the league and be able to engage with the coaches and with the owners and all that. Like it was, you know, two years ago they want the same sort of level of exposure because that's something that it's just not afforded to, not just in football, but like all sports. There's so much of a, a, like a kind of behind like there's so much like curtain. Like you have to kind of look behind it or like try to get a sneak peek behind it, if you wanna be able to learn anything. And this has kind of been nice to see that they are at least being open again, it took a long time. So two years for them to finally get to this point, but here we are. And I think it seems like for what you're telling me, it seems like caw stadium is kind of like that again, not just the hub for the players, but maybe also the media as well. And for everybody who's trying to interact with the league. Yeah. One more comment then we'll go to max talking with one of the executives I was wrapping up to come back up here and set up and I said, yeah, maybe I'll see you in November. You know, if you guys do the draft or, you know, whatever you guys have do, he's like, wow, like you're, are you gonna come back down? Like, well, probably. I mean, if I can, you know, this is something that I enjoy too. It's like, well, like what can we, like, what can we do here to, to help you? Or what do you I'm like, just help provide people when people want it, you know, me or, or mark, or, you know the St Louis guys, or like, I, like, it's not hard. Like we're not asking for a lot. And I don't think, you know, in terms of the needs and demands that like the NFL, you know, God, the millions of people wanna do. Like, I just don't think that it's that hard to have like, okay, we have a handful of fan led, credentialed podcasts. Like we can feed them a nugget every once in a while. I just don't think it's that hard to think that we're asking max, you don't need to, to talk about this, or you could comment on anything you want. I mean, yeah. I will say that, like I never thought they were lying whenever the league came out was like, we're gonna be more open access. We're gonna be with the fans. We, we want the fans to be like directing what we do in certain aspects. I also knew it was always gonna take a long time that people were gonna be impatient and try to say that they were being disingenuous. So I'm just glad to finally see it's finally come full circle. And now as we get towards like the, the back end of the fall, you're gonna see more and more and more see some announcements in the next month or so next couple months. But you have to keep in mind that in order to have access, you have to have something to access. So if they, what were they gonna do over these past two years? Just show you a big empty room, cuz they can't legally show you their negotiations in business. Obviously like, No, I totally agree. Yeah, no. And my Chris. Yeah, exactly. And I haven't, you know, made a lot of XFL requests just because I've known that like what are they gonna talk about? You know, what is there even to do? You know, we CJ, one of the Scouts, you know, he saw us, he's like, oh, you're, you know, you're those guys that have been blowing me up in my DMS to come on your show. So I'm like, I haven't, because I know that you guys can't talk about anything. I only, I only hit up someone if I know that they have something to talk about. And obviously now that things are coming out, you know, Anthony Beck said like, I'm happy to come on all your guys' shows. I can't wait. You know, Bob stoop seemed very engaged with that. Rob Woodson. I mean, I think a lot of the coaches you're obviously here because you're excited about this. You wanna grow and develop it and, and be a part of something. Jared, what do you, what do you make of all this? Okay. So the USFL should be thankful that you and all these other YouTube channels did something for them. Because I, I I've seen that before. I just was like, why are they not letting them do anything? So they should be thankful cuz it's, it's all about the fans. It should be all about the fans. And if they're denying you, then that's that's wrong. I think personally. So it's good that the XFL is doing something for you guys. We have a question for Mike, are we expecting Chatta to host the XFL championship? I would say absolutely. I, I think Andy's shaking this set. What do you think? I, I thought they might try to do it in Houston or like do it in a different venue. Like, I don't know, maybe somewhere like we're planning Houston last time, but I know that's different, different circumstances you don't think they would try to do at and T stadium, do you? Ooh, I like that. Oh <laugh> I like that. I think 90,000 plus. Yeah. Well, no, they wouldn't get that many people. Well, I know, I know, but see, I think everything is gonna be here, but Andy continue. Well, I always just wonder cuz I remember Jerry Jones offered the AAF to do their championship game before everything kind of blew up. I, I just kind of keep that in the back of my head as like a cliff note, but I know they might have a different relationship with him than, than that leak did. So I don't know. I mean, if they wanna put it in Chota that's fine. Fine. I'm not, I'm nothing against that, but I just think about more traditional like venues for football and I know that's not necessarily the most traditional venue, so that's the only thing I wonder about Max. What's the quick capacity check here. I know you can look this up. Yeah. So if they had all the seats open, well I already know it up top my head I'll look it up. CHTA in a football configuration as is, I believe is about 42, 40 3000. But that's assuming there's no tarps and that's assuming all the upper level seats are open which they probably won't be. I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't see way they don't have the title game in CHTA because of the partnership with rev entertainment because of the fact that at and T stadium, we, they might struggle to even fill like the lower bullet at and T just cuz even that's huge. And also quite frankly, CHTA is a major league stadium. That's been converted into football that still has all the bells and whistles that they would need to host a championship game. So I don't think there's really any concern there. We have a question. They, they have not the advanced, the divisions yet. I I've been asked to show a stadium tour. I'm gonna turn off my mic because it's gonna Jostle here when I move my laptop. But maybe one of you guys can comment while I, while I show the stadium here. Okay. Andy, why don't you give us your best you know, football, baseball play by play announcer voice <Laugh> which one? The, the play like the actual like radio feed <laugh>. But yeah, no, I gotta say one thing I wanted to make a note of out of all of this and something I didn't really get to earlier where we're talking about as far as like the rock and Dany Garcia being more involved in the league, I have to say I'm immensely impressed that the Rock's doing this because he has been everywhere in the last week. Like he was at the SBS on Thursday, he was down here promoting black Adam, that superhero film at ComicCon. Then he flies out to Dallas does that. And now he's at the media avail that guy, he was unescapable even for me, he was inescapable this weekend. So he is really putting in a time and effort into this though. And I'm, I'm, he's kind of putting where his money with his mouth was. Cuz when you have that many projects and you're involved in that many things, I, I wonder about like how much time do you really have to stay committed to this thing. But as he mentioned, I think about a week ago or sorry, a month ago, he mentioned that he kind of has a scheduled, cleared out. Doesn't have any like upcoming film projects, no, like sort of being away at different film sets, he's sort of cleared out for the time being. So I, I think that's a good sign for him to actually be, you know, going to the showcases, going to the media available. He really actually putting his foot in there. And my biggest thing about him, cuz I think Reid, you mentioned earlier, like what, what do you expect his role to be? He's just, I think he just has to be a cheerleader, just be a giant cheerleader. Like literally <laugh> be a giant cheerleader because he can just promote the league and promote the image and promote what it stands for to the general audience. Did that Stu that tour look okay. I know my shoulder was kind of blocking in. You got the vibe, we got the XFL logo out there. They got the XFL stuff on all the TVs here. How did that look? Was that okay? It looks good. Looks really nice. I will say there's a lot, a lot of comments about the rock. He, I think has a ton going on obviously, but you can tell when he's talking, there's like every once in a while I cuz I think he really, I think he really likes to be pre-programmed a little bit, right? Like this is what I'm gonna say. This is kind of, kind of how my message formulated. And I think every once in a while, like even today they were asking them and I'll post the interview when they were asking him about something. It was like and I almost thought he was gonna be like, oh I lost my place. Or like, oh, can you ask me the question again? Or cuz it was like a really long pause of like, okay, what the hell am I supposed to say? And they kind of finally found the wordy wanted to use and it's fine. I mean the guy's got a billion different projects going on, but I just, just did think that was interesting that I think that you know, flying to San Diego and here and doing that and going back, I think it catches up to even, even the rock is human sometimes. Yes. Leon says maybe we'll get to, I don't know the Vince Smith man thing that I don't really wanna get into that on this, but I expect very different changes with WW here. Moving forward. Does anyone have any PG comments on the Vince MC band stepping down to XL with WW? Real quick. I just think it's fascinating to see a parallel universe where imagine if the last two years didn't happen and Vince still owned the league, we'd be having that's what I was Saying. We'd be having a very different conversation right now about the future of this league. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I obviously I love Vince. I love a lot of this stuff with that I I'm buying and I don't wanna be the like reads the mark and you went to Arizona, whatever, like, you know, the logo is going on me a little bit, the black and white and everyone's in the stuff and they're all kind of staff and you can tell and it, it feels I get it. I, I don't, I don't love the Brandy with it, whatever, but I, I wasn't in love with the XFL logo before, you know, like a diehard either. I don't know. I get what they're trying to do. It feels like a very different regime. And especially like I've said the last 72 hours as some wonders for me with how I think that they're gonna approach everything moving forward. I just really couldn't express that enough. Let's see here we have a comment. I imagine the rocket 54, the real reason. Yeah. See, they keep, they keep talking about, you know, the rocket mention. I just don't see that happening. I don't see the rock wanting to do anything. Also. He's supposed to wrestle Roman at, at WrestleMania, but I, I don't see that happening Many projects. He has so many investments he has to keep up with and all the flying and everything. I don't know how he does it or Whatever. Yeah. I know WrestleMania, well, wrestle mania season is XFL season like wrestl, mania build and all that. Max, you were the one that had the, the, you know, you sent to me and I know like Jay posted it and I saw I think XL Reddit posted, you know, the colors with the coaches, with the branding coming back. We talked times ward Steelers. Like even if they do you think they bring back colors, different names, what do you speculate they're gonna do there? I know I had the Anthony Beck, like this is a fresh start for the battle Hawks and you poo poo that, but you know, do we bring back the battle Hawk colors and call it something else? So Jay, who was actually there last night was saying that they fans would have some sort of say, perhaps now I have no idea. Now I have no idea. I have no idea, but it is possible. The fans may be allowed to have some sort of input as possible. And I do think that the most popular team names like the battle Hawks with those team color displays we had, or the defender or the dragons roughnecks will probably come back unless there's some sort of legal dispute that prevents them from coming back logo changes, at least for Houston is, has to happen just legally. As for the rest will see, I'm optimistic that the ones that people want will I it's hard. I, I saw Jay post that and I sound like it was one of the comments that Danny had in the Q and a that was talking about like, we wanna have the fan. I, I don't, if we're, if we're voting on team names, we gotta get moving here. I, I think that, that Andy, do you like the idea of voting? I, I think we need to have done that already. And I think fan control football already has done that a much better way. I mean, I think they already have their team names. I like in place. I really do. I don't know if like the fan input is going to change that as much. I, I believe that they've already done the market research into that. So I don't think as far as like fan engagement, maybe like I'm seeing, like, for example, Leon here is asking about like a 50 a player, 54 award, like something like that, like award ideas or like acknowledgements that I think that's something more, I would see their input on, but as far as like team names go, I think they've, that ship has sailed. I think that's already been decided. And I think, yeah, it would behoove them to sort of keep with a lot of the names. Like max said, just the original ones, just as far as like branding goes and then have the three, three new names, just change, change, maybe make some slight alterations of the Eagles to the Eagles, the logos, especially the one for Houston, as we mentioned, because they have a legal obligation to do so. But I think that, I mean, I think the names already set in my opinion, I don't like, I don't wanna get max sauce ands. I don't like, I mean, I like finger trip football enough and I've come around on those guys. And Greg was on the show and they're like, I, I am a fan. Like I want you, I don't wanna vote on stuff. I want you like, you're the league. I want you to show me like, here's the teams. I mean, I don't love the Washington commanders. I'm going to accept that. I prefer the Washington football team, but I don't own, I don't, I don't, I don't like voting on this stuff. I would rather, they just pick it and tell me, and we can move on. Let's go Jared first. And then max, do you, do you wanna vote on like what the Arlington team is called? I don't need to be voting on something that big, it's not that big of an importance to me. And that sort of thing. What I feel like it's gonna happen is that fan advisory board that was in 2020 might be coming back or something like that. Cuz they were talking about getting our input on stuff. And I think that's a good idea is go to that website and then you fill out some surveys and, and do it that way. But team names now they sh Washington's name thing has been a, been a kind of a headache or whatever. I thought the commanders was a be, was a good name. You know, the Washington football team was right. They could have just kept it like that and I'd been fine with it. But that's it for me. Yeah. Leon says here, I think. Yeah. Yeah. CFO did the family before the red blacks for years. Yeah. We all know how the red blacks turned out. I that's the worst CFL name. Don't at me. Jenna. I love you. But I don't like the red blacks. Max, do you wanna vote on XFL? Please tell me in the chat, maybe I'm the, maybe I'm the idiot, but do you wanna vote on what the, the team names are? I mean, I wouldn't mind it. I don't feel the need to, but I'd be happy with it if they did. I mean they could easily do the thing where the XFL in 2020 had like pre trademarked several different names before they actually chose their final one. But I have no idea if they will or not. I will say historically in major sports leagues, there have been like a huge amount of American sports teams, got their names through popular vote contests through fan suggestions. So it's not like it's anything abnormal. And we will just have to see how it goes. I don't know. I just, they haven't done one fan vote thing of anything at all. It's been col dags this whole time and they'd be like, Hey, let's put the, let's put the a hundred year legacy of our franchise in the hands of, you know, voting McBoatface or whatever. It seems very weird. Andy, can you take a comment or is your phone ring there? What do you think about voting? Do I already get your thoughts on the fan voting? Yeah, no, I I think the, like, I, I, I get the idea of being included as far as like fan voting and getting people involved with the whole aspect of how the league is run. But again, I think we have a league for that it's called FCF. Like that's like the most extreme example of like involvement and that's fine have that, have that outlet for people. I think that's fantastic. But I also believe that there has to be some sort of like corporate SP responsibility that has to be going on with the, with the league. And as far as like them knowing what trademarks work and which ones may not like, I, I, I agree. I think that's left up to the, the team owners, the team management, the all the, the league owners, like that's their thing. If you wanna vote on things like Allstar award compilations, all of that, that's fine. Go for that. I think as far as how the league is run, I leave that up to the big guns. Yeah. The more I think about this, I hate the fan voting. I hate the fan voting. I don't want, I don't wanna do that. Leon says Matt Lys hopping in the chair. Leon says no board apes, Las Vegas board apes and Matt, Matt might be working if Matt could call in, I'd like to get Matt's thoughts just on all of this stuff. Matt was with us down in Arizona, Matt. I don't know if he caught off the top that our, our, our mutual friend, Russ, Julio handed me a couple authentic XFL showcase jerseys, excuse me. They were gonna have to figure out what to do with those. I'm gonna take one depending on the size. Russ wanted me to podcast in it. I wasn't going to do it today, just cuz I'm dripping with sweat anyway, from running around. But look for the episode on Friday, potentially me podcasting with the XFL showcase Jersey Zachary, I really wanted see the 2020 team names come back, team colors behind the coaching. And now on Twitter made me think they've already got team names, logos colors worked out. We got Max's comments on that, Jared. I mean, yeah, Obviously you've already lost the guardians, you know, Wildcats, would you be okay? Them assigning the guardian, like the San Antonio guardians? Or would you like to remain New York with the guardians and find something else? Didn't San Antonio commanders. That was the AAF if I'm not mistaken. So yeah, you can't do that anymore. If, if they wanna do guardians, I don't think it's the greatest name in the world. Sorry you got the Cleveland guardians. You gotta do that deal with that legal stuff. You know, they can change their name, but yeah. Anyways, like yeah, no, I think they, something else besides guardians for San Antonio, I think Max, I think max said the scorpions to Leon says the scorpions that's better. Yeah. Three cities have their own and that's going to be the thing, man. Like, cuz if we bring it, you, if you keep the battle Hawks and then it's like the San Antonio snakes or something like something really stupid, it's gonna, it's gonna be hard, you know? But then we'll be mad at that's the thing with the fan boat, at least with the fan boat, you can be mad at the other fans and not the league. You can hit on that. We voted on blob. We voted on blob. Right. But, but blob is universally loved. Right? I think that was probably one of the best things the USFL did all season was having blob as the, as their mascot. Right. We voted the name. We voted for the name. Yeah. In, in a poll. Yeah. Anyone else have any other questions here? We maybe we'll go hour 30 and then cut it off. If anyone else has anything, how are you guys feeling time wise here are we, we running the course? Have we run the ship? Andy? What do you think? I mean, look, there's gonna be so much rampant speculation in rumors. Like that's, as soon as this stream ends, I'm sure there's gonna be like 10 more questions that come outta my, my feed in the next like hour. So I, I think this is just gonna keep going, but I do wanna say, I, I just think that it's, it's nice to just have something to actually talk about for once and something that can actually like sustainably go forward with, I mean, you obviously are doing some tremendous groundwork out there and you're also giving me ideas or at least you're starting to give me a sense of how the operation is going to be run, which again was just such a cloud of mystery for such a long time. And now you can, you can have boots on the ground and you can tell me what's going on there. So that's something that again is just gonna continue con gen generating conversation going forward. Yeah. I was really scared. I just was really worried. This was gonna be another USFL. And, and like I said, I don't wanna be, I'm positive about a lot of the things that league has done. I'm I'm, I've been very vocal about the criticisms. I really was just afraid it was gonna be me banging my head again. So maybe not maybe tomorrow I'll email 'em and it's gonna be the same thing. I will keep you guys, I mean, I'm sure I will keep you guys up to date, but right now is going on, you know, I feel good about that agenda. Spring league, XML, SFL max, what do you comment? We'll we'll get a couple more in here. Like I said, get off at the hour 30. What do you think of Vince's that the mini camp length you think there'll be pre-draft workouts for a last look? I mean, obviously we've done the showcases now, but it's still quite a ways. I mean, they're gonna get a lot of the undrafted guys, right? I mean, what, what do you make of the timeline? Them getting everyone into the league? I think they could easily do mini camps in December, just like last time and then do training camps in January. They'll probably just do all of it in Arlington, but they might have more press events in for the, during the mini periods with the players, like in the local markets. I, I did wanna mention cuz it was on my mind. Cuz did we talk about how the hub is for three years? We did a little bit off the top, but feel free to give your thoughts on that. Yeah, cuz that, I mean I'm, I'm not entirely surprised, but it wasn't something I was thinking. It was like, oh yeah, this has to be a long term arrangement. Cuz those city is going to do this much for you and pay money and set all this up just to do it for one year. Right. and I guess if you're the XL, you're like, we need the long term play on this to make sure we have everything sustainable before we go even further all in. Then we already are, even though this is still pretty all in, if we're being honest with ourselves. So I, I guess that's fine. But it's definitely gonna off like St. Louis fans. And I already know like Randy was like, ah, the, the, the teams are practicing in Dallas, so we're not gonna get as many fans because they're not doing all the local events. And it's like, yeah, we'll see about that. Well, like I said, and I wanna get Jared thought real quick before we go, you know? Like I said, the top of the show, I think before max and everyone else hopped on Russ, Brandon, I was, I asked him and I'll post the interview. I said, well, you know, what do you make of this and them not being in the local markets. He goes, how much are NFL players in the local markets during the season? Like you're, you're practicing all the time. Like we're not at the grocery store and Randy crack hour, you know, shopping for rice. Sarone here trying to like talk with the fans and incentivize them to come to your game. I mean, Jared, what do you think of, of the three or how like knowing whatever this looks like, flying the fans, all this stuff, we're going to be doing this for at least three years, Three Flying, flying the flying the, the teams, not the fans. That'd be cool if they flew the fans. Yeah. Hey, come, come to, come to Chucktown. Yeah. Three year hub for training I think is fantastic. I don't wanna do the hub setting like the USFL did. And yeah, I like that. It's a training facility and they can practice and develop their skills and that sort of thing. That's fine with me. I think they really liked that chalk to stadium. I think it all, it was basically was the high school football stadium after the renegades left and they probably had other events too, but like after the XFL left, I, they, you know, I don't think they've used that venue as much as they should have or whatever, but yeah, it's good for the facility. I think it's a beautiful facility myself, the way they converted it to football from baseball. So yeah, I like it. I think it's great that they, our training in a hub together in that sort of thing. Yeah. Oh one real quick note. Jose here says Santa Antonio hosting the final four for the album though. I wonder how they will schedule that. I always say that is a future read problem. Not worried about the 20, 24 final four schedule with the, I remember when I was, when we were booking our Airbnb to go to Houston for that championship game for the fall, man, I looked at every freaking Airbnb. I'm like, I'm gonna find the best Airbnb go. He to watch the Exel championship game. And then you know, next thing you know, the league is folded and we're all stuck at home for two years. One thing that, you know, max had made a lot of, you know, comments to me in private about practicing here, right? The best thing about Dallas, not only chalk to the hub and everything is they have all these high school facilities that they, you know, they can play at practice at, they announced today and I'm sure it's in the press release. I didn't have time to write it down during the thing, but each coach is gonna share a, a field with one other team. So they'll kind of be able to scrimmage together. So they're gonna use four of the fields, two coaches each, and then Russ said that they are gonna have obviously backups in place for whether related issues is that, cuz I know there was a question both for CTA and for the practices and stuff. So they're working through that, but they at least have four stadiums under contract and I'm sure that's in the, the pressure release that came out. Smart idea. Any thoughts on that, max? Does that work for you? Yeah, I, I heard from one of the other guys who was there that the indoor practice facility plans are supposedly gonna be at the Arlington high schools which is fine by me. Those facilities are great. Can I briefly just bemoan? I really am disappointed. They chose citrus bowl of exploring Orlando. That's all. That's all. Okay. There you go. Anything else Andy from me will go around the horn, keep leaving your comments. Anything else you wanna get off your chest and before we sign off today Yeah, actually real quick on the, on the Orlando venue. Yeah. So they, so not going to, I believe what was the name of it? Spectrum stadium the one that UCF used and that's the, what the Apollos use. So this is obviously a different venue from that. And it's a little bit bigger as far as expansion wise, as far as like putting more people into the seats. Obviously it's something that's used for college football games and other events. So it's something that I think I, again, I don't know about the accessibility part of it, that part I'm not sure about, but I would like to see what, what that means as far as getting people out into that stadium. But I think it's a fine enough venue. It's been renovated multiple times and has been put a lot of work into actually making it a commentable venue. So I think that's, that's fine. I'm I have no problem with that. It'll be interesting to see how, and also like, I wonder if Tampa bay fans, for example, cause I saw a couple of them on the stream last night and I don't know if they were too terribly upset about losing their team yesterday or not, but Tampa is about, it looked like about a two hour drive or an hour and 45 minutes away from Orlando. Like, do you get those fans transplanting into Orlando? Do you get, draw those people into there? Yes. I wonder about that. Yeah. You think so? Yes. Yeah. I'm I'm in Fort Myers, Florida right now. So yeah, it's only like a hundred miles away. I'm I'm gonna be four. I'm gonna be 160 miles away from Orlando camp be world stadium, I've searched, researched it. The monster jam world finals have been there just a few days ago was a huge soccer match between arsenal versus Chelsea CFC in the English premier league for their pre-season tour. So that, that was a full, that was a huge thing. So yeah, it's, it's a good venue from what I've heard. A lot of, you know, a lot of, a lot of big events are always there. So I think Tampa fans are gonna go over to Orlando away, much of a drive. Brian had put here the, the stadiums that they're playing at Northwest ISD stadium, south lake, Carol dragons dragon stadium and Brenda Newso. There was a question team nine was not talked about again though, that's something that I see them easily implementing that the SFL should have. Hey, we're already in the hub anyway, let's have this team practice ready to go. Yeah. A quick plug tonight, max, is that Neil Stratton zoom with Doug Whaley and that who else is on that? That's talking about the player contracts that, Oh, I was, I'm pretty sure it's just from my understanding, it was just Doug and Neil and then whoever else joins as a guest to like view it and ask questions. Yeah. So that'll be at five Pacific. So I'll probably be at a bar somewhere editing. So I maybe I'll pop up on that stuff. Any, I mean, I could go on all day. Do you guys we'll get outta here. I get addicted to this stuff. I just keep like quick plug. There will be a show on Friday. I have a great CFO guest, cuz I know we've had a lot of EXL stuff lately and then I do think we're gonna track down Mike Mitchell, get his thoughts on all this stuff. I don't know when that's gonna be, but I've told Mike and Mike's head was swimming and obviously yesterday was all sorts of craziness. But yeah, I do think Mike will be on the show Friday. We'll getting his thoughts on that. Jared, any final thoughts? We'll do max and then we'll let Andy take us home cuz I could literally keep going all day. Yeah. My big question is what are they doing for Las Vegas? I question it because I lived there for a few months or whatever, and I think they're just overflowing with so many sports teams nowadays formula one's coming to 2023 there they have a w B a team. Now I didn't even know that besides the NHL, they got like an IFL team and that sort of thing. I'm questioning the Las Vegas market and it could be at the Sam boy stadium and I've seen it. It looks like, or to the, to the east, it looks like quite a bit of ways. So hopefully people have rental cars or I don't know about taking the bus, the buses, you might have to be connecting to multiple buses to get to that destination. But I, I don't know. I don't know about the Raiders stadium. I mean, that's close by if you, if they do it, but that's gonna be like a MetLife part two, you know, if they do that. So Lean asked here about quarterbacks. We asked Bob stoops, I think Brandon asked Bob stoops about that during the Arizona showcase the league is kind of handling all that right now. He, it, it even seemed like with Bob stoops, we were asking him like, how is this compared to 2020? He's like, it's way too early. We've had five showcases a couple meetings, you know, to even compare. I think that the league is gonna handle a lot of that. I do know that they're working on scouting all of the players for all of the coaches together, cuz not all of the coaches have been able to be at all the showcases. Jim Hasard obviously wasn't at the Arizona one, neither was H ward. So I think we're doing that stuff. Max, any other thoughts for me James now? Here's do, do I post the whole press conference? Does anyone care? Do I just post a rock and Danny and Russ Brandon interviews, someone tell me I like it All. I'll watch it. Yeah, I'll watch it seriously. How about I lead with rock and Danny and then we do Russ, Brandon and then we'll do the press conference so you guys can see all that. I will go to the bar right now and I will, it's only noon, but I've been up for like, I am ready to drink. I have been up since like six o'clock yesterday morning. Max, any other thoughts from you before? And then we'll go there. We'll go to the Andy and then we'll get up. You already heard my thing on Allegion, so I'm not gonna say anymore on that, but you can replay early in the video to hear about that. Okay. other than that team nine might not be a thing just cuz of how big the rosters are. They said 70. So 70 player roster size, you might not need team nine with that many players. Plus you can just call guys from alumni academy as your defacto team nine, quote unquote. And then I will say that I definitely prefer citrus bowl to UCF because that's the spectrum stadiums on the opposite side of Orlando's not in downtown, but I wanted the MLS stadium. That's like three minutes away from camping world, but cam world's still a great facility and I'll take it and I'm I'm quite optimistic about everything even despite that one little disappointment Andy final thoughts and then we'll get me off here before I do the surrounding again. <Laugh> yeah. A again, just being able to put in their own work and getting their own players stamped on here, considering the previous contracts made with the SFL and all of the other leagues that are getting involved is it's a lot, lot of leg work and there's still one other thing coming up in October. There's a specialist, there's a special teams workout coming naturally here in my area that I might be attending with former charters, kicker, Nick NOK. So that's something that I have to keep on my radar as well. That's another little showcase thing happening later on in the year. So I I'll keep my eyes out on and years out for that. But yeah, everything's, I mean, all things, all systems are go, this is where we're going. Last thing I'll say again, know a broken record, but I wanna take Mike Mitchell's tweets and frame them because he was right about this three months ago, he was on, he was on this and he deserves credit for everything that he did in that. And all of us have done Reed. You've done a tremendous job. You and all the writers going to the auto showcase, traveling you're traveling just as much as the rock is. Okay. <laugh> like, honestly your schedule has also been insane. I, I commend you for everything you've done seriously. You're a warrior. It's awesome. And thank you for everything you've done so far. Thank you. Yeah. Leon says I didn't get a chance to ask about the box. Cause like I said, I was, I was the first one cuz they, I, I know how this works. I've worked in news for a long time. They go, Hey, there's going to be, they go, okay, we're done with the press conference. We do a media over in the corner. There's gonna be a red rope. And like, I like unplugged my thing from the box. I grabbed my camera and I was over there cuz it's like first come first serve. And then they all kind of stagger here behind, and it was kind of all on the line. So I have, I was front row. I mean I was, I, I could have, I could have touched the rocks nicer that he didn't want the microphone on. So I didn't get a chance to ask about the box, but I did ask that Mike Mitchell as the treasurer will be on the show. <Laugh> I think that's it. I thought I had one more I think I'll have one more combo, but I think that's it. Oh, the travel yeah, Andy, depending on let's figure out that date for the specialist showcase. Maybe we can you know, schedule a, a, a yard house visit and maybe we could go chat with Nick NOK about that. That could be fun. I know where the yard house is in my city. So we're already halfway there. All right. Well, I guys liken subscribe a lot of work. This was, you know, this has been a long day, been up since yesterday morning to come out here. Well, I can subscribe, check back in on Friday. I'll figure out with Mike, but I told Mike I'm like, we have to get you on this week. I don't care what time of the day it is. And I really appreciate all your guys' support and you know, check out Andy's work on UB and CFO, new sub new sub and max and Jared. I'm sure we'll keep sending me messages as they do. I appreciate all your guys' support that you care as much as you do. Everyone wave. I will play this and then we'll get out of here. Thank you guys all so much.

Episode 102 - The Markcast LIVE from the XFL Arizona Player Showcase!

Well, here we are. We are live with the markcast crew and the XFL news hub crew here at the Arizona XFL player showcase we're live down the street at the Tempe destination, mission Palm, something or other it is currently 106 degrees outside. So definitely a more peaceful time being in here right now. I have Brandon Brandon Anderson with me from Exel UB. We have Mount Lyons and Evan Willmore. We just spent the morning talking, interviewing bumping shoulders with the XFL president. Lots of things to talk about today. We'll pass around the mic. We'll get everyone introduced and then we'll kind of set the stage here. Brandon, why don't you go first? My name is Brandon Anderson. I am a correspondent on the XFL news hub covering the Las Vegas franchise that hopefully will, yeah, allegedly that will potentially hear about on Sunday. And that's me Matt Lyons. I am also part of the new sub crew and I will be covering the Seattle franchise. All right. I'm Evan Wilmore. I will be covering the the Houston franchise that will supposedly be coming to the university of Houston or at their stadium. Or so we think, you know, we will hear more on Sunday at the town hall about venues and cities and things of that sort. Yeah. So this is exciting your day. So just to set the stage we're here, this is our normal Friday show coming you a little later. Normally we're post at 7:00 AM live today. We know we have the big Dallas town hall coming on Sunday. I know Jay nos is going be there. Brandon is going to be there with EXL news hub covering all of that. We have the other Dallas announcement coming on Monday morning. We were talking with Hannah today, the media people with, with that. And so I like maniac will get on a flight Sunday night after my wedding, and I will be at the press conference on Monday. Are you flying back? Correct? Yeah, I'll be flying. I fly back home tonight and then I leave about 5:00 AM on Sunday morning in, into Dallas. And then leave right after the press conference. So, yeah. So we'll go that I will have, I think it's going to be Andrew Murray and I already have a planned live stream for 8:00 AM Pacific on Monday, kind of recap in the town hall. They're gonna have media availability with Dwayne, Danny, everything else. And so I'm gonna do the stream. I believe it's gonna be 9:00 AM Pacific. They're gonna let us go live meet from CHTA stadium and then Andrew will be virtual and we'll be taking your call. So today's episode right now. Thanks for watching. We have a lot of people hopping on and then make sure you check back on Monday. Obviously we're gonna have the big excitement of the weekend, so it's kind of like you know, pissy party today because we're excited to meet everyone. Obviously we talked with a lot of the head coaches, but things they wanna talk about things they can't wanna talk about. Evan, let's start with you. Biggest takeaway you had I have the list here of all the people we talked to. We talked to Reggie Barlow today, Rob Woodson, we shook hands and, and chatted with Russ, Brandon, Anthony Bero Buckley, Bob stoops. And then we talked with Russ, Julia as well. Who's one of the directors executives with the XFL. What was your big takeaways today having met everyone that we did? Yeah. I mean a lot of good info, you know, we learned some new things. Honestly it was just great to hear from everybody. Back then, Woodson in particular they had some great insight, you know, definitely passionate. Beck is a very sort of people oriented person, you know, very fired up to be a coach for the first time. And you know, Woodson just given his NFL career a lot of great insight. You know, you can tell he's for the players too. Yeah, all around, just, just a great time. You know, we got to talk to a lot of people and you know, again, just learning new information, it's always fun. Yeah. We have some new info we'll share with you. We got a couple of those exclusives today. I didn't know if we would get any sort of ti, but did get a lot backed. I think Lee, I don't know if he leads, but maybe said some things he should have said or shouldn't have said, but got that stuff coming up. Well, Matt, what, what were your takeaways and who were you most thrilled to, to chat with today? Well, first I second, everything Evan said, both of those guys were awesome to talk to. But besides that, it was really cool to just meet everybody in person, to be honest, cuz a lot of these guys, we have kind of only seen through the internet. So it was cool to like actually meet Russ, Brandon and, and chat with him for a little bit and, and all these other guys. I do think the highlight for me was chatting with, with probably rod Woodson. He just seemed so passionate about what he's doing with this league. And my immediate thought after we, we finished talking to him was man, I wanna, I wanna play for this guy. Brandon, what did you think? And I'll hold the mic here. What did you think? And take aways today. My overall takeaways was just the overall factor that getting to meet everyone and the availability, I think that was the biggest thing that we are not used to across other leagues or whatnot was just the access that was given and the willingness of the coaches that come over. I think my highlight was Bob stoops being a Dallas Renegade season ticket holder in 2020 he just seemed to be more focused on making sure that the game is what they're wanting to do in 2020 with bringing the game back or whatnot and focusing on creating teams that either advance up. I know Anthony Beck was talking about how he would love to have an entire team go to the NFL after the 20, 23 season and then rebuild from scratch again. So just, I think the overall process that they gave us access to really kind of shine a light on what exactly this league is focusing on. Yeah. I thought it was great. You know, Russ came over on his own volition basically to chat with us. Thank us for coming. I think this was a more interesting showcase, you know, I think the Hawaii one obviously had a lot of press, right? The H B C U one, obviously Dallas is going to be, this was a little quieter. It was us. We had the NBC station, we had one of the Arizona reporters. So I thought it was nice. I really didn't know like, is there gonna be, you know, 12, 15 people, like what are we gonna be doing, asking questions and kind of trying to figure out really felt like we got to know more of the guys. I thought Bob stoops was really cool. He was off at lunch. Just happened to come back cuz we basically, they did the morning defense session. We got to see the tail end of that. We did interviews in between and then they started the offensive session while we were there. So we got to see a lot of the players coming in, which was pretty exciting. I think when I posted videos online, you might be able to spot, you know, players walking by in the background. But luckily Bob stoops came back. I thought he was great. I never talked with Bob before. I mean, I, I'm not a big Oklahoma. I'm not a big college football guy, but he, he seemed very genuinely excited to come back as well. Matt, what did you think? And, and we, so we had the great chat with Anthony seems like he was, you know, coach Beck. He was bursting at the sea wanting to talk about stuff. Talk me, you know, for people that weren't there either, what was his interview and, and how excited he was to be able to talk about the city that he's the head coach of. Yeah. So I mean, I can't remember a lot of the questions off the top of my head. We asked him we were just firing him off, but just anything we asked him, he was like, you could tell, he was trying to hold stuff back. Like he wanted to say so bad what city he was going to be in. And he wanted to say so bad, so many other things, but he just couldn't. But you could tell like just how passionate he is about what he's doing and that he really wants to be here. We were all even talking about it almost seems like he really lobbied to be a part of this rather than them coming to him. And I mean, from the videos they've been showing over the last couple weeks, couple months now he's clearly taken like a, a vocal role in this league. And I, I, I think he's an awesome fit. Just chatting with him for a bit. Yeah. Richard Richard though Pharrell has a comment in the chat. Yeah. So we will, that's confirmed. I mean obviously the press releases have come out and everything, but even today handed the media lady, you know, cities, venues will all be announced on Sunday. We were kind of debating, you know, do they announce the coaches with all of that? I think they do. Right. I think we say we have the Dallas franchise, you know, coach by Bob stoops. You know, we have St. Louis by Anthony Beck, which yeah, he didn't wanna say it, but he's like, you know, that the city that I am a part of is going to be I'm I cannot wait to spend a lot of time there build a community. And then Monday there's going to be that secondary announcement. I wanna get Brandon's thoughts on this, like, you know, Monday then, do we find out the Dallas team name? Do we find out that the championship game hosted in Dallas? What do you think the big announcement is on Monday? I think the big announcement on Monday is gonna be basically that they are gonna announce their ticketing partnership with a believe it's EVP or something that runs chalk to stadium and the Texas ranger stadium as well. I think that partnership's gonna be there. And I do think that they are gonna announce at least the, the team name potentially. I don't think we're gonna get logos necessarily or anything like jerseys. But probably introducing Bob stoops officially to the, the Dallas franchise and essentially trying to potentially also bring in trying to think of the word I'm trying to say here. Trying to bring in that, that more Dallas field, I mean, obviously the Arlington mayor is gonna be there. So I think that's where that announcement is getting made of also that championship game, like you're saying cuz usually when they start bringing government officials in, it's normally to announce some kind of partnership with the city directly, I think the hub portion of the XFL where they're gonna practice and then fly their teams out to the games to be played or whatnot is gonna be the big part of that announcement. It's interesting. You know, I, I don't know, like we know the hub is in Dallas, right? We know that that's taking place there. They do have that like, is that the, is that a major enough? Cuz it's been, you know, they said it today. It's been said in the press release, you know, major announcement on Monday. I don't know Matt, do you think if they just, you know, we, we have Dwayne and Danny there they're gonna be available for media. We have, you know, everyone, all the coaches, all everyone's going to be there on Monday, even people that aren't available on Sunday night. So what do you, what do you make of the big Monday press release? Not, not just cause I'm going there. Cause I am curious. I am honestly, not entirely like, I, I couldn't, I, I hope that it's team names and stuff, but I really have no idea. Like thinking about what Sunday is, obviously that's, that's gonna be cities and venues. So if they're in Dallas and everybody's there, I wouldn't be surprised if they were like, all right, these are the coaches for the cities, but I don't think we would get much more than that. Like I don't even know if we get team names. I don't know if we get any of that. It would just be like this guy's going here. And then maybe the rest would come in an intro in introductory press conference in those cities or something like that. But I don't think we're gonna gonna be getting Everything on Monday. Yeah. James, how's it coming? So James, so Sunday night it is confusing and there was even questions, you know, is this, did they move the event? No Sunday, they are doing a showcase in Dallas, just like they did today. Player showcase following, they're doing a town hall style, the rock Danny are going to address season ticket holders and now they've opened it up to the public. Right. you know, Brandon's, we're getting media stuff through new hub for that. That is when they are going to announce where, what the cities are, the venues, the stadiums that those, all those teams are. So we'll know that confirmed. I mean we know, but we'll know the eight cities, right? Seattle Vegas, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Washington, DC, St. Louis and Orlando we'll know that that has been working, you know, based off of Mike Mitchell's reporting. Since April at least at the earliest Monday, there is another following announcement. I, I do think like if we have the whole band there, I would like to see them do these, not necessarily as big as a town hall, but to do these events in Seattle, in Vegas, in St. Louis. So I think this is the first one we're in Dallas. Everybody in the world is there. You're never gonna get everyone from the XFL back like that again, to be able to do media. It just makes too much sense. Evan, we didn't get your thoughts on the Monday announcement. What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't think we're gonna get everything either, but you know, all the coaches being there does show or, or signify that, you know, something might be coming in terms of assignments and you know, cities, but yeah, I mean, either way, it's gonna be really exciting. You know, I think we're gonna find out a lot and I really think the best part you know, it's gonna come outta this, which we talked about today at the showcase is, you know, once everything sort of becomes more public, you know, all the coaches and staff, et cetera, everybody's gonna be a bit more open to media, you know going back to Beck, you know, he was like super fired up, you know, he's probably gonna be a big media guy coming on shows and, and talking to people. And I think we're just gonna see a lot more of that because, you know, the XFL has been somewhat quiet in terms of announcements and you know, there's some things that you can't say yet because it's not it's not public. And you know, we, we found that out a bit today. But yeah, I mean, once all that comes out, I think, you know, there's a lot of people who are, are fired up and there's gonna be a lot of people who are more open and willing to speak after Monday's press conference, I guess there's town hall, I should say, <Laugh>, it does seem like there's this elephant in the room everyone's really ready to go. Like you said, you know, Anthony coach Beck, happy to come on your podcast, other people, you know, the second we can talk, happy to do it. What did you think of that? Circling back to just the accessibility we had today, the way that the coaches approach the interviews, everything else, you know, thoughts on being able to talk directly to them like we did. Yeah. I think directly, like you saying, is it, it felt that they were holding back so much information or trying not to leak something that was gonna get them in trouble. Obviously with the media coordinator that was standing by us, it sounded like she was kind of listening in just to make sure not to pull him away if something was said, but I think that they are ready to go up to Bob stoops. Bob stoops, I know he's been on college game day on Fox or whatnot here and there. But he seems like more approachable and more talkative than he was in the 2020 season. So I think this is just a different culture that Danny and Dwayne and Russ are putting together to kind of focus on giving us more access than other leagues are with their coaches and staff. Yeah. I know a lot's been made and I've talked with, you know, Mike Mitchell and stuff offline about you know, EXL learning from the us fellows mistakes. I've been very vocal about that, about, you know, not, not only not having showcases and tryouts, but you know, really not working with anyone outside of, I mean, they certainly went out of their way to kind of accommodate us coming in today. The one thing we learned via, and I know we had our private conversation where we heard about the showcase costs, but the, the, the coach Beck saying that he's on a three year contract, I thought was very interesting. Something that came out, you know, I, I would presume all the coaches, you know, would be on a three year contract, but at least Anthony Beck had said that out. Matt, you know, I know your eyes lit up as well when you kind of heard that thoughts that at least as far as we know, coach Beck from him three year contract with the XL. Well, they're obviously planning to be around for a little bit. No, I think that's great. That's obviously, or definitely the first time we've heard of, of contract length and I'm not sure if that just slipped out or he let that slip out, but that is definitely new information. Yeah, I mean, there's not a whole lot to it. It's just, they're definitely trying to stick around <laugh>. Well, it's interesting because you know, the ex us FFL two year head coach contracts, right. A lot's been made, you know, is Kirby Wilson, you know, he's sticking around, what's going on. I thought it was interesting. The XFL doing the three year plan, I have a feeling, you know, they have the five year ESPN so much has been made. Are, are they being paid? Are they not? What's the deal there? You know, I think this first two, three years is really a trial run for all of this right. Getting through and, and kind of trying to work towards that and then get the coaches through three years, get the TV deal. And then maybe we have opt in clauses in year five or four and five that we can maybe get paid some more for that Evan thoughts on three year contracts with the XFL to me that it just, it seems like it's more long term planning as far as I can tell. Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent, you know, you wanna lock your coaches up and, you know, make sure that they don't go anywhere. You know, some of them, in my opinion, just from talking to them today could easily, you know, be coaches in the NFL or at least coordinators, you know, position, group coaches, things like that. So I think it just to make sure you know, that they're not walking away, but, you know, it's interesting to me how, you know, this is a lot or for some of the co coaches, you know, this is their first time being the head guy, you know, being the, the leader of their team, you know, they've had coaching gigs in the past, but they were either again an assistant or coordinator or just for a specific position. So, you know, for some of this, some of these guys, it's a pretty big jump. But I think the XFL has done a good job of preparing them. And again, everybody seemed really confident, you know, talking to them again, it goes back to Beckton woods and, you know they're just ready to go. It seems like, and you know, they've done a hell of a job up to this point. You know, getting ready and, you know, all these showcases, I think are wearing everybody a bit down. You know, some people are a bit tired, you know, we're coming to the end of a, a very busy period for the XFL. But no, I mean, I, I think it's, I think it's great. And I, I think that, you know, those three year contracts show a lot of benefits and, you know, we'll see after year one, you know, what happens if some coaches wanna leave or, you know, if they get NFL interests, you know, just like the players will hopefully that was something that was touched upon a lot, was like, you know, sort of the, the feeder league, you know, the XFL and then like, you know how the NFL doesn't have a feeder league. We've, we've been over that a few times, but yeah, ultimately I think three year contracts are great. That's, I'll, I'll leave it at that. Yeah, a couple. So I see van in the chat. I, if you guys wanna call into the show, I pin the pin, the comment at the top of the chat. If you wanna call in van, you know, gimme a thumbs up. If you're ready, I can kind of see your preview. It looks like you're having a little bit of a connection issue. So just make sure you're set to go before I bring you on circling back to Woodson. I thought it was interesting, you know, I was asking them about, you know, obviously we have players assigned with the USFL here, how are you guys, you know, going about, you know, scouting, different players, right? You're trying to protect, you know, those players versus I thought it was interesting the way he phrased it, that, you know, the USFL is not looking out for the player. They're looking out for themselves, right. With the two year contracts. Obviously I get it and that's the way business works. But, you know, it seems like rod, you know, coach Woodson, you know, would like to think that the players would have the option, right? If you wanted to bounce back and forth, obviously the XFL, and we don't know how those contracts are gonna be structured yet, but he did. It seems like I brought that comment up early about the us fell. It seems like it stuck around in his head. Right. Talking about that. Did you have any thoughts about him in the USFL versus XL talent stuff? Yeah. I feel like his message was more that the XFL is willing to give an actual out per se, not like if to, to develop per se, like going to the USFL or M F B whatever, maybe around at that point in time. And he kind of key pointed on that with the USFL. He's like, if they're around past year or two or whatever, that the XFL is not looking to hold these players under a contract and let them kind of slowly go through the system to get to where they need to go like the NFL or whatever the talent has for them or whatever they're looking to do as talent. Yeah. It really did seem like, I think to circle back that the XFL even going back to the rock and Danny's comments on Jimmy Kimmel talking about, you know, working with the NFL alumni academy right. And, and cycling people through, it really does seem like the goal of the XFL is to get guys back to the NFL. That it's almost, I said, it's almost like, I think we were talking last night, Matt and I had dinner together that it's almost like survivor redemption island. Like, like you, if you get cut from the NFL, don't make the squad, you know, for whatever reason, go to the XFL, develop your skills, right. Work, and then kind of work your way back in a way that obviously the us L's goal as well is, is to get players signed that helps the visibility of the league. But, and believe me, I don't wanna be the anti SFL or pro XFL guy, but it just doesn't seem like I've, I've heard that much wording coming out from the USFL and the way that we did today with the coaches, right. Anthony Beck say it. If all my guys went to the NFL, I would be happy to rebuild. Matt, what did you think about that? You can definitely tell there's a difference in mind, a difference in mindset. It seemed like every coach we talked to was just genuinely excited to like, have the opportunity to help develop some of these players and give, give them another opportunity. And I know they've been talking about that in their videos and stuff that they've been putting out, but like, those almost seem just like, I don't wanna say scripted cuz I'm sure they're actually looking for that stuff, but they just seem, so cookie cutter, this, you could tell there is like just, just talking to them face to face. You could feel the genuine, like interest in helping these players progress. Additionally Woodson actually, before we get too far past that Woodson actually touched on international players a little bit and like scouting international players. He did mention that that might not be a thing they they're able to do super early on just because of like legal stuff and work visas and all that. But he said it is definitely something they are like looking to do in, in the coming years. And then we, they, they even had a, a New Zealand guy there at the showcase today who like took a picture with a bunch of people with a New Zealand flag. So they're definitely looking out for that stuff too. It felt to me in a way. And you know, I, the most, probably the most thing I am with the us L is the Kirby Wilson riding just how horrendous that whole thing went. But it seems like a lot of these coaches backed Woodson, you know, you're getting these coaches now. They are finally in positions, you know, of power able to work through it. And they know what it felt like. I, I think it was rod Woodson that said like, you know, I know what it feels like you talk about the 54th man. They're like, I was always the one that was trying to get into the position to, you know, to be the coach. I think it was him you know, and, and we feel what those players feel. Right. And so we also want to make sure that we're giving them these opportunities. Like it feels like the whole organization is very hungry, right. From coaching staff onward. Evan, you had a lot of questions, coaching staff in terms of you past experience and getting to these positions now. Thoughts about that? Yeah, I mean, just touching on the, the scouting bit for a minute, cuz you know, Woodson was talking about that. You know, we had a great conversation with with Russ, the, the director of scouting for the XFL big shout out to him, of course previously the director of player personnel with the AAF you know, they're doing a hell of a job again, looking at players and you know, the USFL didn't have these kind of showcases. And I think that's a point really worth touching on is that, you know, again I think the USFL did a pretty good job evaluating talent. You know, they looked around, but as, as Matt said, it might have been a bit cookie cutter, but this is a lot of hands on stuff. You know, it takes a lot of time and effort and money to set up these showcases. You know, many coaches and executives alike told us that, but you know, they're doing a great job. Just getting these players there and getting that sort of hands on work, you know, all these players are right in front of their eyes and they can see, you know, who is really gonna be the best, you know, not just, I mean, obviously you can tell like off of tape, you know, who's gonna be good, but I feel like in person, a lot of stuff is just so much easier, you know, to communicate and just to talk to guys you know, reach out and, and possibly, you know, be in the draft pool. So yeah, I mean, they're doing a great job with all these events, you know, it's not easy, but yeah. I mean, I think this is really the future of football, this kind of scouting and and player evaluation. I just wanted to touch on that before. Again, we kind of jumped into anything else too, too deep. A couple questions here in the chat I'm going to address. I will say too as well. I, I, Doug all this extra audio equipment all the way down to Arizona via brand provided headphones. So if we don't have any callers, like we gonna be really upset. So you better call into the show. If you have a question, if you have something you wanna say, I see the chat is very alive. So if you have a please call in, you know, I'd love to talk with Richard. I know van was trying to call in his, his connection. Wasn't stable enough. We had a question is Jim Haslet and Arizona. Jim Haslet was not here. I think Randy Mueller is going to be representing him on Sunday. I've been told I think Mike had tweeted on or though Randy was responding to a tweet about it that said that Jim had a prior commitment. So he was not here. Wade Phillips was here today, right? We did not talk with Wade. Stoops was here, Terrell Buckley, everyone else. I think that you, Hines ward was not here. So those are, those are the ones. We had a couple other comments player interviews. We, the showcase wasn't really set up to interview players. The executives were made Doug Whaley was there or Mark Ross was there. Obviously we talked with Russ Brandon off camera for a while. The players are really coming in, like, this is their shot of a lifetime. Like I don't think that they want to set up and, and saying, well, here go do these media interviews or whatever. Like, and also it is, it's hard when, if they've got 600 people there, if 12 get signed to teams, like it's really hard to pin down, like who are the people we wanna talk to? What are we trying to do? So we saw a lot of the players. We had a question about quarterback play. Matt, I wanted you to tell your story as related to how good the quarterback play is that we saw to that. So this wasn't like a deep evaluation or anything <laugh> by any means. But when Anthony Beck was talking to us, like we were really into this conversation with Beck too, out of the corner of my eye, I have no idea who it was. But on the other side of, of the field, somebody had has a rocket of an arm that just launched this football. And I was like, holy crap, that, what were we talking about, Anthony? But like, oh my God. Yeah. So they have some people who can throw the football. I, I, I don't know who it was. He was across the field, but somebody's got an arm for sure. <Laugh> Yeah, it's the thing is it's not really set up for, you know, we kind of saw the last half of the defensive thing. We did see Matt and I, it was interesting. There was a special special teams of a kicker was, you know combining, showing off whatever, which I thought was interesting, cuz obviously we have the, the Nick Novi, right? What is that October? I think the specialist showcase he was doing what we figured was kickoff you know, kickoff and trying to hit the thing, but it looked to me like it was an NFL style kickoff that it didn't seem like it was had the exit fell and had it further back and the running start and all that stuff. Don't take it for what it is, but it did seem like he was specializing more in a traditional NFL style kickoff. Any thoughts on that? I wanna get Brandon's thoughts. Yeah, it was kind of tough to tell if, if like what kind of structure they were doing for the kickoff, because it more seemed, they were just seeing if the kicker could place in certain areas. And on top of that, certain areas of the field were marked off for other drills. So it could have just been, we only had this much space to get everyone in here. But it was, I think they were kicking from like the other 40 or something like that. But he wasn't kicking to anyone. He was just being to like zones Indian cones and stuff like that. Hopefully our connection is, were at wonderful paying all this money to be able to. I hope that I hope that that connection's still enough, Amanda. I didn't see 2020 alumni. I kinda looked at, we were position interviewing coaches where we were really able to see everyone's face kind of as they came in from the F I didn't see Evan. You said you saw a couple people and they were tweeting you back that you saw there. Yeah, I only know of maybe the only guy I can think off the top of my head is John Santiago who was the kick return yardage leader, I believe for the XFL in 2020 with the Seattle dragons. He's the only guy that I know was there from the previous edition of the XFL, but yeah, we weren't again, we weren't really looking at players too much, you know, it was more coaches and executives because the players were on the other side of the field and, you know, we saw 'em walk in and stuff, but there were so many guys that it was kind of hard to pick, you know, once outta the crop. So yeah, that was that. I, yeah, I saw the connection with, and I did drop down the, so we're just streaming at standard. Now we were doing seven 20, so hopefully that'll clear it up. Brandon thoughts about hopping back into this conversation here? So I think like when we're looking at like the kickoffs and things and what we saw it was interesting to kind of get that perspective of if they are doing regular kickoffs and dropping the XFL 2020. I know we plan to ask Russ Brandon them, if we got the interview 'em questions, I was gonna ask about the rules and stuff of what maybe they could give. But it it's, it's going to be interesting to see if maybe this partnership with the NFL PA and what they're doing for the actual, like rules that evaluation of rules that the NFL could use. If they're kind of going back to like square one on rules and not taking from 2020 barely anything, they had The most alarming thing that was, I mean, it feels like it's been at least six months ago now and that Jim Manos had the podcast where he he's one of the exacts and he was talking about like, ah, you know, we, like, we were thinking like, do we get rid of kickers? Do we not do that? Do that. I mean, it doesn't feel like anyone with XL 2000, three is super married to any rules one way or another. I don't really know what you do to stand out then if you don't keep a lot of those rules, I know that that was people's feedback with the FL among many. But if someone had detraction, it was like, well, the rules aren't different enough. I like the XFL cuz they were different rules. Matt, what do you think of XL 20, 23 abandoning or kind of moving away from a lot of the things that people really enjoyed? Well, I, I agree with you in that it does not seem like they are married to any of the rules or any, anything that happened in 2020. But I'm sorry, what was your question Just about, you know, them not being married to all these rules right now, we're working with the NFL alumni academy, you know, maybe we wanna have our game of play more closely near, right. The NFL to be able to move guys back. Like, and not that these are like game break rules, like going for three or doing whatever, but we want our game to look as much as the NFL just so that players can transition back and forth. Yeah. Well it, it, it would kind of make sense too, if their goal is to get these players to the NFL rather than just be their own sustained Le I mean, they're gonna do both, but hopefully, but yeah, it would make sense too, since they have the partnership with the NFL to be like their testing ground for new stuff. Because if your rules are similar to the NFL, then you just let's say the NFL wants to tweak new kickoff rule or test whatever they, they can do that in there. So who knows, maybe these rules will be changing slightly every year just because of what the NFL's partnership with them is. I don't know if I would necessarily like that. I would definitely like consistency, but you know, what, if they're, if they're coming to be like a testing grounds for the NFL, I would have to imagine that the game will probably be more in line with the NFL game. I just, and, and we talked about this last night, Matt, and I wanna get Evan thoughts onto this. Well that even when the rock was on Jimmy Kimmel, the, the leading point he had, and it was like Kerry Washington was hosting, which I was, I guess Jimmy is just, is he off for the summer? I thought that was weird, but saying, yo, the, the number one selling point, she's like, okay, what is the XFL? Like what, what is this for people goes well. And like I said, you, if you're not good enough for the ex NFL, you go here and you try to get back. And I just worry if, if the XL doesn't try to stand enough on its own legs, does that hinder it? I know max is a, is a proponent of it. You know, we were texting back and forth. Like, you know, it's like last chance you it's, these guys are playing for another, I mean, Evan, what do you think? And I wanna get brand. So it's like where if the XFL isn't existing as its own, it's only as, as, as a place as that developmental league for the NFL, You know, I would like to see a bit of both personally you know, there was some chatter about, you know I, I forget which coach it was, but he said like, oh, like if I send my entire team to the NFL, you know, it'll be fine. And then we'll just get a new squad next year and try and do the same thing. You know, I don't directly disagree with that. Because again, a lot of guys dream dream is to go to the NFL. You know, but at the same time it would be kind of nice to have some player longevity, I guess, would be the term where you have guys that stick around in the league for, for multiple seasons. And yeah, I mean, you know, maybe you go try out for the NFL or something, but at the same time, like I think people can really make careers long careers in this league, as long as it's sustained. I mean, you see it happen in the CFO where guys go up there and, you know, they end up playing there for, you know, 10 seasons and they're very productive and, you know, maybe they don't get the same recognition, but I feel like because this is in the United States and it's becoming more publicized, you've got the partnership with ESPN, all this stuff, all this buzz, you know, again, all the showcases all this stuff that's going on. You know, I feel like regardless of what happens in terms of, you know, players coming and leaving this will still be a good product. And again, I I'm always someone for longevity, but you know, if people really want to get to the NFL and if this, you know, has the reputation of becoming that feeder league that, you know, that term keeps being brought up. If that either way, you know, whether it's sustained on its own or whether it's, you know, it does become that feeder league. I think either way it's a, it's a win-win situation because guys are getting an opportunity and, you know, that's what we talked about many times and the coaches said it too, you know, this is all about opportunity. And just giving guys a chance to get looked at whether they stick around or not, you know, multiple factors play into that. But you know, I think this league given the professionalism around it at least from all the executives that we talked to will be around for a while. We have a question here from James coming up. I wanna get Brandon's thoughts on, you know, XL standing on it, so, and two feet. So my thing with it is, is if they don't have most of the rules from 2020 or have innovative rules essentially going forward, I think that could negatively affect them. I think in 2020, I know when I was working full time during the season and talking to coworkers about the XFL, that was the, the main topic that anyone would talk about, these innovative rules and stuff like that, where being a baseball fan and growing up in a triple a league city triple a and independent baseball is known for going role changes to essentially help out MLB. We see that with the league, that's in my town now with a, they go to extra innings, they basically do a home run Derby MLB, took that and put that in the all star game this past year, if they, or this year, if they had went to extremities, I think that's where the NFL and XFL kind of have to be careful because if you do have that same product from NFL to that, it's, it is gonna be a minor league. And it may just be a water down league compared to something that stands out where if the USFL starts to do these innovative things like the overtime rules, if the XFL doesn't reap those it could make the, the USFL product more viewable to people looking for that alternative. Yeah, I did, to me, the, the USFL didn't swing enough in that way. I mean, I know they had the changes they could do and, you know, we could go for three, we saw like once or twice, but I think it was a Lev Adam Levitan that was on the show months ago from established the run where he said, you know, I, I wanted them to do more. It felt, you know, like he said, try extra trial this heavy. He's like, it just felt like the NFL, but not as good. And I don't want that to be the exit fell in February. Right. What's the NFL just not as good. Matt being there today, kind of, it felt a vibe, you know, I know we don't like the uniforms or the, the logo and all that, but you know, the black and white, I mean, it felt really well polished, but together, what did you make of the, of the showcase today while we were there? Yeah, I mean, everything was put together really professionally. It definitely seems like a lot of the guys are ready to be done with the showcases. Like they they, a lot of the, the people setting them up are ready to be done with the showcases. They're enjoying the like player evaluation part, but just everything else around it, you can tell, starting to wear on them a bit. And they are not looking forward to the heat in Dallas. But no today's showcase like overall it, it was great. It, it, it like everything was done really professionally. All the people we talked to were great. Wish we could have chatted with a couple more people, but I feel like that's always gonna be the case. Yeah. Yeah. Just overall, really good time. James had a comment here about announcers, you know, who who's gonna be calling the games. I am curious about that. Right. Obviously we know that Brock, he will not be back with the USFL next year that Brock's tied up with Fox and all that. I, I, who are the main, I guess you've bringing people from ESPN, right. When they finally go to announce that mean, what are your guys' thoughts on that? Yeah. I'm not sure who is the, the team for ESPN now? I Feel like Lev's off Team just jumped around this last off season, so I'm not sure. Do you know? Yeah. I'm not sure either. I, I, I will tell you, I do not want Steve levy calling to I, he is probably the last, the most annoying broadcaster. I, I know. Yeah. I, I don't know who they're gonna have. I'll have to do a little looking into who, who is currently on ESPN's or roster. James has another question. These are all different. So each, each showcase all had the different crop of players, right? The Hawaii one that much bemoaned online of, oh my God, the XFL is spending all this money to go to Hawaii. That was because there was a lot of people local to Hawaii. And then the islands, E even the west coast, you could fly out to go do that. And The coaches actually mentioned, they were pleasantly surprised by the amount of talent they, they found in Hawaii. Yeah. That was interesting. Cuz we were talking about levels of talent, right? Obviously the Arizona one is kind of the pseudo west coast one. I, I, I am surprised they didn't just do one in LA just because they have so many people just hanging around there. But yeah. I guess expand on that and, and the talent in Hawaii that they were happy with. I don't remember who was talking about it, but somebody was basically just saying how they, they, the, the, the point they're at they're really struggling to. And honestly all of these leagues are at including the NFL are really struggling to find offensive and defensive linemen. And they seemed, it seemed like they were pretty happy with the ones they found in Hawaii. I don't think we got too many details on, on that, but they, they did. They just seemed pretty ecstatic about what, what they found out there. Yeah. I think that all of the showcases kind of had a different point, right? Obviously the Dallas one tied in they're gonna do all the announcements and all that stuff. The H B, C U one, you know, obviously get what's going ESPN lets have Deon Sanders. The Arizona one I think was more like you said, just to get the west coast thoughts on now that we we're five of six, but we're almost done with the showcases them doing that. The cities they chose them deciding to do it. And also everyone that we asked today said like, no, this was the right decision decision to do the showcases. Like even though the USFL didn't. So I feel like with the locations they picked, I think were pretty spread out. And what I did like about it is the fact that they didn't do the same cities that the teams are in. I know 20, 20 rendition or 2.0 XFL was doing their showcases or whatever. They called them back then in the cities that they were gonna be playing in. And I think that kind of, it brings a different dimension to college players being able to like H B or H B, C U Jackson state or whatnot, and then Maryland. It just gives a different level of talent that maybe if you had them in the eight cities that the teams are doing, which granted that would leak the entire process anyway. So that wouldn't make sense for at least what they're trying to do. But I, I just feel, it, it, it brought in the door on players going to it and upon talking to other player or players that got selected for the draft on my YouTube channel, they were talking about how players were basically like going on, like they were buying collectibles and trying to hit the buy button to get accepted into the showcases. And I feel that was the fact that some of those were selling out in seconds and they were filling these upper left and right. And then I think someone said today, they had a wait list of over, is it 1200? Yeah. 1200 players that were waiting to still get in that they may potentially bring people in, in more people in Dallas or down the road. It's interesting. And I, I do find it interesting that we know that Dwayne Johnson said that this is gonna be a yearly thing. So it is gonna be interesting to see if they continue just switching up where they go or if we'll move back to the actual home of each team going forward. And it's interesting cuz yeah, obviously they have the plan in place. Do the showcases get the cities out? Like you said, if they had done them in the cities, it's totally spoiling that. Right. And I think this was a different purpose. I mean, even Mike Mitchell had said they, that showcases in 2020 was very much more a PR event. Let's get to the city, we're gonna have the coaches talk. We're gonna let fans in. You know, I kind of bemoaned that they didn't have fans for these now I kind of get it, I think with the SFL, with fan control football, obviously with the CFL I think we're just really having to work harder to find the right talent, right? Like I don't think we get a Ben Holmes taken at number three by either league next year because like the magnify glass is so high right on. We really need these guys all to be good. They're all hungry. Like you said, they've all sat there online trying to get in because they want to be a part of this showcase. Talk about that. And then we have a couple questions here in the chat, but just that, that, that the, the level of talent they're gonna find, it's like refining the diamond and I think it's going to go be good for SFL too. I mean, this isn't just like a rah XFL thing, but I think with all these leagues competition only breeds, you know, better, you know, better rates, you know, taking care of the players, paying more for the lodging, all this stuff, you know, wrestling the best time the WWE wrestlers ever had was when they were competed against w C w and they had to go one for one matching contracts. A E w is trying to do that now. But I mean, this isn't like an anti us develop thing that then all having to do this, I think helps everybody out. What are your thoughts, Matt? Yeah. And I think part of it also just has to do with it's like when you have to look that much harder for these guys, you don't want as many distractions and then, and having a ton of people, like just random fans at these things would definitely create distractions for everybody involved. I was definitely more on board with like earlier on, before the showcases with like, why aren't these open to the public? Because I, I very much was on board with what they did in 2020 and they haven't done a whole lot of like reaching out to fans at the moment. So I was like, when's that gonna start? And, and I thought this was, these were perfect opportunity for that, but now having gone there and watching them work and stuff, it really is just like a, Hey, we're here to grind, get things done, figure out what we want to, who we wanna see and then get out. Cuz it really does seem like as soon as they get to through whatever Sunday and Monday brings, it's just gonna be floodgate are open and we are full go from there. Evan thoughts on that? Yeah. well, you know, talking about talent you know, we brought it up at the showcase you know, sort of XFL versus SFL, you know, finding guys to play and play at a high level. You know, from the showcase, we kind of figured you know, there's enough talent to go around. You know, there's a lot of football players out there. A lot of guys that played at different levels in college, maybe they didn't even play college at all. You know Matt touched on international players. But you know, again, going back to the showcases, like when we were talking with Russ, you know, they said again, pleasantly surprised in Hawaii with the talent level and then the H B C U one as well. To me, those two showcases in particular are what I think really stands out about this sort of showcase series at least this year. Because most other leagues or, you know, most other people who are working in an organization like that, I don't think would, you know, think about going to Hawaii or an H B C U, just because those are smaller markets and it's harder to get to Honolulu or to Jackson, Mississippi. But the XFL went there and they were very successful doing so you know, there's a lot of guys in those areas that I think don't get enough recognition and again, I'm really glad they just went down there to go take a look because I, I think there's gonna be a lot of surprisingly good players in the XFL in 2023. Just not, I mean, given the current draft pool. Yes. But also just from, you know, guys that I know and, and guys that I think, you know, might not make it through this training camp in the NFL. I, I just think there's gonna be a lot to go around for the XFL and the USFL, both. I mean, I, I praised the XFL for doing this series of showcases, but the SFL will have their fair crop of talent too. And we saw it, you know, on display during this season, but all in all yeah. Plenty of players to go around. I would not worry about that. It's being, I, I surely be putting these comments on the whole time I'm sitting here reading them off and I was, I've been lazy about putting the comments on, sorry, I'm outta practice. It's been, I don't know. The last time we did the live show out there in Birmingham, James had a question. We were talking with executives and coaches. Did they directly mention other leagues? It was more indirect. Seems like the USFL is afraid to mention other spring football. No, we did. We talked with Rob woods. I specifically asked, I said, considering the USFL has completed the season and by the way, I'm gonna post I'll put together the videos, I think, try to on the plane tonight and upload 'em on the YouTube channel tomorrow. If you guys wanna see, we got anywhere from like four to eight minutes with a lot of the coaches. So it is probably, you know, 40 minutes worth. If you guys wanna check it out, I'll, I'll upload that in the morning before my wedding, but no RO I said coach Woodson, you know, obviously us L has completed the season. They've had players side to two years. Like, how are you gonna compete with that? And like you said, it was a lot of they're gonna try to offer more, right. In terms of, you know, housing salaries, there was a comment in the chat about how much people are being paid. How do you think Matt, that, do you think that the XFL I think rod also said, you know, because of the rock, because of the name, because of the time of year, what advantages do you think the XFL has versus the USFL in terms of like getting new players now? Okay. Obviously we've lost the ones to the USFL for at least this cycle, but what do you think about the, the two league competing in that way? Well, I think whoever offers the most in the end is gonna get the best players. And that doesn't necessarily mean money. Woodson touched on that. He they're they're, I don't know if he said they're gonna try or they will have player like players housing will be paid for during the season. And I don't remember if he touched on, on meals and stuff too, but just basically accommodating whatever you can for the players is really gonna put them ahead. Especially since the USFL a as we've kind of all seen. And as was pointed out again today, by some of these coaches, they really are looking out for the league rather than the players. Whereas it does seem like the XFL really would rather put the players first. And I'd imagine part of that is because at least half of your coaches are former players. So they've, they've been through that and maybe not, I mean, half of 'em are hall Famers basically, but they they've been on the field and they've been like with people who have been through the same thing that maybe just needed a little bit of extra push and didn't quite get it. And I think it's a refreshing thing to see people that have that experience trying to pass it on. This is exciting. So we have, we have a special call van. I know you've been trying to get in, but I think you're gonna ask a question that I don't have the answer to. If you have another question, I've been texting van, but we have a call in by God. And then he's just phoning, cuz I know he's on the Rob by God. That's Mike Mitchell's music. Mike Mitchell coming to the ring. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing well. I hope you guys can hear me. We can. How's it going, sir? Oh. Of course Mike, just the second mic. I was like, do I hit something? Mike drives up. We'll get Mike back on. We got him for a second there. That was exciting. Max, we're talking in the chat player salary, things like that, wind bonuses and all that stuff. Van, if you have another question besides the football player, like I'll bring van on brand longtime listener. I hung out with van van was behind the camera and laptop in Birmingham van time and he showcase on Sunday. How are you van? Oh, just have a great time. Sorry about that. I work at CTAC airport and 5g zone. So I've so I a quiet. So maybe just speak a little bit. Can you guys question for the panel? Yeah, I, I, I'm glad that you guys talked about, you know, the offensive lineman, defensive lineman shortage. I saw a lot of recruiting for major league football, specifically asking for those positions. I also saw notes amongst some other leagues, including the CFO ML, F B U SFL about secondary defenders also being a shortage out there. Was there a strong presence of quarterbacks and safeties out there today? So we came in probably the last half hour of the defensive session. A lot of guys wrapping up. I mean, any takeaways on that? I don't know if that were the best people to answer the question for that. Just with how, with how their jerseys are and everything. It was kind of tough to tell who was what position, but by if you, if you had to judge it based on people's builds, I would say there was a lot of defensive backs out there. There was A, there was a couple of guys coming in for the offensive session network, like giants. Yeah. I mean I was, and I'm six, three, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm looking up at these guys. Let's bring in, add to the party. We have Mike Mitchell back in via voice Mike Mitchell. How are you? No, we'll get Mike, Mike Mitchell. How are you, sir? Well, Mike's not Fu with up right now. James. No, we saw so we could see all the players and I posted I think I'll post a photo after I know Brandon took some video. I'm sure you'll put on your YouTube channel. We could kind of see everyone going, but we're basically interviewing the coaches and they're all behind us. So when you watch a lot of the video, you'll see people that way, Brandon, any thoughts on that? And then we'll see if van has another question before we kick him out. I trying to think, what was the question again? Sorry. Just thoughts about them recruiting other types of players. We, a lot of big guys on the offensive session, a lot of, lot of talent out there, tons of guys to look through, what were your thoughts? Yeah, I think that, I mean, this showcase, at least for my view of being in person compared to seen photos throughout the, or the previous showcases is there is a lot of players there for both sides. I know when the offensive came through or was doing running drills past us, I'm like the depth of the amount of people and the size of them. I think both massive players. And then there were some smaller guys that were massive in size who knows what positions they were playing or whatnot. But I, I felt like they got a very good amount of different talent that they are bringing on or at least in this showcase they did. And it sounded like the coaches that we interviewed kind of were agreeing with that, that they have seen quite a bit, at least in the defensive morning. Part of it is that's the only one they saw this morning. They got quite a bit of talent in Arizona today. So I'll let meet you any other questions from you? We're getting some road noise, any other questions and we'll kick you off. How are you Question? I was in the case of FCF, you guys identify any of the FC there? No, I like, and I'm literally staring at every person that's coming in. It was really hard. I'm, I'm like the terrible guy with that. I'm sure people were probably like greets and idiot, whatever. I mean, Evan, if anyone would've known most of the players there and it was still hard to kind of pick him out from a crowd. The only guy that I knew from the FCF was Marcus Carine, who I think was with the beasts. I'm not quite sure. I, I think he was there, but again, there was a lot of players and that's it, it was so hard just to kind of identify guys. I mean, there was guys there that I have probably talked to several times that I just either didn't recognize or didn't see, because we were over on the sideline with the executives and the coaches and you know, there just, there wasn't a lot of time to see the players, like nobody really came up to me or, or interacted or anything. You know, I consider myself you know, pretty good friends with some players, you know, that's kind of my thing, player knowledge. But yeah, I'm sure there were probably a few more FCF guys there. It was just kind of hard though, to, you know, again, figure out who was what, because we didn't have any rosters. I think that was the most difficult thing, you know, there was just, again, it was, it was hard to tell Van, thank you so much for your time. I hope you drive safe and thanks for calling them. I wanted to talk about that. We had a question, you know, a lot of people have been asking like, well, why aren't they making the roster list public? Right. Like we wanna know. And obviously people are asking who is there, who'd you guys see? And I thought it was interesting in our conversations that was brought up that, you know, the XFL this year has to worry about. FCF has to worry about obviously USFL, right? LF B and their big Sunday Jamboree that I guess is going opposite the XFL town hall in Dallas. But so they're not gonna publicize those lists because those are people that they've for the most part, specifically invited out and brought in now, obviously they can't control people post on social media, right? Like, okay, this person's part of the draft that person's part of the draft, but basically you're giving your homework away to these other leagues when you're showing that. Were you surprised at that Brandon? Cuz I, I that's one of those things like you think about, and then you're like, oh yeah, I'm an idiot. Like I didn't even think about that before. Yeah. That's something I didn't like comprehend is that competition level of like, Hey releasing stuff because I'm one of those people that have sat here and I've got questions from fans of the league that follow my YouTube channel or my Twitter account that ask like, where's the list, where's the list. And you don't think about that type of stuff that, Hey, if you publish a list FL or any other league out there is gonna be like, oh Hmm, we've got this right here. Let's go take still from it and pick those players up. So I, I feel that that's a great decision now that it's kind of been approached to us. I think that was that Russ that told us about that. And it, it makes sense when you sit back and think about it in a business perspective compared to a fan, I think the fan in all of us want to know who is gonna be in the XFL in 2023, but in a business perspective, I don't think a lot of people understand what it really takes to run a football league and what it takes to not let other competitors take your talent. Well, and I think it's just hard. I mean, we were talking with Hannah, you know, kind of just waiting for player, you know, the executives to come over. And I think that all football fan base is very weird, right? It's, it's very hardcore. We want a lot of information. We want it now, you know, and obviously I'm sure if I was part of any sort of diehard, you know, Marvel fan base, DC fan base, you you're going to get that where people want that. You know, it's been frustrating. I don't know if they, if they took too long, I think would they have been better off the exit, fell doing kind of a bubble last year just to exist and then do it this year. We had a comment earlier that said that you know, they, they lost interest in the XFL because they took too long. Matt, what do you think about that? And then we have another caller Russ we're gonna bring in here, but thoughts Matt on that? No seeing is how they've gone about things. I don't really think they've, they've taken too long. I, I think that things are right on track for where they should be, to be honest pulling off a, a season last year, would've been such a headache on top of trying to plan what the, what the actual plan is. Because if, if you did a season last year, it would've had to have been a hub. Like I have, I just don't know how you could have pulled it off, especially with the CFO talks and everything. Like, there's just no way you could have rushed doing what they're doing right now. But yeah, I, I think, I think they're right on track with where they should be. I'm excited. I think max is gonna call in here a minute to max. I'm gonna go to Russ first. Max is never called it. Max's for Olympic list. Everybody knows max, but let's get Russ on here first. Let's hide that comment, Russ. How are you doing? I am doing good. And I just wanted to say first off, I thank you gentlemen, for being down there and putting in the work to do this, to give us the report today, because I mean, you know, as you can tell you know, you were swarmed by NBC, ABC, CBS, et cetera, trying to, trying to get your spots and you, you got there, but no, it, it is, is terrific that you're doing this and that we can get a report lied from the field as it were. That is, that is amazing. So I just wanna say, thanks first off for everyone there doing that. The thing that I would like to just mention and one or two of your panel mentioned it earlier, but I just kind of wanted to drive it home a little bit is the notion of, of people becoming kind of stars in their own, right within the league. Someone mentioned the CFO that there are people in the CFO who, you know, been there 10 years and they, they built a big career you know, until I started watching the the IFL and the national arena league and these other ones, these, these indoor leagues that I never paid attention to, frankly, I didn't realize there are people there who were considered legends there. You know, they they've done 10 years, 15 years and they have just done, you know, a bang up job within that tier, that strata of playing football. And so I think that once the XFL catches and and things really start getting going, you're going to have stars year after year, who are XFL good, the running back, who's just, you know, two inches too short for the NFL, the the defensive back, who's just, you know, a fraction of a second too too slow to, to do the NFL, but they can, they can do it in the XFL. They can do you know, with the, the people that they're playing against. I think we're gonna see that sort of thing happen year after year. I think this is gonna be a fantastic opportunity for these for these guys to come out and just show their stuff. And, you know, cause not everyone has to be an NFL man will wanna go to the NFL, but not everyone has to be an NFL player at the end of the day. No, Russ, I appreciate that. And I also just, yeah, so everyone here, you know, taking the time to come out and like that is my thing right now really emphasizing at home with a lot of these XFL people, you know, the media people USFL, everything, you know, we are all spending, you know, money out of our pocket. Evan flew in this morning, you know, Matt is renting the car to drive us around town plus flying in Brandon, flying in and then flying home and back to Dallas again. Right. you know, I flying home tonight doing my weddings Saturday, Sunday, and then catching an overnight flight to go back to Dallas on Monday, I was talking, I was telling Russ, Brandon that he was like, oh wow. You know, gave me a fist bump. I said, I just, I want you guys to know that this is, you know, people really do care about that. And this is that, you know, we're going out of our way because we care. This is something we're passionate about. And I just never want that to be forgotten when we're you know, celebrating CBS sports for keeping a track of the SFL players that are going back and forth. But yeah, you know, we're not recognizing that Brandon thoughts on anything Russ has had to say players, you know, making a livelihood in one of these alt leagues and not worrying about the NFL. Yeah. I think that one thing he kind of made apparent was that they are trying to develop something where these players can. For instance, I think he was saying, I think he was the one that was saying about the mills and hotel, or maybe it was Anthony was saying that about, they are really trying to cater to the player to keep them there or to pass them on to the NFL or wherever they wanted to go. But I think that's where you get these other leagues that are just trying to keep these players there. Maybe not about money, but more about competition. We've gotta have all our talent. It's kind of like in pro wrestling with WWE, we've gotta take all this talent and hoard it. And we're now seeing the after effect of that in WWE is no longer doing that, but that's the same thing with U SFL. It sounds like based on what Anthony was saying that, that kind of stuff continues to happen. And that's not what they are looking to do for players, player safety, whatever the case may be. And I think that Russ kind of Russ Brandon kind of hit on that was just that that's what kind of lead they're trying to create is something that they can come in and they can make it home and go wherever they need to go with their careers down line. Even if they're staying with us. Well I'll tos it back to act my age here. No, I thought Russ Brandon, I, I know that there was a lot of, you know, when he got brought on and, you know, passed and all this, you know, there was a lot of, I thought he, in the time that we was with, I thought he came across really well. I thought he came across this really invested. I mean, he doesn't have to come over and take time to deal with these, you know, XFL, podcasters Russ, any other questions from us and we'll toss it maybe to Evan and Matt here to give him a question. Okay. Just a real quick one is, you know, we were talking about how the, the rules may be changing some, you know, being the test bed for the NFL, maybe trying some things out. It, it also kind of occurs to me that because the XFL is gonna be picking up maybe a slightly different class of player than than the NFL is gonna be drafting the guys who are a little shorter or whatever it is, smaller hands, oh gosh, smaller hands. But because they're gonna be a different class of player. I wonder if we're gonna see an evolution of the style of play of football over time, where these guys get to show their strengths, which may not be your typical NFL you know, super stardom thing. But because they're a little smaller because they're a little bit this or that, they improvise, they come up with a different strategy and we begin to see a different style of play come out of the XFL, kinda like the CFO, you know, different rules and everything. But you see a very different style of football. That's being played. It's good football, it's solid football, but it's different from your NFL. I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas about that. Yeah. Well, it's not something Matt and Evan, and then we'll get max on here. Cause max is anxiously standing by let's answer. Russ's question. I, I feel like you can, there's already like an example that you could use from the NFL to like look at how this is very much a possibility. Just the way the middle linebacker position has changed over the years. Like you used to have these huge, huge guys that were just, they, they weren't built the same way these, these newer linebackers are. And you still have some of those guys, but it seems like the, the ideal, like middle linebacker position that a lot of teams go for these days are like that prototype little bit smaller guy who is just gonna fly around. And I feel like if you have people in an alternative league that are just succeeding at what they do, no matter their size shape, whatever that they're gonna get some attention from, from someone. So I, I definitely think that over time that could change the, the game in ways. Probably won't see it for like long amounts of time, but I definitely think that can happen. And then circling back to what you were saying about how these leagues are probably are, are gonna make stars in their own rights. I believe I've, I've written about it before that while every player dreams of playing in the NFL, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making a living and supporting yourself in one of these alt leagues, because like I get at the end of the day, if you can pay the bills and you're doing what you love, I mean, you can't really ask for more. Yeah. yeah, Evan, let's get your thoughts on that. I think to the fact that so many USFL guys are already getting workouts and tryouts and signing with NFL teams, I think is great. I think that that speaks great for the USFL and also all football in general, Evan thoughts. Yeah, I mean, in terms of, you know, the rule changes, we didn't hear about it today or really see much of it. But I do agree with Matt. I, I do think over time if the league, you know, is sustainable you will definitely kind of see that like up in the CFL, you know, there's just kind of a different style of play or players and individual. But that's something I just really wanted to, to quickly bring up just going, you know, cause we're talking about all these leagues, right. We're talking about the XFL, the SFL you know, something that I thought was interesting that I haven't shared yet is that the AAF was brought up at one point. And, you know, I think one of the reporters that wasn't part of our crew, but he kind of was saying like, like, do you think this is gonna be different than the way the AAF was run? Because obviously, you know, the AAF had some financial problems and there was just some things going on in the league wasn't sustainable. But all the coaches cause I think he asked that question to more than one person, but all the coaches kind of seem confident that like, you know, this was different and you know, now that we're out of the pandemic and, and we have the money, you know, we've already invested so much, you know, it doesn't feel like we're just building it as we go along. It feels like we have a concrete plan and, and structure to really make this thing happen. So that kind of ties into that like longevity point that you were saying about how, you know, like there could become a different style of play. I, I think it just kind of starts with, you know, making sure the league has a solid foundation and from what I heard from the coaches and executives they definitely believe in that. So that's, that's all good and well, Yeah, all the head coaches that we talked to, you know, asking them about their time in the XFL versus, you know, the NFL, where they were, you know coordinators or whatever positions they were all, you know, this is very well run, very taken care of Russ. Anything else from you else we're gonna bring in max? I'm a little scared. <Laugh> that's it. Thank you again, folks for, for doing this. This is, is tremendous O fellas. All right. Thank you Russ, for calling in. If anyone else wants to call it now, max, you need to hold your phone about two feet further away from your face. Cuz we're really close. Then we got, there we go. Okay. We're gonna bring in max long time listener max and in those max max, how are you doing, sir? Well, I I'm doing right. Just jumping in here cuz I got stuff. I got stuff to say. So when you're ready, I'll just fire it all Off. I'm ready. Matt, what do you, what do you have for the panel acts? All right. So I would not worry too much at least today about the rules going anywhere. At least the ones that were popular, some of the rules are probably gonna be changed or tweaked. Some of them might just be dumped together cuz of whatever reason, but I would expect the rules that were really popular and work to stick around because you have high level execs from the last time around who were key players in the rules who were key advocates for the rules still around, you've got Dean blend Dino and then Russ Giglio believe is also somewhat involved in the rules. In the rule book. Jim S really is not involved in the rule books at all is not his job. So he was just speculating pontificating as you do on a podcast. I believe that was with his beers as well. Was that with Antonio brown as a matter. And then on the second point while yes, these coaches, obviously they want, they want to see these guys, these players thrive. They wanna see these players have a, a career and a long success, right? But at the same time from the league messaging, remember Danny has always been saying Danny Garcia that this is not a Myer league. We might have a partnership with the NFL, but really this is about us building a competitive football league to in connecting with the fans and providing an opportunity for the players, regardless of whether they're able to go on the NFL or not, we're not gonna make it like intentionally difficult for them to move on, but it's not just about getting players, the NFL, it's about building the XFL at the same time. We are last chance. You, we aren't just last chance you, we are also our own thing. I think that's important to remember. I just think when that's the leading point on Jimmy Kimel, that's watched by 3 million people that wow. We're trying to get back. Anyone have thoughts on any of Max's comments? Make sure your mic's on there. There we go. Oh no. I agree with you a hundred percent. I, I just, I, I agree with what Reed said too. I, I think we were more talking about that as like, that was what the, the talking point on Kimel was. So like being that's what was being spoked into spoken to the masses. But I agree with you a hundred percent. I also am just, and I, we were Matt and I were talking about this last night. Matt doesn't need to get as angry today. Well, we weren't angry, but Matt and I had a few beers last night, we were talking about all this stuff, you know, know I've grown up with watching the rocks since I was nine years old. I mean, I've, I've watched him through WWE and all this stuff. I, I I'm I'm and I understand it's different audiences and we're on Jimmy Kimmel and we're on the, we're making the promo we're on thes. Like it, it just feels so scripted right now. I feel like they've given him this 54, man, that, that, that is what you're in. That's not even necessarily accurate. I mean, how many practice squads in the NFL was the rock on? Like, I don't, it's already being called out on, on my Twitter and socials about that. Max, what do you think about that? That like the, the, the key fundamental building point the rock has for the Xs? I was always the 54th man. When I don't can't remember when that was actually the case. It's a metaphor like, yeah, I get it. He's technically, wasn't the 54th man. But the fact of the matter is it rolls off better to say your player 54 than your player. Like, I don't know, 68 or whatever the number is. Like, they it's all just about the, the sound of it. The look of it, what's marketable. It's just a slogan. I, I don't take it that seriously, whether it's number 54 or 68 or 75, you know, but yeah, it's gonna bother some people, but the, that message isn't really for them. Anyway, that message is for like all the people are like, I don't know what the XFL is. I don't know who the X L's players are. I don't know what the motivation is for these guys to step onto the field because I'm just so disconnected from that. All I do is I watch the NFL on Sundays and I watch the SCC and big 10 on Saturdays. Chris ha Chris has a fire comment in the chat rock is the Disney channel. At this point. His hand is still far up Mickey's butt making him talk. Sorry. We tried to be PG, but I thought that was kind a funny, a funny comment from Chris. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I'm not gonna act like I, I love the rock or anything. I don't really, I don't really care like that. I just don't think it matters whether they call it player 54 or not to like the vast majority of the people who are gonna end up watching XFL games to spring. It's, it's just whatever that sounds more marketable. It's cool. It's whatever. And My issue wasn't that it, that he's calling himself player 54. I think Reed was more on that. I was what my issue is at this point is like, I get that. You're doing all of these things with different people at different places on different shows with different audiences, but he is saying almost the exact same thing everywhere. He goes. And like, even at the ESP SPS, he, he gave the speech on stage and then they showed a clip and he gave the speech two more times in that, in that clip. And like, I get it. You're, you're trying to reach out to people, but it just feels really in genuine. And that I'm not a fan of, I I'm sure that things will change as soon as we get past Sunday. And they'll start talking about a lot more, but it just rubbed me the wrong way. A little bit. Max, any other thoughts on that? Or any other questions we can hop Brandon then to make sure too any other questions? Yes. So I don't, I'm not like a big fan of repetition either, but I will say as someone who has knows people who work in advertising, like directly in my own family, like repetition does work at a certain point. I don't necessarily love it either. Whenever you hear the same message 20,000 times, but I remember all overlook saying like less stall, more ball. I remember all overlook saying like it's about the quality of the play. God, that phrase, there are so many, Just have to think about this is these aren't for us. We've we've seen it a bunch of times. This is for the people that haven't seen it yet. Yeah. And it's not, well, it's not just for the people who haven't seen it yet. It's for the people who haven't seen it a hundred thousand times because yeah, true. We're already in, we've already, we're already in the door. Y'all like you're watching this spring. All of you on this stream are going to be tuning into the XFL this spring. Whether you wanna deny it or not. Cause otherwise, why are you here? Oh, I ain't denying anything. No, not you talking to that one person in chat. You know what I'm talking about? <Laugh> like, why are you here anyway? So it's not for us. It's for the people are like, Hey, I've only heard about this a couple times. I don't really know what's going on. I want to, I wanna know a little more, I want to get like the attitude behind this league. Right? Cause even though you're hearing the same words, right. You're heal. You're hearing like a, just a slightly different spin on it every single time. Cuz they're trying to like bring that emotion to it. I get it. It's not my favorite thing cuz it's not for me. I already know what's going on. I don't need them to tell me that. But for, you know, random person, X who lives in Tennessee and watches the big 10 and the S E C on Saturdays and watches, I don't know the Titans and the Buccaneers and whoever else on Sunday, they just wanna know why I should watch this football league because I, cuz they probably don't normally give spring football a chance. Or if they do give spring football a chance they've been burned so many times. They're kind of wondering why they should even bother anymore. Brandon that's on any of this. Yeah. I think like when we, we talk about Dwayne Johnson rock, this whole 54 thing also feels like his $7 in his pocket thing from the WWE or from pro wrestl. I mean, Danny Garcia was behind that saying too. And I mean they named it. I think one of their companies is named the $7 company or whatnot. So I I'm wondering if maybe because we are doing the showcases, if this was kind of the rocks quote and saying during the showcases to bring people in where Monday we start officially going a different route with it and maybe not him being so scripted per se or like a pro wrestler. I think that's kind of where that difference is. And this, I, I feel this is just a quote and I, I, I was telling Reed and the guys earlier, I felt that during the ESPN segment during Jackson state, I swear he was telling the story and Danny looks up at him and she kind of had a disgusted look on her face like, oh, this story is getting so old to hear. And she may have even made a comment about it that, Hey, he tells this story every time. So it's, it's just one of those things. I think someone put forward as a promotional thing for the showcases and for players to buy into that. I'm the 54th man. That is true. I haven't made the NFL and stuff like that, where we start seeing a different approach going forward. Evan, any thoughts on this? And then we'll toss it back to to max. Sure. We'll get that. Make sure that Mike sounds over there. I mean, yeah. You know, marketing is, is sort of in a, in a world of its own and you know, I have a lot of respect for the rock and you know, obviously he put a lot of money into this league. It, it does get a bit, you know, annoying after a while, but again yeah. You know, it's, it's not for us. It's for the people who don't really know much about it, which is actually a large majority, you know, we live in this little world here where we're in this room and we all know what we're talking about when it comes to XFL and, and spring football, but you know, to other people, they've got no idea, you know, people just don't, you know, some people don't even know that those leagues exist, you know, just because it, it wasn't extremely highly publicized. Or as you touched on before all those leagues have kind of flopped, whether it was the AAF in 2019 or the XFL in 2020 due to COVID you know, one way or another sometimes it just doesn't have enough time to gain enough traction. So I think they're really pushing the point home just because this is round three, you know, and it's like, are we finally gonna get it off the ground and, and have it be sustainable, but you know, they're doing what there can. And I, I just like to give a special shout out again to all of the guys, like who are working at the, the showcases, like we were talking to CJ who was there? I forget his title with the XFL, but One of the Scouts. Yes. Yeah. He, he's pretty much part of the scouting department like Russ is. And he was just burnt out, you know, saying like this is our fifth showcase, you know, we've worked so hard to make this happen. So special shoutout to all those guys who are kind of working, you know, doing the, the hard gritty work behind the scenes because they really deserve some credit. You know, you could tell today that this has been a lot for them in the past month or whenever these showcases have started Max, any other comments from me? I'll have one more word on this, but any other comments or Questions? So two things first off the rock is ultimately a, a slogan machine. The rock is ultimately, he sounds genuine because he's so marketable because he has such a good media personality. I would never expect like a bunch of unique things coming outta the rock, just because that's not his role. His role is to bring attention by constantly banging the hammer down. Like, Hey, this is who we are. This is who we are. This is who we are. I'm the rock you can believe me. That's what the Rock's job is here. And also the Rock's job is to connect with players. The Rock's job is to get with coaches where necessary connect with people. Just that's the whole thing. His, his job is connecting people because he's the rock. And he, his fingers just touched everything practically in some, in some respects here, right? Like I would not expect him to be the guy who's gonna be delivering the nuance, the message of the league. That's somewhat more Danny's job, but also just other people working the league's job and the fans' job in some respects also in the media also, especially with ESPN CJ, by the way, CJ Cavazos. He, yeah, he sort of is in the scouting department, but his role technically I believe is called like director of high school and college relations or something like that. And that actually does have meaning cuz like he, he, for example, he showed up at the Texas high school coaches association the other day to go connect with all the high school coaches in Texas. And he also will like show up at college campuses. He and David DK were doing a lot of that at the pro days earlier. So like these are he, their, his job is also just to build relationships with a lot of these guys. And then the other thing I was gonna mention briefly, cuz I feel like a lot of, you know, like generally, but you may not have ever really like seen it. And I, I grew up here. I grew up in Dallas. I still am attending at Texas college, a M the football facilities in north Texas and specifically north Texas, especially like Dallas Fort worth area are unparalleled, at least in congestion, like in terms of number of quality facilities for high schools that like a pro team could actually be able to use at an XFL level compared to like pretty much anywhere else in the country, as far as I can tell. So no, I don't need, I don't need the whole list here that you've texted. No, no, no, no, no. So we'll, we'll wrap this out here cause we'll continue to Let me finish briefly. All I was gonna say is I would not worry about the XFL having a hub in Dallas because they, everything should be still topnotch. That's all. Well, there you go. Max, anything else? I, oh, I have to think about the rock and then we'll kick max off here. If anyone else wants to come, I think we'll wrap it at hour 30 where like hour 23 I hour and a half feels good. We're gonna you know, relieve ourselves here. And then we're doing the player meet up, appear tonight before a lot of us fly out. I just, to me the rocks thing, just to circle back to that before we go, it's it's like whole Hogan back in the eighties. Like, you know, let me tell you me, Jean, let me tell you mean like it's, you know, it's, it's the talking points right now. I get it. It is very tiring just as someone that shares all the videos from all that stuff. But I, I, I get it, like you said, repetition and all of that, but I still have to have something to complain about to be anti XFL as well, max and final brief thoughts before we kick you out. And if anyone else wants to call 'em before we go, cause I wanna do a little speculation before we leave here. I think the thing that people are forgetting, like people seem to always be talking the most about the rock. And Danny, whenever is I feel like Redbird is actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting and I, I get why cuz they're the people who are doing the talking, but if you actually dig into it like Redbirds, the get are the folks who negotiated the TV to Redbird who got the NFL partnership, Redbird who appointed Russ, Brandon. Those, those folks are really who are making a lot of the, the moving and shaking. And if you wanna know what's going on with the XFL, I would actually highly recommend looking into what's going on with Redbird first, instead of what Danny is saying or what the rock is saying. That's all I got. Perfect. Well max, thank you. We have another caller. We're gonna bring it max. I appreciate it. We chat. We text a lot. I appreciate talking to you in person. Thank you so much again. We're gonna bring in Jared here. I don't know if I know Jared. Jared's never called Hey, I've always what's that man I've always wanted to be on your show. Been XFL 2020 for or so many, you know, so many years now got multiple hats, XFL hats. I don't know why I bought that many. I just was wondering like the, the ESP SPS, what the heck happened with that? Like there was like any, they just suddenly got on with the ESP SPS and, and then they started promoting the XFL at while they were giving out an award. Like what happened with that? Cuz I thought that was a little bit strange. Didn't that just happen where they were given out an award with the SVS? Well, I have thoughts on that. Anyone else have, because I feel like I've been talking a lot, so Brandon can talk and then I have statements about that. So I, I ended up watching it. I come to find out I was actually on an hour delay for it in Colorado, so I kind of knew what was coming up, but they, they originally were announced as giving an award front from ESPN, but that's not actually what they were there for. I think they were just special guests. I think it did come off really weird. Cause I think the segment that followed them had Megan Rapo on and Danny Garcia was on stage with her when they did like the, oh Wow. They did something with the, one of the they had a singer on singing, a song about women's rights and all that type of stuff. And Megan and Danny were literally three people away from each other and it seemed like they were talking as they walked off stage. So that was kind of weird pinpoint I saw, but I, I don't think they, they ever were actually giving an award. I thought that was what was said on Twitter. Like, oh, they're giving an award out. I don't think they ever did. And if they did, it had been completely weird if they kind of hijacked it. I don't think ESPN, I think ESPN put them on there for a reason the top of the hour or top of the second hour. Okay. Yeah, no, I, I seen the clip on X L's YouTube and I was confused. Like they just suddenly show, show them on there. You know, like just suddenly to, to advertise the XFL at an award ceremony. I just thought that was a little bit strange to, to be promoting it. Max here has a comment that the rock did present the Arthur Ash award to the Ukrainian president later in the night. So I think that maybe he did double duty that to me, what it feels like, and we kind of talked before huge, like wait, even today in the interviews you know, the email we got from the media people was like, you're gonna talk to the coaches. We have not like the cities. We're not talking about that right now. We're not talking about assignments. Like please do not ask about that. Right. And so I think, you know, I don't, to me, I don't know like what came first chicken or the egg, I think they're wrapping these six showcases. Okay. Now we're finally gonna start moving forward with things. Hey, why don't we do the town hall in Dallas? That seems like it's good. It feels like an afterthought to me that they did add on the, the major announcement the next day. It felt like it wasn't something that was totally thought out ahead of time. And I think they said, Hey, they're at the SBS, you know, we're gonna do Kimmel. We'll talk about that. Like I, I, I think it's part of the plan. I just don't know. You know, how was the side of a week ago was a side of a month ago? Evan or Matt. Do you have any thoughts on that? I don't have a ton of thoughts, but I, I, I feel like we're just at the point where it's like, all right, the conversation is started now. Let's keep it going. And you know, I mean there's a little bit close together. They probably could have spread it out from like Sunday to Monday, but depending on what it is, maybe they couldn't. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't have a ton of thoughts on it though. I, I just think that at the point they're at, they're just trying to get more people talking about it than, than before for sure. Brandon got some And wanted to add to one big thing is about the SVS. It, it worked, that's all I'll say is over at XFL news hub, we heard that traffic went up on my YouTube channel that I run an XFL show on. I uploaded a video right before the SVS were up. It was at like 30 views, which is kind of normal. It takes a little bit of time. And within an hour of the SVS airing, I was, I had a, at least a hundred or more views. And my watch time to all my videos has significantly gone up as well since the ESP SPS. So whatever ESPN was doing or what maybe Redbird capital or whoever else may have put this together, they, it worked. And I think this is where the dividing line is coming, where we're gonna start getting flooded right before the NFL season. And then maybe I think someone even said that today we are talking to, we're saying that it's gonna slow down after all this for a little bit. And that was the media person, media lady. She was saying that all the information's coming out fast and furious. And then all of a sudden it's gonna slow down for a bit of time. So I think maybe that is the case. Maybe we are getting a lot this upcoming weeks prior to the NFL season, because we all know it's gonna, NFL's gonna dominate with coverage. Like always Jerry, do you have any other thoughts? I'll keep us on here for a minute. I know we're gonna, and then I'll, I'll end up just staying here, packing everything up and you guys can head out, but just, we still have good viewership right now and, and people are sticking around. Jared, do you have any other questions for the panel I'd like to get Evan involved again, I'm, I'm just happy that the XFL is streaming it on their official website, which is pretty cool because I know the SFL, they kind of like, they didn't really do that with the draft that I wanted to see on their web official website. I'm, I'm happy that the XFL is doing it on their website. So Yeah, I think the town hall I know has been put on that they're streaming out next of all.com. I haven't seen that the Monday announcement is or not. I mean, I I'm sure someone can correct me to chat if I'm wrong. Evan, what do you think about you know, inviting the season ticket holders, the fans doing the event? Cause I wanna speculate here before we go about venues, like we were doing before we got on, but thoughts about the town hall in general? Yeah, well, you know, I, I, first of all, I think it's great that they're, you know, trying to bring the, the season ticket holder back from 2020 just kind of goes to show that they still acknowledge the old version of the league kind of funny, you know, today. So I'm, I'm wearing my XFL polo shirt that has the old logo on it. And you know, Russ and a few other guys, CJ were kind of telling me like, oh, we gotta get you some new merch, you know? And at first I thought like that was because, you know, I'm like promoting the old league or whatever, and they don't want to be looked at like that because again, that's a different era and now we've kind of moved on, it's under new ownership, but you know, there's still, they still understand that, you know, there's people who care about, you know, what happened in 2020, and there's still some carryover, right? You have guys like Bob stoops, who, who is coaching with the renegades who is gonna be back. We assume in Dallas this year in 2023. So I guess next year. But yeah, I, I mean, overall that I think that's about it. We have a question about the announcements. So I know the announcement in Dallas on Monday is at 9:00 AM central time. So cuz we're gonna go, media's going to 11:00 AM central. And just to plug again, I will be live in Dallas doing another show. If anyone wants to call in, you know, you guys don't have to go to Dallas, you know, you can participate. Brandon will be there the night before. Do you know what time the town hall is in Dallas? On Sunday night? It is is at 6:00 PM central. So 7:00 PM Eastern time. Just cuz I know a lot of football fans love time zones 5:00 PM mountain and I think 4:00 PM Pacific time. Yeah. So, so yeah, seven Eastern and then that, that one I'm gonna be, I'll be live, I think 9:00 AM Pacific Monday kind of breaking all this down and talking about that. Jared, any other thoughts from you before we get outta here and do some speculation before we leave? Yeah, I, I don't live too far from that Braden 10 Florida. I would've liked to have gone to the showcase I've already mentioned in other like groups and stuff. I wish I would've been able to attend. I'm a fan of the, been a fan of the league since like that 20 18, 20 19. So I think they could have it. Would've been nice to see, have a chance to drive there and just see it going on, but that's all right. It's a, I'll I'll other opportunities I'll go to the games when the season comes. So I'll go to Orlando I'll I'll I'll drive out there. So, and that's it for me, Jared. You're the one that we message all the time. Right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. This is the guy. Yep. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> okay. Putting two and two together. I can't, the laptop is so far away from me here. It's really hard to tell. So I appreciate Jared all of your support and just calling in. I, I really appreciate, thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you. Oh, sorry. I cut Jared off there. We did that. So before we go, I know everyone's probably my, my bladder too. We're all gonna get out of here. You know, we're gonna get the venues, right? We know cities, right? We know Seattle Vegas, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, DC, St. Louis Orlando. I think I'm getting better at that. Where do we think everywhere is being played? Right? Obviously Seattle lumen field. We've been talking about Vegas, right? Do they do Allegion, Brandon have thoughts about the Vegas? And I would like people, you know, comment in the chat, where do you think they're gonna be in some of the non-obvious Seattle? There's nowhere. They're not gonna play at Memorial stadium where they did the, the showcases and some of it doesn't make sense. So where do you think they're gonna be in Vegas? Vegas. I am taking Sam boy stadium, which is where the XFL played back in 2001 with the Las Vegas Outlaws. I I've had criticism on YouTube and even on Twitter, I've gone back and forth with people. I do not believe Allegiant stadium is gonna be ho holding the XFL. Despite the fact, the reports just came out that the Raiders made the most money in the NFL or something for that stadium. There's a reason for that. And there's a reason WWE made a lot of money for summer slam last year and was trying to come back for another pay per view this year, the ticket prices for Allegiant, from what I've personally seen are a lot higher. Their food costs are a lot higher at the venue. They've had numerous issues with credit card machines going down during events. I, I just don't see it. And second off I've heard a lot of people say, well, Vegas is too hot to play. Play outside Vegas between February and April are, is either very cold. It snowed a couple years ago in Vegas. I think at the end of February, so that's not gonna be an issue. I think maybe if they get into playoffs in the late April, you could, or mid April, you could probably see heat issues, but I, I just do not see them playing at a NFL stadium or as Rita said, we're gonna have another MetLife issue on our hands. Despite the fact Vegas is a travel city or destination place. I, I don't think it's gonna draw that amount of people compared to what it could draw with Sam Boyd. And there's now an actual neighborhood around there compared to 2001. It was in the middle of the desert. So lot's changed over time. I got a question. This is probably, I didn't even think about this. Matt and Matt, Matt lives with me up in Seattle now, what do you think about them playing at Husky stadium? What do you think about the XFL at, is it Alaska airline stadium or is that, is I call Husky stadium? I didn't go to UDub. My wife did. I Think it's Alaska airline stadium. Now. It used to be Husky stadium that thought has crossed my mind and I think it would be a great stadium for it. It's definitely a little smaller, but I also feel like with Seattle, you could ha like they had a good turnout in 2020 to where the, to the point where like lumen field didn't look awful. And I feel like that was that's the main issue with MetLife is like, it just looked like there was 15 people in the stands. The, this, I, I would be for four Husky stadium, honestly, or, or Alaska airlines stadium. I, I think it's a great area. There's a lot around there right in, right on col the college campus. And I I'm sure that would cost a good bit less too. You would be surprised max. Doesn't like the idea of Sam stadium. I wanna get Evan's thoughts. So, you know, lumen, I still think it's lumen Vegas. Houston, they gotta go back to T T E D C U. Right. That's where they did all the mini camps and everything. Dallas obviously. Chalkah so that was global life park is now Chota San Antonio Alamo, Dom, what, what are, I don't wanna take the words outta your mouth. What do you think about these? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not too familiar with the area down in San Antonio, so I don't know the stadium, but yeah, I think, you know, Chalkah would be great. And you know, especially with Houston going back to TD ECU, that's how you say it. It's so hard yeah. At, at the university of Houston. Anyway, we'll just call it the university of Houston stadium. You know, when the roughnecks were there, I think it was a great fit in terms of, you know, fan turnout that I think there was like a perfect size stadium for for what they wanted as, as Matt pointed out, you know, big NFL stadiums like MetLife you know, those are just kind of too big for the XFL zone. Good. At least for now until they have an established fan base and, you know, right now it doesn't sound like they're coming back to New York, but you know, maybe at some point in the future, anyway, my point is just, you know, stadium size, I think is really important because if you have a stadium that's too big, you know, you're not gonna fill it up and it's just gonna look empty. But you know, if you're like the roughnecks or, you know, even the renegades, you know, they had a pretty decent turnout at their respective stadiums back in 2020. So I don't see a problem rolling with that again at all. They said that Orlando can play at UCF stadium and that's where the Apollos played. I'm not an AAF guy. Does that sound accurate to you, Evan There's? I don't know if that's the same stadium where they had the pro bowl at, but yeah, those two stadiums I think would be fine. And yeah, if they used the AAF one again yeah, I don't know where the UCF one is. Maybe you meant UC cause USF is in Tampa. So I think it's the UCF stadium, central Florida. Yeah, that stadium would be totally fun. I, I think that's accurate. Yeah. So then we have Alamo dome obviously the dome Koff or St I mean, they, they're not gonna play anywhere else Audi field, right for that. But I think it's interesting. I think Seattle now I'm totally thrown for a loop cause I never, I never respected that they would play at Husky stadium, but I think Vegas is the biggest question. Mark, Matt, any other thoughts on that? The biggest question mark of what, what could possibly even be a spoiler at this point for something that we're surprised about on, on Sunday? No, I, I think we covered it all pretty much. We're, we're gonna find out soon enough <laugh> but, but no, I, I think we've, we've kind of speculated on about all, all we can here at the stadiums. Brandon, any other thoughts before we get outta here? Nope, I'm good. I just wanna say appreciate all the viewers out there and listeners to today and we appreciate being here covering for you guys. Evan, any other thoughts? And I'll take it home? Not really. I mean, I just wanna say like, you know, again, thank you to everybody who listened, you know, it's been a longer show, but yeah, Sunday and Monday are gonna be very exciting. And I think you know, as we said before that the floodgates will open up a bit after this. There's a, a lot of stuff on the way that we've been waiting for for a long time. And when I say a long time, you know, I'm talking about years at this point, cuz it's, it's been a while, but yeah, a lot of good stuff coming. So thank you guys for, you know, staying in tune and staying with it. Yeah, no, I just thank you guys all so much. I mean, we've had 50 people give or take the whole time up and down. You really appreciate everyone sticking around reminder. I will be live like open invitation. I know people working, so, but if you wants to call in Monday 9:00 AM Pacific, we'll be at Chatta. So make sure like can subscribe, you know, let's build this up go check out Brandon's podcast too to comeback podcast. Oh The comeback comeback period and XFL show on YouTube. Yeah. Give brand in the follow. Does good work, obviously everyone on Twitter all that with new sub. Thank you guys so much Genesis great job. Really appreciate everyone figuring out be I like and subscribe. We'll be live on Monday. Lots of excitement coming out, check out you XFL new sub all Sunday night and the Mark's gonna be going crazy with news updates. And then I know that mark has his normal show next Monday as well at 5:00 PM east or Pacific, whatever the time the mark goes live on Mondays. Mark will be there for that. So thank you guys. We're gonna go meet up with some players now at a bar down the street. And I appreciate it. I'll try to play this as we get out. Thank you guys so much and take care.

Episode 101 - What Do YOU Want From the XFL?

We have Gary stern owner of the Montreal Ette on the show. How are you doing, sir? I'm really good. I'm just gonna try and figure out a way to get this. Big white thing. There we go off my screen. I'm really good. Happy to be on your show. I'd like the way you guys. Talk and what you do. So. Here I am. I have no idea what to expect. But I'm here. Well, this is, you know, we've been making waves here recently on the CLC. We have them Mar Doman another team owner on with my team, the BC lion. I, I thought about wearing a BC lion hat today. I thought you might just walk off the podcast. So that's why I'm wearing the, a little bit more generic, generic to today. Yeah, I admire BC and what they're doing. So, Nope. So we'll talk about all that. So I called you the king of Twitter when I teased your appearance this week, you've come on. Social media. Strong here are the last few weeks. What inspired this kind of rebirth of I'm Gary stern, the owner of the L we I'm coming on. We're selling out the stadiums. We're doing everything else. . Wish I knew. Cause I started out. When it came to Twitter, I knew nothing and I still don't know a whole lot. You can see the way, I don't know how to attach on and tag or do. But when I did it and it gave me something at night, I'm following and doing it, I go. Hey, you know what? This. Is a site for fans and other people to communicate. To say, to do. And I started. Following and lifting and going, Hey, and then I join in. And all of a sudden, it just kind of grew. And I'm going. It's a great medium for people to. Express themselves. So I get a chance to express myself on Twitter. Cuz in my own house, nobody listens to me. So it works fine. Is it, you know, we we've had here, you know, the Victor Queens of the world coming on, really trying to engage, you know, the fan base and all that. I, I mean, do, do you see that working in Edmonton and thinking like we can help kind of capitalize that here in Montreal as well? Yes, I do do. And I have nothing but respect for Victor. And I keep saying it. Because he is a real marketing guy. He really knows what he's doing. And Edmonton has a tremendous guy in him. To market and I listen and I follow. I wish I had his savvy and marketing savvy. In a way he expresses himself. Is really good. And yeah, I am watching what they're doing. I am watching what Amara is doing in BC. Sheet, and I think we need social media. And we need to reach out more to the public and hear what they want. And we have to try and give it. Well, I think it's the coolest thing about the CFO, you know, as someone that follows the NFL, all these other, it's having team owners now like Amara, like you, that. You know, it feels like you want to engage. Now. It feels like we're kind of a getting on a new age here in the world where you can have access with people if they want you to. Right. You're able to engage back and forth. Do you think that that's a way that this the CFO can use to kind of harness it and build here? You know, it's. Kind of been on the decline a little bit, kind of build fan interest, moving forward. I think it has to, it's been around for a hundred years. It done a good job being around for a hundred years, but. If we really look at it. Is being around a hundred years enough, and always seeming to be in survival mode. Always seeming to have. Somebody or somebody in trouble. But it's always fixed itself. In a way, because it's a tremendous league with an exciting product. So now we have to find ways to take that. League in the exciting product. And make it more relevant to today's fans in the way things are being done. And that social media. We need it. We have to have it. Or, or we're always gonna be in survival mode. What do you think is the. The biggest hurdle right now facing the CFO as a whole. It's difficult because it's, it goes really deep. Into not just CFL. I guess it goes into every business and. That I'm involved in and. But I'll take that and put it into the CFL. Is that. One. It needed work and help prior to COVID. But COVID presented. A whole different set of problems. For the CFO one. Short term financially, not playing, not doing. But we could get past that. What COVID did do. Was make it very comfortable. For people to stay home. It made it very comfortable. One to work from home, but also. TSN TV media. All got better. And made it really good. To watch from home. So. Now that. People can go back and watch. We're going, we're fighting. The fact that people are really. Comfortable at home having their, I don't even know what a case of beer is anymore, but let's say about 50 bottle. At home and a hot dog. I don't know what they cost anymore, but maybe it's 75 cents. Versus going out and paying 10 or $11 for a beer. What are we giving them when they got very comfortable at home? And that's a huge problem today. Especially, and I'm gonna get into economics. Rising interest rates inflation. And less entertainment money. To be spent. So we, as a CFO have to figure out. What is it? We have to do to get people back into the stadium. And if we don't get 'em back into the stadium. How do we reach out to the people? There's still our fans watching at home. And that's a real marketing. And change that we have to go through. So, how are you then? Relating that to your work with the Ette. So you, what are you guys specifically, you know, cuz we've seen like, you know, Mar Doman we're doing the, the $5 margaritas we're trying to do the concerts, the block price. What are you guys looking at with the Ettes. The, and I really listening to Mario Chikin and. His team. And even in building a team into Danny. They believe in reaching. The grassroots, the. Patient in doing it. And reaching out to the kids, to the family. And bringing them back. To the game. They haven't taken the approach. Where we have a huge concert like Amar did. I'm not con. Victor's got his own way. They're really taking a grassroots approach. From the bottom up to bring them back. So they're also bringing back. I know this Thursday. We have the 2002 celebration of the great cup. Bringing back alumni players having a. Heel of flu night, like honoring him. Same thing. We have a $2 hot dog. Things to say, Hey. Come back and we're looking at our whole cost structure. And saying we've gotta bring down. The whole cost structure, what we're paying so that we can give it back to the fans to make it affordable. To come to a football game. And they're really doing, I think a good job. I will say. Slower than I want. I'm an impatient guy. Impatient and I'm going. I think we can get better at it. We can do more. But I can't go too far cuz I don't have that exact solution. But yeah, I think we're really getting there. And our attendance is going up. And I think the people that are coming out are enjoying the experience. But not fast enough for me. Well, it's what I like about it is I'm a proponent that there's no bad ideas and brainstorming, right? So you have all these smart people, you know, running all these different teams and we're, we're trying lots of different things to figure out. I like that versus like, well, we're fine. We've survived a a hundred you years. We don't need to worry. Like I'm, I'm four, any of these. Ideas of, let's try to figure out ways to kind of cuz you know, TV viewership seems to be good this year, right? It's up even in America, TV viewership is up and the CFO surprisingly enough. So it's not that there's a lack of interest. It's a lack of, like you said, giddy people out of their comfort zone back into the stadiums. I think, and I could be wrong here. So I hate being quoted because I don't know my facts, but. I still think between. TSN and RDS. If you add the two, I think the Allo went to have the largest viewership. Well, I won't quote you on that, but I, no, I think it it's, it's, what's remarkable to me is we've spent, you know, the last two years looking at CFO ratings and thinking, okay, whatever. And then we see, like, we have USFL now here in this spring and we see their viewership and, you know, they're getting anywhere. From like 400,000 to 800,000, depending on cable or, or over the air. And you, you know, you look at like a Saskatchewan rough riders game, they're getting 388,400,000, you know, it's one 10th size. In Canada versus the estimate it's remarkable ratings to CFO is still drawing in. It right. I don't even like the word USFL on your podcast. but they're there. I don't like the word XF F I don't even like the word. NFL. I love the word CFL. I am passionate about it, and I am really passionate about Gallo it and. We're going to have to find a way. To take being, we have an advantage. We're uniquely Canadian. And we have, and you just said it. We have. A good in, on the Canadian fan base. That the. Us franchise and leagues. We have a step up on them. Where we're not competitive. Is because we're uniquely Canadian. How do we take this Canadian football? And attract the us audience. So. There's a balance here and it's something. I think our league, the CFO is gonna have to figure it out. Fast love and uniquely Canadian. But can uniquely Canadian. Support where we want to go. Because let's face it. With this new leagues, I won't even mention their names that you're supporting. There's gonna be increased competition for players. Increased competition for players. Causes rapidly rising. Salaries or. A diluted product. That's going to be a problem. I haven't figured out how to do it. But we have to. And we're looking at shrinking revenues. Because there's less money available. From our fan base. To pay. So we're looking at shrinking revenues yet. I'm a firm believer. We're gonna have to pay more for players. I'm gonna get shot for saying that. But I'm not, I'm not, it's not us against the players. We're a. We're together on this. So we have to find a way if people are gonna watch and spa throughs to have a great entertaining product. That product is based on having. Great players. If you have an answer for me, we're working it. We're trying it. How do you spend more? And have less revenue. I think we have to take a risk. Spend more hope that product becomes way better. And it happens. So there's a risk and I like what Amari's doing. I like what I'm doing. We're ours spending. How we're gonna translate this to players next year. We're even gonna have to protect. Our players. People gonna come from the us. Looking for them. This is gonna be tough, but no, I'm passionate. I believe we can do it. But it's like that we gotta remain open to any and all ideas. Circling back what you brought up, the, you know, keeping the uniquely Canadian and still attracting it. It's a fascinating debate, cuz it is that one of the strongest. Aspects of the CFO, but you know, when we started trying to talk about the CFL, I, you know, we got, and I still got a lot of, you know, oh, what, you don't know what you're talking about in your American? Like, this is Arley. I mean, It's you guys do not make it easy. If, if I'm on the. Outside, you know, not you specifically Gary star, but you know, the, the CFO. It's very challenging. You know, I was literally like a hammer busting through. Trying to get up in. I felt like finally, you know, we were up in the Hamilton, we covered the gray cup, we did our show and I felt like we finally. Kind of reached that point of, okay, you guys, we will allow you now to talk about us and it's a very weird we're league is, you know, trying to attract as much viewership as they can. It's like, well, no, we don't necessarily want you talking about us or, you know, it's weird. It, it goes back and forth. It is weird. Cuz, you know, I had to ask, can I talk to you? I go, what are we doing? And you're right. Montreal Francis said, absolutely. And he goes, they may even challenge you. I go, challenging is good. Okay. And we are making it difficult. Somewhat on being a more closed club and not accepting criticism. We're not perfect in the CFO, but what I can do, I'm in these meetings with the CFO. We are really trying more and more. Not enough, but we're trying. More and more to break from the old school. And. I hope everybody realizes the Western. Clubs have more monopoly out there and it works for them. Being uniquely Canadian. They don't need. To draw us or they don't need to. I reflect that, but there are some major cities, whether it be Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto. That has a different look at it. We have huge competition from. Other sports and entertainment. And uniquely Canadian. The totally. Make the revenue we're gonna need to meet. Which causes some difference of opinion in our own league. But I think. All in all, we're pretty United about. It's a great league. How do we change it and make it better? Where does the passion from you come from to, to be involved in this, you know, own the team, fight for this, spend money, do everything else that you do for the L lets I'm crazy. One I love, I am. I'm not. I'm. Love sports from the age of foreign. I grew up in a close family and. My dad loved PFL football. And my brother had played Canadian. College football we'd follow when we do. I love the Canadian game. And we used to sit with rabbit ears on our TV doing it so we could get the CFO. Reception and. I loved it. And that remained with me, unfortunately, that was Toronto. And I hate them. I don't, I really love them. But. I then transferred the same love, skip L and I think for about 20 years, As I kind of matured, I haven't matured that much kind of matured in business and other things. I didn't get as involved and I probably even watched a lot more NFL. Which we can't talk about. And, but then the opportunity came up and I heard about the CFO and the Montreal . That passion came in. I jumped. And this is me. I jump I'm all in and I'm gonna figure it out. And until I get it figured out, I can't stop. That's what I do. And I'm doing it now and I'm really, really enjoying it. And I have a great. Team, not just players. I see team. I have a management team in Mario and Danny. They're not afraid to try and that's part of what's happening and I'm not gonna get into the coaching change with you. But the passion, they have to make it better and do what we do. We're all going for it. And we just keep. Trying. So I love it. It's a challenge. Yeah, just to touch on that and to be fair, I had scheduled this interview before all the coaching, you know, I just wanted to talk to you in general, but. A lot of, I would say. You know, coach Jones, you know, heavy fan favorite, right? Among the fan base, a lot of, you know, vocal criticisms that way with the changes, anything you wanna say on that in general or specific? Anyway, I will, I won't get involved in the whole. I have nothing but respect for Kahari. Through the effort he put in. In helping take this team. 2020, we didn't play 2021. We played short and season and. And now we're playing a full season. Nothing. The man has been nothing to me, but genuine. Hardworking and did everything he could. And he put his heart and soul into it. So it does. And I'm being sincere. It's saddens me that he is no longer with the club. But I'm not gonna go into the rest. How have you felt as though the Alette have performed this year? You know, competitive. I thought they were competitive last year made a, made a long run. How have you felt like the, the play has been in 2022? I'm gonna get myself in trouble. Because. I believe. In whatever you do, especially in sports. You play to win. Being close. You didn't win. You can always say, oh, but we were three point weight, but we were one point weight, but we were. And you look, but we didn't win. And. Whether it be fans, whether it be their sponsors. In sports. Everybody wants to be with a winner. So, as I said, We have a great nucleus. We have a great team. But we didn't win. And we were one in three. And we were, I think we. Out of the, we were. Two and seven in our last nine games this year. And I go. Use that really moving forward. We're close, but we didn't win. And. I think we have to win. And if you don't win. You try, you try and hope you make the right decision and come up with a new. Winning formula. How, how has the, the, the buy week, everything just in general for you been here the last, you know, nine days or whatever. I'm learning a whole lot about the buy week and I'm gonna get myself in trouble. I hate BI weeks. I go, cause I didn't realize when there's a BI week. I thought you regroup and you get time to practice. You don't when there's a BI week. It's basically the players are off and I get it. Injuries seeing family they're away from family. But I don't like the concept. Of in fact from a revenue. You got expenses. You got no revenue. And I got two more of them coming. So the whole bi-week concept. I understand it and Danny's explained it to me. Well, But I'm not thrilled with a bi-week, but I think it did give the coaching staff. Time to plan to get together. And move ahead and I don't wanna a whole bunch of players mad at me. Thinking, I don't agree that they should be off. No. I just, we're doing nothing. J not nothing. I just got in trouble. That's can we delete that whole part? You're good. You're good. Now you keep saying you'll get in trouble, but you, I mean, you're you, you signed the checks. I mean, you can't get in trouble if you're on top. I do. But I have tried so hard from the day I bought it. To say a good owner. Of any business where you're in it. You hire the best management and you let them run with it. And you guide. And give business advice. So I try really hard. To stay out of anything to do with the operations of the football team. Cuz I'm an emotional fan. An emotional fans don't make the best decisions. So I'm really trying hard. To leave that to them. But you're right. I do have to get involved cause I am the owner. And there is a whole bunch more. Than just playing football to running a football team. And I'm doing a lot more of it than I want. Well, no, it just to circle back. I mean, like I said, with the bio weeks, yes. I think. Obviously, you know, player, safety, health, all that. You're just saying from a business perspective. Weeks off is challenging because you have lots of things you want to do that are not being done in the buy week. Yeah. I think, I think you said that way better than I did. I think, I think we'll be okay with that. So, you know, moving forward here, you know, new regime coming in, right. I think it's helpful that there, you know, from the inside, right. We're not bringing in. Someone, you know, from, from, you know, overseas or whatever, to help guide this. For you, the team, everything moving forward here, you know, we have the Alex this week, right? Our episode will air, obviously after that game, hopefully that will be an easy win for you. Edmonton hasn't, you know, had the most elder seasons, but, but moving forward here, whether are we looking to, to accomplish and do the season. I think it's. Think cross the finish line and I call that the goal line. I think. Danny's put together a great nucleus of players. Mario's put together a whole administration. From the revenue to cost side. I really think we've made. Great strides. So moving forward. I expect us. And I see it happening. That we will improve our record. We will be in the playoff. And honestly we're gonna be in the gray cup. I, I really we're a good team. If you guys, I, I will extend it right now. My invite, we will be in Saskatchewan. We'll be there. We'll be doing our live show. If, if you guys are in the gray cup, you have to come on our podcast. That is the rule. If you come, if you make it to the gray cup, I want Gary's stern and on our show, pregame for the great cup. I think you're being unfair to me, cuz I'm gonna say that you want, yeah, I'm there. But can I at least get somebody's approval in Montreal and say, Gary you'll have time to be there or you're doing the right thing. Yes. Yeah. So I give you a qualified. Yes. There you go. From a football fan. What do we think of Trevor Harris and Vernon Adams from a football fan? Right. Yep. Not being an owner and not being from a football fan. I love them both. They have two completely different styles. Both. In their own style. Are great quarterbacks. The question will become. What is the best style for each game and how do they. Make those two great quarterbacks translate. To winning that particular game against that particular team. And that's something that I think Danny's gonna be really good at. From from an ownership. Do you have any thoughts about Vernon Adams or Trevor Harris? Absolutely. Anything you'd like to share? No, that's okay. but yeah, you have, Vernon's a friend of the show, Vernon Vernon lives about 10 miles down the road for me. So just to say that Vernon's a, you know, we're, we, I, us Washingtonians have to stick together. So. Okay. I will say this about Vernon and don't take it cuz I'm saying it about Vernon. That it's something again. I treat Vernon as a personal friend. He's been tremend. What a great. Guy aside from being. A great physical talent and a great quarterback. He really is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I have a grandson who's so passionate about football. Vernon talks to him once or twice a week. When it comes out to Vernon is just a great guy. So, yeah, you'll never hear me. I love this guy. I really do. And don't take it that I don't love Trevor. Trevor's a different type of, and I don't know if I've ever met Trevor. Remember, I. But Vernon. Love the guy. I think I'm about used up your time today. I really appreciate your graciousness. I think you even hopped on early. So I think we're running overtime here. Okay. Anything before I let you go, I mean, this has been such a delight. I really appreciate it. And you opening up, I think hopefully we won't get you in too much trouble with anything. You've said, I think we've towed the line pretty well. Right. And I keep saying. The one thing I do want, and this may. Is, I really hope the media such as yours, whether it's podcasts, whether it's TSN, whether it's. We all realize we're in this together. And that there's nothing wrong with constructive criticism. There's nothing wrong with new ideas, both on the media's part. And on the ownership and team's part. We just have to constructively criticize, but let's not get mean or cruel. Or, and let's move ahead. You need us as media because without us, there's no team. We need you to attract the fans to sponsors everything that happens. We're really all in this together as partners. And that's the only thing. Sometimes I find. The ownership doesn't give the media enough credit and the media's not giving us enough credit. And that's really what I have. And I said, I hope we can even. Increase that partnership. Well, this has been great. Like I said, I think before we started recording everyone at the Al Wes has been absolutely phenomenal from the top down and working with us, this crazy Seattle podcaster, you know, Colin Francis and I mean months ago now. And Hey, come, I talk with player and what's going on. So I think you guys are doing the good job there. I think the CFO as a whole is, is evolving into that. And I really appreciated that someone that does not, you know, have boots in Canada still being able to cover this league. I think it's important. So. And I look forward to seeing you into Saskatchewan. Oh, there you go. Well, I'm excited. It, your blast in the past, we have James Lars coming on and I'll get into it here in a second, but you know, Exel newsroom, USFL newsroom, all the newsrooms, James Larson. How are you doing? I'm doing great talking spring ball. So what more could I ask for. So I like to that pier, I have it opened. You were on we're on episodes 1 0 1. Right now you were on episode 13. The PJ Walker, we were talking is PJ Walker, starting for the Carolina Panthers. Amazing. That's still in the news. And then we were talking, there was some fight at the spring league. Remember I think it was the guy from the blues, punched out the assistant coach or something. Oh, yeah, it was the game with the, the alphas and the blues, I think. Yeah. And it was the alphas guy that like went, it was the alphas guy that went wild. It was the coaches. I think one of the coaches like, dude, that just brought back a memory, man. So here we are. So now we're, we're talking, you know, SFL, postseason, getting ready for season two. Let me ask you, is it still blasting me to refer to the USFL as the spring league with a new co the paint? Is that still gonna get me in trouble in like spring league through 3.0. What do you mean? Like, did we. Like, cuz that was always kind of my feeling going into the, this first S F L season was this really is you the springy kind of the third evolution of it now. We're bringing in the trademarks and all that. Do, do you feel that way? Do you feel like it really elevated? Beyond that kinda. Oh, from the spring league itself. Yeah. Yeah. So I say that it. It definitely a spinoff to an extent, cuz obviously, you know, you've got Brian Woods, who's involved with it. You've got Fox who worked with the spring league in 2020, and then 2021. So it feels like they saw the concept that was there. And then drew out the players from that player pool. And then. Really just turned into a full-fledged leak with, with the USFL. So I'd agree with you there that. Yes, it's definitely, it definitely has TSL vibes at times, just because of some of the players. The personnel and whatnot. So I'd agree with you there. I think it really elevated at the end. I think it took a little while to get going. I mean, we both covered, you know, both of the spring leagues one and two, you know, the quality of play is there. I think it got better. Big thoughts from you. We've finished the first S F L season. We'll talk moving. Thank God. yeah. What, what did you make overall general thoughts of the first season before we get into the expansion stuff? I I personally stopped the season was great. I know, obviously there there's so much controversy around everything with the fans and the stands and trying to get into individual markets and all that. I just wanna focus with what I'm saying right now on the quality of play. I thought the quality of play. Outside of Jeff Fisher's kicker. Was pretty dang good. I mean, I thought it was definitely a step up from the TSL. And especially as we saw teams start the jail weeks, 3, 4, 5, I mean, New Jersey for example, was such a fun team to watch cuz you saw them. They found their game plan and they stuck to it. And it was awesome. You even when Deandre Johnson went down with an injury. Perez came in, played great. And we, we love Perez. I mean, he's just a spring league legend that guy, but to watch, you know, Darius Victor Kivan Turpin, Trey Williams, Alonzo Moore. I mean that offense. It, they gel just so perfectly, which it's crazy that they ended up losing in the first round, but they were so fun to watch. So like, for me, that was like a fun experience to finally. Get to watch a spring league complete, cuz we've been waiting for this for so long. Right? I mean, we had the XFL, like the Houston roughness. We're like, oh man, this team is awesome. Just wait until they get to the championship. And then Nope. And like the AAF, the Orlando Apollos mean, oh, that team was awesome. So it was fun to watch to actually. Finally see an ending to a spring league. Outside of the spring, league's 20, 21 season, which kind of counts, but not, not really. See, I argue, I do count the, I mean, I, you, the first who, the San Antonio, the one you were on talking, you, they had the COVID shutdown people, you know, if you're into the USFL now, wild, like backstory here with like the previous seasons, you know, like you're like, if you're looking like a T show, you know, the prologue to the USFL was very. Exciting with the, you know, we had the COVID shutdown and then we had Kenneth, what was it saying that they weren't getting fed in the spring league and then Brian Woods came on and was talking about all that. It was I'm blanking on Ken Shelby, Kent. Shelby was saying they weren't getting fed in all that. They played the game. That's who it was. Yeah. They played the game in Orlando. Then they came back, I think spring league 2.0 with a mega bowl. I, I feel like that. It had more legitimacy to it. But it was still clearly. A prototype type league. You know what I mean? It wasn't like a full cuz like the USFL, of course they still need to get into individual markets. But they're, they're treating themselves like they're a full-fledged spring league, as opposed to the spring league where they weren't even paying their players. So, I mean, this is run much more officially that's for sure. I think, I think having. Fox, you know, kind of take over. And that's what I love personally about the L is how they, they were able to move Brian Woods to a spot where he excels, like woods is doing his thing and he is doing well, but he is not the head guy in charge. And I feel like that in makes the lead. Just that makes it so much more sustainable and like, Legitimate. I think Brian had a lot of really good ideas. I was actually corresponding with Brian this week. Hopefully that that will come to fruition here. But, you know, I think he had some really good ideas that, like you said, I think getting in. Some of the best parts and worst parts of the us. I L like the, the shortened preseason, that's a Brian Woods thing. The roster spots that fixed during the season. That. So Brian Woods thing, but the overall concept package, you didn't bringing it to Fox. I give Brian a hun, you know, all the credit in the world for that. And then, like you said, moving him to a position that best suited him and then bringing in a couple other stakeholders. I think. Fixed some of those issues that we saw early on, and I give you us about credit for that, of, of addressing those needs during the season, as opposed to waiting. I agree. Yeah. I, I'm a huge fan of how Fox addressed things because. And again, you know, it's funny how much controversy there was surrounding the us F L season. I mean, you go on Twitter. And I try to stay out of it as much as I could cuz I, I just love football, man. I just love spring football. I, I love, you know, if it's fan control football. LF B XFL us FFL. I just want these guys to have opportunities. But anyways, that was definitely a little point of controversy where some people were upset that they were changing stuff mid season. And to me, I'm like, I don't know why you'd be upset about them improving the product. Mid-year like, why would you not, why would you wait if there's some, if there's an issue. Why would you not? Right. And like the thing with the, with the chips and the balls, like they, they did that right away. And I feel like that was a smart decision. They, the rosters, they made some changes and then. Even at the end, I thought taking advantage of the Pittsburgh, Michigan situation was kind of cool. It made it interesting. I thought, I, I think some changes are okay. I think others like. The roster spots. Definitely nice that we had Sam Schwartzstein on talking before the season. Saying, you know, asking them, what do you think of the rules? What do you think of the clock and the timing and him saying, well, you know, we tested this for a year. They're not really testing it. I think some of those things could have been ironed out before. Like I think the changing of the play clock, although it didn't end up really being that big of a deal, I was kind of scared. That was going to be like a fan control football. Changing the, the onsite kick or whatever rule they did. Mid-season mm-hmm, like these are game altering things. I think allowing them to bring in seven, whatever people on the roster is different than saying, like we're changing the clock for, you know, quarters two and four, right? Yeah. I think. That was definitely a bit like, huh? Where did that come? And like, even I was like, uhoh cuz that means that the first few weeks we played this way, now the final few weeks are gonna be played this way, but it ended up really not being that big of a deal. It's just helped to gain go along a little bit quicker. Cuz there were like a couple of those early on games. I was like, Man, these are going on just too long. And like, I don't mind personally. The more football, the better, but like for the casual viewer, they're gonna tune off at some point. So you do wanna keep. If you wanna get viewers, you've gotta keep it at some time limit, you know? I wanna bring in the ex. In this conversation too, because I'm gonna, you know, the title of the episode is like, what do we want from the XFL? Because you know, here, the USFL has completed the first season. Mm-hmm I said last week, talking with. Ben Fisher. I, I think us F L has a major advantage right now having just completed the season. Having a product, even if it's not okay, this is exactly what we envision it being in your like four or five, but Hey, we've completed. We have eight teams. We have these viewerships, we have this number of attendance, all that kind of stuff. You exit fellow is. Pitching a lot more of Ben called it like a whiteboard, you know, he here's conceptually things that we're gonna be looking at in year one, two. Are you surprised how divisive. XFL USFL. Online. Everything got this year. It's something else, man. I mean, I'm surprised because, you know, I. For one, I mean, I, I do have a bit more confidence in the USFL right now just because I, and like I've been able to talk and meet with like, even when I went to the championship, I've met and talked to some Fox executives and like, they have a really good plan in place and understand that it's not what everybody wants. But have to realize it's not what Fox wants either. I mean, they would love to have everything right off the bat. But to be financially successful, which I actually just wrote a piece on this earlier this week. Like they're doing everything. They're not biting off more than they can chew. And that's the one thing that I think the XFL might get themselves into a better trouble with biting off more than they can chew because. You look at where they were in 2020, right? They were, they were doing really well. What they weren't like making, they, they were definitely not making anything in return. Like they were like McMain was pumping money into that thing. And he was only gonna pump money into that thing for so long, you know? So I think that that's a major advantage for Fox and secondly, Fox is the freaking network that they air everything on. So they're the ones they're pulling on the cash. Like the USFL is an investment for them. But at the same time is still a financial asset because they're bringing in AB money. So I think that'll be interesting, but I really didn't even answer your question there. No, that was question was divisiveness. Yeah, I. I'm I will say I'm a bit disappointed by how. Like divided we've become in this, like, cuz. We want spring football to survive. We're gonna be United. There's only so many of us right now. No pun intended. You gotta be United by football guys. You just gotta. couldn't help myself there. No, I like it. I, it, and I think that. The us L has so many advantages right now. I'm kind of, I'm concerned in the way that like, I have no financial stake in either claim. Right. But I, and I wanna get your thoughts on this of, I don't know. Honestly, and this is someone that's been like the big I'm, you know, Reed's, anti-US F L hates all this stuff. Like, I don't know. What FFL is going to offer. Did the us FFL doesn't already have, or isn't really able to offer in some form or fashion. Right, right, right. Or wrong either. Like. Us develop borrowed some of the rules, right. Borrowed some of the things that's fine. It's, you know, it's out in the air Exel doesn't, you know, Sam Schwartzstein doesn't own the rules, whatever. Right. I, I just don't know, you know, XFL is talking, okay. We, we want culture player, first fan folk, but yet we're keeping fans very, you know, Very long distance right now, us FFL, you know, obviously moving into cities. I just don't know if I'm a USFL and, and I wanna hear from you, cuz I know that you watch both. I put it on my Twitter. I'm gonna put it out this week. Like what can the USFL offer or the FFL offered that the us FFL doesn't offer already have, or is going to offer here in the. Next two, three years, presuming they move into cities. Right? I feel like it's gonna be very difficult because the one advantage the XFL would have right now. Is the fact that they plan on playing in their eight markets. Right. And of course, that's one of the big controversies is we wanna see fed in the stands. We wanna see her, the crowd and, and I I'm with those people. Right. We love like the joy of watching sports is seeing a, a city. And crowds just supporting and going wild when there's those big touchdowns. And like, you know, it was kind of funny watching like Tampa bay or no, it was Michigan. It was Michigan played Tampa bay and there was like the double forward pass for a touchdown. Imagine, you know, sick that would've been if there's a crowd there, but then it was just a like drawn. Drone noises in the background, it was just like, kind of comical. At the end of the day, it was football. And I'm glad that we have more football to watch. I think the XFL needs to capitalize on being in their markets. Right off the bat, but we're gonna see like, are they biting off more than they can chew? Because I don't know if, if a spring league can be successful financially, just going for the home run right away. So we'll, we'll see what happens. It, it's gonna be very interesting. I think if we're looking at, you know, 2, 3, 4 years down the road, I don't see how the XFL is gonna be more financially successful than the USFL. I mean, Colin coward. That I listened to part of his, one of his recent shows. Right. I'm sorry. And he, he cl . I only saw a part on Twitter. I didn't like do too much, too much, but. He had said that. And now who knows where he is getting his information from, but I'm assuming on this, it'd be somewhat accurate. I mean, he said that the USFL. Made both Fox and NBC money. Like they made profit off of the league this year. The U as a film made profit because they're owned by Fox. So the U as a fell was financially. Liable and sustainable this season in year one. Which is crazy. That's absurd. I mean, especially when you look at what the XFL was pumping in. I mean, they were pumping in what, like 150 million a year into their product. The AAF, who knows what the hell they were doing. . But, you know, I that's the one thing that worries me with the XFL here is. What does the deal look like with ESPN? How are they gonna get their revenue? And sure fans in the stands are great. But Fox has an and Fox would rather make money. From those ad spots than fans in the stands. And that might end up being more financially. I guess viable. You know, so we'll see. It's hard. Yeah. I don't, I, I never, in my wildest dreams, you know, and we talked with all the Birmingham people ahead of the season, you, we had the Roy John sound like, he's like, oh yeah, you know, they're gonna get eight, 10,000 people every week. And you know, people are gonna wanna do stuff on Sundays and, and mean outta thet think ever in their wildest dreams, Fox execs thought they'd be. A hundred people in the stands. I mean, I never did. I mean, this is something that I don't think anyone ever did, but it, the interesting thing to me is, you know, so if we agree, the XLS like advantage would be okay, we're in home markets, but yet here we are. It's July 14. The, those home markets don't even know necessarily know that they are the home markets. So I don't, I don't know. At what point we flipped the trigger, I guess there, there, head in on the showcases right now. Like that is our focus. Mm-hmm , you know, Redbird and them are very one track. Okay. Rock's got a Tara on the lunch. Okay. We're doing that. Okay. Now we're doing this movie, but I just, if, if you're advanced, is your at least pseudo being in. Home markets by flying the teams out there to play. At what point are we capitalizing on that? Right. And that's, it'll be very interesting to see how things are run because you know, on one side you've got the XFL and you've got the huge names of Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia. But they're not. And of course they say that they're fully committed to the XFL, but we don't know if they're fully committed to the XFL. And the other hand, you look at the leadership in Fox and you've got Darrell Johnson, Brian Woods, Eric shanks, and all those guys who are. Like their main focus is continuing to build the us L up. So we'll see what happens. I do think that. Like the X FFL is such a golden. Opportunity here to take advantage of the rock. I mean, who. Can say that they have the rock as their owner. Right. So we'll. We'll see how this all plays out. There's there's so many avenues. We can go down with this. There's so many, so many roads you can go down. It should be interesting to see how it all plays out. I wish that they would be a little bit more. Like see, that's the one thing that bothers me right now with the XFL is that like there mono per se is like being for the fans. And they have been the complete opposite of transparent. I mean, they've been about as dead and silent, as you could imagine. I mean, they're. Almost as dead as the Alliance, when it comes to this. Right with their social media and stuff. So we'll see. I mean, I have, I have plenty of faith that they're gonna work it out and we, we saw the USFL. Through everything EV together quite quickly. And it turned out to be a pretty good product. I wish the XFL. Will be moving a little bit quicker right now, cuz they're gonna have to move. They're gonna have to do everything. Bang, bang, bang here, those final few months, which. We'll see other product turns out. Like we just gotta wait and see. Something I've been pondering kind of in my head here, the last in trying to figure out, you know, the episode and everything this week is like, You know, with the AAF fan control football, MLF B us of all these other ones. You know, they're coming in, they're establishing the league, right. USFL, and we don't need to go down the trademark, whatever, and all that kind of b******t. But you know, they they're establishing, right. They're saying, we're building this. You guys can come watch the league cannot. Right. You know, you, you can be fan of our league or not. XFL when you're purchasing something that already had a fan base. Right. Mm-hmm I think you have more own this on you to. At least try to like, pretend like you're working with those fans and like, this is what you guys wanted before we bought. Right. You have more ownership of a concept that people. It's different. It's a very different philosophy. And I don't think the XFL is doing the good job in that because, you know, if there wasn't any value in the ex FFL, you would've just started the rock football league. So we buy something that we acknowledge. Exactly. Has value, but then we're not capitalizing on that in any way, removing out of three of the eight markets that we already had. So you're alienating, you know, what, what 35% of your, whatever the math is of your fan base, that way not to mention they would be too huge market of LA and New York that I know. Weren't doing fantastic in 2020, but still this LA. And New York. Those are your two biggest markets. So I don't know why you'd move away from those. So, yeah, I'm totally with you there. That's the one thing that's like a bit frustrating for me watching some of the moves they make, like. Even the logo change. I understand it. I know that they wanna make it their own. But you wanna know why there are so many fans of the XFL in 2020. It's because the product was freaking awesome. I mean, I don't know if I could ask for much more from a spring football league. I mean, There were some quality of play that wasn't perfect. I mean, there's, but that's what you have in every level. Doesn't matter what you watch. It doesn't matter what sport, there's always gonna be some issues here and there for what the XFL was in 2020. It was fantastic. And it was getting better and better with you with each week. I mean, I love, you know, what I. Have a few minutes to just go back and watch some highlights or watch the replays. I mean the production, the uniforms, the teams, the players, the, the fans, the stadiums. It was all fantastic. So I hope that they don't. Go too far away from that. I hope that that it's still somewhat similar. To what it was, I think. There's improvements to be made. I'm sure there could be some better stadium choices. Like MetLife was a really dumb idea in 2020. But like for the most part, I mean, it was so much fun. I mean, like, I love going back and watching that the first game between the dragons and the defenders. I mean, What more do you want? That was awesome. Like that was, that was really fun. The crowd was awesome. You know, you're, you're, you've got a perfect size field. I think. I think that's really what these spring leagues have gotta do is kind of go to those soccer fields or those fields that seat like 25, 30,000. Cuz then you, you get 15, 20 K in there and it looks packed. So I we'll see. I just, I think all these leagues it's varying degrees and I, this been my critique of fan control football for a long time. Is. You know, you get in these echo chambers, right? You have your share, you know, stakeholders. Right. We got Patrick DS. And so Rob and whatever mm-hmm and they're like, this is awesome. Yeah. This is like, this is great. Okay. Da and it's like, you know, you're not getting, you know, you're the fant football, like, are you always in, involved in the fans, whatever the rock and. Danny here, you know, I always go back to this, the sport of co interview that Danny had with Jerry. And she said, you know, we understand the fans are upset. They want more information. We have so many things we wanna share with them. We're bursting at the seams. We just, we have our timeline, we have our timeline and then they finally have the first logo reveal and it's like, I wouldn't, you know, I I've gone back. I thought it was a pretty divisive I've had people show me polls that I ran where I think max showed me. Like, it was more like 50, 50, but it didn't go over as this overwhelmingly superior thing. I'm like, this was your guys' first attempt to like, show any anybody. This is what we've worked on for the last six. Months. And it really, I don't think went over nearly as well as they thought. And I just think. If you maybe did a little bit more market research that way and not being so secretive, I think maybe. Right. And that's like, you know, One thing that's a bit sad to me is like, I love that 2.0 XFL logo. Like it was so. I don't know it, it was so cool. And they, they spent so much time. They hyped it up with a. Like a one or two day, like, like we've got an awesome announcement coming your way. And then it was like, dude, like I could make that in Microsoft word and just switch to font and write XFL. Like that's, that's literally what it is. And then of course we had the funny thing with like Megan Rapo or whatever with the whole, I don't know who knows what's gonna happen with that? I don't know. Oh, who knows? But. It's like, it is funny that like the one thing that they've done really this whole year, Was that it's interesting. So now we're talking, so we have USFL, right? So they've completed, we're looking at hubs, we're looking to expansion, right. You know, we've heard. Okay. We're we got two to four hubs. Yeah. I think we do the Brian Woods model. Right? We do north. We do south. We figure yes. That way. What would you, I ideally see you USFL C two. What would you have them plan out? We'll see, I mean, of course I'd love to get them all into their markets, which that's, you know, originally what I thought was gonna happen. But then once we started hearing this hub talk, It did start to make sense, because again, Fox is the turtle in this race. They are taking their time. They're constructing the infrastructure. Slowly, which of course I know that there's gonna be frustrations these first couple of years of not being in the markets. But at the end of the day, if, if this is what it takes and makes spring football sustainable, I'm all for it. And I'm all for Fox. Being smart and not doing a stupid business decision that would end up hurting them. You know, I mean, they're doing all of us a favor by providing us with spring football. I mean, they've gotta do what they've gotta do. So we'll see, I, I think. I think there might be a bit of like a power struggle in Fox right now. I think that there's some people that want for. And I think that there's certain people that want to. So we'll see, I. There's definitely a lot going on behind the scenes right now, when it comes to that. And. We'll see, obviously I think they should stay in Birmingham. Because why would they move from Birmingham? So let's say they go to four. I would love to see them go to new Orleans. I feel like it would be stupid to go to Houston. Like, why would you go to Houston? X FFL is gonna be there. Toba. You could go there, but I feel like new Orleans would actually be a, especially looking at some of those numbers. Like Mike Mitchell had, had released some of those awesome numbers. New Orleans would be a great marker for them to go to. In the north. I mean, new, Jersey's not a bad spot to go. I mean, if you could find the right spot, I mean, like, even like red bull stadium, which fits like 20 K people or whatever, I feel like that would be awesome. And like I grew up and sat down in New York. I lived there for 15 years of my life. Right. And I've been back and forth on trips. New York fans are so desperate for a good. Football team. I mean, they've had the giants, the jazzes last. 15 Years I've done next to nothing. Imagine if New Jersey generals were there this year. I mean, they would've been hyped. I mean, those, those would've been packed out stadiums. I mean, if they knew that's a SA that's the one thing that frustrates me with the us F fellows, I feel like no one there even knew about the New Jersey generals. I mean, they had a team that went nine and one and was poised to win the whole thing. And fans would've been going crazy. So we'll see, I think new Jersey's a decent bought Michigan and Michigan's not a bad spot either. I mean, these people here are crazy. They'll support a team that goes, oh one 10. I mean, they'll still, they'll still sell out those stadiums. So we'll see now. A spot to keep in mind is can. Can is a location that Fox. Really, really, really likes. And it's strange because there's no, they don't have any teams there. But I, I would not be surprised if they, if they do a two hub system, a north and a south, you got Birmingham and you've got Canton. Cuz they love being right and can, and they love having the pro football hall of fame stadium. I think Canton could end up being a decent Margaret to get people to go to games. Will see, I, if they can tap into Cleveland, which is kind of like right next door, you know, they might be able to get some fans out. But it's gonna be, it's gonna be weird if there's no. They're not gonna get, I don't see them getting the amount of fans of the Birmingham stallions did because stallions did have some really great attendances this season. If they go to Canton. I don't see it being nearly that high. But it would still be a decent location for mcg. Go to, I mean, they've got the connections there. Then we have the asterisk of the, the north hub, has it home field advantage in the playoffs, and then we get all that kind of stuff going. Yeah. Right. Exactly. It'll. It'll be something I do find it hilarious that Birmingham went, like everyone was like, oh, Birmingham's gonna lose when they go. And then they rip right through new Orleans and then that winning. Championship game was awesome, cuz it was like close to 50, 50 Philadelphia and Birmingham fans. So it was pretty sweet. I think. Circling, you know, the us L thing, what. Hardest thing. And I guess going back to the advantage of the, the XFL and all that, you know, Maybe at some point when they decide to turn on the rock, right. Really promote, I think you hit more of that casual. Demographic. Right. I think the exit all 2020 did a good job of like getting a little bit more into just like the mainstream. I don't know if that like, oh no kidding. I mean, Sorry. I good. What I was just gonna say is like the ACTFL marketing, I think is some of the best Springs football marketing we've ever seen, especially when you look at their social media accounts. I mean, what they accomplished would Bailey Carlin and that team accomplish, which is outstanding. I mean, that's what the USFL needs to do. Well, that's the thing is I think that I, I would say. From from viewing and interacting with a lot of the USFL fans in the lot. I think it is. Overestimated the. The casual mainstream that the us has permeated. I think it's very exciting in, in, you know, our spheres and then our Twitters and, you know, the Facebook groups and whatever, but I think. It hasn't quite hit that, you know, like you said, New Jersey, how many people in New Jersey knew that they had a team nine one. And so that is what us L needs to work towards. I think that that part of that right, is the marketing, the social media, lack of all that stuff, but I just, you know, maybe X FFL can Excel more in that turn on the rock. Okay. Let's get more of just like the. Mike and Joe's walking down the street like, oh, okay. Like the rocks guy, the football league. I just think the us L really suffered from that, except for like pat McAfee and then keeping everything else on Fox sports. Really hard getting into the, like the general mind frame of most casual fans. I agree. And I think that's the big next step for the U L. Here heading into seasons two and three is what do they do? Marketing wise now? I will say they're definitely gonna have a bigger budget than they did in year one. That's for sure. They, you know, they, they see how sustainable it is. They're definitely gonna be pumping more money into the league. In season two than they did in season one. So that should mean that we'll see them hiring more people. That means that they should be increasing their social media team. I mean, this season, it was literally like just a couple people doing, running all the accounts, which is insane. I don't know how they pull it off and props to them for doing. The great job that they did. Like, I don't wanna. Dis their work cuz they did a lot of fantastic work. They just obvi clearly. Didn't have enough people on the team because you could only do so much. I mean, and after the season, Have we seen really any of this teams tweet? No. Yeah, a couple tweets from Birmingham, you know, a tweet here and there from. Philadelphia and that's it. All the other counts really went silent. So it'll be nice to see them. Hopefully get more of that in place. Cuz they have to establish social media presence. I can't stress how important that is. I mean, I loved what the XFL did in 2020, the accounts were fun. They were badgering between each other. The fans were getting engaged, right? Like, and we've seen the UFL like accounts do like. It's felt weird because, you know, it's the same person interacting with each other, you know, it's like, It just, and the fans havet interacted as much. So we'll see a. A, a friend of mine in, in the discordant on Twitter, he goes by cheese soda. His name is Jake. He had tweeted out a, a really interesting tweet about. How, like the average tweets per team compare. Did, did you see the tweet go by, on your feed by chance? Yeah. Between the XFL AAF and you as AFL. And the USFL is the only one that got the re full season. And they were still 500 tweets below the AAF. So like that has gotta get stepped up. They've gotta step it up. That that's one of their biggest needs needs right there, for sure. Yeah. I think I said, I, I responded. I said, well, I have, I have, because it was like 8,000, it was like 800 tweets or something for the, and I said, I think I. Have like 37,000. So clearly one of us has an issue. And then the other one probably, I mean, that's probably a read problem to that. The other skew of that, but right. One extreme to the other. it's just hard because, you know, and, and I don't think people get the other casual fan gets how. Small, the, you know, the, the support staff was for the SFL this year. I mean, it literally was a PR team of one. They had two, one was contracted and dropped off before the season, you know? Right when the season was starting. I don't know why, but like I, so it's, so I give them credit. Right. You said for, for doing what they did. Again through, but also I'm like, this is such a self-inflicted wound of like, yeah. Pay 65 grand and hire another person. Like, I, I don't that's for, I obviously has the money there. I mean, they should be showing out a lot of $65,000 contracts to social media teams. They should be putting together a, you know, teams, more writers. I mean, they had only had. RJ young doing content for them. And that was it. They needed more content guys, you know? So Fox I'm available, but, or, or embrace like you and in the people at newsroom, you know, Stefan and Zach and everybody, us, the people at like then embrace the people that are writing your stuff for free. Like, you're not, exactly's what I like. If you're, if you know, RJ young is on staff. I give RJ young, no credit for doing the job that he's paid to do. He does it very well. And that that's awesome, but like, you know, you're a salaried employee there then embrace people that are not being paid to cover your league and promote the stuff that way. I do not understand, right. Because we are the people that are peoples for spring football, like. Engaged during the off season. I mean, were we're the ones that built up a lot of the height for the league? I mean, we're cuz spring football, obviously, you know, it reaches a lot of people, but it is a tight-knit community, you know, on, on the internet. Like there's not a ton of us, but we're the ones that like. Keep everything going, you know, like engaged wise and fan wise and whatnot. So yeah, I'm with you there. Occasionally, you'll see, like, you know, you'll, you'll get a, like from, you know, a Fox person here or a Fox person there, but like, it, it would be nice to see like the team socials. Like actually interacting with you sometimes. Like, like, you know, if you tweet out someone like, oh, case cookers, man, he played awesome. Be cool to see them in the reply. It's like, oh, we love case. We love captain K you know, just something. Something well, and even with XL before, cuz they, and I'm trying to remember that I was I'm obviously dragons guy. See how like they would they'd add stuff. Like when I would post on Instagram, they would cuz I have my verified news account. So it's a little more like I don't, I don't necessarily. Like if the dragons were to like something, they were whatever. Like, I think that is part of that, but I just have like a normal account on Instagram. Like they would add like, they'd add their stuff to my, you know, to their story and they would add whatever I'm like, right. This is such an easy thing. It's like I'm in the wedding business. And like, you know, when we have an anniversary, like I like today I had an anniversary, like, I'll make a post, like, Hey, congrats, Julie and Kevin for your wedding. Right. And I'll take the venue and I'll take the photographer and always kills me like the, the venue, you know, the like it, or like they won't add it. I'm I'm like, it's for kind for you like this free content. Tips you share, retwe your comment line? It's just very weird to me. This like defensive. Well, no, this is our thing. We're not, but yet we're you we're for the fans. We're an alt league. I mean, every alt league is so fan driven. Anyway. It's very strange to me. No, I I'm totally with you there in nice to see them in embrace some of the content that we're pushing out. You know, and we're not doing this as a nine to five. . I mean, I'm, I'm like all the articles I write and the, the pieces I do. And like, you know, I, I. I was so privileged to be able to, to be a sideline photographer for the championship game. I mean, I was up so many nights last week, probably until like one, two in the morning. Just editing them, getting the water marks on them. Well, actually Stefan helped me with the water marks, which was really helpful. But yeah, just like getting all as, I mean, it takes a long time. I took like 2200 photos. For free . So. It takes time. Well then, you know, you, or like today, like you said, get off work. I got the 45 minute commute home. I gotta hop on this. I mean, you're doing this after mean, that's the thing that. It, you know, and I went into a big DRI last week with Mark Perry about all this, so I don't need to rehash a lot of it, but yeah, I think embracing the people that are, are paying to fly the Canton to cover the league, you know, I paid thousands of dollars to go to Birmingham. I couldn't take the, the weekend off. I, you know, four weddings last, you know, with the. Championship people like, you know, embracing these people that are like, I'm willing to pay to go cover. Your league, like let's, let's work together here. At least acknowledge it a little bit. Right. You know, I agree. It would be appreciated. But at the end of the day, I'm definitely. Like pleased with. Overall, what they've been able to accomplish. I think it's silly that there's people that like. Say that they're fans of spring football. And then just wanna completely ignore the L's existence just because it's not exactly what they want. It's like, it's very, it is very difficult to find exactly what you want out there in the world, you know? So you take what you can get, you enjoy things. And that added that's where I'm at. I just, I loved watching the spring, this spring football this year. I'm really looking forward to seeing the XFL on the USFL in 2023. Why wouldn't you want both? . Football man, the better. I mean, I. It will be weird. Of course, we're gonna have to see. Can two spring football league be sustainable and actually survive. Who knows, but it will be very fun at least in 2023 to have both of them. Full swinging. I think it's, I pulled up here at my thread, you know, I guess speaking of the positives, us FFL, right. To get off of our own, just, you know, complaining about not being promoted by the things, but, you know, that's, you know, I do this a lot. Signings coming out, right change scribbling, you know, signed today with the commanders. That was a huge signing. There was wait, what? No, that was the Juan ne. No, they had another one came out at us, FFL news. And then I saw on pro football focus that seriously? Yeah. It Philadelphia all started changing, scribbling, signed with the commanders today. And how did I miss that? It just, you were probably driving home and then there was the other one. Dewan Neal side of the commander. So we're seeing they had the cowboy signing last week. So we're seeing. These guys now, you know, going from the SFL to the oh, Mean that, that to me has to be the ultimate sign of success. I mean, more than anything else, it's the players getting notoriety that way you get signed? What, what do you think about these signings now? Coming out, going from the USFL to the NFL. I mean, I think that there to be expected. I mean, there is so much talent in the us L this year, clearly. Chaning struggling is funny. I literally was just talking. Earlier today with some guys, I was like, man, when is Chan dribbling gonna get a call? So that's funny. Yeah, it happened when I was on my drive home and I haven't even been on Twitter cuz I hopped right on here. So there you go. I'm. Happy to see him gets, I mean, why wouldn't he, I mean, he balled out. I mean, every game he'd led the league with like eight interceptions or whatever, seven or eight, and he didn't even play every game. I mean, it was hurt for a couple weeks. So that guy, that guy was incredible. And I, I think. Will help an NFL team. I don't see why he wouldn't. Well, that's great. I mean, that's my, you know, that's he came from the stars, go into the commanders. That's my that's right up your alley. and then we, you know, Kavante turban. I trying out with the Cowboys and Maurice Alexander trying to as well. That was one I posted yesterday. Just more, very well deserved. That's that's the thing that I love with whispering mom, man, like these guys. Are just so hungry, right? They are doing everything in their power. To get just one more opportunity, just one more chance. And some of them just wanna play football. Like they know they're not gonna go to the NFL and they're okay with that. They just wanna play. And that's why I think just in general, like my message to everyone is support spring football. We need it. We need it for us. We need it for the players. We need it for the coaches, the staff, the personnel, Darrell Johnston, everyone else involved. Poor John I'm so happy Johnson got through his season, cuz he, he was general manager. Commanders and the AAF, then he was to director of player, personnel for the renegades. Finally get to see a complete that guy. I guess third time's a charm for him, but. I, I can't imagine what was going through his head after the XFL shut down that would've been a bummer. This has been good that we were extended here in the overtime. Anything else you wanna? Oh, no. You're good. Anything else you wanna share? Talk about here at us L expansion before I let you go. I, I mean, I, I think we covered quite a bit. I'd say it's definitely likely two to four hubs in 2023. I don't see there. Definitely not gonna go into the markets. That's they're moving slow. As I said, I feel like that's common knowledge. Expansion. They're not gonna expand until they're in all. Why I don't see how they could expand until they're in all eight markets. I mean, I don't see why they would. I feel like they've gotta take, hopefully by year three, we'll see you, the teams in their markets. And then years four or five, I could definitely see them adding some more teams. I think that would be the smartest idea. I don't think they should add any more teams. Until they're in the markets that being said. It is incredible to see how many players are available. I mean, the X of fellows doing. Just fine. The MLF B is doing just fine. There is so much talent out there. The more leagues, the better, the more opportunities we get to see the more football we get to watch. I'll be curious, you know, they have the report, I guess it was last week. Was it skip Holtz had said on the radio show. Expanding the rosters, you know, they're doing the OTAs. Yeah. They're, they're continuing to sign more players, but yet we're gonna have a draft coming out again in the fall. Curious if enough, you know, Quality guys get signed to teams, get tryouts that way, you know, how much of the rosters need to be rebuilt through way of the draft. I'll just be really curious to see the continuity from season one into season two. What, what are your thoughts on that of them? You know, having to rebuild either. Just by players, you know, moving up. Right. Which is the goal of the league or right. You know, players not returning, I guess. What do you think about that? I, I think we're gonna see a, a good majority of players come back. Cause obviously there's only gonna be a select few that make it to the, to the NFL. I mean, There there's so many guys that deserve an NFL opportunity, but there's only so many NFL spots open. So there's gonna be a ton of talent to go around, and these guys are not going to the XFL. I mean, they is in the contract or whatever that they can't, they're not gonna go to the CFO. So we'll see a lot of these guys back. I mean, I wouldn't be, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see most of these big time names. Right back in the league. I mean, Jordan Tommo. Kyle. Slowder probably, I'm excited to see Brian Scott return. I'm so pumped for that. I mean, I, I would love to see him get an NFL opportunity. But we'll see, I mean, considering his injury and not getting ton of film in the USFL. I would probably see him back and then he'd be right back with bar Andrew and the stars. And he'd probably take 'em right back to the championship. I'd say. So, yeah, I'm excited to see what happens and I think. We're definitely not gonna see the talent. We're not gonna see the talent level drop off. It's just gonna get better. So I'm excited. I think, I think you're right on that. I think that. The USFL, you know, we're talking advantages, disadvantages that first to market being able to kind of stake your claim on a bunch of these guys. I think it's really gonna help out. I mean, obviously there's yeah. Turn every year with guys coming outta college and everything else, but right. Kind of this. You know, it's kind of like when you release your first album, right. And you have, like, I got a hundred different songs. Right. I'm gonna take the 20 best ones. Yeah. There were all these guys, you know, when they did the draft, like we could pick anybody in the world. Right. We could have anyone that we want kind of drafted into this league. And now next year, You know, when you gotta do the follow-up like for the FFL, there's only so many guys that are available. Right. And it's mostly people that the us L has either let go or didn't want, or they didn't wanna be a part of that. So it'll be interesting to see. And I know the XFL is doing the showcases. We're going to the, the one next week and there's Arizona, but like, oh, so sweet. You know what. Just be curious, like what, what quality of talent they accumulate considering kind of us F L has had first dips on a lot of the guys they would want. Yeah, I. It is really there. There's so. Many PLA I don't think we quite understand how many players. Are available. I mean, it's, I mean the FC yeah. Fan coach control football is one even forgot to mention earlier. I mean, there's just, there's so many leagues and there's just more and more players coming out of them. So I think the USFL is gonna be fine. I think the XFL is gonna be totally fine. I mean, look at all the guys that the they've had at their show. There's way more than they already need. And there's plenty of talent to pick from. And. The XFL is also gonna be able to possibly get their hands on some of these guys that get cut. Here heading into the NFL's upcoming season. Cuz. I mean, I'm sure the USFL will jump on some of them as well, but the XFL is gonna have, they're gonna be able to sign 'em or whatever, and, you know, a chance to go play in February with the rock for the rock. I mean, A lot of guys are gonna opt into that. So we'll see. Yeah, it'll be, that's the fascinating be if you're the player now, this year obviously was kind of a Mulligan just cuz USFL was the only, but next year, if you have the chance, I don't know. Right. I don't know. Like do you go, we got Fox. We have the track record. We've done the year. Do we have the ride? I, I it'll be fascinating to. See where the, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what salary the XFL can. And we've seen some reports where like, it's looking like it's gonna be more than the USFL. But I'm sure the USFL will be upping their salaries heading into season two. So it'll be very, who knows, man. I was just gonna have to watch and see if play out. I mean, I. There there's so many possibilities. We just could go on and on and on. Well, James, I appreciate your time today. I promise it won't be 90 weeks until I bring back on, but thank you for making the time today, coming off for work and doing this. I really appreciate it. Of course. Thanks for having me on. And it was. Really fun to catch up. It's we gotta do this more often. That's for sure. And guys Reid is not anti USFL. Okay. Well, I'm excited today. We have Sean Fitzgerald of the athletic Canada. Fresh off a win on the, the ball hockey, you know, championships. This weekend voice is a little horse, but he's, he's working through it. Sean, how are you doing? You gotta play hurt. Reid. I'm playing hurt. You know, it's the price of victory, you know, just like after the Stanley cup finals, when you hear about the Tampa bay lightning playing with like, Severed sternums and. Like they're both missing tibia is or something like it's it's me. This is, this is the price of glory. I'm doing my best. so we had Sean here. Sean had our article come out on the athletic a couple weeks ago, scheduling this to come on. Talking about the Argos, you know, how, how can we fix the Argonauts? Always curious this topic, you know, obviously. Life, you know, long time CFO issue here. Well thought out well written article. What I like, you know, we've had like the Steve Simmons of the world on, and he'll always kind of write like a hate piece on like, why don't people in Argo, you know, why don't people go to the games and that's great too. I can get why Steve does this, but this was a great yes. Susan ticket. Season tickets? Well, no, either, but he'll like rally the fan base. So he'll be like you guys, you know, suck. You need to show up at. Well written article, how do you fix your it's kind of going through. You know, I mean, obviously it's not a hundred, you know, 150 or plus history of everything, but, you know, recent memory kind of where we got to this point. First off Sean, what general thoughts are gonna, you know, this year attendance has been okay. I mean, what have you made of the 20, 22? Archades obviously this weekend they're gonna be doing the Atlantic, you know, showcase and all that. So I thought this was a good, like, let's talk about it cuz then they're come back and we'll kind of get focused more on the hometown stuff. I think the fact that you can sit here and say, it's good. That sort of indicates how far they've slipped. Like they have an entire section. They only have what, three levels in total at, at the new stadium at BMO. And then closed off an entire section. So, what you're dealing with is. Good is what like 12,000, 13,000. That's not good. That's you know, there was a rugby team here a couple of years ago, the Toronto Wolfpack who played. You know, they played their home games here. Every game else was, was in the UK and they, they drew. 9,000 Per home game. This is the Toronto Argonauts. This is. The, the oldest professional sports. Team in north America. This is. One of the most successful historically teams in Toronto history. And they're drawing flies. And they're completely invisible around town. And I don't say that with any fear of hyperbole. I live in Toronto. I live not far from downtown I'm. 15 Subway stops from the, from the stadium. There's no visibility. There's nothing. They are. They are as invisible as invisible could be. It's just weird and I just don't get, you know, we have Gary stern on this week. Like I mentioned before we recorded, you know, he's. Doing his part, right. Working social media, trying to help the Ettes. You know, here we have a Mar Doman who's been on the show. We're subsidizing drinks, you know, margaritas. We're doing concerts in BC. Victor que obviously Wright speaks for myself in terms of what he used doing. So it seems like you, we have some teams that are trying, right. We're, we're focused on youth and families and kids, right. Free kids here at Edmonton, I think 12. And under it just seems like the argon that they've just resigned to kind of meet mediocrity or fail when it comes to bringing fans in. I don't think they've resigned themselves to anything. They haven't done anything. The period. I mean, you left out, so, you know, in 2003, the Toronto Argonauts went bankrupt after. Excuse me the voice again, Sherwood Schwartz, right? That's a whole other thing that I'm very happy to get into. Talk about why that was so colorful. But they went bankrupt in 2003. They weren't the only CFO team to go bankrupt that year. The Hamilton tiger cuts also went bankrupt, but there, you had an owner in Bob young who bought the team. In the memory of his late brother who. Loved the Argos. And so he bought it, he stuck with it. You know, the first thing he did was he think he painted the bathrooms in IBER win stadium, which was just a. It's a good metaphor because I ever win in a lot of ways was a bathroom, you know, and of itself. But he painted it, you know, gave out flowers. And started building something, right? Like. Trying different ways. Not all of it worked, but they tried fun gimmicks. They made it little minor league ball. Remember, you know, the late Don Matthews was. Was accused of spying one year. Remember he was accused of spying. So the Thai cat sent staffers out across the GTA. To buy little plastic toy binoculars. And got as many as they could and gave them out to fans as they came into the park. So Don Matthews looked up and he saw all of these fans with like spy goggles looking down. So they built stuff. They had fun. The Argos right now. I mean, under the ownership of maple sports and entertainment. They've tried a little bit of marketing. They tried a new. Brand apparel launch, but they haven't really done that outreach. They haven't, you know, they're in schools, they have an anti-bullying program that Jason Clara's been running for years and years and years, which is. Reached and impacted hundreds if not thousands of youth around the city, but in terms of reaching out to me, I'm in my mid forties. I've got two kids who are in sports. Might not be bad to try and reach people like me. You know, young people. People in their twenties and thirties who live within a five minute walk of the stadium. Down in Liberty village, nothing. We don't see them on TV. We don't see them on billboards. We don't, I'm certainly not getting targeted advertising. I just don't get a sense that there's a real push. Certainly not in the way that, you know, Bob young has done in Hamilton. And certainly not in the way that you referenced when you talked about Montreal in Vancouver and Edmonton. Is this weird, you know, and obviously you had the quote in your article. There were Larry tan and bomb stuff. You know, talking about, you know, the right. We have the three teams, so they're holding back, whatever. It just seems like MLSC and the other properties that they own. You know, I think a CFO team just takes a lot more work and care to build that. Right. Like you said, it is a lot more of that. Reach out targeted. We're doing things we're in the community where, you know, maybe for the Raptors or the blue Jays that you can't print a little bit more billboards. You can't run a little bit more TV ads just because the visibility is so much higher where CFO just seems like it's so much more work and they just not. Whatever they're doing with their other 6, 8, 9 properties. It's just not. The CFO doesn't fit into how they, how they know to promote. So the blue Jays is an interesting one. The blue Jays aren't owned by MLSC their own strictly by Rogers. To get a ton of advertising, like. Sports nets. Summer programming is blue Jays and everything else. Right. So you turn into sports net, any one of their. 15 Channels. It seems like you're gonna find blue Jays in 30. You're gonna find them leading their, their news magazine, their news highlight show. You're gonna find people talking about them. You listen to radio nationally, syndicated radio. You're gonna hear blue Jays stuff. So you, what that does is yeah. Get people talking about it. I'm, I'm not saying that media and you know, the availability and accessibility on media drives attendance. I, I don't believe that's true. But it gets people, you know, you're people want to talk about it. It sort of creates that cycle. MLSE. Has proven very good over the last. Several, you know, two decades. When it comes to making money off the Leafs, when it comes to making money off the Raptors. When it comes to making money period, right. That, you know, when it was formed in what, 19 98, 19 99. May police sports and entertainment was. Basketball team, a hockey team. And a stadium and now it's a basketball team. A hockey team, a stadium. 32% Stake and maple leaf square, which is the huge development that, you know, we now know is, you know, the parking lot, Jurassic park and maple leaf square, but they also in the buildings they're in restaurants. Their partnered with live nation. They're making tons of money. What MLSC. I would argue has never really shown. A real skill or ability to do. Is market the lesser properties. The Toronto Marleys are an American hockey league team where you can go and watch least who are on the fringe. Right. You'll you'll hear them mentioned on talk radio all the time. Oh, who's gonna be the 15 15th defenseman on the roster. Well, he's playing for the Marleys right now. You can go watch. They don't sell out. That's that's right next door. Like that should be a two foot pot. They don't sell out. They have Toronto FC two. Not Toronto FC two, but they have Toronto FC, two sort of the farm team for the, the MLS franchise. They, they have, you know, the, the Raptors 9 0 5. They don't Excel. In fi like, just because that they're so good at the top end doesn't mean that all of their subsequent properties are also gangbusters and the Argos. Are that they are a secondary, maybe even tertiary property behind TFC. And they do take a lot more work. Because the brand has been so degraded. Over the last, I would argue 45 years. And you Chronicle a lot of that in your article, which I thought was interesting. Cuz as I said, we're, you know, I'm, we're the American XL podcast kind of coming in this stuff by way of. All that stuff last year. So it it's interesting, you know? Just how long it it's been an issue Toronto. Right? I mean, obviously the major cities in general, but especially Toronto. I mean, I guess just to, obviously this could be long answer, but in your opinion, the degradation of the Argonauts brand, it is. Spurred, mostly by what. This says long one, this could be a book. How do you have a lot of juice left? Do you have a lot of battery? Are you plugged in there? Are we good? We're set. So, I mean the Argos in the mid seventies. 19 74, 75, 76. Their average attendance was like, 42 To 45,000 a game. So they're filling exhibition stadium. And, and they hit, like, it was a big deal, right? Like there are some NFL teams or the Jacksonville Jaguars average 45,000 a game right now. I mean, paid attendance. I don't know. But then the blue Jays arrived in 76. And all of a sudden the Argos, aren't the only show in town over the summer. So they're attendance dip, but it's still really good. The challenges in the early eighties, the CFO. Adopted a policy and the Argos really embraced it. Where, if the game wasn't sold out, or if there weren't enough tickets sold, they blacked it out in the local market. So that held true for a long time. So you, you lost a generation of fans and this happened right around the time that, I mean, we're a 90 minute drive from Buffalo. In Toronto that, you know, the NFL. Really started. You could get not just one game a week or two games a week. You could get a lot of games on TV. Every week. So you lost an entire generation of fans who then gravitated. Even more so than they might otherwise to the NFL. And then on top of that, you know, the Argos are sold. Often that there's never one. Sort of consistent marketing plan or one consistent. Ownership group. So, you know, we'll flash forward to say the early two thousands when they're owned by. A guy based in New York by all accounts of very nice men, but he just, he wasn't fully invested or wasn't fully aware of what the Argos were, what the CFO was. So. He tried a bunch of different. I'm gonna call them, you know, I don't wanna say half baked, but they're certainly not fully baked ideas. You know, one year they. Said, you know what we're gonna spend? We're gonna, we're gonna create a festival around the stadium. So like they had Muhammad Ali and as a halftime guest, they had Tony Hawk, the skateboarder. Great. They had shaggy Amanda Marshall musical acts. They spent. Millions of dollars. And it didn't work. I mean, they got a, a tiny little take upwards, but not, not nearly enough. There was one point where they completely ran out of ideas. And they said, this is a real thing. They were going to reach out to an ad adult establishment, not far from the stadium. And they were going to contract that performers. And have pre-game what t-shirt contests outside of the stadium. Because they said we're done marketing to families. It hasn't worked. We're gonna, we're gonna with the direct quote from the, the manager at that point was we gotta make sure our men are happy. And which is. It defies. Explanation the CFO and the commissioner at the time stepped in and said, Hell. No, that's stupid. We're not doing it. But that's, that's what we're talking about here. So, who are you impressing? Who are you gonna draw to the stadium? What message are you sending? Long term, you know, 2004 new ownership group, they win the gray cup. They try some other things. They offer some stability. They bring in Ricky Williams in 2006, he was here for six games before he got hurt. And ownership, churn ownership, churn. Not consistent marketing and you have what you have now, which was 12,000 people going to a game. Andrew you rode in the article about, you know, them targeting the 50 year olds, right. Trying to kind of retain the viewership that they have. Where, you know, if, if you're looking at the life cycle of a fan, we need to be looking at, like you said, you know, kids 10, 20 year olds, right. I think you equated it to selling a car. Right. We're looking at people coming in. Credit cards like, you know, to me. The the best and worst thing about the CFO sometimes is the fan base, because it's like, they're so attached, right? That they don't. Recognize glared flaws. Right? And then you have some that, that do recognize and they get fights with people, but you we're targeting. You have 50 year old, whatever is trying to keep them in the, you know, in, in the Argos kind of families. Meanwhile, like we said, you know, Edmonton 12 and nine, bringing your kids to the game for free. Let's get 'em in. Let's get 'em. Exposed, you know, a Mars doing that. And BC, it's just weird. I thoughts on that and, and how they're maybe not targeting even the right type of fan base right now to market to all right. I'm gonna lay out my bias right here. Any talk of going to four downs. Any talk of lining up on top of the ball. Of getting rid of the RO. Of increasing the American. Ratio of any of that. Is a complete non-starter for me. The idea of, we have to be. We I'm saying Canadians, this is a, it's a Canadian Freudian slip. Yep. And CFO that the CFO should somehow become some feeder league to the NFL. Is a complete non-start it's b******t. It doesn't work. Not for me and not for any existing fans because. Why like you tried watching the USFL over the spring. It was awful. It was awful football. We usually I could have had you on for us FFL. We cover USFL every week I could have had you on. I did awful. That championship game maybe won OLAW my eyes out, just so I could feel something again, drop passes. Three yards in a cloud of dust, right? The CFO at its very best. It's something it's like a cross between the NFL and a Rita football. Like there, the CFO of my youth. Was like Matt, Dunigan throwing, you know, 33 of 42 for 3 56, 4 touchdowns and two picks, right? Like. Ariel crazy running. Wide open, fast, lots of activity. That's what the CFO's supposed to be. So, you know, when you're talking about marketing to. In a, in a weird way. You almost want to market to the traditionalist. You want to get the game back to where it was. And that's traditionally high scoring. High flying special teams is super important because you know, people could break a kickoff return at any moment. A misfield goal return for any moment. Go Google. Bachar Levingston. You know, with the Toronto Argos and some of the stuff he did against the Calgary stamp Peters in one game. Was more excitement than what you'd see in the USFL, or I would, you know, God bless the XFL. Coming up. Like that's what the CFL is. It's way more entertaining when people were calling the NFL, the no fund league. They were looking well, why can't we have what the CFO has the problem in my view. Is that the CFOs move too close to the NFL as it is. So the real key here, I think for me, and again, this is my bias coming out is that the CFO has to embrace what. Makes it different otherwise who cares? Who cares? I, I hot takes about this all day and it comes from like, I grew up around the CFO, like I have. I have very strong opinions about that. I think you can change things, but I think if you change the fundamental underpinnings of what the sport is, You're dead. No, I think it's gotta be, I'm often accused of being an anti SFL podcast. This is, I was not expecting that USFL hot takes share on the podcast. That was awful. And I watched it. I love football. Like, I, I, I think I proved to myself how much I love football by forcing myself to watch as much USF L as I did this year. Who is your team? I didn't have a team. I could, I still couldn't name. I think they played in Birmingham. Yeah. Like it was just colorful laundry running across the screen in three, three yards in a cloud of dust. Every time I turned it on. Well, I will say, you know, and obviously we're always admittedly newer to the CFO game. Right. You know, last season was a little rough. I, to me it felt like watching the Nathan Rourke experiment. Week two, I think was Edmonton at home. Right. You know, when he broke the passing record. That to me felt like, okay, this is what people have told me. The CFO has been for a hundred years and I have not had the opportunity to cover yet. See, I mean, it's. The CFO. Was always fun because I mean, the CFO's so much fun because it's. It's the anti NFL at its best. The CFO is the anti NFL. The NFL is. $10,000 Seats to go watch, you know, obstructed view, super bowl, right? The CFOs go to great cup week. Go to a great cup party and watch like people who should be mortal enemies holding their hair back while they vomit, because they've been drinking too much at the party. Right? Like, you'll go see a Calgary stamp. Peter's fan. With their arm around and Edmonton Elks fan, you'll see a Thai cats fan in an Argos fan buying each other beer. And, you know, they're doing it for really affordable tickets. And it's dorky stuff. It's weird. Storylines. It's fun. And it's usually at its best high scoring, fast moving. With lots of skill. And athletes who don't make a hundred billion dollars and are more relatable, I think, to their fans and more frankly, appreciative. And the relationship is more symbiotic. Than what you see in the major north American sports right now. So. That to me is the charm and the appeal of the CFO. And I think. As it's gotten further away from some elements of that. It's where it's sort of found itself in a bit of a bind. Speaking of it, is it you, I should have brought you in this podcast earlier. I mean, years ago, we've I buried? I had podcast feuds with other reporters. I buried at the breakup. I mean, I, we went to Hamilton last year. I know all about, you know, Daniel Austin. And I didn't hold each other's hair back when we vomited, we certainly made the mens over a shared cigarette outside of a bar. So that's good. Well, like, so that you went to a great cup week, right? We did. Yes. It's a cold, great cup week. So you're not getting the full experience. But like, you're not gonna get that at a super bowl week. Yeah, you're not gonna get that anywhere else. And that's part of the draw. That's why, that's why these fans who are 50 years old, keep coming back. And fifties getting kind of young for some of these fans, but they keep coming back because it is that sense of community. The CFO always fostered that sense of community. Not always in direct, not always directly. But sometimes in spite of itself, But that was always the charm. But so now that we, you know, understand that, right. Okay. That this, what made the CFO. Great right. The fans, all these things, but yet, you know, we're getting less and less people in 50 year olds are getting older. We're we're aging out. So now. How do you know, how did the Argo specifically in a way that, like we said, you know, BC is trying, Edmonton's trying these, you know, these teams were like, we're all trying now everyone's got different ideas. There's no bad ideas in brainstorming. How do the Argo specifically in the other team, how do we reach that younger fan base that they're not doing right now? Every time I raise this issue, I get shouted down. But. My thing. And again, I'm not. I'm not a marketing person. I have a bachelor of applied arts from. University. Take a look at Ottawa. Ottawa was such a bad market. It died twice. You don't usually get to die twice. right. In life or in football, you know, the, the rough riders died. The renegades came back, the renegades died and now we have the red blacks, but what are the red blacks? They're in a new stadium. Really nice stadium. In a redeveloped part of a pretty cool part of Ottawa and Ottawa is a really nice town. If you get a chance to get up there, Ottawa's fantastic. Especially in the summer, you get an adult beverage, you sit in that park. It's wonderful, but it's got a lot of stuff around it, too. Right? It's got restaurants. It's not far from residential. Like you can walk. There's good public transit. There's places you can go and have a beverage before and after a game. So, what have they done in Ottawa? I mean, they're kind of not great on the field. But they've created that. That sense off the field, right? That you can go. And you can find a pretty young crowd there. Pretty de you know, youngish. How. What's the secret sauce. I think whatever that secret sauce is. You try and you start. By bringing that to Toronto. Now, this is where I get yelled at saying, oh, Toronto's not Ottawa. You know, Ottawa, you have the red blacks and what you have some minor league baseball. You have some second tier soccer, Canadian soccer. That's it, but, you know, Toronto's got it's the fourth largest media market north America. You don't need, you know, all 5 million people in the GTA to go to a game. You need to find yourself 25,000 people. How do you do that for me? It's some of what you mentioned, right? Like, There is a huge neighborhood just north of the train tracks, literally a 10 minute walk from the stadium. Called Liberty village. You start, you go neighborhood to neighborhood. You send people up there, you send Argos up there. With Drake tickets saying, Hey, I played for the Argos. Here's some sangria. Come try again. Right. And you, you alter the in game experience. You maybe stop playing. Heavy metal music from the eighties in the interludes, you find new and creative ways. You find new marketing employees. But you work. Neighborhood to neighborhood. You don't have to market to. Hawk or the outline suburbs that, you know, you build, this is a community team. Come and have a look. This is your community. And you go from there, but you said, do you sense? MLSC I don't sense them. As the, the people that are gonna do that or want to do that. No, no. And that's gonna take money. It's gonna take investment. It's gonna take trial and error. No, I don't think that they're equipped or staffed or motivated to do that. Is are that with the ARRA knots? And again, not that the. There's always a clam and of ownership that wants to, you know, impart on this stewardship. That is a CFL team ownership, but I mean, with the Argos, we better off with someone else at the helm and, and someone that, that maybe feels. That's not using it as like a loss leader to kind of offset their other businesses. And that really wants to invest in the community there. See, here's the trick MLSC is also a really good owner. Like I'm a Lucy MLSC. Is a really good owner. I think bill Manning's, you know, a very smart executive he's president. They have really good people in place. Importantly, what MLSC is able to offer. Is the infrastructure. That before MLSE took over. The Argos were practicing at Downsview park. Or an indoor soccer dome north of the city. And then they would literally get in yellow school buses. And drive 25 minutes to an abandoned Catholic high school in Northo Toboco. Where you couldn't, it had a grass field, but you couldn't practice on it because it was covered in goose s**t. And it was a health problem. And they would do their pre-game walkthroughs on the concrete tennis courts next to the parking lot. So you had a professional football team doing pre-game walkthroughs on a cracked concrete with grass growing up through it. Tennis courts. That's not sustainably either. So what MLSs E's been able to offer is okay, here, look. You know, we don't own BMO field, but we manage it. So here, take this dressing room. We'll get you. Good facilities. Your front office can work across the parking lot in Coca-Cola Coliseum, where we have the Marleys, which is also a good facility and we'll have the infrastructure there to help out. The challenge is, is yeah. What is the ROI on dumping? A lot of money. For a 10 year plan to build the Argos from where they are now. I'm not sure I could make that case either. Well, no, I mean, that's actually great points. You bring up cuz we get a lot of, oh, it's MLSC is the problem and they don't care, but you're saying like, I mean there's worse situations they could be in, like you said, been in worse situations. They've in terrible situations. So here its yeah like they're bills are getting paid. Their contracts are getting paid. The people are getting paid. They said they didn't lay anybody off during the pandemic. That's that's for pretty good check marks for MLSE right. And then you have the facilities. Like, that's fine. They, they have what they need to be competitive on the field. I would argue. The challenge is, is yeah. Like to take that next step to grow that fan base is gonna cost money. And it's not gonna be a linear growth. I, I, I can't make a, an argument that it would be a linear growth that you invest X number of dollars. This is going to be your return. It just, I just don't see that happening. But I think that there are plans that you could, you could take there, there are paths you could follow. I would argue that Michael Copeland and Sarah Moore, the executives who were in charge before the MLSE takeover. Had some very good ideas. Some of them were very expensive. But I think that they were making. I would argue that Sarah Moore. And Michael Copeland were making headway. And just, you know, they, they ran at a time because of the ownership change. This is hard. Like you said, even in OTA way, you know, not good on the field, you know, Argos, I mean, they're leading the division right now. Not with for the one win. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, but you know, last year they, you know, made a deep playoff run, you know? I mean, I was, we, you know, I'm on the McCloud train. I think he's a good face of the franchise. You can. Build around. I mean, I think he's a, you know, he's a very dreamy individual. You get out as you're starting quarterback, but. You know, worse, there are worse CFO teams that do better to job marketing right now, you know, and that's the thing is I think people think, well, if the Argos just win more people will return. And, and I don't think that that 19 96, 19 97, the Argonauts were the Canadian version of the LA Lakers of the eighties. They were Showtime, like they had Doug flu. They had Michael Clemens, they had a fantastic defense. They had an all star offense. They obliterated people. They were the hammer of Thor. Like they. They murdered people all the way to the back to back. Great cups. It didn't sell out. Right. Like they won the great cup in oh 4 0 5. They didn't sell out. They won the hundredth grade cup, like Dave. They bid one of Toronto's like Toronto's had a lot of dog s**t sports teams over the last, since the turn of the century, right? Like believe seven one Jack squat. Is since 1967, they even wanna a playoff game playoff round since oh two, the Jays haven't won a championship since 1993. The Raptors obviously, but they're a crap for a long time before they. 2019 Toronto FC was comically terrible. Until they finally won, you know, in 2017. There was a lot of time in there where the Argos and the Toronto rock, the lacrosse team were the only teams that won here. And it didn't matter, didn't matter because they didn't have. Either the buy-in the capacity or the, the, the money or support. To capitalize on it, off the field. I could keep you on here for a long time talking. I think this is fascinating. The one I don't want the use up your voice too much. Any other final thoughts? Anything today? I mean, I'd love to have you back on here in the future, but you know, It's just hard. It's it is a tricky situation. It's a glaring issue right now. Like we said, you, you look at the, the, the markets that are struggling the most, and at least it seems to be effort in a lot of these other ones right now that there's not, I in Toronto. Well, I mean, like it's easy to single out Toronto. And I know the rest of Canada hates when we single out Toronto. And, and I think it's justified because what we're talking about here, Is a, is a slope that's been going downwards, trending downwards. Since, you know, 1980. So that's a problem, right? And it's only gotten worse. But, I mean, you take a look around the league, like. Every team's had their turn more or less like. You know, I was a kid when they had telephones to save the riders in Regina. Right. Like Winnipeg, Winnipeg. Wasn't always, you know, this strong either. BCE David Braley. Single-handedly kept the lions in Vancouver. Calgary had an owner who, you know, some people argued, bought the team just so his son would have a chance to play quarterback. You know, Montreal, Ottawa, we discussed. Hamilton was bankrupt in 2003, like, you know, Edmonton might be one of the only exceptions here of what we're talking about. But yeah, all teams have had their challenges and. Teams have, you know, generally. Found a way to, to sort of market their way and work their way out of it. But yeah, nationally, you know, Ts end's audiences are very, very old. Very homogenous. Like the CFO's got a lot of work to do. And Toronto was I think, and arguably a flashpoint. The, the issue too, as you raised was, you know, Toronto. Views itself as more of a, you know, like, oh, we're a global audience here. We're watching, you know, we're watching NFL, we're watching all this stuff and that maybe the CFO is too Canadian. Right for, and we had Gary stern, we talked. With that in terms of, you know, CFO and the owlets as well as the Canadianness of the CFL is its strongest point. But it also is a point where. You know, it was very hard for me in America to get into covering the CFO. If you could imagine there was a lot of pushback. So, I mean, you know, in Toronto, like, are the Argos, is that too Canadian? For the people in Toronto that wanna spend their time and money on. Yeah, the, the great thing about this city. And there's also lots of bad things. You know, our transit infrastructure is not very good. Our. City government doesn't open bathrooms and public parks, or turn on water fountains for some stupid reason. This summer. There's a lot of crap about the city too, but this city is fantastic. Because it's not a giant homogenous group. You can find anything you want in the city. I can go and I can find any restaurant you want from just about anywhere in the world. It's a wonderful city. To say that something's too Canadian. For Toronto or too, too. I don't know. Like it's it's, there's just so many people here. If you know what you're doing, you can find and build an audience. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like just kind of put in the effort. That it's just me. Yeah. I can just pull up the schedule and kind of be like, okay, who the hell's playing this weekend. Like okay. Now. Exactly, exactly. But yeah, let's go. All right. Do that sounds great. You're my last one today. So this will be, I'll put everything, put everything to bed after this. We'll put it together, but it should be a good show. So I'm excited. I'll I'll send it over when it's up tomorrow. Yeah, that sounds great. Well, this has been a lot time coming, but I'm excited, many emails sent, but I'm glad that we could get you on me, Sarah. Leski. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Yes. Many emails. So it's, it's great that we finally been able to connect well, I, a long time ago, I said, I need to get a lot more female smart people on this podcast. And so I, I had you and like Claire, Hannah, and a bunch of others on I'm like, okay, I need to start sending you these emails out to try to trick. It cuz it is kind of a guy's club here every once in a while. For well, happy to. Break into the, the guys club here and add a female voice to it this week. So I'm excited. So we we're gonna talk Winnipeg stamps. You know, we had what I thought was going to be a wonderful game last week for my BC lions against Winnipeg. And did that did not turn out, I guess, for off, I love your thoughts on that. And just kind of the other collapse. It was, I call them America's CFO team, the BC Alliance. now, why do you call them? America's. CFO team. Cause they're, I, I call myself America's premier CFL podcast and they're my team. So therefore they're America, CFO, therefore, well, I mean, not just makes sense, but . Obviously obviously. So I obviously, yeah. You know what? I was really intrigued about the game, obviously like so many people last week to see what was going to happen. And I think there's obviously a, a lot of excitement about Nathan work and, and what. The BC lines are doing out there. So to be able to see. The win play, blue bombers come out. And, you know, from obviously from opening kickoff, be able to set the tone. We were, so I didn't even see. I'm trying to think if there was something that was going on. During the game. So I wasn't able to see, and I had it. PPR. Oh, I was at an event and. I looked down at my phone and I went. Whoa. 21, nothing in the first quarter. What happened and actually, you know, it was a, it was an event in Saskatchewan. And so that became. A, you know, a hot topic around there with so many of the CFO fans, just about how. You know, when you're just looking at the box or not able to see necessarily, or get a real context as to what had happened in the game, but to be able to see the bombers set the tone and just jump out early, obviously was a little bit of a surprised, just, I didn't think it would be to the extent that we saw. But I think that the bombers definitely helped deliver a message last week. Yeah. I was filming a wedding. That's what I do in my real job. And I, I had a lot of, you know, I think we were getting ready for the ceremony and I had a lot of tweets of like, you know, well for check on the mark cast right now. And I said, I would probably be putting my head through a wall if I was watching this game right now. I'm so glad that, but he was so frustrating cuz we have built up and we're getting ready to go and we're gonna show Winnipeg and it really does show that it is Winnipeg in the, the league of the own here in terms of the CFL team in. Well, I think that just it's it is proof positive of just what a strong. Team that they have. And even though they, obviously, they haven't been happy with. Necessarily the way that they've been playing up to this point and there's a lot of room for improvement is everyone would agree from looking at it. So for them to be able to put all three phases together with it, I think is to start to see them roll a bit more. I think we're seeing that across the league with some of, I mean, in particular, In the west, obviously, but west about teams starting to put together. More complete games than what we saw earlier on in the season, which bodes well for an exciting west, you just need the east to be able to catch up a bit. But I was gonna say mean that was the whole thing. Last year was the west was pitiful and the east, and we had all this excitement and we had Hamilton and Toronto what's gonna happen. And then this year, it, I mean, I don't think the east can get anything going at all. I mean, it really is crazy why hope that the, they can't mean doesn't bother just not bode well for this season, if. We need, like if you're a CFO fan or, I mean, obviously for the league itself, it has to have the ease get going. You don't wanna see the differences. Between the west and east be as dramatic as they are now. I mean, there have been a number of close games, so let's not make it seem as if the east had been blown out in. In all of their games against west teams, cuz that certainly hasn't been the case. And you look at some of the teams that have struggled. In the east to put up wins and they they're records could very easily be reversed from what they are. Based on a, you know, if one or two things had. Had gone differently for them. More. So the, the potentials there, we just need to see it starts to happen. Cause I think that this league. Needs to have the, the close games and they need to be honest, you can't just have the west be. Dominant, you can't have the east bead one win two wins. Great. They need to be able to have more parody in terms of records. Is that Calero head and shoulders the best quarter back in this league right now. I don't know if head and shoulders. I would say, I think that, I mean, I, I think you can certainly make argument that he's the best. In the league, like I probably put. Say go through. Right. I would probably allow me to put him. Bow. And then it's, it's just, it's such a small sample. I'm excited about Nathan work. Such a small sample size that I'm, you know, I always just say that I'm, I'm very. Conservative with when I anoint someone. Something. I like to see a larger sample size before it, but I love what, you know, the potential that we see with what Nathan Rourke could bring with it. But yeah, I think that. When you look at it, Zach's the best quarterback going right now. He's finding different ways to win. Obviously the way that he played in the game against BC reminds you of just. How great he can be. And the bomber's record. I was speaking with Mike Oche. She today about it. You know, we all, we all know that the bombers have obviously had. Such success since Zach. Was acquired, but it's just. It's when you see the numbers. That it really go. Wow. It just there's something about seeing it. Written on paper about just how dominant. This bomber's team has been with him at the helm that really hammers home. He's just. Everything has he found a system, whether it was with Paula police or Beck Pierce? He's behind a great offensive line. And he's just been able. To continue to find. Ways to make it work. It isn't always pretty. The offense isn't always firing on all cylinders, but Hey, the best teams find ways to win and they're led by the best quarterback right now. Yeah, our Mike Mitchell that writes for, you know, CFO news seven and all that. I mean, I think that's what he had said after the game was, I think Zach is like 21 and two and starting. And there's some crazy numbers start, I think 22 and two. Yeah. And that, that just, no matter what, like he's said, when the P just always finds a way. It might not always be pretty or clean or whatever, but I mean, the record speaks for itself. It's really crazy. It it absolutely is. And what I think is, you know, So impressive about Winnipeg is that it is that they find is to win-win adversity hits and it, you don't need to have the offense firing on all cylinders. Obviously it helps, but you don't have to because of the defense that they have, or you, your teams, or you see other parts of the games step up and, and players. Step up. So it isn't all on Zach's shoulders. For it, but it is, it's something to be seen the way that this team has played the last couple of seasons and mean obviously. 2019 When he was. Acquired and, and came in and kind of that magical. Run right through to the gray cup. And then I maintained that the team that I saw in 2021. Was to me just. I describe them as the ultimate team, just when you. That sense that, you know, it was everyone bought in and the veterans, the tone. And then you look at the way that it's continued. They just, it's such a strong organization. And for years, I mean, there was a time where you, you know, you couldn't say that it was constant upheaval, it was revolving door of quarterbacks that were going through and there wasn't the stability. And now I think you have to look at the blue bombers as being the model organization for the CFO. It's weird. So once the BC game got done, everyone said, okay, well now the next we got Calgary, right. Going in, you know, win the. Bank. And I thought Calgary doesn't feel like an undefeated team to me. I mean, I guess I still have that Hamilton game kind of in my head of just, it just, it doesn't feel like. Calgary is getting this much respect this year on their name, right as BC has so far. I mean, Why? Why is that? It seems like people are always like, okay. Bo is not doing whatever. And it just, it feels like they don't have as much pedigree or prestige behind them this season. I mean. People, I think we've seen people. Doubt Bo going into this season. Easily. And as he do it, when he's healthy, he's still. This future hall of Famer and. My, I mean, he is, you still win all the. When all the chips are down there, aren't a lot of people. I don't think that would take that. Wouldn't take Bo Levi Mitchell. A as their quarterback or it, and, but I think that also expectations, you know, when you're as, as good as the Stan Peters organization have been for so long, But. I don't know. I just think that, yeah, there's certainly they've had. Their issues. They haven't played to the level that they want to. There is no doubt about that, but I think to go back to that idea teams rounding into form and just starting to see more complete games granted last week was. Against the Elks, but it was which, I mean, They have their, they have their obvious struggles. This season, but I think that you saw a lot of positive things. A building blocks for them. And I think that it's, it's great for the west. When the Sam Peters are one of the top teams. Yeah, there was it. Was it Chris Jones cussing out or whatever on the sidelines last week after that game, that was a pretty memorable clip. Absolutely. And I, you know, you're intrigued back and I would love to look. I'd love to see Edmonton much, like, like to see the east, get back to it. It just, when you have only a nine team league, especially you have to have, you can't have organization, especially whens that have as proud. A history on the field as what Edmonton does to not have, or to have them struggle the way that it is. It's, it's sad. You look around, I mean, what, whatever they announced as their attendance. Last week at Commonwealth certainly was not how many people were in there. And I don't know if they had 8,000 in the building if they had 10,000, but it's just, it, that's another great football city. And. You just it's, it's sad when you look around and you see that there's so many empty seats there, so it would be great. If the elk can get back to a little bit more prominence. Well, it's kind of, you know, we had talked BC and, you know, Omar Doman and all that of, you know, here, we're all trying to do these rebuilds, you know, you can't like I can. Sell as much and discount drinks and do all this stuff. If the team stinks, the team stinks and you can't, you know, it's not like wrestling where you can book. Okay. I can make this guy be, you know, it's, you can't make your team win. If they're not gonna win. I think I feel very bad for, you know, for friend of the show queer right now, cuz it not a lot is going right for Edmonton. No, not a lot is. And look, that's not gonna be able to switch the flip or. Flip the switch and be able to get things going away with the amount of people, people that they've had. Obviously. I mean, their quarterback situation is. Completely Inflex as well with it. So. There's going to be growing pains. And I think people expected them. I don't know if anyone expected them maybe to the degree. That they are in terms of some of the blowouts that we've seen, but. I have confidence that Chris Jones will be able to, and the staff will be able to get things turned around. It just might not be as quick as everyone would like. What do you, and I, I guess this is kind of been lost in the, in the Garrett Marino news this week with everything, but the Arbuckle to Ottawa trade. Right. It just like it happened. I I'm like, oh yeah, that did happen this week. Thoughts on that, it seemed like it kind of came out of the blue. I, well, I guess not cuz Ole and all that, but it just, I don't know. Just felt like it kind of came as, as a shock, but I think that when you looked at it, you certainly got the sense that Nick Arbuckle was not the quarterback of choice for Chris Jones and. Smack ADUs that that was that they weren't, he wasn't going to be their guy. And I know that Nick art buckle has spoken about how he talked to us about how he just wants to find. Really a home, right. He wants to be able to set down roots and. I feel anytime for journeymen that are making through. And it, I mean, it's incredible when you look at the number of organizations that he's been to in the last couple of seasons and think about how much. Expectation and promise there was. And I should say more expectation. There was when he was the backup in Calgary and then left and he had been, he's gonna be the next starter. Where, and then it just has not worked out for him. I have nothing, but in my limited. Dealings with him since he spent so much time out east, I. I don't cover east teams as often. But I thought that what we saw from him. Just on that human level. I was so impressed with that. Shot at the end of the game in Hamilton, when he went over to console Dana Evans. When Dane was so visibly upset on the bench, I just thought that. But told you really all you needed to know about Nick Arbuckle as a person. And so I really hope that he's able to. You know, put some of the struggles that he's had this season behind him, maybe fine. Some find a fit. In Ottawa this season and. It would be great for Paul poli and, and that crew over there because just devastating for them to have Jeremiah and the solely go out the way that he did. Well, it's crazy. And you know, and obviously there's been so much this week with, you know, the racial comments and everything and the suspension, but I mean, at the end of the day, you know, here you have someone that Jeremiah Ole, you had a big contract. Still is not a big contract for the CFO. You know, like we have all our hopes and dreams behind him coming in gets hurt. I mean, Lord knows, you know, how long he's gonna be out for. I just, you know, Ottawa was another team in city that really was looking to rebuild and were behind the R and we're doing all this stuff. And Paul, it just, it feels like it was the worst possible time. They were already struggling the season. And now you have the, this and the play. Injury and another player. It is really hard situation. Yeah, absolutely. And. The, I just, I feel for pretty there, again, the, you look at the start that Ottawa. Had, I mean, they were, it's not as if you've been. They couldn't have won some of those games aligned. They certainly did not have an easy schedule to start off with running back to back against the bombers. And, and then you go, you've got the game against riders as well. So the. You know, the schedule makers didn't do the many favors with it, but. I just as much as I hope that. Nick Arbuckle is able to come in and at least as a veteran, he's able to have, he's seen defenses and, and is much more familiar with the CFL game. I just, I feel for everybody there because that's organization, I like a lot of the things that they've been doing. And I love the atmosphere. In Ottawa. I don't know if you've had the chance to get there, but the atmosphere in the stadium. Is great. And it's, it's a good football market. And so they deserve to, they deserve to have, you know, the team. Not only fans deserve to not only have a good product on there, but I think with the coaching staff that they have there as well. And you look at some of the changes that Sean Burke has made and brought in that it just I'd like to see them have the opportunity success. Cuz you look at the, the pressure that continues to build them on a coaching staff. When the winds don't come in and if, when you're dealt. Significant injuries the way that they have been. I mean, that's, those are tough hurdles to overcome. Speaking of, you know, overcoming difficult or records right now. You know, we obviously saw the coaching change in Montreal. Right? We have Gary stern is also coming on the show this week. Very excited to talk with him about all that stuff. You know, Hamilton is another team organization, you know, here at coming off, we've been in two great cups back to back, you know, losing end, but. Now, you know, they're oh four, right? If I, my members, I mean, whether, whether we thinking in, in Hamilton, I know you don't, you know, focus. Specifically on the east, but obviously, you know, struggling to kind of get things going there. Oh, I mean, because they've been out. Less so often already I've been I've certainly I've done my fair share of heartbreak games for the tie cats up to this point. And. You really look at Orlando Stein hour and. And everything that he's. Down there and trying to do there. And you just feel for him the heartbreak of. Of some of the, the looks on his face. I mean, if you're wanting compelling, Television and visuals that we've certainly had our fair share at the end of games. Of just disbelief of coaches, you know, a number of different coaches going, I can't believe that, you know, this play just happened or this kick was missed or whatever. Look for, I, I mean, I have full confidence that. That Orlando will be able to figure something out, but they have to, I think that. The bi-week will be interesting to see what had come out of it for them. I think that Dean Evans really needed to reset. I, I mean, when he spoke after the game about how doesn't believe he's ever B no one for. In his career and just searching for answers for it. You have to think that. I don't know if they'll be the best team. In the east, but. When it's all said and done, but they'll certainly he'll find Orlando will find a way to make them. A competitive and a contender to in the east. So, sorry. I mean, I love Dame. I mean, I'm a big day in supporter. I think he's a good. Name you can really build around, you know, the CFO, we, you know, we kind of need to, we need stars right. To build off of it. And I think Dan's a great guy. I just wish that. Their record show showed better right now than it is. Well, and you just everything, you know, so often, and I'm not saying that, you know, All, I don't think all the interceptions are on are on Dane. For them, but certainly everything that could go wrong is going wrong for it. They just can't buy a break. And so you just have to hope that, you know, something is able to turn around. They just get that, whether it be that first win. And I don't know how much believe, believe about the momentum caring over from one. Week to a next in the initial stages, but you gotta get that good feeling and that confidence going back, you wanna see. You wanna see Dane have the confidence in his game again and, and across the team so that if something does happen, you don't panic. Like I, I was talking to bully by Mitchell. Today in advance of the game with bombers and stamps. And we are just discussing, mentioned the re resiliency of the Dan Peters. They haven't been happy with how things have gone other than last week. With despite record, other than last week, think they hadn't been bleeding. They had always had to, you know, come back in the second half because the first time they've been slow, starts for it, but they had to, they had been able to have the conference of, to be able. To do that. And I just think that. You know, you need to be able to. I think that at once Hamilton hopefully gets that and gets that first win. And that may be then when things, if you, your record starts to improve that maybe when things do go a little bit south there, isn't that feeling of the, oh no, here we go again. Shoulders shrugging or. That sort of concern. I can pick your brain about a lot of stuff. I don't wanna keep you too on tonight. My last question, hopefully we get you to have you back on again. Absolutely. You know, so circling back to the game, right. You know, we're talking Bo and, and Calgary EG. They peg is this Cal where pig's world, we're all just living in it. I mean, what do you, what, what do you think here going into this big matchup tomorrow? Or excited is as this right. For it. So I it's going to be. Well, it's supposed to be very hot and humid. So it's supposed to be, I think it's something like 35. Degrees with the HUMANeX. So it'll, it'll be very warm. . I, you know what I think this will be. I think this will be a great challenge for it. I, I no trying to get. Any player really on either side. To give those really memorable quotes about hyping it up has not happened up to this point, or at least not that I've seen. And not that I've been able to, to get from anybody. I. Everyone's trying to downplay it, but I think it would be impossible. That there isn't a little something extra for the Dan Peters, just with the way, obviously that being viewed, that the way that. The bombers you're back to back breakup champions. Everyone wants to take them down and. And, you know, can you really. Prove yourself or assert yourself until you've beaten the bombers. No. I mean, despite, despite the record, Craig Dickinson has talked about how one of the focuses writers is that. This season was that they needed to, whether it be, get more physical and they need in variety of things, but with the. With the belief as well that you needed to be able to. Model your team or get enough from your team that you're going to be able to beat. The bombers, because right now they're the Kings of the CFO. They're the Kings of the west. They've proven it. I mean, especially in the west to get out. Of that division. You're going to have to go through Winnipeg obviously. And so. Right now, I think that Winnipeg has a target on their back, but they've also been. Beyond just exactly being fantastic at IG field. The it's supposed to be a great crowd. Perfect. You know, weather to sit in a stadium. And, and relax on a Friday night. And I think that there is an energy for, at IG field that sometimes I just look around. I'm so fortunate to easily to be, have been in all the stadiums, but there's no boat looking around just when the fans. Really get into it and get going. And the way that it reverberates off of. You know, the overhangs, it's just. It's an atmosphere that I think makes it very difficult for. Especially if you get down early. So it'll be interesting to see, but I think that both teams will have their hands full with it because they're obviously they're both very talented rosters right now. Well, I really appreciate it should be a good game. Should be a good weekend. The lion's week looking their wounds. I saw Matt baker was off on vacation somewhere. I go, let's get everyone out of town. We'll we'll get this, we'll flip the switch and we'll come back, but I really appreciate you taking the time. I, you know, hope you good luck tomorrow covering and everything. And yeah, it should be let's get the east go pumping again here. So we have an exciting season to talk about. Absolutely. Thank you for having me on and I, but I wanna a little bit more. Confidence in you from you in your tone over the fact that this is going to be a good week of well we're. We are going to have great games. It is going to be, and look the, and. Every year is different, but when the stamps and the bombers play each other, particularly in the last, I don't know, four seasons, it seems to always come down. To the final, you know, whether it be the final. Play certainly decided in the final three minutes, almost the entire time. And that is always what we look for. Well, I have a, so my thing with the stamps, I kind of have a love hate, so I , I, I have, I have a very public. Pseudo feuds with Danny Austin. Right? So we Daniel Austin and I, we kind, you, you know, and like the be thing, he kind of, didn't like the XFL, we covered the XFL, but Jake Mayer's been on the show and I love Jake. And so I think when we, when we move on to Jake, I think that we'll be cruising here for the stamps and. I'll be a fan that . Very like Mo emotionally driven here when it comes to my teams. Yeah. Hey, you know what? I always said that there are no teams. I don't cheer for any team in any league other than the green bay Packers, but I can be. Very emotionally charged and emotionally driven my responses when it comes to the Packers. So I can. I can, I can empathize. I can understand what, what fans go through and what it, you know, the way that you feel with. With your teams, the Packers. I, I mean, we hate Aaron Rogers in the states. Is he more popular in Canada? Hey, well, look, I am a green bay packer fan and I've got. You know, he's quarterback and. We'll just, just leave it at that. And everyone does not hate. Aaron Rogers. No. Everyone does not. this. Know what. Again, my love for the team go and the organization. Goes back. It was the very first you mean Winnipeg? Which is where I grew up and where I live now, but where I grew up. The Fox affiliated all we showed Packers games. So that was the one. And I just loved. The idea of everything about green bay, about the way that they embraced the team and how everything shuts down because everybody's watching Packers and. Having the chance to go to Lambo. With such a, it's such a magical. Place. So regardless of who the quarterback is, I will always cheer for the Packers. what is kind of like the American Canada. I mean, this kind of this barring wasteland, it's cold that people don't wanna go there. I mean, I love so when I went there at the last time I was there as a fan was 2007 and I took my. Dad there on a father, daughter trip. And. The I was so impressed because. We went tailgated. We walked through the tailgating area beforehand. And then when. The game started, it just seemed like everyone abandoned everything. And just walked in cuz he didn't seem to be concerned that anything was going to go missing or could happen because everybody was in the stadium or at home watching on TV. So there was just no concern about it. And, and I loved, yeah, I just, I loved that and the mentality. And their love for it reminds me. Be a little bit of the, of the prairies with it.

Episode 100 - Advantage USFL?

Well, I'm excited. We have Ben Fisher fresh off a vacation where I guess we have a little bit of a headwind, but bad is okay. Ben Fisher joy, the sports business, or how are you doing, sir? I'm great. And they had injuries, not as severe as that vantage might suggest just cause one of those hockey injuries that it looked a lot worse. It was bright red blood everywhere, but ultimately I didn't miss any planes. Well, that's good. So we either, we talked with bad pre. The USFL and we were, I can't remember. We had John and the XFL and all that. Now we've made it through the season. You had a great article, came out, I think a week and a half ago I had reached out. You said you were going out of town. You'd come back on and, and chat. We got here. So now we just made it through the USFL season. We just had the championship ratings came in 1.5, one seven for Mike Mitchell reporting that. Thoughts now that we've made it through the finish line. What do you think. Hey, they finished. I think that alone is worth celebrating for on their behalf as a, as a win. I know there's not a lot of drama to it. It was, it was. It's backed by Fox. It was sort of a low cost thing. Really finishing doesn't sound like a real victory, but it actually does make them stand out compared to so many of these spring league startups. So I think Fox is pleased with that. I think, you know, the TV numbers can be fairly described as a tepid success. I don't think they were grand slam numbers, but as a Fox, as Mike Mulvihill correctly pointed out in my coverage of. That those numbers, they. They. Are better than a lot of things on TV. You know, their broadcast average is about the same as college basketball on, on Saturdays. And. In the, in the basketball season, they are better than major league baseball and NHL regular season way better than MLS comparable to English. Premier league. One, and those are certainly entities that we would call successes. So, you know, an overall average of 715,000 viewers per game. That doesn't blow me over. I think they were hoping that number would Chloe closer to a million, but it's certainly good enough to build on. And so, and the 1.5 per championships, again, similarly, not a, not a wow number, but a good enough number. You could do a lot of good business at 1.5 million. Yeah, it's just hard and you probably don't know this cause you actually have a real job and do real things like every week when these radios come out, right. There's. Conversations and Twitter and all this, you know, What did we expect and what should we expect? And what's good and what's bad. And, you know, Are there they're flexed in the games to the wrong things, and they're not doing this. I mean, overall, like you said, comparable to MLS. I mean, these are properties that are worth a lot of money, right? MLB, you know, baseball, if you want to talk about the decline or not, but you're saying. I agree with you. Like a, it doesn't blow my socks up. Like you said, what, what were we supposed to expect going in? Well, I think that, I think the million was to me, first of all, to answer your question, I'm not sure any of us had great ideas. Because of what this was going to do. And that's why just having a season is so important because you go to sell sponsorships or media or even investments. Minority investor. Everyone wants to see a track record. And even these numbers. Aren't great. It's it's hard data with go on. Whereas the XFL is average is selling a whiteboard right now. So just doing it gives you some numbers. My sense of things back in February was. If they can clear that million threshold that would have been, you know, a really strong wind for them. And they did on broadcast. It's just those cable numbers were off. The list tells you that it was a very soft interest that if people saw the game on their main channel five Fox or whatever they would might tune in, but they weren't going to look for it on Fs one on channel 295, or, you know, a lot then a Cate through a mobile app or something like that. So, I mean, seven 15 is maybe on the low side, but you know, they had enough good numbers there to be pleased with, I think. And you know, there'll be the first to acknowledge that the empty seats in Birmingham didn't help. I mean, how many times is there actually a great fourth quarter at a USFL game, but just had no energy to it because it felt like a pandemic game. And that was something else. I mean, you know, I went down there immediately, the TV. Viewership pat specifically when you asked me for my review of the season. But there's other aspects to it too. I thought the field of play, I'm certainly no football expert. I'm a business expert who happens to write about football. So I would defer to, to more of a, a true X's and O's type person for this, but. As if you were, I was. Pretty pleased with, with the quality of play. Certainly there's some off target throws or to certainly there was some linemen that couldn't block people, but by and large, they games I watched in the USFL. We're plausibly competitive, maybe as a way to put it, you know, if you've got it in the USFL, your team is down seven with a ball in their own 15 yard line at two minutes left. I'm not saying they're going to execute that drive. I'm saying, I thought they could. And I'm a Penn state fan. I've watched a lot of big 10 football where you just know the quarterback is not going to do that. They're just not good enough. And I'd say that most days. Most of the games I saw in the USFL it past the threshold of this is football. That is watchable. It's clearly not bred far about there. But it's, you know, It's better than some of the football we've seen in our day on TV. Yeah, no, I mean, I've gotten a lot of flack this season for BMI, the anti USFL guy. It never micro-tears ever were against the player is, I mean, I had some coaching qualms with, you know, Kirby, Wilson and other things, but. It never gets players never gets the quality of play. It was always, these decisions made behind the scenes. I thought they were made it harder. To get back to the razor. This one second. I just, to me, it's always. When you have to have like Fox executives, like Michael Mahoney. [Unknown] on and I've reached out to him to come on. I think he's trying to work through, you know, red tape there, but like when you have to have the executives on Twitter, like defending it every week, that's where it feels like this probably isn't as high as they thought it was going to be, because if it was, and again, maybe we as a collective are just dumb. And I accept that too, that we have unrealistic expectations for like, when you have the Fox execs on there'd be like, well, no, actually this is a good. This is a good rating. And here's why, or like when you have Brian Woods, his brother right on Twitter, like, this is why we are doing okay. It just felt weird to me. I just from an outsider. Yeah, I think that that's fair. I guess I would say that. Mobile hill is out on Twitter, hyping, foxes, radios on every sport they show. You know, framing the radios conversation people have. The networks have well-paid departments have communications people to put a positive spin on whatever it was. Even when the Olympics ratings are down 40%, somebody at NBC is going to write a press release, but what a great viewership it was. So. You're right. It does seem a little, a little too desperate by half sometimes. But I guess, you know, covering this industry full time. It didn't strike me as necessarily anything that's strange. I think they probably thought I'm more necessary than most because of the attendance issue. You know, I think you turn on these games. Like my God, no, but well, almost literally nobody is there. This must be a failure. So I think they had to work harder to remind people that they knew that going in and that, that wasn't the point, at least initially. Although, I do think even in the, even in the. Even while they were insisting that their TV ratings were acceptable. They acknowledged that the attendance thing was a problem. And I think that was a way that was a little moment where you sort of saw that. It's probably was much worse than they thought it would be. The fact that they would admit that even in the midst of hyping, everything else, they would acknowledge that the attendance thing was a problem. And that's why it makes sense that thoughts should act with some sense of urgency to get out into other markets. They believe that. What happened in Birmingham? Vis-a-vis the stallions with the local market responding reasonably well to that team will be replicated if they can get teams into other markets. And initially they were thinking maybe that was a. Three year thing, but I think now that they recognize that they need to make that happen in at least a couple of more cities sooner, rather than later. Because those empties date is just kill the TV products. No, I mean, Third and seven down to six. Play on the lake and there's just silence. That's not good for anybody. Yeah, I got, I got a lot of flag. I tweeted, you know, [Unknown] if you're excited about them going to other markets, exploring, exploring expansion, other hubs. Ah, you also need to understand it. They, it was because of a lot of the criticism they got from. You know, from fans and, and not like me, like, you know, pat, pat McAfee's of the world, like, you know, doing on, Hey, show talking about this. Yes. Obviously the plan was always, you know, To move into cities, but yet when you talk with Daryl Johnston and he's like, you know, we gotta get to another hub right now because players are upset because of the home field advantage. Like these are, I feel like it's a modification of this plan that was originally laid out of, okay, well, we're going to do four teams next year. And then we moved eight markets a year after that. I mean, we're bringing in, you know, investors now to kind of facilitate expansion on that. I mean, do you feel, you do feel like there. Moves now are in response to how maybe less than par. They thought that everything was in Birmingham in terms of non-stock games. Yeah. Yes, but I would say that I don't think they have changed plans necessarily. I think they have accelerated plans and I've recognized that there's more of a sense of urgency. About getting into other markets than they might've thought. I think, you know, I was having conversations in February where it was sort of seen as a nice to have other markets. I think with a year under their belts, they recognize that it's more of a mustache. And, you know, you don't want to do that foolishly. You know, because the moment you start getting other markets, you expose yourself to risk and like the venue agreements, like they have a very favorable contract with Birmingham to play at that stadium. The XFL in 2020 had widely divergent stadium situation. Some of them had good, right? Like Washington had. You know, they were in the soccer stadium there, which is the perfect size for XFL. But New Jersey or New York or whatever they were, they were playing a MetLife where the Jetson Jaya's does sell that place. And it. It was a bad look and the economics of this deal has changed. There's a lot of risk in jumping out into the market is just gets exponentially more complicated, but I think they need to do that because the dead stands are a real problem for sure. The idea that they're now working with an investment firm, right. To help. Find it and find the investors hundred 50, 200 million. Like, we're not bringing in team owners. Right. We're just looking for funding to help explain, like, how do you read that? Well, interestingly enough, you know, all credit to the New York post that broke that story. But since then, I've heard that it's not particularly new that Alan, the company, the investment bank and dairy are the grand Poobah of fundraising and selling teams and pro sports. They sold the Broncos and they sold the Panthers. Apparently they've been with the XF or the USFL since the earliest days, they advise on how to structure this from the ground up. And they are taking incoming interest as much as anything Fox doesn't, you know, Fox has not said they must take this money to expand, obviously. Expansion gets a little easier. If you've got more money to work with. But, you know, But there's risks to that too, because there's a lot of startups in this world that didn't succeed because they didn't work. They just didn't work well enough to pay back their outside investors, the venture capitalists. So. The standards for what constitutes success change and get higher. Once you bring in outside money. Look, there's plenty of investment money. There are lots of private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds that would like to be in sports, but aren't currently, and they're prohibited from going out and buying the New York giants because of team ownership, rules. So owning a league, 20% of a league with Fox could be a great place for them to put their money. There's probably some interest in that, but. You know, it's still pretty risky. That's the long way from living on its own on. Two feet. It's that the terms of such a transaction would be really interesting. Like how much is 20% of the current day USFL really worse? I think that's a fascinating question. Well, and that was going to circle back to the ratings anyway, there, you know, We see in a lot. And I think even it was in the post article, one of them, it was like, well, either there. USFL is comparable to, and now this, that God's sound is coming out of over my shoulder. USFL is comparable to MLS in TV viewership. MLS is worth X number of billion dollars. Therefore a USFL is worth X. It does the math that translate that way. I mean, it feels like, I don't think the stallions are worth. $2 Billion or whatever that article was saying. I heard that as well from somebody independently from that story that. That the USFL average, I don't know. 40% More viewers than all MLS games average. And the average MLS valuation is 400 million, which means the MLS as an entity is worth 8 billion. So that's how much the USFL is worthy. I don't think that quite works. She's a lot of MLS value is built up in like the local fan base. It's like MLS is a live event. This. It's like nobody watches it, but it's like the cool place to see and be seen at places like Cincinnati and Atlanta. And, and so that there's, the teams don't have nearly the intellectual property and fan-based. That's some of your MLS teams have done, just because they're doing good numbers on. On TV doesn't mean there's Birmingham, stallion and fads, and the way that our Seattle Sounders fans, for instance, so that's a little cute, but I do grant the premise. That. It's probably worth more than we might think. Just because of that viewership, you know, it's decent, you. You know, there, there were sports out there. I don't think the MLS comp quite works because of the in-person thing that they have. I come close to replicating. Because I see that across the board. I see that you. They're they're the same as hockey. They're baseball. I mean, all these things. You know, my egg could everyone on. [Unknown] all the hell. Yeah, I see that argument across the board. And you're saying that there are more goes into it than just the TV viewership. When you're looking at those, it gives like apple, right. Just paid, whatever it was for. Right. The soccer and all that. I mean, that's people narrow looking at this and say, well, God Fox in the, you. USFL or co got a big payday coming in here. Right, right. Yeah. And. The TV numbers are a big part of that. No doubt. But when you talk about the real value of a sports team, it's that fandom, it's that passionate fandom that doesn't happen overnight. And it certainly doesn't exist for the USFL. There are probably people in Birmingham who follow the stallions. But your core MLS properties, your. Oh, I mean, I keep coming back to Seattle, but that's just so strong. The Portland timbers or the galaxy, or, you know, Atlanta United, that's just like. Sells out a football stadium sometimes. There's a lot of hard to define passionate fan base. Those are the people that your supporters, clubs advise the season tickets and merchandise and merchandise and season tickets don't equal the TV. The TV is where the serious money is, and that's why I don't totally dismiss this USFL argument. But you're, you know, The investment bankers, talk about things like average value of a fan. And that is. And TV viewership, but it's about propensity to buy future season tickets. There are people that intend to buy, be a season ticket holder to the Seattle Sounders. As long as that team exists. Got imagine the number of people at that level of devotion. So even the Birmingham stallions is very small at this point. And they've been very vocal though. Very. Well, I'm very vocal, especially when it comes to things involving me. Well, I mean, to be clear, they've got a good start on. So those things don't happen overnight. You know, So, yeah. It's a curious here, you know, and we just have broad keyword. And I'm last week kind of preview in the USFL game and talking now we have the XFL coming in, right. USFL is a super slow build, right. You know, maybe we go to the one hot next year we added second hub next year, whatever. XFL Kerry and a lot of weight right now. Right. We have 18. DPPs right. We have all the coordinators higher. We have all the defensive coordinators, all the coaches here we're in July, like as a business. You know, I have concerns of both. Like, what do you think now seeing kind of now the XFL has as laid out more of their cards. We're still waiting for official cities. We have spoiled cities. Like where do you weigh both leagues now? That's the million dollar question. I wish I had a better read on this. I think the competition between these two leagues is a fascinating topic and I'd fully intend to write something about it at some point. So look, I mean, I guess my, my, my gut instincts are. Existing counts for a lot. Like I was saying earlier, USFL can go out to talk to possible. Investors sponsors. Venues and point to this season as saying, this is our product. XFL is still selling a whiteboard is selling a vision. And as anybody being first to market goes a long way in that. So I would give the USFL a very substantial advantage there. But. You know, the rock counts for a lot too. People love the rock. People listen to the rock he's with the last man and a man. And he's the last man everyone can agree on in America. Right. And also their relationship with Disney and ESPN. Cause for a lot, you know, ESPN, isn't what it used to be, but it's still the default place of record for sports information. Us and they completely ignored the USFL and they will heavily promote the XFL. So that would, I would give the benefit of the XFL there because at the XFL lodge is in February. And sports center and ESPN app is all over it. It's going to be difficult for USFL to break out Fox and NBC are nothing to sneeze at, but I still think ESPN is where your default splays place for sports information is. And that goes a long way to. So, I don't know. And then of course, you've got to fill the play issue with the players. You know, the USFL is claim says their players are under two year contracts and they would not be available to another league. We'll see about that contract law is never as straightforward as you think. There might be some players that speed that and see what happens there. You know, if every player of consequence in the USFL is with the USFL and doesn't get picked up by the XFL. I think the XFL has got an uphill battle to put a quality product on the field. So I guess that would also be in USFL is favor. So as I fight, as I, as I play it out, I. I'm thinking. The fact today's this benefit of the USFL, the fact that they've got players in the contract USFL, but the promotional power of ESPN and the RA would be a big benefit. The access. I really go back and forth. I mean, it bemoans me to say it cause I've just been so critical on the USFL this season of just keeping their head down and getting through. Like you said, I think them accomplishing the season is huge. They're able to go to investors now and say, w we've done with no, one's done. I mean, I really do go back and forth in my mind. I just, we were watching like a shark tank last night, and I think Kevin Hart was on there and talking about like, you can have X number of million people, but it's getting them to convert right. Into whatever. You're trying to get whatever you're trying to sell. I think they were trying to sell like a, you could call like celebrity phone call or whatever, like yeah. The rock sky, 800 million people, whatever. Like, are they all tuning in to watch the XFL? Like, I don't. You can have all the followers in the world, but it's about that game version. I am. I go back and forth. I'm very torn right now. Yeah. I don't know what to make of it. I think a big question we don't know about the XFL. I don't think we know enough about DX without a really intelligently handicap. This coming. This coming. Competition. I'd say one of the big, the most important unknown is we don't know what the accept fells. Owner's willingness to fund losses on this are. Fox that 150 million numbers been out there and Fox is clearly trying to minimize expenses wherever they go. You know, XFL 2.0 has been saying, man, we're going to be splashy. We're going to have sophisticated social marketing teams for every team and we're going to really push it out. And that was great. You know, they did some cool stuff and sort of promoting an XFL 2.0, but they spent a lot of money on payroll to make that happen. And exactly what the new XFL owners appetite is, or maybe spending a hundred million dollars a year for several years until it starts generating serious revenue. I don't know what they're thinking about that. I mean, Jerry Cardinal that had a red bird capital. It was the main partner of, of the rock and Danny Garcia. In this. You know, he's an expert at making money, not spending money. So I can't imagine that they are going to just break the bank and try to blow out. Blow the USFL out of water. But I think they also understand that, you know, to a certain extent, you've got to spend money to make money because that's how you convert customers and fans. So I don't know, I guess we don't know enough about it. I'm going to keep making calls, but I think for now, It's hard to say. What do you make of the schedule? Question because USFL very intentionally waited until after the college basketball season to play in April. The XFL is by all accounts going to play in February and start. As soon as the super bowl is over, I can see cases to be made either way. What do you think, do you think one is clearly more likely to work over the long-term than the other. I think viewership clearly tanked, not tanked. I think viewership went down for the USFL as summer, started to sands, went out and I mean, that's the CFL argument too, is people are on vacation. They're not they're on their summer homes where I hear that with the CFL fans all the time. Yeah, that goes out in the fall. When CFL. Yeah. When people come back home. I think USFL was obviously stronger before that. I don't. I mean, this is the big week for when players could sign on to NFL camps from the USFL. I don't, I don't see those stories out there. I think it's really late in the year. And I think people are really banged up that way, coming off of, you know, if I'm Kyle slowed or, and I came off of 11 weeks of play and I'm going to go sign to an NFL camp and two weeks later, like that's hard. I think. I think that February is better. I, I stood by the USFL decision when they launched in April. I thought that was a win, but now having seen it, I think that the February is about their spines. Just because players, if you're going to be a feeder system, players could actually conceivably get into camps where I don't know the number of them is going to be that high right now. That's a really good point. And, you know, I think of this in the terms of TV, windows of when it's least competitive, but you're right. I mean, ultimately if the players view one of the two as being clearly better for developing them into a possible NFL career, and that's where everyone's going to want to play. And all of these business questions are secondary. If the players see the XFL is clearly better than the USFL for their career interests. Talking to the TV landscape though. It is interesting that that'd be before the season started. I think it was Darrell Johnson had a quote. It was like, yeah, this is the best time of year for us. Like there's no significant sports properties, like in the spring, like we will be. And then like the second the race came out. It's like, well, you know, premier league is there. We got to fight against F1 and we've got, you know, NBA playoffs. And we've got the Stanley cup I've added. This was the one that, you know, you guys chose landscape because they could have gone to me. They couldn't own the market. They could have said, we want February. We want March. I mean, USFL really could have defined the terms if they wanted to. I mean, they chose April. Right. Absolutely. And I understand, I think the business argument makes a lot of sense. You clear out March madness because I think. I recall XFL just got into no, actually our March madness was totally canceled in 2020. They avoid. Right, right. But I think that would have been tough because I'll tell you, I mean, there's that super bowl to March madness window when you're desperate for anything on TV, but then suddenly the tournament kicks up and that's all where all the energy is. And I don't know. I mean, I think the business, the boardroom case April makes a lot of sense, but if players are trying to switch into the NFL now and are still nursing their wounds from a long campaign, that the playoffs, the USFL. And here it's early July kept starting three weeks. That's maybe a problem for them. That's a fair point. Anything else? If I let you go and then you're catching up, coming back into town. And the other thoughts on this, I mean, hopefully we have you back on at some point, but at least for right now, No, I think that's it. You know, I wish I had a better sense of where the USFL XFL competition is going. I think if either one of them does land, a major external investor who is further willing to fund those losses, that the big factor, because. Maybe there's somebody else out there. That's perfectly happy playing the long game and wants to give another 50 or a hundred million dollar infusion. The leak would look a lot different with that. So that's something to keep an eye out for. The extent to which current USL fell players are really interested in jumping to the XFL and whether they're able to do that as another big question. And then I will still waiting to see about it. More details about the XFL. I mean, like you said, like we still, we don't know where they're playing. I made some hires. But it's still early to say really exactly what they're doing, but we'll keep a close eye on it and talk again soon. I'm sure. I just think it's fascinating. I mean, this is the world where this podcast exists and people always say like, even with the CFL, we were doing all the XFL stuff that we just wanted to get back to talking about the games. And we just want to say. That's not where viewership. Like interest is in terms of this space, at least for us, like people, this is fascinating to me. And like I said, I've been critical above probably more of the USFL right now, just because there's a lot more to talk about that way, but I think. It's a great debate here going into 20, 23 of you, which way is going to work out better. So, Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's, I mean, I'm a businessman. I'm a business writer. So, you know, to a, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but look, football is football. We know football. Yeah, it works. So there's plenty of guys to play. The question is how do you make a business out of it? And. They're both working on it and they're taking very different tracks. So it's almost like we're seeing a real time business school experiment. And that's that's to me, what's fun about it for sure. Well, Ben, get back to work. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for taking the time today and have a good one. Well, this has got, I have all my other interviews. My schedule is clear except for Dorothy's birthday. So I have lots of time to talk with Mark Perry here today. I know mark likes to talk, mark. How are you doing, sir? Good. I'm doing very, very well. Just got back from the USFL championship game in Canton, Ohio. Yes. I have my Philadelphia stars Jersey on this. It fell Haiti and podcasts that I am. I'm excited to talk about it. I worked all weekend. I think it looked to me like I saw your staff. I saw. Stefan and Zack stuff. It seems like you all retreated a lot better than we were in the opening. Yeah for the kickoff. Cause they didn't want anything to do with us at the kickoff, but it seems like the press was very much more welcomed for the championship game. Right. Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't have an issue with anything. I mean, got right in press pass and went up to the press booth area. And, you know, You met people from the USFL met. Media people. And it was like, Hey, you guys need anything. You know, they had food there. I mean, This is the big game. This is the big. The championship game. And so this was kind of like the final hurrah. Of the season, but all in all, I mean, sitting in the press box. We kept seeing people. I mean, the kickoff was, there was lines out the building still waiting to get in. And from the pet's press box, I would say that it was 80% full. I mean, they did. Mark. Cover some of this, the behind one of the end zones and then in the upper corners. But if you took everybody that was meandering around and stuck them all on seats, I think the seats would have been all full. It really was like a, a all, what do you call it? Like an all points. Bull APB out on the mark cast during the championship game. I had a lot of tweets, like why is it read talkie? I go. I'm working. I had a wedding Friday. I had a wedding Saturday. I booked a last minute wedding Sunday. The videographer had COVID like I was working. I saw the last, I've seen the clips. I w. We talked on the group chat. I mean, I saw the final two minutes in the, the failed, you know, fourth in your, you know, whatever fourth and 12 or whatever. But like, I got a lot of like, why is it re talking more of the attendance? The attendance was good. I write, I mean, after 12. After 12 weeks of national TV exposure on Fox and NBC, I'm glad that they were able to get 15,000 people to Canton, Ohio to watch this game. Yeah. So it was interesting. Cause one of the Fox people had mentioned that they were kind of rooting for Pittsburgh to get in because Pittsburgh is so close to Canton. And I didn't even, I was like, oh yeah, Even think of it because we know from where I'm from in Maryland, I drove through Pittsburgh. To get to the game. So they were kind of like hoping that, well, of course we all know what happened with Pittsburgh, but I'll tell you this. I met. Tons. Of a Birmingham stallions people with their kids or with friends drove the 12 hours from Birmingham. I wouldn't have done that all the way to Canton Ohio spent the day at the pro football hall of fame, and then we're going to the game and they were all excited. People were tailgating. I mean, it was, it was ready to rock and roll. I was in the press booth, my wife and a friend of mine came. They sat, they got. You know, we got in early, I. The tickets were 20 bucks a piece. You could get the club level seating, which was higher up. And it was kind of cool. Cause I mean the, the stadium is really kind of new and they had really cool, like. Indoor. R and food and that kind of stuff. And I asked them, what was the atmosphere like on the field? And they said it was awesome. They were so close. They were able to walk. There were three, they were on the 40 yard line. Actually my friend Dan is in a picture that the. The whole pro football hall of fame. Resort, whatever has come out with, he was in that picture. He was sitting behind some family members of Pete players. And so they were hooting and hollering and they could hear each other talking trash on the field. And he's somebody that had never really watched the game. He'd heard me talk about it, but he's had a great time. My wife was, you know, hallmark girl, like hallmark movies, not really the big sports person. And she had a great time too. And everybody kind of had, had a great time. No, it looks good. And you know, obviously I make jokes about the attendance is set, but it was great. I mean, you needed to have that. They got great viewership, right. At 1.5, one seven, it wasn't the 2 million that was like reported online from seven outsiders. But. You know, I think Fox with like 2 million, I think that they maybe did expect 2 million at one point, but I think at 1.157 is great. They had great demos in Birmingham. Mike Mitchell had the article come out, you know, new Orleans had good. You know, Philadelphia was out of the top 10, but I was talking with Mike and I'm like, well, There's just so many more people there. So you're never going to have as big of a share. Like even their point. Oh eight, whatever outside the top 10 is still probably a bigger number than the number of people in like Tulsa that watched the game. It just appears as a bigger percentage of the people cause TOSA or Santa Fe or whatever. Seventies are smaller markets. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, the. It's really. I mean, they, the, the vibe that I was getting from people within Fox is, is that as they were watching the fans come in, is that they were pleasant li surprised. They were like, wow. These things keep coming and, and, and, you know, despite the fact that it wasn't Pittsburgh, And that. You know, I never even thought of it. I was like, Pittsburgh would have been perfect because it would have been so close that people absolutely that place would have sold out because the fans would have been interested. I don't know. I don't know how it would turn out because Birmingham got those home games and they built a relationship with the teams, just talking to the fans, Birmingham. They were all in. They were telling me they'd been to all 10 games or I only went to eight. You know, cause my wife had this birthday, but we would have went and we had such a great time and you know, the kids were all into it. So. All in all. I think it was a successful weekend. And I shout out to Sparta steaks house in Canton, Ohio. That's the spot to be. We went there twice. We love our friends at the Sparta steakhouse. Just had to give them a shout out. And you, you ran into our, well, I, I, is he a colleague in the field, right? You haven't got a father with Stefan. I saw that you guys, he played nice. You guys didn't didn't get spit on or anything. No. No. So it's funny. My wife was the broker of, of, so she, cause I saw, we were talking about people who we thought would be there. And so I went in and she saw them broadcasting and went up and said hello and introduced herself. And so. Amongst of all the chatter when we were in the press box. And he came up, we talked shop and good guy and, and, you know, talk to Zach to. That's the bottom line is we always have. We're living in a very divisive it's like either you're for it or you're against it. And this is sort of a new thing over the last five or six years where it's like, what do you mean? You just can't. You know, it's like, oh, you have to be a baseball fan, but you can't like basketball. It's like, That whole weird thing. So, you know, we need to remind ourselves that, you know, this is about the players in these leagues because at the end of the day, if we get, you know, CFL. XFL USFL fan controlled football, even ML. I L whatever, you know, whatever they are. Success across all that. It helps us all out. So I think those are just trolls. I always call them comrades. Cause I feel like they're Russian bots half the time that are on there talking trash. But overall though, that was great to me. I met a lot of different folks. Involved that we're covering the USFL from all different kinds of websites, fantasy and podcasts, and, and, you know, the USFL invited them all there and they came and we all got to, you know, People were on the field during the celebration. We were there. I got to ask Bart Andrews and Victor Bolden, Jr. Questions on at the, the. I'm at the press conference, you know, you could tell that the, you know, Scooby right. Was ready to get out of there and party with his teammates, you know, and, but. It was a great experience. And the vibe that I'm getting is it's all systems are go for season two, and this is kind of right. Where are they? Their plan was I never got an inclination. That being there that they were, they were worried about. You know, the on name, other league that's coming. That wasn't, that wasn't brought up and everybody was pretty comfortable. I mean, they, you know, It's business model versus business model. And I totally get the one side that says, man, the XFL is like spending money, like crazy. These people that are they're hiring aren't for $25,000 a year. So I get that part. And we'll see what happens in the next couple of years with these two leagues. Okay. Hey, they finished. That was the deal they finished. Well, I, I, and I will say, yeah, so I don't, I I'm, I'm both minds on that because, you know, we saw the spring league play that, you know, Have we signed them even have their championship game in another market. Remember they played in Orlando the first year when Brian, Scott and all that. What. I will say I'm slotting this interview after talking with Ben Fisher sports business journal. And the title of the episode this week is advantage USFL question mark. Right? And it's M O. Kenobi. I have the high ground because. Having talked with Ben and this is, you know, people that think I'm all hate you as felid ever. I really think USAA valley has an advantage right now and it's not. Necessarily like Fox versus like the rock and NBC, or like who's got the better talent or who's got the better coaches. I think just the fact that Fox has, this is what we did for 12 weeks. These are the viewership we had. These were the ads we sold. We completed this, this is our model. And Ben called it like that. You know, red bird and them have like a whiteboard right now. Right? Well, this is what we're working on. These are the ideas and Fox is like, we have this, it might not be pretty, right. It might be like sketched on paper, like. But this is, we did this. We really accomplished this. And I think that like, Moving forward. As bull-headed as they were. And we aren't going to listen to anyone and we're not going to work with the media. We're not going to invite people except maybe now the championship game. I think that it really panned out for them. And I'm, I'm happy to say I'm wrong because I want these to be places for everyone to play, but I do feel like they have a major advantage right now. And I think to that. That one thing that was kind of. Touched upon a little bit and talking with some folks was, you know, there's this whole legal thing that was still going on that is not close. That door is not closed yet. And so I think it was, it was almost like, you know, we can't really go full all out. With, with the media and other folks, because there's this thing that's still lingering. Legal thing and you know, how lawyers are. And, and part of me thought that it was getting the vibe. It was like, you know, there's more that they want to do, but I think that the, you know, this, this legal thing. It was, it was something that was out there and too, and I even talked to a couple of people about this. It was this article that was like, oh, That New York post came out with that was saying that, you know, that they were looking for finance people. And I had asked around. About that. And they were like, they don't even know why it came out. And that was old news. Like they've been working with that company for years and years, or for months. At the time, it wasn't like a new thing. And basically everything is going according to plan. You know, and we'll see, you know, the rumor had Philadelphia hub. Will that work out? Are they going to do. You know what they did with this. With spring football or the spring league where it was like all four teams play each other like eight weeks, which is not going to be good. You know, But keeping your costs down low, it was, was a big thing. And I mean, there's plenty of people that were, that were there from all the production staff that I saw tons of people with box shirts on and we'll see. It's really up in the air. You went into the pro football hall of fame. Did you find it odd that we have like Brian Scott's Jersey next to like the old USFL staff, even though we're still going through this lawsuit? I did. I, I saw that and I was kind of like, I think that's another piece that people have forgotten to talk about that needs to be added. And that is to connect with that old brand 100% bring, I mean, could you imagine if Sam mills was at that game? And inviting him to come. And I think that's why this legal piece has kind of hampered them from really going all out. Because we did get those guys in the beginning. And then this lawsuit came about and then all of a sudden it disappeared and the press releases were like, this is the first generation. And I get, if you don't want to. It's to me, it's not as bad as tying the first-generation USFL to this generation. I mean the XFL 1.0 versus 2.0 are completely different, completely different names. A completely different look. These are the same names and the same looks, the same logos, the same teams. I think having that connection, I think we'll build. More of a, that brand loyalty and they know all the Fox people know exactly what the problems are and they're looking to fix it. And the second season. Yeah. I mean, who who's to blame though for those legal hurdles, because they didn't do all that right. In the first place. I mean, again, it's, self-inflicted like that. Yeah. It could have very easily and Emily. We don't know. I mean, maybe they really talked to Steve Earhart and he really was a big jerk and they're like, well, we really want to do this, but like, I mean, these are decisions that were made and the consequences that come from that. Well, we would have dealt with this step of the lawsuit. It's like, yeah, well, you guys are the ones that bottled the old trademarks and like, even. What did the articles? Harrison? One of our listeners sent me that. You know, moving forward, they're really diving into like the older demo, because those are the people that were nostalgic for the old staff. It's like, well, because yeah, you're already starting on second base because you have all these former fans that remember that. But, yeah, we're not, you know, we're not recognizing that, but we're, we want to capitalize on that, but we don't want to do that. I mean, it's, it's very tricky, but they decided to get themselves in that situation. Yeah, but the thing is we need to look at this in terms of what's going to happen. Fi we're all in the moment right now. And like, this is weird and that's that. Five years from now. That's going to be really telling. What, how is this going to even look six months from now? What are, what are changes? What are announcements? Are they going to come out with? How's the XFL gonna impact their players? I mean, if Chris Odom. Gets signed to a, you know, a team. And then he gets cut. What happens there? You know, so it's all sorts of. What F's going forward. It's. It's an exciting and crazy time for us. All football nerds that's for sure. Yeah. I feel really good. Now. I still am going to hammer on the same way. A hammer on the XFL with staff is like, You know, because that's the only way we get changed. And like I said, obviously Fox was either we're moving to the hubs, we doing this up. But as I talked with Ben, I do think criticism accelerated all of that. I think that, you know, obviously the plan is always, we're not seeing in Birmingham for 18 years, but I think. How bad that situation was and like how vocal every single per AEO. It's not just me. The. The ICU, every single person to watch the game was like, this is an issue. I think they're like we have to get to at least 2, 3, 4 markets, like right now, because people will not shut the F up about talking about this stuff. Yeah. I mean, and you think about it too. They are, you know, The good thing about them and even the XFL too, as that they are listening. I mean, I was surprised to hear them say two to four markets in season two. I was like, okay, cool. And I think that really made. Gave everybody a sense of yeah. These there for real and, and. I got I and. And that was the biggest thing. When I was going there, it was like, am I going to get a sense of like we're one and done? And people like, I always give this story about, here's a good tip. If you're looking for a job. All right. I went on this job interview once and I asked them, how do you like working here? And as I always ask that in a job interview and these people looked at each other, like. Well, you know, and I was like, Interview over. I'm not going to work here if you don't want to work here. So I was wondering what I was going to walk into. In with Fox people there and everybody's chest out how high we're ready for season two, this is great. We had a great season. I mean, the gameplay was good. The game was good. You know, coming down to the wire poor case, cook us. I mean, dudes getting married in like a week or so. And he's got a broken leg. I could not look at the replay. I didn't want to look at that. I was sitting there. I was like, what quality of gameplay do you think we watched on that? Well, you didn't watch the full game. But I see it. I'm just saying, how much did you feel like it's. Division one college football level. Clearly it's not NFL level. I mean, I think it's good. I think it's always been, like I said, these people that come at me, I never once have I ever said the gameplay was bad at all. I mean, the most critical of anything I was on the football field was like Kirby Wilson and the head coaches and the staff. And I don't think I've had a bad word to say about any of the gameplay. I think they started too soon. I think they would have. I think they wouldn't retain more viewers through the season. Had they have had stronger gameplay that week, one week two in that rest training camps. Obviously they know that because of criticism and they're going to work on that for season two, but no, I mean, I've always thought the gameplay was gray. I thought it was. Even the best thing he could have done was come down to the wire and, you know, you have the fail thing and then they could have had the hail Mary Ball and then he'd get, you know, it was good. Yeah. I mean, even some of, you know, that rule, I was like, if, if, if the stars were able to pull up that four point, that conversion. And then people, even the press booth were like, wait, what's the rule here. But I, the talk that would have had, or if they came back at one, because of that would have been huge, like tons of people. We've been talking about it. I wish you were the about, like they're flipping the field. Ah, no, I mean, You know, we didn't see a lot of the tweaks they had this year. We didn't see a lot of three point, you know, conversions and stuff like that. But no, I mean, It was good. I think that's the best he could help for it peaked. Right. They gave built all night. I mean that, that, yeah. It's talks to interests across the board that people were tuning into the game and were sticking around for it. And now that now that they know there's a couple of things that the skip hall. Paul to put out there about increasing the roster size to 70 players. That's a huge thing. Cause there was that, you know, the first season where they was 45, they moved it to 50. He also re. I'm trying to peg all this down and he did an interview and also talked about. OTA starting in October. So getting more of that training camp in. They really went bare minimum and then they learn from their mistakes and they're growing. And. And we'll we'll see, cause this is going to be a crazy time. Yeah. I mean, so, cause I had a question when I posted here just to preview that you were coming on and whatever Fran, one of the guys online was like, yeah. What is the rumor of that? I mean, I may carry in 70 people into the season. I mean, that seems really high. I mean that obviously has to be getting in and a whittling down in the 55 or whatever 50. That's I haven't, I haven't gotten to that his full interview yet, but I knew that that was, he's mentioned something about that about now, whether that's full season or just, you know, during the off season, as a way to hold players from signing with the XFL, we still don't know what the XFL contract situation is going to be. That's supposed to be in September. We're supposed to hear about what their contract, how much are they really going to pay more? These players. Then a USFL guys. And the other thing that's going to be interesting for next year is. As people going to have football burnout, you're going to have the NFL season right into the XFL. You know, the rock is going to hype the heck out of that. They're going to be home markets. You're going to have 30,000 people in St. Louis. And then they'll have the USFL next. How is that going to impact people are going to be excited about the USFL. Or are they going to be like, okay, it's summertime. I'm kind of good. I've got my football fix. A couple of things. I think that is fascinating if they keep all these guys on, like the practice squad through, I just said, you know, sign with the XFL and then cut them like. I mean October OTA for April kickoff seems very early. Yeah. I mean, that's, what was, that was, that was a. I was put out there. I'm trying to nail that down, but that's some, some rumors that are out there. And then yeah, OTA is in the home. CA you know, the home city is right. Dressed that way. But I mean, you know, It's interesting in that way, I will say I was just in debate yesterday as well. Online again. I think the February, March, April timeline is better than the April, may, June, July. I think. We'll see how many players get signed NFL camps right now? I think a lot of people in the NFL are on vacation before training camps actually start. But like it's a crappy time of year. You've come off a plane, 12 weeks, like cakes cookies, whether they've been someone that maybe where they've got a thing and now you're hurt. I mean, obviously that's a freak injury, but like, You know, I don't think a lot of people are going from 12 weeks of us spelled, like, let me sign up for a training camp tomorrow. And they do an entire NFL season after that. I mean, that's a, that's a time. Yeah. And also one of the things that was talked about too was how hot it was in Birmingham. For games and practices like it was brutally hot. For that time of year. And I mean, I think that's probably one of the reasons why they extended. It'd be interesting if they do have a hub in Philadelphia clearly, but it's still, I mean, it was hot in Maryland. During the, this time of year, too. So. We'll see. Circling back to the expansion and the investment. Ben Fisher said, it said the same thing as well. That's not necessarily a new that they weren't just deciding right now, the reach out that they've been working with that company. But, I mean, where do you see. You know, I don't, I don't see people lining up to buy franchises right now. Right. I mean, do we have to get them into the cities? And then we find someone, I think originally the idea was, oh, well, Alex Rodriguez. So buy it and then bring it to New Jersey. But now like, do we need to bring it to New Jersey and then find someone there? Maybe. How do you view that? I think they're going to have to bring it to a location. You know, especially given the way, the way the economy is. And, you know, I think people might be holding onto their money for a little while. And not really want to spend big on these leagues. I mean, they're still, you know, $10, $20 to get into the games. Maybe see what the CFL has done changing there. Basically taking the USFL approach. I mean, Let's let's call it what it is exactly what they were doing. To get people in. So I don't see anybody really lining up to spend a hundred million on one of these. Franchises anytime soon. So I think I thought the best approach and one of the things that I was talking with, people there. Was, you know, how easier and so much easier for people to fly into Cleveland, Ohio. To come to this game rather than Birmingham, Alabama, it's like three times the ticket price. It's easier to fly to Atlanta. And then drive to Birmingham. It is the fly. And that's, that's a hindrance because they should've just, I just thought they should have just play one game in your whole market all season long. That's all you need. You know, let them see one game in Pittsburgh, one game, be in Philadelphia, do it out. I mean, but it's like, I understand, you know, you'd have to move all that equipment. And so having an a two locations. I mean, they're just pulling basically from the spring league playbook. It's let's have two locations. And then, you know, playing, but. They're going to lose that argument if they do what the spring league did, which is you only four teams play each other. For the whole season and then one game at the end, that's not going to work. Yeah. I mean, the other thing, you know, even you had the protective and all the cameras and equipment and crew there. I mean, it all goes into that. I mean, it's moving the players, it's moving the Dino, the football staff. But there's also broadcasting. And then, you know, we're setting up house in two different stadiums. I mean, that's adding onto that. Does Fox have that much equipment and whatever. I mean, that was part of, it was like we have all this set up in Fox or in Birmingham. We bring in a lot of that. You know, Brock flies in, but a lot of this stuff's remote, but we have a lot of things built in here in the stadium, wherever you add another, if we're adding three hubs, I mean, I think two is, is. What is going to happen? I don't see any way they do three or four hubs. I think that that is a huge jump from one. Yeah. And I think Philadelphia seems to be the right spot. Because you would have New Jersey Philadelphia, all relatively close. I mean, Pittsburgh is farther out. You would have that too. I asked about, you know, are they going to do Canton again? They were, they were happy with. How Canton turned out. For them. I mean, it just made it special. Moose Johnson was talking about that as well. And some press clippings. You know that they really liked Canon. It was kind of a pleasant surprise. You know, it was, it was something that they didn't think of at the time. And then they were like, all right, well, we need to have. You know, a place to play our championship game. Let's do Canton, Ohio. And I'll tell you this Canton, Ohio. So what's coming soon. To your pro football hall of fame is an indoor waterpark. Yes. An indoor water park. They're building that now, a hotel. Which is right there. And there's a couple other things. In the works for that whole complex there, and it's going to be. I mean there it's sinking a ton of money and it shows you the popularity of football about even the pro football hall of fame and Kent, Ohio is basically getting transformed into this football Mecca. So. It's pretty cool. I, it just be interesting to see. I mean, it's going to be the debate of, you know, Redbird, XFL, how much money are they? You know, willing to lose, right. Through this process. And then with Fox it's like, how much are they willing to really spend now? Because like you did this. And, you know, they made a little bit of money. I saw a lot with me. Oh yeah. USFL is profitable. I'm like, Well, most of the USFL things are run by Fox, right? Like you have Fox. Social media people doing it in their part-time. You know, we have a one man PR team, like it's very easy to cut. And also w when Fox owns a USFL. You're able to write off a lot of that stuff as a loss, right. You're able to say like, well, we're using the equipment and reason all this that's like, I don't think the USFL books were that heavy to be able to, I mean, obviously it's great that they made a profit, that they didn't lose a bunch of money, but like, You know that that is again, that's a benefit to Fox, but it comes from, I think them being able to be really creative with their books where I think Redbird is, is going to lose a God's amount of money. I mean, I talked with Brock Heward, even offline last time about like, you know, some of these coaches are getting paid a ton of money and it's it's July. I mean, we're not even touching the field here for a while. I mean, if we're doing September, OTA is following the USFL model, but. Maybe they're losing a ton of money here in the process with the XFL. And if either one, this is an advice to either one of these leagues. If you think that your saving grace is selling franchises out to people, how, how many people are lying, I'm going to granted NFL franchises are a lot more expensive, but just any friend. He asked how the CFL goes when it comes to looking for people to buy franchises. And now you're getting into smaller markets. I mean, you could do the fan controlled football model, which is you get a, you know, a bunch of celebrities giving you a hundred grand. You know, to have their name tagged or 500,000, whatever it was. It's not a ton of money. These guys are paying for these kinds of franchises. If you're hanging your hat on that, that in five years. But I mean, Fox said like, you know, they think this. IP will be worth. It could be worth billions a couple of years from now. I don't know, the sports landscape is changing. Where's your video game. The, the younger generation they're into e-sports they don't watch. Pro sports, like they used to, what, how is the cable landscape going to be in five years from now as the streaming landscape going to be. You know, they're starting to talk about, there's probably issues with Hulu and Netflix might be doing ads. So. Don't hang your hat on. Just getting a local business owners to give you a ton of money for these franchises. You need to make sure that both business plans are solid, that you can last five years without having a single loan. Well, I agree with that with the XFL. So, I mean, USFL has been far more vocal about, you know, bringing in the owners, right? XFL. I think that's always been in the plans. I mean, Ben Fisher and I were, you know, we're talking like, you know, you see these and there's been so much made about the, the, the viewership and the radio. It's like, well, MLS gets 300,000 viewers and, and USFL was getting 400,000. So that means it's like, you know, even as Ben put like an MLS viewer that has season tickets and merge and is coming to the games is doing all this stuff like that fan is worth significantly more than someone that's in Seattle. That's watching the USFL game that, that pings the Nielsen ratings. Things or like, however that, you know, for them to get the TV ratings, like it's not apples to apples. Okay. This get, this got 700,000 MLS got 350,000. So that means USFL. We're twice as much. The math does not work out that way. No, and let's be clear. MLS requires. Jersey shorts. Cleats and a ball. And Annette. And maybe what one or two coaches? Football pads. I mean, there's trainers, there's offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams, coordinator. There's all, you know what I mean? Football is way expensive. So to compare the two is actually kind of a joke. Because, I mean, I bet you a formula one car. Could be. I mean, I don't know this for certain. Even if that's worth a million dollars, like. How much does it cost to have a 70 player? USFL team, like how much does he. With the coaches there are you telling me? Jeff Fisher made a hundred grand doing this. You know what I mean? You guys like that, or, you know, did these guys get paid 500,000 or a million? Just to be a coach? Yeah. Mr. Kirby Wilson get paid. How much. The curvy Wilson get paid for this experiment. So, I mean, yeah, comparing the two is it's kind of laughable a little bit, but I understand the, the idea, which is, you know, You know, these, these teams are getting all this money from cable companies. Let's see how this plays out. I mean, what's the MLS signed with apple TV or something and got a big deal. Ask Anna. I asked the hockey NHL, how it worked out, not being on ESPN to being on. What was it? NBC. Does anybody know where NHL games were on before that? They were. No, one's talked about hockey. So getting a big deal and being on. Apple TV might not be the greatest thing for your brand. Well, I also think that things can be over evaluated, right? I mean, there was back, you know, even a couple of years ago, I was my brother's a big cinephile guy. We were talking about Netflix and they're declining. Yeah. I mean, there were years ago. They pay Matt Martin Scorsese, a $400 million. Go make the Irish man, go do whatever you want. Like we're printing money, you know? And then now like Netflix, because you can pay too much, like I'd argue that maybe that wasn't worth wait, you know, apple paid for MLS, right? I mean, they're in the content. We just need to acquire everything we want right now, which is scary to me that XFL did not garner a bigger TV deal. Right. Because obviously they, USFL boxing is different, but. Yeah, I think people are paying a lot more for some of these things hoping they'll pay dividends in the long run. Like you said, that might not be the best deal for the MLS here. I mean, Apple TV adoption is, is I think quite a bit lower than even like peacock and some of them, but don't quote me on that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not running out to get apple TV because they got MLS. You know, and I think one thing that is for certain. The power of Fox, ABC NBC. Those games when they, when people are on those games are on national television that moves the needle. When you move those, the cable. As nothing. So. A warning shot to CFL. The fact that you're not on CTV and you're just on a, TSN only exclusively. Hurts your brand. Make sure that next year. In 2025, when you re-up your contract that you have to be on CTV, you have to be on broadcast air, just like these other leads. Otherwise you're just not going to generate the interest. That you would like, just because, you know, just ask the USFL how that worked out. I will say very proud of. I'm joking, but single handedly increasing the Canadian TV. There is a correlation. There is a correlation, it's a Dorothy, this like there's a correlation. Nobody in America was writing about the CFL until the XFL staff. You guys ever went over there. Evan and Andy and Mike and everyone else. Yeah. But, you know, there is a correlation between like other people. Being interested in covering your stuff. Fascinating to me, the conversations I've had with CFL reporters, like, well, you need to be on the field. Like we need boots on the ground here. If you're not able to stay out in the pressure of. You don't deserve to cover the league. I'm like, that is not how the world works in 2022. Yes. Go back to your VCR and that's flashing 12 because that is the old school approach. And yeah, I've never been to Canada before yet. We have, I mean, it's really the second largest. So Canadian football news site. Out there. Pushing towards that. Number one, we keep growing at least every year. And I think things are starting to even continue to grow. So. You know, Because we're giving people what they want. This is how, this is how the game works. And this is also a warning shot to the USFL and XFL. Like, don't keep everything in house. You need to go out and let these other entities that aren't you. Or they, you don't have these business relationships with promote your league. That's really, all we do is we're promoting your product. CFL games are on, we're promoting it. You know, we have our own followers and. At works and this is the future. Now the old XFL was in. The USFL was kind of mess with, you know, putting their content. You know, having great interviews with somebody who gets, you know, a hundred views on his YouTube channel. Meanwhile, I'm like. I can get a thousand. If I, if you gave me that person. That to interview. So I think I'm hoping that they've all caught wind of how this new game works and now we have some data to prove it like. And an increase in ratings for ESPN too, when it comes to the CFL. Well, I would just like to see a, you know, And I had a long phone conversation with someone with XFL the other day that was hopefully going to be bountiful here coming up. But like I told him, I said, It kills me when you have people, you Stefan, Zack. And like I said, you know, their competition. We're paying to go cover this right. And yet you have like RJ young, like. He's a Fox employee. Like, but you're giving, like you're giving them, you know, he standing on the field like who is paying for that camera man to film RJ. He's doing all this stuff. Like he's covering it because you're paying him. Why don't you give some people the opportunity? I paid thousands of dollars to go to Birmingham for the kickoff. W rerouted our spring break. Drug my life. Yeah. Do you think my wife wanted to go to Birmingham for her spring break? Yeah. Let's give people that are choosing to cover your league. Some sort of insight. I mean, I gave up halfway through the USFL season. I said, I'm not going to, I'm not emailing them anymore. I'm tired of being rejected every single week, begging them for content. When I, you said we get just as much, if not more viewership than the people that you're feeding the interviews to every week, it kills me. Yeah. I mean, just ask the, the DDP or DPP of the Orlando franchise, how no one knew about his interview. For the XFL. And then all of a sudden, now the interview is taken down and it was get. You know, I w had 12 people checking it out. So I think that will change. I, this suspicion that I have with these, with the USFL is that. That's going to change in 2023. I think, especially now. That there's competition. And with the XFL right around the corner. So if one entity is nice and giving us access to interview these players and coaches and whatever, and the other one isn't. You know, one's going to get a lot more eyeballs and interest. Rather than the other. So I think competition that. We'll change that. And 2023. Yeah, people go low. You know, why, why is Reed so high on the CFL? You know, the, the game play I'm like, because the work with us, they give me people, we got Amar Domina, we got Randy Ambroziak. Like it's because they work with me. Like, why wouldn't I be more positive? I told, I told, I can't remember if it was in the group with Mike Mitchell. I said, Because I'm a human than I'm emotional, whatever I guarantee you. If USFL had given me a one person that all the entire season, I probably would've softened a lot on this because I'm very much like what have you done for me lately? Like if they would've given me some. Okay, this is great, whatever it's like, you know, but now, like, and not that I'm an enemy, but like you have made like this critical voice because of your lack of working. Like, I'll admit that. I mean, I'm critical for that as well. Cause it's a. It's I'm, you know, jealous or it's, it's a selfish reason. Right. But it's like, you guys have not worked with me. Like why would I bend over backwards to pat you guys on the back, when I'm begging you for content that you all give me? I mean, I'm one of the largest voices in this space, along with you. And Stefan is. You need to work with these people that, that are very easily able to get a message out there one way or another, you know, if it's good or bad and they did with the championship game, there are. USFL podcasters there. And everybody was in the press box. You could have been on the field for the champion, you know, when they announced the. You know, when they did the whole party thing, you. You know, shooting the fireworks off and all that stuff. I mean, They gave us all access to do that stuff. And it was great. And I came back, we have a video up. We'll be up when this airs on USFL news hub of the behind the scenes, my trip to the rock roll hall of fame, Canton, Ohio, and behind the scenes at the a USFL championship game. And that's free content for there and that's putting it out there on YouTube and other people get to see it. And. Get interested in it. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, we're not there there's levels to this and that, you know, this isn't 10 years ago. I was like, I got a podcast and I. There's levels to like, and working with you or me or some of these like platforms, I just. They don't get that. Did I think that they look at it like, well, if it's not on Fox, like we don't care. We have our own YouTube channel and this is different. You're just getting a different market. Not everyone subscribes to RJ young show. Like you need to work through other pieces, you know, Colin cowards or like whatever, reading your highlights. I don't think that that did one iota of good the entire site. Does that basically there. Was out kick, which I'd never heard of until today, until there RJ and then Colin cowherd. And then I think Shannon sharp and skip Bayless talked about it a little bit, but. You know, and then they complain that ESPN doesn't cover their stuff. Well, There you go well. Y you have. But I think things are going to change in 2023. We have to remember that we're just at the infancy. People are starting to figure this stuff out and they'll look at the data and they'll figure that out. Moving forward. We'll see. How it goes, but they were great during the championship game. No complaints. Okay, so moving, we'll wrap this up. You're seeing I have been very vocal online. Critical you, I think tell a little bit more of a steady, you know, you have been my, like, don't say that. Well, what would, what would you like to see here moving forward in terms of, you know, whatever you think, but USFL here we're done with seasoned wine. We're going to see what would Mark Perry like to see in the ideal world? I mean, I think. Unfortunately, it's going to have to be another hub city. That's that's critical is to connect the local fan base to the teams. I think that's, that's the biggest thing they need to focus on. And in the second year, You know, whether they have. I don't mind them not doing, you know, alive drafts streaming thing, because that leaves us open to us folks to, to cover it. And I'm fine with that. I mean, you know, you want to do the same thing next year. It's just seeing improvements. Really. It's. It's it's the connecting with the fans piece. That's just the. The piece that's missing and if they can come up with a creative way to do it, I think the XFL his way is perfect. How, I mean, it's keep everything central. I think the problem is. You know, it's Birmingham is the location they're supposed to be there for three years. And remember as much as box put in 25 million, the city of Birmingham also put in money to. And so to cover some of this costs. So. You know, is Philadelphia going to be open and say, sure, we'll give you. A couple of hundred thousand dollars to have your games here. But that remains to be seen. I think what I don't want to see is we get a repeat of everything in Birmingham for another year. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, as much as the championships game did well. Things were. Teetering. To the bottom, when it comes to the games on regular, the interest. Was was going down. Each week when it came to the game. And that's to be expected somewhat, but I was hoping, but there's just no. Local connection. And if they can solve that. And stop playing this game that you don't. We don't realize that the 1983. USFL doesn't exist. Incorporate that I had another hub. I think then, you know, and giving beyond just keeping things in the Fox world. Not everybody watched Fox sports, TV stuff. I think there'll be fine, but I think they've got to be totally happy and they should be proud of themselves. The business, the plan worked. I mean, there was you. You have nothing going on on Fs one. Now you're playing replays of, of USFL games. It's just going to be. Fascinating to see. How the season plays out, coming off the XFL season, as long as aliens don't come and take over the universe. And there's no other craziness that shuts everything down that it's. These next two years are going to be critical. And we'll see who who's. What's the last man standing. Did they merge? But. We'll find out. Now I'm fascinated. I mean, I that's what people need to. I understand this with the Twitter people and everyone getting upset, like. Interest was very low. Going into, even before the, you know, I mean, And this is why it's, you know, a lots of made with it, with the ratings. It's a, it's like, It's not just the ratings. It's web traffic it's podcast views. It's. It's attendance. I mean, you saw how was web traffic going in before the, the championship game? I mean. We had the site was relatively new and it did well for a site that was spun up in February. But I could tell you like the difference in, I just called juice between the XFL. Like I could put out an XFL article that was like Dan and Garcia. You know, drop this thing on Instagram. And it would just get way more traffic. Then five articles about the USFL and that granted the site is new, but we see it. I can remember being blown away during the XFL season. I was putting out. So a part of my show, I would have my picks. And I just happened to just take that clip and put it on the YouTube. And it was getting like 3000 views on YouTube. I know that granted, this isn't like a, you can't compare the YouTube traffic to Google. Giving you traffic. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. You have to be around for a couple of, couple of years for Google to kind of like you, but YouTube is different. I did the same thing with the, the USFL stuff. And it would get like 50 or a hundred. Not the 3000 that I was getting with the XFL and that's when I was comparing it. And I was like, man, there's just, there's no juice behind this. And I, even as people know, Me and I'm out and about. They're all asking me. They knew a lot of my friends knew. I just saw somebody the other day. Actually today I'm walking by. And I said, I was like, oh, is that the USFL, you know, championship game? And he was, and he was like, oh, oh, well, Data. They're not. They have a team in St. Louis. And I was like, no, that's the XFL. And he's like, oh, I can't wait to see that. Like, blah, blah, blah. And he started talking about the XFL. I was like, bro. I just told you I was at the USFL championship game in Canton, Ohio. And you want to talk to me about the St. Louis franchise in the XFL? That just kind of gives you an idea of that there's the hype is, was, was not there. And if, if this is a slow build, which is part of their business model, like I get that, but I'm sure you, you want a little bit more juice going into year two. But yeah, I mean, it's a break and we're deep enough, a Navy thing here that you had to break the fourth wall here, you know, like, like Stefan is ax podcasts, for example, I mean, they're called the USFL podcasts, right? I am called the mark Hass. What the hell does that mean? Nobody knows. Right. I mean, your accent, all new sob, you started the USFL new sub channel kind of mid season. Like nobody knows that they're not like the official podcast. Right? I mean really like if you're Googling, if you're YouTube being like, yo it's USFL podcasts, we didn't. I like to go from 49,000 views for the draft. 3000 Views for the kickoff to like whatever was 500, 400, 500 for the, for the championship preview. Now it's spiked. For the, you know, when they're there and they did their big show and whatever, but like, did you go from 50,000 to 3000 to 500? That is not indicative of interest, even maintaining a baseline interest across the seas. I mean, that is the things when I see these people online and I'm like, you're the same, like you see the same numbers we do. I mean, I look at people's staff. I look at your views. I look at everyone's view, like. You're able to gauge interest. And that's why when people say, well, it's not just a raise, it's like, but everything is down. Like, that's why we need to work on. How do we build local interests when we're not in markets? Well, maybe working with local podcasts, working with local people like that is a way to do that. That doesn't cost money. I mean, it's 15 minutes to get Darryl Johnston on a, on a zoom call with you or me or any of these guys. They could've given us. Yeah. You know, Scooby ride or whoever at any point in the season, these are people that they felt like they should keep on their own platform. And that. I just don't. I don't understand that. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse right now, but I did want to get that out. Yeah, I mean, Yeah, for comparison sake, when the XFL was going each week, it was growing and growing. And you know, the first week that I put out, you know, my picks for the weekend. You know, between the fourth and fifth week was, I mean, It just kept growing each age video would just get more and more interest as people were starting to get interested. So that's the biggest piece I could see five years from now. That if, if all things are considered and the, and they all kind of stick around that it's going to be basically, you'll have basically the NFL is tier one. You'll have the college football is kind of tier two. The XFL is tier three. And this USFL is tier tier four. And then we get, you know, fan controlled football and other kind of stuff. I could. That's the vibe that I'm getting based off of what the question is. Who's going to be around in 10 years. And that's that's really, I think the way box is looking at it, but why do you put a XFL over Fox tier three and four? Because if you look at. Dwayne Johnson. Who let's see, he's got the fastest growing sports energy drink. He's got the fastest growing tequila brand. That's going to be worth. Billions of dollars. Now you have that guy. And ESPN, which is the Mecca of sports pushing this league. The ESPN ignored. Right or wrong. They completely ignored the USFL and you're going to have those main aspects. Plus you're coming off of the NFL season and you have a relationship with the NFL. There was talk about when the. The. NFL alumni academy was working with 50 players. Now I'm seeing that it's 250 players that are going to be coming in and out through that thing. So this, this partnership with the XFL and NFL. And, you know, even though they have a nice relation, USFL has a nice relationship with the NFL. Like it's not the same as the XFL is relationship with the NFL. And so I think those, those things, as long as they don't burn out of money, They are going to have that hype train going off. I mean, just think about it now. I got more traffic. From the rock, sending out a tweet. They are Instagram posts wearing a workout belt. Then I do with Mike Mitchell analysis of the New Jersey generals game. Like I can put all of his Mike Mitchell analysis is of the New Jersey generals and it wouldn't even compare for a quick article about the rock. In his weight belt. And that's just the way it is. It's the difference between a league that has juice and the league that doesn't now the way the USFL needs to play their game. Is open up this new franchise and tease the heck out of that. You're thinking about adding more and getting fans involved with that. Now we'll see when the XFL finally announces its eight cities, which we all know who they are. You know, How interest in the XFL might die down because people are kind of still connected because they're hoping that, oh, well, they're going to put a, you know, a team in an Omaha or something. You know, maybe they'll do that. So that that kind of keeps fans engaged. And, but, you know, without playing in your local home markets, like XFL wins that game. It's just a matter of, are they going to blow through their money? You know, at the end of the day and Fox is saying, yeah, we think that they'll blow through their money and we'll still be left standing and, you know, going the conservative approach. But definitely that first season, there's no way that the USFL will be as big as the XFL, just because our 30,000 people are at, in St. Louis or going to a game. Every game. Yeah, I. [Unknown] some of that, I think XFL might be too heavy. I think USFL is too lean and, and the truth lies is everything, you know, somewhere in the middle there, but I do think. Fox cut money in ways they didn't need to season one. I hope that they rebound from that. I do believe that criticisms from people like us and the pat McAfee's of the world have led them to maybe spend more money in year two, but I am very scared that XFL is going to just bleed money here and we're going to be, you know, Dwayne's not ban. I mean, you know, Tara Monash. Zola. And that's all, I, they're not taking Zilla money to pay for XFL. I mean, this is Redbird and, and whatever their investors want to spend. And, you know, I, I know when you have investors involved, now, you can say we're done with this. You know, remember Oliver luck, his whole criticism of why he. We didn't get involved with other leagues is that he wanted to be part of, he only wanted to answer to one person because he felt that that was the only way that these, these will succeed. Fi, you know, the XFL you got a lot of, you have to answer to a lot of different people. We would have red bird says, I don't want to do this. And Dwayne and Danny say, we do. You know, that could cause friction with Fox. I mean, it's basically Rupert Murdoch son is at the top. And as long as he's says, let's continue to do it. Then they're moving forward. I mean, as long as he's happy, Really that's all that matters. So there's that one person at the top. That at Fox. So. We'll see, but anybody who suggests that spring football does not make it in the United States is. And doesn't know what they're talking about. Yeah, it's a confluence of wonderful events right now that have gotten us to this point. You know, it just with the need for more content and everything else, and that you. Excuse me access if you know, talented guys and whatever. I'm going to let you go. We're going to get into maybe some off topic talk shop before we got to let you go. And I got to take. Dorothy out for a Herbert. They did. It's not anything else from you. Mark Perry, XFL CFL, USFL. Yeah, no, just check out the, check out the video on USFL news hub, give it a subscribe and like, and, and you could see a whole behind the scenes. From me and my wife and my friends having a good time. Love Canton, Ohio. It's a good spot. All right. Thanks again. Well, I'm excited that we have Christina Constable coming back on from cfl.ca joined us. I think it was like post CFL season, but now we're kind of in the mid CFL week five here. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? We're good that this has been exciting to me, not just because I'm a BC lions fan, but the season has been exciting so far. How has it been for you? Obviously, you, you, you travel around, I've seen you at the CDMs, covering everything for the website. How's it been going? It's been great. I said, this is somebody I think yesterday, the day before, I don't know how it's already week five. And I feel like every year that I've been at the league, I see that every time that I'm just like, how does the time go by so quickly? But yeah, it's been great so far. We've had some obvious and really, really great football and it's been just awesome to get back into it. And it's been so nice to have a season start on time. Like we haven't had this like normalcy essentially since 2019, obviously we didn't play in 20, 20, 20, 21 was pushed until August to pick off. So it was really nice to have training camp in like, We're in it when it's supposed to be, and also kickoff what it was supposed to be. So it's been nice. Some summer football again has been really, really great. It's interesting, you know, a lot was made in the off season. We're changing the rules and the hash marks and stuff. I think just, I don't know if that's had an effect on the scoring is as much as just like guys be back into the rhythm, having normal training camps, having. You know, I'm kind of a normal, excuse me, what do you make of that? Because so much went back and forth with all the rules heading in of like how we're trying to tweak the game. Yeah, I think that has part of it. I mean, it, can't not, you've changed something like if there's a change on the field, like something is going to change in terms of productivity. But I think to me, the biggest part was that. Our guys didn't come off a dead year, like 20, 21. There was nothing unless they went and played somewhere else or they were, you know, trying to at least stay healthy. And in game speed in 2020, like they didn't really do much. So to have the 20, 21 season and then to have training camp. Cause obviously we didn't have one of those in 2021. So I think just the preparation and the guys having their bodies, minds and everything ready. I think that's also. Indicative of that. And I think we saw at the beginning of last year, it was kind of a storyline was that the defenses were ahead of the offenses and it took a while for the offenses to get rolling. And I think this year, because we had the training camp and because they just came off a season where they actually played in what wasn't actually later end of the season, too. So it was a shorter off season. I think that contributes to more scoring because they just had more of an opportunity to be ready to play in week one, rather than like last year where it kind of felt a little training can be maybe in the first week or two. You know, obviously I'm here west coast and I, my Twitter is full of BC lions fans, but it does seem like it's Nathan Rourke and then kind of everything else. Is that how you are viewing the CFL season storylines as well? I think so. And for good reason, like I have been a big Nathan Rourke fan since day one. And now just having, you know, the performances that he's put up. To kind of back that I think it's warranted. And I know he's kind of like y'all, everyone needs to relax a little bit on telling me that I'm the best, but it is the storyline right now for a multitude of reasons. You know, obviously he's a Canadian quarterback. I think maybe the lions and lions fans were a little bit worried about what are we doing after Michael Riley? And I just feel like he's really, you know, held up his end of the bargain. As you know, Rick Campbell was obviously very keen on him being their starter and. I've loved watching him. I thought his first two performances obviously were crazy good. Like it w I was there when the Argos were in town and it was just like the quickness that he gets the ball out and the zip that are on his passes. But I haven't seen that in a really long time. So that was really great. And I also really enjoyed how he responded to adversity last week. I think last week against the red blacks, he finally. Maybe it was brought down to earth just a little bit, and it was nice to see the human side of Nathan, but to have. You know, I'm calling him a rookie. He's not a rookie, but like this is his first starting year to have a quarterback who's so inexperienced. And to throw back to back interceptions and to not mentally mess you up and respond with two touchdown drives, that's better and stuff. And to see that in his third start of the year, I thought was just really, really great to see. Yeah. I mean, we knew there was going to be a come down period. I mean, no one is, is God level, like forever. And I say, I was on one of those like Twitter spaces. And I was like, ah, after the game, I say, you have, this was the comedown game. And I mean, we still play lights out and he still fought through and we still came back like, I feel okay with that. Cause it could have been a lot worse if a kind of a crash before we had the kind of level out the planes out. Yeah. I think too, like if this is his down game and he's so through two touchdowns ran one in that crazy 50 yard run, and then he's still threw for over 300 yards. Like this is his down game. Like I'm okay with that. Well, and like, you know, they were playing off. They had the late game on Saturday, they're traveling and the early start. I just, I'm so happy. Like, you know, we've come into the CFL through all this, you know, the XFL stuff. And then we had the CBA stuff and then we had the rule changes. Like, I'm just so glad that like, this is such a good, positive story. To focus on. And like, if this is the worst thing in the world, is that we're having too much attention on Nathan Warbeck. I think that's a great thing for the CFL. Cause there could be a lot where, you know, we have the business staff and the, I mean, there's lots of other negative things that could be having the spotlight. I'm glad that we can kind of focus on this. I think so too. And I think too, like I said this a few weeks ago, it was like, it's wild to me that we're talking about Nathan Rourke and you know how good he's been. And like a lucky white hat who in one of his games had over a hundred yards. People aren't even talking about. And then you look at James Butler and I know people are talking about him, but it doesn't feel as big of a storyline when that guy is like running lights out. Like who's stopping him right now. And then you also look on the other side of the ball and you have, in my opinion, one of the best defensive units in the league to me, it's like Winnipeg and BC. I think that those two have, you know, some potential for fireworks in the, in the later game this weekend. But I just feel like all sides of the ball for the lions right now are good. And I know all the spotlight is on Nathan, but there should be some spotlight, especially on that defensive unit. With Ryan Phillips in charge. It's been really, really good through the first few weeks of the season. Yeah, I was still a BC couldn't run the ball. That's what I was told all last year as BC can't run. I always name drop when I can, we'll be talking about Ryan Phillips. I filmed Ryan's wedding many years ago. This is not a very small world that we all live in tonight. I posted online this week about this you Winnipeg BC this weekend in terms of obviously. The history of the CFL as you know, multitude of years and decades in terms of recent memory. I think this has to be one of the kind of most spotlight games we've had in the last couple of years, especially with everything else going on. Oh, for sure. I mean, obviously both teams are undefeated, so there's one storyline there for you. I also think it's kind of cool, like the rookie versus the vet, you know, quarterback thing where you have [unknown]. I was, he's been around he's mop two time grey cup champion, and last two years, like he's the guy and then his Nathan, the next guy. So to see those, to battle it out again, we're talking about those defenses, those two defenses, trying to stop both of those quarterbacks. And I think where maybe BC has a little bit of the edge is in the run game. Because I think James is producing and maybe the bombers are not really struggling with their identity, but I think they're really missing the Andrew Harris. Of the past. I know Brady Alovera has kind of, you know, ran the rock a bit and we've seen a little bit of Johnny Augustine, but I don't know if he's really, they've really established themselves as that dominance in the run game. So maybe that would be the difference on Saturday night. If it's James Butler, you know, going off for. Four touchdowns again. Yeah. On that I was at the game Monday. I mean, it really, with Andrew Harris, like really missing that and with. With the Argos. Yeah, it was one of those things. Like he just keeps going and eventually he breaks through like, eventually he's going to hit it. It doesn't matter what they try to do to stop it. I wanted to get your thoughts on what is going on in Hamilton. Really? Probably not the start that the defending grey cup you. You know, losers, but you know, To time. What do you make of them? The Owen for start there. It's weird. I was trying to figure this out and I had been trying to figure this out because as a whole, I don't think Hamilton is a bad team. I don't think Dana Evans is a bad quarterback and I don't think they have a bad defense. The fourth quarter is something that they've been struggling with. We saw it against Calgary a few weeks ago where they relinquished that very, very big lead at the halftime. And fourth quarter troubles. We saw it last week against Edmonton as well. And I think Dane too is in this really weird. Bad luck spell because we know Dana Evans can throw the ball and we know he's accurate, and we know that he can work in PI pressure situations. I'm just going to rewind us all to the Eastern final. Last year, that game was won because Dana Evans had a crazy good second half completing all 16 of his passes. So Dane isn't bad. So it's just, he's in this weird. I'm calling it like the football gods are just giving him bad luck. Like he's, you know, the tipped intersections. I've never seen one quarterback in like a small sample size have that many chips interceptions. And then those heartbreaking fourth quarter plays where he's, you know, losing the ball and they're fumbling and, and, you know, They're running it back for touchdowns that are game winners. It's, it's really heartbreaking. And I feel for Thai cats fans, for sure. But I don't think this is going to go on forever. I think if they can figure out the fourth quarter and if Dane can just get out of whatever weird, bad luck spell he's under, I think Hamilton will be a contender because there isn't really that much difference on their roster from last year, including the personnel behind the bench. So they still have all the pieces. It's just, they're in a weird slump right now. And fortunately for them their own for, yeah. I mean, obviously we've seen some other personnel changes here in the CFL this week. I mean, I've had messages, like is, is Hamilton next, right? Are they in that position? Where, and obviously we don't know, and there's. You know, we're not in that locker room, but it is one of those, you know, Al that's we're doing significantly better than Hamilton was. So it'd be interesting with that. I want to get before I let you go up. Yeah, Trey for here in Edmonton. Obviously the game will be tonight. This one, when the episode comes out, but in general, this moving on from Arbuckle or at a, you know, they never, Cornelius never really. That was like ahead of the season, but now we're with Trey for, we see another Canadian quarterback key to good. What do you make of Chris Jones moving so quickly on, off of our buckle on the tray for it? Yeah. Honestly, I kind of like it to give the kid an opportunity. Is he a hundred percent ready to be like the starting quarterback in the CFL? I don't know. We've seen him once. But I really just liked the idea of having a Canadian under center. First of all, I mean, we've all talked about Nathan being the, the Canadian playing, but just as a Canadian league and, and as a Canadian myself, like it, there's a little bit of pride there. And I think Trey, no, not that I think I know Trey's an athlete. He's good at what he does. He moves his legs. Obviously we saw what he did in youth sports, you know, his last few years, like he's. A good quarterback. He's fast. I think he makes good decisions. I think he needs a little bit more time, but that just comes with reps. And when you're you're that raw as a rookie, but. I mean, Chris did what he had to do. And obviously it was the right choice in that game if he led them to a victory. But I just feel like they needed a spark somehow. And if it's not working, this is a business, right. You've got to make sure that you're winning. So if, if it's Trey that needs to come in and. Nick takes a backseat. And I think we know this about Nick Arbuckle too, is he's willing to do whatever it takes. To win. And I don't think he's one of those guys that's going to get upset by being benched and not playing. You know, he, we saw him, the kind of thing happened with him in a cloud Bethel, Thompson and Toronto, even when he was Bose back up, I think he was like more than happy to be the backup as long as the team's winning and do whatever the team needs to do. So if it's trade forward, moving forward, I love it. I just want. Canadians to be successful in this league. And it's, it was really nice to see history, especially a Canadian quarterback winning on Canada day. Like it was very poetic. It was really good. It's just, we find memory rack is like Trey got drafted and then he was like going to go try out right with Buffalo. And then they wanted him to be a receiver and he didn't want to do that. And so. You know, it's just weird. Like again, all the sliding doors. You know, I, I think it was last week on the podcast. We talked like the Hamilton of it all I had, they have one and come back, you know, in the gray cup. And what does that change this year? But that'd be treat Ford was very much almost not a CFL player. Two months ago, right? I mean, it's really weird to think. And now he's starting for Edmonton who really needed a revamp here, you know, coming off of Victor CUI and everything else. You know, trying to do all the Mar Domin did, but without the success of the team, I mean, it's hard to rebuild that fan base when the team is losing. So. Yeah, exactly. Any other thoughts just to circle back to Winnipeg before we go, you know, And they've been winning, not by a lot, right. The game on Monday, you know, it was the reverse that happened at Argonauts before, like, [Unknown] big. Winnipeg is still the same team this year heading into, you know, this big game this weekend and coming off the two gray cups. I think this will be the. You know, yardstick to tell us the answer to that, you know, I think. When a pig is a winning team and we know that they have vets, they have leadership and they know how to win, and they know how to close out games to win. What was interesting to me is I was at the game on Monday between Toronto and Winnipeg. And, you know, they haven't allowed a lot of fourth quarter, second, half touchdown scores and all of that, but they did against the Argos. And to be fair, if they miss that convert or the convert goes through, maybe they don't win that game. So to me, that was a little bit of a okay, like, is this that same Winnipeg team, because they did have back-to-back games against Ottawa. So that's a little bit different too, to measure up, you know, who this team is, but I think this weekend against BC, Like we were just talking about their defense is so good. The offense is so good. I think that this will be the measuring stick to see is Winnipeg still that top. Upper echelon of the teams, or maybe have they taken a tiny bit of a step back? I think we need to see them against another contending team, just like BC. So I'm going to be keeping an eye on that on Saturday, for sure. And maybe we'll have a better clearer answer of that next week after we see the end result. Last question for me today. We'll hopefully get you back on here. Yeah. I'm a big McLeod Bethel Thompson fan. We call them the king of the CFL last season when they Toronto had their hot star and then kind of fall through the little bit there. What is going, I mean, is he the, the guy for Toronto? Is he better off being in that secondary option? I mean, it just seems like. He's played well fine. I mean, what do you use. How do you think he's played? I think he's been good. He hasn't been great. And I don't know if that's a McLeod thing. If it's a team thing. But, you know, I was listening to the waggle podcast with Donovan and [unknown]. Womba and Enoch joined. Donovan the day after that loss. And he told a story that as he was leaving. Email on Monday, McCloud came up to him and said, you know, This is on me. I know this is on me. I have to play better. And I really appreciate that out of a quarterback, somebody who doesn't point the fingers because he easily could have, think about how many drops did Brandon Banks have in that game? He could have said it was Brandon. He could have said. Andrew could have done this or my online wasn't blocking or whatever it may be, but he took full responsibility. And to me, that is the. A leader. And I think that he is a leader and I think there's just like one or two plays that they need to just clean up a little bit. Maybe. Brandon Hall's in those passes. Maybe he throws it a little bit differently, whatever it may be. I think they are close. So I think McCloud is their guy. I just feel like they need to get over the hump in a similar fashion, but a little different than Hamilton, but they just need to clean up a few little things and just be a little bit more together. And I think there'll be, there'll be okay. Yeah, Brandon Banks needs to be careful. I mean, I watch Mike Mitchell. That is big right up. I watched coach Dinwiddie's post scam when he was fired up after that. I mean, I guess. Final final question. I swear. I'll be done. What do you, what do you make of that? And, and kind of, you know, we have a newer head coach in email player unrest, and he said, I've told these guys they got to step up and anyone can be gone at any time. I mean, it. Either Brandon's a big name, big star, big ego coming in. I mean, what do you make of that? I think he cares. I think at the end of the day, it just shows that he cares. Did I love that he was trying to fight one of his teammates? No. But to me, it's just a sign that these guys care and they want to win. And I know he had apologized to the team after the game as well. And that takes a lot as well to like say, okay, I shouldn't have done this, but I just think it shows that he cares and, you know, I just feel like if you have somebody who doesn't care and he's just, you know, whatever, if we win, we win, we lose, we lose. I don't, it doesn't matter. You don't want that kind of person on your team. You want someone who is fighting and who's mad that he's dropping passes and who's. You know, fired up. So I didn't love that he was yelling at his teammate, but I think like why he did it make sense to me just from the passion side of it and the want to win. Well, Christina, thank you so much for making time today. Well, I'm excited today. Talking more macho. I'll let CFL football. We have Chris Ackie here. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. Are you doing. I'm good. Now I have my, don't be confused. I have my outlets flight deck podcast shirt on you're not on the album. It's flight deck podcast. Friends. Tim Cliffy. I wanted to wear well, Montreal blue for ESL. Hopefully you feel at home? How you're coming off a little bit of an ankle injury. How has everything going so far for you now, we're going into ways that week six of the CFL season is crazy. Yeah. I'm going to read. I time traveled. Yeah, you're out of west. I'm the CFO. So. And being the east division, that's all, that's all close right now. We saw. Toronto. Lose one. So. That was good news for us. We have time. At least you have some time right now, but. The first thing that click. I'm really going to get some damage soon. And see if I really want to win those games early. To set the standard. Were you able to watch any of the big, a Winnipeg. Argonauts game last night, it came down to the wire and the misfield goal and all that stuff. Yeah. I watched the entire game. I was shocked. I thought they were going to go up. This is how easily they marched on the field. Then you have a guy like Andrew. I'll run it back. So I figured they were about to go for. I want to go over the actual point. And then the board sued them. We consistent. And then that image of him might. Holding his helmet, I think is going to be the UCFL meme, at least for a little while. I feel bad for him, but I think you got to roll with it. So are you. CFL football fan when you're not playing, like you said, you watched the whole game here, a bi-week on your day off. Yeah, I'm always watching. Just because you read it, you're going to play that TMC. Want to know like, I just want to see how they are and also decide. As being in the league for all these years, I have friends on. On every team. So it's always nice. It's to kind of check in and see how their games. As well, so it's hard. So, you know, last year I'm BC lions fan that's, that's our team. I have Al white shirt on here, but you know, last year, the last kind of a joke, right. Either BC really struggled. Now this year, it. It does seem like the EAs, you know, Toronto's leading, you know, one and two or whatever it is, or one in three. What do you make of the east? In, in I re. I guess first I'll what do you make of the east division so far? I said that. This is super talented, but it's just a lot of new pieces coming together. So it's going to take a few weeks with teens. It really started jelling coming. We see most of the games, the games are pretty close. Right. So like, Here in Montreal besides last weekend, scotch one. Our first two games. We lost, we lost a combined four points, so that. I could easily go either way. So we can easily be sent in three and one here in Montreal. So just about like coming together and really this. Clicking and finding a fun way to win. So really just building towards that. And you see, it seems like Ottawa, who is right there as well. And they see the find a way to win. So it's going to auto wind, a lot of moves and friends and see. They just got to kind of come together as a team, but really I'm only really been focused on what we do here in Montreal. We're just going to kind of get back to the job board. This kind of fair thing. Yeah. Heartbreaking, you know, Opening season lost there at the one. It was interesting. You, the Argonauts, the one point lost, they were very reminiscent of last night. You. The organized. And then last, what was the direction from coaching staff? What was kind of the message heading into the bi-week for all you guys? It's a rest stop. And then let's put the game to rest. Whenever he wants a film, we can't give dwelling on that all week. We got to move forward and we have Edmonson next week. What do you, what are your thoughts on that at Edmonton? You know, often on seemed like they finally got their act together a little bit last week. What do you make of that going into this weekend? For Evanston. Well, just for the, yeah, the magic of a general. Oh, I'll say we're excited to fight against. Then we know Chris Johns is. Kind of brilliant football. Football mindset. It's going to be interesting to see what he, he has drawn up, but I know. We're talented. So we're going to be ready to get after. What do you think is the biggest strengths that you guys have right now? In your locker room. Biggest strength in our locker room. I think we have, we just have, we have a real good luck wrong. Just like the people in our law Chrome. I was like, no, he goes, are. The checklist is everyone like gentlemen likes each other. I think that's important for a team. So that's our biggest strength. Everyone gets along. So that's like something that we, they don't see in every locker room. I've been a couple of different locker rooms. I've had different locker rooms in one trial as well. And so you don't really see this type of like cohesiveness within a group that we have in Montreal. What do you make of, you know, friend? The show he's been on Vernon Adams. Right. You know, he's from. Basically down the street from where I live here, you. I, you know, Vernon, Trevor Harris. What do you make of all that? I think they're both, they're both starters. Very fortunate to have both of them on our team. I feel like. We could win with. Either one of them, my quarterback. We just have to make sure by. Yeah. Sure the game plan is good every week. We can win would be the quarterback there. I'll see the above my pay grade, where they put out quarterback. But I know like I'm confident, I'm whatever. We have in there that we can win games. We've had a lot of your other teammates on kind of heading into this season. I kept hearing you where the leader Vernon, is he a leader in the locker room? We eat a leader of the guys spending time getting to know. Does that gel with what you think as well? Yeah. Absolutely. Vernon. Vernon's one of my life. Favorite leaders I've been around like. I see a guy like, especially you see what he does. He flies the guys out to somewhere in Seattle. And then have the. Although training camp on, on his dime as well. Well, you don't see a lot of people that are willing to do that. So I've run. It's such a great locker room guy. Yeah. Like he is now in the number two role, but he, that doesn't change how we prepared. His energy around the locker room. We love about burner. Suddenly curious your thoughts. Cause you know, we talked with some players, they're looking at other teams, some guys have their heads down yet. Here you are watching games, you know, on your day off, what do you make of this CFLs division? You know, Nathan work, taking the world by storm. Lots of cutting for dry. That lots of stories to me. Anything strike you just from a television viewing analysts. The perspective on the CFLs, on the Westlake. I'll say I like what they've been work is doing. I think it was done with the quarterback. Canadian guide. Go out there and prove people wrong as well. No. I'm excited to play a team like BC. Cause I know like they have, they've been going to work. And then put it on the show last a few weeks, we had a close one. I'm excited to play them because our front seven here in Montreal. We'll really be able to get after him. So I feel that we're excited to. Phase to have the child that facing. Whenever that whenever that top calls. But right now, it's like one game at a time. So we got to worry about. We got to BC. Yeah. So we saw it too. Speaking of Canadian quarterback. Trey forward right last week. Eight. It's cool. To see the kind of the predominant storyline coming out of the CFL. This season is the success of Canadian born. Right. I quarterbacks, obviously you from Canada. Why. You know, there, there was all this stuff in the off season and, you know, three downs and four downs and changing the rules and all this stuff. None of that really matters now. Right. It seems like it's really good football and, and Canadian guys are succeeding right in there in all of their positions. What do you make of all that? I'm not surprised at it at all. I got, I know I got. I'm from here. We can play. So I was really not a surprise for me. I am happy to see the guys don't have to see a guy like Trey Ford. Rookie out of your. Waterloo. I. I've met Trey a few times. I want the Laureus. All right. Down the street from a university Waterloo. I did see a guy like that. That's like played in. I use sports football then. Gets a start in the CFL is a rookie Canadian rookie quarterback. So I feel I'm happy for him. We got the win for Edmonson. Definitely excited to play. Oh, fantastic. I'm an athlete is going to be a child. It was this guy that report. What did they have you guys hone in on here leading into this matchup? That's a little early for that. I don't know. Bi-week so we haven't gotten that. Not that far yet. Definitely. We'll have some before them. And overall thoughts. You know, Some struggles here. This season, you. You had your blend. That's just overall mentality in the locker room here so far in the season. Everyone's still optimistic. At this point, we know it's a long, simple season. We're in July right now. Perhaps I'll start the November. So we have, we have a lot of times that really like, Got things going. I feel like once we start the clinic, We're right there. But once we start. An entire game together then. I think we'll do a lot of damage in. And I've said you've seen that what we did the week prior with Scott Schwann, we, we. We dominated off is all through bits of the game, especially teams, offense defense. So once we able to continue to do that consistently. I think we're going to be a real forest. It's hard. It's hard with CFL, like media or podcasts, because it is such like in an immediate gut reaction to everything, right? Like, yeah. Edmonton's the worst team in the world or BC. Your Montreal and then you. It's such a long marathon. I mean, how do you compartmentalize, you know, you obviously doing all the work on the field, how do you co com. Apart mentally. It's such a long marathon of the season. Ah, This one was used to, I guess my. If you're a now, so I'm just like, I'm just used to it. I've seen the ups and downs. It was season. I just know it's going to come down to veteran leadership. Just to kind of keep, keep everyone on board and just kind of just be able to trust the process. I keep building as a team. What's your favorite part of being a player in the Canadian football league? What's my favorite part of being a player in the camp. I was just being able to, because I feel that the sinful such a community lead. So we're able to kind of connect with our fans. They can reach out to us. So. Kind of the difference you can make in the community and just being, it's like close by to see like some of my friends and family. I always watch replay. It's never realized that we're too far away. So. That's always been one of my favorite things about being in the CFO. I was definitely like, like I like. I grew up like fan football. So it's kinda like for the most part, like I've played majority of Canadian football sites that sometimes really enjoy. Have you noticed any, and I haven't seen a lot of, you know, obviously each position group would ever be just overall. You know, all the rules in the off season and the hash marks and everything else, and they move into penalties. Have you. Has any of that helped? Is it just kind of getting back into the rhythm after having the year off is that's what's causing more of the high scoring and more entertaining games, right? Enabled what do you make them on the chatter in the off season leading into now? So you honestly, I don't think it's changed the amount of scoring. Am I. And I feel like this is the same amount of swarm. It's been all times. Yeah, you see. Team, my dominate other team, 50 nothing where you also see games, that'll go be 20 to 19. So I feel like it's kind of been consistent. I don't know if the have smart chains made that much of a difference. And honestly, it makes a difference for the wool linebacker. And you out of your ass, you a lot more. In the coverage game, maybe you already asked you a lot. So I think that's like a different Zimmer. Other than that. I don't see. I don't see the scoring made a big difference in my opinion. It was good. Like. I think it's just more getting back into the swing of things in everyone. Just the year off and then they truncated they season and everything else. You said, yeah. Nursing your ankle injury coming back. How are you feeling here through the bi-week and they get you back into the action next week. I'll feel it. Every weekend better. It's been. I'm going on. There'd be three weeks. By the end of this, we're going to be three weeks. So we're getting there. It's obviously not exactly where I want to be. Right now, but it's like, it was a pretty bad injury. So. I'm pretty happy with how things are going by, you know, as an athlete, I just want to get back on the field. ASAP. So I gotta be careful not to push it too much. But I'm also going to do what I can to make sure I'm back on the field next week. Last question for me, anything fun you're planning to do for yourself here on the bi-week taking some time away from the game. You know, and for me, it's just going to be relaxing. I didn't go back home to Toronto. I said, Just so I can continue to be with the transient rehab and try to get back as soon as possible. So really like this week has just been like just going to the facility every day, like working out, doing the rehab and the pool and just kind of hanging out with teammates on the city. Well, I really appreciate you taking time on the bi-week to come on here and, you know, talk with this crazy podcast or down in Seattle. Thank you so much for your time. I am Montreal. We get a lot of you guys on the show, so I really am pulling for you guys. You know, I can't cheer for Winnipeg. I can't cheer for. Really, I can't shoot. Yeah.

Episode 99 - XFL Cities SPOILED!!!

Well, I appreciate as a man of his word, we, we met earlier in the season. Brock said I wanted to come back on. I'm not going to be in Canton. I have to work all weekend doing weddings. We have Brock Heward here. How are you doing, sir? It's messed up, bro. What kind of work do you gotta do? It's a lot more money to fill in the weather. And it is to pay the thousands. Like I did to go to Birmingham. Okay. Can you tell the wedding? What do you think about moving into the 4th of July? How about a 4th of July and what. We really out on a Sunday. I need to get on the Fox payroll. If I could have the RJ young. If I could have that deal and. Going to be on there and get flooded. Hi, Howard, how are you? Yeah, we talked to mid season now we're, you know, through playoffs, my stars have made it to the playoffs, bruh. We'd ham there. I mean, general thoughts is first off overview of the season. Overview with the season. I would echo something that Mike. The hill. At Fox. And mentioned, I believe the New York post this week and kind of summation of the 42 games. Right. And that is the level of play was better. Quality of play was better. Better over the course of the year. The adjustments were made to the football. Adjustments were made to the clock. The adjustments were made to the roster. This is what happens when you own a leak. When Fox owns the league and understands how important the product is. Players understand, by the way, I think that's a big part of it. You know, I worked the first five weeks. Took the next five off. Cause I just had like you weddings. In life and all sorts of stuff. And then came back last week and we'll work the championship game Sunday. And I purposely. Saturday before the games, but time coaches, players. Kind of asking them, read that question. Just. What do you think? How did it go? What did you like? What didn't you like? And it was much more affirming, incredibly more positive. The players bought. Ian. I think you've seen that in the social media world. The seasons have ended. How many of them just expressed. The gratitude. I'm so thankful for this league. And I'm on that sidelines embedded. And that is what I felt. For what will be my seventh. Final week. Really embedded on the sidelines. I have felt that all season long. And neat to see when you own a league, you're like the competition committee in the NFL. Something's wrong. Fix it. Right. I always say fix it. You know, And they were able on the fly in the midst of the moment, fix some of those issues leak. Early. And I think the products benefited because of that. Yeah, a lot's been made. Getting to the end of the season, completing the season. Right. That was the number one concern here. Right? Everything else, attendance, TV, ratings, everything. And now we've seen, as you know, Eric shanks came out, talked to sports business journal. Hey, we're getting ready for season two. We're talking to expansion. You know, ad sales are already going through for next season. So like, Just by virtue of them getting to this point. Do you think that that also has helped just the public perception, both on and off the field? No, I don't think there's any question. I think last time I was on here with you. I shared some stories. AAS last game. Johnny Manzell Mike Singletary, looseness mind on the field. I never got paid for that. Unfortunately. I didn't work a lot, but I did happen to work in the first and the last weekend of that was around for the XFL. Watch that and. That felt a little similar to this, like the. His son has momentum. This thing is going, and then obviously the pandemic. Crush that. And. And we'll see whether or not. That never gets a reboot. I mean, I think what this exercise taught me is, man, it takes. A mountain of invested people. Right in mountain of invested people. Coaches players. I think there's supply train. The coaches and players is pretty strong. I think there's a lot of guys that want to continue to, to get to play in this. NFL Europe dissipated. The league has been diminished a little bit like there's, there's definitely. Mike Riley has said that to me just about every week. There are players that these leagues are built for. Mike knows it better than anybody because he's coached. And just about every single one of them. So it takes a, it takes a mountain besides just the talent takes a mountain of people on our side of it, on the production side of it on the running the league side of, on the marketing side of it. And obviously a mountain of money. To make it happen as well. So nice that. The box is going to do this. I'm going to step forward. I think they're going to be able to raise the capital. I think add cells. I think TV ratings when it's been on Fox and NBC are pretty clear that the product's pretty good people will certainly want to watch it. Yeah. Talking either expansion for next year, right? Eric shake said, you know, to the four hubs, either, whatever that is. Yeah. Obviously we have to adjust the Birmingham issue of it. W what do you see a as ideas that you would like to see the league explore going into next year? Yeah, you would love to just see some of those fan bases. Right? So in Canton, Saturday last Saturday, there were some stars fans. We're in their gear, kind of by the tunnel and cheering them on and where they. From Philly where they from Birmingham, who knows, but yeah, I think in order to get that emotional attachment, You have to be able to touch it and feel it and get close to it. You had the trans to do that, right? You went down to Birmingham, you got a little seat and a little feel for it. But. I think in time from just a market standpoint. You need those teams in those markets, you need a Scooby right. Walk in the malls. And Birmingham in the off season. Right? You need. Case caucus. In Philadelphia. And him playing in a, in a stadium there that's maybe conducive to, to an audience. To the size of it. But for those people that get to know, man, I really like that guy. I like him from afar, but now that he's up close and personal, I really like that guy. I want to root for him and have an attachment. So I think. In a perfect world. You would love to see these eight teams in each of those locales. And have their own little stadium and opportunity and maybe their own owner investor. That is, that is, you know, put his share in what that looks like, how it's all sorted out, how much, you know, The Fox ownership wants to distribute that those are decisions well above my pay grade, that I don't have the time or the margin or. The intellect. To try to figure out as well. I think in time you need. Fan bases. You need those locales. Like we saw with the Seattle dragons, like I saw with the St. Louis Battle Hawks. I like those teams that just have a bit of a. Not just an attachment to those guys because of proximity. I, and I don't know in terms of your work and life and all that stuff, but if you were asked to come back to the USFL next year, would you be excited to do so? What'd you say Molly? I can't work two seasons. Okay. Yeah, that's my wife. She, she heard me read. No. I do love this league, man. I love the access I get. It's so unique. It just, it fills, it fills me up to get close to those guys to have relationship with them and as such. Oh, gosh. You know, I've, I've had some sideline reporter, friends of mine text me super jelly, right. Because of all of the access that we get unparalleled access. So I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. From a familial standpoint and raising kids and life work balance and all that good stuff. That's that's the only challenge. I'm curious, just in. And I don't want to get too off the USFL wagon here, but we're talking about XFL and. Even last night we had Larry Lee. That's one of the DPPs you have a leak. He had a lot of the city names and stuff right there. Ramping up. I'm curious what you think having lived through both, obviously this one's going to be different XFL 20, 23, but like. What is the USFL offer that the XFL is not going to, or what could the XFL offer right now that the USFL is here going into a second season? What could they offer? I mean, where do you see that the market for those. Well, I think the USFL showed what an incredibly strong ownership group does. And when it's NBC and Fox working together, what you're capable of doing the product, everything we talked about that opening question. Footballs of running clock. Of roster size, all of these things. And you heard Joel Johnson. Say that. You know that man, we're going to be so much further ahead starting season two, then. And then you are because you have to live and learn and experience. And so when you have people that have done it, people that have produced it, people that understand that people understand the league, as I think Fox does with this USFL. It gives you an enormous head start and enormous ramp. I don't know what the XFL is going to do. I don't know who their ownership's going to be. I don't know how many of them are going to be willing. You know, to, to cut the checks and spend the kind of money. There's a lot of people. I remember this real estate. I doing real estate development. Oh yeah. This is a great project. It's awesome. Let's do this. Let's go. Okay. Okay. Put an ante up it's time for you to put in your, your body. It's time for you to get a little liquid. You know, and not just talk about it, but actually produce it and get it done and wire that money. And it's like, ah, Yeah. Just get quite fine. Can you clarify that 50 million? I thought I had it. I thought I was good for it, you know, but the loan didn't go through or my leverage fell apart or so until those pieces were put in place and you see the real players actually antying up. Up in contributing. Then we can have that conversation. I think that is still very much in the. Yeah, we would love to do this. And we've got these coaches and we got these teams and everything else. I suppose done it. We've got to the finish line for the first time in decades and decades. And until others do that, it's hard for me to relay. Kind of projected and see where it's going before. You seen the talent, right? It's been great. Yeah. Great football. Like you said, gotten better each week. Do you think there's another eight teams worth of guys that are gonna fill up those rosters on the other side? Very hard up front. I mean that, that is the hardest group. Are there enough receivers? Corners safeties. Running backs. I think there's a pretty strong supply of those. When you talk this big humans. You know, the really unique ones. That you don't photograph. Very often. You know, and they're like 6, 6, 3, 20 and athletic. Most of those bodies are in the NFL and on NFL practice squads and are turned over every rock to try to find those guys cause that supply chain is the slimmest. So that's, that's the hardest part talking to the coaches and. And I've got a few friends of mine that are on, on these staffs and O-line coaches in particular that are on these staffs and they will tell you that that is by far. We're the supply is the slimmest and the hardest. Each team probably have these eight has the guy that will get into key. Into the NFL camp because of this experience. And put together a season of tape. And being right there on the fringe, maybe being six, three, and maybe the arms are a little shorter and. You know, maybe the, maybe the speed and the twitches and NFL stuff, but man, they've learned enough game and they're savvy enough and experienced enough to get themselves in the camp. Read that will be the hardest part as well as, as a quarterback, obviously. Right? I mean, We have seen, even in this league of eight teams, A pretty big Delta between the top end of that quarterback play. And the bottom end of that play and those two positions, I think QB online. The most difficult from a supply chain standpoint to have enough. Yeah, it's curious. I mean, I've, I've had conversations with people that have kind of on both sides in the, a wool post. Is there enough talent out there you get ever. Of course there is there's 18,000 people graduated from college. Yeah, whatever it is, but it is, it's filling a lot of those key positions that I don't think that people think through all the way, especially the offensive line. Yeah. And I will say too, again, talking to these players, man, I didn't find too many. That had a real dissenting voice about this leg. I had a real like, man, I didn't get paid for my services. I was chatting with. Former alumnus of the school I went to and he just compared and contrasted the CFL. And just how much more lucrative this was for guys to actually have real money put in their pocket and be able to live and keep their dream alive, right. Possibly for another season. Whereas many of these other leagues and even that one north of the border, just by the time. Salary and taxes and living and everything else. It just is like, man, I'm, I'm coming back with not enough to get me through the next six months to the next training camp. Whereas this one, I think you, if you had what 45 players aids. For roughly 400 players this year. And you chatted with most of them read. I think they would say, you know what? I actually. Yeah. I actually, especially those apply in a full season and had a team that won and got that little winning bonus more than once or Pittsburgh. I think most of those guys would say, yeah, I mean, this was. This was a fair trade for our services. Not only did I get to keep my dream alive, but it was a fair trade that I've got a little money in my pocket that I can train. Where I can live that don't have to just, you know, put the helmet and cleans totally away. I can keep this dream alive for another year or two. Speaking of, and then I will preview the, they gave here before we get out, but like, I don't think Kirby will say they had gotten full mad king when we last spoke and really kind of just evolved into madness. Ah, yeah, I posted his comments following his final game and like, well, we're just, you know, Every week, like we're wrapped back up, you go back to the driveway. What do you make of Kirby? Wilson? Do you expect him to be back next season? Yeah, I think most of these coaches sign. The two year deal. I don't think I'm letting out any trade secrets. Most of them. Kind of we're locked into that. That situation will obviously need some help. And, you know, Kirby was thrown into a position you never been in before. I think we even talked about that the last podcast that we did, like. He's a lifelong running back coach never been in a play caller, never been a coordinator. And coaching a room of five running backs is very different than leading an entire organization. So. I curious if, how much you learned if, if the league. And the decision makers will have that conversation. Who you got to surround yourself with because there was also inexperienced. And this coordinator spots. You know, I'm like guys that are really done it. I've done it at a high level of places. So. Yeah, that will be probably of the eight. And one situation that you're going to have to Kirby will have to evaluate. Like we'll have to evaluate. And that one will certainly need some. Some help. In the off season to rectify all that. It's just a lot, you know, he made a lot of like, well, you know, I built this from the ground dab. It's like everybody did everyone did this? It'd be different. If you were coming into an expansion team here. I will say, you know, I had a few of those games this year. And, you know, the positive was those guys kept playing. I mean, it wasn't like you saw mutiny it wasn't like guys to shut it down. Right. It wasn't like, Hey. And I've seen that. At the college and pro level, like. I've been around when guys are just like, yeah, I'm totally out. Like, this is just, I'm sorry. I am not buying. And obviously these guys want a paycheck. They want. They want to keep playing the highly incentivized. Right. So a mutiny or quitting is about the last deal and the end of it for these guys. And they're not going to take that step and push that button. And none of them did. But yes, as far as just having. More horsepower people that have done it, man. It's just. It's like broadcasters, like Jason wasn't mad. I felt bad for Jason because he was starting a new position that he wasn't equipped for. It wasn't ready for Monday night football. How could you be? You never done the job before. So I think I give a little more needy, more grace to like a Kirby, knowing that. On one level, like good for you, man, to take this job. You can do it, but on the other level realized there were a lot of shortcomings with experience. In terms of either the, this final championship game. Right? I think a lot of people expected generals stallions, right? That, that was kind of the two leading horses. Either with Bennett had the whole season. You know, the stars had the upset. What did you make of New Jersey? Kind of not falling apart, but really not. Accomplished. I think a lot of people thought they would. Two things. I think the first time I flinched. I mean on that sideline, you could feel him flinch a little bit. Right? They. Adversity this season, I think either they're 10 we're one possession games and all of them were tight. But it just never really panicked. And might then panic on the sidelines. Mike Riley did not at all. And I think the staff didn't really, I didn't get that sense from them at all, but the crew, but the group did, but the overall crews certainly did. And it's like, no, we don't turn the ball over. That's not what we do. Luis had one pickup, 10 games. And he throws two in this game. Right. Zero turnovers in two games against Philadelphia. And all of a sudden you have three of them. And you get stuffed on fourth, down on a, on a call that. Oh, that worked all season long and it didn't work this time. So I thought they flinched a little bit. And I think Joel and Kurt and I talked about this in broadcast. But there's also a human nature element. Let's Philadelphia players at the end of the game. Right? We're. Yelling at me like. Yeah. Go ahead and pop them all, all in this, all in that whole. I'm like, whoa. And by the way you just won. I had nothing to do with it. I'm not a voter. You know, but they saw all the hype and all the attention and there's the MVP and there's the coach of the year. The player of the year and their blah, blah, blah. And man that's jet fuel. Right. You live in the Northwest. You saw that with the Seahawks. How much did they use that for years? And even when they were the top lion in the. And on top of the mountain, like they still, still barked about it. Like. Yeah, you just respected us. No, no CX you're good. You're the Legion of boat. You. Got you that you don't really have to try to drum it up, but that was there. Their nature to do it. They didn't, there was no drumming it up. Like that was the reality. The generals were favored that everybody. You saw Turpin had a chirp and when he wasn't getting the ball, like, come on, man. I'm the MPP. Right. And yeah. You felt that a mod Dixon safety for. The safety for the stars. I wish we could. Have you miked up and use the sound, but I just don't think there's enough bleeps in the technology to make it work. Because that guy is in a live wire. Beginning to pregame offense, defense specialty. It's like. He was the heartbeat of that team. And I'll be curious, he got banged up at the end with vector in that collision. The whole team got banged up. They were the walk-in wound that leave and get last week. I'll be curious to get a feel real or like whether or not they've got that same electricity because you're not playing the MVP. You're not playing the office play or the, or you're not playing the coach to. You're not playing. Excellent Birmingham team that is more balanced. It's more efficient. That does things better than you and key areas like the line of scrimmage. So I'll be curious to see if they could match an electrical charge. They had Saturday. No. I mean, that stuff matters. It's good to know that they got heated about not getting those awards and stuff. Because the alternative is true too. You know, I think New Jersey got a lot of hype. Yeah. In their head about that. I Birmingham and, and breakers. I mean, it didn't really seem like a fair contest riding me, bro. We have kind of any thoughts on that before we get to stars? Birmingham and Birmingham is just stable. Right. And I think when you're the home team and it's in your backyard and you do have bands and. But from beginning to end this year. I've had them. I've. I think this will be my sixth of seven weeks that I've worked. We've had skip in this crew and gotten to know those guys pretty well. And yeah, there's just not really an inefficiency that they have right. Often. Defensive line and get after the password, they run the football. I think Jay Mars up and down is not the most accurate guy. So the passing game can kind of hit and miss. And hot and cold because of the QB accuracy. But. They are. Yeah, they just, and they show up. Th they're built to go to win. That's why that one 10 of 11. And why it wasn't a surprise that they found a way and a funny story. I'll give you a little nugget. So we did argue. And then the concert were traced and we busted out. We all had early flights Sunday morning, and we busted to a sports bar in Cleveland by the airport to watch the second game. And. It was so funny. We're sitting there at the dinner table and it was before Victor Bolden and maybe cause we just watched two return touchdowns in our game. They were kicking off to Baldwin there of the minutes ago. Before half I'm like, I think he's going to house us. I think there's going to be a house call. So he breaks the first wave and. Our whole tables. Oh, if it breaks a second way and he's gone and I just like got up. Finger in the air and I'm out. I think I should leave on that. I don't think I should come back. I am done. I saw that one coming on. I feel before the game. So I don't secure that. Just to brag about myself, go a little bit. Also because special teams are so critical in, in these moments when teams are titled. Games are tight. Get to this stage. Special teams will be big on Sunday. Does this. This is the kicker, miss couple and all of a sudden, goodness headlight. We've seen that this. This season is a. Pick one out of bounds. We get apart return touchdown. Billy's just kind of that dangerous team that like, man, if you let them hang around. They've got enough juice in spots, turnover, special teams. But they may just come up a beach. As they did to the generals. And that was my feel. I didn't feel like new Orleans had enough of that. That. Yeah, they were going to really threaten Birmingham, whereas Sunday night, Yeah, you better be careful Birmingham, better not turn it over because this team makes you pay more than anybody else in this league. When you turn it over or points off turnovers are by far and away, the best in this league. And then, oh, by the way, they just got little sense of belief, right? You just. Can I just cook his, got a little sense of belief. Aren't addresses. Been around the block a time or two, as I said, I'm on his nuts on beef fence. So you better not let them hang around or they may just come up and get you like they did the generals. Yeah. The three facets of football, right? With specialties, don't tell Aaron Rogers that, you know, special teams. So. Last question for me. So. Who do you take this Sunday? I mean, obviously you have your, you know, your objective where we're not swaying. The poles, but I mean, I love. I see. And another upset, right? Birmingham and, you know, like you said, they won even without their hometown fans, they wanted Canton a lot with, yeah. They had question marks for that. I mean, what do you make of this final game of the season? I mean, both of these teams do what they do. And, and you saw that a week ago as well. Like all four teams played their styles and really wasn't even a Philadelphia New Jersey back to back weeks. Wasn't like the garden formations that were. Unfamiliar where's that personnel group. Cause he can't. Right. This is 45 guys. So you do what you do. Both these teams know each other, they played against each other. So I don't think there'll be any surprises. And that way Philadelphia spreads it, that, that loss of the running back. Hertz Coburn. And you felt that. You felt bolt teams. I don't know what you're able to see on TV, but all. The teams came out, remember case running to the sidelines after the injury, because he could hear. Matt on the ground, just in severe pain. And, and I think at that point thought it was a torn or broken leg. It's a high ankle sprain. I don't think any chance that he's going to play this week. That's a huge loss. They don't have a replacement for him and his productivity. So if he were in there, I would almost say pick up to be honest with you. Because there are going to score some points, Birmingham isn't that elite defensively and. The way they get creed. Match-ups. And all these old line new additions last few weeks has played better. Without Matt Colburn, it's going to be tough. You're going to have to win the turnover battle, not plus one. But it's going to have to be plus two and a special teams play. And I think one of those kinds of games, if they're going to get it done, but. You know, you're filling your Philly fan. And you know what the, what it's like again, I'll come back to human nature. Like we've got nothing to lose. Nobody's picking us mats out to. And it's probably out, we've got some of our stars. No pun intended that are out. And nobody thinks we can do this. So. We've got 60 more minutes do it. Let's go get it. And when you play with some of that house money versus Birmingham, that's 10 and one. It's favorite. We're supposed to do this with deeper. We're healthier. We've been more efficient and more effective or better at the line of scrimmage. Push comes to shove though that line of scrimmage usually wins titles. And that's why it'd be the leads Birmingham. I just, you know, either way. Like, where does the Astros fall this season at Birmingham goes, I almost had defeated loses you. And the championship game is that the asterisk, right? They needed the hometown on the affiliate wins that. Be curious to see, but, you know, Philadelphia has been in every USFL championship game. And we won't talk about that, but it is an interesting statistic, nonetheless. Well, they're red hot too. I mean, down the stretch here, obviously you looked at. 901 And 91 about they were the hottest teams. You know, winning what, five of six down the stretch for Philly. So in the league like this too, Every lake, right? The NFL is all about attrition. Who do you have left? Are you playing your best? When it matters into the playoffs and the super bowl? I see it in the college world series all miss was the last team to get in and they're playing their best ball when it mattered the most, the warriors. Play their best ball would have mattered the most. The avalanche just want to title the last two weeks of the regular season, all banged up, beat up rested guys. And they started playing their best when it mattered the most, and Philadelphia is doing that. And you sense that I just, from a. You know, from a just visual standpoint, man, when you lose guy, after guy in that tent at one point was full. The injury. There was no, there was no room in the end. And it was some of your best players that were stuck in there. So I'll get a feel for that pretty early read. I think the first five minutes I'll feel as a space electricity. Is this fake, like, okay, let's get pumped. Or is this what I felt last week? Which was wow. Human nature is on the side of this team and they want the throats of those other guys will get a sense for it. I think pretty quickly. Well, Brock, I wish you safe travels. Thank you again for coming on. I appreciate that. It was great. I know fam. Fan favorite here. So. Thank you again. I have a blast this week. It should be fun. So when you have the game, when you're shooting a wedding, now it's my turn to ask you. You're shooting a wedding, right? Sunday. It's the wedding over by the time the game comes. Talk to me here. Yeah. So I have leggings Friday, Saturday, so I will not. It will be watching the game on Sunday, but we have three. I will tell you the iWatch. I'm a CFL guy too, and I've watched many, a CFL game with my phone. Yep. Mounted on my, on my camera watching it. So I try, I do my best. I get a lot of flack online, but. Yeah. I do my best, but yes, I'll be watching on Sunday here at the homestead and your gut. I think it's Birmingham. I'd really like to see. I mean, obviously just filling it and knowing the guys there, but so many of the guys, even, I knew Brian, Scott's off now and mango's gone and. Matt Cole burns her. I mean a lot of the guys, I, but I still am rooting for that team. That's the Jersey and everything I have. So very cool man. Akilah glass. Yup. Man. There's a few of them. What was he? Yeah. Save your thoughts. So we're going to go on here. Absolutely. I got to make this bigger, a second. That record that right. Well, I'm excited today. We have Sam jest here. Sam shady sports on YouTube. Sam has joined me for a lot of the live streams. We've done. I think we did the USFL pre. I, you know, one of the drafts, all this stuff, but now we have Sam here. Sam has compiled a list of all that guys that are attending the XFL showcases. We're going to write down. Then we obviously had the big oopsy Daisy with Larry Lee releasing all of the XFL cities. We're going to run down all that stuff today. Sam, how are you doing? I definitely can't complain. Thank you so much for having me on re well, this is good. And I mean, this, I was thinking about this waiting for you to hop on. You know, you, we, you were on the same time that we had Josh Davis, you know, rip. Rip with a news hub. And I mean this right. I think that you, and this is no disrespect to any of the other guys that are covering this stuff right. For news hubs. But I think that you, in terms of like getting in the niece with all of these, you know, like MLSP. FCS really getting these guys' stories, right. Sharing them. You're doing your own YouTube. I think you're really carrying on that torch. I think Josh should be really proud of the work that you're doing. So I wanted to compliment you on that before we start. Thank you so much. I mean, I unfortunately didn't get the chance to meet Josh. But I've heard nothing but good things. And I've actually, I've told you guys before that I found a lot of his articles when I've been researching stuff for myself. Just seeing that alone. I kind of wish I had gotten the chance to connect with him. Cause he seemed like a great writer and an amazing dude overall, you guys all speak very highly of him. Yeah. So we're going to, this is a good spot for you today. You know, XFL, we, we didn't have news now we have news, but we're going to obviously do the showcase stuff as well. This is what was fascinating to me at the beginning. So the big story we had, Larry Lee, he's the announced XFL director of player personnel for the Orlando franchise. So he was on the sports slot podcast with Deb Snyder and former NFL offensive lineman. Lummis brown, and they were talking, I think that. Larry and Lomas knew each other from, you know, in this time in the NFL, this had air the on G nights and now we're, you know, 20 days pass is where recording. We're going to go through the transcript and stuff here, but, but basically Larry ended up laying out. All the teams, all the coaches, you know, for the cities, we don't know the nicknames yet. It is since been removed from YouTube and the audio feeds, which tells me that, you know, XFL. Obviously didn't want him to do this. It's still on my Twitter marks articles still up. Sam, what did you think of. Yeah, we had a heyday last night when all this came out and we were talking about it in the group chat. Yeah. I mean, I. I don't know what. Spurred this, like he had to have known that he wasn't supposed to be talking about this, but yeah, it's crazy to see. I mean, At the end of the day, we all kind of had our ideas or had a pretty good idea given the fact that Mike has reported on this months ago. But I mean, at that same time getting confirmation that we hadn't had up to this point, that was very exciting in my mind. Like, and I get exit file right now, you know, I know Jay's reaching out for XFL weekly, right? Trying to get interviews, you know, we're reaching out everyone. This is why I would work with us on some of this stuff right now, even if it's a limited, like, okay, we only want to talk about this. I know Dean Blandino. Dino was on with Jay talking about some of that stuff. Cause then you get these guys on this, no whatever podcasts in no shame to, you know, 26 subscribers or whatever, but like they have no clue what this guy's talking about. The goldmine they're sitting on. And then here we go. Yo, max credit to max listener, max, discover this. I know Mark Perry that wrote the article discovered as well, but this had sat online for like two weeks, which is remarkable in and of itself. But I would just, I would work with some of this media then like, well, we're not going to talk about anything. Cause then I think you get some of this stuff. Th that people are leaking things they're not supposed to. I would agree. I would agree wholeheartedly. I mean, we've talked about this. So often. When it comes to our group chat and stuff like that. And it's, it's, it's kinda sad to see these spring leagues turning us away. I mean, we're the people covering these leaks. We're the people that are diving deep to find the information. Excuse me. It's just interesting to see that they ultimately look at us like. We're not valid news sources when, obviously when we've got people like Mike here breaking news months before the case, I mean, we are valid and we do deserve recognition for what we do. And personally, I think that eventually these leagues are going to get it right. I mean the FCF, the MLSP they've kind of embraced us. So I think that's a model that's going to be beneficial to these leaks going forward. Yeah. Yeah. FCS. I mean, as much as I've talked about them in the past, they reached out to me, you know, they had Greg on before their a championship game. If you know anyone at MLSP, I've emailed them, send the MLSP my way. If you're talking to anyone there, I would love to, I like these fan focused links. I want to read the transcript here. This is a little wordy. It's about a two minute clip. I was going to play it, but then I thought God forbid XFL and. We had to take this down and I, you know, so. But this is Larry Lee speaking. I got this transcribed verbatim from rev.com, which is a great source. If anyone wants that. There's going to be eight teams. I'm Larry. I'm going to be in Orlando trial. Buckley will be the head coach in Orlando, longtime NFL, Superbowl champ, Trump Buckley in Washington, DC. You have Reggie Barlow, former NFL player will be head coach there. His general manager will be lit. Well, Louis was a longtime NFL executive with the chiefs and other people in St. Louis. You're going to have Anthony backed Kaka. So we have that, you know, returned as the head coach. Former retired and, you know, they had rumored and this is my input. They had rumored Anthony maybe would be going to the Florida team. I think he has family there. His general manager will be a guy named Dave bowler, who is here with the lions at one point, at some point, the Dallas team, which we already knew was going to be a Dallas. Cause the headquarters there will be Bob stoops as the head coach and his general manager will be Rick Mueller. I think he messed that up because I think Rick is going to be in Seattle. San Antonio team will be Hines ward, former Pittsburgh Steeler Heinz wore at his general manager. And this is when he messes up. So he goes back. Hines ward will be with will Louis and San Antonio. Vonn Hutchins is a general manager with Reggie Barlow in DC. He had that backwards. Then we have confirmation Houston. You've got long time head coach Wade, Philips. Mark Lillibridge as the longtime NFL, exac, he's going to be the general manager there. They would go out to RA. Las Vegas head coach, rod Woodson, and hall of fame. Pittsburgh Steeler ride would sit in as the head coach. His general manager will be joy. Click scales, former Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver and longtime NFL executive. And then lastly, I have Randy Mueller. That's where he's correct on that with the Seattle team, along with Jim Haslett head coach. So we have Jim Hazlett in Seattle. We have Heinz ward. Well, we have rod Woodson, NLA, heightens. Ward's going to be in Houston and Reggie Barlow in DC. It's Bob Stevenson, Dallas Anthony, back then going backwards here St. Louis throughout Buckley and DC Orlando. So we have the confirmation, the, the eight cities, any big takeaways from that, Sam. Was that Los Angeles or Las Vegas, Las Vegas. I was like, whoa, that's a big takeaway. I did not catch that in a group chat. Honestly. A lot of these names kind of like, I, like I said, we've known about for a while, so it's not a huge surprise. A lot of NFL names, which I was kind of surprised on the GM side of things. But ultimately I think it's encouraging group. I think it's a great mix of as far as like former NFL players, that don't have a long coaching background. And then you have four veteran coaches who have a very long background of whether it's college or the NFL. And I just think it's a perfect mixture because you're going to get a lot of players coming from the veteran coaches. They'll get a lot of players come in because they watch times ward play. They watch Woodson play, they watched a buccally play. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of good things to take away. From the staff that they brought in so far. Yeah. So just to read it again, Orlando DC, St. Louis, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Las Vegas, Seattle. It's funny to me because even when I tweeted this, people said, you know, three Texas teams, Mike Mitchell has been reporting in three Texas teams. Literally the whole time San Antonio was the first city that we ever had leaked of any of that. And then Orlando soon, the follow up. So it's funny to me that people. You know, we're, we're so hungry for this AI XFL news. And then Mike is saying like, okay, there's three teams in Texas. Wait, what? There's three teams. So that is confirmed. I mean, again, the XFL hasn't come out with this. It's at the point now we had this, we've had all the other leagues, like when they finally announce it. Obviously they're on their own timeline, but is it going to feel anticlimactic this point, Sam, would he think. Yeah, I think so. I mean, with the fact that Mike reported this months ago, I mean, like at this point, like we're talking about right now, to me, there's, there's not really a whole lot of juice left. I mean, we've known about it since what April. So, I mean, it's, it's cool to see all the names finally confirmed, but at the end of the day, No. I think at this point, it's kind of just a lukewarm reception of what we already knew. And I'll put it up there. I'll screen grab the mark has a great article up on XFL, new SAB I'll screen. Grab it just so you can see all the placements and all this again, we've known some of the pairings, right? They hired the D you. You know, the, the DPPs or the OCS. But I it's getting the confirmation with the city's, you know, with that right. With that. I Jim has going to be in Seattle. Right. And presumably, you know, dragons, whenever that is Mike still. Really. Not, I, I don't wanna see wishy-washy because that makes it sound like he doesn't have conviction, but I think Mike is still out. The jury is still out on whether these teams are going to get full on rebrands or not. I could definitely see them keeping these eight cities and then bringing in names that may be are more. Fitting with the culture that the rock and Danny wanted you. I I've said before. I don't know if like the roughnecks ELL fits with whatever this new woke. You know, XFL w we want to be in 2023. I mean, Would you be surprised if any of the eight teams did not come back, save for maybe St. Louis. No. In fact, I think you're a hundred percent straight on the arrow there with Houston. I don't think there'll be the rough next in 20, 23. I could be wrong, but I think there's a lot of stuff that a lot of different reasons why you don't necessarily want to run with that name in 2023 and beyond. Other than that, I think I could see Seattle changing, but that was such a popular team in 2020. It would be a hard. Hard sell there. It'll be interesting to see what Orlando comes back as given that they were in Tampa bay before. So ultimately, no, I don't think it'd be too surprising. It's this weird. I, you know, as soon as they did that rebrand and the logo. I said none of these logos fit with what it is. I mean, you know, Seattle dragons, the alternate logo that the ass kind of, they had the stylized at that St. Louis had a really cool alternate logo for the battle Hawks. But yeah, a lot of these logos just doesn't even fit with this minimalistic. I mean, we seen the leaks of the ball they've been holding now. The XFL ball looks really minimalistic in a way that. I don't like, I've never been a fan. It's funny. I get a, you know, oh, you're a USFL or you love the excellent, like I've been down on the rebrand since the second day on the live stream and they came out with all this. I didn't like it, but. Not a lot of this fits with, with that. And I'll be curious to see the language they have going forward, kind of the style language they have, especially if they're bringing in this high market brand that already did the revamp of the XFL and that together. And we're, you know, we're, we have all these core pillars that we're working off of and to see what they come up with with the team cities, the nicknames, I think, is going to be very interesting. Absolutely. I 100% agree. That's going to be one of the biggest pieces of news. We get this off season. But definitely interesting. Yeah. That is the thing. Now it's not even like the cities cause it, and I do think it's going to be poopoo that way. I mean, maybe we get it, you know, this week in August we thought presumably between the showcases, right. They have. There's a two week break now, between when they did the first three showcases and the next three, I had people thought, okay, maybe we're going to get team news then. I think it's going to be August, then maybe you get the nicknames in October. But I think that August needs dropped just continues to get watered down with all this coming out. But who do I know, maybe the casual fan, like I said, three teams in Texas. Maybe they have no idea what's going on and we're all just spinning our wheels here in the meantime, but it is, it is fascinating. And especially the fact that they took down this podcast. I have to imagine that the sports slob podcast with depth Snyder. And the Lamar brown or low-mass brown. Like I couldn't imagine the email or phone call or a letter they had to have guessed that it must've been terrified to take those down. No doubt. I mean, if that's for podcasts, like you said, as 26 subscribers. That's gold for them. That is gold. How could they possibly want to take that down? And so, yeah, I mean, I'm sure that is, that was disappointing for them to hear, especially when they realized exactly what kind of information they leaked out. But. It's kind of the world we live in. Unfortunately it's like they have the fighters, right. Jim monos, right. He's one of the exact same XFL. And he has that podcast with, I can't remember the guy's name. They, that was another kind of YouTube show and they are sitting there that Barger can beer. He said, oh yeah, like I'm going to have all of this XFL inside knowledge and we're going to bring fans along. And I haven't heard too peeps about any XFL stuff coming out of that. And I think that someone heard them say that on there and said, you guys have had to be really careful with it, with what you put out, because that was, he was talking on there like, oh, we're rewriting the rule book. And we don't even know if we want to keep the extra points. I mean, he was really going into some scary stuff I thought. And that silence set pretty quick as well. I don't want. I don't, again, I don't like that. I don't get what the XFL has to hide, that I would embrace any fan speculation and, and involvement at this point. Absolutely. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you were the one that said that. The XFL and the USFL would benefit from almost like an Adam Schefter type, a guy that you can leak that information to on purpose, you know, so they do put it out. I mean, Hey, maybe it is, you know, you, you call up a mic. But it, who knows what that situation is, but ultimately I think that's something that does benefit the NFL. The media coverage of the NFL is unrivaled. And that's one of the things that helps them be so relevant year long because you have guys covering them nonstop. They're looking for every little piece of information, whether it's player moves related, coach related, whatever it is. And it's just really hasn't happened on a wide scale with the XFL, the USFL yet, but I think it's a market that we are all trying to tap. And it's a market. That's definitely there. It's just for fans to realize which news sites and media outlets they need to be following for the correct information. I feel. Last point on this, not to belabor it too long, we'll get to the showcases. But it's interesting that I re posted. There's been a lot of USFL news this week. Right. I talked with Brock Heuer. I think we'll place this interview after Brock's, but. I talking about USFL expansion, right. And moving into two hubs or four hubs. I had my interview, Paul and I's interview with Brian Woods. This was pre spring league. I guess may of last year. So, you know, 13. It was 13, 14 months ago before they had that kickoff. And Brian was talking about, you know, bringing the spring league to Fox, working in the hub and then moving to two hubs. Cause remember they did the north end of that. The south end. Yeah, that was funny in that interview. Brian goes, you know, I feel like we're in a much better position here in the hub. You know, working with the one city, getting that involvement, right. Then we branch out at another city and, and he said, you know, the XFL. If they were to come back in 20, 22 right now, they have, you know, you have a little bit of remnants hold over from the old XFL, but they really don't have any local marketing into law. And you know, here we are 13, 14 months later and they still have no local marketing. And I was in Las Vegas for vacation. Last week. I wore my XFL stuff around the whole week. I didn't have one person asking me about anything and I'm like, God, this is a city that's going to be. Right hosting the XFL team and in seven months, like that's interesting to me that that is where we're at right now. Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. I wholeheartedly agree. It's so crazy to see. I don't understand what market research or. What companies are telling these, these leagues to do this, but I mean, to completely neglect the markets that you're trying to represent is just asinine. It literally is the craziest thing I've ever seen him. W we've talked about it at nauseum. So I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but basically, yeah, it's just, it's. It's insanity. The, the one that there's an USFL two, they don't need like USFL understands how to put a TV product on the air. Right? It's crisp. The cameras look great. Announces you're great. This technology, they do not understand how the league build and work with the fan base. It was clear when they didn't want to live stream the draft. It's clear when they don't want to engage the fan podcast. It's clear where they don't want to engage the local media in anything except the Birmingham team. They don't understand you putting out the roster moves at two in the morning. Like all of these things it's clear. They don't understand how to, how to build a fan base and how to cultivate that. They only know how to put the TV product on the air, which they very good at, but it's more than that is only one piece of this puzzle. And I don't know if the XFL is going to be any better or not, because they clearly don't have the broadcast chops, right. That Fox sports and whatever has. So maybe they'll be even further behind. I don't know, but, but none of these really understand. The league building right now with all. Yeah, it seems like they're really neglecting that part of it. And that's really like, you know, there's a saying that, you know, if you don't build a strong foundation, the house is going to topple. Well, these guys are not focusing on their foundation. Their, your phone foundation in these leagues is your fans. You don't have fan support in your cities that you're going to. You're gonna fail. And I mean, I don't think ultimately the XFL does fail because there'll be in cities for the games. But at this point you're just, you're really neglecting the markets. And it's, like I said, it's just crazy to see. Like they have that Hawaii showcase rock was there, Danny was there, you know, cause rock obviously lives there. I did think rock should have been at the first showcase just cause it's the first one. I understand that he's not going to be involved in all this minutia day to day, but you know, I saw the videos, they come walking out and like Danny's got this like custom XFL dress, like breathe athleisure wear at the end. Like where did this come from? So we like, we have time to make this. Right. Like, we're, we're putting resources in, like, I don't think that's for sale, right? Like what, where are we? We have this, like you have the custom, we have the rock has his weight belt. We have these things that we're taking photos with on Instagram. I is that where our time it's very weird. I don't know if that's where the time is going. Yeah, that is a very odd choice. I mean, I do like some of the things they've done, but yeah, there is some interesting choices here on. For all parties involved, USFL annex. All right. So we have this six showcases here. We did the three, right? We had Hawaii, we had DC, we had. I should've had this out. Where was the other showcase? The Hawaii one. Where was the other decent? We had the floor that when Arizona's coming up, that's what I'm trying to get into. So we have the Florida one that's where like the Greg parks of the world, when we had the DC one, that was the kickoff. We had the Hawaii one. Then we're going to have the Arizona one. We're going to have the HPC. And then we're going to have the last one, which is. I should have had this AF. Whereas the other one, maybe I'll cut this out. Hang on. Whereas the other one. Oh, Dallas area. I'm just trying to think off the top of my habit. We run. Run through what you'd let us. So then we have Arizona that we have the HBC U one, and then we have the Dallas one. So that makes sense, you know, Dallas home field turf there. So we have three so far three after Sam, you have put together a list here. This is. Everyone that is attending has attended, right? To the best of your knowledge. Obviously, people slip through the cracks. This is on news hub. I'm going to link this on the YouTube. Emma and the podcast feed, incredible list of your hundreds of names. Right? Talk me through what you have here at what you've accumulated. Man. This was a ton of work. I have been getting blown up in my DMS for months on multiple different platforms, but it's been a ton of fun trying to find out who was going, where. What names were bigger than others? Guys that I recognized from other leads. And I really want to say that there's been some. Some speculation, but there wasn't enough quarterback talent. And I would argue that from what I've seen on the list of quarterbacks that I've presented to you guys and the, the, the list that I also have not added quite yet. There's some pretty solid quarterback play going to these showcases. And I ultimately think that it might shock us to see the kind of names and the kind of quarterback play we're going to get out of the XFL in 2023. My personal favorite is TJ Edwards. He's the current quarterback for the Frisco fighters of the IFL. This guy is almost like a spitting image of a Lamar Jackson. He's a. Dual threat quarterback, six foot, 205 pounds kind of, kind of thin. But he is definitely one of those guys you want to watch? He's very exciting. He's got his team to a 12 and three record, I believe at this point. David Pinellas. I was on this list. He's a former FCF and spring league name. Man David Watford, Graham Kelly, both former CFL Hamilton tire cat quarterbacks. Yeah. Tons of talent in the quarterback room in particular. Well, and what's cool about this list. So, and like I said, all I get is you got everyone's name, date of birth position on here. You know, I have been way where they went to college. Most recent protein, most recent pro league riots, whether it's IFL FCF at their rookie here, we have the spring league guys and then social media stuff. I mean, I just think this is great. Like if you're someone and this is what I was going to bring you on. Even before we had the XFL staff is if you like, if you're, I don't like Richard for real, right? Like he's one of our long time listeners. If you're like, yo, who the heck is going to be in this league? Who do I have to look out for? I know Jeremy's another listener, right? Like I want to go to these showcases. I want to see who's going to be a part of it. They're not open to the public. I think they should be. I don't know why we would do the work of doing that. The showcases without having them open to the public, because it's kind of a waste of money, like throw like five Danny out and everybody to Hawaii, but okay. That's what they've decided to do. So this is a great way that you can keep track of all this stuff. And then you said like you have David [unknown]. Y, you know that name, right? I know David Wotford right. You have a lot of these guys, you know, all the way through former NFL guys, Corey brown from the Raiders. I mean, just even going down the list, everything's broken down by position. It's super clean. It's super easy to go through. And I think this is tremendous work. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. It's kind of funny to say, but I basically crowdsource this information more or less. I kept asking the players. I knew I had already connected with, I had them share it with the guys on their teams, their respective coaches, stuff like that. Eventually I had agents hit me up, so it's really a collective group effort. So I don't want to say that this is all me. I mean, Mike Mitchell sped me some names. Like I said there was an agent that fed me 11 or 12 different guys on this list. And it's been a lot of that because the guys, I think, see my ultimate goal is not to just provide this information for fans of the XFL. It's to also provide this information for these guys to share with other leaks down the line, because a lot of these guys don't get the recognition that they may be deserve or they should get. Because they're division two, they've played in the league of pho. You know, football America and Mexico or whatever it might be. But a lot of them are really great players that I think we have a lot of diamonds in the rough going to these showcases. Yeah. And I said, yeah, my knowledge is, is sliver thing compared to you that it's gone and tied to a lot of these guys, even on your own YouTube channel, but you know, like true Dante hill. I know him from the zapper is Don says bird, right? Former dragon sky, Andrew Jamil, glacier boys, you know, glacier boys. Yeah. At FCF, but it's just cool to see, to be able to go down and kind of visualize, okay, I know these guys from this, or you can look it up. All these guys have, you know, tape on their YouTube. You're out there. Twitter's whatever you go on there and check out all this up. You know, tons of wide receivers trying out, you know, Brock when. If you said, yo, I think wide receiver, they're going to be okay. It's the quarterbacks. It's the old line. You mentioned not a lot of offensive lineman. At least you have, right. This isn't a complete list, but a lot of you don't have a lot of old line guys trying out, which is interesting because that is the position that they're at Ava when we had on Eric Alco backup a month or two ago, that this is something that even when he was a director of player personnel for the XFL 2020, that was a very short list. He was continually checking off of guys that they were going through. Running through that league. Exactly. Exactly. And I think one of the big things that the XFL has to look at is guys that have previously played on the offensive line. So I think a lot of their offensive linemen might be invites and maybe that's why I'm not getting a whole lot of the information. Part of the reason I was able to compile this list is because all these guys going on the showcases, they're looking for the recognition. They want to be on this list. They want to be in front of people as much as possible. Those guys get invited, totally different story. They have the recognition, they have the name value. They. Our wanted by these leagues. And a lot of those offensive linemen are likely in that category. I've got maybe I think a handful on the list right now. I've got a couple more that need to be added and I'm going to continue to add them. So if any XFL hopefuls, see this podcast, please reach out to me. Sam shady sports on Twitter. I definitely will get you added on this is going to be a running list all the way up until the draft. And we'll hopefully get everybody who has attended these showcases on it. Eventually. Cheese to bore, went to central Washington. I hope so. No that's. I mean, I, we have some diamonds in the right there. We got Easter, right. We have Vernon Adams and a, what. Th the all-star for the Rams. The all star wide receiver for the ramps that won the Superbowl. That was. Yeah. Looking here on the list. I like seeing a lot of FCF guys. Right. I've had my critiques with FCF before, right. About the game translated. I'm happy to see that right. Chase. The more on the list. We have Rashad pain on the list. I know him. Cool to see a lot of ELA. Like the team Aoki FCF on here. A lot of spring league guys. I love seeing like the conquers that was the Avery young OT. That was his last professional team. I liked that. It makes what we all do. I think, worthwhile covering all of these things and to see these guys move a lot because you're white, like who the hell was watching the spring league, you know, last year. And it was, he a brand and silver is coming in with the conquers and, you know, playing lights out. Well, that game matters now because like Avery might make his way to the XFL. I think that's tremendously excited. Exactly and exactly. That's, that's one of the big reasons. It was so much fun covering the FCF this year because it turned out that a lot of the players I talked to or interviewed are now on this list. I mean, Chris Barrett, I talked to him, he's on this list, radon. Dante hill. I did an interview with him. He's on the list. Bryson Alene. I recently spoke to speaking of Bryson and lean as a guy. I want to highlight on this list. We saw. Covanta Turpin coming out of the U or the FCF into the USFL. And he ended up winning the MVP. Liens got that same talent. I'll tell you that right now. He is the guy to watch in this XFL showcase list. If I have one player to pick. I see we. Fred at the share and this little Kyle on the list that he went to the showcase or is going to the showcase. Who was that? I'm sorry. Or that's still the case a long time. At Cove farmer said the show that's exciting. Maybe he'll be at the Arizona showcase when I'm there. That would be great. I believe that is where he's going, because he's playing for the Arizona Rattlers right now. Yeah, that would be, I would love to give her an S to a hug. I mean, this guy. A lot of DBS on here, CBS. I it's like you say. Makes sense that the offensive line would be a little bit more of an invite really, really thin list on that. But a lot of these others, you know, you worried about talent because like you said, FCF. USFL has a leg up on these guys right now. Right. They have a lot of these guys sign for the two year deal. If they want to do that. I mean, exit fell. I actually, let me get your take on this. There's been a lot of criticisms with the showcases, right. AXA. XFL like, this is not how you build up when USFL has taken so many of like the come to the top of your head guys. Right. And gone through them. Do you like this approach as a way to find new talent that maybe you missed at looked over? A hundred percent. I do. I think it's a great idea. And in fact, I think people who are discounting these showcases are sleeping on the rocks background, and this is something I've told players even. So I wanted to highlight this. You have an owner that literally had to fight for his football life and ultimately was pushed out of a leak. Ultimately, probably because leagues like this didn't exist at the time. So now he's an owner of a group he gets to put on these showcases. He gets to go look for the diamonds in the rough, the guys that remind him of himself back in the day when he was playing football and give them an opportunity. I think Mike Mitchell told me right off the top of my head that 17% of the rosters in 2020 were built from showcases. I'm estimating closer to 25 this time around. Well, I think we, it has to be, I think it just a lot of the guys that you would naturally go to are already with FCF. They're with USFL they're with the CFL right now. I it's good for the players and people. And you know, I've never in all my criticisms of the USFL. I've never criticized the gameplay. I've never criticized the players. I've criticized like Kirby Wilson, but, but it's always, it's always problems with the league because I want these things to exist for the players to be able to be there. And it was the same thing when the USFL this week came out and said, you know, we're going to the hubs. I said, area, multiple hubs. I said, that's why criticism and competition matter because of the XFL didn't exist. And the people didn't complain at all seasoned about the Birmingham hub. They wouldn't be forced to make these changes in the off season. So that is why criticism and competition are so important. And they XFL whether you like it or not, whatever you think about the rock, it's adding other places so that God forbid the USFL would have to pay these players more money next year or the year after it's because they have options. Do I want to go to the FCF? They're going to have to up their game with paying players in FCF. If these guys are going to opt to the XFL or the USFL instead. Exactly. I mean, you took the words right out of my mouth, quite frankly. I think that's a big, big issue right now that we see. And ultimately I think the USFL coming out with that announcement was in direct reaction to the way the fans have. Played everything this season. I mean, we've basically showed them by not showing up to games that were not Birmingham related or not watching the games in the markets that they belong in. Like Mike just reported this morning. I mean, At the end of the day, it's I I've, I've used the word pathetic because it really alarms me that the Philadelphia stars are right now in the championship game. And Philadelphia didn't even show up in the top 10 of the list for viewership. How is that possible? I mean, Philadelphia is a football town. You see all this Eagles gear behind me. We are critics of football in Philadelphia, typically. So if that's the case, I'm going to criticize you Philadelphia fans. Cause it's time to get off your ass and start following these teams. Sorry. If I'm not supposed to cuss on the show. That's good assets. No way. And I was actually going to pull this up. Sam's referencing Mike Mitchell had an article come out today. Talking, and it's so interesting because I've had long debates all season. I maintain if USFL had had a generic, it just call them the stallions, calm the Panthers con the Mahler's or okay. You could have the Birmingham stallions, it had seven generic. I would just go eight generic, like he did it in spring lake. You got the aviators [unknown]. We ever. I think they would be just as well off right now. I don't think they would be. Dramatically worse often they would. And I think it would give them more options of like, where would you like to do the second hub? Because right now you're locked into the seven cities. Aren't Birmingham, right? Like, well, we got to go to Houston and we got to go to the Philadelphia. We got to go there. Tampa. At Mike had an article that top 10 local markets who watched the USFL this year, only three of the top 10 were actually USFL cities, right? Birmingham, obviously number one, new Orleans. And then we had. Detroit on here in number five, but you had Tulsa, Knoxville, Austin, Albuquerque, Fort Myers, Dayton and Norfolk, which, okay. We're not going to set up a hub in Norfolk, right. Where shady, but I just think it gives the idea that people that were watching the USFL weren't necessarily watching because oh, the Philadelphia stars are there. I mean, that's my team, but I'm not, I don't live anywhere near Philadelphia. I live in Seattle and I think that they overestimated, like just calling the team, the Houston gamblers is going to ingratiate us to the Houston market because. Because the Fox station in Houston is going to run a couple of ads for the USFL. I just don't. I think they, they way over estimated that. Oh, yeah. I mean a hundred percent. I mean, You have a perfect example because I'm also not in Philadelphia. So I mean, there's two of them years right there that are pretty diehard and we don't live anywhere near Philly. So, I mean, With that being said, I think that they made a major mistake. It not. At least putting training camps in the towns or something like they have to make ties to these cities and each and every city, not just four of them, not just two of them, in my opinion. I think that's just a. Half-hearted attempt to quell fans angry for a little while. Yeah, and this is top 10 markets for NBC. I just wanted to qualify that Fox didn't give Mike the numbers in time yet he's working on that, but this is NBC, which has carried half the games and, you know, just as many of the. Yeah, cable games and [unknown]. OTA games, you know, in the prime times as it would be Sam, anything else? Any other players, anything before I let you go, any other standouts? I just wanted to make sure that we tackled enough of the showcase along with our other shenanigans here. That at least me selling you as talking about the showcases as well. We got enough stuff out there. Not really off the top of my head. And there's a couple of very interesting guys on this list. I mean, A lot of these guys are actually ending up in the MLSP too. So it'd be interesting to see how that all affects the XFL draft. I've talked about it quite, quite a bit on my Twitter page, that a lot of these guys are taking the. The guaranteed contract. Rather than waiting around to see what happens with the XFL. So a lot of these names are kind of coming off the list, but there's still plenty of exciting guys to watch. And it'll definitely be interesting to see exactly who ANSI ended up drafted from these lists. What is the latest on? Cause I know that there was some debate. One of the guys was signed to the MLF B the thought was he could do that. It's only, you know, four weeks or whatever in August for all that. Everyone's talking about major league football. It's not that, you know, it's like a minor spring league this year. And then he could. Hop into the XFL. I think there was some back and forth, right. That the league didn't want to allow. So, what is the latest that we know on MLF be working with the XFL for their contracts. Well, I'm going to pull a M**k Mitchell and I guess I'll break. A little bit of news. It's just a little news, but basically from what I've heard from a couple of agents, they have been able to negotiate contract outs. At the November 1st date originally, some of these guys were getting December 31st, so which technically still made them available for the XFL via. A free agency. But it really wasn't the best option for them. A lot of these guys were trying to hold off and signing these MLSP deals because they still wanted to participate in the showcase, get their name in the XL X, F L draft. And I think because of that, the league ultimately responded and due to fan criticism as well. They realized that with this being a four week season, they could ultimately benefit and gain recognition from players being drafted right away afterward. So that I not going to name the agency right off the top of my head. But with that being said, they did say that they were able to get quite a few of their players negotiated to that November 1st date. I've tried to tell players without telling them so they could maybe try and push their agencies to do the same. So, I don't really know exactly how widespread that's going to be by the time they kick off their season. But I'm thinking it's kind of getting out there at this point that hopefully these guys can find. Way to provide a little bit of flexibility for themselves. What do you know, criticism again, fair criticism has forest to league to make some changes. So, I mean, this is why this is important because if they have, MLSP just say we're heaving, all these players, it doesn't matter. Like you said they heard the same. If anything, it looks better to have a guy in MLSP get drafted to the XFL and then be a rockstar. It helps bring visibility. These leagues all need to play well together. I know USAA found the people I talked to they're very, like not, they don't want to talk about the XFL at all. Very interesting in that way, but no, I think working together and criticizing when it's okay. I think is a good thing. Sam, you have killed it today. We've kept over time. I appreciate you working with me and coming on and like extended, but I think we talked a lot of stuff today. I feel good about this. Absolutely. For the record, anytime you ask, I'm willing. So just keep that in mind. I appreciate you bringing me on, right. I have nothing, but the most respect for what you're able to do on the show. And some of the guests you've been able to get on are just amazing. Like at some point I hope I'm able to accomplish about half of what you've done in your. Your podcasting career. Cause it's amazing, man. They really is. And I T I say it all the time on Twitter, on Facebook, wherever you fall on me at. I'm incredibly blessed to be a part of this team. And I'm super lucky to find this as my first job as a writer. I mean, For mark to give me the opportunity. And for all of you guys kind of take me in and help me out whenever I've needed or I've asked, or, you know, anytime I've shot you guys DMS. I live, literally, can't say enough about all of you guys. You guys are all amazing. Well, we appreciate this is a good home. I, we, we know that this is my home for the time being, I haven't seen this gentleman since we hung out in Hamilton at the grey cup. We have Bob Mar Jan, the vets, the mode on how are you doing, sir? I'm doing really good. And the thing I remember about. Grey cup is you ate all the pizza. Like you're one of these guys. With a hollow legs. So like we got up to there's. No pizza left. There was like six pizza for like about 20 people. And you took an entire pizza for yourself. It was hard. I should eat more because we got caught in the know Uber is, are taxis lion out of the stadium. We ended up walking in like an hour and a half back to our Airbnb. So I probably should have had more assessments. Yeah. It was a, it was a good time. I was a fun time with a good group of people there. And we have a lot of fun. Well, this is good. We've been trying to get you, you know, trying to get John for awhile since, and talking with you a baker and everybody else. Good time now. BC is kind of in the top of the world. Have you ever had a time in the last recent memory where as many people are talking about the BC lions. The only thing that I remember that. It's kind of close to. This was when Mike Raleigh came over. Or Michael Riley came over along with. When that happened, there was a real buzz with this team, but it was kind of an unsung upset. Unsubstantiated Bose. And I say that because. Team hadn't done anything on the field. It was just the moves that they. And it's kind of funny because this year there was well going back to the Riley Claybrook arrival, there was a huge buzz. The team went out there and just had a horrible year. Right. This year, there wasn't really that much buzz about this team heading into the season. And then, you know, Amar Dolan. And the front office do a great job of packing the place for the first game, getting 34,000 fans there. And then the team goes off against. Toronto. And then the team goes off against Edmonton. So it's almost kind of the reverse with this group. Because there wasn't that much. I remember Lee. Going on Twitter after they got blown out in Calgary, in the preseason. And fans were just shredding the team. I kind of thought to myself, Do you not know the fact that they only had like three guys that they brought on that trip that had actually started the year before. And all three of those players eventually wound up getting cut. Well, actually, no Jilin Edwards. Cooper's still with the team. But Khyati. Hardened dot, cutting or someone else? I can't remember the third guy, but it was just, it was just a group of rookies, right. That had never played the CFL game. So it was kind of like just told on a little, and then the clips of scotch when at home. Then the second preseason game one that, and you know, all of a sudden you're kind of going, okay, this is a little better. But still it didn't give us any inkling of what we're going to see, getting submitted. You know, even after the Edmonton game, people said, you know, what did you hear? Well, I've been since not that good. They're not that good of a team. Well, Toronto. Comes in and they played Montreal tough. And wound up lose while winning that game by good fortune, of course, with the ball missing the field goal at the end of the game. So when. Toronto comes to town. All this is going to be a test and you know, we'll see what happens here. And. Well, we saw what happened. The lions is basically annihilated Toronto as well. So. I mean, Nathan working those first two games. It's I mean, it's like a video I've said it's like a video game with a cheat code. Right. I mean, he's just been off the charts. Good. So we'll see. Hey, I mean, what do you attribute that to? I mean, obviously he had the time last year when Michael was, you know, in and out and, you know, they had. Some meaningful rats there at the end of the season, but like, You know, Why is he that and shoulders better than it seems like Michael even was last year. Oh, well, I mean, obviously it's still early, right? We've got an entire body of work left to look at. But. Number one. Nathan Orrick has an unbelievable work ethic. He's, you know, one of these first and last out towed quarterbacks, which you want. He works hard. Like, you know, after practice, he works hard in terms of film study. I heard a story in training camp from Brian Burnham that he walked into work's room. And the TV was unplugged and it was in the corner. Right. Like, I mean, You didn't even want to spend any time, wasting time watching TV. So, I mean, this guy's all about film studies, all about preparation. So you have an athlete who puts in all the extra work in terms of knowing the offense, knowing the playbook. And he's also extremely intelligent in the sense that he can process that information. And then the other thing that, you know, You always hear this about. Great athletes, the great ones. It's great skillset and a great work ethic. And so the other part of the equation for Nathan work is that skillset has an. Great arm as we've seen he's mobile. And he also has the ability to process rather quickly. Right. Like, I mean, when you see him progress through his reads, Right. He'll look off one side, look and boom, look, you know, he's he never zeroes in on one receiver. All you have to do is look at the stats for the first two games. And look at the distribution among the receivers, right? I mean. Lucky Whitehead. I don't even think as a touchdown in the first two games. Right. And. Then, you know, Brian Burnham had one before he got hurt. So the thing is with, with Rourke, He has an unbelievable work ethic and then his ability to process information and make quick decisions and a lot another thing into the mix as well. This team this year and. I know it's early, you know, two big wins to start the year, but this was kind of evident in training camp as well. This group, you know, you hear it from all the players. This group has no egos there. There's no. You know, agendas for guys this, for whatever reason, there's a real, real positive vibe around the state. And. You know, I was talking about this with one of the players. And he said, why do you think that is. And I said, why? I said it started in training camp with you guys. You guys had a really good vibe, but you know, the war think about it. And it's not a knock on Michael Riley. But I mean, Michael was a guy who, I mean, he's a veteran quarterback a lot of times when you have those guys that are veterans. There's a certain amount of, well, they, they get jaded, right? I mean, not to say that Michael was a negative guy, not to say that he was a downer. But, you know, he's a little bit more stoic than Nathan where Nathan has that youthful enthusiasm. And you often hear that with a lot of veterans, you know, when they, they see that young kid and I'm talking forget football, I'm talking to any sport. You know, when they see that young kid come up and, you know, he's. He's not jaded. He just loves going out there and having fun at Rejuvenate's. A lot of the older players and, you know, kind of makes them feel young again. And maybe that's the case as well, because. Clearly the vibe with this football team right now, it's a completely different vibe than. I know again. People are going to say, well, yeah, two games, you blew them out. Everybody's going to be happy. But this goes back to training camp, right? It goes back to training captain. How they kind of came together and camp and just had a lot of fun bawling every day. It's interesting. You bring that up. I was trying to look back at my list. We, I can hatch her on a couple of weeks ago and he's sent. The same thing about training camp. You know, and I don't, I'm not a football player, so I don't know. Does everyone come into the season saying. And he said, no, it was such it. The coaching that we had. The focus that we had as a team and the staff really got us prepared for the season. It's interesting that you bring that up as well. That. Something special in this training camp before the season. Yeah. And like, you know, so you ask yourself, so what's different. Right. What's the, to me, like, what is different about this team compared to last team? To last year's team personnel wise. I mean, you know, you've added pure four. You've added Delvin, bro. Two quality veterans that obviously helped the defense. You look at the defensive line is pretty much the same. They had last year, but the big key is guys like Bonner banks, boom. Watching. And go into James Butler. He can talk about Jordan Williams. A lot of first-year players last year in the CFL that are now second year players. And you talked to those guys along the front. And for them, they know what to expect. I mean, this guys didn't even have an exhibition game last year and you go on a Saskatchewan and you're introduced to the Canadian game there. Right. And it's different than the American game. And you know, this year, those guys are all kind of. You know, they're they know the lay of the land, so to speak. And they're more comfortable. It's funny. I asked him. I asked him modern. Mater. About, you know, How he feels this year compared to last year goes. I'm sleeping. Right. And I'm just, like I said, pardon me? He goes, I'm sleeping. I like the point was like last year was a rookie. There was a lot of anxiety, a lot of sleepless nights. And this year, he says, you know, I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping well, right. Because he's just so much more comfortable. Doing what they got to do on defense. I was going to say that it seems like, you know, and obviously Nathan is getting a lot of the focus right now. But, I mean, the team in general, the wide receivers. Defense has played rights. Lights out, you know? Ryan Phillips. Did you know? I shot Ryan Phillips sweaty back, like many years ago. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah, but you gotta send me some. You got to send me some footage of that. I'll give that to the DBS. We can make some bucks off that. And I was a crazy night, but I mean, it seems like he's got everyone locked in and we were getting the interceptions tray for a play grade. The first game is. It's not just Nathan he's obviously, you know, CFL's a quarterback driven league, but. I think the whole team in general is vibing really well. Yeah. And, you know, defensively, when you add. Veterans like grow and purify. And man, oh man. I wish stove Richardson would have been healthy cause this defense good have been really scary. Have they brought, you know, how we'll head stove, Richards and not suffer that Achilles injury that basically. Wipes out his year. But the one thing about the defense is that it's playing with so much confidence and so much aggression. And I think Ryan has been able to keep things simple for the defense, because they're so talented. Right. I mean, you don't have to reinvent the wheel when you have quality players like TJ Lee or Gary Peters or Delvin bro or whatever. Right. I. I mean, just go out there and keep it simple for them and let them play with a lot of aggressiveness. And that's what this defense is doing. I mean, Ryan Phillips, you know, his. If you have a knockdown, that's a negative. That's not a positive. If you knock a pass down, most coaches give you a positive, like a plus on the play. Ryan's like, no, man, that's a minus. You should be intercepting that. So it tells you a little bit about the standards that they have with Ryan. And you know, the other thing too, is you talk to all those guys on the defense. If they're just keeping things. And they kind of make it look complex to some extent, but they keep things really simple. And allow everyone to play with a lot of aggression and you're seeing it. You're just seeing the way they play. And of course the other thing helps. With the way the offense is playing, right? I mean, You know, you're getting 5, 6, 7 minutes worth of rest with some of these drives rather than perhaps like we've seen in the last few years where it's, Hey, two, it out by the way, punt team or. You know, punting you're back out there. Right. So, and then the other thing, I think that's aided the defense, cause everyone's talked about how good the secondary is, but. They've. Got improved play from the defensive line in the sense that you've got those players that we mentioned coming in their second year. And they've all kind of improved internally that way. But when you add Matthew Betts, David Menard. Dubai, the global he's been in SUNY to him. Who had three socks in the opening game against Toronto. So now you've got seven guys in the rotation, right. And Nathan Cherry has been a pleasant surprise. So you've got like, you know, Anywhere from seven to nine guys in the rotation, it keeps everyone fresh and everyone, you know, Feeling good. And there's a real good comradery about that unit. It's kind of funny, like, you know, most of the times you see the Canadian draft. You know, the Canadian draft choice. He gets, you know, goes to camp and you don't really hear much of wind up on the practice roster. And I remember being in training camp and myself and Julia, Caravana walked over to a Bonner and banks. He was impressed. You the, most of all the guys in camp, The first name. Came out of the mouse. Was Nathan Gerry. And Bob, you know, they call him the dog and that guy like Keno and. It was really impressive. Cause you know, you're talking about this kid from Saskatchewan. Not some, you know, The power five. You know, power five school. It was a kid from Saskatchewan and. He really, really impressed and. You know, Dubai is the global has been able to get some reps and help out and play on specials. So they've got way more depth. I think on the defensive one, they still don't have that. Really Jefferson type. But collectively as a whole they're playing well, and with that secondary man, It helps matters out. I'm a big McCloud. Thompson fan right. So when he got signed, had the big contract here coming into this year, you know, some people don't like McLeod with ever. Were you surprised how much he seemed to struggle against BC or was it just like BCS that good. And we shouldn't worry about. Well, you know, I've never been a huge McCloud Buffalo Thompson fan. If you asked me to rank quarterbacks in this league, he'd probably be in the bottom third. At least the bottom half. But, you know, you talked to people in Toronto. I remember talking to. Juris Jackson and Marcus Howell last year when we were in Toronto. And those guys and run in with it. Loved McCloud, Bethel Thompson. There was parts of the organization that, you know, wanted to go in a different direction when Arbuckle was there and all that, but they loved McLeod Bethel Thompson, man. There, you know, stood by their guy and you know, he's been their guy since, but. I don't know to me, it's just, you know, if, like I said, I've had to rank the quarterbacks and say, which guy would I pick? McCloud Bethel Thompson. Isn't in my top half of the quarterbacks in the league. I. I'll look at guys like. Well right now, I'm not picking anyone over anything. You know, bullied by Mitchell. You look at say, you know, Cody for Gerardo bullied by Mitchell Nathan Rourke. Who am I missing here out of that list? Oh, Jeremiah Mazzoli. Dane Evans. Right. So for me, those are all quarterbacks that I'd rank ahead. Of McCloud, Bethel Thompson. I might even go with Vernon Adams once he gets us. Act together as well, because I think he's a good quarterback. Who's just struggling a little bit right now. We had him on pre-season. I was really high in Montreal. And then now it seems that he's getting pulled. For Trevor Harris. I mean, what is, it seems like last year, all over again. Yeah, that was a real quick hook. Wasn't it? In that game where you got taken out, what? Late in the first quarter, early in the second. But, you know, Kahari. Felt like they needed to make a change. And, you know, we saw what happened in that game against a scotch one where they just dominated the riders. So. You know, you got to go, the guy who's going to give you the best opportunity to win. You know, I think with Adams it's just consistency, right? I mean, it's like any quarterback, you. No any pro. To be a good pro you have to be consistent. Right. So that's what he has to add to his game, because we all know he's got the physical tools you just asked to add that. Element. You know, you hear the stories about this guy and, you know, bringing receivers down for like throwing sessions and all that. I mean, he does all the right things and you want to see him. Have success, but you know, as of now, it's just, like I said, I think he's just in a little bit of a rut. Yeah, it is. He does everything you would want. I. It is just some of those games. On the field decisions. And I don't know if that's always. Yeah, in his favor. Yeah. And, you know, hopefully you get another opportunity and, you know, they've got a good situation there with Trevor Harris and. Live album. So hopefully it works out for Carl Jones. Cause you know, you talk about people that you root for. Cari Jones is one of those guys, but it's kind of funny because you know, you talk about quarterbacks, Julio and myself had this debate. During the off season. And Julio had a concern. The fact that they didn't have a veteran backup. And I was kind of like, you know, well, they obviously have a lot of faith in Rourke. They believe in them. And he goes, yeah, but you know, if he struggles. So, you know, what's going to happen. So. So far, their gamble in that regard has paid off like huge, but. You know, If something were to happen to Rourke. You know, Michael O'Connor we'll get a shot, but you know, I think you'd probably want to have somebody with a little bit more experienced and they got Pipkin kicking around and maybe he would get some, he'd get an extended look, the guy not to sleep on others. Kevin Thompson, who got lit up in that game in Calgary, where he got hurt. I think this guy probably has a future in the CFL. If thinking in an opportunity. So. You know, You, you just look at what the lines have done. And instead of, and to me, my point, well, Julia was, well, if you go and you sign a Harris or whoever, a veteran quarterback, it's going to cost you some bucks. And that money, if work pans out is going to be sitting on your bench. And that money could have been used to pull, you know, maybe sign a Delvin Broer Lucias. Pure for whatever the case might be. I say, I said, yeah, this is all or not be decision. I mean, you know, we were high. It's funny. Now this week I've seen a lot of other, you know, Oh, we're big. Got BC now and Raleigh all I believe the BC. We had native rock on the show back in February, I said, I want. My leg and to you, I have full faith in you. If. If Rick and everyone over there says that you're the guy. I have faith in that, but yeah, it could have really gone poorly. You make a great point about a commitment. It's like you ever hear the old expression, boat, bacon and eggs for breakfast. When it comes to bacon and eggs, right. Th this little emojis and for you, I think I actually came up with this, but I'll give credit to somebody else. So when it comes to bacon and eggs, The chicken. Is involved. The pig is committed. All right. And give the lions credit. For fully going in on Nathan Rourke and I, what I'm saying. It goes back to the point we were talking about earlier. Because there they go all in on work and they believe in the kid, they're saying, okay, you know what? We're not going to go out and sign a veteran quarterback to back them up because we believe in this kid, we're going to commit to this kid. We feel this kid can get the job done. And it allows you to go out and get another piece or two somewhere else that you know is playing. Like I said, that's out there on the field. Contributing, whether it's, you know, You know, forgot to mention all the guys in the D line Menard and bets. I eating to that rotation. They've been nice additions, especially Menard returning back. I forgot to mention David, but yeah, so, you know, it allows you to get a Menard and a bets perhaps, or a pure foyer or a bro, because you're not spending that money on a veteran backup. It's interesting to add. I have. Heading into the weekend. Yeah, obviously the lines are playing early. Other storylines you're tracking. It seems like it's kind of a mish-mash. ELL Winnipeg. I've heard. I've had messages sent my way. Okay. Zack. Clara is can't throw the deep ball anymore. Like. Are we worried about that is. Is that BC R. Is that the face up where we're hoping for the bus or, well, see you looking for. Well, I mean, when you look around the west, I think Winnipeg. And, you know, just on paper doing the math, they've lost some big pieces. Right. I mean, they lose stove Richardson. They've lost Kenny Lawler. They've lost Andrew Harris. It's amazing that they can't run the football. And, you know, it's kinda funny because. In the last few years, what a Piguet has. Winnipeg has been able to run the ball. We'll almost with Andrew and you know, then they hit you with all of Aira and Augustine, right. Well, now that. Harris has gone. And the. The point, man is all over. They haven't been able to run the football early in the season. Like they would like. And, you know, maybe it's a situation where, you know, I don't want to say the pressure's getting to Brady Oliver, but being that number one guy it's, it's a lot. It's like, you know, the backup quarterback that comes in and puts up decent numbers in a blowout either way. And people all go back and quarterbacks. It's a little different when you're the starter, it's a little different when you have that pressure of knowing that I'm the guy that's supposed to produce. I'm not the guy that's coming in and cleaning up. You know, Helping out that way. So maybe that's an issue for what's going on in Winnipeg with the running backs, but I've been disappointed in the running game. Conversely, I think it's hurt their passing game. Because if you're in a second in seven, second and eight, now the defense can. You know, perhaps. Play accordingly. And yeah, so, I mean, you lose some pieces. They've been relatively injury-free the last couple of years. And now you take Brandon Alexander out of the lineup. And all of a sudden, you know, They're secondary, sometimes six. You know, kind of gets exposed. So it'll be interesting to see. I don't think Winnipeg is as good as they were the last couple of years. I still think they're good enough probably to win a great cup. But it's going to be a lot tougher for them this time around because they have lost some pieces. The other match thoughts. And before I let you go, Edmonton. Basically everything that worked well from our domain, you know, we, we fill everyone in. We have this great team. We. We win the game. We blow out. You know, Edmonton has struggled right? The first week, second week at home. Now they're going into Hamilton. When you think Edmonton's going to get it together? Well, it's going to take awhile. I mean, like you said, you've got Chris Jones coming in there. It's a brand new regime. You not only has to find. Players that fit his scheme and fit his system. But he has to get them comfortable with his scheme and system. Right. So it's going to take a while. He's a good coach. I think Edmonton eventually will come home and we've seen it already that they've improved their place since what we saw in BC in that opening game. So they're coming around. I mean, there are a lot more competitive, so we'll see what happens. And I think. I think. The team is kind of surprising for me is Calgary. Like the Senate, you. Three and oh, and I'm like, I don't think Calgary's that good. I really don't. I mean, I think they're a good team, but right now, I mean, it could be two in one in one and two. But they're sitting at three and also credit to them for getting the job done. I mean, I don't know how they beat Hamilton. You know, Tim Horton's field, like with the Lee, that Hamilton bed, and you talk about a team that's. You know, struggling right now at the tiger cats. So much more expected for them, but you know, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. I think data Evans has kind of been, you know, so, so shaky, but it goes back to what we talked about. Andrew Harrison Winnipeg, right? You know, Dana Evans had Jeremiah Mazola, Mazzoli had Evans and it kind of worked in tandem. Well, now that you're the guy. And there's nobody there. There's a little bit more pressure on you and maybe that's getting to Dana Evans. And it reminds me of my question. I forgot before. We have all these quarterbacks. And I liked the idea of going with Nathan. Because I would always rather gamble on something that could be great. Then Mike settle for mediocrity, right? Well, we could sign a Trevor Harris, like let's really go all in. Nathan, and then you kind of sink or swim. But, you know, you have all these teams. I mean, Hasn't looked great this year, right? Zach is struggling. Like what's next for all these other teams, like if Nathan pans out, right. So. Then it BC, let's say they're sat for a couple of years. Like, what do you do in, in. Like you said in Hamilton or. It was only has been decent in Ottawa, but certainly the record doesn't show it. Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to CFL teams, They've been hit pretty hard by what's happened when it comes to quarterbacking. I think they've been hit pretty hard by WhatsApping. The national football league, the last couple of decades, right? The last 20 years or so. And I say that because the NFL has gone from this big prototypical pocket passer. The Peyton Manning's of the world. To now employing the Kyler Murray's and the Russell, while Russell Wilson's been around for a while, but you get the idea like with a guy like Kyler Murray, right? Kyler Murray 20 years ago would have been in the CFL, which would have been damn scary because. Like back out of Canadian field. Oh my God. But, you know, they're losing that. That really mobile quarterback. To the NFL game, right to NFL teams. So I think that's kind of hurting, you know, everyone talks about, you know, the author is and what's going on there. And I think a lot of it probably has to do with just the trigger man. Right. It's tough because. That prototypical CFL quarterback that the NFL wouldn't want or would reject. They're now seeking that guy out. And as a result. You know, you're seeing. I guess a little bit of a dip in the talent. Of a Canadian, the Canadian football league quarterback. Yeah. I don't think. All the off season rule changes, you know, the hashmarks. That accounted for BC putting up almost 50 points both weeks. Right? I think it was Nathan worked. Competent. Rule changes can do a little bit of that, but I think mostly it's having, like you said, someone that. Good luck and make a decision quickly and go with it and actually complete passes and hit people. I mean. The hash is being moved in that. I mean. You're right. I mean, Nathan work is doing what he's doing because he's extremely talented. Not because the ashes. But moved in. So, you know, it's interesting. I've talked to. To most guys, and I haven't really had anyone. Bring up the hashes and say, oh, it's been a huge difference or whatever. I mean, You know, maybe. That wide side. What used to be the wide side out now comes into play like you. As a, as a cornerback. You can't, you know, take away the inside because you know, they're not gonna throw a wide side out now, maybe. You can't cheat as much because they will throw that out on the quote wide side, which is now of course, a lot. More narrower. So. We'll see, I mean, It's a work in progress. I mean, it's tough. You know, have a judgment based on two weeks of play, but we'll see what transpires between now and the end of the season. Anything else before I let you go. I really appreciate you. You know, fighting traffic to get home, to come on the show and talk at it. It means a lot, you know, I always appreciate any BC lions people too. So. Yeah, no worries. Yeah. Anytime you want to talk football, it's been fun. And you know, at least you didn't mistake me for Julio Caravana which a lot of people do. So. Like it's, it's embarrassing. I'm way better looking than Julio. Much more articulate. And yet people always confuse us. So, and people in the media nevermind fans. Like even people in the media, right. I mean, Jermaine Franklin of TSN walkway. Walk up to me one day. Hey, Julio, how's it going? And I'm like, It's going okay. The best though, the best Julio care about it will to Julio care about a stories. We're Julia came out and helped Farhand lounge in one time with. High school football and far hands, little son, Lucas. At the time was little. She looks at him and goes coach modes, coach modes. Cause I helped Farhand coach knew us and Julia was really upset about that. But the one that cracked me up was Russell Wilson to come up to Vancouver and have like a two day camp. Right. And then they had like a celebrity media game. Up at Ambleside. And I couldn't play because of my, you know, my needs to be replaced. So I just kind of watched and I was kind of hanging out and then afterwards we're all leaving. I was even a guy comes up to me. So say he goes. He goes, Hey mode. You were really gutting it out there, man. I was really impressed with your arm. My pardon? 'Cause yeah, he goes, you got a really strong arm. You made some great throws. I go. Thanks man. Appreciate it. It's actually Julio that was out there getting it. But the guy thought it was me. So in that instance it was good. I actually took the credit. So. I appreciate you coming on here. It's exciting. You want the team to be good at? It certainly obviously has to make your job. A lot better and more enjoyable. Positive vibes right now with the team. It's like. I remember the first game with all the touchdown calls, the first alpha I was running out of juice in the second half. So yeah, it's a, it's a lot of fun. So hopefully the lions can keep it up. And it's all good. Like, you know, the thing is, it's just, you want to see an entertaining game and right now the lines are, while they're providing entertainment, I don't know how close those games are, but there's a lions fan had, has been very entertaining. So yeah, anytime you want to talk. Shoot me a text, whatever I'd love to come on and join you. Yeah, I was filming. That first game I was filming the wedding. So I had my phone up. Like with one of those finder things, I'm watching the game on ESPN on my phone. And I think people in the crowd thought that I was having seizures. I was just fist pumping with all. And send us some video that love Ryan Phillips, his wedding. Like, you know, maybe him, like, you know, doing some teary-eyed speech, maybe him like trying to dance, whatever. Right. I've got, I've got people that will pay for that. Like I'm sure Gary Peters will pay for that. Right. So, you know, TJ Lee, these guys. You'll pay. Yeah. He literally danced coming down the aisle. I could gold suit. This is quite the affair. All right. Well, like I said, I've got people. I thank you so much. I'll let you get. Well, I'm excited. I'm having a resurgence of all my gray cup memories. I just had mojo on the same episode here. And we also partied in Hamilton for the gray cup. We have Avery here with an Avery sports. How are you doing, sir? I knew I read yourself buddy, long time. No talk, my man. I'm excited. I, we met and I said, I gotta get this guy on. Now we're in the middle of the CFL season. It's heating up week four. What is everything been like for you been traveling, covering some of the teams? What general thoughts on CFL as we enter week four here. Well, first of all, it's good to have a human again. Not someone normal-ish it's as close to 2019 as possible. Now, again. Of course, 2020, no season 2021 heavy coat restrictions for, for players, media, fabrics, et cetera. It's somewhat normal issue again, to see, but seeing the season here, a few points on. I've watched so far, I've been impressed by one BC and it didn't work because I know BC played yes, thrombin, Edmonton, but still two games. All you allowed. 18 points. That to me is still very present. Senior defense play very well. And then Nathan work himself, the Canadian quarterback who's been lights out. Of course. The big question was after my Carly retired, who will be a start, it wouldn't be needed at work. Little Connor, but see Nathan work, take the reins. I just 24 years old. And proven that he is your future quarterback for a possibly a hopefully a long time to come. He has been flipped fun to watch. And it's funny, Ben, with the Xs and Argos podcast, I saw he posts. You know, this last week after the, the blowout with Toronto, he said, Yeah. If you're not planning Nathan work segments on your show this week, like you better figure that out. I'm like, bro, I've been here. I've been with BC since, you know, since we had Nathan work on back in February. I mean, this is no surprise to me, but I'm glad. Are you surprised with how quickly he's taken off and really just seemed to acclimate to the game? I mean, obviously he did play last season. A little bit. I mean, I bet you'd get UBI guy who would play very well saying going forward. By week five, week six to get used to the CFL. I don't think many clean myself had him going off that strong in one or two. Was that we three cause BC didn't play with too well. Yeah, the first two games, I don't think people saw him playing that bowl. That early it's a great sign. And when you go, but also to you, you'll learn from Mike Raleigh and the year before, he's a great mind to learn from. He knows the game. You. The ins and outs very well. So he had a great guy that studied under, but watching him play this well, the first two weeks, it was refreshing to me. And again, approves the. Dispels the myth that quarterbacks and caddy can play. Yeah, right. What he's doing. Well, and speaking of that, I speak at the E you know, Canadian quarterbacks that can play the news just came out right before we're hopping on here. You know, Trey Ford expected to start this weekend for Edmonton in Hamilton. What's interesting is we'll get into the tray for debate too. But you have here with Mr. Dillman in BC, right? We're rebuilding the franchise. You were doing the big party, and then we have Victor queen doing the same thing in Edmonton. Right. But you can't book your team to win games. Right. So Omar's doing it. Luckily BC's Winnie and Victor's trying to do it. Edmonton is struggling a little bit. What have you made of Edmonton so far here? Go into the week four. You know, Edmonton. No, the team that I'm seeing improvement. Of course. Yes, we won. Because the nine points, the most points allowed. Franchisee is three. Not good. Well, you're seeing improvements against team Buxton statue win against Calgary. The big thing from to now is putting it all together and winning a game because against Calgary, they had Calgary down. Most of our game, of course. I think our book interception, the pick CX, not Zen. It's like inception, not good timing because. Kara gets the ball back. Bull Levi doesn't. He does best. One play boom, touchdown down, back in the lead. Edmonton. It's going to be a matter of putting it all together for a full game. And again, defensively Chris Jones. He knows what he has to do of course is vital. Changed quite a bit. I've every game. It's Chris Jones. He's known for that. And you're seeing improvements slowly but surely. And now we've got Hamilton up here, Hamilton. Our team. And my mind I game read all the pressure to me personally is on Hamilton. The defending Eastern champions haven't won a game yet. They blew that massively to Calgary D Edwards is getting hit. Left right. And center. I mean, I'm just fan some sexual women too, because Docker right now, The way things have gone in Hamilton. So to me, the pressure right now, That game was on Hamilton. To try and get a win. And for Trey for, and he's someone who's athletic you then navigate. He's got a big arm. I want to see you. You can do against the Hamilton team that is struggling Miley right now in Eastern division. Are you surprised in obviously each team had different weaknesses right. Going out of last year, but BC was also a really bad team at the end of last year. Right? I mean, I saw a lot of those. We was at the 42. Zero or whatever against Winnipeg where, you know, I think they either got shut out or they only got three points, but like, you know, Edmonton struggled, BC circled here, BC has. Just really come back. Right? I mean, it's not just Nathan you're, the defense is playing lights out. We have a lot of dynamic receivers, but. You know, they, they say it takes time. Well, here at BCC to be able to flip the switch pretty quick. I, why is Edmonton still struggling here that we don't even know really who our quarterback is this week? We're going with another starter. I think one thing too, that I think our booklet, if you can really, you're near. Maybe some good pros, but receivers couldn't get involved. I mean many ours would have been on right license team, a guy who retired and came back. We want the bright lights. What a big thing is to that receiver at times. How we help. Our buckle, would you the hurting as well, but until. Well, two, he's made some furrows, which had been pretty questionable. And saw it against Calgary. Somebody throws Warren his best in his game. And I think crystal is just trying to think, you know what? I gotta do something. I got teachers once I can. I. I got to hear some more to try to figure out what's going to happen at the same time though. I would like to see some consistency in a lineup because. As much as Chris Jones is known 14. Some teams need consistency from week one to week two. And we'll just, Christian was known for that. I want to see a week where he does say, you know what? Okay, we lost this game. I'm going to give this unit. I have a chance to work through the kinks. And that's when the big thing for Chris Jones is at this point, you can't always see your line up. Every single game. You got to give me some guys, each other, or else you're not going to succeed. You don't want these guys gel from week one to two week three. So. It's hard. And it really is a non NFL issue here, right in the NFL. Right. You're the starter. Most things considered. Right. And obviously contracts, everything come into it. But then the CFL. Yeah, we're covering the USFL right now. The championship game this weekend. It's these non NFL where? Oh, with quarterback struggling. We gotta pull them out. We gotta switch. We're playing two quarterbacks. We got, yeah, we're moving people around. And it is, I have to think it's a possible to get any sort of either repetition on that here. Now, tray for it's coming in it's Thursday, right? I mean, when did he find out about that? Right now, he's got to come in and get prepared for a row game. Like he just adds this level that you don't see, like his CFL is already hard enough. Like, why are we adding these additional challenges? Like, I think you need to ride with some people. Sometimes I'm not the biggest Arbuckle guy, but I think like you need to give someone a chance to kind of, you know, work their way out of a job here we saw, even with. Vernon Adams. Right. You know, going in and out whichever Harris, like it's just, it's a weird CFL USFL kind of alt football thing. No, of course. Number two, of course. You're gonna get a brand new Lee and correct to say like NFL. You're in a brand new league with its whole. Oh, the whole different rule system. I'm running football. It's still different than the American leagues. So if you're a new guy, CFL, you try to, you know, Get camaraderie and learn your position, learn the rule sets. And then next week. I know you're starting off on a short week Orien bench. Again, it's gonna be tough for certain guys. So. For and the CFL, Chris Jones. I can f**k consistency will be big, but again, it's still a young season as a 19. Or 18 games. Oh, and three can turn into three and three very quickly. He seemed before and asleep. So speaking of the [unknown]. You mentioned Hamilton's struggling, right? You have the east defending champions here. A lot of pressure. Wait, what is going on with them? Maybe w Y it just feels like they've been so slow out of the gate here. We thought they had Calgary. That was going to be the big wind. You know, I'm the Dane Evans guy. I would have taken him over Mazzoli, but now obviously, you know, there has to be some second. DOT's there even if not from the coaching staff, at least from the fans. I mean, What, what do you make of Hamilton? Right now their biggest issue to me is turnover of the Pillsbury kind. The kind of costly football games. We seem as team of called turnovers against, against Winnepeg against Calgary and that'll burn. Not in my house. If you cannot hang onto the ball. You're going to win very often. It doesn't matter if you're a Hamilton or Todd Greer. We are a Winnipegger at Edmonton. If Bennett, because the cuties. He'll so far. And of course Lisa division, no, one's broken away just quite yet. No. They know what's going to bring this up in the pack. Among Hamilton. So on so forth, but eventually it will run on a track to turn things around. And they don't, they don't come back on those turnovers, which have hurt them. Quite consistently. In the young season here. It seems like a lot of these teams, you know, really got better in the off season. Right. Made a lot of the moves here. Winnipeg lost some talent, right? You know, Toronto really tried to bring all the people. I'm just wondering. Yo. Last year with such a kind of a slow slog at the end, like Winnipeg is, you know, it's like, I said it was like the walkers and the game of Thrones, right. Like winter is coming. Okay. Like we understand that when the peg is going to win. This year, it feels more opened up. You talked about, I think before we recorded, you know, BC be in the playoff team, do you think that they're able to turn it around that much in such a short period and make a deep run? I really do think so, because again, CFL is such a. Small leak of so many games. It's so much, it's so much ability. If you get a hot, really, if it BC. I see where to go in and say, when they're first for a six. Four six and eight. If you get hot. And he started. Seasoned strong. Are you in pretty much to the extent it's tough to it's something completely collapse. If you do, when your first three or four games. I mean it can happen, but I don't see happening for DC. But you can take advantage of games. Like buy against. Edmonton against. We'll be in great shape. And now we got, of course the big thing for me is when they go, when they play games, the road, can you win outside of BC place? Let's give me the big thing as well, too, if either went home, even when deemed at home, but when they got to go to the Edmonton and Calgary, that'll be the big test. Can you cover welcome McMahon to show people that you are for real? So I think they have the ability to do it though by tape. We can talk about them doing it though. We got approved by winning on the field to say, you know, it can actually happen. Are you surprised? I still see the anti Cody for Gerardo sentiment. I think Rob Vanstone posted this week, you know, like people need to leave co you're out. It was the whole story last year, too, right? I mean, they made a deep bride. I mean, they almost made it to the gray copy though. Cody played. Great. Played through injury, put himself out there, but really left it all on the field. It's weird to me that we're still having this discussion, like people in Saskatchewan don't like call you for jar though. And like, why is that a thing? Are you surprised that we're still having this conversation? How many years into his career? I still have me. I made a good point. It's statute. How did the from last year. Right now there, Julie. One you're still in the battle of things in the Western division. 500. Not a bad TME. Yes. The fourth in the Western division right now. But you get. You had some wins together. Check your, probably your plugin leapfrog, VCs to win three or four. Or two or three games they are doing okay right now, but not. At windlass. I mean, I find it so odd that there's still the beetle for. He's got, he's seen his team to declare from the past. So to me, it's still a bit odd to see that Felicia was playing a read. Or. From fanbase, other writers. I mean, he's at least in the top half of quarterbacks in the league. I mean, I just took it, you know, I mean, they have their work right now is on fire. I mean, that's kind of a separate thing, but you know, you got Zach Clara was right, but the mayor, you really take it. Would you want Mazzoli over for jar though? Right? Would you want data Evans over for jar though? I don't know, I would probably take him over Vernon Adams. And Vernon's a friend of the show. I mean, I like Vernon as a leader of men, but I think on the field. You know, I mean, obviously he's struggled this season. It just seems weird to me that there's so all these questions and like [unknown]. It's Winnie. And I mean, there are two of them line that could be worse, but it's very odd to me. Yeah. It was very odd. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're both 500. You could be right now. I mean, if you're Witless, if you're like Ottawa or Hamilton, I okay. I could see why. But yeah, you're two and a one you get. Together. And you can be knocking on that door potentially of being forced in Western division right now. I just find it really bizarre, still. What do you make? I've heard a lot of, okay. When the peg isn't this good this year, right? Zack Claros can't throw the deep ball. They're they're struggling, right? Defenses. And in summit, what do you make of Winnipeg? I mean, he's still great record right now, but the winds have come a little bit more challenging. They have been, but at the same time though, I wouldn't complain too much because you are still unbeaten right now. And you got some big home wins. Defense. We different things. I do pick six Sila when, like what a pig. Yes. There's still the injuries. [Unknown] for a little bit, that's going to be a big local Winnepeg. Well, they're still funny, a way to win. It doesn't matter. How challenging things are end of the day. I believe you have more points than 14. Your. So find ways to win. They're still getting it done. Of course, the laundry Harris skis now in Toronto. But wouldn't peg has been. They've been resilient. Even resourceful. They've found ways to still hang with the best in Western envision. So if you're a Bama span, I mean, of course you don't want to see your guys injured, guessing hot. You lost some guys. But you are still among 13. Must've envision. So I'm not too worried about how I want to pick up some rings right now. And Nick Demsky. That is that that's a big interest, saw that. And I saw the gyms while there are two out 60. First, let's focus down a little bit more on the nip. Devinsky at Andrea. And now I want to talk to you Ms. Wilder. So, I mean, to me, it is Zack's already struggling right? This year, hitting, you know, being consistent, hitting other receivers here now, Devin skis out. Was it for the six games? I think I saw, I mean, Yeah. What do you make of that as kind of another? Okay. This is now another hurdle we got to get over. You don't right now, it's going to be a big thing for who. Jimmy right now. A matter of next. Roster to replace that because you, the guy. When it comes to reception. It comes to getting you touchdown yards. He has a big cognant offense, but what a peg. So so much. On that roster right now from Michael Shane say, listen, I'm going to take over that role. I'm going to break out. And find a way to be a leader among that offense. I think I'm not sure who that would be just yet, but I think somebody who we. I've seen it happen time and time before someone's slipping up on what a pig's roster to make sure that they still are. Better team. They have the visionary. Is James Wilder's injury is that. W w what are the biggest injuries? I think in terms of. Guys teams, you know, momentum that they need to get back on their hand. They couldn't happen right now. Really surprised to see that him out on a six game injury lists, what do you make them while they're being out for Edmonton? Oh, I honestly think that is one of the biggest injuries right now for the Alex. We saw him last year, he was there or use the MVP lastics and Yeltsin. The 12 game campaign had over 700 drivers brushing in. And in past three games, he got the ball quite a bit and his past few games here and he is. You've done godly. The feature backs. And right now it's, it's used blow into the massive blow Ian down. And he's someone who likes playing Janielle. He wants to another strong year right now. And I see huge, huge blow for crystal and his offense. Yeah. It's hard. I don't know. It's just like another thing against them. Right. I mean, Edmonton's already struggling now. We're having a new quarterback. We have James Wilder. It's gotta be hard. Chris Jones. Yeah, I know he's a legend of the game, right. Coming in, but is this too much on his plate to be able to kind of figure out here in this early season? It's a lock because really. And may aspect. Chris Jones is everything short by being Quis. Jobs. My spreads and he's head coach. There's many aspects to Christian's job right now in Edmonton and losing, losing Jim Walden for a bit. That's going to hurt right now. So I don't, I don't know. You're going to be going forward. We can see because that's a guy right now when you're trying, when you're chasing the rest of this, the Western vision right now. You cannot afford to lose a feature back and adverts right now. So. What Chris Jones tries to do. Do you kind of rack losing while they're doing it for next few weeks here. Who, what team are you most bullish on here? Going forward, maybe in the next three, four or five weeks. And then what team are you most scared of? I scared for, you know, You know, Mo I'm most scared for. Ooh. Wow. I think honestly, I want to see what happened. I think. Oh, wow. That's a great question. I'm most shocked right now. I mentioned before. I think I really feel right now. Yeah, Ty. Between BC and Calgary. Because again, BC, their offense to me, I think is amazing right now. What work has done, what. That's done. I think child grief. However, the team people were saying how all this damn. Dawn Ms. Down to done. It's over. Come on. Really. Is it really over seeing what you did against Hamilton? You can, I've learned long enough, never, ever, ever count out holy by Mitchell. Doesn't matter how much turnover there is. Doesn't matter how things change. You've always going to find a way to get it done and get a win. So to me, Right now the tie between. Calgary and BC. There are teams who I could potentially be a match for the west admitted final. I think so. Spinal matcha. If Winnepeg does fall to somewhere along the line. I didn't give you fun. And be fun to watch Bowen war go out. Cause. You get food gets clean green cup. And I'm Regina this year. If it comes down to Bo Levi and Nathan Rourke, I think Danny Austin and I are going to have to come up with it with a few there. Yeah. The wager the end, all wagers that. I think Beau Levi, I think the challenge he plays with some weeks, it's just his head is so inflated from all the Calgary era Calgary and CFL media out there. Just blowing them up. I mean, I, all I hear is Bo Levi being pumped up. If he's injured, he's not injured that much. If he's struggling and he's not struggling that much. I just. It's really weird, how he really has captivated all of CFL media up there. You nary hear a negative word. Of him, without someone coming in to defend them. I know. And, you know, one. I think one reason would. It will be by the person redo. Amazing guy to talk to you. I love the guy. But as a player, I think you just die where. I see to an extent, a little bread farm. When we just got, you know, The Gusto like stole the ball deep. Is he getting banged up? Well, he always finds a way to come back and get his team back into games and find ways to win. I mean, of course. Of course one day is going to be a day where, you know, yes, the bully Y of today and your path will die off. Bolwell reference and sunset one day. But I'll take it. I don't think that's right now because yeah, it's tiled green as an unbeaten team and Tommy themselves. They're still finding ways. Tom tried to write them off. Calgary still finds a way to remain among upper echelon. Of the CFL. And in terms of teeth, I'm scared for. Ooh, I would say right now it has to be gotta be Hamilton right now. It's gotta be Hamilton. Because again, I said earlier, Defending Eastern division champions, Owen three. And if you don't beat Evans. And they don't beat yucks and they fall on four. Even tidy up. This is the game. You can, you have to get two quotes out. You don't. You can lose or gather. At the time you got to find a way to get points. I think question marks. I think. And marks and are going to be raised in a massive way. How often falls to Olin forecasts. If anybody saw cutting. After last year we saw again. Okay. Hamilton last again. Great cop looking at you to rebound. At one four starts. I got to think some heads mites are, people might want to see some heads roll. They go on for. I mean the iPad. It wasn't a great company. We were, we were there. I mean, it really did feel like the momentum was going on their site. We're going to have an upset here. You know, I Hamilton's going to go crazy. And then we were sitting there, I was waiting to go out and record with my phone, the fans going crazy. And then, you know, they had the, what was it, the point, the ruse. And then they went to overtime and all that stuff. But I mean, Hamilton was very close in sliding doors and being the defendant grand club champs. Well, you know, what, what if in that world, right? They have the same team here. What if Hamilton wins a gray cup comes out and go start to own the three. I mean, that's an even scarier proposition. No, of course it would be one. I'll see if most of the one, if I was a little bit more leeway, because of course. I live in the green cup champion. They probably would've said, you know what, give me some time. We'll figure it out. But absolutely a great cop and now possibly be, or pretend to be on four. That's a big question mark in my mind, but you know what I will say as much August said earlier, It's still a long year. I remember why I remember when the BC lions until you love it. So it'd be your own six and of winning the grey cup. So in, in most leagues and mostly you start you're on four, that's it, that's all she wrote. Do you know, call date. And the CFL. And it happens still, but ideally you don't want to be Eastern champions who leave yourself out of an orange on for whole, especially if teams like say Montreal and Toronto. Do you figure things out and start running themselves? I think the best just to circle back to Calgary before I let you go here. I think the best thing about Calgary is they already have their Nathan work like in the wing. I mean, Jake Mayer is ready to go in there, I think. And just absolutely explode. So here we have Bo Levi. Yeah. Whether you get this year and next year, however many years you get, like you already have your ACE in the hole coming in to me. I think that they talked him away. Get him signed in. We've talked to them. He likes living in Calgary. Like. Be a part of that community. I think that's an interesting Calgary. It could be really successful for a really long time. If they're able to ride that believer. No, of course. That's true. I know Calgary does the team that also too, in terms of coaching in the front office. They have been among the best easily for a very long time. Dave Dickinson. It as an amazing coach John Hall. Over the amazing GMO of course. Right. There you go from potentially bullied by a jig Meyer. I mean, coaching, you went from John Hufnagel to Dave. They can see it. It has been a very long time since people said, wow, Calgary. One is functional team. Nothing. When people say Calgary wasn't nest, then a very long time. Not done against head coach. So the last time I can. Remember. Childcare. Being a gong show. But since then, they've been one of the most well-run franchise where we get. It's to be applauded. To see how Calgary has gone. And from that to being bar none. The mall franchises, CFL. Every this man felt we'll have to have you back on any other comments takes any other hot, hot. You know, opinions here of a. I'll let you go. I will just leave off with this and say, you know, the whole few inductions for 2022. I'm so happy to see what you rate, go into the hall. Now, this fall. And, you know, being a kid. In Edmonton. I saw Ricky. When grape cops. Be an amazing quarterback. This team restored glory to the MTN franchise. Also worship. And we're a shiver. As you know, being, being a black Canadian, seeing someone being, see him, daddy barracks lead the rough fighters back when. But back when the riders were struggling and being, being black and seeing a black, a black head coach, any black GM, it was so very inspiring. And I know a word got a lot of crap, which was to me, was garbage. Sometimes yellow, racist nonsense is wait statue one. But seeing what he did. Bring the writers back from your bankruptcy to be one of less envisioned teams is to be applauded. And he used to be honored. I. I think pioneer a black football. In this country. That's good. I'm glad you come. But yeah, no, it's an exciting class. It would be good. We're getting back on track with that too, because we had the delay and all that with, you know, the COVID and everything. So I'm glad we can get everyone in there, Avery. I so appreciate your time. I think it's going to be exciting. This season is. You know, we're like you said, we're back to the norm.

Episode 98 - USFL Playoffs?!?

Well, I'm excited that we are in playoff season for the USFL. We have Josh shepherd shepherds in here with that fantasy pros. How are you doing, sir? I'm feeling good about yourself. I'm good. Where at, you know, it's been a little bit of a struggle bus trying to find the quality people that come on the season to talk to us about just cause, you know, we're still expanding the world out, but we've got another one today. I appreciate that. How, you know, it had hit in. I don't know if we ever thought we would get to this point, play Aussie the first spring league. In however many years to make it to either finish a regular season, congrats you as a felon, I make it to the bus. What have you thought just overall of the USFL so far, and then I want to dig into your, your thoughts on all this stuff. I've enjoyed the product. I really appreciate the fact that on a telecast, they've done a good job of hammering home, how competitive the games are, how close the score and margins are by the end of the games. I mean, it's been a good product. I mean. The season is kind of gone as one would expect in terms of, it was a little bit of a struggle on offense early. They had the short camps to get ready and install offenses, and it seemed like that was behind by. They've really kicked into high gear to some extent when the games were meaningful before the last couple of weeks, once they play off. Births were clenched, but overall, I thought it's been a good product. I liked that they expanded rosters during the season. I think that they were a shock to, to implement the role on. The running clock, which I thought would actually impact sports betting a little bit more than it did. I would say that was more than offset by the op-eds is getting into a little bit of a rhythm, but. Overall, I've just really enjoyed the product. That's been nice to be able to find it. On on various platforms and just have those options for watching. So I've been, I've been a big fan of the USFL so far this year. I've enjoyed it. I'm excited. You. It's really hard these last couple of weeks. And it was such a disparity, right? As close as some of the games are either when we have the seven and one against the one and seven or whatever, and they're already out of playoffs and stuff. So I am very excited for this. Now I think we will have two. I mean, arguably have the best games of the season so far. You know, with the Philadelphia and the generals, even though they play last week, didn't really count. And then the breakers and that who we got stallions there. So a, of those two games, which are you most looking forward to, obviously you'll get this from sports, Betty and DFS, but also just from a football guy. Who are you excited for? I mean. Really it's, it's beautiful. It's, it's a style for each type of fan. I I'm expecting fully. Expecting a shootout and the general starts game, which leads into the kind of football that I enjoy watching. And even with a net game there, stylistic differences. I mean, New Jersey is such a grounded punk team, but they've been so efficient through the air with their two quarterback system and a Bart, Andrew SIS leaned a little bit into the running game in the second half that. Great. Effect. And a case caucus has really seemed to pick things up. So I'm looking forward to that game more. It feels like the stallions and breakers kind of backed into the postseason and maybe part of that, and the case of the stallions was they've clenched, but. So all the sloppier on that side of the ball, but man, those defenses are so good. So, I mean, it's, it's nice seeing the stylistic differences between two games. And I think you hit the nail on the head saying that these should be two of the most competitive and better games. The season. I think looking at it, this is what we expected. Right. I think Birmingham number one. W with generals there at number two, kind of whichever way you want to put one and two. Breakers have always been competitive right off the Shaun quarterback play there. And then Philadelphia, you know, that's my team. I'm glad that they made it in. I was really worried that we've talked about the Brian Scott of it all. He is a friend of the show. Kind of surprised he didn't end up making it back. I don't know if he's trying to keep his options open to, you know, the other alternative. Ah, football league. So they're coming up here in the next year, but are we surprised that Philadelphia made it, even with that adversity of losing their starting quarterback? A little bit, especially since I just really didn't know what to expect from, for cookies coming in off the pine, he was fine early on, but it really seems like he settled into a bit of a groove later in the season. I love the way that art Andrews has used his very versatile receiving pieces. They're just so fast. I mean, you've got big targets and Jordan Sule and Brooke Howard, you've got smaller slot types like Marissa Alexander. And Chris Rowan, it's just a very attack. And, and man, that Coburn just so good down the stretch. And honestly, I think. Assuming he's he's at full health at this point. I know he played last week. I think Darnell Holland could be an interesting player this weekend just because his speed is so different in a week. Like this. I mean, it shows on the games when you see guys like come on to Turpin and Colburn and even Darnell Holland and his limited touches, just the speed difference between them and a lot of the other players in the league. So I, a little bit surprising that they were able to really get the foot on the, on the accelerator there and for a stretch. But I ultimately, I thought their office of concepts and what they were doing with smart, I thought it was smart football and I mean, As someone who's been rooting for the star since kind of digging into the league and reading the story of fart Andrew's history and Brian Scott. I'm enjoying the ride. I mean, I don't know how well the video is fully got this, but I've got my Sam mills throw back a Philadelphia starts Jersey on for the podcast. Not going to hide that. I, I, I do enjoy the stars and th they are my rooting interest in the U S. So, no, it's good. I mean, I, they were my team, like I said, just cause we knew a lot of the guys on the team, even, you know, like Matt may go. Got a release and all that. We've just known a lot of the guys that have on that team. I predicted from day one, just because Bart had done the team nine thing with the XFL had done the either. NFL Europe had done the spring league thing. It's a lot of the guys he coached there with Brian, you know, the general is it. But we got bug Howard, south Pinellas bat. It's really just kind of the suicide squad of everyone that we've kind of, you know, for whatever reason or another have tracked the last two and a half years on the podcast is like, this is kind of the all star team here, I think, going into it. And I mean, Other guys have accelerated like sit at right. Like how slow their, you know, Jomar Smith, whatever. But. That team I think was assembled to kind of be victorious from day one. Yeah, I think I want to say similar to Brian Knowles, maybe at football outsiders described them as the defending champion elite that didn't exist before this year. I mean, basically he wrote with his TSL team, that was just very good and it won a championship and. So I definitely enjoyed that. I enjoyed the continuity and I had pretty decent expectations for them coming into the year. I'll pat myself a little bit on the back. Not that I, I usually like the victory lap, these things, but going into the season, I said the easiest way for me was the Michigan. Panthers. And my two favorite teams at, for the batting arts that they were coming off, that where the Philadelphia stars and breakers. I mean two of the four teams playing at this point, anybody who got some futures on those has a chance to hedge a little bit if they want to bet the other side at this point. But overall, I, I. I'd say that those two teams met expectations and a lot of it came down to quarterback. Bye. Including slowder. I mean, Slaughter. We expect it to be good. He had so much success in the NFL preseasons there and had been out with stick around the NFL bot. Yeah, definitely. We'll be surprised at the stars got cooking as well as they did, but not entirely surprised that they're here at the end of the year, I guess. It's so weird to me like Michigan, and I don't know if it was just, it seemed like Jeff Fisher took over the world. Right. As soon as he was in the house with the USFL, we get the number one pick at shape hours and all this stuff. And then for them just to be just such a limp fart at the end of the season was really surprising. I mean, Do you put that on Fisher and his coaching? Do we put that on the guys that he assembled either missing? The quarterback, I mean, here in New Jersey, they also kind of botched their quarterback draft pick and they're here. So I don't know. What do you blame? Michigan's kind of downfall on. I mean, I say it probably starts at the top to some extent with, with Fisher and I mean, Eric, Marty, I know. And some of the Twitter USFL realm, there, there were some jokes about his, his book that you could purchase on Amazon about his two tight end or multi tight ends. Off pensive system and. I mean, looking at his history. It kind of just didn't look like it was going to be a fit. And so I really had some questions about how that augments was going to look how up-to-date, how modern it was going to be and moderate football at this point. I mean, Fisher's been away from the game long enough that I just, I had questions and I thought that there was a little bit of difference to the fact that people recognized him from the NFL. And that was why they got a little bit. I mean, they weren't betting favor coming into the year. And I think it was really just name recognition with Jack Fisher, more than anything. Because, you know, we were covering all the coaches, announcements and stuff. And I can't remember quite the order that they, you know, they did the four and then it was like supposed to be more. But when Fisher came out, it really did like. Layer Fidor I think got right. I've kind of had the memes with him or whatever too, but it just feels like Jeff Fisher, like I saw, you know, fan Twitter pages and, and podcasts and things like that. It's just weird to me that they're so relevant out of it having kind of really carried kind of the limelight, even with their sagging. Seasoned right there. Saggy records. I always have to remember like, oh yeah, the Panther socks, I guess the Panthers and the, and the Maulers and, and it kind of going on from there. Well, and I mean, It's sad to say this, but there was such a divide between the bottom of the week too. I mean, the Panthers were significantly better than the Maulers. Maulers were just a tire fire all year. And then even from the Panthers up, I thought that Houston was a significantly better consistently better team. Shorter the quarterback play. I mean, the defense was, was awesome all year. The bandits were kind of in their own purgatory. They're in the middle where they shine at times and just didn't seem to really put it together fully on either side of the ball. But I, it was, it was interesting. But at the end of the day, we ended up with the four best teams in the playoffs. And that's really all you can ask for. I feel like. So, so looking at that, who do you take in, in the, in the first game? Right? So that's the, the Philadelphia generals game, right? That's the first one on this nugget. What are you taking them out one. And what also are you seeing the, this, you know, fantasy and things you track, who are people thinking? I C I a. I mean the general. So just such a poor matchup fit for the stars. I do think this is going to be a fun shootout, but the stars has struggled to stop the run most of the year. And I mean, that is the. How the generals. What are their bread? I mean, there's Victor and Trey Williamson both been a dynamic one, two punch, but it's not even just their, I mean, The Andre Johnson, when he's out there, a quarterback just adds such an exciting element to that running game, but. It doesn't stop when he's off the field, they can still move piles. They could still open running lanes. They can still do it with just the backs. And then Perez has been sharper than I expected. I mean, and honestly they are getting healthy and jelling at the right time. I mean, that receiving core is three deep and talented. So if you dedicate all of your resources to stopping the run, it's going to be talked to. Shut down. I shifted player like about the Turpin or shut down. More shut down, shepherd. I mean, they they've really got a very vast. All fence and it shows up in the numbers a little bit. On Twitter up. One of the followers that I've really enjoyed has been Anthony Reinhart. He's produced some excellent EPA data per clay, and the generals have shined all year in that on offense. They've been the best offense. Interestingly enough, the stars have been second and the defense is just have not held up their end of the bargain with. What that, I mean, the generals have done well enough on defense Bryant. I would say a lot of that is based on time of possession and patrolling the ball and how they play offense. And. They're putting their defense and advantages positions. The stars are, I mean that classic Ben, but don't break defense where they're reliant on turnovers, but they have done an absolutely awesome job of forcing the mechanics. Dribbling has been just amazing this year, but I, you just haven't seen the Andre Johnson. We're always Perez put the ball in harm's way a lot. So I think that's a problem for the stars. I do think that there are good enough in the passing attack. And that's what they'd like to do anyway, that even if they fall behind, they can, they can stay in this game. But ultimately. As much as I'd love to see the stars. When I think this is just a bet that, but I do think that the north is the more complete and better team and playing right at the right time. So I do think that the winner of this game ultimately ends up winning the inaugural championship. But I think this is going to be a fun game. I think if you like off offense, definitely. You know, get your popcorn ready and, and settle on for that one. It's all right. So am I Mike Mitchell or. The show we arrived over ex-felon new SAB and he's CFL all this stuff. Toronto Argonauts are playing the BC lions at home. I'm very bullish on the lions. We came off our big 59, 15 when a week before last against Edmonton. I don't know if the CFL resonates with all of your role, but I do think that I will take the BC lions victory here. And I think that the generals will. The USFL. And I think Mike and I will split the weekend. I think you're probably correct, but I mean, Got a hold out. Hope God, I gotta hope that cakes cook us, gets a cook in this weekend and maybe Matt Colburn could keep the ball away from the general stair a little bit. And I, I mean that last game, they had nothing to play for, but the fact that they kept it as competitive as it was, was encouraging. And I just, I think to me, in terms of style and what I'm looking for, that's going to be the game of the weekend. But. Yeah, I'm not going in there with delusions of grandeur, I guess. I, I, I'm trying to stay grounded and not get, get, get over my ski. So the stars go up seven, nothing early. I need to just kind of maintain that at that point and not be ready to crown them the north division winner just yet. It's hard the way. You know, you're playing against the team that had Natalie, you know, coach of the year, MVP of the year and mid top. Was it top? What did they call that top offensive player? Right. Is he very like, and that's why things are you. And I want to touch on this. We'll talk on the, the other game, the breakers and stallions. I think that's a little bit more. Cut and dry, but what are your thoughts on like, did you track come on, come on, teacher, been through a fangirl football or L for anything, or is this your first exposure to him? My first exposure was digging into his, his. Previous experience during the preseason. I mean, All of these players for fire alarm new to me. So I, I did not get the, I didn't want watch him in, in previous weeks, but it's just been amazing watching what he can do out there. All around. I mean, I would be shocked if he doesn't get a look in the NFL as a return man at this point. But, and especially with the way that the game, the NFL shifted to smaller players, being able to be involved on offense, like he's just been so dynamic, you get the ball in his hands and it's just amazing what he can do. It's good. And what I like about it too, is, you know, we, we kind of have a love hate with [unknown]. Gotcha football right there. Like the arena league and people via. I like seeing that someone that it succeeded their kids, you know, succeed in like the USFL, which I don't want to call it like the real football league, but. It's just follows more traditional football rules. I mean, I think fingernail football and, and I've kind of softened my heart stance against them in the last couple of weeks. Partly that instead of just sending people to come be on the show, I think. But like, I like seeing that, like he wasn't all star in that league. He can go do other things. Right. And so it's giving more players avenues, like, okay, maybe I didn't make a USFL roster this year. I could go play Vega till football bounce back or out. I like having some parody in these leagues where like I can move around and still find a way to make money and get tape and do all that stuff. Absolutely having the translatable skills and being able to continue to apply your craft and in multiple different formats. It's great for these guys. I mean, That's just such a select few that get the plane. In the CFL and the NFL, and to be able to have more leaks and more ways for these guys to showcase their talent is great. And it's funny, I got my very first band controls football. Look a few weeks ago and I was just having flashbacks to interning with the Albany Firebirds in the AAF to. For my senior year in college and my 2010. So, I mean, it was, it is just such a different game. Then the USFL, but like you said, it's really nice seeing these guys being able to translate their talent to, to the USFL. I mean, come on. Like if he ends up getting picked up on another cell Russia, he's the modern day, Kurt Warner. I mean, here we're, you know, Play the Reed that did the NFL Europe thing, RIAA K played in USFL Aggie. Did that come on. And he played in El. So, I mean, he literally played with like the NFL Europe. Came back over. I think I used surprise that he and not, I know people have kind of quarterback play. Hasn't been exceptional all year. It's been fine. We had a big debate on the show a while ago, like XFL versus USFL quarterback, either from 2020, but. Are you surprised that we didn't give it to a quarterback that we gave it to a wide receiver? Not entirely because of the musical chairs and I mean, From a passing yardage standpoint, slaughter. It was great this year, but he didn't take care of the football. At all this year, I mean, There were times that he just, it was just disastrous. I mean, I think if he had taken care of the football better, Case cookies had been the starting quarterback for the generals out of the gate. And. For that star side of the gate, instead of, you know, coming in and relief Scott, after a handful of weeks, when Scott got hurt. I just think that that thing's broke in a way that it was, I hate to change sport references, but it's almost like those rare years when you see a pitcher, when the MVP in baseball, it doesn't usually happen, but when things break just right, it does make sense. And in this case, I think the fact that Turpin did it as ball carrier, as a receiver in the return game. I mean, it made a lot of sense to me. I mean, he was able to contribute in so many, so many facets. Why are they get to. Him in, in hon all NFL MVP and then right. Brady got it. This last year. I'm like give it to Cooper Cub, give it to someone. That's not like if it's not a clear cut, you know, this guy was head and shoulders above. I like seeing that go to other people. I think that's a good look for the league. I dairies Victor getting the offensive player right. Also on the General's. Chris [unknown]. Defensive, that kind of makes sense, right. With, with the gamblers. Thoughts on dairies, Victor or Chris LNM either of those guys get the words. I mean, Victor was just such a bulldozer in. Inside the five. I mean, the fact that he had just such a nose for the end zone and I mean, even, even the play where he helped Louis Perez across the goal line is just kind of one of those moments that sticks in your head from the season. And I think that that should be part of, part of the award voting process. I mean, It doesn't show up in the box score for him, but he had a huge hand in them winning that game. And. I think that matters. I mean, It shouldn't resonate with the voters and Odom. What an absolute wrecking ball on defense. The fact that he played so well off season. And I mean, these guys obviously want to continue to make money playing the game. So obviously you don't expect them to mail it in, even when they, the post-season is no longer on the line, but the fact that he just. His motor was humming from get-go through the end of the season. He was just consistently good week to week is I thought it was, I thought it was a good vote. I mean, I wouldn't have had a problem with Stribling winning at, with, with all the turnovers force, but. I mean, Odom just impacted the game in such a significant way. I like it. I saw the Darryl Johnson went and kinda, you know, did the announcement. I saw that on Twitter. And then obviously with Mike Riley, getting the coach of the year. I thought that was great. I thought that was a great moment. Just because these guys, you Isabelle is paid more. They're not. You know, you're not making tons of money. You're not getting rich on this stuff. I like having these accolades, right. Like, It said that you could hang your head on, gets a ton of publicity. It's everywhere right now. Right? If you're looking at USFL stuff, all of this, you know, MVP, all that. I think that that's good. I, and the guys really care. It was a big celebration on that. I thought that was a really cool video that they share that everyone like high five in them. And. Masha piton and stuff. I thought it was nice. And I honestly thoroughly enjoyed the, the media coverage of the USFL. I mean, during the games, the sideline interviews, I mean, Mike Riley has just been such an enjoyable person to hear in the interviews. I mean, he's at the games watching them. I mean, I actually let out an audible laugh during a telecast. I believe it was two weeks ago when they talked about him coming back and watching two games and his assessment of the perfect nachos at the stadium, because he had a great chip to cheese ratio. I just. I mean, it's just the personalities there. And everybody seems to really be enjoying the league and it's been, it's been a fun experience and kind of getting to see behind the scenes and getting to know the players and the coaches. Almost on a more personal level, especially with all the mic.technology. That's just been awesome. Yeah, plug here on the show. Just got confirmation. We had them on a few weeks ago. Brock Heward. Friend of the podcast. Now we'll be back on next week, lava Manzu in the championship preview. We were, we did the kickoff. We went and did our live show for the kickoff. I have like 18 weddings that weekend because it's 4th of July week. That's what I do for my real life, but so I cannot make it to can. And I think it's going to be fun, but Brock will be on and we'll do a big preview show next week. But no, he's been great. All the sidelines. Stuff's everything. It's. XFL brought to another level because I think Fox just really. We there's been all this, like Spock's him to season two, all this. I mean, Fox is all in. They've got all the bells and whistles in the world right now, go in at this. And so that's the benefit of it. I just wish I think that the quality of play would have been better weeks. One, two, and three, we would have had more viewership now than the drop-off. I think next year, they need to figure that out. Cause I'm worried that the attrition happened too much this year. And now we're, I don't know what's going to happen next year when they come back. Yeah. I mean, it's tough because you've only got a short window to make that first impression on some viewers and I'm hoping maybe. Some will tune back in for the playoffs, just because it's something new and they'll see some high-quality play in that we'll, we'll prop some, some viewership up a little bit and get some excitement for the following season. But. It really is a shame that, that we didn't get some of these. Wait season games earlier in the season with a little bit more scoring and just more exciting football. I think if you flip the season on its head, I think we just, like you said, I think we still have some stronger viewership for the USFL, but ultimately, I mean, if they knock it out of the park this weekend and next, I think there's an opportunity to, to really seize. On that and, and springboard into next year, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We get a second season. Again, I mean, I always bought football at any time of the year that I can get it. I'll be happy. So, yeah, I think, I mean, I don't think there, hopefully there's no doubt that we're going to get back. I think, I can't remember. One of our guests said like, You know, we they've touted a lot, this parody, right. Every game has gone down. It's like, if people aren't watching the game at the beginning, they don't know how the game ended. And so like, yes, it's great. There's been great games who saw this. That's what we have to get more people watching at the beginning and carry it through because it could come down to it's the same with the CFL. Like they could come down to the CFL. Fans will scream from the rooftops, like, well, our game and we end the game in the last two minutes and no leads ever safe. It's like, Yeah. If people aren't watching those like 30,000 whatever people in America watch the ESPN news broadcast, whichever game this week. And like, if people aren't turning it on, they don't know how the game ended. So that's not always the best thing that we need to put our hat on. True. Before I let you go here. We're running long. I appreciate your time. Thoughts on breakers as stallions. Any final thoughts on that, man? I think we kind of know how that's going, but I want to hear your thoughts on that before I let you. I mean. It just feels like a defensive slugfest. And honestly, I mean, this feels cliche at this point, but whoever wants a turnover battle is probably winning that game. Although, I mean, this is the game that more than any, I'm going to be monitoring the injury or news and just making sure that Kyle smolders playing. I'm assuming he's he's suiting up. I have the breakers have a shot. I mean, that last game was ultra competitive down to the wire, but it's really. If I were to wager on the game, I'm taking the under as opposed to picking an outright winner for that camp, because I really do think it's a slug Fest that comes down to the final possession. And you think Sally and Sega. I, I I'm leaning that way. Their pass rush has been so fierce all season. Their run. Defense has been good. And I have more faith in the backfield of Scarborough and CJ Maribel. Doing things and at least. Keeping them in the field position game and helping them win that then, then what I've seen from the breakers of late. But yeah, I mean, I don't have as strong of convictions in that game beyond the fact that I'm not expecting many points to be scored. Ah, well, there you go. Well, this has taken me a while to find you Josh, but I'm glad I did. I thought you were exceptional today. I really appreciate that. I think our listeners will as well. Anything you'd like to plug or let us know about before I let you go. I really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me on I, I'm a busy man with the USFL content for fantasy pros and bedding pros, as well as MLB and NFL content. If you're into those sports as well, I will likely I haven't penned it yet, but ideally I'll have something up for betting pros, looking at a few bets that I like this weekend for the. The conference finals there. So. Well, I'm excited today. This has been good. I keep it's hard for me. I'm like deep dive, trying to find people, smart people that can talk about USFL, SAB. We have Jordan. Danny here with CBS sports and NFL and do all the things broadcast air. Ryder. Thank you so much for coming on. And how are you doing, sir? I'm doing well, man. Thanks so much for having me on your show. I'm excited to talk some football. It's good. Where it's been a little sleepy. The last couple of weeks USFL. We've had a lot of disparity in the rate of the air, the rankings and not all the games have necessarily had the full weight of the world behind them. But now we're headed into the playoffs. What have you made so far? I mean, you cover NFL, everything else that thoughts on the USFL here are where week 11 now going into the playoffs. Well, it's football. I'll tell you that. So everyone's excited to watch football and the NFL off season. No doubt about it. And I was the same exact way. You know, I got to say that out of all the other spring leagues, if you will. I enjoyed this one, probably the most. I like the XFL as well. Didn't love the AAF too much, but we definitely, from a CBS sports perspective, put a lot of thought and work into trying to cover this as a whole. In fact, I wrote a weekly gambling column for the USFL as well. That was a lot of fun to do. So, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about it. We can talk about the quarterback talent for all these teams. We can talk about just the general process of. He said coaches having to be basically GM's and go out there and draft their own talent, develop there and try to short through the weeds and figure out which guys were going to be legitimate Playmakers for their teams. So that was kind of a, a different, and a very fun aspect of it as well. But really the headline of the USFL is that this was the one league to get through a successful season without having major money issues without having a pandemic destroy it. So that's a really big headline in itself, and I hope that a lot more people tune in. So this final four playoffs are going to be happening in Canton, Ohio. Do you anticipate now? Cause we've, I believe me, I don't sure you don't live in the USFL Twittersphere like we do. And a lot of bakery and I'll seize and ride into the fans in the stands, all these crazy stuff, but like just the sheer paramount of them having now. You know, presumably in two weeks for crown a champion, unless the aliens come down and like, you know, a distress, like, is that enough? Do you think next year now people are jazzed for USFL 20, 23. You know, that's a really loaded question. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. I kind of want to see what an off season looks like. We know that the XFL is looming as well. I don't know if there's going to be any coaching changes either. And you know, you, you bring it up because this was the first, you know, inaugural season of the new USFL. So obviously there was a large facet of fans that were interested in it because it was a very brand new thing. I wonder about the retention rate of those fans when it comes to watching this game and, you know, was. Was there enough entertainment value to keep people coming back. I'm sure that there's a great amount of people that, you know, saw this. And as you mentioned, there's a whole Twitter sphere dedicated to it. There's some fans that just love watching football. And I'm one of them as well. So yeah, I'm very interested in the retention rate. You know, if this league is going to what they're going to be able to do in the off season to bring in even more fans to watch their products. You talked about you, the, the head coaches. Trying to assemble right from scratch. Like we have like bar Andrew's had a little bit more. You know, he's been in the spring league and south a little bit more. Okay. I can build this team. Whatever are the four teams that are in the championship. Are those the four best assembled teams? So you feel like of the eight. I would say so I would say so. And that was a question I was kind of asking myself, maybe halfway through the year to see. You know, we're going to get this final four at some point in time. What teams do am I looking at that I think had the best chance initially, you know, I thought the Tampa bay bandits could be one of those teams. They kind of faltered down the stretch. So, you know, in general to answer your question, I would say yes, but at the same time, it wasn't easy for any of these fourteens, right? I mean, a lot of these teams, you know, don't have their solidified quarterback. I mean, you look at Kyle, slowder a guy who was all USFL, but at the same time, Larry fedora likes bringing in Zach Smith to give him a. Breadth of fresh air to kind of switch up tempo. So, you know, a lot of these themes, even though even these final four guys had to fight through a lot of different kinds of adversity to get to this spot. So to answer your question, I'm leaning towards yes. Are we looking at a week, one kickoff in the championship here. Are we looking at a repeat or we're looking at Birmingham versus New Jersey. And in terms of like, do you think that like, they both made me. It's the first game of the season. It ends up being the last that's a championship game that New Jersey best Philadelphia this weekend and that Birmingham best said new Orleans. I'm leaning towards. Yes. It's not a for sure thing. It is what I picked in my gambling column. The point spreads or something we could get into later, if you wanted to, I am leaning that way. I really do like this New Jersey generals team. If you look at the Vegas odds, They are the second best team or the second shortest odds to win the championship, as opposed to the Birmingham. Stallions, but as you know, well, this stallion team has been faltering down the strategy, especially from a gambling perspective as well. Yes. If I had to put money on it right now, and I did, I would guess that these two teams are going to make the championship. But again, I wouldn't be shocked if who knows, maybe the new Orleans breakers, defense completely controls. What goes down on the field Saturday. Have you been a lot of money on USFL? A lot of money is very subjective term. So. I mean a lot of money, probably not a lot of money. I would say. I bet a lot more money on the NFL. Obviously. That's what I'm paid to talk about. That's what I'm paid to analyze, but yeah, of course I definitely played some money on the USFL. And in fact, I actually found some great success doing so early, you know, after one week of football, I feel like the way as fans and analysts, we kind of digest football itself. We're able to kind of key in, on some of those Playmakers, what a team could do. Well, early on. So, you know, week two, for example, I was a, was a week. I was putting down maybe more money than I have over the past couple of weeks. I did. I made money on unders very early on as well. Not a lot of points were being scored. Initially, as soon as the, the cap was open, what was it like week four, week five, when points started to be score, we started seeing. Both teams getting over 20 points. That's when I stopped touching totals altogether. So somewhat. Yeah. I like putting money on the USFL. It's very fun, but it's not something that I was trying to hedge my mortgage on. So look at them this weekend, right? We have the two games you're talking to me, a point spreads and some over unders. What is, what do we call that Vegas? Like what is Vegas favoring and these things. I mean, walk me through that. Cause I cover this every, every week, but all the fantasy staffing in sports betting is kind of over my head. Yeah, no problem. W the way I got to check the lines right now as we sit Thursday, June 23rd, but I got them probably Tuesday night, the New Jersey generals verse, the Philadelphia stars, the generals were favored by four and a half points. I think that's a pretty interesting point. Point spread because it's obviously over a field goal. And then of course you have to take into account that, you know, you can pick up eight, nine points. I'm a single possession of the USFL because of their new, you know, two, three point conversions and things like that. That being said, I laid the points with the generals. I think that they can cover four and a half. I'd rather a Moneyline play. If you want to parlay that with something else from another sport, or maybe with the Birmingham spread, whatever you want. I like the four and a half points for the generals. Now, as for the breakers in Birmingham, stallions. Vegas, as I mentioned earlier, it's still very high on this stallion steam, you know, they started the season six and oh, I think it was six to now is how far they got. And they definitely started the season six and oh, from what we call an against the spread case, which means that whatever Vegas threw at them, they were covering the spread. So they started off very hot and. And more ways than one, their favorite by five points over the new Orleans breakers. And I think that's more of an interesting matchup because the both teams haven't been playing their best ball as of late. I also think it's kind of funny. Birmingham doesn't have their quote unquote home field advantage coming into the post season since they're planning. Ken, as opposed to Birmingham. I wonder if that could be kind of a fun thing to discuss. But, you know what I got to say? I'm not bold enough to pick an upset in this game, but five points sounds like a decent amount for me on, so my official bet for CBS sports.com was taking the points with the breakers to cover five points, or when. Yeah. What do you make of this now? Birmingham is not going to have the home field advantage. We have the big trace Atkins concert. We're trying to get a lot of people into the stadium this weekend, but like, I don't, I just think Birmingham was really good. That's why they won. I don't really account for the 8,000 people or 10,000 people that were in the stands. What do you make of that? Cause I know we're kind of den Tonkin, like p**s poor attendance, right. That's kind of been done, but now not having the, the attendance or what do you think. No, you're a hundred percent right. I mean, it's not like they had some crazy home field advantage, you know, backing them as they went on their wind street. It wasn't like that. But at the same time, It was some kind of, a little bit of home field advantage. I feel like at times you could tell, especially if some of the night games they had, like a Saturday night game, they were able to feed off of the energy you saw at Scooby right into Markey's gates were doing. I mean, they spent a little bit off of that, but heading into the playoffs, I don't think it's that big of a storyline, as you mentioned, they're trying to get people into the stands. I'm excited to see what the turnout is going to be like. I'm kind of more excited to see, you know, which team is the fan favorite just of the general USF. SFL fans, who's going to, who are we going to be rooting for? Is it going to be the people that they put money on the teams to win? I mean, what's it going to be like, I feel like Birmingham kind of has captured the hearts of maybe the neutral USFL fans. Maybe just a little bit, because they got off to a hot start. People like to like good teams. So that'll be interesting, but yeah, I overstated it. I'm sure that home field advantage is not going to be some big thing in the postseason. I think that's a fascinating question of which team is like, who do we as a society cheer for? I think New Jersey, I think the generals, just because of the Trump of it all, not with all the political side, but just like that's the most high visibility. Like I always think of the general. So I think of the old USFL, like. Even though I, the stars one ride, all the, whatever. I think for whatever reason, the generals always resonates. Do you, what do you predict is going to be the fan favorite for the four teams that are in the playoffs? Yeah. So I can't really speak to the USFL of old. I didn't really follow it. Sorry to say that first, but. I think it's interesting. You bring up the generals because I feel like they might be the team that apart from the stallions really captured the hearts of those neutral USFL fans. As I mentioned, people like to like good teams, that's kind of how sports go to, unfortunately, sometimes you see a lot of bandwagon, golden state warriors fans all the time. So maybe we have a little bit of that with this, but. I bring that up because the generals, you know, and I'll ask you this question. I mean, if you had to pick a team to win the championship right now, I think a lot of people have watched the USFL. I've been starting to lean more towards the generals as opposed to the stallion. So maybe we start seeing the generals that have, you know, some kind of quote, unquote home field advantage. I know that's the team I'm kind of rooting for, but at the same time, I'm a little biased because I did place a couple of dollars on them. That's a hoist, the trophy, when it's all said and done. Well, that was the thing is even the generals did what the stallions did in terms of the undefeated newness of it all. And they just, you know, they had that first game and we were there, you know, we were in Burton. We'd have, for that, I. It was so early in the season. It's so hard to even like, think back to that where these guys come with off of two weeks of training camps and here we are at, like, I just think the generals were a totally different team right now. We talk a lot in our writers' groups about all this stuff. But even though with. GMR and all that. I think that they have a lot of momentum on their back of your head of them. The generals are talking about. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with you. It's funny because I did an article looking at the odds that Vegas released right before the USFL kicked off, seeing that if Vegas had the blindly bet, which team would be the best and they actually predicted the generals would be the worst team in the USFL. I think they were like plus 900 to win the championship right before week one. And sure enough, at this point in the, at the end of the regular season, they looked like the best team. So you're right. They're a totally different team. I mean, number one, overall offense, number one. Rushing offense, which is important. Number two defense, there are two quarterback system is interesting. I've watched Luis Perez and spring leagues before, and I wasn't necessarily one of his fans, but he's playing the best ball. I've seen him play. You know, over his semi-pro career. So I really liked this general seaman. You're right. They totally turned over a new leaf. Yeah. So. Deandre Johnson. I just, my head. Too many different names falling on his up. Yeah. Are you with Louisiana? He obviously came in after the whole bed homes. He know, got his foot hurt, but they, I think they just cut him cause he wasn't very good. I ain't seen him succeed here. If like he's just been around so long, he has more experience than all these guys in terms of just like being in these, you know, whatever you call them, fluky, all football leagues. That aren't your traditional sense. Right? Yeah. You know, I think that's a very interesting question because I think it's an it's, it's not a narrative that you can carry over to any single player. Right? I mean, there's some newcomers that have played really good ball. Not every guy has played in every single spring league has been, you know, an MVP candidate basically for this USFL league. But as I said, like, he really has been playing some of the best football I've seen as opposed to him in other leagues. And I think you look at last week, he had three touchdown passes. I believe he showed a really special connection to think it was Alonzo Moore who had two touchdowns, 84 yards. And obviously they got the MVP. Covanta Turpin as well. So this is a, this is a really good offense. Luis Perez is playing good football. I lost some money trying to fade him after the other quarterback injury earlier this year, but I'm not going to make that mistake again. I in turn, you know, you obviously cover MFL and that's your primary EMR beat here. Do you come on to the Turpin here? Getting the MVP? Are we sensing any of these guys, maybe hitting the roster here in the middle of summer? It's a weird time with USFL. You know, releasing right. People or you're banged up, we're trying to get to the camps. Like, what do you make of the transition now from getting players to the NFL? From the USFL? I wish this was something I looked at a little bit earlier in the season because I didn't realize that the. The whole regular season and the playoffs would be ending in that middle part where teams broke from many camp and right before they went to training camp, that's kind of an awkward time. If I was a leek setting up my schedule, I would want all my players to be. Ready to roll and sign with the Weber right before the first mini camp, not before training camp, before mini camps. So earlier this summer, that timeframe in my opinion, will make it harder for some teams to go out on a limb and try to sign what they at the very least could think of as camp bodies. But at the same time, I think we're going to see it happen. I mean, it's hard not to be intrigued by new talent, especially talent. That's been able to prove itself. You know, more elite than some of the other talent that's right on the outside of the NFL. So yeah, I think we're going to see a couple of signings when it comes to potential NFL teams. I mean, it's a whole different discussion. If they're going to find a certain level of success. But the NFL I'm sure has been keeping tabs on this, but again, it's a weird time. So I think that there's probably some of the 32 NFL teams that are more excited and hyped on the USFL and some of these players coming out as opposed to some other clubs. Well, it's like. And they have weird dispositions to like the Panthers, right. They bring in a lot of, they try that out a lot. Right. You know, certain, certain NFL teams, I feel like are a little bit more willing to take flyers on these guys. I just your sense, like, Hey, who, who would you be? Not surprised to see, maybe get a call and a look from an NFL. Any, any standout players? Yeah. I mean, you bring up the MVP, right? That's commodity Turpin, right? He's a very versatile wide receiver. He even worked a little bit in the run game. It's kind of hard not to be intrigued by that. And he's not the only one of the wide receivers that I think have been. Kind of interesting as well. I mean, watching the USFL for weeks now, you see some guys make some very talented catches and one-on-one coverage and that's obviously gonna catch your eye, but you also brought up something I want to touch on too is, and that is that a lot of these guys have to have flirted with the NFL before they've been in training camp before. So I'm sure there's a lot of teams that, you know, that could talk to another NFL team saying, Hey, what did you think about Chris ODA? What'd you think about the Markey's gates? You know, is this the guy we should bring in as a flyer? And they can say yes or no. But there's other talent that haven't really gotten that shot that maybe could be more intriguing again, I'm totally hypothesizing, but it turns the answer, your answer, your question, Chris Odom. He led the USFL in both sacks, forced fumbles by pretty wide margins. Victor Bolden Jr. Was an intriguing player. I already talked about Turpin. There's a lot of guys in the front seven of defenses that kind of caught my eye, especially as opposed to the secondary. I talked about the marquee skates. He led the league with 11 tackles for loss six and a half sacks gambler's linebacker. Donald Payne was a tackling machine. If you go look up those statistics, Gerad Fernandez from the breakers, he was in the top five and tackles tackles for loss, for stumbles, Davin, Bellamy from the breakers as well. The last guy I'll probably bring up. We'll likely the cornerback from the gamblers. So think he had four interceptions think that's second in the league time per second in the league. I bring them up specifically because I watch a lot of Maryland football back in the day, a very versatile Playmaker as a kick returner, punt, returner wide receiver and cornerback as well. So, yeah, those are the guys, just in my subjective opinion, I've kind of stood out to me. Are you overall impressed with the quality of play you've seen from the USFL? Yes. And no more towards, yes. Because, as I said, I think there is legitimate talent that made it fun to watch with some of the pass rushers. Some of the linebackers I showed it talks about Scooby right as well. It's like my favorite player. The running backs are come a dime a dozen, but obviously a couple of guys are very pressed to dairies, Victor, Reggie Corbin. It's you know, It's it's interesting. I'll put it that way. I it's hard. Either, we there's a rag there, critics against spring football and all this stuff. And I was trying to figure out, so either. We're trying to get some of the guys to the NFL, but you know, it's not the best time of year for that. Right. We're trying to get interest XFL as well. Like. What are your thoughts just on spring football as it exists, right? If, if enough of these guys just kind of carry over year after year and people are watching. You know, the non NFL guys play. What do you think? Could you see where it fits into the whole football landscape in general? Well, if that's a loaded question. We could spend 30 minutes on that for sure. I mean, the way I look at it and this isn't coming from anything, this is my best guess. You know, I see a lot of these spring leagues, you know, one, two at one point become calming the farm system of the NFL and have some kind of. Affiliation with them that could help carry them financially and also give them more broadcasting rights and things like that. Just more exposure in general, I guess I should say. It was very big for the USFL to complete his successful season. But looking at it from an NFL perspective, I don't think that they are watching, you know, the three leaks that have happened and saying that we absolutely need to latch onto one of these because they already had. For lack of a better term, a farm system in place when it comes to their practice squad and when it comes to free agency as a whole as well. So that's where it gets kind of interesting is, you know, is the USFL slash XFL slash AAF. Do they want to establish themselves as an independent identity as opposed to the NFL and their own entertainment structure? Or is this something that they'd be open to trying to prove to the NFL that they should be kind of a minor league system? And that's a very open-ended question. And in fact, I think it's one, that's probably not settled in the minds of decision makers when it comes to spring football as well. That's something that I've been thinking about a lot over the past couple of two years or so. So, you know, I love it. It's entertaining, but of course, with these players and this, this, this league as a whole is, is trying to make money. And that's kind of the really bottom line when it comes down to this. So if the money is taken care of. For the players and for the league and they're on solid footing then? Yes, this spring football definitely has a future. It's just hard. Like if it's, if you're always, if the goal is like we're watching the show where the guys are on their way to the show, like, I just don't know. You know, and then we cover all this stuff. I mean, I, I'm not trying to say. It's a bad thing or it's something we shouldn't be doing it, but it's where does that fit in? I don't know if three of these guys make it six of these guys make it, and then we carry over. Is there enough interest there? Is that a big enough success story either? It's all interesting questions to have in the Aussies and especially where, like you said, USFL has, has done what no one else has done for the last 25 years. And now it's complete the season of spring football, theoretically. Like I said, unless aliens come. Yeah. Sorry, what was the question? Exactly. No question. Just pontificated on it. You're good. His thoughts on is we got the over odds, things like that heading into the weekend. Either of these match-ups, you're more excited to see from a football fan before we let you go. We'll kind of round out the actual football talk here on the field. That's a great question because I mean, the stars in general played a great game last week, a very close game where the stars kind of came back at the same time we saw the generals jump out to what was it, a 14, three lead pretty early on. I wonder if the generals come out really hyped up and they kind of put the stars away early. You. You know how that would work. So I think I'm more excited to watch that game from a perspective of intrigue and talent. But when it comes to the breaker stallions game, I think that one is more up in the air, in my opinion. I mean, you watch what happened with the stallions last week. The outfits of why it kind of seems like it's in shambles, right? Yeah, the stallions. I said, I mean their center couldn't. They couldn't hike the ball properly. They had a lot of problems with that. Is this team that struggled down the, the end of the regular season slate. Are they going to be able to find new life with this new season and re-establish themselves as one of the best teams in the USFL, or is this breaker's defense is going to be suffocating. It's just hard, like a Nancy it's a long season for the amount of roster size they have, you know, these guys get banged up and when we talked and obviously they added the additional slots kinda midway through, but it's a long way to have kept yourself healthy now to make it to the playoffs and get these kinds of last two hurdles here of this weekend and next. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And in fact, a mutual friend of mine is. Was the former center of the Tampa bay bandits. And he has a radio show here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I listened to him talk about the USFL a lot. And he actually believes that the two best teams in the USFL are playing this weekend against each other in the Philadelphia stars. And I just blanked on it. The New Jersey generals, of course. That he believes those are the two best scenes in the USFL, as opposed to the stallions and the breakers. So that might be true. And I think that kind of leaves a level of entry when it comes to coming into this weekend, but you're right, man, the roster size. Teams have had to make difficult decisions all year long when it comes to cutting players, injured, reserve injuries, things like that. When it comes to some of their talent and, you know, we really have to kind of parse over those injury reports to see if these two teams or four teams. Our healthy coming into Saturday. So is that Bruno? Are you friends with Bruno? Mutual friends. Yeah. I haven't talked to him firsthand, but I was, I did a radio show with his radio partner when he was in Birmingham, actually. So I kinda sat in his chair for a couple of weeks talking ball instead of him out. And I'm in Nashville, airways, but he seems like a great dude. He's a fun guy. He was an interesting perspective too, because he kind of came into this league and it didn't really, it really didn't seem like, of course I don't want to speak for him, but it didn't sound like he's out there to. You know, make the jumps in the NFL. He just loves playing football. And I think a lot of other players in the USFL felt that way as well. While on the other hand, there's a lot of guys that are trying to show that they deserve to be up on the next level. So really interesting lead just in general and all the players stories, as you mentioned, you know, definitely brings a level of entry to this league as well. Yeah. Yeah. Bruno's part of that St. Louis with the XFL. So we're not quite in that world with the St. Louis guys. I know. Bruno's like a Demi God, over there, they left. Final thoughts before I let you go. I appreciate your time today coming on. You know, thoughts on the weekend, thoughts on USFL championship, anything you got. I'm excited, man, because as I mentioned, I think that these are the four best teams that they could have fielded for the playoffs. So because of that, it definitely makes me want to watch it more. And on top of that, I want to see what the atmosphere in Canton is like, because I know that the USFL has probably been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure that they can put as many people into the stands as possible. So, you know, I'm looking forward to a weekend of celebrating football, celebrating a spring league that was able to pull off a successful season. And hopefully we get some high quality play as well because. I think that's going to be very important moving forward into this first off season and right into that next USFL season. If these two, if these fourteens and these two games can put together their best products in Canton for the playoffs that could bring some people in. So keep an eye on that storyline. Yeah, I think it's good. I think these playoffs, these are all, you said, these are the best four teams. These are two good match-ups, you know, we didn't have any weird fluky, somewhat backdoor, the end that didn't email. I mean, it's hard to do that when you lay out for teams making that blanket is the four best. It's the four we expected and I think it should be good. I hope that they deliver and I hope I. I'd be fascinated to see the TV attend. The TV ratings and then the attendance in the stands. Well, I am excited today. As I podcast outside of my normal about here, we have JJ Adams with the post media, with the Vancouver, sun, and Vancouver province on. This has been a long time coming. I've worked very hard on this,@ but that's because I value you and your opinion, JJ, how are you today? I'm good. I'm good. I appreciate your efforts. You have to understand somebody. I have, I have two young children, so my brain is about the consistency of pudding or my brain is the consistency of someone who's been in Vegas for like three days. So I tend to kind of let some things slip through the cracks. So I'm glad you persevered. And we finally got a chance to chat. This is good. See, I'm on the Flamingo. Las Vegas wifi right now. So if anything doesn't look or sound as it normally would, I think it would be okay. We. For a few minutes here before we got on. So first off we're getting into week three. I have my BC lions and we're going to talk all BC Argos and all that, but just general. Okay. We're in CFL 2022. Week three, like how are we feeling so far going into the season? Well, you know, It when, when. When all the labor dispute happened. I was very, very worried for this leak. I was very worried. I don't think they could have handled an extended work stoppage. So I'm glad that that deal got done. And in the first couple of weeks of the season, we've actually seen what the CFL can offer. And it's been some really, really entertaining football, some CFL type games, you know, games coming down to the wire. It's been great to see. It's exciting to have football back. I'm glad to have football back in my life, on my beat. So it's been a, it's been a good couple of weeks. For the CFL. Yeah. I mean, cause obviously you, you cover all sorts of sports news, is it. CFL something you enjoy covering is that you're, you're excited when that comes back around. You're able to put on that beat that sports to beat. Yes, absolutely. I mean, The, the nature of, of my business these days is fewer staff, fewer bodies, more things to cover. So, you know, I, I basically in Vancouver, I cover anything that is not the Vancouver Canucks, and I'm very happy for that because that is a really toxic fan base to deal with. But, you know, Football. I love football. You know, soccer is my other beat. The football. But I love covering football. My team. Actually down there and my team's a town right now. At the Las Vegas Raiders, then my, my NFL team, but I really enjoyed the three down game and I really enjoy lion's games. And the last week of BC place was probably. The best time of head covering any game. In that dome for. Three years. At least it was, it was really fun, exciting atmosphere, and it was nice to watch some, some football game. Well, and I don't think it should be remiss. You know, you have the ability to cover this. Right. You know, we decide. Terry Jones last week, right? Relieved. Yeah, his position. So like, we, you still need to have these local beat reporters doing this and promoting that right with the various papers is I'll make that a priority to cover the CFL. Like we can't take that for granted, but you have someone. Like you, that's talented. That's going to go in and cover and spend the time that needs to be done to cover those teams. Yeah. It's interesting now it's it used to be a really competitive and cutthroat environment. As, as a writer, you know, people were very protective of sources, who they talked to, what they heard. But now as the pool of report is a shrunk, it's a lot more of a collaborative effort. No people really willing to help somebody out in another city. You know, I'll help a guy out in Hamilton he'll help me out and someone else will help me out in Toronto. So that's kind of a, the good thing about the industry now is it's, it's a, it's a far more unified and, you know, Friendly place. Whereas I dunno if it was as helpful back in the day. But yeah, like you said, you know, Terry Jones. You know, one of the longtime writers in this league. Things happen and fewer and fewer bodies. But the good thing is I get to kind of choose what I cover. You know, within a margin of error, you know, things that need to be covered. So if I want to do all lines all week, You know, I kind of have that option and sometimes you see that. So it's kind of that the good thing about my industry. As it's going through its its death throes. And now I spent a long time. I worked in local news and I was down in, you know, So California and I did. I understand that. We weren't on the paper side, but definitely that. The challenge is the bulk of these, I think with the CFL season safari. We had. The blowout, right. BC and I want to get your thoughts right out of the BC embassy game last week with Hamilton Calgary, right. Had that big comeback, you know, each week has kind of had at least one marquee game. That's like, oh yeah, that was the one where, you know, Calgary was down 27 points or whatever, and came back and scored. I, you know, Argos lions looks like it's going to be the highlight this weekend. What you said it was out of control in that building. You know, two weeks ago. Saturday for BC. What was that like being there and covering kind of the beginning of this helpful resurgence of the lions. Well for the first time, my covering. The team, they had the, the upper deck open. And that hadn't happened. I think since 2014, it'd been like eight years, you know, close to a decade since. Gotten that many people in. And I think that's kind of a Testament to the, the job that Mr. Goldman is doing as the new owner, he's really injected a lot of life, a lot of excitement, a lot of effort into kind of resurrecting the franchise and. That that first opening game was great. Outside the building, it was packed. There was, you know, they had the death naked was playing on stage. They had beer gardens outside that DJs spinning. It was like the roads were blocked off. It was. You know, shoulder to shoulder out there. It was a great electric experience. Of course, they had one Republic inside that was kind of a big draw for a lot of casual fans, or maybe not even football fans, just someone who wants to go to event. So that that was a big draw and they had, you know, 34,000 people in there. BC place has been notorious. The lions have been notorious for the last, you know, five years, six years for having really small anemic crowds. And this was definitely out of the ordinary for them. But, you know, the, the big challenge is can they do it? Again this week. There's no one Republic. There's no, you know, home opener kind of excitement. They can only hope that, you know, that performance that they put on last week where they, you know, put up 59 points and looked great against really, really terrible Edwards and team, but they look good. You know, helps bring some, some people back in, in the stands this week. I know they're, they're doing the, the party outside again, the streets aren't going to be blocked off, but you know, they'll be DJ spinning. $5 beers, $5 margaritas. If I wasn't working, I'd probably be in that Plaza, you know, knocking back some cheap Jackson. I'm going to watch a game. So, yeah, hopefully. They can do it. That's the hard part now. You know, that initial excitement has gone. It's now whether they can sort of maintain this momentum, which was kind of tough with a, with a bi-week in between their, their home opener and, and this weekend. I cut out there a little bit on that when I can I'll add that this. It just dark fallen. Yeah, following up on that on the 59 and 15 excitement. Maybe just, I don't want you to repeat what you just said, but just kind of summarize if sat last, sorry, like 15 seconds. The last 15 seconds. All right. So, yeah. Public, a lot of casual fans in there, right? Yeah. So. The one Republic was in the house. That pulled in a lot of fans who were, you know, Maybe casual fans are not even fans of football and all, but just wanted to, to experience, you know, An event and it was a really good show. There was a lot of excitement, 34,000 fans. You know, that hasn't happened in so many years. You know, outside, it was wall the wall on the, the. Robson street, which was blocked off, they had a state area stages set up for Biff naked, DJ spinning. It was great. And they're trying to hopefully maintain that momentum from, from that, that two weeks ago. But it's going to be tough now because there's no home opener, excitement. You know, no one Republic had drawn those casual fans. They are offering some, some cheap drinks outside $5 beers, $5 margarita is I'd be there. If I wasn't working, knocking. I come back a couple of three. Cheap drinks, but you know, I have to work. Hopefully there'll be a good crowd. To be sunny, the roof should be open. It should be a good experience. So hopefully they can keep some momentum going because you know, the. The BC lions have been really desperate to try and sort of reconnect with the community, reconnect with the city and become relevant again. And their home opener was a great step. So hopefully they can take another step forward this weekend. Yeah. I just worry. I even, I saw the reports this week. Ticket sales yeah. Are not nearly as hot as they were. Right. A lot of that's one Republic, like you said, the home openers. I just worry if we come in and it's. Situation. All right, you just froze. It's still frozen. Damn you Flamingo wifi. It's still frozen. It's still frozen. There you go. You're back. Stupid thing. I tell ya. I just I'll clean all this up. I just, I worry. Like what's the one Republic thing. W w why is it better to get 34,000 and then have a massive drop-off? Or should we just have done, like, even if we were to got 15, 16, 18,000 week one, No abs. I definitely think it was the right move to try and get that, that big surge of fans in, because it did. Spark a buzz. It got people talking about the lions again, cause they have not been talking about the lions. You know, this, this town is such a. Fickle sports down. There's the, the love, hate relationship with the Canucks. Mostly hate. Was dominates. You know, the, the local sports media, it's pretty much. Kind of overwhelming everything else is kind of second fiddle. The white caps, the soccer team are. Pretty terrible. They've been terrible for awhile. So they haven't been relevant. The lines of course. I mean, you made the playoffs with once in the last four seasons. After that long run of consistent, you know, making the playoffs. So they've kind of faded from view. So. Getting people talking about this team again was huge. And even if there's a big drop-off. You know, in terms of attendance for this week, I think. It was the right thing to do to get people in the door, get it on the radar. So now moving forward. You know, if this team can perform consistently and start winning some games, you know, that initial buzz will, will build and sort of germinate and grow. And so I think that's the kind of, the important thing was to. To plant that seed, you know, I don't think anyone expected them to start. You know, just selling out 30,000 seats. You know, every week. It's going to be a long road back for this team. Especially, you know, the way attendance has been with this team, historically, it's a long road back, but this is a good start. Now they've got to start performing. Now they've got to start getting some wins and it looks like they got the personnel to be a competitive team this year, which we haven't seen in a while. So. It'll. It's a, it's a tough, tough task, but like I said, hopefully that was a good first step. And now they can start moving forward. Yeah, I want to get your thoughts on, you know, Everybody else. Do you feel like. Them doing the concert, everyone coming in, you're in the local media there, this, there it's back, at least in the radar of people you're talking to that that helped kind of put that seed back that way. Yeah, no, absolutely. This, this, this town. It really turns off if you don't win and no one's been winning. So apart from the Canucks, people have kind of filtered away to other things, you know, gone hiking in the summer. You know, the, the, the, the way the CFL schedule is going over the summer. You know, a lot of people don't want to spend their time. You know, in a dome. You know, on the, on the weekend or spend their Friday nights when they could be on a patio somewhere. So it's going to be a tough nut to crack. But like I said, if once you start. Getting people remembering about the lions. And, you know, in the media, you know, it's also incumbent on me to make sure people know what's happening. If they can start, you know, string together, some positive results. Getting some kind of positive sort of, you know, feedback from the community. You know, working from the grassroots up, then, you know, it'll slowly build. And hopefully they can build themselves back into relevance. I am our domain subsidizing some of the concessions I saw, you know, the 5g. You've mentioned the $5 Margaret is I'd never heard of something like that before. Is that a unique thing in the CFL to have an owner say, Hey, I'm going to maybe subsidized to get cheaper concessions. Well busy place. The lions are in the situation where they don't own their stadium. Right? So they are tenants in BC place. So the lions have no control over what the overinflated ticket prices. That PATCO, who, who, the provincial company that runs BC place church. So the only thing he can do is, you know, You know, negotiate and hopefully get them to drop some prices. Or like he's doing now is he can control the prices outside the stadium. So for their premium stuff, he can subsidize that he can kick in some money to make things a little cheaper for people, which is great. And, you know, The fact that we have a local owner here. David Brayley was amazing. Figure in CFL history, not just for the lions, but like for the entire league, but you know, for the last 10 years, he's, he's been in Hamilton or he was in Hamilton and he wasn't here on the ground. Mar domain is here on the ground. His kids play. Flag football in north man. He is. He's boots on the ground. He's out there on the weekends, you know, shaking hands. Handing out hats, scarves, jerseys, shirts, whatever, you know, the north shore football league, you know, They have a partnership where their weekly MVPs get lions schwag. So they're trying to rebuild. The the fan base from that younger generation, get them back inside the stadium. And hopefully those guys, you know, turn into those long-time fans, which have kind of, you know, Dissipated over the years. So having him on the ground here has been a huge, huge bonus, nothing against David, really, but, you know, having him here, being able to do that, inject that. You know, not only the, the financial side of things, but just that, that energy in the community has been huge. Cut again. You're frozen. Frozen. You're back. My life will be on the post side of this. Ah, but the D do you feel like, have you ever heard of anyone like this doing anything I've had before. I'm like, I'm going to take money out of my pocket here. I, I. You know, how long does this last? I mean, people that, people that, that have a lot of money don't do that because they write like rich people that aren't rich because they just give away money all the time. No. No, absolutely. You're right. I, I can't think of another. You know, singular owner who was done that. Like you said, you know, rich people stay rich by not spending their money. But I think you, you don't buy a CFL team. In this day and age, unless you're willing to. Lose a little money. I lose a little money at the start and I, he can't, he's a, he's a very smart guy. He's a very, very. Savvy businessman has great business acumen. You know, his job is basically. You know, taking companies and kind of resurrecting them and turning them around and making them profitable. And that's what he's trying to do with the lions, which is also close to his heart because he's a huge football fan. So maybe he might be willing to dig a little deeper in his pockets because of that connection. But he's no dummy. He's. He's a, he's a businessman. He wants this, this team to be successful and thrive. And, you know, become profitable and valuable again. And he knows it's going to take some time and it's going to take a lot of, a lot of effort, a lot of time. And a lot of money. What did you make of the team's performance? Nathan work? I know there was a lot of questions surrounding him. Right. We're bringing in this young guy. Surrounding him, all these receivers. What did you think of the actual on-field play? I, you know, They looked fantastic. They look great, but they were also playing Edmonton. And Minton. Has been in disarray from. You know, last year. Which was a historically terrible year for them. I mean, didn't win a game at home and stuff. And when I came home and, you know, They just been terrible for the last two years. And they're rebuilding Chris Jones is trying to do something there, but so you kind of take that into consideration. When you think about the 59 points that they put up in the 15 points against. You know, but other than that, I thought they looked a very, very good, there were a lot of holes, a lot of questions, like you said, Rourke was kind of like the main question, but the other questions were, you know, how is the offensive line going to play? How is it going to hold up under the past rush? Can their defensive line do anything? Because they have been. Horrible. When it comes to the pass rush over the past three years. The other running game, which was the worst in the league last year. How is that going to be the only got James Butler back there. You know, what are they going to do on the ground? And so we kind of got an idea of the direction they're going to be going. We started with James Butler, James Butler. The third, as I like to say, he's the third James Butler and I think a number four, he just had a, a baby or is about to, so it'll be James Butler, the fourth. You know, he came into the in camp in really good shape. And he had strong some games together at the end of last season. I think he had three or four games that were. Excellent. I think his last game, he had 2 89 yards. And two touchdowns or something like that. And then he came into this season with something to prove. You know, I remember talking to him last year and Mike Riley, you know, who was 78 years old and bionic man with braces up to his, his hips. I was beating him in rushing yards and touchdowns. And James. James got to took a personal leave. Like man, this, this old ass dude is, is, is beating me. So he came back this year re-energized and we saw that monster game. He had, he was powering through tackles. You know, he's catching passes out of the backfield. He was doing everything that they needed to ask. He was. Even excellent pass protection, which was such a huge thing that they, they lacked in last year's. Or less past few seasons. So he had a fantastic game. That's great to see that they've got a guy who can deliver right now. So we'll, we'll see, you all have a consistency in this league, so we'll see what happens. Down in the trenches work was. Was on his feet. I mean, he's a, he's a mobile guy. We saw that he's good at escaping press. He's good at running, but I think a lot of questions where, you know, he's a rookie quarterback. So how are teams going to was not Rocky. He's a second year player, but a young quarterback, how our team's going to try and get. Get to him and you know, it's going to be a lot of blitzes, a lot of, you know, pressure trying to get in this face. And we saw last week, I think he had two passes. Over 20 yards. And I think the majority. Of those 20 passes were under 10 or around 10. So they're working really hard at sort of tailoring their playbook to get the ball out of his fan hands pass. So he's not. You know, Sitting back there waiting to get hit. Like Mike Riley was the last two years. And then. Defensive line, probably still some questions. They had a rookie come up big with three sacks. It kinda Teo Simione, you know, No one really saw that coming, but they also had made two big fried and signings and Woody Baron and Steve Richardson, both of whom were out long-term with injuries. So. You know, maybe when those guys come back, if they come back towards, you know, the middle or end of the season, we'll start to see, you know, More effective pass, rush. Because I don't think you can rely on a rookie getting three sex, a game as, as your, your quarterback pressure. Pass rusher. It just doesn't work. But other than that, they look great. Secondary. Full of all-stars full of vets. Young guys, TJ Lee, Gary Peters. Marcus sales. You know, really, really good players out there. So I think they've got a really good thing. And I think that, you know, any questions that people had about Nathan work, which they. Still have judging by all the, the writers picks out there for this week. I think, I think in my frame, in my opinion, he's answered them. So we'll see what happens next week. It's all about consistency in this league because they keep saying, are people high on the Argos this weekend? I mean, I did a poll, obviously my fans are mostly BC fans on my Twitter, but our people take an Argos. I think it's like, Split. I think it's kind of split. I think that people is probably split by region too. Like people who are here in Watson lines are like, oh man. They put up 60 points, they're going to kill them. And you know, anyone on the Easter, like, oh, the lines have been terrible for years. They've got a young quarterback. Maybe a really crappy Edmonson team. You know, I'm going with the Argos. You know, the only, only team in the east where the wind, they look great. Andrew Harris, you know, the, the ageless Andrew Harris. So I think it's split. You know, you said that there were a lot of questions around Nathan work coming in and how he could do, and. I think for me, he answered that question as to how he would do as a starting quarterback in this league. Last year in the season opener. When he stepped in for Mike Riley. At the last second to be a starting quarterback in. Katchewan and what are the most hostile environments? And we saw the riders, like jump out to that big lead. He threw a pick six. And then this was the time that I knew he was going to be okay. You know, I think it was the next series or the series after series. After he threw that pick six, he hit lucky Whitehead for 77 yards and touchdown. Down the sideline. He stayed calm. He stayed poised. And the biggest thing, the biggest thing a quarterback can ha have in this league is not as legs. Not as arm. It's his mind and he stayed calm. He said, poise went through his progressions and, you know, bounce back. So that's when I knew he was going to be all right. And sleep regardless of what he did last week, which was phenomenal. Yeah. In retrospect with Edmonton losing the game last weekend, I feel less good about the way that in BC place than I did two weeks ago. You know what I mean? I was very high that Saturday, that night, like, We're going to the grey cup. Yes, we all, where we were like, He's looking at the status now. Now the lines are second in scoring in the league and they've only played one game. I mean it. You can't help, but feel that optimism because it's been so long since, you know, there's been a lot of optimism around this team. So. Eh, I I'm kinda I'm, I'm bullish. I'm bullish. You know, I don't know if it's a great cup, but I think this is definitely a playoff team. I think it was definitely a team that could make some noise in the playoffs, how far they can go that remains to be seen. But I'm optimistic. I'll I'll I'll happily predict a great cup appearance. For them. Because, you know, I'm an optimistic guy. What can I say? Argos are one misfield go away though from that wedding last week. So I don't want to give there. They're the one when in the east. That was phenomenal, but they ended up winning that game. And that is true. That is true. Well, that's a CFL, you know, anything can happen. You. And just talk to Paul McCallum who went through the hall of fame. And, you know, we went back over that, that a kick in the playoffs, you know, 18 yards. Hooked it left. Ended up with a pile of manure on his front yard. So, you know, Anything can happen in the CFO. That's why, that's why I love football. I love this game. Anything else you're looking forward to the weekend here. I. You know, we, don't got a deep dive on all this. We're testing the internet as we go. Yes, this katchewan is. Back in Montreal. Ty cats with blue bomber is Alex staffs. Th the Alex got to get something to go in here. I feel so bad. Victor qui I don't know. It's like you can't. I'm our domain lucked out, right BC. You know, we packed the stands BC one. You know, Victor last week, you. You know, they didn't get as many fans, but then that was not a great game. It was not a great day. It's going to be a long road back for the Alex man. You know, It is I, I'm not sure what they can do besides blow it all up, which they've done and try and rebuild. But going winless at home for that franchise. That was unheard of. I'm not sure what the mood is on the ground. There. How people are feeling, but. They need to pick up their socks. And I don't know what the answer is. They got our boy. Simon over there now as AGM. He saw. Actually I wrote him my story. He had his, his four touchdowns in one game record or one half record tied by James Butler last week. So if anyone was going to do it was nice that we did it against, you know, G Roy and his new team. But boy, like. What do you think the problem is in Edmonton? Why do you think they've been just so devastatingly? Terrible. I mean, obviously I think the quarterback situation, right? I don't think it's not just, they want to say Arbuckle. I mean, Arbuckle did not play great. I thought, you know, Cody is Cody and I'm the Saskatchewan side. I mean, I don't, I don't think he's a super. Dynamic. I mean, he's, he's mobile enough, but you know, yet Arbuckle and Cornelius. And then we were bringing in Cardell Jones. I'm like, this is not like, they don't know what this is going on here. You got Trey. I guess that's a feature, but I mean, he's not ready to go right at all. We saw that in the first half, you know, he was. Like a chicken escape from a coop out there. He was just running around, making bad, throws bad decisions. It was a really kind of tough environment to throw a rookie into. But Hey, look, I said about, you know, Nathan work doing that in Saskatchewan, you know, it's all about how you thrive in those pressure moments. So I'm sure he'll be all right. But. Yeah, they need to figure things out. Under center and in Edmonton for sure. And then, yeah, finally I was ready to write the death knell on the stand Peters in that first half last week in the may. I mean, there you go. Believe I came back and who would have known. And I, that was probably the most miraculous I watched the first half and I went to go film a dance recital and I was getting the updates on my phone. And I'm like, what is happening here? Like. And then any, any thoughts on that in Calgary before we let you go? No, it was just like that, you know, that meme is like, Not gonna lie had us in the first half. Right. And then, you know, but you know, as we talked about CFL, you know, you can put up a lot of points in a, in a very short order and Calgary is a good team. I'm not surprised that they came back to, to win that game. I think they're the favored. Again this week. But yeah, no, that's why. Ah, you love the CFL game. Lots of points in. In the short amount of time. Well, JJ, I appreciate you working through the internet. Send for I'll. Have you back on when we're back in solid ground, I mean, the thing, the CFL. You either get the great games every weekend, or it is a little bit of a slog. I had a couple of people messaging me. Right. We're getting our new fans into the CFL. This season. They're like that Edmonton, Saskatchewan game. I'm like. It's either BC Edmonton. It's 59, 15, or it's like, we have the last three minutes of the game. Take half an hour and we have penalties. We're like there's no middle ground. There's no. Okay. CFL game. Feast or famine. That's how it works in this game. Feast or famine football. I anything else that they give you so much again, and I will look forward to talking to you again. No problem. Hopefully we have a win this weekend. It would do a lot for, you know, getting me an excuse to write more about the lions. So they keep winning more stories for them because that's what the Well, I don't always wear my BC lions, Jersey and Vegas, but when I do, I'm glad I get to talk with now. It seemed to be inducted into the Canadian hall of fame. [Unknown] how are you doing, sir? I'm doing all right. And then I apologize. In the car having to drive. I'm just super busy now. Obviously with. I lost you there. [unknown]. Well it's part me and part, I think it's the, drive it to say that again. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing well. Thanks. As, you know, probably real busy with interviews and whatnot and a work. And I'm just trying to. Trying to fit everything in. Low, is it like finding out the big announcement this week? You know what. It was. I actually found out June 1st. I was working. I was in Starbucks. I think, you know, I'm a real estate agent, so. I was in there doing some work and I got the phone call. And not really realizing the date, but that's a, it's my mother's birthday. So yeah, it was, it was very special. Oh, you know, last years, two decades, plus. In the Canadian football league. Getting all this coming together now. Does it feel for you kind of having your accomplishments recognized in that way? You know, I was. I've been asked probably the last two or three years, you know? Are you going in the hall of fame? You know, are just questions about it. And I've always said, You know, it's not about me and it's some other people and everything else. I've never put too much thought into it. And now that it's happened. If it is, it is quite the achievement. Personally. You know, It's still sinking in. I I've never been one for personal, you know, rewards and things like that in such a team sport. But. Yeah. I'm I'm pretty honored and yeah, like I said, it's still starting to sink in now. Yeah, it is weird because football is the ultimate team sport, but then obviously you end up recognizing individuals for their achievements. Going in. I believe second, all time leading score right in the CFL. What does that mean? Ah, that's really cool. I mean, Starting. Behind Louie. Number one. And all the time. Pretty much everything when it comes to kicking. You know, it it's just a. It's a sense of accomplishment that I've never really paid much attention to. People had asked me previously how many points I said, I don't know. All I know is I've got over 3000, like Lu. I mean details like that. I've never been one for it, but now I'm starting to. You know, go back and. And look at my numbers and seeing how they are, you know, And yeah, it's. It's just pretty, pretty cool. Pretty cool. Again, to share with family and friends. What has it been like for you getting to tell them about everything? Well, yeah, it's a. It's pretty awesome. I explained how I was told to my dad and a. You know, he got quite emotional as well because of, you know, My mom passing. Such as she's being such a huge supporter of mine that, you know, it's just unfortunate that she's not here, but yeah, everyone. I've got relatives all over the world and everyone's been sending me messages and congratulations. It's been pretty awesome. Yeah. My kids are, my kids are pretty excited as well. Even we've had you on the show before we just the longevity of your career, right? 2324 Years. At involved in the Canadian football league. When is it? I mean, They have so much time invested in something, whatever it is, especially sports and especially the Canadian football league. Yeah. You know, I dedicated my life. Prior to even getting in. I mean, my whole goal when I was a. You know, 22. 2 21 To 22. You know, my, my work, everything was football, working out my job. Bye. Bye. My job was scheduled around lines practices when I was like a junior player. So I was getting up at five driving. Disabled people around and getting off. So I could go practice with the lines and that'd be practicing. At night, it was my junior team. And so there's just everything I did. You know, I'm putting a lot of time effort work and it. Paid off. Quite the class you have, you know, Ricky Ray involved as well in your, in your Dexy costs. Any thoughts in anyone else that's included with you this year? Yeah, I mean, It's quite funny, everyone jokes around about Royce shivers. Because we never had a very good relationship when he was my general manager. So that's, that's quite funny, but you know, He's he's deserving of the awards. I mean, everything that he's done in his career. It's it's it's it's, it's pretty impressive. All the players, things that. Players are you scouted? And Ricky Ray, you know, I played a lot against Ricky Ray or saddles. Stood on the sideline and watch them. He was always the type of player when you're watching him. You know, he just had a very. Very what's the word? His composure and his. Demeanor and controls the game. Like when you watch the Tom Brady, how you just know what he's going to do. And Ricky. Had that same composure in the pocket. Command to the team and things like that. So very, very. Very fun to watch. But not to lose too. But yeah, and same thing with chip Cox, very intense player. Every time you jump to play. The new as you were getting. At 110% level. Great leader. And so, yeah, I mean, these, these are very well-deserving players. It's an honor to be. In with inducted with them as well as just be in the same category as all the other holes. Players. I think with a game football league. You have the fans hold you guys in such high regard, right? For all the work that you've done, this. This surprise you all these years later. Fans, still excited and still know everything about you. And in that legacy you have with Alliance. It is actually in, sometimes it's quite scary. About two months ago, I ran into somebody who actually has a. Friend acquaintance and a. I mean, he started pulling out statistics and stats and games of. When I played. In Saskatchewan and. It was kind of things that he was reminding me of, which was. Kind of a, it was kind of cool and kind of different. What's your plans now that you're, you know, obviously the ceremony's coming in September. This is all fresh this week. What do you have moving forward here with the Canadian league? You know, it's, it's the lions here. They've got a new owner. There's a, there's a pretty big buzz here in Vancouver right now with. The team. I mean, they only had one game, but. You know, they brought in, I think it was over. I mean a crowd they haven't had, and I don't know how long. It's it's it's it's exciting. I think that. You know, with COVID and everything. People are now. Starting to like, feel a little bit more comfortable and get out. So I'm hoping that, you know, the league as a whole is going to start to flourish. Even better than it was before. COVID. It would be nice to see. I mean in the late eighties, we were getting 50,000 people. At BC place. And, you know, higher numbers across the league. So I'm just hoping that we can, you know, get. Get more. More younger people out in a lot more people out to the stadiums. Move forward. Are you sensing that excitement? I just said, JJ Adams. That covers the team just had him help me on this episode is. Preview for the Argos game this weekend, but are you sensing that with the work that Mr. Domin is doing there and. Community. I am actually, I mean, You know, they're, they're having the street parties. Now they had success with it last game. And I think just bringing that energy and that vibe back. It is something, you know, you talk about tailgating. In the United States. And we don't really, or haven't really had that up here for various, I think legal reasons. Liquor laws and whatnot, but I'm hoping. That we can somehow. Create that atmosphere of, it's not just a football game, but it's a whole day event where people can come and have fun at. Talk football and, you know, just have that sort of comradery of coming out and having a good time on a. On a day where the teams are playing. Well, Paul, I'll let you get back to work. I can say I knew you when the, a friend of the show and now. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. Thanks very much. And I apologize. I wasn't able to just sit back and have a chat. And it's all good. And we'll get you back again. And I've actually been told as well that you're working on your birthday. We have Richie Sindani here, How are you doing today and happy birthday. Good man. I was running around a bit, just getting things organized and stuff, but no I'm blessed with 27, so it's good. Bad. 27. So far, the stamps are off to a good start this year. What's the season been like so far for you? Matt. It's been like. It's been good. I feel like we answered. Your trading account, we kind of realized we assembled a good team. So heading into a couple of games, you know, we've kind of had to play comeback a few times, which isn't obviously where you want to be living. And the regular season by. We've recognized that we do have what it takes to kind of take that step and challenge other teams and be the number one team in the league. So that's been, that's been really good so far. Well, it was tough. You know, Calgary, I feel like you guys get a lot of, I think just cause your pedigree and you know, how winning the franchisees. Oh, it seems like it's like, oh, like Beau's hurt or Calgary's behind, or what's going on. And then, you know, last week you had this huge comeback I was working, but I watched like the first half of the game. And then I turned off to work. And I was getting my updates from my father said, what the hell is happening here? What was the game like for you last week? That it was. Like first half, we just couldn't even get past the half line. You know, the Wayne. Plays a factor so we can. You as aggressive throwing the ball. So kind of the first house we were just looking around. And, you know, just trying to figure out who's going to be the spark. And I just remember getting a feeling late in the second half. I was like, you know what, we're going to win this game. I don't know how, but we're going to have a comeback. When this team isn't. The team are playing no disrespect. I just feel like we, we we've done a novice. I practice. We all we follow grew the better team they were playing better than us. So we regrouped. The second half. And Matt, the rest is written. Ah, you had a big roll right in the comeback and score that. What was that like, knowing that you kind of helped turn the tide there and get ready for that. Wasn't the tying field goal at that point? Yeah, it's fine. The last drive. So it was kind of one of those situations where, you know, we know Renee is pretty clutch. We don't have to do a whole lot, but get kind of into his field goal range. And then obviously if we can score a touchdown, put the game away. So all that drive, you know, you pretty much just lock in and you're just trying to read the defense as well as you can be in the right spots, the right time for Bo who was at QB at the time. So that's kind of what my mindset was in that last two minutes stretch there. I a lot's been made this week Bo. You know, playing, maybe not play this much. We've had Jake mare on the ship. Before before, right. I mean, Jake's a great guy. God says it into the weekend. I mean, either way you guys would probably cover, but what do you feeling like heading into the weekend? Yeah, I hope we can go in there. And just execute our game plan. Dickie changes it up every single week. We play these guys four times, right? One thing was playing people, you know, over and over again, they start to see your tendencies. So I think going into this game, you definitely want to get a win at least one of the four times, obviously, but you want to start it off with. The weight in the series. We're going to have back and forth. So heading into this game, you know, I hope we get off to a great start and guys are dialed in and they don't wait until they throw the first punch to try to make things happen. You know? Does it help that it's against that? Evanton that really hasn't. I had maybe the most stellar CDW. I have my BC hat on, you know, we had our heyday the first week, but you know, they even circled last week at home. Right. Their home opener. So does that change anything? We're like, oh, Edmonton, like. They're having trouble right now. You know what? I don't even look at. Choose their issues are in their locker room. But you know, when I look at Edmonton, that's a team you want to be mad and like it's battle over it up. It's kind of nice that we have, you know, two teams in the province that are so close together. You obviously watched the flames and the. It's the fans like it. And honestly, we want to go in there and be Chris Jones and his, and his ducks. It's just crazy that they haven't been able to get it together. You. Two weeks. Even just as a football fan watching you. I got this. Surely they got it. I eat a flip the coin here at one point and get it going in the right way for them. So, yeah, definitely. I don't know what it's going to take for them, but I I'm. I'm. They're going to come out and they're going to play pretty hard. So we're, we're definitely hoping we're going to be ready for that. And we can actually throw the first punch or at least respond quicker than we did in Hamilton. I talk about playing, you know, you guys known for. One of the big, loud vocal fan bases. Right? Talk about that. And being able to kind of protect your home field. Yeah. I think playing here, you know, the fans, they come out, they're pretty loud. And, you know, we kind of have that. It's kind of that. That label on us. You know, we're usually the team that pushes a rip, pushes the west a bit or tries to at least contest. Whoever's the top dog in the west. I think it's important for us, you know, in front of our fans to get a win every single time we play at home. So. You know, this isn't the labor day class or anything like that, but we can almost treat it like that. I hope we can see enough fans come out there and make some noise for us. You had a huge first week as law, right? First hundred plus yard. Game right of your car. I mean, really feels like we're hitting all cylinders this year. I mean, what, what are you, what are your thoughts on your, on performance so far? This season? I think it's just all coming together. Like not going to lie. Kind of saw it coming just based on my off season and then just heading into camp and. Any kind of life for me, whatnot. Kind of saw it coming. So it's not like a huge surprise, but it's definitely something I'll be grateful for to play. Well, especially now, First week to start the season off the proper way. Get the a hundred yard mark. And then just try to see what else I can about us. Right. Just try to see if I can make any other place for the team. And as that's clearing out, you know, for someone to get open, that's something that I'm down to do, but definitely no it's so, so. It's so crucial to start the season off. So kind of the way that I did there. So I'm happy about that. Because it's aren't you, the CFL season is such a marathon, right? So obviously, you know, I mean, look at like BC last year, and then we're not even relevant either, but like, ah, It still has to feel good, you know, getting me. Checking these milestones along the way of kind of having the first good month or can't you. Hitting your stride and just making sure you maintain it throughout right. Yeah, definitely. I like what you said it is a marathon man. Like you kind of realize that. 11 Weeks. So when you can kind of put together a string of good games or even just have one that could spark you. Right? Cause he kind of has to be mentally dialed in as well as physical. So it's pretty good to have a good game and then just show up, you know, week in, week out for a marathon. Kind of thing and just make sure you try to have the best performance you can. You know, you've been a part of the league for a little while. It take a while getting used to that CFL game, right? The Canadian game of me just, and obviously you, you know, you're from Canada, but like, is it, is it. W where it's taken you a few years now to kind of hit that stride. I mean, Is it learning process of that? Or is it just you're growing as an athlete, but what do you attribute that to. Like what you said there again, it's a bit of both. I think that I've been in the league for four years. It's my fourth season. So I think it's just getting used to the competition. I got to fight for your spot and cabs, pay your dues on special teams and kind of show that you're committed player. And for me, it was just learning to assist them. You know, sometimes I do think, you know, being a part of Dave Dickinson's offense. It's kind of learning, you know, the whole concepts and whatnot. So I think when I was younger, it took me a little bit of time and kind of grasp that. So I think now I'm at a point where I'm just constantly, like you said, I spent some years in this league now I'm a veteran. It's all coming pretty quickly. Now it's for me. Is it pressure? The staff you guys have surrounded you. I'm always curious that it's talking to this Calgary reg legacy and Dickinson deal, all the kinds of support staff, you know, top to bottom, like holding yourself accountable to kind of like live up to their expectations. I mean, not really. I think they kind of, they, they, they don't really put too much pressure on us. They kind of, you know what I mean? Like it's pro football, right? So if they, if you're not really. You're not making a place. They'll just find someone else to do that for you. So I think that's the pressure that you can kind of put on yourself. But as far as you know, them getting honest, you know, it's just little things. If we get lazy or if there's just certain things that we're not quite understanding, that's the only time they kind of put pressure on us. But no it's been, it's been pretty smooth sailing. You. Like I said, they'll just replace it. Not good enough. Figuring it out. It's your birthday today? Obviously, you know, in season here. What are your big plans tonight to celebrate? Are you able to do anything fine here before the big game? I don't normally like to do anything. Before, you know, just like game even like 48 hours out. So I think I'll probably just hang out, get some food with some of the teammates, get to know them a bit, right. Because things kind of happened fast after. So it's kinda nice to sit down and especially on like a celebratory night, it's my birthday. Right. So it'll be kind of nice to kind of just laugh with the guys and just get to see them and get to know them a little more. Well, happy birthday. I appreciate max making you work and putting this together here for that. Able to go get some dinner and we're wishing you, but I have my Edmonton shirt on, but I have a love, hate relationship with them. So I have my a. Coverage has been really good to ask. So we have our, my heart is in your corner this week, and I hope you guys have a great game. That's hilarious. I appreciate that, man. Thanks.

Episode 97 - BC Lions Szn!

Well, I am podcasting a little ill today. I'm a little. The weather. So Greg, you might have to carry a little bit as I might mute a lot when it comes to the sniffling. It's not what you know, This is a cold. This is, you know, it is what it is. I trust me, I've been there. I've been there. Yeah. Everyone's worried. They're like, stay away. I'm like, well, no, it's just like allergies called. We have great parks here. A XFL board has now unblocked to us on Twitter where mark follows us. Now. I think that we're making like a men's all, all around the board. So welcome friend of the program now, Greg parks of XFL board. How are you? I'm doing well. I'd love to take credit for the unblocking by XFL board, but that, that wasn't my doing so, yeah, it's a it's it's a good day. It's a good day when that happens. Yeah. So we're going to get Greg back on during the summer. I, it works out. Greg's a teacher like my wife, you know, it has a little bit of. It's still a busy man, but not, you know, working the nine to five every day. But I wanted to get Greg on. He's heading to summer vacation for a little bit. I want to get Greg's thoughts on all the OCDC hires, everything from last week. The DPPs I know Greg. As written about that. And then Greg is actually headed to the, for the showcase on Sunday for the XFL. So we'll talk through that and then this new breakaway data, that partnership and anything else we want today, how does that sound? That sounds great. So, I guess first off we were kind of pre talking about this. So XFL announced a partnership with breakaway data. They're calling it an innovative high-performance sports company. It's by the guy that like founded EA sports. I had listener sands was trying to send me all this stuff. What do you make of this new partnership today? Well, I think, you know, breakaway data is sort of the leader from what it sounds like in this arena, in terms of, you know, the, the speed and the, all the measurements that. The players go through while they are working out while they are. At practice, you know, you seen. The senior bowl this year. And pro football focus, I think would post like the fastest time of a player. Wide receiver running routes or something like that. And that's the kind of data that I think. The. This group will be accumulating for the XFL. And you know, to me, I thought the most interesting thing about it was that this data is going to go to the players. So it's not going to just go to the XFL to sit in a file somewhere. It's not. Even just going to go to the coaches so that they can see. Beyond what their eyes tell them about practice beyond just, you know, how many catches someone had, how many drops someone had at practice. It's going to tell them, you know, who's exerting the most energy at practice and things like that. And it's going to go to the players. They're going to have that data. So I think that's going to be an interesting tool for the players. To understand how they can better practice, how they can better work out. And just things like that to make themselves better. So I think that's a really cool feature of this partnership that was announced today. We'll also, you know, the whole thing we cover the spring league and all that, you know, and. That was always the issue. There is. I heard that some players that you'd pay and you'd be a part of the vape, you get your tape and then it was challenging to get that sent out. Or, you know, you're kind of relying on the league to do your own PR for you in terms of like sending stuff to the necessary agencies and yeah. You have access to all of that. I did see a lot of like, well, this is just another partnership for the XFL, even though like, I have a plethora of emails from the USFL, talking about all of their partnerships and agreements and everything that they're working with. I think people are frustrated with this, like, oh, it's just another, on the pile of partnerships. The XFL is doing. Yeah. I don't see a problem with it. You know, if they're, if they're proud of it and they want people to know about it and they want, I mean, this is as much for players and agents really, as it is for the public, like you and I, or even people that cover the XFL it's to sort of give players and agents an idea of what they can expect from this league. Because, you know, next year they're going to have to decide if they're not in an NFL. Practice squad or anything like that. Come, you know, the hall. They're going to have to decide between the USFL and the XFL, if they want to stay. State side. Certainly the CFL is an option for some players as well. But all of this information, that's coming out, all these partnerships that are advantageous to players, such as the one, the XFL announced today. That's something that, you know, when you have that scale of USFL XFL, it's something that players and agents can put on the XFL side and, and. The XFL hopes it'll weigh more in their favor when these players and agents are deciding which way to go. Well, that's the other thing too. We had today. I got in. Oh, they may have a disagreement online USFL, Aaron Wilson, right? He's like NFL, insider came out and he said, well, You know, per the league now, USFL players, if you did make the playoffs, because this week 10 is like the last week and the games that really matter. And then the playoffs are sat there, going into playoffs. You're able to pursue NFL contracts at this point. Right. I mean we're mid June, like we're in mandatory OTAs at this point. Yeah, this is a time of year when like, Kyler Murray isn't showing up and people get weird or whatever, but the exit fail doing that, you know, being out in mid April, end of April, sending players to the camps. Versus this mid June. Now, what do you make of that at the time? Like, is all these things factor into like, which is the better landscape of year to, for the lead to be in. Yeah, and I think it's more advantageous to the XFL because those players are going to be available right around the time that the NFL draft starts and. You know, the big thing for players is they want to be in camps from the beginning. You know, they want to be there for OTAs. Whether they're optional or mandatory, they want to be there for many camps. Because they, these are the players that really need the most time to show coaches, have the guys on the backend of the roster. They're the ones who need the most time to show the coaching staff that they're worth keeping around. And if you plop guys down right before training camp starts. You know, like the it's going to happen with the USFL. It does, you know, they're, they're a little bit of a disadvantage, maybe not a great disadvantage because training camp hasn't really started yet. And. The NFL teams can now after OTAs and mini camps, sit back and take a look at some of the rookie free agents that they've signed and the others on the back end of the roster and say, you know, is there anyone that's going to be a free agent of the USFL who. We can use to replace one of those other guys who maybe didn't show out as well in OTs or many camps. So it's not a terrible. Time, but it's sort of on the later end of what I think you'd want, what players and agents would want. So I think the XFL does have an advantage there. Is this hard, like, you know, these guys are coming from just playing a game. You know, we have the big viral club last week, the USFL guy got hit, like his wisdom tooth broke off. Like. You know, I mean, you're going from this isn't I'm training. I'm getting ready to go. That you. OTA. So this is, I literally was just in the football game last Sunday, and now. I mean, there is the wear and tear there. That is, you know, I mean, you're also going to be engaged shape, I guess that's one thing. He just depends how banged up you are. Yeah, that's a, that's a good point in terms of, you know, the end of the USFL season, where you've just gone through 10 weeks, maybe 11 or 12, if you get to the championship game, you're going to go boom right into training, camp pads and everything. And so that's a lot, whereas, you know, the XFL season is going to end and you've got some unpainted practices. You've got some. You know, many camps and OTAs, which compared to training camps are not as strenuous. So you do have some time. To recover and not push yourself physically, as much as the players coming out of the USL, USFL would have to do, if they're in training camps. So we have the two showcases this weekend. So tomorrow the first big one in Washington, DC, they have their showcase. And then on Sunday, it's going to be down in Florida. I did see some Twitter chatter that there might be like a press conference or announcements. I don't know if that just has to do with like media. Availability. And that way, I just saw a lot of like confusion there. What. What do you know, heading into the weekend and the XFL showcase. You're going to the second one. Yeah. From what. We've been told we'll have about an hour to be on the field. To watch on field drills. At the same time there's going to be select head coaches. And. XFL front office personnel who will be available for interviews during that time period. And so, you know, you're kind of juggling both, I guess it depends on what you want to focus on. If you want to focus on the drills and what the players are doing, you can do that. If you want to focus on the interviews, you can do that. If you want to do a combination of those, you can do that. So it it's. Based on the information that I have. It's very limited media availability. We're not, it's not going to be an all day type thing where, you know, based on the information posted on the xfl.com website. This check-in starts at seven for the players. And offense goes in the morning. Defense goes in the afternoon and they end around five and it doesn't look like the media is going to be viewing a whole lot of the Deon field portion. I I'm really torn with this, right. Obviously I wasn't on the media side during the first XFL, I've always been told that it was more of a PR let's get some action in the cities. Right. Let's get some fans out that like the number of like 18% of the players or something came from the showcases. But now I'm hearing that like, okay, the XFL we're really wanting to dive in deep, find these diamonds in the rough. We have one in Hawaii. We have the HBC U one that we really want to find these guys they've been leftover, but yet really limited media, you know, we're not, not open to the public. So I'm like, like what are we hiding now? Or are they looking at this totally differently than XFL 2020 did? Cause it seems like a totally opposite mindset doing the exact same thing that they did in 2020. And it's really opposite of what Danny Garcia has long talked about with the XFL, where she wants it to be very, you know, open and fan-friendly and, and all this kind of thing. It does seem like XFL 2020 was a little more open about. Media attendance. And you know, this is the first real opportunity, so I don't know how much. We could write into that, but it, they are having extensive COVID-19 testing. So media needs to have proof of vaccination and they are doing testing onsite. So I think that's part of the reason they're either limiting the media or, you know, kind of closing it off to the fans is if that's what they want people to go through, who are coming in from the outside, you can kind of understand why they'd want to limit that. But yeah, I think it's a whole other conversation in terms of, and this is a question I hope to ask on Sunday is the show showcases in 2020 being invitation only where these showcases are open to the public. So long as you're willing to pay the price to, to come to these tryouts and meet the certain criteria that were set forth by a player personnel, the XFL. So I think he did say it's kind of diamond in the rough. I think it would be a great story for the XFL to have. Someone come out of these showcases and star in the league. And I think that's kind of what they're doing it for it. And they've long talked about wanting to provide an opportunity for those types of players and. They're living up to that as far as opening these showcases up to. To the players who might not otherwise be on a tryout list. If the XFL were to send out invitations, Yeah, I like that. I like, especially cause USFL, it was like agent only, you know, you had to go through them. You know, they, they really only selected certain people to go to the Trout's. I like the open try. It's like, you sat next to him, like, well, you gotta pay to be a part of this, but I mean, that's a lot of effort. You're flying everyone there and they'd be like the rocks. The Hawaii one, you know, you're going to have people flooding you. A lot's going into it. So I still, I like that, that, that you do have to pay if you're going to be a part of it, but it is you're, you're opening it up to more than cause not everyone. You can be a good football player and not have an agent associated with you. Yeah. And, you know, again, this goes back to what they want the XFL to be about is being a place where the dreamers can go to achieve those dreams. And. You know, fruit for folks who've been out of football for two or three years and are still hungry and are still in shape. This is their opportunity to show out, you know, and I'm sure the league will get some great footage. They'll get some great stories out of these showcases. If nothing else. And who knows you might find a couple of players. That will. Make an impact in the XFL. Certainly by the sounds of it. The league is going to pound the pavement pretty hard for the players who are caught. At the end of NFL training camps who don't make practice squads. That's where I think they'd like to get most of their draft pool from, but. You know, you're going to have players who say no, I'd rather take my chances and do the tryout circuit during the NFL season and get signed when someone gets injured. And so. You know, you're, you're probably not going to get all the players you want from that. So you've got to supplement that for the draft pool, with a lot of guys who are going to come from these tryouts. It was mostly if they're going to have, I think it's rumor, I don't know if it's the officially announced the, a larger rosters just in general anyway, from the, from USFL, which has the, what. Why was it 45. And now we've expanded with raggedy. [Unknown] I, like I said, I don't know if it's official, official, or just very rumor, the official that they're going to be carrying larger rosters. And you just need more guys to fill that. Yeah, I think there was the report that came out. I think it was from ESPN about the, the, the meeting that XFL personnel had with agents and somebody, you know, 75 man, regular season rosters. I was like, wait a minute. Oh, that's not right. That's got to be training camp and then pair it down. So something got lost in translation. I think they're when, when they were communicating the information from the. The agent's probably who leaked what the Infor oh, what the meeting was about. So yeah, I mean, even if training camp rosters were that big. That's a pretty sizable training camp roster that you're gonna pair down probably to a roster around the size of an NFL, a regular season roster. Yeah. Why do we know? Why do we think we know whether we actually, you know, it's like, we know the cities now, but we don't really know that the city is, and we know. We use some of the coaches and now we know the coaches, but we don't know. This is always a tricky that's why, like, when I tell Mike or whoever like Mike Mitchell. Yeah, don't tell me anything. I'm not supposed to know. Cause. I'm still in my head. No with stuff. I do know what's actually real. Right. What's been officially reported. What hasn't, I mean, it all muddies together. At some point. I am going to be curious though, because this is the first and, you know, we might talk to us offline about this. Cause you know, I'm someone that covers all this, like this is the first, how are we dealing with the media? Right. This isn't okay, we're on ESPN or we're on get up or whatever, like this is. You know, you're from XFL board going out there, cover this, like I'm curious to see how they interact with you guys. You know, having this limited. Not a lot of availability you're driving and right. Presumably these aren't like I would be flying to the Arizona one if we ended up going to that. So I'm just curious how they ended up interacting with people. I was telling you before we recorded. You know, weirdness I had with it with the media distribution lists. And, and getting on and then getting off and getting back on because of, oh, we only have a finite number of slots per each affiliate. I mean, I don't know that just maybe it's growing pains, but I'll just be, this is your first kind of exposure to all of this. And. How do they treat you guys? Do they treat you like. Actual journalist, which we are. And I think we need to champion that and the all football world, or is it like, oh, Hey guys, like you're also here too. Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's the first opportunity. Not only for us to make an impression, but really it's the first opportunity for the XFL PR people and. You know, whether they've hired an outside firm to handle it. To really get their arms around. How to handle something like this. So, you know, there's going to be growing pains. There's going to be bumps in the road, you know? I, I expect that to happen, but, you know, from an XSL media point of view, all I can do is act as professional as I can. You know, and hopefully they see that they take notice of that and they recognize that going forward. Yeah. Cause I, I really mean that it w I think we just, as an all football society needs to champion our own media, just as much as everyone else, you know, there's this, sound's coming out with the cities now or with the teams. And it's like, w you know, we've known these things for six months or four months or whatever. And then, oh, well, you know, Kevin cipher, you know, and he's been on the show, he's a friend, but like Kevin Seifert writes the story. Okay, well, now that's gospel now. It's like, well, no, like we, you know, we can champion and build up our own affiliates and be, oh, I said, you asked if a board. Even using them to the extent and you sound like we, I just think we need to do a better job of like accepting, you know, the journalism that we're doing as well. Cause I think we do just as good a job. Absolutely. And I think you, you hit the nail on the head of the big three. Kind of how I see it in, in the XFL reporting world. And, you know, there's times where I'll go to news hub or I'll go to newsroom and read a story. Maybe it's something that I hadn't heard before that, you know, they've, they've dug on and. Really. All three have done a really nice job of not only analyzing stuff, but really digging. I mean, there's been long stretches where we've gotten no news from the XFL and. People have been able to uncover stuff and they're looking in different places. And so. You know, that's what, that's, what journalism is all about. It's about asking questions. It's about looking for information when we're not getting any from the main source. So I really respect. The work that, that all three groups do. And I think they've done a nice job and I hope they continue to hold themselves to a high standard because that's what it's going to take to be recognized. By the league as legitimate sources of analysis and information. Yeah, I just don't lie. I just I've lived through this with the USFL and like we're only either this preference or treatment and all this. I just, I get really tired of it. And I know it's. Chip on my shoulder that I go with, because obviously this is what we do, but it's really hard when. Like, you know, There's fair for the treatments. It's like, let's let, let's spread the wealth here a little bit. I think everyone's doing valid work. And I think that you'll get these scoops or giving the information or whatever. I dunno, I it's my s**t, but I just, I hope we'll see. Maybe the XFL will be just as bad as the spring league was and we'll have to basically beg to get player interviews, I guess we'll find out soon. So. Yeah, I hope it doesn't come to that. I hadn't. Can I please get cold Boozer on them? Like I have cold. I would go with the sprinkling people. I'm like, I have DME Cole Boozer right now. He's in his hotel room on my. Please, can you please us? All by the zoom conference, him is like, well, you know, I don't really know about that. So. And I that's. That's it to me. I don't understand because. A group like the spring league, you would think that they would want to reach out to anyone who would cover them. Like. What was the hesitation? I just don't understand it from their point of view. No. So we have the eight. Kind of we're filling out the teams here. Right? We have, so we know all the coaches, they're not. I think I said last week, it's not like. It's not, you know, the Seattle team, whatever is very much like survive right now. Right. We have like Anthony Beck's tribe, like who's on the Anthony backs for Evo. It's made things very, very strange. And putting out press releases when they can't say what city, these. These are these. Guys are going to be coaching and it's, it's very, it's very odd. What do you know the scene on that? You know, just the way that not only when the head coaches were announced, but especially when the assistant coaches were announced and they had to say like, you know, Reggie Barlow's team is going to be. Yeah, it's just like, it's the phrasing. They have to really be. Weird about it because they don't have, you know, It's not the normal operations. To, to do that. You know, usually by now, if you're hiring coaches, You have the city first and then you hire the coaches. I mean, that's the normal order of things as we've seen. Throughout sports history. And you know, now we have coaches for teams that don't exist yet. And so it's caused the league to have to sort of do some bending over and, and. Odd phrasing just to send out press releases of, of this news. It is, I will say because. Yeah, I obviously, we, you know, we're having the showcases, right? The OCS in the. The desert coordinator, they're all going to be there. Right. So that's why like, okay, we got it announces. They had the time because. You know, June Jones is going to be walking around with people. Oh, that's June Jones, Sarah. What's he doing? Hanging out with. Has it. Like that's why this June 1st and they have the Randy Krakauer St. Louis. That's why that made so much sense to me. Cause I'm like it's June one. Let's get the teams out there. Then we'll do this announcement here in the middle of June and then we'll do showcases that. It just makes sense. Like. Yeah, we, the last time we had you on, I think we had this smoke. It's going to Houston and go into like LA or Vegas or whatever. But like, what do you make of now? We're mid June. We have showcases, but no actual cities announced. It is strange. And I think a lot of people are getting worried about what that means. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say it's time to worry yet, but it is. It is strange. I will say that, you know, and I don't know, I, I threw this out on the XFL board forums. I said they might be waiting till USFL championship week to really set information. I mean, we saw. No more obvious of a, I dunno if I can say it, but a c**k block. When the XFL put out their news. The week that USFL games were starting. And, you know, that was, it's always been sort of the XFL dropping news around the time that USFL news had dropped, but it was no more obvious that they were trying to. Get out there ahead of the USFL than that. And I said, you know, it makes sense that they would want to do it. The the week that USFL. Championship week is, but I don't know that for a fact, it's just speculation on my part, but you know, if, if. The league wants to kind of spread out the news throughout the summer to stay in the consciousness of the football fan. You know, you've got these showcases a couple of weeks ago, you had the assistance announced. So it could be after that, that they decide to drop the cities to me. You would want to. That's information that you would want to get out as soon as possible, because you want to start developing a connection with the people in those cities and in SA. And, and. You know, five of the eight cities. Anyway, they may have some brand loyalty built in from XFL 2020, where you have people in the Houston and Dallas and. St. Louis who went to games in 2020, you may not have to reach too hard to. Get them to come back. But I mean, you're, you're building a brand from the ground up in places like Las Vegas. And in Orlando, although Tampa Bay's right across the state. So you would think that you would want to start cultivating that fan base as early as possible. And the longer you wait to release the official word that these cities are a part of the XFL, then. You know, the, the shorter amount of time you have to build that base, the shorter amount of time you have to sell merchandise, the shorter amount of time that you have to. You know, reach out to people in that city and to get stories written in those cities. At the local level. So that's my concern is, you know, you're trying to build a fan base in these cities and the longer you wait. The less time you have to do it before kickoff. I, I, you know, it, it gives you. We go weeks a week here. And you know, sometimes that kind of lose second. We were mid June. Like if the next four weeks of my life, if they're like, Hey, we're waiting for after showcases now, like, this is all we're doing. Cause they're very one minded, right? Like black Adam trailer comes out. Like we can't do anything else. Or like whatever, you know, And new Terra mana also they discontinued Zilla original and sugar-free this week. I don't know anyone else's as though it's drinker, but that was probably the biggest travesty for me, but we got to go the next four or five weeks, like. I mean, you know, I can only do so much here that put together a compelling show to talk about it. It really is getting like scary levels there where yeah. If we get the, like the XFL, whatever sure. It's like we saw on the. On the shop and then they took them down. Like if all we're getting the cities and then we're coming out in November or whatever, and seeing the team names. Aye. I really scared here for the next six months of our new cycle. Cause we're, I mean, we're sick. Like what, six and a half months out from kickoff. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can talk about the showcases if there's media availability at the showcases. Hopefully good questions are being asked and answers are being given that maybe we can talk about. You know, if there's lists of, of player attendance, like there was in 2019 for the showcases, there might be some players worth talking about or talking to from the showcases. And, and that's my hope. And as a guy who, if you ever read my stuff at XFL board, you know, that I'm. I love the, the, the personnel side of it and analyzing and evaluating the players and potential players. So I'm really hoping to, to walk into the Florida showcase and them hand me a list of, of the attendance. I, I don't have my hopes too high for that, but I'm hoping that's what happens. Just so I can kind of go back and sit in my bunker and do some scouting of some of these guys and write some stories about these guys. But yeah, I think. I hate to break it to you, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was the, after the showcases, when they finally revealed the cities. And as you mentioned, the leak that was on a XFL shop had just the cities on the shirts. And that's what, that's what XFL 2019 did they announced the city's well ahead of the nicknames and the logos and everything like that. So, Hopefully they, they have everything they're just waiting for the right time to reveal. Hopefully it's not a situation where. They don't have things lined up, whether it's, they don't have the lease agreements, whether it's, they don't have, you know, whatever else. It goes into agreeing. To, to play in a city. Hopefully it's not that hopefully it's just, okay. We have all this stuff. We're just waiting for the right time in our minds to release the information publicly. I think it's some guy delayed. I think there was enough smoke with these June. First thing, I think something happened. I got messages like, you know, was it San Antonio? Or like one of the leases, something was out. Because, you know, they did all of her luck before, like announced the cities and they had signed everything and then they had to pay more. Cause they, you. That's something else you can cover the lawsuits coming up next month with a Vincent and Oliver luck. So I don't know, maybe a. Maybe the mark Cass can have an official, you know, someone at the, at the courthouse or reporting live from, from the courthouse. That's what it may come to. You're your boss? Wade Keller was either I was there every day in New York for the Serra itself. I. I don't think he'll be there for this one. That was going to say him before I got sick, I was going to start off. See they have, I was going to say, how glad do you think that the XFL is that they're no longer involved with insect man, now that he's facing. Where did this 3 million when. What was this? Paid off for this 3 million. What a, what a wild story. The wall street journal reported yesterday. That the board of directors of WWE, which by the way, includes Vincent his daughter. And son-in-law. Is investigating this. Email that was sent to them. Accusing Vince of paying off a former mistress, $3 million. And now the question is, did it come from company money? Was it Vince his own personal money? You know, how did that shake out? So. It's that has the potential to be a very big story for WWE and you're right. You know, I think of. There was a lot of people who were unhappy that Vince. Was sort of blocked from. Getting into the fray, so to speak, to, to buying. The XFL back out of bankruptcy, blocked by the creditors. I believe who put up an objection to that. And. You know, I, I guess this is, this is probably not something you'd want to be talking about in the off season for, for that league owner. No. I, but for the showcases, I do think you'll need to do like w you know, I used to go to a lot more wrestling events and like, you hang out backstage, right? Like season. Shows up in the limo, right? Like. But, you know, you might have to get there really early for the showcase. Who goes locking in with the bag. I mean, they bust. And then I got the bus in everyone with like blacked out tarps. I mean, they're going to guys are going to be showing that I'll be curious because you're going to get, you're going to see enough guys, even if you don't have a complete list. I mean, there's going to be notable names for sure. They get leaked out of these. Sure. And you don't know how much the XFL is going to cover it themselves. You know, they've been touting this pretty heavily on social media in terms of Twitter and things like that. There was just another. Video posted today. With some quotes from the coaches about what they're looking for from the players at the showcase. So it's entirely possible that the XFL post videos of the workouts, post interviews with notable players with the workouts and things like that. Would they, and not me cause I'm I too sick and busy right now, but like a higher, like a, a second year broadcast graduate. Right. That's working in a local market somewhere. Get some MMJ, give him a camera, give him a mic, have him go around. Interview players, do stuff. Do. Like. Finger till football used to be really good at doing that. Even the spring league, not the last year, but when they were in the bubble in San Antonio, they had a girl that would go every day. It was like Kelly's three minutes or whatever it was. And they go around, they interview the players and this was the spring league. It costs no money at all. Get some kid. You know, even if you're, it's called an insurance s**t and pay him 40 grand, whatever, come out for this a couple of months to do it. But I think you could get so many good sources in this. I guess I hope the XFL does a good job of covering this themselves as well as allowing the media to cover it. Well, if you think about what, and I go back to what Danny Garcia said or what she wants to sleep to be, and it's not just an on-field product that lives for three months out of the year. It's a 24 7 365 day league. And if you want your league to be that you need content. And this is a place where you can go to get content. This is a place you can go to tell the stories of the players that the league wants to tell based on what we've heard from the ownership. So if next. January or February, there is a XFL show on ESPN plus where it shows from the time that Danny Garcia bought the league through the negotiations with the CFL through everything. There might be some videos and interviews that we may have to wait a while. It may not be till they really start amping up for the season, but there may be some footage of this that will be used in that sort of shoulder programming for the XFL that's been talked about. Yeah, I will see. I, yeah. We've been long promises like behind the scenes, hard knocks and the, I think the rock, they really send me that stuff. It was all stylized. Well, this has to be for the behind the scenes. Like. I don't know if people outside of the norm care. I do think United by football with USFL did a much better job. I don't think a lot of people watch it. But did a much better job of highlighting relatable stories that people like, you know, Dorothy, or my mom could watch. You'd be like, I really liked that guy where. I don't know if a lot of people, like, I want to see the rock by a football league. Like, I don't know. Maybe that is more exciting. You tell me, I think for the, for the vast majority of the castle fan. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know how you tailor that. Like I said, I think, I think just even a little bite-sized stuff with players, getting the coaches out there, you know, they do all this. Even us defend let's sit down all the coaches they'll do other stuff. Just see him on the element, interview him after practice like wrestling, they always talk, like, get the guys just coming back from the ring, talk to them when they're all worked out, he character and not this forest promo out, you know, we've got it all lit and polished perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's some merit to what you're saying. And I think there's some, some validity to, you know, how many people are really interested in the machinations of behind the scenes of a purchase of a league. I think it also really depends on how much the XFL is going to lean on the rock. As a personality. Within the XFL. Structure. Right. So are they going to be, if they are going to do some sort of behind the scenes thing from even the coaches meeting where we saw some snippets of that, and I think that's what you were talking about released on social media. With the rock, really sitting at the head of the table and doing a lot of talking. So for those shows, is the rock going to be a big part of it? We've seen. I think it was reported by Bryan Alvarez over at the restaurant observer that the rock has kind of blocked out. The XFL season, he's not filming any movies. He's going to give a lot of his attention to the XFL and. You know, you think about the rock. I mean, How hands-on is he really going to be once the season starts? Like what. What day-to-day operations is he really have to do other than being the face of the league for these kinds of behind the scenes shows and things like that. So you wonder if that's where he's going to play a big part. Oh like that. Before I let you go. Since we kind of, we're going to talk about this and then we got sidetracked. Bet. Like major takeaways you have from the coordinator hires defensive coordinator, the DVPs. I know some of the guys who return that we have Jamie Elizondo coming back, the Hayes brothers. Obviously this stuff came out last week, but I know that you're going to have thoughts on people's stand outs and stuff for you. Yeah, I did a column on XFL board where I kind of ranked. Wow, how strong I thought the. The combination of the head coach coordinators and director of player personnel for each team was kind of gave some background on some of them and any kind of relationships that I saw that these folks had previously. I think it's very similar to. The head coaching Jairus, where there is a very strong mix of experience and not so experience. I was really pleased about the directors of player personnel XFL 2020 had put together a really strong list. And I thought this was a strong list. You know, it wasn't. Guys who had been low-level Scouts in the NFL or guys who had. You know, gotten coffee for people in front offices and the NFL. I mean, these were. Directors of pro personnel directors of college scouting. I mean, they all have extensive top level scouting experience in the NFL. Some of it's quite a while ago, but it's all still very relevant to the position they're holding within the XFL today. As far as the, the assistant coaches, again, it's that mix, right? If that mix of new and old is that mix of experience and inexperience. I loved that Jonathan Hayes and June Jones are back. I thought they were two of the strongest coaches. From XFL 2020. You know, back his coordinators would have loved to seen them back as head coaches, but you know, it is what it is. Jones being back and obviously having led one of the strongest offenses of XFL 2020, which is a good sign. And one of his proteges, AGA Smith is going to be. Offensive coordinator as well. So you can expect two teams. With that kind of style of offense, which is going to be fun to watch. And I think the other thing that stood out to me is not only the diversity. You know, a lot of African-American. Presence, both in the front office and the coordinator spot. Which should not be a surprise. But also, you know, I think we looked at. The Terrell Buckley's and the Anthony backs and the more inexperienced coaches. And who were they going to surround themselves with? Were they going to surround themselves? With experienced coaches to offset their relative inexperience in the coaching world. And I think, you know, a lot of them did that throughout Buckley brought some guys back from. From the past rod Woodson, we don't really know yet. That's a blank space there, although he has Joey clink scales as his DPP, who's experienced at the. NFL level Hines ward has two very experienced assistance and Elizondo and Jim Herman. They were both. Court coordinators in XFL 2020. And then you have Anthony backed who has probably the least. Coaching experience with anyone one. Well, seven weeks of experience at the tight ends coach of the fleet in the AAF. And here he brings down Bruce grade Koski who has experienced as a high school coach. And that's it as his offensive coordinator and Donnie Abraham, former NFL player. As a defensive coordinator who has very limited coaching experience, certainly not at the coordinator level. College or pros. So that's going to be really interesting to watch is how they are able to meld together. And I think the one thing I'll say that. Has kind of, you know, the curtains kind of open for me. Is. When the head coaches were first announced, you saw the, the mix. And you saw. Okay. Yeah, obviously they wanted to mix of old and young. But the more you dug into it, and even you saw how they were presented by the XFL social media team. It was all players. Th the inexperienced head coaches were all players who had played. A decade in the NFL who had been to Superbowls, who had been to pro bowls who had been in the hall of fame. You know, these are not just a three year players who they're giving an opportunity to. These are players who. On day one. Even though they don't have that coach and experience are going to command respect from their players. Based on the credentials they detained in the NFL. So I think that was a conscious decision by the XFL, not just to hire maybe younger coaches or coaches that did not have head coach or even coordinator experiences their head coaches, but to bring guys in who were decorated NFL players. Well, it's like, yeah, if I it's like. There would be if I haven't held the heavyweight title about yet, but you know, 16 time Intercontinental champion, you know, three time European champion, you know, I got the hardcore title a couple times, like. But adding that in. I totally know what you mean. And, and, and presenting them. You know, it's like the Paul Heyman, right? Like [unknown]. Emphasize the strengths let's hide the weaknesses, right? Like let's not talk about Anthony back, not having the most coaching Anthony back tweeted that video out, like from his car. Hey, this is what I'm looking for in the showcases. I want people to man up exit valve retweets that you know, that wasn't some. Studio spotlight thing that was just him and his car recording that I thought that was a great look like. Let's get these guys out here. Position him as someone that wants respect and commands that, you know, Absolutely. He's been one of the most active coaches, head coaches on social media. And it's been great to see, you know, obviously he's taken this seriously. There was a. News clip of him. I don't know what news station it was from, but had interviewed him about, you know, being an XFL head coach and you see him in his office, you know, already going through clips of players and things like that. So, I mean, it's. It's starting already, even though the showcases haven't taken place, you know, we we've seen at least one player announced as being a part, being invited to the XFL draft pool. So even though we haven't had the showcases, even though we're still in training camp mode for the NFL, there are players at the XFL has their eye on. And the scouting has already begun. Yeah, I think it's good just around out, you know, I think G Jones, Elizondo, even Bob Steve's with how much this new XFL wants to not look like the old XFL, like. I think I'd be honored to be back as a no. See, at this point, I mean, you know, look at. You know, it's kinda like, well, who makes it like, okay, we like team. Landy and okay. We don't like seeing him swear at Stephen. Okay. We like. Bob stoops. He could be a head coach, but you know, June Jones can only be an OSI. Like it's weird how they delineate that, but I would just be happy to be back. And I did think it was interesting when they sent out the release. They did note what coaches were returning from 2020 and for a league that. Has not had a lot of interest. It seems in connecting with that league. I thought it was interesting that they made a note of that on the press release. It's still the it's still the damn the same to me where it's like, we're going to. I'm buying the house and then we're repaying the knocking down everything. I got this evil. The old house, but it's like, well, the why is very weird. I will see how it all goes down. I still have a feeling that a lot of people are not going to be happy. Especially when we get team names and stuff, whenever that comes out. And if nobody's ever happy when the team name has come out, I mean, come on. There's always people complaining. It happens professionally all the time. You know, whenever there's a new logo release, whenever there's a new team name, people hate change. And that's, that's what it stems from. Did you see the Eagle's new logo today? That looks just like the XFL logo, but just Eagles written out, like it's super minimalistic. Yeah. Yeah. And. Just another, you know, another change. Anything else before I let you go. This has been extended. I appreciate your time. Yeah, absolutely. No, I would just say. I'm going to do my best to tweet out some, any kind of information, any nuggets that I get from coaches and personnel at the Florida showcase on Sunday. So you can follow me on Twitter at Greg M parks. Certainly I'm going to have a continuing stories up on XFL board. So go there to follow. Whatever stories I write coming out of Sunday and obviously, you know, the showcases start on Friday and we're hopefully going to get some information. Hopefully there's some media there to interview. Maybe coaches and personnel there, and maybe we'll get some answers to some questions we have there. So be on the lookout for that on Twitter as well. Yeah. You're you are our eyes. There's I don't know anyone else that's going. I think mark was going to go and then he's in Disneyland or wherever. So Greg. Guys have followed. All Greg. It's where you really are eyes and ears. And I expect lots of like, Yeah, good clips. Maybe some like selfies. I want to see you in the action. I want to see you when they be in the media, scrum out there. I've my, my cell phone camera is not so good. I, I'm not an expert at taking videos. And selfies and things like that. So hopefully words will do because that's probably going to be my best option. A little Greg, we appreciate it. We'll get you back on when you're back from vacation. I appreciate you said, you said whenever I want to have you on. You're happy to come on. Absolutely. That's absolutely true. That's why I'm here today. You asked and I answered the bell. Well, I know that I'm in the football reporters of Canada now, is there a special branch now that we've like, I know you have also, I have now had an exclusive interview with Randy Ambrozy commissioner of the CFL. I do. We get our own to throw like a separate now party room for that. Wow. I'm not sure how I answered that. There's a special initiation ceremony actually at the next gray cop. I won't tell her. Like I won't spoil any surprises, but yeah, come prepared for the special initiation session now. We're we got a ticking time bomb here today, Tim. I had a windows cleaner scheduled to come to the house, to our house and windows. They were supposed to be here at one. They're not here yet. So at any moment, if this, the interview. Abruptly gets edited to. Fear there in time. We'll see what's going on here. How are you doing? And how was the first week of CFL action for you? Well it's. I mean, I guess it's just, what's exciting. Because we, there was so there's so much uncertainty. There was no. Seasoned in 2020. 2021. Was an abbreviated was a late training camp, no pre season games. And an abbreviated schedule by, by four games. So I guess. Knowing that we were going into this and there'd be at least a sense of normalcy. It was an exciting buildup and to see pre-season games to see a full training camp. To get, I mean, from a reporter's perspective, we have access to players. Again, it's not, we're not starting the year with zoom calls and it's such an impersonal thing. We have one-on-one access with players. Four. For reporters and, and anybody covering the team, it's so beneficial to develop that. Relationship. One, a moment players. Cause there's a, there's a trust factor there. And. I mean that helps us to tell our stories better. I thought it was a tremendous weekend of games riding me. I thought the kickoff was exciting and went down to the last second. I watched the, I missed the, the red blacks and Winnipeg game. I was working. I had my phone on at the wedding and I was filming watching BC. Absolutely. Just wipe the floor with Edmonton. I mean, that would truly was like the highlight of my weekend. What did you think of, of. Disney the quality of play. I mean, high scoring, lots of big games, lots of big, you know, big plays and everything else. Yeah. I mean, certainly the BC game. We talk about the CFL and three franchises with. I guess. For lack of a better term, a fan base that hasn't necessarily cooperated and attended games. BC would be one of the concerns. And to see 34,000 people. In the stands and it helped by a one Republic concert before the game. But when you're going to do that, when you're going to get 34,000 and the people in the stands, you better deliver on the field. It's one thing to go have a great entertainment package, and I'm sure they had $5 beer. They had cheaper beer and they had. Food was probably a great price and they had. They had a great concert, but if you're going to get the people there, cause a lot of those people were first timers or people who haven't gone to a game in a while. Then the perfect scenario is you deliver like they did what a tremendous, tremendous effort. Canadian quarterback. And, and for those of us in Canada, it's, it's, it's been a long time since there's been an impact Canadian quarterback. They're all they're Americans. And to see Nathan Rourke. Go in and have an outstanding game. Certainly good to see. And overall, you look at them. There were a lot of good games, low scoring Hamilton. And Saskatchewan. Defensive battle Ottawa. I think. From the perspective of a lot of people who watched the game, Ottawa, outplayed, Winnipeg on both offense and defense and at worst, it was a soft and they probably want special teams too, and still managed to lose the game. 1917. So to see the red blacks team that won just three games a year ago, go toe to toe with the defendant breakup champions. Team, I think that a one 90 of his past. Or certain ID 19 of his past 20 home games, auto went toe to toe with them and was probably better, better team. And, and we get a rematch of that this week. With Ottawa opening its home schedule. Yeah. I will touch down on auto cause obviously that's your big, you know, obviously the team that you cover primarily, but that's on. The wrap up on the BC stuff. Cause I'm curious your thoughts. A yeah, I was terrified I was going to turn it on and it was going to be like, you know, Three to six or whatever, or, you know, BC was going to be down huge. I saw it. You know, our friend, Dave, dailer a tweet this week. Like, well, this is why we need 10 teams because here we have a big, the big excitement with BC. Immediately, we go into a bi-week right week off, back, you know, week three. Do you. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, not obviously not the Ted teams and all that, but BCB and able to continue. It's this momentum now that they have going. Yeah. I mean, it's. Forgets. It's bull mentum BC. It's a nine as an odd number to have, and they were forced to have three by weeks because of it. Certainly they could get the schedule. Condensed a little bit. They could maybe start a little earlier. And if the goal is to play a great cop earlier, Either end of October, early November, they could accomplish that. And they've. Teams that have been talked about, we've talked about Halifax, we've talked about east coast. And I mean, we've heard in the past, we've heard Quebec city, you mentioned as well. And I'm fully supportive of either location because my two favorite home sit Aras, my two favorite visiting or cities to visit in the CFL, Montreal and Vancouver and Quebec city. And Halifax would move right up to the list because they're two of my other favorite cities in Canada. So I'm fully supportive. I think we go to 11 teams and go with the odd number again, just so we can go Quebec, city and Halifax in the league. Yeah. It was like, when Randy said the Avery, I was like, well, if we get 10, then we'll do two every time. I was like, okay, let's walk before we alright. Let's crawl. Before we walk here, like, Let's not put the car, let's get, let's get an even number of these. But I seriously though, I do you, was it just a concert? I mean, was it just a Mardel man coming in? I mean, I saw the videos, Nick [unknown]. Our friend, you know, they had, they was like parties outside. The street was packed. And I saw all the video coming out of it that I could, like, I wish I could have been there. I have this wedding two years booked, but I mean, is there, do you feel like they've changed that or it's just a one-off. No, I, I think you're really can change an atmosphere and. Vibe about a team. I think it's it's different than it was 20 years ago. Not only in the CFL everywhere. It's not like. You've got your old fan base that wants to go and just sit and watch a football game. Maybe the cheerleaders get up and, and they do a couple of routines and that keeps, that kept everybody happy. I think it's much more than that. Now. I think a football stadium becomes a destination. And people want to be entertained. Obviously they want their team football team to win, but maybe they want to sit. They don't even want to sit in their seats. They want to sit out. The lot of stadiums now have like guard rails and, and people are sitting are mingling. I think that that really is a really is our younger is the net is the fan base of the future. And I think you've got to keep them entertained. It's gotta be fast. Moving like football sometimes can be a little methodical. There's a play and a couple of plays. And then there was a TV time out. I think you really have to keep things moving and you've got to get that kind of a vibe inside the stadium and by the looks of it, BC really did manage to accomplish that. And if you've got people going to a game for the first time, or haven't been to a game in a long time, it had to be impressed. Like what more could you ask for you're being entertained? And, and your football team. What on a hell of an effort and won the game. So I think we'll, they have 34,000 people the next game, probably not, but you know, for a team that was drawing probably less than 50, between 10 and 15,000, I think if they could put. 15 To 20,000 in the, in the stands. Every game. That's a big step ahead. So we will be interesting to see what happens next home game for the BC lions. As, yeah. They kept showing that they have the sweet cam. They kept showing the Mar you know, a friend of the show now Mardel man. Like I just thought, man, he had to just been like grinning ear to ear. Cause it was like, I, there was a lot of unknowns, right. And this isn't like booking wrestling, you know, we watch wrestling and that's what killed me forever. Is am I. Vince McMahon. Like you can control the outcome of every match. Like the crowd should go home happy every time, right? Like, why is Roman reigns winning for the six WrestleMania? Right. We can control this. Amar you can't control 59, 15. You can't control, you know, Nathan work doing loud or, you know, Chris Jones and Edmonton kind of struggling. Like a lot of it had they're really go. You know, according to plan to kind of work out that way. So I was excited. You'd mentioned Chris Jones. I'm thinking of wrestling like Chris Jones. It would be that, that villainous manager, like, he'd be like a modern day, Bobby, the brain Heenan, like, you know, kind of brainstorming and, and being that he'll behind the scenes. Yeah, he definitely. If you'd never be a face. He was talking to the attendance. I saw somebody posted it today in our CFL chatter group on Facebook. They're talking to Argos home open here this weekend, they're giving out like 1500 hats, right. To the first, the blue Jays are given that like 15,000 jerseys. And then like, if you want to talk about like the expectations of crowds and the numbers of, I just thought it was interesting. I mean, Obviously Argos would kill to have 15,000 people in there, but it is always funny when I, like, I think they have the. The alternative shirt and either whatever Lasher and try there have like, oh, we're giving that 20,000 shirts or something. I'm like, you guys are never giving out that many shirts here. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's unfortunate. I grew up in ergo fan, so I'm going to always hope for the team to have success. I mean, I grew up in an era where they played an exhibition stadium along the water. And they were drawing 30 to 40,000 people like imagined that that was no, that was pre blue Jays. Pre Raptors. So the, you know, the entertainment dollar was not being, being as spread around. But, but the days are there, there are football fans there and the trick is how do you, how do you get them? And that's the $2 million question is how do you get the fans to come out to your stadium when you're, when you're against. The Raptors and the Leafs and the blue Jays. Toronto FC. There's a lot of competing sports. Franchises there. And I mean, I don't know. Should you be giving away a 10,000 jerseys? If you're the Argos? Yeah, probably 10, whatever, 1500 hats. That's a lot like just let's go to the game, gets a great experience. It's a great stadium. As I, you asked that fell down. Is that right? That right? Cause they, you I'm sure you've heard the whole Birmingham and there's Neil fans. Yeah. They're like given that beach towels and stuff, I'm like, I would just save that money. Like. At this point, like, I don't think you're getting one extra person because of the beach style. Like everyone that's going is getting a grade. They're like, oh, this is awesome. But I don't think you're attracting one more fan. Cause they're like I got to get my USFL beach towel today. Well, I don't know if they gave out free beer. What a, what a crap show that would be. I said, I want to talk about your new big quarterback ride. Jeremiah, Ms. LA. Even in a loss great game, right? A 380 yards, you know, when TD one interception. Do you think there was a lot of Hamilton, Ty cat fans that watched Dan Evans kind of struggled for the Thai cats and they're like, wow. Could I have them as Oli instead. Yeah, maybe. I mean, that was probably a tough decision for the Thai guys to make. I think. You know, maybe they looked both guys almost equal ground Jeremiah. Masoli obviously the guy with the longer track record, the guy that almost led them to a gray cup when last year. And Dean Evans, the guy that saw so much promise from, I mean, I watched the Hamilton game. And. They just couldn't protect up front. And that was a big problem for the red blocks of a year ago. And the thing that they successfully did against Winnipeg is they protected your on Miami solely. If you give your quarterback time in the CFL with the waggle and, and the. The wide field, your receivers are going to get open, but you need it. It just starts with what's up front. And if your offensive line can red blocks gave up the most sacks in the league last year. If, if your offensive line can protect your quarterback. You know, almost, I'm not going to say it doesn't matter who it is, but your mind was solely had some time to throw the ball and he was right on top of his game. So we're there Hamilton fans, second guessing and saying, why. You know, why do we keep Dane and not Jeremiah? You know, I'm not sure even Jeremiah. Would've had a great amount of success given kind of the onslaught. That Dana Evans was facing. You said that the top you thought that, you know, went up against the league bass Winnipeg, right. Held their own, even in loss. Do you think there's a lot there? You see a lot of promise here that they can continue to build on. I mean, obviously a love for coming off of last year, but now. Nonetheless. I do see promise. And it. I think maybe they caught the bomb or it bombers, I don't think played their best game. So you could say, well, Winnipeg didn't play very well. Ottawa. Played well, and still didn't win. And probably right. So I would expect to see Winnipeg getting Jackson. Jeff code is a difference maker, defensive end back this week. Zach Collaros who had his bell wrong last week. We'll play again this week. It looks like. So, but again, it takes, we saw a lot of good things out of the Ottawa team that we didn't see a year ago. And it started with your mind was solely quarterback play last year. Was was not good, but again, it starts with your offensive line. If you can't protect your quarterback, if he can't create the running game. Then you're in trouble and, and receiving core as well. He saw that Jeremiah spread the ball around. 300. 70 Or 80 yards passing, whatever it was. I really, really good effort on offense. And again, there, I think their defense played really well. Really, really shut down kind of the calling card or the blue bombers, which is the running game. Ottawa took that away from them. And if they can take the running game away, forced them to pass the ball. It's not, it's not their strength. They would rather. Run the ball right down your throat. So if you take that running, if you take that run game away from them and force them to go to the air, I think you've got a chance and a. Maybe they're one-on-one after this week. I got a lot was made. I saw a lot was made that Clara, right. Got banged up. Cody for jar that I did as well. Like they, they didn't pull Cody or they didn't do all. They said maybe that was a mess, like, eh, thoughts on that and kind of protecting the here, you know, such a cute quarterback. I mean, football in general, quarterback driven, but especially the CFL. Yeah, they've got spotters and I mean, it's a pretty. Ballsy decision to pull Zack Collaros from the game. When, I mean, they're on, they're in. They're all in there. Final drive. Going to driving to win the football game. And a spotter sees him. Whatever the sign was, whether he took a step the wrong way or, or whatever it was that they saw pulled him. And in retrospect, I think they probably wish they had pulled Cody for Gerardo as well. I mean, I'm all for protecting quarterbacks. We know about his head injuries. We know about long-term impact. And the better to be safe than to be sorry, in situations like that. How do you think. The Roughriders, Dan, I mean, obviously you. B Hamilton, but they were predicted like, right. Number two in the west. And I saw a lot of me Winnipeg and then them. Do you think they came out firing? Yeah, I think that, I mean, that game was really a battle of defenses, both defenses, so good. And then Saskatchewan got the offense going a little bit late, but it's going to be, it's going to, I think it's going to be interesting in both. Divisions, I think. I mean. Edmonton's got along. Edmonton better play. Heck of a lot better than it did or, or they're going to again be the worst football team in the CFL. I guess the only good thing about that is you. Get the number one draft pick. If you're really bad, but, but Saskatchewan is a good football team, but, but then again, so is Calgary. And, and BC, if you look at week one, BC's gotta be much improved. They've got a great receiving core. Yeah, I, again, I was really impressed with the quarterbacks, so some interesting things and in the east, I think it's totally up in the air, a big blow to Montreal. Losing Williams. Stanback. You know, arguably the, maybe not even arguably the best running back in the CFL right now is obviously a big blow to them. But if Ottawa can go toe to toe with, with the top teams, they got a bi-week next week and then they get. Then they get BC and then Regina. So we'll see how they come out of that. And we could have. Some, some interesting races. One rate, right. Maybe not one through five in the west and one through four in the east. But there should be some good, good divisional races this year. I would expect. I give me just two seconds. I'll be right back. They came. Oh one second. Perfect. Talking about BC stuff. Go back to that again. I mean, BC lion season today, I did pose some, my Twitter this week. I said, you know, did the week one performance. Is that enough to sway? Like, are we in on cause they were ranked, you know, them and Edmonton four or five in the west. 70%. I mean, I know I'm probably BC lions, heavy Twitter account, but 70% of the people said that they now feel much better, significantly better. Right. All in on the BC lions to season. I was that enough in week one? Or is it Edmonton? Just that bad? I wouldn't have guessed what it or Edmonton was that bad. I wouldn't have last year either. And they did perjured out to be, I mean, What we see on paper. Sometimes it doesn't bear out over the course of the season. I mean, I ha. I was sitting beside, I have no names, but, but. And acquaintance looked at the Edmonton roster and basically was just shrug the shoulders. It was like, So, I don't think I'm not sure of the expectations from the outside. Oh, the Edmonton Elks are that high right now. And the BC lions. Hey, we're one game in. We got 17 to go. It's a long season and you can't, you can't dwell on any one game. You've got to focus on the next one. And. And you got to win an awful lot of football games. One is not going to cut it. It's weird though. So, because it's only been positive out of Edmonton, but this out like is Victor Queenie, is he just like smoke screening that this is still kind of the same bad team as last year with a new coach. I mean, maybe it's not a bad team. They weren't very good in week one, Victor Quis done a lot of great things. I'm a big fan. A positive, positive addition to the CFL. But I don't know that he's necessarily a football guy either. I'm not sure that that if he's evaluating his team as being, you know, we're going to be really good. Ah, Well, let's, let's wait and see. Chris Jones. You gotta think that. I mean, he said success. Really wherever he's gone. So maybe we better give Chris Jones some time and maybe the Elks aren't as bad as they, as they showed in week one. But it's like, I was talking to the Amar domain thing. Right? You can't. I can only promote the team that I have. Right. Like a Mar can only sell at me. He can't, he's not making the roster moves there. It's the same with Victor, right? Like I can, I can only publicize yo he's out there painting the field. I mean, there's a lot of good things there that it took to build that Goodwill, but yeah. And the team is still a stinker. It's interesting that like, You know, we basically have to have the most forefront thinking kind of team owners are figure heads right now. And it's like, The I got the hand I've done. It's like with me, with my video company, I can only make myself so good to have a videographer I can promote, right. Or like podcasting. I can only be as good as I am. I have to, you know, we all have limitations in the world. And again, I guess that's why we play the games. I mean, it's easy to look at week one. And say, this team is really good, or that team is really bad. It's one of 18. And there are so many circumstances and events that happen in football injuries. A guy gets cold. A guy loses his job. So many things can happen. It's just tough to evaluate. It's tough to say the Edmonton ALEKS are the worst team in the CFL. And all of a sudden the BC lions are the best team because they beat them by 30 points or 40 points or whatever it was. Let's wait. It was a lot of points. And I shouldn't count that I, you really, you don't often see. But weapons. It's going to use another word, but you don't really see that happen too often. We see high scoring games. Going off and see a team lose by 40 points. A couple more. I'll let you get out of here. I appreciate your time. The opener, you know, don't tell Danny Austin, but I believe I, Mitchell did not play great right in the home opener, struggled a little bit Vernon Adams, friend of the show also struggled like even with Bo. The outlets, you know, I barely lost. I mean, you know, close game at the end, what teams surprised you more with that moving forward? Cause we always talk about Calgary being good, but they didn't look great. Yeah, I'm afraid of whatever I say, Dan. And like Danny might shed a tear. He's a very sensitive fellow, you know? The social media sensitive. I mean, I don't know, again, it's just, it's just really early to sort of talk about surprises or disappointments or. Success stories. It's it's just so early. So I hate to. Hatred. I'll just shrug my shoulders and I don't know. Is that it. Got a good answer. I don't know. I mean, no, but I mean, you know, a lot's been made in the off season and, you know, Bo I had the broken phone. And broke an ankle or whatever. Danny has all this idea. Danny is pulling that this schematics of like the doctor's print outs, but yeah. Bo had that and the shoulder. Here. He comes back. He gets a Charlie horse. He's in the walking boot. Now he's out, you know, we have Jake Mayer waiting in the wings that played really, really well. I just, at what point is it like. I mean, I get the Bose, the star and he's got all the tattoos and he's cool. And, but I, I don't know. I mean, I just. Are we tried the forest Beau Levi to be something that maybe he's, he's done. Well, I mean the legacy. The legacy that Beau has. I mean, I guess we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. But he's got a. I mean, competition is good. He's got, he's got another quarterback nipping at his heels, another quarterback who may soon who may be a star in the CFL one day soon. It's good to have that backup. And I think Bo's gotta be feeling a little bit of heat. You know, it. Job security wise. They're going to give him the benefit of the doubt because of what he's done in the CFL. But it's good to have a plan B. Yeah. And I'm just going to say, it's good to have a plan B. Now, if daddy, Austin is crying because well, plan B might happen. And what can I say? I mean, it's almost like, and like our Danny and Bo. The Eddie's always so weird because he's like, I don't, I'm not a fan of these teams. Cause when Calgary, like when the crack in drafted them, like we took one of the Calgary guys and I was like, yo welfare check on Danny Austin. And he's like, well, I'm not really a fan of these teams. Like I just cover that. But yeah, he like loves believe I Mitchell. It's very weird. It's a disconnect there. I don't, you, you need to pick one side or the other. Yeah, he is the biggest fan. Among amongst anybody who covers the CFL. There's Dan Boyd. Danny the fan boy. No, no, Danny's a great reporter, but I think he's, he's close to the situation and there's empathy. I think. Four four and certainly an appreciation for the players on my team. There's nothing wrong with that. Ah, Well, There's nothing wrong with that. Moving forward any five. Thoughts right. This'll air after either Montreal says they're going to kill Toronto. I mean, that seems kind of violent, but moving into the season after the Thursday game, any other big thoughts, storylines that you're tracking on your reporter's notepad? Report his notepad is so passe, like, like it's like, it's like, you know, we record things and I don't know. The one that couldn't log into the zoom site. The funny thing of a reporter's notepad is as I've gotten older, I can, I can understand my writing even less. So if I have to rely totally on the notepad is like, I have no idea. What I just wrote is like a, like a doctor, except at least the doctor knows what the short forms. I look at my notes. It's like, oh no, I have no idea what that says, but. I'm losing it. That's good. Looking at my day for you. This is like close to Tim's happy hour. You're recording late in the day. I appreciate it. I'm getting old now almost. It's nap time. I finished my writing and maybe go for a sleep, you know, maybe dinner and then a nap or. Nap and then dinner. It, let me looking ahead. It'll be, I think it will be interesting to see this weekend. How the, the team that has been to the past to grade cops rebounds. Because I think. Probably the Thai guys feel that they didn't play their certainly their best game. I think the defense really kept them in the game. But offensively, as you said, Dana Evans was under siege. Most of the games. So I think it'll be interesting to see how they rebound a Calgary. I think it's Calgary right this week. It'll be interesting to see how they rebound. Adversity you face adversity. And if you're going to be a good football team, you better, you better tackle adversity. Head on. It's not something you want to let linger. So it'll be interesting to see. I think we know their defense is good. They've got a lot of, of all-star players on the defense side of the ball. It'll be interesting to see if they can get some offensive spark. I think that's kind of the storyline. And I think the Ottawa thing still is because you've got the. Defending back-to-back defending great cup champions coming in and a team that you get dominated a week ago and fell short. So what do you do differently? That gets you on the winning side. In front of your home crowd. Last question for me, I'll let you, I see that my window washer is circling outside here. I don't. I mean, I I'm a fan of hyperbole, so we'll go with a Edmonton. Is this is a must-win game for Edmonton this weekend. You can't start owing to losing at home. Saskatchewan did look really good last week. I mean, this is a, that's probably that. To me, that's the game. I'm going to be watching the closest this weekend. Yeah, and I, but I don't like Edmonton chances. I mean, you say you can't start Owen too, but it is an 18 game schedule. So you really, you can, you've got to figure out if you're going to lose, how do you, how do you. They're not going into the game to lose, but if you do, you've got to establish some kind of momentum. You can't go out and get smoked by 40 points. Again, you've got to figure some things out. I got to think they'll come out with a lot better effort. I think the riders are pretty good. It's going to be a really, really tough test for the Elks. And I don't know, maybe they look at it as a measuring stick. Maybe they. Maybe they find a way to get redemption and to bounce back from what was really a smelly stinky effort last week. So we'll see. You're right. That's another interesting game. Oh 10 bands. I really appreciate it. I will probably eight. We have to, you know, 21 week season, we have to get you on again before the end of this season. But regardless, I'll see you in vagina. I did buy gray cap tickets just in case there's any shenanigans with that. Well, this is my last interview of the day, but it is honestly the one I'm most excited for. We have Keon Hatcher here of America CFL team. As I called them, the BC lions, how are you doing, sir? I'm doing good, man. How are you? I'm good. So I, Matt baker moved worlds to get you on the show this week. I really appreciate it. You're on vacation while on the bi-week in Houston here, you're on vacation with your family. How's how's your week going so far? My week's been great. You know, got that first game out of the way. Kind of good to get this, you know, second, second week by week just to get back to the family and see them before things actually really get going. So it's been really good. So I would have been in BC for the kickoff. We've had everyone from your organization. Ah, we had the Mar Dillman on a few weeks ago, leading up to the season. I had to work. I'm a wedding videographer, and I had a wedding that had been rescheduled. From two years ago, so I couldn't make it. What was it like in the 59 to 15 victory that you guys had over the Edmonton Alex? It was, it was exciting, man. It was a very exciting game. It was an exciting night, you know, first, first game of the season, then you have, you know, the big old concert with one Republic before the, before the game. And. You know, the crowd came out and they had electrifying out there, man. It was really good night. It was fun. And there's one to remember for sure. Yeah. What was it like playing in front of him in the biggest crab BC places had for quite a long time, 34,000 and change a fans there. It was, it was huge, man. Like I said, the first it's the first time I seen the stadium like that since I've been here. And I expect that, you know, I expect more of this season just because you know, how we came out and put on the show. So I expect them to come out and, you know, watch this more. Sure. So, you know, we've been talking to everyone the off season and a lot of excitement for Nathan Rourke, a lot of excitement for you guys, all the receivers, you know, Andrew Pearson's been on the show, a line guy. I don't know if anyone expected it to be such like just a blowout, really dominated. He winded me. Did you guys, what does she think when you look up at the scoreboard? Like we're up like six touchdowns right now. So be honest, I don't think you're really surprised just because of the work we put in, man. Camp camp was heavy for us mentally. You know, we put a lot of things in and everyone took a strong, you know what I mean? They came in, they were locked in and you know, was ready to get to work. So I don't think it really surprised us, but it being a professional game, you know, you look at the scoreboard, you like, man, We really did that. Didn't so it was very exciting. I've heard a lot of email. Now we're going into the bike coming back. You think that that's good. Get the first wind on your belt. You take a week, go back, see your family. And then you're kind of in, for the long haul. How are you looking at here approaching week three and beyond? Oh a week they're beyond, man. Just got to stay locked in. You know, this, this downtime. Like I said with me, just out here being with my family is really good for me, you know? Just to get that out of the way. So, you know what I'm saying? I get to see them, make sure everything is good with them. And now it's time to get back to work, man. I think we got like, probably like a five game stretch. So just got a lock in and, you know, get ready for. Who were you most impressed by, but you had a great game. Emmy, a lot of people had a great game. Who are you most impressed by any of your teammates first week out? I was most impressed by the young guy, young of. 47. I can't think of it, that he is. C C all need she only. Yes. Y'all. I only had three sex. And his first, his first coming out. So I was very excited for the young bull. You know, and the whole team, really, man, I feel like we got pieces in every position that's going to help. I put this puzzle together, you know, and help us go on a run for what we want to do. So. Yeah. I mean, you gotta, you know, Butler ran in the budge, you had, the defense was locked down, right? A tray for it to have like two or three intercessors. I was trying to film and watch the game. I was probably not doing the best. And he just was crazy about you as both sides of the ball. Cause I had heard all Aussies. BC lions. They can't run the ball. The old lion stinks defense. We're getting there. Right. I mean, I thought Ryan Phillips really had you guys, you know, locked down on that side of the ball as well. I mean. I guess speak to just the coaches and, and getting you guys prepared for the season. They've done a great job. Like I said, capital's hard on the snow. From a mental standpoint, for the most part, you know, they throw a lot of things that is, but like I said, I feel like as a team. You know, We're very locked in on the, on the scheme of things and how coach wants things to be done. So. This fan locked in, man, stand true to, you know, the, the process. And I feel like everything else is going to take care of herself, because like I said, we have the puzzle, we have the pieces of the puzzle. You. So we just got to put it together. What'd you make of, you know, obviously he had played last season, but Nathan work, you know, coming out really excelling. Yeah. There've been a lot of questions. Right. We have a young Canadian quarterback. Obviously he played for when Michael Riley was out last season. How do you think he did. Late did amazing. I feel like our whole team and anybody who knows Nate. They knew what, you know, he's going to go out there and do a knows what he's done to go out there and do just the type of person he is, you know? During camp you hear about. It's, TV's not on the, not on his shelf. You know, he has, it turned off. On the ground facing the wall. That's just how locked in. He is. Mentally. You know, and prepare for this season. So I feel like anybody who knows Nate. Anybody who's been around Nate. You know, isn't surprised at the production. He's put on the field and what he's going to do in the future. So. That's the type of person that is. Have you heard from anyone else from any of the other teams following. I mean, I know you've been on the buyer with your family, so maybe not, but if you heard from any of the other guys. Yeah. Or from a few guys. Once you guys. And that's exciting. Let's just say there, they are excited. They are excited to see us in person. So. Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. I think it's going to be a great year. For everyone. Yeah, we can't wait to get it started. It's just, it feels really good. I just think BC has been slapped on the whole off season. They had us fourth or fifth in the west. You know what the Edmonton and like, what are we doing here? This is a team I've attached to you. Then my whole personality to now is. We're at the BC lions, Steve. And it really felt good. It felt like some critics really had to kind of eat a little bit of Crow over the weekend. Yeah, most definitely. I seen at the beginning of before the first game. I think they had us like a eight out of nine. You. But, but that's okay. No. What I'm saying is not where you start, it's where you finish and we're not done yet. So we got a lot of work to do. You pay a 10. Because some guys say I don't pay attention to that at all. Do you pay attention to any of that? Where the pundits put yet? Yeah, I definitely do. I definitely do. I can't say I don't because, you know, I got to see where their mind is at and we need to change that. So like I said, it's a lot of work to be done and. I'm sure we'll get that done as well. So you guys are hosting again, you know, next week, Toronto, they're playing, they're kicking off like literally right now, as we're talking about this, Toronto's made a lot of moves in the off season. Are you, are you excited to face them excited to host? What do you think about with the week three matchup? I'm excited. Like you said the game's kicking off now. So as soon as we get off here, I'm about to go turn it all, you know, get a little film study, see what they got going. But yeah, I'm excited, man. I'm excited to bring them into town. You know, do what we do get down. Was it. And the atmosphere, and obviously you guys are getting ready for the game, but you know, the atmosphere and the videos I saw from the [unknown]. [Unknown] you know, your guys, this whole team. The people hanging out outside, you know, it's like the party on the street, everyone that's like, what was just that atmosphere? Like it kinda anything like you had seen there before, right? Yeah. Like I said, it was the first time I've seen BC place look like that. The atmosphere was crazy. The fans were crazy. It was loud. It was wild, man. Like I said, just, just the way we came out and executed that first game, you know, I expect us to have a lot of more packed out games like that. And hopefully, so. You know, they come and show their support and, you know, we keep continuing to give them a show like that. What else are you doing this week? You're on the, by hanging out with your family, he said, what are you going to be spending your time with besides obviously scout in the Argonauts? Taking my daughter to the pool, you know, having some fun with her. And my lady and just, you know, trying to stay in, staying ready, staying ready for this next week. Coming up. So, yeah, I'm excited, man. It's going to be a great year. Well, I really appreciate it. I'll let you get back to your bank. Hey, your bi-week. Yeah. Don't don't slack on the film stays. We can't rest. We gotta keep this momentum going here. The week three. We blocked there. We're locked there. Ah, thank you so much for coming on today. Well, I'm still a little raspy here from my Slipknot concert the other night, I think. But we are joined here today by Paul Reese, USFL historian and art sports central. How are you doing Paul? I'm good. So we wanted to get Paul back on. I was telling Dorothy during the ghost. You're bringing Paul back. I go, yeah. I said, I want to talk with him. Here again. And near the end of the season now. And then we'll probably do kind of a post-mortem of USFL season one. So we're, we're back at Legion field this weekend, where week 10. I have a lot of stories today. I want to talk about a second hub, potential RJ Young's power rankings this week from Fox, but what's kind of your main takeaway now, as we are. Extensively have wrapped up the regular season here of us. [Unknown] I think the main takeaway, particularly after the mid-season meltdowns. The Alliance of American football and XFL 2.0. Is that we're at the final week. And we look like we're kind of make it to the finish line barn, something very weird. And the next couple of days. So finishing the first season is the main takeaway. Here. This has been in some ways, a strange season. It's been odd from the very beginning. To see. The emphasis that Fox has put on this effort. And yet how they've treated it in some ways. And so I'm still at the end of the season, I'm still perplexed. To a degree about what their strategy is. Yeah, it really seems like we've held, you know, held tight here, kind of ran the chorus. I think that's fine. I still don't. I've seen a lot of, you know, we get into debates online, cause obviously like radians came out again this week. I still don't get how cost-saving this year or next year. Cause I've heard. Okay. We'll accept fell. That's a way heavier business model. Right? You got. You're bringing in all these DPPs and. We're going to be, you know, flying to the cities, whatever we're going to do with. We're saving all this money now. You're still gonna have those same costs, whether it's year two. And I, we have the Dell Johnston talking about a second hype here coming up, but like cost cutting now. At some point, you're still going to have to rip that bandaid off. And I just don't understand that wig. What the, what the dilemma is here. Right. And in the interim, I think that you're coloring your product. In that three out of the four games every weekend or played in front of zero people. So if the curious fan tunes. And that's what they're seeing most of the time is. Complete lack of crowd and something that ends up looking a little bit more like a scrimmage sometimes. So that's the impression that they take away. Of your lead. Whether it be in your wand. How long does that impression last, if you go to individual cities, And I'm not sure how much. A second hub. Alleviates that you still have to. Games. That are going to be looking, you know, Being played in front of empty stands and looking like scrimmages. No, it is the thing is it does color it, like you said, I think that's the right word for it. Cause it just adds this perception in there. It's weird. I just don't. The attendance thing, hammering it down. I mean, when they were at leach and last time, there was a lot of that as well, but I just don't, it doesn't feel like a sexy product right now. We just had Jay Noakes. We were talking to the new sub chat. You know, you have RJ young with 87,000 followers, whatever he's tweeting about his interview. At, you know, it's got like 14 likes on it. I mean, it just doesn't feel like this is a hot. The product that people are really interested in it. And it's weird. Cause I, I would've just thought here we're, we're approaching playoffs. You know, we have the, the one week of playoffs week after next and then the championship, it just doesn't feel. I don't know. It's weird. And even. As far back as following the original USFL, you almost have to flip your thinking because as the NFL. Reaches the end of its season and has toward the playoffs searches, huge peak of interest. With the secondary leagues, we have to keep in mind the season that they're playing in the weather's improving all across the country, that there are more draws on time over the weekends. So you almost have to get used to this idea. That the interest is going to decline to a degree. Even though, even when you're heading into, you know, the ultimate part of your season, I haven't been maybe as surprised by that. As much as I have been watching the ratings, you know, I don't think that the ratings are, are where they need to be at this point. I also had tweets yesterday. It's getting too hot in Birmingham, right? Like, cause we debated and we had. I guess I admitted on here I was wrong. I thought the April timeline was better. I thought, you know, escape kind of that, that post Superbowl, more of them kind of way, March madness to get out of that. Here, you know, Stanley cup playoffs really hurt. We had the NBA finals really hurt. And now I've even heard, well, it's too hot in Birmingham now. Like I can't, I'm not going to go to a game in Birmingham, I guess, too hot. It's. It's the CFL thing of it, where I hear every excuse in the roadblocks. A lot of people on vacation, the farmers are planting seeds. We don't, the kids are in out of school yet. The kids are out of school now. So now we don't like there's these, but now I forgot what we need to move this even with a season forward, because it's too hot in Birmingham and in the XFL. You're already going to overlap, like depending on how they stagger the calendar, but like the last two weeks are already going to overlay. So if we move, let's say we do an April 1st USFL kickoff within you're probably going to have a month's worth of games. Played. Yeah, they are going to, could be competing then at least for a couple of weeks, depending on how you do it. And the, I mean, the main thing is, you know, TV. If you're scheduling those games at the same time, you're going to be in direct competition. Not so much for, for in-person fans, but television Sans. And you know, how many games can you watch over the course of a weekend, even when they're not in direct competition? You know, I do want to. You know, make one mention to the Birmingham fans and just. Kind of put a focus on what they've been asked to do here. Not only have they been asked to go to all these games? In which they don't have a dog in the fight. There isn't a Birmingham team. Involved. The four games every weekend. But they've been asked to go to 10 straight home games. When does that ever happen? And, and as you mentioned with. Was the weather. I can see families just not wanting to do that every weekend. So it is a lot to ask. So, you know, anybody who criticizes the fans in Birmingham, I have to stick up to those people a little bit, because this is they've been asked to do a lot this season. I have a quote here, and this was I'm going to share the computer audio. This was Darryl John Stan, you know, he's the, what's he now the EVP of football operations or whatever for that you guys developed. He's talking on the next round, the live podcast, which must be a Fox property because that's the only thing that they'll have to talk. But I'm going to play this. This is about a minute, and I want to get your thoughts because this is about expanding, you know, Now. Okay. We get through season one, we pop champagne like Mike Mitchell said they're going to do, and then what do we do from here? And hopefully this will all play good. Next year though, looking to next season. Is there any tweaks you guys can maybe make to make it even a little bit better? I think the big thing is, is what we've seen here in Birmingham and, and the other seven. And voiced their concerns about Birmingham, never having an awake. You know, it just doesn't happen that way. We've had tremendous support from the people here in the city of Birmingham with the Birmingham stallions. So we'd love to see that opportunity for one of our other teams. And we have been in conversation. About some potential models where that could be the case. And, and we just love to bring the excitement that the city of Birmingham has shared this year during our first season. With potentially another markets. So, you know, we have some conversations behind the scenes going on right now, trying to figure out the best way to accomplish that. So, you know, in, in the future, we'll be able to give you some more details there, but it it's been such a success for that franchise. And, and it has been challenging for the other teams, you know, to play in that environment, even when they're designated as the home team. Thoughts on that. Much to do about very little. My, the two words that. That occurred to me where too little. Just establishing another hub city. Is to me, it's too little. I think that they, these teams need to be in their home markets to put the best foot of the product forward. If you're not in front of home fans. Every week. Every game. You're not putting the best foot, the best face of your product forward. And. To me. I think that that is the optics alumnus that when you tune into a game and see empty stands, Part of you believes nobody cares. I think it's terrified. And I said the same thing. Was it last week or whatever. I had Mike Mitchell on the week or two ago where, you know, the XFL. Okay. We were going to have the June 1st announcement that never happened. And I are, we still we're like, we're still trying to figure out what cities we're in. We've had all this time and [unknown]. San Antonio going to that fall through. Well, now we have Fox. We've been told from day one, you know, why did they pick these eight cities? Well, they picked these eight cities because a, that was a trademarks they had also, they have. Potential buyers lined up and all of these markets, and that's why we've picked, you know, why are we in Houston and why are we in new Orleans or whatever? Well, now here, Darrell saying like, well, we're in talks, we're trying to figure out another city. We want to do a hub. And I'm like, I thought that was the whole point of you guys picking these cities is you. We had people lined up. We had at least ideas of what we wanted to do and not while we're trying to figure that. And I have a hob I'll throw your way, but I have thoughts on that. Like we're still I, what have we done the last nine months? You know, and. I don't know if they were looking for buyers for interested parties to come forward, but obviously. That hasn't occurred to any great degree. You know, over the season. And I would have said that that was likely unrealistic anyway. So that's not surprising. I do really wonder about the logistics of a second hub city. What do you do? You. At four teams. Likely based there. Do you do round Robin for three weeks or six weeks and then intermix, and then you still have travel involved. So how much are you? Really saving versus putting teams in. In eight different markets. Maybe it's significant. I also think that, you know, any thoughts of the Birmingham stallions to having kind of home field advantage is overplayed a little bit. Other than having a crowd behind you. Everybody's living, working, sleeping in the same city. So there's no travel involved. It's not like any of these guys have jet lag because they have to keep going to Birmingham. They're there. They have to walk across the street. So. That's kind of an overplayed thing. That's not really a reason to change anything. The economics and the optics are a reason to change things. I just, I don't know if you know, seemingly XFL is, is discovering. Right. Okay. If we have the people fly out, we do it that way. That is more. Cost effective. Right. And then having the people in the eight year, maybe two hubs and then half a day transit between them. If you're saying, you know, if we're, if we're paying like Fox we're penny pinching here, Redbird, right. We've heard Redbird the same way. They don't want to spend a lot of money to lose money. I maybe they've, you know, maybe that 10% cost savings is worth it to do the two hubs. I don't know. If I just continue to look at how it affects the product and the entire USFL product is the television product. It is owned by a television network. This is a television product and how empty stands affect that product. And to me, it just doesn't make any sense. So th the hub that I want to talk about, and we've been batting this around online. I understand that it would be to Southern cities. Right. So then maybe we get the, like, Okay. The south, too much home field advantage. And this out, but spring league. Yeah, we don't like talking about the spring lake. It feels a little spring league here. We're going to two hubs now Houston do rice stadium. That's where they did the spring league before I don't. Vague cavern. I think it's cheap to use there. Brian would set up camp there. They did the whole thing there. What have you did the hub in Houston and then you have the hub in Birmingham. Transit between them, I think is easier. And you, and you spring it that way. And you say, we're going to set up for. You know, divisions be damn. At least we have 42 of eight teams in their cities. Right, right. And something like that might make a lot of sense. You know, I think that it does make some sense to keep it fairly close. You're either want a dome or another warm weather city. So. You know, it looks like the XFL may have San Antonio booked up. So, you know, something like that may make a little bit of sense to Fox. I still in the end. Think that it's a flood strategy. I want to get your thoughts here. We have RJ young. He's you know, the college, big college Fox. I don't watch him for any cases. I have, like, my knowledge of college football is pretty second to none because I went to Gonzaga and we don't have any college football, but he had his power Akins this week, a New Jersey, number one, Houston, number two, Birmingham, number three. And his. Rationale behind it was well, Houston beat Birmingham. They were undefeated, I guess. First off, stopped down on that. What do you think about Birmingham finally losing and going now? What do they say are eight and one? Right. I think that it was kind of a long time coming. Dave. Ben squeaking by lately. I have not looked great. Even had to pull out a bit of trickery to, to really out distance Pittsburgh. It looks like the worst team in the league. So not surprised by that. In regards to the power rankings. Kind of my thoughts are if you're going to make them a joke, why. If it's not going to be a serious thing, just. Save us all. You know, if we want comedy, we can turn something else on, but if it's going to be a joke, Wow. It was a lot more fire than I expected. This morning. That's good. And, you know, I looked at a Fox's handling on some of this. And it's just, okay. It's all. In-house. Is it now comedy or what are we doing here with this program? Do am I watching a drama or my watch the comedy. And so, you know, let's, let's. Let's figure out a strategy here where we take this all seriously, at least to the degree that professional sports should be taken seriously. And let's put out a good, honest effort. The fact that Fox has kept this all in-house with their own people. You know, I think that if you're looking at another part of their strategy, that's been flawed from day one. That's it? They, they haven't reached out to other media. They haven't really. Made any inroads? I don't think. With others. So. It bothers me a little bit, just to see that. That would be the official power ratings. Yeah. Well, this tells me that we, and this has been the case. And I wasn't sure with RJ, right? Because we we've seen coward, you know, we've seen him read the highlights we've Skeens seen, skip and Shannon talk, you know, highlights through on their program. Very clear and none of them are watching the game. Right. Because they thought that Clayton tour at Thurston was like the best quarterback in the league, because that was the highlights that he was, that, you know, that skip and Shannon were fed to talk about. RJ was in Birmingham. I saw him at the Southern kitchen. Like we were getting ready for our live show. He was there. It's like, I know he was in Birmingham for the kickoff, but. It's very clear to me now that RG, I can just not watch any USFL product, because I don't know how you would watch the product and then put out, put out the power rankings this week. And like you said, that's alarming to me more than I thought he was like the one guy of anyone. Okay. They're feeding him the Victor or whatever. There is Victor's every week and they're feeding him that shark dog, and we're doing all the things and, and like, he at least is really paying attention to this. Right. He. His name's on all these articles. I don't, I don't think he watches the product now. And that's very alarming to me. No. You know, and I think the debts. Part of the. Problem with keeping this in-house, but keeping it in-house means that it's going to be a secondary thing for anybody. Who's being paid to cover. So it's you, you just don't put a team with only two wins. That's your number two when the power rankings and, and have it be taken seriously. You know, maybe I'm pounding on this a little bit too much, but to me that's kind of the official thing because it comes from Fox. And so for you to do that, It just takes away credibility. I think. In terms of the actual power rankings. I mean, I do think New Jersey number one. Right? I think that they've yeah. Safer for the first week. The Birmingham kind of thing. Are we? Yeah, so we have the playoffs, right? We have Jersey and Philadelphia, and then we have new Orleans and Birmingham. Any surprises there of the final four. And now when they get your thoughts on I'm moving forward to the championship. So to, to teams that I'm not actually surprised. Are there. Our Philadelphia, New Jersey. Because they have coaches that are experienced in these developmental leaks. They, they picked guys who know what they're doing with this level of players. New Orleans. And Birmingham to me, Birmingham would kind of be that surprise. You know, we'll see if they is. You know, the shine is also them now. But they did a. A great job, assembling and roster. Haven't always one pretty, but they've done enough to win. And then new Orleans. I've always felt that new Orleans has a lot of talent on that roster. Especially defensively. If you look at the quarterback position net, that also appeared to be a strength at one time. They don't always play up to that potential. Unfortunately. I think it's good. I think obviously the game of the weekend really excited for Philadelphia, New Jersey. That's, you know, Mike's been covering the, the generals, I, I, with the stars or my team. Did we ever get your who's Paul Reese? Like who are you rooting for in the USFL? And I've kind of had a hard time picking. It has been fun to see the starts resurgence. Especially after losing their starting quarterback. So that's. That's been a lot of fun. But it is. You know, it's really kind of hard to, to differentiate these teams at times, it seems like. Everybody's running a short throw or the quarterback take off and run off offense. And, you know, I. I emailed you earlier in the week that I ran some numbers on this. And just these USFL off fences. If they were, if this was the NFL, The yards per attempt. Would be the lowest since 1944. The yards per completion. Would be the lowest in recorded NFL history. And that goes back to 1932. And the passing yards a game are actually the lowest in almost 30 years. So if it seems like these. Teams, it's kind of a slog on orphans. Compared to what we've seen out of professional football in the last 30 years, it certainly is. So I think that's made it a little bit difficult to really grab on to any team. There's been a lack of consistency week to week. I mean, the stars looked like world leaders for a little while, and then they look like they can't get out of their own way. All of a sudden. And. Almost everybody else except maybe New Jersey. Who just has this tough nose. Bull through them. Type of offense. And they seem to be just as good with Perez behind center. Even though he doesn't have to pass a lot. So it's. It's been hard to kind of pick a star. Particularly offensively and just. Want to watch them week after week. What do you attribute that to? Because now yeah, you would email me those stats. I'm glad that we could talk about it because like, you know, we're past, okay. We we've had enough reps now we're past training camp. I did the first couple of weeks drag that down. Is it the roster size? Is it the talent level? I mean, what do you attribute that to. So I don't think it was just the first couple of weeks. You look at this past weekend and you had six out of eight teams that couldn't score 20 points. And the highest score of the weekend was 25 points. So wasn't just those first couple of weeks. If anything, I think that the numbers went down. I think there was one more intersection than touchdown. From this past weekend, which is incredible in 2022. You know, you do have to wonder about talent. The second part is that. You had Mike Pereira on during one of the lightning delays earlier. In the year. Saying that, you know, every other league has had to modify its rules to make the quarterback look better, but he was kind of crawling that they hadn't had to do that yet. Scoring was up. I don't think he's right. I think the scoring's gone back down. I think you saw a little bit of an aberration maybe for a couple of weeks. All fences are down though. And I, I would certainly. Look at the modified rules to make the passing game work a little bit better. It's weird. I, you know, I've watched all this USFL stuff either. We've been podcasting the whole time. I give a lot of like, read, hates all this. That my bass. Really busy time of year for us to watch as many of these games as that is. I can, but I do. Watching the CFL this last weekend, the watch the kickoff Thursday. And then I literally had. I like, because I feel weddings. I have this, like, I'm probably the worst person in the world, but I have like a Mount for my camera so I can like watch the games while. Kind of like, just like during the reception, like when there's like, you know, we're just kind of hanging wrapped, but it kind of looks like I'm working. I was watching the seat. I was always in the BC lions, absolutely demolished the Edmonton, like 59 to 15. It was the greatest night of my life. But. I hadn't got as excited about a football game as I have in the last, whether we, you know, nine, 10 weeks here I go in the USFL going into the weekend. And I don't know what that is. Cause BC doesn't play. Like that's not my, I mean, that's my team, but that's not my home team. I mean, they don't play here. They don't even play in this country. And yet. I don't know if it's just the league stem better, you know, working with us to reach out. Right. I mean, I'm, I'm I human, right. If a team is nice to me, like there are certain CFL teams I like, cause their media people are easier to work with another Saskatchewan Roughriders. Very challenging sometimes, but like, I just, I, I miss that excitement and I don't know why I haven't felt that way with the USFL. Obviously we were there the first weekend kickoff was very excited, but it hasn't had a lot of. Really exciting moments that way, that really grip you in, if that makes sense, right. And I, I, I go back to the crowds and it's not only the crowds as background and action shots. It's the way that the players react to the crowds. It's the way that the announcers have to. Raise their voices to be heard about the crowds. It's. It's all that excitement that comes from a live atmosphere. And, you know, I think that that's what this past weekend of CFL action gave us. That the USFL doesn't give us three out of four games. You know, I was watching the Philadelphia Pittsburgh game. What was it? Sunday night. A couple of those. Tremendous. In that game late. By the Philadelphia defense. And yet there's no, UHIN from the crowd. There's no. It's just not the same. So yes, the play. Is there. But. You're, you're not taking it in the same, you know, just in some kind of visceral sense. With that, that oohing of the crowd, or even a cut to the reaction of the way that the players play to a crowd after scoring. It's just, there's something being taken away from your product. Not being in front of crowds and even in front of the away crowd. Or finding a relative in the stance, all those things. That we. We have just taken in as part of the televised product. It's just, aren't there three out of four games for the USFL. I mean, you know, and CFL, they've got it. They've had attendance issues this last weekend. I mean, I don't want to give them a free pass here. Right. We're talking to tenants like BC did a really good job. They had like 34,000 people. I mean, that was a once in a lifetime concert kick off. Yeah. We'll see what they do a week after next, because of course they have a buy because. CFL only house nine teams. You know, like Saskatchewan, they really struggled. And I, you know, I always hear like, what's this katchewan, it's like the size of California and everyone travels in and, you know, I think gas prices and stuff. I mean, attendance is an issue for all of these leagues. So I don't want to pass on that, but I will say that the CFL. Does do a better job of filming their games, not just showing empty stands the whole time where USFL does feel like we shoot this game, whether there's 30,000 people in the stands or whether there's five people, we shoot at the exact same way. And I've never agreed with that. I think they could have done a better job piping in some crowd noise. At least getting everyone on one side of the field and then yeah. Just framing the game tighter and not showing this cavern. Right. And then I do wonder part of the issue with. With foxes that they've wanted to show off their innovations. So when you show off the drone camp, You're going to catch some. Empty stance. So, you know, I can see your point there, that it would have been better. To tighten up a little bit because it really detracts from the product when you're seeing. Not just. Not just even what you see occasionally in the CFL with some empty patches of stands. But largely empty stance, like, oh, I might be able to actually count the people who are here. There's so few people. That's what we've seen, not us. I felt free. All four games. So just to put a pin in this for the weekend. So stars, generals. Now that's the 9:00 AM. Like again, this flex scheduling here. So you have, well, I guess this week, it doesn't matter. Right? So it's week after next. So it's going to be back to back. So that's weird. Cause I don't. Okay. Looking at the schedule here. So none of these games really matter this weekend. We have stars, generals, but then we're going to, we're going to flip that back to back then the next week. That's interesting on USA. Birmingham Tampa, Michigan against Pittsburgh. New Orleans against gamblers. I wonder how radians hold up this week because some of the games last weekend, that didn't matter guide decent radians and the ones that did like it didn't necessarily correlate it. Wasn't like a guy's breakers bandaid, Scott 7 42. And that game mattered in generals. Panthers on NBC got 815,000 and that game didn't matter. So I think part of that is networks and time slots, but it's weird cause like that game, you know, it's weird that to have a game app, no matter at all, but still beat the other one by. You know, what does that? 65, 70,000 people, right? Right. Networks time, slots and competition. And so I think what we're establishing is kind of your base level for who's going to watch football. And it fits against two, one and eight teams. Who's out there. Who's going to watch it. So we're, we're kind of establishing our floor. Now if. Games. Start to matter. What, what can we add to that? Do we add a hundred thousand fans? Do we add 200,000 or more? These are all the things that I hope. You don't, Fox's looking at. Where would your ratings for the actions be for the championship game? You know, Whereas the weekend of the third. That is a tough weekend. That's a holiday weekend. You've got a lot of people away. It will. Personally, if they hit. Somewhere in the million, million and a half range, I would consider that a sparkling success. That shows. Interest in the product. And people going out of their way to find it, find it. I'm. Yeah, I will see. [Unknown] what's the guy that's planned a playoff game. Is it a trace Atkins? Is that. So he's playing, like, I think that's smart, but it's still, we still have the issue of like the two games he's playing in between. It's a two hour break the next week. Like, I don't know if the USFL championship in that of itself is enough to draw that many people to camp. I'll be curious. I mean, I want it to be good. It's not the biggest stadium in the world. I think it holds like 20,000. So. I think that that'll be fine. But it really curious to see here coming out, you know, Legion all these weeks now are weird. We're done with protective field, which is a kind of weird to think, because I'm sure they've lived there for the last three months. And now moving on. Any final thoughts from you? I mean, We talked at 10 minutes. I hate hammering on that, but I didn't know what she mean. I think it's. You know, they're kind of the prevailing topic. Any other takeaways before we get out of here? And again, the attendance, we're not hammering on it from an economic perspective. I know some, so many people say, what is wrong with you guys? Don't want you to understand the attendance. Doesn't matter. What we're talking about is how it affects your core product and that's the television product. So. Please don't misunderstand kind of the argument that we're making here. This is a boat, the optics, and about how it affects the core product of the television show. But again, Here we are entering week 10. We're going to finish the season. Is there going to finish, which is a foreign away. The biggest overall goal of the league had coming into this season. Certainly some tweaks that could be made. I think that the television coverage in and of itself has been a pretty solid. I think that Fox has shown that they, they know that they need to standardize broadcast lots. So people know when define the games. They're going to have to figure out how something like peacock. And streaming. Works into their plans. And maybe if there's a way to do just streamline the schedule a little bit. I don't think that they did them. And themselves any favor by announcing games just two weeks out. I think that that was a mistake. Open up the same windows that the NFL has so that the last four weeks or whatever, you can flex out games. That's your flexibility schedule. Otherwise people know when they can some pretty plate. So lots of improvements that could be made, but the overall big picture, Hey, we're going to complete a season. Even though we, they, even though we did complete two seasons with the spring league, well, we have the woman's kind of abbreviated. We came back. I don't, I don't like that. I don't love that narrative that like this is Fox finally completed a three because I covered eight weeks or whatever the spring league. You know, last summer. So I don't. I don't feel like that is as big an accomplishment as they do, obviously they don't care what I think, but I would argue that that's not. Ended up going south to victory. So to me, the sprinkling was completely off my radar because a players paying to be in it. I mean, it had all the makings. By definition. I looked at this. As you know, a semi-professional effort. This is pleasure being paid. That's a, that's a big deal. At when tens of millions. Our going into this. Fox. Initially talked about 50 million. I can surprise if it wasn't much more than that. That went into the league this last year. So guys are able to actually. Concentrate on this. And I think it draws a little bit, a higher level of player. So that, that. That's the distinction that I'd make when it comes to paying everybody. You know, They've done it. It has been a hybrid thing with all being based in a hub city. But to me it's been a much different animal than this friendly. Yeah. And just to talk about the flex before we get out. Yeah. That was the whole thing. We announced the games two weeks out. I don't feel like a tremendous amount of flexing was done. So like you said, the benefit of. You know, we're trying to figure out, like, what did we do for next season? Right. Cause everyone, okay. It's coming back. Like I just saw Seth tweet. Okay. We were having USFL trading cards. Okay. That's a good thing. Like these are all good signs that like, Hey, they're coming back. Fox is happy with it. So like if you're going to do the two weeks out, At least utilize it, the flex, the games. I don't feel like any of these have been flexed particularly well. So either announced the games announced the times, except for maybe the last two weeks when teams are in or out of playoff contention, but then standardized the games going forward because you're, you're hurting yourself on both sides right now because people can't plan accordingly. And then you're also not presenting the best matchups when they need to be presented. Right. And even those viewership numbers that you presented earlier may show that. It just doesn't really matter. Here. We tried to flex in it. You know, our only Marty game. Week nine and it drew less than a game that didn't matter. So. Maybe you just need to set your schedule and the value and setting that schedule. Really is going to be greater than any value clean from trying to shuffle a match up into your best slot. People are very weird people in general, it's really hard. And even these TV radiants and housing Nielsen work, and it's, you know, the journals. I used to work in news and we'd have sweeps weeks. I'm like, wait, what? So like, we send that diaries, like, and people like write in them with. So, you know, you just want, so we would like hammer home, like, cause I worked at the NBC and Bakersfield and we would want, like, we would just hammer everything the last week of the sweeps because you wanted them to remember like, oh, okay. KGT like, I watched that. It didn't matter if they had watched you the other five weeks. Like he just wanted that last memory of them. Well, I'm excited to hear we're continuing our USFL discussion. We just talked to USAA Vela story and Paul Reese, we're continuing, we're approaching USFL week 10. Here we have coach Craig. Fantasy rider. Craig, why don't you tell us who you are and who you write for why we should listen to you? Yeah. So my name's Craig, most people refer to me as coach Craig. I Rayford true north fantasy football. Hadn't done too much there. Recently, we bet hcs.com. During the NBA season, I Rosa a couple of old trade deadline articles. They have daily MLB DFS video, or a. Articles and cheat sheets that come out over there. I have daily AMA BDFs videos that come out on my own channel. Coach Craig sports. Once we get back around. Football season, we'll be doing some or NFL season. We'll put it that way. Because I've been doing the USFL. DFS as well. First started off doing the videos, but just based on like a lot of the time where we got the information, I like who's going to be an active and an active, like, it's just kind of rushing, squeeze it all in. So I started doing posts and it was more like who you should play in like a GPP setting. Cash game setting who were kind of riskier, plays to play, which has kind of varied a lot week to week, even. Figuring out who's kind of going to be the safe plane who's Natty, especially with some of the quarterback situations. So I've been doing that. Once we get back around to the NFL regular season, I do NFL DFS and NBA DFS as well. Did a decent amount of fantasy football in the past, but I'm kind of cutting back on that. At this point in time. Well, good. So we're talking to USFL today. I kind of, I said we have Paula yesterday for. This can be on the shell before the, this USFL. Yeah, the all USFL team. You know, offense defense, all that was announced. I also wanted to get your thoughts on week 10 and then kind of play out predictions. It is weird. We've been doing this at avid wills. More. One of the writers at USFL news hub has been doing this kind of all season. Anyway, this all USFL team. For someone that doesn't maybe follow. I don't w what is this mean to me? What is the all USFL team offense, defense special teams. I think mainly it's just kind of picking the best guys at their respective positions. It's similar to, you know, like kind of like a pro bowl for the NFL or like an all-star game for any other different. Level where if you're talking like couch football, like all American list type of thing, but you know, it's just shine on them. I think they kind of figured some of the, where there's little bit of controversy maybe is some of the selections they may, and maybe they figured the guys that had a little bit better. Team record overall. You said, it's weird, interesting that they release this. You know, we still have one more week. What is interesting to me too, is today air Wilson tweeted he's NFL insider that. Yeah, the U S developed players are able to pursue NFL opportunities now, and that's kind of accurate. That's kind of inaccurate because USFL would have to release them depending on when their contract was signed. They might revert back to the USFL. My question is like, are a lot of guys not showing up this weekend? Like, is that, are we worried that like guys are just, I we're out of the playoffs, I'm not playing. Yeah, that could be an interesting situation. And then like, if you're still like in the, like you get to the playoffs, then you don't want to just, just say like, dairy's Victor, for example, you don't want him like signing with the Eagles all of a sudden, and then he's not there for the playoff game or something like that. So there's kind of some, they got to have some type of way around it. I'm not sure exactly how the USFL has it structured. I know different leagues in the past, I've done it different ways, whether it was the, for the XFL two. So, and it was really interested in seeing. This year. After the NFL draft took place. Some of those guys that were you doing a phase out of this year's rookie class, that didn't sign, there was a couple of them that leaked into the USFL, but it was kind of later on in the season. So those guys really didn't get opportunities. I know D Anderson was one. I can't remember where exactly he was from out of college. I said, I want to say like Alabama state, I know he went to a bigger school first, then he transferred there, but he actually put up pretty a good pro day measurables too. So I was kind of surprised that he didn't get like on the practice squad with another team, but it could be kind of interesting, especially when we moved to next year, like with USFL and the XFL, some of those UDFs, maybe they play in that. One of those two leagues to start off with, and then try to. You know, springboard that maybe to bigger undrafted free agent contract, or even a little bit of leverage. Either one of those leaks. Well now [unknown]. Greg. I just wrapped with Greg parks. We were talking more XFL on his interview, but here we are, may June. If you were to pursue a contract, I mean, what do you think about like, I'm trying to get into an NFL camp now middle of June with OTA is going on. It's it's an interesting situation just because. Like at this. Cause you're kind of stuck. Like there already, miss Canada OTAs were kind of like in mini camp, it's kind of like this awkward situation, but I mean, like if a guy's good enough, he can do it, but like, They're still behind the ball. Like. If you're, especially if you're waiting to this and then, like, I know when the XFL was kinda around, they were talking about, would you, I know. I can't remember who brought it up cause it's been awhile. But like some of these guys. Like, would you rather go fight for. Being the 52nd or 53rd guy on the roster or practice God spot, or just become like the star in one of these leagues and get paid a little bit more new one on like the practice squad or something. We'll be Amy. And the malpractice is why I think. Considerably a lot more pay than it depends on if you're a good enough quarterback. If the USFL wants to pay you for that. Right. I think. Got a higher contract. I think a couple of the guys, I I've heard rumors, but I XFL obviously. You know, in 2020 he was paying like 250,000 or more for the quarterbacks bet. I mean, do you want to be PJ Walker and the exit foul running wild, or like you said, you're joined Kiambu you're filling in, in Kansas city and then being like go every other week. Yeah, just being on the practice squad. And then this practice squad guys are making like eight to $10,000 a week. So, if you stick on all year, you get like a, you know, 180,000, but if you don't then. You just bounce around. And that's what a lot of these guys have done previous in their careers. They were bounced around practice squad. The practice squad are trying to be ready all the time. So that's kind of the importance of these leagues, even if you're not. Either you're getting back into the F or are you just continuing the sport that you love to play? So I'm looking at here. I got the all team are all USFL team on offense, right? So Kaslow there. That's yeah, they picked number one on that Derrius, Victor, Reggie Corbin, Victor Bolden. I'm not going to go down, but the LaSalle Canela very happy for the Chicago south. Canela is on there for Thai and. Anybody on offense that maybe you're surprised, like is Kyle slowder, is he, is he the best quarterback in the USFL? So that's kind of the one that sticks out. He has the most passing yards, but he's like fifth and touchdowns. And, you know, he's got 11 interceptions too. So like you can make an argument that it probably should just be Jordan Tamma because he's second in yards, he's got more touchdowns. They've got the same amount of interceptions and he obviously can run the ball. So. But like, that's kind of where you get down to maybe the team record there too. So it's a little bit interesting. It's been a really interesting year for quarterback too, because there's not. You know, like when we watched the XFL, there was guys there were you. Jordan Tam OPG Walker, and Josh Johnson kind of took over where they were the three higher up guys. We didn't really see that quite as much with the USFL and even like in the case of Jordan Tam, I think he actually probably played worse in the USFL than he did an XFL. Yeah. What do you make of that? I've I've talked with people over the weeks about that, that, I mean, I think people came in to about, he was going to be like Jesus, walking on water. I mean, I mean that guy's got so much experience video. Yeah, it'd be, I get PJ Walker came back. I mean, sometimes it's like when you're on survivor that you come back for the all-stars. And you're like, oh, this guy's getting run crazy. And then they get voted out first because maybe everyone knows are there, there. They're thinking too hard and I mean, that's kind of been taboo, right? He's kind of overthinking everything. What have you made of his performance? I mean, it's just the inconsistencies and it's kind of something that's been with him for a long time. Like you go back to Ole miss, like Henry J. Brown, DK, Metcalf, Dawson Knox, like he had a whole stack team around him. Yeah. I can't even remember the yardage, never, but he was either first or second. And this, you see that you're in the only three 19 touchdowns with a stack, like weapons around him. So it was just. I don't know, is this one of those weird things? It's like, He has the flashes. And when they're there, they're there, but then like you see other games where it's just like, oh, he missed like five street passes and it's just, and I know. Yeah, I can't think of the coach's name right now. Tampa bay coach. Todd Haley. Don Haley. I knew it was Todd, but I'm like, I can't think of his last name. And he even talked about it to some of his inconsistencies and how he drops his elbow and all this stuff. And he just wants them to make quicker decisions and stuff like that. So he's really talked about it. I think maybe it comes down to some of that is like he kind of tried to hide him. Put him in like the higher expectations and it's trying to push him to be better. And it's kind of like put more pressure on him maybe instead of kind of playing loose and like what he's comfortable with at the same time. I look at your, you know, Randy back, right? Reggie Corvette, dairies, Victor vigorous. Been really good. Matt Colburn surprised that he didn't make the all USFL team. Eh, well, I think those two guys are pretty much Shuinn's cause Colburn has been really good. Obviously got hurt and he didn't play last week. Colburn was kind of. He's kind of been there all year, but he's kind of had the bigger weeks as of late too. So. He's a guy. I liked a lot when he was in the XFL. And him and Victor are there together. I remember correctly, it's been a minute, but with New York, but. And I thought he was going to have a bigger year and then how it was kind of around, they just kind of injured. Paul Terry was used for a little bit, and then they just like stopped using them. And then Colver, like. It's been hard to figure out Philadelphia some weeks. They're just like one weeks. It's this guy next week is this guy like even the week before it was like, Hey, cook case cook is I'm like kicking myself. Cause I didn't have enough exposure. And he had the monster game. Like four touchdowns, a long touchdown run. And then he comes out last week and he can't like get the broad side of a barn. So. Yeah, he. I wasn't saying 69 or 79 yard CD. Yeah, that's crazy. If he has any chance in. You know, take in the north or is that. What is it? New Jersey? Is that there is that there? Whatever their division, the lose. I mean, they definitely have a chance because they got enough offensive Playmakers and everything too. It kind of depends if Holland's ever healthy enough to play again. Cause he's an explosive running Mack. He's just kind of. Big. He's all or nothing kind of, you know, that kind of it's Saquon Barkley version type of runner, where it's like you get a really long run, but then sometimes there's just not much there. And. It'll be interesting to see, like what kind of performance, you know, cook is going forward to. Cause last week he got benched for my boy KJ customer. Who. That's like a whole nother story for a different day, but like back in 2018, he was one of the best quarterbacks in all of college football. Then. I think it's the beginning of 2019 plan Northwestern. Do doesn't know how to slide, to save his life gets knocked on the head and he's never been the same quarterback since he had the one. Game with Mississippi state, the first game there, where he threw for like 532 yards and like six touchdowns against the defendant champion LSU. And everybody's like, oh my God. And I was really excited about that too, at the time. Cause it's like you played in the pro office, they play in a spread offense or kind of spread air rate, I guess. And Mississippi state. So it was like, oh, if he can do all this and continue it. And then the wheels just fell off from there. So. It was kind of interesting, but I've always wanted him to kind of get going again. So I was really excited when he came back. So I didn't really get a chance to see that game. There'll be interesting to see kind of what kind of happens with that because he's probably a better talent wise than cookies, but cookies is again, it's been in the system for like two years too. So yeah, it's a Razzie I mean, happy, you know, Brian sky, obviously friend of the show, he didn't want to see him go down and be injured, but it's really surprising that the team really has, you know, cookies. He's getting a lot of publicity now without, I mean, I could, I could have seen him on this all us valid team and maybe that's, Philadelphia's my team. Maybe that's just my bias, but I mean, T to be able to come into that position midway through the season and still have your team be here to feed though. In the semi-finals, whatever you want to call it, that the playoffs is it's impressive. Then I, like you mentioned, I think it's going to be really interesting to see like how those teams in house, some of these teams play it out this week to weather. Maybe they don't play cookies this week and they play Castello. See what he's got and just kind of some of these other guys, and maybe I think it was some other teams, like when you're talking about like new Orleans or something, Why do they just not even play cow's loader this week? Cause he got kinda banged up again last week. So say maybe you play a, was Zach Smith there, or heck you even bring shape Patterson off the inactive list and then just kinda roll with him, like, as it were gray and like all these other guys and just kind of not risk all the higher people, which I kind of mentioned where we talked a little bit, I'd be interested to see how some of these teams play it out. Cause you know, like with the NFL, there is some of these guys, but yeah, a lot smaller roster here too. So you don't have as many opportunities to do that. I mean, the one thing. With these injuries with the quarterback. And obviously AVID's in the NFL. I think it's just exacerbated because it's a smaller schedule to smaller teams, but like, you know, having like Shay Patterson now he's not even playing anymore, you know, Kyle's had beat up, you know, Brian Scott got injured, right cookies this year. I've actually glance, same kind of thing. It's weird where it's almost like team by committee towards the end of the season. Like. I'm feeling like this has been the full gang for a lot of these. I mean, New York has been scared Jersey, right. Has been separate kind of that way. And even Birmingham, you know, it's kind of the band back and forth, you know, who's the starting quarterback. It's just. I would've liked. I like having the consistency. I like knowing who my QB one is the whole way through. And I think that's kind of been the biggest thing for this lady too, is you never seen the, like the big, big point scoring weeks. And a lot of it comes down on the quarterback, playing guys getting injured and kind of rotating in and out. That's kind of been the biggest thing, even when you're talking about Birmingham. I think they could be a lot better team if Magoo woulda stayed healthy all year, but like at the same time you got Jomar Smith. There that's been in that offense. He knows how to play it, but he's another guy that's super inconsistent at times. Twos he'll be, be really hot at one moment. And then. They'll just be missing a lot of throws after that. That's like, you know, people will knock the product. Because of that, but there's a reason that these guys are playing in this league too. And they're not bad players by any means. These guys were still very good players at their respective colleges. They are their best player in high school. So these aren't bad players by any means. This is where the it's like, we're going to take guys that it's the same. Same with the CFL. Sometimes they have, we cover that and obviously, like, I think the three downs, I mean, don't tell. CFL would benefit from having that fourth down. Cause it's like, okay, we're bringing in guys that. Aren't quite NFL level and they giving them less opportunities. Right. To be able to score right. Less chances. And you know, you have to rush for more yards every time. Same with the USFL, right. Okay. We're going to get guys that are almost there, but here we're going to give them two weeks of training camp. Throw them in. Tidy ass rosters. You know, you're practicing in a hundred degree Birmingham. He, you know, you're living there. You know, you got to live off. You know, you're paying for your house. We're adding a lot of things here that I think if you would've taken care of a little bit more things, maybe you're not putting so much on these guys' shoulders. And just to that point too. I think that's one of the things that I did really like about like the XFL is they kind of had that accelerated play clock. So you get more plays and you get more opportunities and everything to see it too. And kind of the thing that they did too, that I liked was kind of like, I think they call the team nine, which was kind of just the free agent teams that were practicing too. So then when you need to go sign somebody, you can just sign somebody off of there essentially, instead of being like who the heck's avail, but at this point in time, too, so. There's a lot of things that are good and are bad and they copied some things. And you know, you got to remember, this is inaugural season two, so there's going to be bumps in the road and it's going to be. I don't even know how to phrase it, but you know, there's a lot to figure out still. Wait, w w that's a good question. Cause I, I get yelled at a lot online for like things I would fix, like. What is the one thing you think the U S developed needs to fix for next season? I think. It's a hard question too, because. Hm. They just kind of like, I'm not sure they had quite have that differentiation factor yet. I guess the overtime kind of is at this point in time, but we've only seen that kind of shootout format once this season. So. I'd like to S. You know, they took in adapted some things from the XFL that were really good in my opinion. So. Just nothing. That's gonna be the hardest part next year is when you have both these together. Cause you want that a little bit better. Quality quarterback play. Then I think we've seen this year, but now you're competing with a couple of different leagues. And. I think there's some guys that were kind of surprises that just like the USFL been trying to go after for whatever reason that could have been playing in these asleep. And then, cause I mean, even like when we're talking about it, when they did the draft though, Like Luis Perez wasn't even drafted. There's a lot of different guys that could be potential guys to go after those that see really. Well, I see it's hard. We had Adam Levitt, Tiana. And he's, I think he's established the ride. You're talking earlier this season and it's like, you know what he's talking at? You know, he does CFS and all that too. It's like, it's the NFL. But not quite right. And that's why I do like the CFL game board. It's just because like, it is its own thing. It's really not trying to be anything. It looks very different. It feels very different, obviously. You know, if you watch football, you can turn it on and kind of figure it out. But where this Eva, with all the bells and whistles they have, okay. The extra points and the shootout and the play clock. You're not having coaches take advantage of that. We see very little go for three. I mean, I can tell you the last time we had a two point conversion. Obviously we have the shootout over time, which was good, but just felt slow. Like that, the only thing that made me want is to have seen the XFL one where it was best of five or six and not best of three, because it felt like it was over too quick. I, the one thing they stole not stole, but why they borrow that it's still just maybe want to see the original more, you know, And. This is kind of weird, but like the fan control league is like the extra points that they do, or it's just kind of like the one-on-one. Like even doing something like that, just throwing that little twist in could be some that's a little bit interesting. Like, just mix it up just a little bit, even though you kind of take it from some other outs once again, but. It's hard to get too creative with football though, but you got to have something that brings people in and I think. One of the biggest things was that is all in Birmingham this year too, is kinda, you know, Then one of the biggest knocks and everybody's like, oh, well the attendance sucks though. You got seven other cities that can't really have people there. So, and I think they've been in talks of adding like a second city next year. If I remember correctly. Well, yeah. We continue on that conversation. So we, I talked with Paul about that. So Daryl Johnson came out this week and said, Because the original plan was. Eight cities in the hub, you know, this year. There may be four and four next year, maybe. And then all in eight would be in their cities here. Three. Cause I think they have a three year. I don't think it's a signed contract. I think you have a, three-year kind of verbal agreement with Birmingham. I think your wide. Here is his side. I'm sure someone will add me if I'm wrong, but. Now. Yeah, we have Gerald Johnson saying like, well, we'd really like to find it. Nether hub city to be able to do this. I'm like, so do you not have anything? So we're not even at four, like we're at potentially a second one. I mean, do you think that that's odd here that, and obviously we have a long off season getting ready for next April, but then they're just now like pontificating, like, well, maybe we can find a second hobby to do this. And the thing is going to be once again, like once you go back to it next year and you have the USFL and the XFL. You kind of compete in that, at that point. So you're competing for cities, stadiums. I don't know that there's going to be a lot of overlap, but let's just say like New Jersey. Well, you're not going to get MetLife. If they're going to get my life. If they, if they use, you know, New York again, so it's just like, there. You kind of have to rule out some at that point in time, too. So I'm using it as like coffee. We're podcasting under a dress today. I just, wouldn't like to see more action being taken here. I know. I think I've do critical. I think we're getting through the season and then we'll agree. Grip. My fear is it's going to be July 3rd. The championship game is going to go. We're going to go to radio silence for six months and it's like, we'll see you here next February. Whenever we started doing announcements for. That's kind of my fear at this point. And it'll be interesting to see how they play out the off season, too. Because. I don't remember the contract details for the USFL. Everybody's just kind of like a one-year one, right? So it's a wider. So if you're the original assigned player, they have to let you out of your contract. And then you're able to sign with an NFL contract. Midway through the season. I believe it was when they bumped up the rosters and practice squad. They added a clause where if you don't stick with an NFL squad, your contract reverts back to a second year USFL contract. Okay. 'Cause I can't read. That's kind of like always. Weird part about these. You know, popups, spring leagues, whatever you want to call them is just how the contracts are structured. I know like everything with XFL initially, it was just like all one year contracts. And then I think they're going to start doing like some roll over thing where he could keep like so many people and they kind of have like another dispersal dress. So that's kind of the biggest thing is when you go into year two, how the team shake up who's here still. Who's not. And just kind of how you all separate that. Cause your two's probably the biggest one for any of these types of leagues, I would say. Yeah. I'm really curious to see the continuity that sticks out to me did three. Three months of playing together. Now translate. Now, here we get everyone back together next March, like this New Jersey, run it again. Like does that, I don't, I don't know how much continuity you have with 12 weeks of gameplay. And then we'll see you again next year. But maybe, I mean, the spring league did that when the spring league and they had to break for like COVID and then they came back and played the championship game. The generals walked by a mile because they had most of the guys that were able to return, even though they only played for like six weeks. So. And even when it comes to coaching staffs too, as well, not just the players. Cause you know, like. Are some of these coaches going to stick around, are they going to take a better position or should some of them be fired? That's a whole nother can of worms. And then. Even if you go like Mike Riley, like. Is he wanting, is he going to want to do like another season with his age? And obviously, you know, his wife. Or they seem to be interested in crosswords. Anything else? You know, we have the all defense here. I mean, it's not that exciting. I think we have more fun talking about other staff, which is always great. Any other final thoughts before I let you go here? I mean, Victor bolded makes special teams for the all USFL as well. Come on to the Turpin. Right? Good standings on that. [unknown]. Sure blade and the other names. Any other thoughts before I let you go? So I think special teams is pretty fair. I mean, there's a decent amount of kickers in this league. Nick should be invited to NFL camps to at least try out essentially, or. Make it through the preseason, whether, you know, it's a Brandon Aubrey, who's a pretty good story. You know, former soccer player. Which similar career path to somebody like Josh Lambo, who was pretty decent kicker for some time. And then I felt that his hip kind of betrayed him, but that's going to happen with most kickers eventually sooner or later. But he, the Pittsburgh Maulers kicker a med. He's made some really, really long kicks this year, too. So. Not the most accurate, but he's got the legs. So maybe if he can fix that, he could maybe get a spot in the NFL too. And then Cole Murphy's came in and played pretty well. I think he's nine out of 10. I think defense, they pretty much got defense. Right. I feel like for the most part. Can't really debate too much there. It's crazy. How many more tackles Donald Payne has been like anybody else? Well also gambler is really the only representation on that. I mean, they've been known as a defensive for us all season, right. We. I see breakers with a lot of offense, the Jersey. He is all Birmingham, but you know, gamblers really haven't had a lot going for that accepted. They'd be able to stop it. Every once in a while. I mean, Scooby would probably be close up there by him, but he's missed some games too. Excuse me. You're right. I was skinny. Right? Didn't make it. No. The mark is the mark is gates. Did those teammates make of that? Scooby was like their big star. Yeah, but he's he's missile. I think three games now. Shark dog. Right? He was the one that was say he was inspiring the nation. That's interesting. You know, I. The, this is all publicity. Anyway, I would put Scooby on the last. Well, it's kind of weird to just because like, he's a very interesting guy because he is, you know, First team, all American in college kind of went to the NFL. Didn't work out. He's playing in these leagues, but he never, like, he never really tries to go back to the NFL after he plays in these leagues though. So it's just, he's just like, I'm just playing for fun pretty much. Or Greg, this has been fine. I could talk to you for a while longer. I got to hop off. I have another interview here. We have Keon Hatcher of the BC lions. Happy to talk with him. We met. Thank you all so much for coming on. Anything you want to plug before I let you go. Yeah. Just once again, mainly check out the, we bet ats.com. For a daily MLB DFS cheat sheet. And then my, the, my YouTube page at coach Greg sports, obviously. And then obviously once fantasy football season gets rolling.

Episode 96 - Not “Just” an XFL Podcast

Well, if you had told me 15 months ago, when I woke up to the email, you know, we're in the XFL podcast, XFL at CFL are. Having discussions. And now I'm interviewing the commissioner of the Canadian football league. You would have to pitch me. How are you doing today? Misery Randy. Ambrozy yeah, I'm doing great. It's exciting. It's it's Tuesday. Our 2022 season kicks off on Thursday evening in Calgary. I am fortunately going to be there. And get a chance to watch our, our kickoff game for the 22 season in person. And I'm really excited. And look, it's just been, you know, two years for, you know, for people all around the world to very difficult years for everyone certainly was difficult. In the world of sports and it was difficult on the CFL. But with the new labor agreement in place with our player, the longterm. Win-win arrangement with their players. And now, you know, the season about to start, I couldn't be happier. Yeah. First off I just welfare check on Mr. Ambrosie. How are you doing? Cause it's been a very, you get a lot of flack for kind of everything online, right or wrong. I mean, how are you doing? Yeah. You know, I'm fine. You know, you. You can't possibly know. What it's like to be in this chair until you're in this chair. So certainly there's been a lot of learning. We've been through a very difficult time, perhaps one of the most difficult in the league's history. And you have to, you. Somebody's got to be responsible and accountable for, you know, all we've been through. And I certainly feel. Field, both of those things accountable and responsible. But in the end, most of their, you know, most of the criticisms when they come are, come from a good place, they come because people are passionate about the league. And they want to see the league succeed. So, you know, you just have to. Famously said you got to put on your big boy pants. And, and go to work. And that's what I've tried to do. Yeah. Because you have a very different role. You know, then a traditional commissioner, you know, we think of like an NFL or whatever. I mean, how do you view yourself in that role and imbalance, you know, And obviously I have a fall up here, but you know, the, the needs of the community on teams and, you know, privately owned teams, how do you have to balance all that? Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to learn and you, you have to, and I have learned to appreciate that this job is different. It's not a traditional chief executive role because it doesn't come with a. It doesn't come with the same kind of authority. That goes with a traditional command and control structure. This you, you have to work with 19. You have to work with nine different points of view. There's a lot of collaboration in this role, and I'm more, more than anything I've ever experienced in my life. And you, and you have to learn how to appreciate the opportunity for that collaboration to move the leak. And, you know, frankly, I'd say, if I look back now, Having having created a revenue sharing plan. That's been absent in the CFL for four plus decades. Having created this new help to create this new relationship with genius sports and this business, we call CFL benchers. And then the longest, one of the longest collective bargaining terms in CFL history in a win-win. I actually think we've created through that collaboration. We've created a whole new foundation for the leaks long-term success. So in many ways, I'm feeling a sense of pride. That you know, we've learned together, we've worked together and, and we've persevered through a very difficult time together. I do agree that I think that in terms of a lot of the stuff you guys have done, even coming out with the announcements at great cop, we were lucky enough to be there for that. You know, getting all of this taken care of now, what do you view as the biggest hurdle now for the CFL? You know, having survived COVID and the XFL and everything else. Well, look, I think we've got a great strategy. And so it, you know, if, if step one is doing the analysis and understanding. You know what our opportunities are. Step two is developing the strategy and step three is putting the pieces in place. So the pieces are the. You know, the examples of the pieces are the things I just mentioned, you know? A revenue sharing plan, which helps. Elevate all nineteens. The the genius partnership, which helps us to elevate our league in general, and then transforming the conversation with our players from its old format into more of a partnership. Then that leads to the next step and that is execution. And you have to, you know, that the hurdle is to do the work. Now it is to take advantage of all of the things that we've accomplished over these two difficult years. And it's to make sure that we're methodical. And acting with a sense of urgency to get, you know, to get, to take advantage of the work we've done. So. And in some ways that's not really a hurdle per se, not in a traditional definition. But I don't know, frankly, I feel good for the league. I think that we've set ourselves up for longterm success. But, you know, like every business on the planet, you've got to earn it. And now we gotta go to work and execute against this opportunity. That we've created. Well, I agree with that and kind of proving that, right. It got a little tenuous there with the CBA tox ride. We were told all along, it's going to be easy and then got delayed. And obviously we had everything back and forth, but how do you, you know, do you worry that maybe that's left sourness and. And players' mouse or, you know, kind of having gone through and really had to take a stand right, take a work stoppage, and now come back and play. You know what? I have a, I have a great confidence in our players and we've worked really hard on building a good relationship with them. You know, obviously the collective bargaining process is by its nature sometimes confrontational. And I think we can all say that we've experienced that, but I. But I would hope, and I believe that the players know that we want, we want to do good things together. We want to succeed together. In fact, the fundamental nature of this collective agreement. Is the creation of an alignment of our interests. That we're looking for a win-win. So look, when I, when I hit the Calgary this week and then. On what Thursday and then Vancouver for Saturday, I would be thrilled to shake hands with each and every player. And then be able to talk with them about the future that we're going to build together. And I, and I believe that's the spirit in which our engagement with the players will. I think that's how it will be defined going forward. What are you most proud of, of the things that were agreed to in the CBA? What do you think is the most powerful part of it? Well, the length of term is certainly one because in. Five years I've been in this chair. We've had four, we've had four collective agreements that had to be negotiated. So that's one thing. I think the revenue growth sharing is semi. That was something that we were talking about with the governors going all the way back to 2018 and 2019. Because that in my mind, that creates a partnership between us and the players. But I'm also really happy for the players. They got, you know, in the second contract and beyond they got an opportunity for guaranteed contracts. I think that's going to create roster stability. You know, I'm excited that we've got. Provision for some mental health care. I think the extension of our medical plan benefits. Those are things that are really good news for the players. And I'm excited about. But just generally, I think it's a, this is a deal that we should look at both. Bargaining committees, the one representing the players and the one representing the league. And we should say thanks to them. Because I think while it got a little bit messy at the end, I think we can say that on all things being equal. I think they did a remarkable job of coming up to. Creating a whole new platform. For the relationship between the players and league. So I I'm, I'm pro I'm probably most proud of that. When the CBA got past, you know, we were live breaking. We had Jim Molan on this show, Daryl Davis, among others, kinda comments worrying about the, these loopholes coming up with the ratio, you know, next year and beyond, right. And you can play 49% or whatever. We're moving spots around. I mean, do you wish that they would've pushed it and held for more just solely Canadian spots in that ratio agreement? Do you worry about any of that kind of weirdness happening with coaches and things moving forward? No. We'll work out us. We'll work out a structure and a, you know, the coaches and our football operations people will, will understand how it's to work. Look in the end, it was really designed to create more flexibility for our coaches. You, you know, this realm, you're a. You're where you're rocking your BC lions gear today. And I know you, you have great passion for our game and for our league. You know that the game is often one of the most challenging issues is injuries. So this is going to create some roster flexibility, but one of the features of being able to nationalize an American player is that it will reward those players for staying on our teams and living in our communities, which is a hallmark of the CFL and has been for decades. So I think the positive side, the real positive side is that it's going to reward. Some of our American players. For their commitment to our teams and to our communities. That's really positive. And it's going to create some roster. Continuity for our fans. And then ultimately it's going to give roster flexibility to our coaches, lows, those three things. That's the, that's the perfect trifecta. And I'm really excited about that. The details of the logistics. We'll work that out and I'm not concerned about that in the least. In terms of, I think it's great, right? I sit in American, you know, incentivize he write that then being in the community. I just, I've seen lots of comments about, you know, That Canadian, this. The CFL and wanting to make sure that's preserved. And, and do you ask someone that, you know, Canadians, you know, been in the league have benefited from the ratio? I just wonder if that, do you, do you wear that on your shoulders that you all want to make sure that you preserve that side of things as well? Yeah, absolutely. But I take the other side of it. You know, frankly, I think we can all say watching the development of Canadian athletes. There's 24 Canadians now on NFL rosters, the most, most in history. There's Canadian athletes succeeding in every sport in the world that, you know, Andrew Wiggins is playing. In the NBA finals. In the NHL, as some of the best players in the NHL playoffs, obviously are Canadians Canadian athletes include including Canadian football players are more than capable of competing. In fact, in some ways, what we're trying to do here is to kind of break down that stigma. That Canadians in order for Canadians to play in the Canadian football league, they have to be protected, frankly. I don't believe that I, I. I think Canadians through. Through the course of now. The history of our league have proven, I played with. Peer verse and broad con up who were in the hall of fame. I played with Dan Ferrone. Who's in the hall of fame. I played with all I could just go on and on all the players that I played with and that I know that are some of the greatest players in CFL history. And I know they were more than capable of competing with, or without a ratio. I think we frankly need to change that narrative. That Canadians are in the Canadian football league because they're great football players. Not because they're a protected by a ratio. I like that. I liked that I circling back where, you know, we were talking, balancing your roles, right? Between the team owners, obviously Larry tan and bombs comments this week from MLSE talking about, you know, the, the league structure wanting to be changed. I'm happy, you know, with. Toronto and Vancouver and all that. I've asked a lot. People want you to your comments on that. I'm sure you've seen that. So what, what would you like to say? Well, I have an incredible respect for, for Mr. Tannenbaum. You know, he's a remarkable person has made. Not only a great contribution to sports in Canada, but around the world. And certainly. Made a tremendous contribution to Canada. I think what I would say about his comments, his side. I think we know that amongst our nine. Teams are nine governors, their dot. There isn't always agreement on all the points, but what we do is we learn to work together. And we learn to give everyone an opportunity to kind of speak to what they believe is the right path forward. I think the league has made tremendous progress over these past two years under very difficult circumstances. But you have to acknowledge the commitment. That MLSE and Larry Tanenbaum have made to the Canadian football league. You have to acknowledge that even under those very trying circumstances, they stood with a shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues. So. I think you, you can always accept that. Not everyone has the same point of view. But you can respect them. And be willing to forge ahead. And we've got a season we're about to open on Thursday night. Calgary hosting a Montreal. And we know that Toronto has got the person by, by of the season and we'll be at home. The following Thursday. To host the Montreal Alawites here in Toronto with MLSE as their owner and MLSE is committed to the CFL. And, and we're committed to the Toronto Argonauts and the NMLS. See, so, you know, in the end there's always room for some reasonable discourse amongst, amongst friends and colleagues, and then you tip your hat, acknowledge your respect for each other, and you press forward. I wanted to ask that we have a Fred that the show now Mardel men on the show a few weeks ago, under BC lion stockade. He let it slip a little bit about this Halifax expansion. Right? I know you've had comments on that, you know, and, and I think the next five years. If I wanted to, if I wanted to go on the bet Regal app and put down. What are the odds here where see the Halifax expansion in the next five years? I think it's high. Look. I mean, it is been for as long as I can remember. And sadly, that's a long time now. I can tell you that. I think it is the, it is an amazing opportunity for the Canadian football league. First of all, just structurally. To have an even number of teams to have that 10th team is really important, but that region's really important remembering that we sold out that game in one hour, the game that's going to be played in. Wolfville. It's an amazing rate region of Canada filled with amazing people with a passion for sports. And somehow some way, and we got to do it right, but somehow some way we need to get our tents team. We should. I am. I'm passionate about having that 10th team in Atlantic Canada. And, you know, on behalf of the Canadian football, I'm going to work diligently. Side-by-side with our governors to see if we can make it happen. If you're, if you're looking to make that bet and the time horizon is five years, I think that's pretty smart money. I like that. I think a lot of people be happy with that. I mean, that would be the biggest thing. You know, you want to talk about accomplishing things. I have a voicemail here, a long time listener, Kyle, this was a question I was going to ask anyway, so I want to make sure we get Kyle for that. We have lots of fans that write in every week. I'll hopefully you can hear this audio as I play it. Hey Reed, what's going on? Great guests for this week, Randy. I hope you're listening. I got a question for you. I've been a fan for a long time. I'm situated in Montreal. Go back. I've been actually following the league since 96 for as long as I can remember. And this is after the expansion down south to the states. You know, I love the league and I love youth sport football. I love all kinds of football. You know, I'm just thinking about my kids. I'm thinking about development and I want, you know, delete to stick around for a long time and I want it to remain interesting. What I want to know is, is there a possibility for expansion aside from the shooters that there have been talks for a long time? Is there a possible for expansion down south to the states? Or for other cities. In elsewhere. Canada. Thanks. And hopefully looking forward to your response. Well, first of all, thanks to Kyle for that question. And. Look, I think one of the things that I really appreciate about our board of governors. Is that there? They're very pragmatic. But there, there are people of great vision. And they have the ability to see a longer-term and, and, and search out the potential for longterm opportunities. Look right now, our goal is to use this platform, which is revenue sharing a, the genius sports partnership. The new long-term CBA with our players, all the hard work we've done to create a better, stronger CFL to use that. To grow to our 10th team. And then after that to save. What's next. You can't get the 12 until you've got the 10. And you can't get the 14 until you've got the 12. And frankly, after we get to 10 all expansion that this leak should consider should always be done in multiples of two. But again, I have the pleasure of getting up every day and working with governors of great vision. Who are natural leaders in everything they do. And I know that. As opportunities emerge and ideas surface, they're going to want to look for every way to make the CFL. The biggest strongest league, it can possibly be. In fact, you know, read interestingly. One of the things that we went into our product review process talking about is we want it to be the finest. Fastest most entertaining brand of football on the planet. And some of the changes we made this off season, particularly moving those hash marks in our field has almost 700 square feet, more space per player. Then that other brand of football. It's a giant canvas. It is a huge issue to me. That represents the CFL and Canadian football more than any thing else that we do. The big field is the canvas. I think that we're on the verge of. One of the most entertaining seasons in CFL history. And so one. Thing that has is success creates opportunity. And for us all the hard work, all the work that all of our teams have done, that MLSE that the owners in Montreal. Gary. And his father-in-law's late. Father-in-law their commitment to Montreal. A lot of our sports and entertainment group, Bob young and Scott Mitchell and Hamilton, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Edmonton are three amazing community teams. Calvary sports and entertainment and all that they need. And now I'm our dome and what I'm, I'm excited that we've done the work. To create a new foundation for a new future. And then, and then that future will create opportunities for further. For further expansion down the road, but today it's about a 22 season that's fun, past and entertaining. And the sky's the limit, frankly, on how much success we can have longterm. I watched the clock. I have two questions left. I think I'll get you out here at the timeframe. I really appreciate it. I wasn't going to ask you an XFL question, cause we're not just an XFL podcast, but obviously you're talking for downs and stuff this week. I am curious. I just got the email today. Genius sports, right at the pre-season. Yeah, fantasy gambling, all that. Did you find that what you could do with genius sports and working with them, bringing them in as a partner, did that outweigh equal or outweigh anything that you guys thought maybe you could do with the XFL? I was always curious that that was like one replace the other, no. You know, look, we were always, we always had a, we're always hard at work on a, on a strategy that we know let's call it a made in Canada strategy for the CFL. You know, you don't go into anything with a. You know, with. You know, all of your eggs in one basket, it just so happened that. You know, coincidental. To the discontinuance of the discussions with the XFL and they're fine. People. Dwayne Johnson. Danny Garcia, the team at Redbird. They're fine. People. And we had really constructive conversations, but we had a phenomenal plan for the CFLs future. And it just so happened that a, the timing worked out. The genius partnership came together and it's really taken our foundation to a new level. So, you know, out again, You know, one didn't one didn't be get the other that the CFL made in Canada strategy was always a part of the fabric of our, of our thought process. And it just so happened. It worked out beautifully and it is an amazing partnership. That we believe is going to take us to new Heights of success. All right. Last question for you. I hope it isn't. This is my thing. So I know you're big into the CFL global and, you know, initiative, right. 2.0 all that, you know, expanding out. I have long championed our team, the BC lions as America CFL team. Right. Trying to bring the. I tried to bring this support down to the states that way do you support my initiative? And. Brandy and the BC lions as America's CFL team. Well, I'm not sure from the commissioner's chair. I just want to say from the commissioners here, I'm not sure that I should ordain one of our teams as being belonging to an entire market. But listen. I read it, but makes you happy. And frankly, if it makes a Mar Domin happy and if it makes Rick Walsher happy, if it makes Rick Campbell happy, but most importantly, if it makes BC lion spans, regardless of whether they are north of the 49th parallel or south a bit, if it makes them happy, read, if it makes them happy, then it makes me happy. Ah, there you go right from the horse's mouth as well. [Unknown] he could not thank you enough for your time today. And then all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, I'm an adult. Now. This is inappropriate. Oh, totally. Totally. I hit 35 and it just went to crap. Me too. How old are you? 35. Oh, there you go. All right. All right, so we'll do that. And I've got the other one that right here. Okay. Well, I appreciate Brandon, Alex. I would. Why am I doing. Well, I appreciate we have Brandon Anderson on today accidentally. He said, this is the first time that we are talking on the podcast. Obviously we're in the group chats, but now you're hoppy nine last minutes today, breaking down all the XFL stuff. How are you doing? Good. How about you? I'm good. This is exciting. We have our big, you know, first and foremost, you are on the same episode as the CFL commissioner, we had the Ambrozy. So this is going to be a very exciting time. We have a bunch of news, Evan wills, more's coming on as well. People know Evan. So we're going to do some of the seventh brand and some of it with Evan. So we will try that to double that too much, but I will obviously want to get your thoughts on everything. First off the biggest news to me, more than like, as certain as it could be XFL cities basically confirmed via the XFL shop. Mark. Posted this article yesterday was sent over for my listener. What did you make of the XFL shop? Like hidden team section with the city is kind of listed out. Well, I thought it was, it was quite interesting. It seems like that actually happened originally with the XFL logos or rebranding that it, we not surprised here. I've been. Trying to keep an eye on the website as well for. Same stuff. So someone obviously beat me to it, but I'm not surprised. I am glad to see that the cities leaked are the ones we've heard for so long from my conventional originally that were. I see March timeframe. So I I'm impressed. I. I'm glad that we're starting to see. More of the pieces come together for the cities and the league, essentially. Right before they formally announced it, which I assume is pretty soon. It has to be seen. I'm wondering if they're trying to time it with the USFL. I mean that this week we had the black Adam trailer come out for the rock, like a red birds. I guess seven bucks productions kind of weird that way, Danny and the rock. Like we don't have too many of one thing at the same time. So if there's like a Terra mana announcement, like we try to separate that out from like a Zoe thing or an XFL thing. So. Yeah. Obviously this week with the black Adam trailer coming out, I think people were pretty certain that the teams weren't coming out this week. It is interesting. They meet. So for people and it got taken down from the shop XFL, they had kind of an animated GIF rotating through with a bunch of the city names. I'm looking at it. So it says like Orlando, San, Antonio, DC, Seattle St. Louis, Orlando, San Antonio. So it repeats. And then the other shirt. It says Las Vegas, that's kind of hidden. And then the other one says Houston. So when you piece. Those seven cities together with Dallas that we've already has been officially announced as the headquarters. Those are the eight teams that goes very much in line with Mike Mitchell's reporting. Like Brandon said. I have a guide in your thoughts, Brandon, on the podcast, what do you make of those eight cities and like pull it out of New York and LA. Holding out in New York and LA sync was a. Kind of thing that was almost rumor back in 2020, when I was watching the XFL in 2020, it was a very sparse crowd. I mean, you were at net. Which is a NFL stadium. It was freezing cold. One of the games I think I got below zero. From what I remember. And it just did not look like a good time. LA. I mean, they had some NFL players show up to some of those games. I remember, but there was just no. Fan base really there either. So I think moving. Essentially, as we know, Las Vegas and San Antonio is being two of the markets. I think that's the huge thing. I mean, the AAF had San Antonio. It was non-stop. I don't know if they ever officially sold out. Crowd, but they were getting up there just like St. Louis did with the battle Hawks and then Las Vegas. Is it to me. I, it is the most exciting out of all this. I grew up an XFL fan. Back in 2001, I had family that lived in Las Vegas. It's kind of my second home. So I'm really happy to see them back there. I'm just curious of where they're playing because. It hit the Raiders stadium is massive. So that weed. And to confuse me. And then of course they have, I can get Sam Boyd still. But that is so far away from the strip that it makes you question. Plus Vegas heat in mid spring time is not fun. I really get confused about where they're going to play there. I mean, Allegiant is, is an enormous field. Or a stadium. What's nice about Vegas. You know, like Dallas, these hub cities. I mean, obviously we live in Seattle, but it's so easy to kind of travel in and out of Vegas anywhere on the west coast. So like, if you're in LA, you still want to support. I get so easy to get. I mean, you can be from Burbank airport to the Las Vegas strip and like 55 minutes. And it's really not. I mean, I think it's a good way to maintain that west coast presence, but also encouraging yo, if you live in. You know, North Dakota or whatever, maybe you want to go. The interesting thing about these shirts that were revealed and it's, it's basically like the XFL split. Yeah. The two sides and it's all that. The city names. If we're getting just the city's announced here, like we did back with the XFL 20, 20, and then we're going to have to wait. Later the summer or into the fall for the actual team names. The other nicknames that is going to be interesting to me because that does seem like splitting what could be one announcement and spreading it out as far as we could. Yeah. And, and that's what I was kind of figuring as well with that is if we go off that 2020 timeline, it seems about the exact same. And I mean, that's what they did with 2020. They released those shirts that had the city names and then we sat back and waited. Exactly. Yup. So it's just one of those things where. We heard the whole rumor about the June 1st thing that came and went, we didn't get those, but we have heard in that, that cities and logos are part of that. So now it is. Good question with the city's page on the XFL shop. Are we now, do they push it back for any reason? And. There's a lot of questions that kind of remain with that, of why they may have did that. Or if they're not a hundred percent on these names yet. With logos and trademarks and things like that. I think something had to have, get gotten caught up here. Right? So last in 2020. And again, I hate going back to this timeline we even saw was it you that had posted in the group chat that one of the players that got in the player selection pool? They're just assuming for a fall draft, because that's what they did the first time. I mean, it does seem like we're, we're really trying to recreate this playbook, but if, you know, at some point we are running out of time here. So if we figure out city names in August, right. Mark Perry has said yet before the NFL sees and people go back to school, right. You buy merchandise that way. The June 1st, like maybe something happened. Like I don't, it. The whole Randy Krakauer thing, like maybe June 1st was going to happen. I've seen people say that they had issues with the San Antonio. Lee's maybe one of the cities. They couldn't get closed up in time. And this is delayed it because. You know, Doing it here in a week or two. And then I don't know any rhyme or reason and accept that you're trying to compete against a USFL, which. Maybe they'll do by, by lucky chance. But I don't know if that is like, if they're solely focused on like, well, we gotta disrupt the USFL playoffs. And that's, that's what I was thinking too. The other aspect too, is obviously the lingering issue with the together, or however you pronounce it, the lawsuit that's going on. I do find it just odd that that lawsuit announcement came the same day. Or I think it was around the same day as June 1st. So I'm wondering if they were ready to go and then they got word maybe like over Memorial day weekend that that lawsuit was moving forward and whatever they had planned. Essentially could have caused that stoppage that hold on a second, we actually may have to rebrand again, which I'm hoping not, but. We don't know. That's actually a good point. Cause I don't. And we have Darren on the show here, coming up, talking about the lawsuit, you know, Darren's a lawyer that, that stays a lot of this stuff. Like whether or not the lawsuit has merit, it still is in the news. Right. It's still something people are talking about. And like I've said, We're seven bucks. It's Suchy solely minded. Like this is our talking point this week. This is our target point. Yeah. Maybe they just said, well, call an audible. We'll push it back a week or two, even if we're not worried about this, we just don't want to have like the newly sued XFL released their city names. And like that would just be into everything. We're like, let's sweep this under the rug. Let's move on from this. And then we'll do, I think that's a good point. And, and the fact that obviously we know they went back and re uploaded the video without the together in the thing, but it is, it does make me curious that they. Are releasing shirts with the logo split. With the names in the middle after this. Kind of what I, in my opinion, the brand was talking about with suing them is like, Hey. Did that whole split thing in the name in the middle is kind of what we do. So it's, it's very interesting to see that they're actually releasing shirts with that. It's a great point, not to spoil our two by two Darren's interview here, but like, cause a lot of it is predicated there. The togethers. Lawsuit is like you said, they, that together being separated with that. And then the act standing on its own and Darren's email. Well, It depends. Like, are we using the XFL is logo separately or together, right. It's always going to be without, well, yeah, if we're releasing shirts, Without are we releasing more, more? It's like, I know Andrew Murray has one of the sweatshirts where it's like the X, whatever down the arm. It's not the full ax, but it's like the diet. You know, whether you call it behalf, the acts like that. I think I have a long sleeve like that. That I purchased and yeah, exactly. It's one sleeve is. Down arrow. And I think the other side is the up arrow, or however you want to say that. The X. So it's interesting. I don't know. If that had to do with it, but it kind of. The timing is just about right with that. So it may be just one of these scenes where, Hey, we're calling an audible and then they're like, Hey, let's take opportunity of the USFL playoffs coming up. And just start dumping everything. Cause they did that at the first part of the USFL. W I think that was when the coaches were announced as the week going into week one. Yeah. Oh, no, there's very few. So the coaches you're absolutely correct. The coaches were announced on ESPN. I think it was the Wednesday before the kickoff, because we were in Nashville. Hadn't down to Birmingham. But also when the USFL was getting ready for, I think it was when they were doing the draft, they were doing something that was when the XFL came out and announced their NFL partnership. And I know from talking with people with the USFL, they told me like, we absolutely take this as a shot. To us that they decided to do this. I can't remember whether it was like us about. I had like an announcement on a Thursday, Friday, and then they had something else there. It was between the draft and the supplemental draft, or it was something, but, but they, that was told to me was we absolutely believed that they timed this to counteract what we had going on, which is interesting. I mean, that's, that's they're right. One way or another, I. I don't know. I think you actually have I'll. He is finally being confirmed would be a bigger news story than week. You know, week one of the playoffs. I don't know exactly. Yeah. I think so too. And I think the biggest thing is too is I think the gloves came off when, if I'm not mistaking, I don't know if it was an executive Fox or whoever. It was mentioned that the XFL was competition next year. So I think that's where probably the XFL is like, okay, fine. We'll we'll step back and we'll take this and you're just going to get all of our news dumping. I think it was Mike Mitchell or someone was saying. On Twitter that. You're normal football fans or whatnot, white shiny pennies. And the shiniest penny at that point in time was the XFL, not the. USFL who is going into this hub city. And obviously we all know how that first week ended with delays. I was there in person in Alabama, so I, I know exactly the rain delays, the. Game getting moved the Monday night. So it's, there's a lot, the XFL I think, took from that. And then I think. I think we all learned also they ran an emergency meeting that Monday night as the molars game went on, that they were like, all right, we need to step back here and start really. Diving into making sure that our teams are in there, their cities. I think that's where that came from. I'm paying attention to you. I only say. Max max listener, max here, send us over breaking news here. We're going to talk about it. We'll get your reaction to it. So Neil Stratton he's with the inside the league, right? He's there involved in the XFL scouting process. They have a, he has an interview. They talked with Doug Whaley. This was sent over. This is in succeed in football.com. This was just said over the may. Posted today. Talking with them. And Doug Whaley has confirmed that the XFL draft is going to be in November of 2022. Okay. Interesting. So it kind of, it goes back to what you were saying earlier with the player. And I, I, I'm sorry, I don't remember the name off the top of my head or who was, but he had posted about it and I instantly messaged him or DMD him and was like, Hey. Did you guys hear something? No one else did that where the players told at the showcase in. He, as he said, it was just going off that 20, 20 timeline. But if now that's the case, this is still almost that same timeline. So it, it makes it, it now makes a question. If the team logos and stuff is going to be, I think it was no October. November-ish. Of 2019. Well, they had, the cities were leaked in December. I think they announced them in January. And then we had the dragons and all that came out in August. I just remember, cause I'm a wedding videographer. So like my point in life of where I'm at, in any point in the calendar year is kind of dictated that way. Cause it was like the summer Equinox day. It was like the 23rd or something of August. We had that. They're saying here. So XML drafted in November. They're going to have a supplemental draft in. Draft or drafts in December and January as more players become available. This is in response to the showcases being sold out. The XML showcases here at the sixth. They have coming up. Doug says they have not planned any additional showcases. However, we'll allow our personnel, staff and coaches to evaluate players in their seas of residence in accordance with league policies. So like, yeah, maybe Carlos or one of the scouting guys, like you could call him up and have him come to a practice wherever he lives. But. Adrian Swain November. A draft for the XFL at that. It was October before. Does that feel late? Does that feel like enough time? If we're looking at time-wise, I, I. I almost want to say that ma. It may be a month late. I know, we know for a fact that training camp starts in October or. January. Based on the XFL is timeline that they gave us in that. Original leak, kind of, they did with the picture in the conference room with Danny Garcia and Dwayne Johnson, the rest of the XFL staff a while back. It's it may be cutting it close. But not as close as the USFL has. I think they kind of bit the bullet on that one. I think that's always going to be a problem. With spring football is the lack of there's no preseason in most, all leagues. Or pre-season games. So I think that could be an issue because that only gives if you're you draft November. You have like spring training type stuff, starting in January. It doesn't give that much time for. Players to really get to know each other. And we almost kind of go back to what the USFL issue was, where the first couple of weeks was a whack was kind of them doling off each other. And I, I mean, we saw that in 2020 with the XFL as well, where first couple of weeks was kind of, eh, and then week four and five really hit it. And then of course it ended. Oh, the issue too is with the exit level before they were able to kind of like let their players go home in between where this may be. If they do the November. Draft like, then you just keep everybody and at that point and get ready for training camps, like, you know, you got a week or two off to go home and do whatever. But the exit event, like really did the draft in October. Like we saw Brandon silvers, we did the signings and all of that. And then they came back in like December and did the mini camps that way. Any other thoughts on the cities. I want to get your thoughts on the idea of offensive coordinators and all of that here. Before we let you go. I nothing more on the cities. I think I, I'm glad to see, obviously some of the main cities are back from 2020. Obviously we knew about Orlando would, that was actually rumored in like week three of the XFL that, Hey, next year they're probably moving the Orlando due to attendance. Same issue there. But yeah. Other than that, I don't think there's any mud, anything else? Much on the. Teams or cities. I was just excited. I mean, again, this is just further confirmation on the Mike Mitchell's reporting and all of that. The other big news we had, and this is official, right? So that the team stuff that's all, or the cities, that's all leads with ever activate, officially announced. Key football hires and coaching staff, or it's eighteens. We all run down all of the names. You know, if you want to go to the xml.com. Mark has a big write up on XFL new SAB. These are all official. We've announced the DPPs. The ons, offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators for all eight teams. Again, we still don't have. EO cities associated with these coaches, right? Like we have Anthony Becks team. We have Jim Haslett's team. We have Bob stoops team, any notable names that you have joined in this lesson. And I have some thoughts. I think the big one out of this list is Greg Williams for offensive or defensive coordinator. For Reggie Barlow. I think that's a huge name. But the league secured. That may go under. Kind of under the radar. I, I caught it when I was reviewing this list. I'm like, wait, is that the Greg Williams? I know it is. And for enough, Obviously we know J June Jones leaked. On his Twitter, he was going to be part of the Jim Haslett's. Coaching staff. I think that's huge. June Jones, obviously, I think deserve more than what he got. He was a great head coach. And then the two big names obviously are. Bob stoops offensive and defeat. Defensive coordinators are Jonathan Jonathan Hayes, and his brother J Hayes like. They did solid work in St. Louis. So I'm thrilled to see them back, but I'm just thrilled to see that there's a lot of names coming back from 2020, because. So it's a coaching staff was pretty great going into the. 2020 Season. Yeah. Yeah. We have Greg Williams, right? He's the, wasn't he the one that like blitz the jets air Blitzer Raiders tried to not have a chance. Yeah. Yeah, he got immediately does this hat. That was like the most incredible thing that football. I see ended. They're like, we just can't let. Yeah. Then throughout, you know, 80 yards or whatever, it's like an all out blitz there. The Hayes brothers are good. What's great is like you said, a lot of these guys are coming back, right? Yeah. The jive at Hays, it still is. Jamie Elizondo. Right? He was the OSI and Tamba before kind of had a disastrous run in Edmonton last year for the CFL. But that's why, like when people, we. Yeah, we podcast more than just the XFL, right? People listening to the show today. That's the name of the title of the episode, right? Not just an XFL podcast. This is like interesting things. Cause these guys go all around. Yo Jamie spent a year, got mud on his face in Edmonton, comes back down that like he has a great offensive mind. I'm looking for him to have a big bounce back. Right. He's also like good support staff or Hines ward. You know, you have some of these first year coaches that aren't used to, you know, being the head coach. We don't want to have like a Kirby Wilson, like scenario in the USFL, right? Like let's surround these guys, Randy Mueller coming back. That's when the Mike ever reported on our podcast last week when he was on. At [unknown], we're assuming Seattle, that's a really stack T with Jim Hazlett, Randy Mueller, June Jones. Do you know Ron Zuck? I don't know if I know Ronza I don't name doesn't sound familiar. I was going to start doing some research on these guys at. Waiter today for another podcast I host on YouTube or whatnot, but yeah, his name didn't sound familiar. Some of the names on here don't to me, but I am curious. Of why. Rod Woodson's team is the only one that has not hired an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator. It's kind of weird when everyone else is announced. Well, and also, you know, not that there's a, a run on. These coordinators are, but I mean, There's only so much talent now, USFL, you know, sopping up a lot of these guys, X about yeah. Rods. Duck extensive college career at university, a floor that he was at university of Illinois. I mean has been coaching sets Murray state back in 1978. So long accomplished guy there. 68 years old, went to Miami of Ohio. Is that right? Am I, I don't know. That's correct. Especially the teams assistant for the Packers. I was with a salt lake stallion and say, yeah, I mean, we've got good. I know Evan's going to have some more thoughts about some of these coordinators. The Hayes are you? I know a lot of people were upset they to. Either you have Jonathan Hayes back, we have Jeanne Jones back. We'll have them in head coaching positions. Yeah, I'm a little, it's kind of weird that Jonathan Hayes didn't kit. A head coaching position. And it's funny too, because not to kind of switch back to the USFL, but I mean, it was just yesterday or day before yesterday on USFL news hub that. There was an article about firing Curry, Wilson and Jonathan Hayes. The main person on the list. And I even was writing up a thing for the Maulers and had him on the list and I'm like, oh, well, take him off now. He's gone. So it is interesting that he is back as an offensive coordinator, but maybe that was more his decision that you didn't like head coaching that much. Maybe we thought. Well, he was walking around, like he was going to go to the like, The other day or it wasn't another day, but it was, he was going to go there like a big time school, like a really prestigious college to coach there and they didn't get the job yet. Maybe. He's just better off doing that. Someone I'm sure it's clear to me. It is weird. The rod Woodson thing doesn't have that has the DPP there. I think it's good. You know, the USFL, they have Jim cap, right. Kind of in charge. I say that. Right, right. It's kind of the DPP of the whole RJ Pope. Sorry. J-pop there we go. Dear Bob. I, sorry. And like I said, he is like the USFL DPP for like all the teams. Right? Like he's kind of acting as that. And it's easy cause we're in the hub that way. Right? Like you could do all that. I think it's important that you have eight different DPPs associated with the ATM's IB. Event's going to help give a little bit more personality to that. I was talking with Greg Maskell today. He's does the faggotry. Football play by play. You know, there's a, lot's made with the USFL and like all the teams having parody. Right. Okay. Every single game has gone down to the last, you know, Possession, even though it's seven to teams or one in seven, and some of them were seven and one, but all the games have been competitive, but there is something to be said for like each team having their own identity and kind of like. Yeah, some teams, boy, through other seventeens, falling, whatever. And I think having eight, you know, DPS with the ATM's is going to help kind of a further ensure that each of those teams kind of has their own identity that way then versus like the draft by committee or whatever that the USFL might be a little bit more with. Yeah, I agree with that. Cause it. That's one thing we do see in the USFL is it it's very close. And it seems like when something, you, sometimes you watch the games, it's almost like you're watching the scene teams. Over and over. The only thought process I will have on rod Woodson, the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. Why that could have been changed. I'm really wondering if a hell mummy. Was going to be someone's offensive coordinator and maybe it was supposed to be Bob stoops. And then they moved Jonathan and J Hayes to Bob stoops team. And that kind of, cause we all know how mommy had the incident in with being arrested or whatnot. And he was very liked in the XFL in 2020. I know he got hurt on the sidelines and. Thinking he ended up retiring or quitting right before week five, but he coached in the spring league last year and won the championship for the lineman. So I'm wondering if that could be the answer to that is why they had to make some changes. And Bob stoops probably was like, Nope, let me take these guys. I actually really liked that theory because how, yeah. How am I moving? Just arrested. We don't want to have that. Why would you have both Hayes brothers on, in the presumably the Dallas team? Right. I, I really liked that, you know, if Bob was going to have. How maybe you have Jonathan with Rob Woodson, right. Doing it that way. Yeah, you could have put Jonathan back with Anthony and St. Louis if that's where they're doing it. But I do like that is weird. You have both of these brothers. You know, on the same team. You know, I would split out a little bit of the wealth of knowledge at that point. Let's get all the teams bolster that. Here. I am just talking about not having too much parody in the league, but maybe the whole Miami thing. Brandon, anything else from you before we get you out of here today and the other, either on the cities that they hire as anything else? Nope. I think we are good to go. I appreciate the offer and coming on here and look forward to potentially coming back. Of course, I always appreciate the XML guys coming on here last night. You know, we get the breaking news today. Like who's got time today to come on. Really appreciate people, you know, stepping up, taking the time. Brand their rights for all the new subs. Are you excited for the CFL season? I, you know, I last year was my first year watching the CFL. And it was because of the show here that I got into the CFL. I was kind of, I kind of lost interest quick and I've heard that from a lot of people from last season, but. Again, COVID or whatever you want to pandemic stuff with a CFL. So I think this year I'm very excited. I can't wait for kickoff tonight and look forward to. Trying to get back in really paying attention. I'm glad that most all games are going to be aired in, in the us. Yeah, I really lost steam too last year. If I hadn't been podcasting about it. Excuse. I got to love it like that really hard. Like it was really hard near the end of the season. I think it's going to be good. They've had the training camps, Eva with all the strikes staff. They never really stopped doing the on-field stuff. I mean, they had a couple of days, All right, let's get going here. Well, I'm excited today. We have Evan. Will's more back. We only bring on Ave. We have exciting XML stuff to talk about. How are you doing, sir? Yeah, I'm doing all right. A bit tired right now, but whenever there's important, XFL news to discuss, I'm always going to be here to talk about that. So yeah, it was just, I've been to it. I want to know your thoughts, breaking news. I was just out with Brandon. You know, people listening to this all happens real time. We all XFL to hold their draft in November, 2022 with supplemental drafts. And December, January as need be. What do you think of a November, 2020 draft? Yeah. I think it's a pretty good time. It gives teams enough. Space to sort of create the rosters and, and get to know their players. You know, we talked about the USFL a few times on here about how, you know, their draft was structured and how it was a bit too close to training camp and the start of the season. But I think with the November start. You know, if you have the season kickoff in February, that's, I'm trying to do the math. That's a good three months. I think, you know, to prep teams, you know, kind of get that team bonding in per se. So yeah, I really liked that timeline. Maybe you wouldn't have heard to do October. I know that the XFL draft in 2019 I think was in October. So that was a bit earlier, but yeah, somewhere around that timeframe, I really liked that. And I'm glad they're doing it. You know, not like two or three weeks before they're kickoff, not, not to. You know, Put any shame on the USFL. I like it. Yeah, I, you know, people, so yeah, it was the October before, like the XFL did the draft before they basically went and took a nap for a couple of months and then came back. So like, I would rather do November and they were right into training camps versus October, and then taking two months off and then doing the Houston mini, whatever they call it, like. He camps and then they did the training camps over. So like, yeah, they didn't really get them into pads to like January before. So. AI I would have liked more time is always better. I don't, I. What were you going to do? Yeah. No. I agree. So we had the cities come out, Brandon and I did a deep dive on that. You know, we had you on a couple of weeks ago when we had the Houston smoke and we had the St. Louis and all that stuff dots. Now having seen the XFL shop kind of. Basically leak. I mean, you know, a lot of this we saw coming and, you know, our own. Mitchell has been teasing these things. For months, you. We've we've had pretty accurate city locations for a while now. So nothing was really too much of a surprise. You know, in terms of coaching as well, it was confirmed that June Jones is going to be the offensive coordinator under Japan. I was on the show a few weeks or a few months ago now. I guess it was a few weeks talking about that. You know, now that's confirmed. They didn't say it was in Seattle yet, but we can. We can, I think. No. What's what's the word here? Come to the conclusion that that is what it's going to be. Amongst other things, you know, we talked about Anthony back to St. Louis connection, you know, Wade Phillips and Houston. But yeah, I mean, I think all the, you know, the locations are great for the most part. You know, we've, we've touched on that before. I'm a big fan of the Las Vegas team. And yeah, I mean, I'm just excited. You know, and especially with some of the coaching placements to staying on that topic for a minute, just about, you know, like for example, you've got a J Smith, who's going to be the offensive coordinator under Wade Phillips in Houston and Adrian Smith was with the rough next back in 2020 as the receivers coach. So he gets a bit of a promotion, big shout out to him. So yeah, just those kind of little nitpicky things, I guess you'd say we're, you know, coaches are placed. I think that sort of makes the overall city announcements even more exciting because even though they haven't. Been officially tied yet we can kind of, you know, understand, you know, where things might be going and where they're coming from. It's so weird to me. Like it's so backwards that we have yo like Anthony backstage, if like survivor. We have like Anthony back's tribe, we have Jim Hazlett strive. Like we don't know. I just, it's so weird to me it's this backwards. And I don't know if they were still trying to figure out the stadium staff. Wow. We saw USFL in the bubble of, we don't want to do the hub now. We're like, we're, we're frantically changing. Even though we've had two years of runway, we've wasted all of it. Cause we were talking to the CFL, but like, it's just weird. I just couldn't imagine. I watched like, I wasn't in all this, but I watched like the gyms Orin, Seattle oppressor. And it was like, here's Seattle. We know Seattle, here's Jim Zuora and he's going to be your coach. It's just so weird to do it the other way. Be like, we know Jim has us a coach, but where is he coaching? We don't know. Right. Yeah. Any other big takeaways. I know that you would have lots of thoughts. And Andy and I kinda tides about the Hayes brothers with Bob stoops odd that they wouldn't split that I've you already mentioned AIJ Smith coming back. I obviously we know that you and Jones, Jamie Elizondo coming back. Other thoughts about some of the hires today that we've seen. I mean, I wouldn't say specifically about certain people, a lot of the hires I did. Like, I'm just more interested in to see sort of how the staff structure plays out because you know, some of these parents we've seen before and some of them were completely new. So what I'm really interested to see is, you know, if the previous XFL people, you know, getting back together, will they have a better understanding of what's going on compared to the newer coaches or because it's a new. I guess product and it's revamped. Is everyone going to be sort of on a fresh slate? And is it going to be different, I guess, is what I'm interested in to see just based on, you know, where the coaches and coordinators have landed. And not the, I like to have this debate, but this is a debate that's already come up today. Do we like these better than the USFL, right? Is this a better structure? I like having the, each team having their own DPP, right. Where the U S valid gotten has Jim pop right now over all of it. Thoughts on that. And like each team building its own core identity. Yeah. I mean, if you want to compare USFL. XFL coaches. I personally, I think there. Pretty similar. I do agree with you on the fact that having a DPP for each team is beneficial. Someone who's really sort of into that. General manager type structure. We're just management in general, the team, you know, that means a lot to me. And I'm glad that the XFL is, is doing that where they're assigning DPPs to each theme, as opposed to having like a lead wide sort of person. But yeah, I mean, I think in terms of just pure coaching talent, again, It's hard to say until you've actually seen what the coaches can do, but you know, the USFL did a decent job, was getting some, you know, Veteran. NFL presence in there. You know, Jeff, Fisher's obviously a name that everyone would recognize and, you know, Kirby, Wilson, even if he hasn't had the most success was in the NFL for a while. And then, yeah, I mean, the XFL has sort of a mix of guys too. Some people are trying it out for the first time and some people like Wade Phillips, who've been doing it for pretty much their entire life. So it's a nice broad. Spectrum. And I'm really excited to see where that can go. What do you think about matching? Maybe that people that need a little more help, right? Like we have Bob stoops, like we know he's a head coach, like. We have him loaded. Right? We have Rick Mueller. We have both the Hayes brothers. And then you have Anthony back dry, like your day baller. At Bruce, Greg Koski, right Greg housekeep right. Are we, are we surrounded? A new head coach with Anthony backed with enough support or like did Bob stoops need the mega powers in Dallas with him? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, do we need to separate that out and not have a Kirby Wilson like experience with the XFL? I mean to some extent. Yeah. You know, I would like to see. I guess more diverse coaching networks, but you know, in the business. I guess sometimes you're always going to have. Like-minds gravitate towards each other. For example, you know, going back to the XFL in 2020, you know, June Jones and Aja Smith were kind of, you know, all about that running chute system. And obviously now they're on there with different staffs, but they hold the same role as offensive coordinators. So you're kind of just taking that town that's already there and dividing it up. I think it's good to have some connection between coaches, whether it was, you know, maybe they played on the same team before maybe they coached on the same staff or did something together. But it is also interesting to see how, you know, different people can work together for the first time. And I think that'll make it more interesting in some scenarios like the on-field product, because of course you have. Defensive minded coaches, often Civ minded coaches. And I think what I really liked about these staffs is that there's a nice blend, again, of both sides of the spectrum. Where you're going to have some really diverse teams. And I think we're going to see some really cool stuff. Next year. I've been diving into this article. Max sent this over this, had the XFL draft Steph in it. Yeah. This is Neil Stratton, right. With inside the league. This has kind of a Q and a with Doug Whaley on succeed in football.com. A couple of things I wanted to get your thoughts on the, add a question here. Desert player need to have an agent to be in the exit. Valid Doug. Wally says no. You know, obviously that would help, but yeah, the showcases and things, I think that's good. I think the USFL had a, you had to be invited in by an agent. They had to get you into the drop. Well, what do you think about the XFL? Basically say you, you are able to play in our league without an agent. Yeah. Honestly, I think that's a great structure and you know, there's probably going to be some guys that say, you know, why, why would you say that? You know, because an agent is supposed to, you know, kind of monitor you and give you some structure, guidance, things like that. But I really think, you know, the XFL has always kind of been a more raw opportunity, right. And if you can get, you know, a player at one of these showcases off the street who, you know, really shows up and, you know, maybe it's someone that. People really haven't heard of before, you know, then that can create a really good story. And again, as a guy, you know, as someone who's always about opportunity, you know, I think that just getting these guys, you know, based off of film and other things and not based on, you know, who represents them, just rather who they are as an individual and a player. I think that's huge. And I'm glad that the XFL took a step in that direction. For sure. It's interesting. It's definitely is this there. They want it to be the league of culture change. You know, you don't, there's a lot of guys that can ball better than anyone that they just aren't represented the right way. Didn't go to the right college. I mean, that's why they're doing these showcases. Yeah, diverse areas, right? We have the HBCU showcase. We have the Hawaiians. Okay. Some of these are in by the label, like. Eh, try to find players that have been passed over before really speaks to. I don't like all of the verbose language that's been used by Danny and the rock kind of the same staff here for the last year. But at least this is action going to that, of these words of like, no, we want to find players and give these guys opportunities. They wouldn't have absolutely. You know, and I just think that. I mean, the, the showcases that are invite only, I will say, I think those guys have a better chance and they probably are more proven, but you know, I do think that all of the showcases are sort of fair game, equal opportunity. You know, you show up, you play, well, you'll probably get a contract because from what I understand, you know, this. This league, I mean, they're really advertising. It is all about opportunity. I mean, you know, there is a lot of repetition, like you said, between daddy and the rock and, you know, I get that it's, it's marketing, it's it's going to happen. You know, some stuff is just going to, you're going to hear it a lot, but I really do believe that like having a sort of showcase based pool of talent is a lot better than just, you know, contacting a bunch of agents and saying, Hey, is your guy available? Not that agents don't do a good job. I'm just saying there's a lot of guys who aren't represented by. Ages to can still play, you know, as well, or maybe even better than people who are more established per se. The other question they had on here, they're talking about player evaluation. They, the question is will player evaluation be centralized? How much latitude will each team director, player personnel have? They said. The head coaches and the DPP will be making all roster decisions for their respective teams. Obviously the XFL league is going to receive recommendations and vet them to make sure that they're okay to be in the pool by placing a lot of that. This is again from Doug Whaley and the interview with Neil Strat, like. I get, we have all these hires today, right? The. Oh, C D C DPP, like knowing that they have full control to kind of shape their rosters, gotta be exciting. Right? Oh, yeah. I mean, again, this is why it's so important to have like a DPP, you know, in a specific assignment, because roster construction to me is one of the most important parts of the game. And it's often overlooked, you know, people see the on-field product and whatever league it is, you know, it could be XFL, USFL, CFL, NFL. I mean, you name it. But I think roster construction, people overlook, they just, they're looking on their TV and they see, you know, a bunch of guys out there running around. Some of them might be better than others, but you know, if you really do a deep dive into it, You know, you can find town in a lot of places. And, you know, there's a saying that always gets passed around. You know, if you can play in the NFL or in this case, the XFL. You know, they'll come and find you. And we're talking about, you know, a lot of opportunities here. So I'm interested to see how, you know, the roster construction is done with maybe a more broader pool, especially with those showcases happening, but it gives those DPPs and, you know, general managers and things like that. Just a lot of her coaches as well, just a lot of good, you know, experience. And I think that's going to be really important moving forward. If this leader really wants to change the landscape per se and be different and be unique is, you know, how do you. Actually do roster construction in the modern era with so many more players. I think that's the big question here. The big ticket per se. Last question for me for you today. Cause I, I appreciate you hopping on here. You have breaking to cover all this stuff. Like. It'll be curious to me how the XFL balance is. Okay. We need, we want to find a diamond in the rough, right? Any guy we want to figure out you had the best players, but then also like we need some semblance of names to sell this league, right? Like, is the XFL is the auntie and the rock, like, is that enough to get people to watch? And then we can have not a bunch of no namers, but just not a lot of household names. Right. We've really dug and found. These guys have been passed over for T3 for years, or like, are we going to have not. But like Landry Jones there I'll repaint up to get some guys, like, I just curious how they balance that. Yeah. I mean, you know, you look at the USFL, you know, they have a lot of ex, a F and XFL players. You know, I think it will be a bit different with the new version of the XFL. Just because again, it all comes back to these showcases, you know, it's, you know, where can you find guys and where is your database and information coming from? Especially if you're not represented by an agent. I'm just interested to see, you know, sort of the pool that they put together. And then more importantly, the on-field product that comes with that, you know, a few months off of the draft and signings are made and things like that recommendations, et cetera. I really appreciate you hopping on today. Our big breaking news, always good to have your opinions on. I like on email, it's like the XFL, the bat signal comes out. We got news. We get to, you know, you and Brandon came on today. I really appreciate you guys making the time. Obviously we're excited for the CFL season and people can check out your work on all the different news apps here heading into the. Whatever. We assigning an osseous anymore. It's just the season. Just your own. Yeah, no, but I, I mean, a lot of exciting stuff is coming, you know? I'm very happy with all these XFL hires. Well, I'm excited today. We have Darren Hytner. EO trademark IP lawyer with Hytner legal. Thank you so much for coming on. We tried to get you on during all the USFL staff. I think your wife was, you know, you guys had the baby, so congrats. And welcome to the mark cast. Thanks so much for having me. And yes, we have a baby who's now three months old. Well, great. So we're tracking this, we have the new together. I learned how to pronounce that. Right. Cease and desist here with Sue birdie and everybody against the rock. You had an article here I have above the lie. You've been tracking this on Twitter and everything else. So what. What are your thoughts on this? I was a bit surprised that they actually went ahead and filed a complaint in federal court. I had seen some time ago. That there were social media posts about the concern or the alleged concern. That the XFL through its rebranding had created a brand through its March that were confusingly similar with those of together. And I guess ultimately the belief that there's a likelihood of confusion and it's funny. I see. The XFL hat as we're talking here today. So primarily the focus is actually just on that X in the XFL, which is. According to the plaintiff in this case together, or the company that owns that brand, they believe that the X that the XFL uses is so close to the X that together uses. That I suppose it could cause consumers to be confused as to source confused as to association or affiliation is the XFL involved with together is together involved with the XFL. And if you're just using that X let's say on goods and services that you're providing to the public. Does the consumer get confused and think that either that XFL product is coming from together or vice versa. An interesting wrinkle here is that with together's filing, it admits and I verified through my own research. Together has filed trademark applications with the us patent and trademark office, but none of them have yet been registered. And in fact, There last I checked, there were some office actions outstanding from the examining attorney who is assigned to those applications. So it's not your prototypical, federal trademark infringement lawsuit where you're relying on strong registrations here. It's with the potential of them being registered. So I'm not quite clear that together itself has these rights that they're trying to enforce. Does that. What does that do then when they're trying to say, Hey, you guys, you know, you're infringing on. We don't actually have real rock solid. Hold on. These rights ourselves. It absolutely weakens the case first and foremost. It takes a claim that would be a lot stronger with a federal registration. Although I'd still argue that I'd rather be representing the XFL, even if there were federal registrations in place. But now you're talking about a brand and together. That is relying on what's called common law rights that they were just first to use. Their mark in commerce and that they still have to prove. That there's a likelihood of confusion that will resolve that. The marks themselves are very closely. Similar. And that the look and feel is almost the same that they're selling goods and services in similar categories of industries that the consumer. Is being advertised to marketed, to promoted, to in the same forms and fashion. And one thing that typically I look for in these filings and it's not required, but one thing I always look for is whether there's any actual confusion that the plaintiff can cite to, because obviously if there is the plaintiff's going to use this opportunity to put it out there, Right in the forefront. And in the filing, I saw no such examples, which again is not dispositive. That they have no case. But I think again, there's many signs that show weakness and that's one of them. You said you would rather be representing the XFL on this. Why is that? Well, as I said, there's just so many weaknesses that the plaintiff has here first and foremost, being that there aren't registrations attached to their applications. It's also very interesting when I looked at the applications that are pending for together. I noted that these office actions have been pending for almost a full six months. Why haven't they been proactive in responding to them yet? It was so important to file this lawsuit against the XFL. And that leads me to believable. I should know if together does not respond to these office actions within six months, those applications will actually be abandoned. But it makes me believe that this is about a lot more than simply trying to prevail on the rights that they believe that they have. I think this is more of a PR publicity campaign. And so. I'd rather be in the XFL shoes, because even in a world where together had these rights perfected. If I compare. Just the X that together uses to the acts that the XFL uses. And by the way, I think by and large, the XFL is not really using the X on its own quite a lot. The the together cited to a YouTube video where the X is pulled apart and then an XFL video and in between the actual word together is there. And I think that p****d them off. But outside of that, I haven't seen many examples where the XFL is using that X by itself. So. I just. I don't really get it outside of it being a bliss that he's done. Done for part of a PR campaign. As somebody who's been practicing for 12 years, a lot of IP related work, including trademarks. I just think the XFL has a much stronger case. Well, and they've so I think it was last week, they had pulled down the YouTube video and had re they re uploaded it. Right. And so they got rid of that together. We have the one saved the original one because it had got leaked when they were trying to come up with all this brand stuff. But. So, I mean, there's certainly paid paying attention to that and at least taking those proactive matters, but like you said, it's a freeze frame of, I think it's even animated, like the things coming together. It's not like the logo is existing in and of itself. And I think it's smart for the XFL to take down that video, for instance, because in my world, that's not an admission of guilt in any way. And trying to remediate any alleged harm. I mean, it's actually doing what together, asked them to do in a sense. I mean, As opposed to actually completely rebranding. The cease and desist to the extent that it caused the XFL to rethink maybe some of the content that is published. If in fact it could potentially cause some confusion. Well, good for the XFL to remove that specific video. So as to at least take some action in good faith to try to ameliorate any potential harm that's been alleged. That's interesting because not that we want to touch too on Sundays USFL, but a lot was made. Like you said the XFL bringing down the video, the USFL changed a lot of the language they used. Right. Once the new lawsuit was brought about it was no longer like we're bringing back. It was the new us about, so you're saying that. Trying to remediate that stuff. That's not necessarily the admission of guilt. Not at all. And there's actually a federal rule on that specific subject. I think it's actually a very good idea and very important for brands to be nimble and willing to make modifications. After cease and desist letters are delivered after complaints are filed in state or federal court. It shows good faith. It shows that they're making efforts without again, fully admitting to any fault, but, you know, showing that they're willing to play ball to a certain extent. I think. Together. Never imagined that its letter or its statement was going to cause the XFL to pull back on its rebranding. Imagine how much resources the XFL has already attributed to it. And the XFL I'm positive has its own legal counsel internally. That is looked at this quite a bit and probably says we're not concerned because I wouldn't be either. A couple last questions here. You talking about the acts in the trademarking of that. They have the outstanding office action. Is that a really hard case to prove, like we have this act stylized in a way that makes it unique to us. Well, that's interesting. And that'll be left up to an examining attorney. I don't think that at least from the office action that I've read that. In itself was something that the us PTO, the. Patent trademark office believed was not worthy of being registered. What I saw in part was a concern that the description of the acts that was filed by together was inadequate. That it didn't specifically specify that one portion of the act was shaded, et cetera. And those things are important because they create distinctions. And also the us PTO while it wants to recognize rights for the owners of marts, it doesn't want to completely destroy. Creativity in this ecosystem. I mean, it's not going to give the letter X to a company and say, no one else in the country can use the letter X. And that's important here. Because again, if you look side by side, you look at the XFL. You look at together. I think that there are inherently distinctive attributes. And again, I don't think the XFL has, or is intending to use the X on its own. Quite so much. I think in large part, it's going to be the XFL is a whole end to the extent that it does use the X by itself. I have to imagine it will, it will be used in close proximity to the entire mark XFL, which by the way, Gets rid of any consumer confusion. They decided, and I know that part of this is legal stuff, but like, you know, irreparable damage that cannot be compensated with yeah. We read through we've we've done a lot of like case reading I hear on the mark has had the last few minutes, but like, I can. You know, it's not like this is like a porn company. That's trying to use the ax. Like, I mean, this is like a sports brand, right. Owned by Danny Garcia and the rock. I mean, this is not, you get what I'm saying. The reason why that type of language is inserted is because. Together as not only seeking monetary relief in the form of compensation. It's also seeking what's called an injunction. And in order for the court to enjoin the XFL from using these marks to prevent it from using the marks that they've created as part of its rebranding process. And likely what's forthcoming if it's not already filed, which is a motion for preliminary injunction in order to satisfy the elements. It has to actually bring forth those things like irreparable harm or that they cannot be adequately compensated simply through monetary means that. The public benefit. Outweighs the harm through an injunction like this. And ultimately if, if an injunction was awarded, which I can't fathom will be the case together would also have to post some sort of bond and an amount to be determined. So that's why you see this type of legal language in the document that you reviewed, just because it's a requirement. In order to ultimately seek and potentially receive injunctive relief. That last question from me. You talked about, you know, the PR in this, of all of this, it's odd that yeah. They've sided that gets the rocks XFL and the dandy Arab. TMZ is talking like you at Sue bird versus the rock we ever, I mean, Danny Garcia is co-owner of this, you know, the first woman that, you know, oh, and a major sports, like it's just odd that it seems like a lot of this is like the rocks coming in, bullying us. I understand, you know, female empowerment they want with this brand. It just seems weird that they're not targeting the whole picture here, which it seems more like a PR stamp for that. It does. And I remember looking back at the original three, I think it was a repeat. Who publish a tweet basically saying, you know, I forgot. Corny about the rock, right. Something about the rocks cooking. I don't know, but. Yeah, I mean, I thought that's where it would end. I really didn't imagine that a complaint would be filed, but then again, Consider that it costs roughly $400 as a filing fee. And I'd out. They paid their lawyers, all that much money to draft the complaint. If any, at all. And consider the amount of attention that they've received as a by-product. So, and it's not the thing is it's not frivolous. I don't think a court's going to say it's completely frivolous. So. They're not likely to be sanctioned in any way. I would argue that they've received quite a benefit from this all. Maybe, and maybe, maybe also, I mean, there are people who say there's no such thing as bad publicity. So if that's true, then it's, it's worth it. Well, I've I, for one learned about it. So at least they've got one person on the board. Dan, I really appreciate you taking the time busy heading out of town. Well, I'm excited today. We're really truly covering all of the football leagues today. We have Greg Mescalin on. Fager show football. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. So I, I feel like this season and I want to hear from you certainly from everyone I've talked to has exceeded expectations kind of across the board. I know the riders exited all new SAB had been really high on everything. How have you felt like the season's gone so far? Oh, Totally. I think on paper, it was already going to be bigger and better than last year. Right. We doubled the teams longer season. You got some new people involved, so right out of the gate. There were already some pretty big expectations. And then you've seen it week after week. Viewership has been great. Fan interaction has been great. We have been able to have people actually in the venue. That was, that was a big change from a year ago. With COVID award, no one could actually be inside to watch the game. So to have all that blended together, I think it has exceeded everyone's expectations. And. You know, well, right. The challenges. In all these football leagues to try and get to season two and to be successful in. It's been so exciting to see FCF, be able to do that. Well. I mean, you guys really aren't crazy sometimes. Like I, you know, we're getting ready for the season kickoff and like everyone was talking USFL and like, okay. They haven't even announced the coaches. And I see Patrick Tweedy and like we're building our own or re now, like, we're getting ready to go. I mean, But it's like you guys exist in your own world, which is great, I think. And they just, you just kind of do what you do and set your timelines. And as far as I can tell, have accomplished all of that. Yeah, and it, you know, for me, There, there are other leagues, obviously out there, a USFL, right. XFL coming in. I fell, of course. To me. Yes, it's all football. But. The FCF isn't, isn't really a direct competitor of that stuff. As far as I'm concerned, you, you have fans that call the plays in this league that really sets it apart. That kind of fan governance. That's not what's going on in all these other football leagues. And so, you know, I obviously hope that there's room for everyone, but also. The FCF, I think kind of stands alone in that, in that regard to your point, they really are blazing their own path. Right. Building a custom venue that really is focused on the viewer experience. Yes, there's fans. In the stands, but it really is about what, what the person. At home is seeing and how they're interacting, not only visually, but then also it's so important that people play as well. Right? Whether they're doing it. Through through Twitch or on the app. And so when you kind of blend those two things together, Really hard to think of someone else that's doing exactly that same thing. Yeah. So obviously last year, bringing in tons of technological stuff, the voting and everything. You know, I play the long a lot. It seemed like it went well. Right. All things. I mean, considering everything, I don't really know that there was any real major snafoos with that. How has it gone? Going into year two, smoothing all of that out. I think it gets better. All the time. And as you know, the founders will, will always say, right, this is like a work in progress, right. The developing technology as they go. So if you think about other kind of tech, startups, sort of things, right there, there are version one version two, right? There's a reason why they call it season 2.0, right. Not just seasonal too. Cause it is kind of a, a nod to kind of that, that tech development end of things. I think what I've noticed is things have gone faster this year. It feels like the play call comes in quicker and gets down to the field and gets enacted faster. You've seen the playbook expand a big shout out to coach. Sean Latta really opened up that playbook. And, and just little things that you had to kind of do it to understand how you had to tweak it. Right. So previously, for example, The play calls had one name at the fan saw, right. And there was some fun names and some jokes and that sort of thing, but that was not how the players referred to the place. And so, again, it kind of a disconnect, right? A player might say, Hey, I love this. And a fan is like, I don't know what that play is. I always call this. They've merged those things. So, so now what you call on the app is what the players actually know that play to be. And I think that's been a great way to kind of even tie those two groups, the fans and the players, which are so well connected in the sleek, even able to bring them even closer together. You talked before either. Where you guys existed. It is, it's a weird space because it's the fan engagement. It's, you know, we're have the NFTs now, which I have, you know, people get all weird about all that stuff. Like you have the, the online video gaming, but like you're still competing right. With, with talent, right. That could be going to like arena ball could be going to a USFL or, you know, over the Alf. And also like, you know, the time of year, I love the last year, February timeline. It's been really hard this year with the other. You know, spring stuff going on, but so, so you exist on your own, but you still exist in this world. Right. And so how do you guys. Do you, do you even pay attention to any of that other stuff? Cause. For right or wrong. It seems like you guys do not, and you just exist as you are. I, you know, you'd probably have to ask each person. I'm sure some people are a bit more in tune to that. Than others. I'm certainly aware of all the other football's going on out there, but I don't. Personally, I don't, I don't look at it like an us against them at all. You. If the USFL does well, that's fine by me or XFL or whatever else, because I think this is such a unique thing on its own that it's not going to be reliant on the, on the ups and downs of someone else, right. To your point. Sure there's talent, right? If, if there's not another option, then, you know, maybe there are some guys that come and play an FCF instead of going somewhere else. But. There were also a lot of football players out there, right. That really want an opportunity. That's been part of the fun of this league too, is, is that while there have been a lot of the known names, we've seen so many people that maybe you never heard of before, or you hadn't heard of in quite a few years, and we've been able to come and tell her story and kind of share their journey. And so that's kind of, you know, not to. Be oblivious to what's going on everywhere else. But, but I think like anything, if you're going to do it, well, you kind of got to live in this and just focus on this and you. From my standpoint, I know the guys that work on the broadcast, we just kind of try and do this as. You know, as good as we possibly can. And hope that that's what everyone will enjoy and kind of share, share the story here. FCF. It's been gameplay has been good this year, high scoring games, right? I mean, a lot of IC, like even the post, if the game side of that washy, like 50 points throughout, like what have you thought so far? The quality of play, you know, elevating from season. Because it's so hard cause right. You're always going to have turnover and especially where you guys are with the roster switching around, but it seems like, yeah, the high scoring, this has maintained, right. You know, to an extent it was interesting last season, it seemed like literally every game came down to the final play. Now. Just a numbers thing as the season expands and you have more games, you're not going to be able to have everything hanging in the balance in the final minute. So I think that's been a bit of a change. And then also the rosters by and large locked after week three. So all the skill positions kind of stayed where they were on the offensive line and defensive. Packages did switch week to week. But so one of the interesting things I think developed this year was you saw. In a longer season and with rosters kind of lock a bit, some more continuity built on those rosters where quarterbacks knew who they were working with. They kind of got into a rhythm with certain receivers and super backs and that sort of thing. And then each of those package groups really started to kind of meld together. So it started to take on, I think, what, what you'd seen naturally in a league, right there were going to be some weeks where there would be teams that were just decidedly better than another team. They were going to be some close games. And I don't know, in a way, to me that felt more real, right. That's that. That's kind of the ebb and flow of what happens in any professional league teams start to separate themselves. And, and then as we saw late in the season, The way the FCF is built. You, you do have an opportunity to make a run. You're never quite out of a game, which is, which is one of the fun wrinkles in this league. No, I think Lockie and part of the rosters is really important. I, that was a lot of the frustration I size is it spine that we enjoy doing the draft, but at some point. You have to balance the fan aspect of it. And also like, we need to feel the football team here. And I think that that's a good balance. You guys have hit that way. Well, I think people and credit again. The folks who run the league are so fan. Informed right. If the fans kind of have a lot of feedback on something, they're happy to take that. And kind of implemented going forward. And I think that was one of the pieces of feedback after season one. Hey, I love being able to pick my team. Now. I want to play with that team, you know? If you kind of blend the fantasy model or, you know, you're doing season mode and something like that, right. You. You like your roster now you want to try and work with it. And so that was something that we didn't really get as much last season. And now you've seen it, I think too, to your point, as guys be able to work together more than only naturally gonna get better. So you saw people actually run the plays, a better kind of have a better understanding of, of what each other likes to do on the field. And then that just makes for a better product in the long run. Stand out players that you've seen so far this year. I mean, you're the, you're the lead play by play. And obviously you have a wealth of sports knowledge. What have you thought about like certain guys that have really stood out in the field? It's it's been a mix of guys that were returners from last year and then some new faces. I think there are a lot of people talk about the Andre Francoise, the quarterback for the board of a football club. He's certainly in that, in that conversation as the best player in the sleeve, even though he missed a game and a half, but. Just has kind of the complete package that works well in the FCF and just has that kind of veteran experience. So kind of never rattled by the moment defensively. Cecil cherry and other guy who's, who's ended up on the board aid, but I had kind of bounced around with these defensive units. Just has delivered some jarring hits as so many tackles this year. And you see the benefit of guys that played a year ago and are now back. I even think of guys like a James harden or Jordan Smith or. A a Yeti Lewis. They didn't have massive seasons a year ago. But I think the understanding of how the whole thing works, gave them a leg up coming into season two, and they've just been able to play really, really well. And then new guys, Bryce and Aleen, super back out of, out of the state of Delaware, he played really, really well this year. We saw a couple of other tight ends as the playbook expanded, the tight ends, really got an opportunity to thrive, you know, in that seven on seven. I think what everyone quickly realized was there going to be some inherent mismatches here for tight ends as they get out in the space. If we can start targeting them more, they're going to get a chance. And so we've seen a whole host of tight ends, Joshua Johnson, a local guy from Georgia. Again, a guy probably no one had ever really heard of largely getting a chance at. You know, and starting to Excel. So that's been a lot of fun and, you know, I could give you 25 other names, but those are, those are a sprinkling of some. I didn't hear your reaction to my former quarterback with. XFL Seattle dragons, Brandon silver is coming in and absolutely getting lit. It up. That was a wild day. I obviously had been like many excited. Okay. This guy's joining the FCF. He, you know, he's another established quarterback. You saw the stats he put up right here. I mean, what well-traveled, but had been at icon. Kinda on the cusp right. Of, of that highest level of football. And it was kind of like that old, like Simpsons meme where like grandpa Simpson walks into the bar, like puts his hat. Down and picks it back up and I'll try. But I got the door. He, he was in for one, a couple of plays and then on absolutely rocked by Cecil cherry and never returned. And Devin garner, who does the games with us? On Saturdays, the four Michigan quarterback, he saw the hit and he was like, yeah, he. He's leaving. That's it. Like, this is, this is not what anyone thought they were signing up for. That that was a jarring hit by cherry or. But I think that that's good because I think, you know, you guys play with a chip on your shoulder a little bit. I think it's good. Let's bring in the guy, get them a little roughed up. Like we can. We know how to play too. I mean, I think that that was, it was a good luck, I think overall. Because you did it. You know, and obviously our games are live on Twitch in addition to some other great, great broadcast partners, but on twitches, you know, as you know, right. You're getting the instant stream of feedback. And it's funny every now and again, someone will suggest that this is like flag football or, you know, or something that's not as serious as it is. And then you think back to those plays and it's like, I assure you, this is very serious. Like these guys. You do not try and tell the people that are playing asleep, that it doesn't count that it's not professional football. That's one interesting things. We just had a championship preview show. Last night talking to Terrence Williams, former Cowboys receiver, you know, played, played at the highest level for many years. And one of the things that was like to ask those guys, not so much for myself, but a better form of the fans is when did you understand this was real? Like when did you get into this and have a sense of. They're playing for keeps here. Like so many guys he said on day one, like it's not, you know, it's not a thing that anyone's taking lightly or that's not to make it out more than it is, but, but it is to just inform people that everyone that's here is, is here with purpose and not just like a. Flag football league in the park. So how do you the end of this weekend? No, I liked that. I liked that because it looks, you know, it, I get that. I get having the children, wanted the players to know like we're taking this seriously. How do you get it to the weekend? I have my board aids Jersey on the pink from the season. I had the wild ASIS last year. Right. I know that we, I don't know if we talk about them or not anymore, but I have the wild ACEs they want. Board apes. Going up against the zappers. I know that. I this Apres, right? Oh, for Ryan came back. Maybe the playoffs board apes have looked good all season. Like what do you make of the matchup in the storyline and headed into the championship of the peoples? The people's game. So are you, are you one of these pocket ACEs that they referred to that migrated from there? There's a group of folks that were wild ASIS fans. That then shifted alliances to the board of the football club. They called themselves pocket. I like that. Now I like this because this is the best color ever Jersey I've ever seen. I have to on that, but I liked that I liked the pocket. That's funny. To your point. Classic. Opposing journeys, right? For the zappers and the board eight football club board a. Came out strong. Really showed you the strength to Francoise quarterback. They, they ended up making sure they add a good defense. Week after week as they were picking that each week up until the end of the regular season. So they jumped out to five and L punch their ticket to the playoff. Francoise has a, has a little ankle foot situation. Ends up leaving a game early that he was probably gonna rest anyway. In week six and then he doesn't play in week seven. It doesn't really matter. They lose both of those games, but then they come back in the playoffs and it kind of returned a form in the FCF, as we said, you're never out of it. So they really had to weather a final storm from eight OTT to, to make sure that we get the championship, but all signs point to them being a team that has been as good as they have been all season long. And they've secured one of the best defenses. For the playoffs now, conversely, this hackers. Such a rollercoaster ride for them. You mentioned own four, then have have one every game since eight different quarterbacks during the regular season, they started with Terrell Owens. I think that was the focus early on. And one thing we talked about as weird as it's been. They have been at their best since they traded Terra loans. And I think one of the things that came out of that was a little bit of the pressure came off to try and make sure that they used him. If you saw their first game, It was dedicated almost exclusively to trying to get him into the end zone, which happened at the end of the game, but they ended up losing in fairly convincing fashion. So. A couple of things happen. He moves on you think that's the end of their story. And it actually sends them in the, in the opposite direction. Upwards. They get Kelly Bryant, the former Clemson quarterback. He comes on. Either it has to leave. Jason Stewart comes in briefly. Brian returns, Johnny Manzell is kind of here and there. And, and so now they've weirdly stumbled upon this like great mix of. Kelly. Brian's your starter sprinkling a little Johnny Manzell Chauncey. Thomas has become the primary super bag that got themselves a decent defense. Terrence Williams has become their, their main receiver along with James hard wood note Tio. And. It's kind of the perfect storm here, the classic peak at the right time. And they left no doubt in the playoff against the stipend, just blowing out the should have been stars. Really kind of serving notice that they very much belong in this people's championship. I'm curious, which of the new team owners that we have, the Bob manners of the world, riding Marshawn Lynch, all that I want to know who is the new team owners brought in Aoki or whatever that has most surprised you with? Like how all then they RMS. Well, it's interesting. So you have the OGE division and the ballers division, right? So we're fairly familiar with the OGs. Probably the one big, big switch up there was WildAid just becoming should have been stars and drew ski becoming a big, a big owner with that group. But otherwise that OGV O G division has, has stayed fairly intact. You've seen some other. NFL guys get, get involved as well. And then on the ballers division, what's interesting with that NFT crew is that some of those groups almost feel like by committee, right? So it's not, it's not necessarily like the big, the big celebrity name outside of maybe a Steve Aoki. That's kind of associated with it. What's been the most fascinating, I think, is to hear about how these teams have worked so well together, especially the board at football club. We were talking about that a bit this week. They run these kinds of online forums, where they get together and, and. Coach Sean Latta was talking about it. It's like almost like being in like the coaches room. Like they're, they're so intentional with what they want to do when it comes to play calling. And I would say that's been kind of the hallmark. Especially of these four new teams, these four NFTE teams and you kind of hit on. I know that's can kind of be a hot button issue for some folks, but, but at the end of the day, it's, it's become kind of a way to use that product to have access to your team. And those people. That are part of the NFT groups. They are, they're a heavily passionate group. They're really excited about what they have and, and I, and I think seeing them work together to kind of assemble their teams and call plays were pretty impressive. Yeah, I think I'm old, man, that cloud yelling at that point, like you. USFL was doing it actually. If I was doing it. You know, and then like, I think that. If it's going to exist, right? I mean, obviously you guys have to be all in on that, but I do feel like that was something that I was very. Not like super vocal, but I was like, ah, I don't really like this. And I think that if everyone's doing it, it kind of is. And it's certainly confusing. Right? And I think some people you. And I, and I won't say I'm anywhere near an expert on it, but I will say at. At least in this league, there, there is you getting something for what you get, right? So you bought this NFT and now you get to do something with it. Right? So if you want to look at it like a membership card or whatever else. You know, you you've kind of processed it that way. It does kind of gain you access to, to call plays and be involved with your specific team. And then the great thing about the FCF is like, if you were like, that is not my thing at all. We have these other four teams that are free to access and you kind of go that road. So I think that's been kind of fun and. Ideally appeals to everyone, right? There's there's a group over here that could do this. Or, or if you're the old manual, you have the cloud, which I totally get as well. You can, you can go down this lane as well. Well, I w. Last question for me, I could talk to you for a long time. I know you're busy. You got to get ready for the championship game. I will say that. So we had already booked our staff to the USFL to do, we did a live show there for the kickoff, but when my wife found out that Steve Aoki was doing the live concert for. I'm football. I, she was like, I was like, that was the one thing that could sway her way. But I think you guys are doing tremendous stuff. Who do you have for the championship? Who do you have taken it all? Well, you know, as, as, as someone who calls the games, I always kind of balk at picking a winner. Because I never want to kind of give off a vibe of, you know, rooting for one team or another. And so it's super cliche and I kind of always say like, I would, I would really just love to see a good game at the end, which is a really true statement. It sounds like. You know, very much dodging the situation. But, but honestly that, and for me personally, it's much more fun because I've done all every game. You can think of where someone says this team is gonna win by whatever. And for, for an announcer's point of view, it's kind of a bummer. Like if you start going into something, knowing. In, in your heart of hearts that, okay, this is going to be the outcome. It's, I don't know. It takes a little, the magic out of like what, what might be. And so I really do make a conscious decision to, you know, to kind of not think of winter. I would say if you asked me like three weeks ago, It's like, okay, well it's, this is, this is the board at football clubs thing to lose. And now after last Saturday, you really can't count on the zappers. So it's a long-winded way of saying I'm not going to give you an answer, but I'm very excited to see what happens on Saturday. Oh, I should be good. I wish you guys lacked how Patrick. Hi, we kind of have a tenuous relationship and. I'm glad that we could get you guys on. I really appreciate Brian. He never went for reaching out to get you on that. This has been good. We have Javan Alford of the sporting and he is on content producer over there. How are you doing, sir? Doing good. How about you? Glad to be on the pot. I'm good. I said, it's hard to find good people covering USFL right now. We're trying to build this. They call it like the grassroots media, you know, they don't. Always do a lot of helpful things for us. Right. They keep it a lot closer to the chest. But what have you made? We're approaching a weeknight, which is crazy to think that we're almost done with the regular season of the USFL. What have you made so far? Four. For me for the USFL. I kind of, like you said, building this grassroots type of thing, like for me, This goes back to like, I was like, you liked how you're doing it. Like I was doing it for like a renal football. So like I was in like the grass roots type of, you know, lane and era. So for me, for the USFL so far, I think has been good. I can't wait for week nine, you know, definitely going to get some bed in previews out. For everybody. Cause I know that's kinda been very, very hot. Now if people love putting money down on a USFL, so looking forward to it. Why, why do you say that? I say that would be just be, I say that just because, you know, I think, you know, for as much as people don't want to say, like they don't like spring football and don't watch spring football. I think the numbers start to tell us that people do like watching spring football. I mean, we just look at the latest readings that came out. That's pretty good for a Sunday in June, you know, comparison to what any else there ain't really nothing that was going on, but to see those numbers, I think that's impressive. And, you know, just look at, you know, page views coming in or just people, you know, betting on the actual sport. Do people want to bet on football and they don't matter what it is, you know, once they kind of figure it out and what it's all about then. They day in day, enjoy it. And you just, you figure out if not so much about how in the NFL are we looking at against the spread and all that stuff here. If you know the rosters, you know, the quarterback play is. You'll be all right. So when you start covering this, right, obviously you're the sports betting. A lot of guys I've had on it. You do that. Are, do you have passion for watching the game too? Or is it just about covering it from that side of the things? Oh no. I, I enjoy watching. I enjoy watching a game every, you know, when I watched the us USFL, I think of, you know, I think about, you know, the excitement, you know, If the U S. Has progressed. I think about the excitement that was around, you know, the XFL and I was watching the AAF and I was watching, you know, the UFL. I was watching it. I was watching it all. So for me, you know, it's a little bit of the sports, obviously sports button angle is always nice to, you know, dive down into, but it's also, you know, watching the games, watching players, you know, that you might've seen in college. Play in college or gods that you seen, you know, get NFL shots and you're like, oh, I didn't think he was going to be an ex-felon he's there. So you start making that recognition in that player and seeing the players that you might've saw playing in NFL or in, you know, other leaks. So I'm looking here and I've got the email from the league. We have the games this weekend. So Houston and ma. Houston and Pittsburgh are both eliminated from the plan. I'm like such an idiot when it comes to like, okay, who's in and who's clenched and who isn't like, I like it when I watch like NFL network and they just have, like, if you're above this line, like you're making it. But, yeah, so obviously a Birmingham's in New Jersey clench. I teams. We kind of expected Houston, right? Kevin Sumlin, my old cohost Paul, very anti Kevin Sunland and his work in Arizona. Obviously the Kirby Wilson experiment is kind of a failure. Whether you make a, both of those teams being out and, or was it just expected? I think it definitely was. I think it definitely was expected. I mean, just looking specifically at Pittsburgh, just started with the whole, you know, pizza situation that was just like a talent sign of like things that come and off. We'll look at both of those teams and how they constructed their rosters and the quarterbacks that they drafted. They weren't, you know, the best of the best, you know, how, if he Houston drafted, you know, Clayton, Thorson, and Pittsburgh, they went through a myriad of quarterbacks from Kala. Letter to, you know, Josh loves who's now, you know, with the Panthers to that Lee and Yvan Lee gets bench to go to Roland rivers. I mean, when you just look at dat from a Pittsburgh aspect, you can kind of tell. You know where they was going. Cause if you don't have consistent quarterback play. You're not going to go far to the matter what we you're planning. You're not going to go that far in the same thing. I think with, you know, w where he used to, you know, with them, with fumbling going with Thorson, I get it because he would name a guy that has NFL experience, but this is coming from someone that seemed Thorson when he flipped to Eagles and preseason wasn't that. He wasn't that you know, that great of a quarterback. And then you look at the, you look at the weapons that Houston have. They have some guys, but it just has an equal and out their defense has been the saving grace for them to at least get one win this year. Okay. I said, I think it was last week on the podcast. Scott Kirby, Wilson really went like full mad king. You. We're benching VAT and they're starting to like, I, I, you know, cause I like, I work weekends. I have a wedding schedule. That's very unconducive it's like watching a lot, like USFL seven live in, but like I'll turn the audio on. I joke. It'd be like rolling rivers has never picked up a football before in the USFL and Kirby, Wilson has started to hemorrhage. Whatever it is. I can tell he's like, what the hell is he going on? I guess. I will say, you know, it's easy to bag on Kirby. I think with eight new coaches. Some Lynn, I don't think it was a failure, but to have seven of eight, like field, at least respectable teams. I mean, Houston. I'm clenching when I call him respectable. But I do think that that's pretty good odds that we had maybe six of eight that were like actually competent. Oh, yeah, 100%. I would agree with that. I think six to eight, you know, definitely, you know, [Unknown] vaping competitive and they've gotten better, you know? We've seen those teams gotten better. Right. We seen the stars, you know, Get better over these last, you know, three weeks you've seen, you know, Birmingham kind of come out of nowhere from the gate and week one and ride that momentum, even Jersey Jersey had to kind of figure out, you know, what their identity was going to be. At quarterback and Jeff on offense in general, they've kind of figured that out now. To where they're making stuff. Making themselves up until the lack of potential, you know, contender in this league. And I think Def what you hope for the future, right? That you do have, you know, a good stable amount of teams and you can build on that and you can add the talent to go into year two into year three. You know, however long the league, you know, goes around and stays around for. Is the Birmingham home field. Advantage real, right. Actually having the large Kaiser. Or, or is, and I mean this around. Is skip Holtz is head and shoulders better than anyone else, because it's not like they've had. I mean, not that this easily. It's like they've had 50,000 people screaming, crazy. I mean, there's been fans and I'm not trying to do it at attendance joke or anything, but like, why is Birmingham that much better than everyone else? Birmingham a distinct. They're just a very, for the most part, you're a very sound team on, you know, both sides and for them it starts defensively, defensively. Dave, Dave played well. I think I've really been their calling card this entire season. And the offense has kind of like came around and they started to. You know, figure out, like I said, they get, they get J Maher sniffing. The offense often starts to pick it up, get it together. The weapons start, you know, playing well. They started to get a running game and develop a net. Don't know how much you want to run with bars, bro. Both Scarborough. Cause he's not picking up that many yards, but they start to figure an identity. I do think home field advantage, play the lap because it's always different. I mean, And sports when you're playing, you know, what your home crowd, you know, supporting you another team's like, oh, so this is how it feels like. And you and you hear them there and there's enough. Good. You see that? You know, the city is supporting, you know, to stallion. So I think of that and also think, I think his coaching and they've gotten lucky in some games, but, you know, Luck you look, get you being undefeated. So I don't think they're undefeated on accident. Did you know, a lot of Brian Scott before the season. All I knew from Brian. All I knew of Brian Scott, whether he went to Occidental. And he played in the spring league. I was a, you know, people very high and Brian ride me. He's a friend of the show came out, played really well. Got her. Now he's been ruled out, you know, for the rest of the season. I think the reports online. They, you know, he's not coming back. Yeah. There was always been speculation. Well, maybe he comes back for the playoffs, whatever. Are you surprised that the team with Kate case cookies was able to Excel as much as they have like really not missing the beat? Oh, yeah, definitely. I was complete. I was completely surprised and I think it goes back to them finding their identity, which is that ground game. Matt Colburn is second and Holland. They have just, you know, really taken off specifically Colburn. He's just been. Outstanding and really kind of set the tone and what's been helping them when, you know, What their last three games has been net. It has been that. And then once you get the running game going to open up the path again, but we know anything from Keith Cook. Give back in this time in college, you can throw it around. A little bit. So to see, you know, that run game get going and they can spread it out. It's worked for them. The only issue is case cook is, you know, he's mobile. We saw it was mobile a little bit, but. That offensive line is a little bit sketchy, so they got to get that big. They got to get that together. Yeah. I mean, he had, it was at 79 yards. Randy was very like Daniel Jones asked like 79. It wasn't like a Lamar Jackson kind of, it was very like we're I got, it's kinda how what's his face with Kansas city? Travis, Kelsey, it's kinda like Travis, Kelsey, like isn't the most athletic guy, but just no one can seem to tackle him. It's a very weird, but case was very loose about there. That was a big, I mean, I think he one offensive player of the week. So what'd you, what'd you make of that run? I thought it was impressive. I honestly couldn't believe how Michigan totally blew their gap assignments. How does that happen? Shout out to the block and bottle receivers. They did a great job blocking down the field without getting penalized. We see that so many times guys. You know, getting a block in the back. So if debt, it was honestly, I think that run with like the tale of like what was going on with UTMs. It was that type of game for the stars and for the Panthers, it's just like, this is just the type of season it's been for us. So heading into this weekend. It's kind of. It's it's tough. Right? Some of these games don't matter as much. Right? So the big game is Tampa versus new Orleans. Right? So whoever Wednesday, it's a win and end situation. Is that again, I'm a dummy down when it comes to playoff standings, but that's what we're looking at. Right. Yeah for new Orleans is a winning they're in, but if they lose, then that opens up the door for a Tampa winning next week or new Orleans losing next in week 10. So. It's a one and end for new Orleans, but if they lose, then the door is open for Tampa. The when next week. I guess this is weird. I mean, maybe it's just because it's a stronger division. It's just weird. New Orleans has seemingly played really well all season. They kind of be in this precarious situation where they might not make it to the playoffs. Yeah, it's shocking. Especially like I said, we looked at what they have on the roster. I mean, Offensively to have a nice receiving Corps, you know, with Jonathan Adams, with Taiwan Taylor, with Poindexter. You know, Johnny Dickson, the run game has been good. You know, cows, loader, you know, didn't have a great game and, and, and, and against Birmingham and F the game that you got to win, right. Especially when, you know, play off feeds online, you got to win those games. And even defensively, I think defensively to break has been one of the, you know, better, you know, defenses, you know, when the league, I think they're like second or third in scoring defense. So. They've been pretty good. So like you said, for them to be in this predicament, it just shows just how, when you have a condense league like this and this condensed schedule, every game matters. It's all right. You know, we're used to the NFL season, right? You got 17 games. Now you can, you can snooze a couple of weeks and mean you look at this here, you know, four and four verse five and three eight. Like I said it really condenses it down. We talked to Kirby, right? Kind of the failure. They just Pittsburgh. What coach have you been most impressed by so far? This season? Most impressed by. I will say Jersey, I would say Jersey, just because we didn't know what we were going to get from them because obviously they drafted Ben home than the first round at a draft. And then, you know, he, Dave released them and I think he was playing in a CFO in preseason. Yeah. So to see they move on from him. You know, they know it got leaf Perez on there and they didn't get Deandre Johnson. And they kinda, like I said, have this two quarterback system and Mike Riley, but they don't panic. They figure it out and they get it and they get it done. And I think that's what we've seen from Riley, even in the XFL. Right. He just knew, you know, what to do to get things done. And I think that's carried over. With them. I've been definitely impressed with them and, you know, Probably one of the more exciting teams that I've, you know, seen this season just because they don't change for nobody. They're going to do what they're going to do, which is we're going to run the ball. And we're going to give one, I have to try to stop this. You had to try to stop Trey Williams in dairies, Victor. And good luck trying to stop Turpin. If we get our run game going. It's weird, you know, you have Louis Perez, right. And everyone talks about, okay, I can shortcomings as a quarterback. Right? Like maybe he's not the most. The accurate or doesn't have the biggest army. I just think there's something to be said. He's been around so long has been to all these different things. Like if I'm even in above average quarterback that I've just got so much experience, it's still going to put me at a level above some of these guys, like. I that Brian kind of maybe some of the higher level of Jordan [unknown]. They've. Struggled a little bit, right. With decision-making. Maybe it's a big stage forum, which is weird. Cause Tam has been on practice squads and stuff, but like, it's weird that some of these guys that we thought would be good, kind of fail Luis Perez here. We didn't have the highest expectations as, as at least met or exceeded those. No. Perez has been solid. And I think that's something we saw even going back, you know, even, you know, In a F and you know, he's just been net type of solid quarterback. He doesn't, like he said, he doesn't get too high. Doesn't get too low. He runs the offense the way you want it to be run. And I think, you know, that's, I think any, you know, any quarterback in the week can learn from that, right? Like you might though interception might turn on the ball. Okay. But if you stay ready and you're always ready, I think there's always gonna be opportunity for you. And I think he, you know, the perfect example that he's always, he was always ready. And he, you know, we've paying dividends, right. You know, he's kinda, you know, Deandre Johnson having gotten that starting job if he, because he'd been playing well. So that's just a Testament to the type of the type of quarterback. His type of professionally is because he knows how these spring leagues function. And he just goes about his business. If you assume you have Tampa right there in the marquee game, right. You know, they're against breakers. That's the big Fox game, you know, one, one E. Pacific. So whether it's at 11 Eastern, Do you think taboo? Are we bouncing back here? I watched, was it two weeks ago? He had like three other sanctions with him, like five minutes or so. I mean, he's been, it's been challenging. Why do you expect him to kind of figure it out? Finally? I hope he can. You know, I was very excited when I saw [unknown] get, you know, into the ex. Into the M and the USFL, just because I got extra phone, my mom, because he played so well in the XFL was like M P J Walker as like the gold standards. And, you know, we, haven't kind of replicated that success. And partly because you know, the web, you know, The weapons in Tampa with the bandits, haven't been the greatest, you know, he doesn't have that standout wide receiver. I think Jonathan Franklin might be his best wide receiver, you know, but he had some tight ends. Ground game and then, okay. You hope that he picks it up, you know, I'm builds off what he did, you know, last week. And they're when, cause like I said the previous week, it wasn't good. I'll watch that game previous week. It was just. It was horrible. And then part of it in part of that was, you know, coaching as well. When you feel quarterback trouble. We gotta get them in rhythm. And he found that rhythm once he got into that, no huddle offense, the ball was flying. He knew where he wanted to go with the passes. So I think if they just do that, they got a chance and it's going to be tough because there's new Orleans team. Very tough one, very tough on defense. But I think if [unknown]. I moved. This is the moment where he can kind of, you know, put some respect on his name when it comes to, you know, To spring football. What do you think of trace Atkins performing at the playoffs? So that'll be. So next week's week 10. So in two weeks, what. What do you make of that is kind of sandwiching. I'm in between the devil header of the two playoff games. That is a very interesting. Idea, I think is almost. I don't know, maybe you're trying to do like a little Superbowl esque type thing where you just have, you know, the, the concert in the middle of the game, you know, you got some air time to fill between what the first games would have three. And then the next one is at like eight. Eastern that night. So that day, so trying to feel. Try to fill some time. I mean, if you got a concert for it as. Semi finals. I mean, what are you going to have for the actual championship game? I mean, this is what I will say though. Just to give a little constructive criticism. I'm knowing this MITRE, Mr. Anti USFL, like they did this to write the whole thing. All season is one ticket. We'll get you into all the games for the day, right? So it's 10 bucks, whatever, but then they schedule these games like Saturday, you have a game at 10, so that's 10, 11, 12. So it's a one. These are Pacific time, but whatever. And the next day. It's not until three. So you have a two hour break in between. So like you're asking people, are we going home? Are we coming back? Are we getting beer nearby or we're coming back in, and this is the same with this playoff game. Like you said, the game's at three. So that's three to six. Tracy, isn't going to play for two hours. It trays. So you're asking people, you want them to be at the stadium from three to 11:00 PM. Like nobody is going to do that. Like, I, I understand the theory of it, but it's like, you need to sandwich the games closer, have trays play for 45 minutes or whatever I get, you got to get personnel in and out and all that stuff. But if you're expecting to keep people around. I don't know, BC lions are doing that this weekend. They have like one Republic opening for the home opener. Right. They haven't. Our domains, a new big owner of the BC lions. And they're bringing in that and like, you'll be curious to see how many people stick around for the BC CFL game. But with this I'm like that is. Eight hours on a Saturday and Canton, Ohio. Like I dunno if I'm sitting there at the hall of fame that long. Yeah, that's the, I, like you said, that's a long time to commit and you know, hopefully it's not a blazing hot day. As well, because that's another thing you got to consider. Like, I don't know if I it's like 90 degrees outside. I don't know if I can commit to Jessie. No, stay on like, Hey, I want to stay in camp for like eight hours at the field. Just to say, so, I mean, they got to do better. Hopefully, like you say, hopefully and gear too, they figure it out and be like, all right, we tried this a year and when it didn't really work so well, timing wise, let's revamp that for a year to. Yeah. I mean, I just can't. I don't know what the rash, I mean, I, I, I know what the rationale, because they have the TV slots, right? So you have to figure out the TV sites that way, but like, it's just killer that no one, if the games are back to back, they're not double headers. It's a. He's two games with two hours in between. Like I don't and, and the, we, we were at Birmingham for the kickoff, like there's, I think four bars across the street. I mean, there's just not, it's not like you're in like downtown Nashville where it's like, well, it's like, go leave the Preds game. Let's go get some beer on music grow, and then we'll come back and see like your is very far away from anything to ask these people to sit around. It's very interesting. Yeah. Most definitely. So hopefully, like I said, hopefully they figure it out and you know, maybe, maybe they might move it around. Hopefully that's the thing. Right? You keep it in cannon this year. You moved to another place. Like you said, maybe a metropolitan type area, like the Nashville where it's like, Hey, we have a concept, but we also have this. And then we have this going on just to, you know, live in it up and bring some more excitement to what you're actually doing and putting out on the field. Is that, I mean, rounding out here before we go, is this Birmingham's world. We're just living in it. I mean, who, who do you see in the championship game here? Like what are you. What do you expect? Oh, ethics. That's a good one. That's a good one. But what, the way the things are unfolded in the south. I con I definitely see Birmingham. You know, and, and, and into the championship game, I mean, I don't know if, even if Tampa would get the spot, they would be able to take down Birmingham, just, just because of the way Birmingham, please, you know, defense. And just, if they get their offense going and not turn the ball over, they'll be all right. But on the other side, I mean, it's tough, right? I mean. Philly Philly filling in obviously an SME final around like Philly and Jersey to be that best game. I've cut. Just because both, both teams are going to come with almost the same mindset of running the football and just going to be. With defense is going to break first. And I think that's a game that could come down to the wire, especially with, like I said, both teams playing. And if you know, if Philly gets there, I don't think they stand a chance against Birmingham just because that offensive line is. Desktop Devin is not holding up well right now, but if we get Jersey, that will be a nice rematch from. You know, from what we've seen from these two teams, you know, in the early season. So right now I'm going to see Jersey and Birmingham. I think that's going to be an exciting game between those two. I will tell you if it is, if it's the repeat of the kickoff. I think that was a CFL last year. Cause I think the first game it was at Hamilton at Winnipeg, that was the key I'm trying to remember. And then the gray cup was Winnipeg at Hamilton. And so be interested to see kind of if it's full circle there, if it's. If it did, did these 10 weeks matter at all? Or was it just week one? And then the championship. Any final thoughts before I let you go. I appreciate you hopping on. Hey, no, I appreciate you having me on man is great. You know, talking USFL, seeing, you know, outlets like yourself, you know, promote, you know, other leagues, other football leagues, you know, spring leagues is the kind of stuff that we need because there's not a lot of it going on, you know, outside of, you know, You know, people might mention it here and there. So to see, you know, people like yourself and, you know, XFL news hubs, CFO news, those guys, you know, continuing to build. And grow the game, you know, XFO now USFL. I think it was great. Do you mind? Alfred here? Sporting just really appreciate it live. We'll get you back on here. We'll figure out kind of posts you whatever this post. USFL world. I am afraid that come July 3rd, you know, fourth at USFL drops off the map for six months and they kind of close up their social media. I hope that they at least have a skeleton crew around to kind of keep things going. But I just kind of, my fear is that we, we, we will hit a lull here following the July kind of excitement. I hope not. I mean.

Episode 95 - The XFL Gets Sued!

Well, I am thrilled today. We have Kevin Seifert. Here, ESPN and Vikings writer as well. I did. How are you doing today? I'm real good. Thanks for having me. This is good. Like I said, I don't always call it favorites, but when Mike Mitchell come. Cut me in contact. And Mike wants to be on the show today too. I think Mike is anticipating lots of interests in your thoughts to the, I never think. So first off. You know, here we are. We're we're I guess, steadily approaching XFL 3.0, it does feel like a little bit it weighted. What have been your thoughts so far on the XFL kind of rebrand as we are. Well, I just been interesting. I think. Part of it is trying to sort of compartmentalize the image that we had of XFL 20, 20, you know, 2.0 the same way we did that with XFL. The original in 2020, and not trying not to assume that they're just going to pick up where the previous incarnation left off and that's not to render a judgment one way or the other, but it's a different ownership group. They have different priorities and different personalities. And. I think the, one of the things that's been really, I've been really interested to find out and we're just starting to get a glimpse is kind of how they think of themselves. You know, I think we knew that. The 2020 version was very locked in on sort of re-imagining the game and innovating rules. And, you know, having, you know, Really robust local markets, you know, by putting you. The franchises in the markets as opposed to practicing somewhere else. Or playing somewhere else. And so we had, I think at the very least we had a very clear idea of what they were trying to do and accomplish. And unfortunately we never got. Great rendering of whether that was a good vision or not. You know, there were a lot of optimistic signs, but the pandemic shut that down and. You know, now what they did has sort of been picked up a little more universally, you know, The USFL picked up a lot of the things that the XFL 2020. Did so. What I'm waiting on now is how this 2023 version of the XFL will envision itself. They've talked a lot about wanting to improve the ecosystem football ecosystem and just benefit the whole sport and, and league. But we haven't gotten a ton of specifics and I think we're getting closer to that. And so, but I think the big takeaway so far has been, and I'm sure a lot of fans have been the same way as trying to not make the assumption that they're just going to pick up where the last week left off. Yeah. I'm running out of kind of distinguishing features that they can use, right. To incorporate it. I mean for right or wrong. USFL has brought in, like you said, a lot of the things, you know, we've had Sam on the show before talking rules and stuff and like, For right or wrong. A lot of the good rules, a lot of the good technology that Mike cams. You know, even when Danny and the rock were at that Disney upfront, I mean, obviously they're not going to divulge a lot there, but it was. Okay, we're going to have new technology coming out here. I don't know what that means, and I don't know what they're going to do to distinguish where the USFL is doing a lot of good things right now. Yeah. And you know, and one of the, one of the points that they're all Johnson from the USFL made when I spoke to them before the season, is that, you know, and he was freely talking about the upcoming competition between the XFL and the USFL such that it is, is that. And this was before ESPN signed on to be the XFL partner. But, you know, the ex the USFL is owned by a TV company itself in Fox. You know, Fox for. And so they certainly would be on the cutting edge of any technology and any sort of broadcast innovations. And so he was sort of making the point that, you know, You know, honestly, like good luck to whoever tries to take us on in terms of creating a better broadcast or, you know, a better. Use of tech, the technology that's available. But that's. And again, that was before ESPN signed on and, and, you know, technology evolves so fast and I'm sure, you know, people have long been at work on coming up with different ways to broadcast the XFL. You know, And so, so that'll all play out, but again, you know, I think, you know, I think. The XFL has the great advantage of having the rock. You know, sort of just like there's. They have a high floor in terms of. Fan recognition and fan of. And attention from fans and the public. Like they're already going to get a lot of eyes that wouldn't otherwise come to a. Another professional sports league. And how they choose to use that and what they. You know what they sort of make their. Their personality beyond that. It remains to be seen. My concern has always been, you know, and Danny and, and red bird and all them involved in all these different projects right in [unknown]. And Zola, and we're buying an AC Milan, and we're doing all these things with like, You know, the people that love the exit fell really loved what that was for right or wrong. And I know it's weird cause like we only got the five weeks and like we fought with CFL fans about this during that whole thing because they have all this history. It's like, I understand wanting to come in and buy your own thing. Right. Like I've always said at that point, just call it like the rock football league, like we're buying the exit fell, but then we're like, yeah, unless you have battle Hawks dragons, all that. You're going to get a lot of people that are concerned for right. For better or worse. Yeah. And maybe just concerned because they don't know what's coming and, and something will be coming and they will. You know, there's while I know that. You know, with Danny Garcia and Redbird and, and, and the rock, there's plenty of other projects they're working on. They've, they've built out a pretty extensive front office, you know, starting with Russ, Brandon, there's the president people who are. You know, pretty solely devoted right now to developing the XFL a much bigger. Front office than the USFL has or any other way, other than possibly the XFL 2020 had. And so I do think that there's a lot of smart people. Working on this, you know? Not round the clock, but certainly as they're relatively full-time jobs. And so. In the end. You know that the owners will do what owners often do, which is provide the vision and provide the budgets and provide the, the, the financing and all that. But the, a lot of the nitty gritty work that we're talking about and the things that. That fans will ultimately attach to, or decide not to attach to is probably in a thought bubble right now, amongst those, those front office people. Does it concern you that we are still discussing rumored cities and that we don't have the actual, you know, presumed eight cities that they're going to be playing in February. Out of relative scale? No. You know, the USFL and I hate to keep bringing them up. You know, but it just it's important to Cav context. Like, like they didn't even have coaches. I don't think until like six weeks before the season started or two months, and they've pulled off, you know, The season that they have so far. And so. I like, I think while I understand where you're coming from, that, like, you want to start ingratiating yourselves in those markets and you want to start, you know, Identifying your fan base and inviting them out to things and getting them involved. I also know just from having reported on the XFL 2020, that it's a pretty enormous lift from a logistical standpoint to get all the. You know, insurance. You know, the employment insurance and workers' comp and stadium. Rentals leases, all that stuff. Gotten done by it from a legal sense. It's a pretty enormous lift. And it's probably one of the reasons the USFL went to the model where they did, because it's, it's not expensive, but it's just, there's just a lot of paperwork that has to be done. So my guess is that they've. They've long since identified who those cities are going to be. And it's just working through the, you know, the legal process of nailing it down to where they can actually. You know, have people work there. You know, have people. Play there. Have, you know, a place to, to, to play. There might be a few cities who are a little gun shy, given the bankruptcy of, of it's not the current owner's fault, but they, you know, the bankruptcy that left some Lisa's unpaid. From XFL 2020. And so I, you know, you would certainly want to know and be able to start marketing as soon as you can, but I think it's probably most likely attributable to just the logistics of. Of of that endeavor. Do you think that. Just more of a philosophical question. Like. Knowing kind of the hurdles, like you said, With the twice failed league. You know, I have my side, like all these things with the XFL. Would you have just started the new w. Like would you have just called it Kevin's football league? I mean, where would I do you think that there's enough Goodwill there and fan base versus just, Hey, the rock star in the football league. Like we could just go for it. It's just weird that it's always so attached to those three letters. And I do think, you know, I think, I mean, To me, like I'm not certainly on a business person, but like name recognition would seem to be pretty important. And if you can enter the market. Without having to tell people who you are. There's there's benefit to that. I don't think there's a negative connotation that it's necessarily would be dragging them down or in any way, like, Making it worse than, you know, then. Re Johnson's. Lee. I did talk to some sports business, sports business expert, one of the times, I think right before, right. After the league went bankrupt and it was put on the market and eventually these guys bought it. Was how many times do you just say like, well, this, you know, this brand has not succeeded. For whatever reason. You know, There's not necessarily one specific thing. It's not Vince McMahon's fault or, you know, he hate me fault. You know, or anything, one thing in specific, but just like generally speaking, it can become associated with a failed. Business. And so just from a marketing standpoint, is that a good idea, but in the end, You know, I think. They will enter the market. And it's probably why the Fox sports, you know, decided to change. You know, basically what they did is changed the spring league to USFL. And people certainly know what I think football fans certainly know what the USFL was. I, you know, I don't know if they. Like necessarily identified with the team names. It's been a long time. I'm 49 years old. I remember watching the New Jersey generals, but people younger than me. You know, wouldn't necessarily have done that. And so. But they certainly didn't have to explain, like here's what the spring league is or here's what the UFL is, or here's even what arena football is. They enter the market with everybody knowing they're a spring alternate football league that has pro. Caliber players, some of whom have been in the NFL. Some of them who will be going to the NFL. Many of whom you knew in college. And so like that base is well known. And we'll help them, at least in the short term. And, you know, Whether the brand itself is a reason for failure or not. I don't know, but that's certainly a fair question to ask, you know, When you're talking to, you know, sports business type, type people. Now you are not aware of, but just the very mention of the spring league. Now being the USFL, there are many people, probably angrily typing on this. I've long maintained that like. It is. Spring lake with a different coat of paint, right. We need to get into the cities and stuff, but. I think this year has, has, has dissuaded me from that. I mean, we have fancier cameras and drones and things involved with it, but it is still very much that. Even the roster sizes and all of that. I mean, You're seeing that they've gone that rap, like you said, they don't have to. We don't have to tell people what that is. Right. I guess there's enough people with the USFL. I mean, In terms of USFL mainstay right now, I don't want to get too far off the accidental topic, but like, has that resonated a lot with you and the work you're doing? And have you been aware of everything going on in Birmingham? You know, I've. I have honestly felt like I haven't kept up with it as much as I did the XFL in 2020. And some of that is just probably the fact that. You know, ESPN was carrying the XFL and hasn't hasn't carried the USFL. That was not a text from an angry fan, by the way. I don't know how to turn this. This off on the, on the machine, but I. I think they may have. I mean, to be honest, you know, in talking to Daryl Johnson before the season started. He said, I asked him, what would success look like? And he said, you know, if we get to the end of the season, We play R R title, conference, title games, and then the championship game. And we've completed a season. Then we, we, we pop open champagne and start talking about year two. That in itself is a. Roaring success in the context of recent spring football aids, you know, AAF. And the XFL 2020. And so I think they're pretty close to accomplishing that goal. I'm not aware of anything. That's going to keep them from continuing to play at least through the end of the season. And it'll be up to Fox sports, just like it was up to Vince McMahon, you know? To decide whether it wants to subsidize another season, you know, and, but all indications are that it wants to. And so anything short of that you're getting through the end of the season would have been, you know, would have been, or anything more than that would have been gravy. I haven't seen like any, like really innovative. Schemes or thing, or even players that I'm like, oh, we better write his name down for this upcoming NFL season. But in the end, they're probably going to have accomplished more than any of the recent spring league ventures have done. And that in itself is, is. Notable. Yeah. Cause the thing, I mean, What's interesting with you is, I mean, you cover NFL primarily most of the time, but you have an interest in these, like a lot of that. A lot of the main state NFL guys will cover XFL stuff like because they have to ride there because it sent along, you have an interest in this. These are leagues that you, why, why is it the, that you feel the need to cover those things and put your weight on that as well? Oh, it's interesting. It's kind of evolved. You know, I remember doing a story maybe 10 or 12 years ago. Just about how. It was an anniversary of the NFL Europe ending and how the NFL still had no. You know, developmental league and no real, there was no real alternate leagues that had had propped up, popped up and there was a huge need for it. And you don't have to talk to many people in the football ecosystem to know that. That you know, college football in itself can't support. The development of players that the NFL would need. And so, and that story really resonated. You know, one of the great things is, you know, about digital journalism is we know exactly how many people read things. We know how long they read them. And there was huge interest there. So I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting. And then as you know, various leagues came about, it was just. Really kind of fun to follow. People's attempts to capitalize on how popular football is, you know, and I love football myself and I, more football is better for me personally. You. You know, and I like it. And I'm happy to watch it in the spring and not. And I don't feel like it's an overdose or anything. So I've been interested in a personal way. And then, you know, when the XFL came around, like I was super nerding out with Sam Schwartzstein. On all of the rule changes that, that dovetails into another, my interests, which is just how to, how to evolve and how the game evolves and how to innovate it. And they didn't have any of the. You know, the institutional. You know, sluggishness that the NFL has. So they were able to dive into it. And it was really interesting. To know that. When they did their focus groups and they showed them different. Things that they were thinking of. The fans sort of pulled them back a little bit and said, we, you know, too much, too much, you know, we don't want. You know, people being able to throw passes when they're eight yards down, past the line of scrimmage, that's not football, we don't want certain things. And so it was interesting to see where the limits were. And so I was just really excited to see what it would look like on the field. I loved that it made. Football institutionalists feel weird and uncomfortable to see the kickoff. You know, people standing as the ball was in the air. That just from a statistic standpoint, I guess I liked the, see that it routed people up and, and I want football to make it to the next generation. I don't want there to be this constant. Cloud over the sports. With people questioning whether it's, it is. It can't be played because it's too dangerous or it's too injured. You know, too many injuries or whatever. I want people to be able to innovate it in a way that extends it to another generation. And so that was a long answer to my. You know, to why this is interesting to me. And, and in the end, you know, whether it's XFL, USFL, AAF, Our readership shows that there's data shows that there's a lot of interest in it. And so, you know, the why not. It's interesting. You. You know, XFL 2020 had this, you know, two year runway ride and all the different, and we're testing and Sam, where you were at the spring league testing, we're testing with college games, doing all these hats, you know, building in the markets, you know, a lot was made of the USFL, not doing a lot of that. Right. You know, here we're coming in. Like you said, announcing coaches without, you know, here we are with the XFL. We're June, you know, so we're six, seven months out, right? I don't see a lot of those same things. Right. I. Okay. Presumably we bring in Sam's rule book, but not Sam. I mean, that's a discussion. Fred did they show here? But yeah, we bring in Sam's rulebook. You know, we're we're we have coaches, right? We're working on leases. I just don't know where this, like, we're going to have a two year runway again or a year long runway. I just don't know where all that time is going now. I mean, I know we talked with the CFL for a long time and that took a lot of attention. I just don't know where we're at right now. And I just feel like not as much has been done. This should be done. Yeah. And it's, it's a fair point. And I don't think it's necessarily an example of them trying to do things behind the scenes without people knowing about it. Cause you would think that all publicity on that would be good. You know, part of it, I think is, you know, they paid. 15 Million or so for the league for the, for basically. And I remember talking to Jeffrey P*****k and like, during that, during that sale time, and like, one of the things they were marketing is we've done all that. All that. Groundwork, we've done all the focus groups we've done. All of a M experimenting. We know at least in 2020, what was going to work and what was not going to work. And this is what you're buying. You're buying all this. You know, startup. Energy that we already, you know, combined and collected. And, and so that's not to make an excuse or to try to say they don't need to be working hard right now, or they don't need to be like finding, you know, the next step or finding something more. But I think that they bought the team with the idea that. A lot of that stuff had already been done and they have a. You know, entered, they have the evidence-based information to, to, to implement the plan for their league more quickly. I mean, there was, they were marketing it at the time as, Hey, you can buy the XFL in the summer of 2020 and have a bubble season in the spring of 2021. And so. I don't think that was necessarily realistic, but I do think the 2022 season was unreal. What was realistic and the CFL thing maybe was a little bit of a cover for the fact that they just hadn't gotten around to, or at least gave them the cover. To, to delay it another year. I don't think there's any reason they would want to be delaying because they spent the money. You might as well start, start getting going. And, but I, I think those are fair questions, you know, we don't know as much about. The XFL 20, 23, as we did about the XFL 2020 in the summer of 2019, I guess. And again, Some of that. Is because the work has already been done. And some of that is because. I think they're still trying to figure out exactly what they are. I know, and that's what is, cause I, I will tell you, and I guess I know they work on all these different projects. I actually, all fans really know why or they think they know what the XFL is. And I know that, you know, you don't want to get caught in the minutia of like, you know, the Twitters and Facebooks have it all. But I think that. When you start alienating your hardcore is that that's what's interesting is, is seen. Things shifted and the rock comes back. I'm like even this week we had Randy out of St. Louis and like news was going to come out and people got excited and then of course it didn't happen and they'd be all. XFL again. We're not. And so your people are really living in die. By all of this and I just don't know. So do you think that their list. Like impatient, or do you think that that they're truly alienating people by not having their plans set? This this soon. I think as funny as it is the rock endorsing Joe Biden two years ago is a major divisive point in the XFL fan base. First and foremost. You wouldn't. I wouldn't think that I don't really. Yeah, that's very the visit point. And then I think that people are very scared. Like I live in LA, I live in New York. We're not going to have teams there. I'm a battle Hawks Kakao. That's not coming back. I think people are very, I think it's the fear of it. And, you know, when Danny had come out, I think it was at spore, the code report. Oh, we have all these fun ideas. We just, we just haven't had a chance to share them. And then the first thing they have to share is like the new logo that goes over like a wet fart people don't like that. Megan Rapinoe is suing. You know, we talked about that off camera, but like, so there's just a lot of, like, there hasn't been many positive, like good steps along the way. I mean, the coaches came out was good. So I think that's where it is. I just don't think that we have, I dunno, the XFL before we had all of Reebok were doing the press conferences where now [unknown]. Zoran and stuff that was exciting. It just felt like there was a little bit more like temple events to kind of go along with the whole time. I mean that's, that's totally fair. And like, I think. You know, every, every ownership group is going to be different. So, you know, I think part, like, to me, that feels like what you're describing feels like. Kind of left over anx that something, everybody was really excited about. Went away. And, you know, it's not an easy thing to follow for this new group because I was. You know, I enjoyed the XFL 2020. I was invested in. It's development and wanted to see how it was going to turn out and. Knew a lot of the people in the different cities as, as a lot of the fans did as well. And it, and I'll tell you, I mean, just those, the people that work for the XFL have still have the bad taste in their mouth that they really like. They really felt like they had stumbled on something, not stumbled, but had. Had created something very unique and very promising and, and, and separate from a lot of what you see in the sports pro sports space in general, in this, in this country. And we're just so bummed and that's a kind word to use that. That it got taken away, you know, the pandemic. And then later the bankruptcy, they, they really, I mean, you spend two years building to something that lasted for five or six weeks basically. And so. I can totally get where fans are on that, because a lot of the people who worked for the XFL feel the same way. That the 20, 20 XFL. And so I. I get where they're coming from and I can see where they'd be frustrated. I think it's probably in the best interest of the business that they're going to start coming out with a lot of details pretty soon. And. And. You know, whether it's the summer or in the fall, if summer thinks. Things tend to, there tends to be less attention on, on news over the summer. So we'll see exactly what the timing is, but I get that in this particular moment, it can be really frustrating. No. And I, you know, I said all along, I mean, cause we dealt with the CFL homers and all that and I said, yeah, I actually tell people you got to, this is a new vision. This is. Kind of fine with whatever, but it is fascinating. Before I let you go, because I promised you a certain amount of time. Obviously, you know, you're with ESPN and all that, but I think that you can also have your analytical hat, right? Where you cover all this stuff. New accidental TV deal, right with Disney, you know, ABC, all that stuff. Thoughts on that and how that was all kind of rolled out here, I guess two weeks ago now. Yeah, I mean, You know, as you know, there've been rumors about it for a long time, especially once facts and NBC. You know, teamed up to do the USFL for your well, they're not going to also do the XFL. And so that I don't have any inside knowledge about how the, the TV deal came, but to, to be, but. You know, it was, it was. They needed. You know, there's, it's no secret. You need to be on TV. And not just TV, but you need to stream and you need to have options for every, for every body, you know, no matter how they consume. Sports nowadays. And so the ESPN plus thing is huge. For that. And I think that if there's one thing we can say for sure is that this ownership group knows. No show business. You know, and, you know, Has connected with a company that. And Disney that also knows show business. And so I think that that connection tells you that. There's a pretty good chance that the production of the games is going to be really good. And that should be to me, not somebody who works for ESPN or Disney and it just like, I would think that no matter what is that, that's a pretty good combination for. For live storytelling. And I think there's, that's an area where hopefully you'll see a lot of things that you've never seen before on sports broadcasts and. You know, in terms of giving insight into players and the coaches and their lives off the field and on. There's a real opportunity there. And so I think that, that, I think that while you. The, you know, maybe the. You know, the, the pie shrunk, given that facts. And NBC, which were in on it before, you know, I had gone in different direction and there was a pretty good. Pretty good. A network. Still there for them. And, and, and it got off to a pretty from an advertising standpoint, obviously got off to a good start at upfront, and now they'll have to do the hard. Nitty gritty work of. Earning the fans and viewers interest. Yeah. Does this feel like it was the deal from 2020 without yeah. NBC or Fox or whatever? I mean, again, like you said, the pie is shrunk. It's nothing you can do. I mean, Fox is you. In bed with us at Valerie, literally, but. It does feel like it's the same, but just okay. Cut off. I give you look at the XFL TV schedule. I had it like on my phone. I was like going through my favorites and I was like, oh yeah, like Fs. [Unknown] like ESPN. I didn't realize the XFL championship game was going to be on ESPN. I never realized that. Like the day after the draft, I think is when it was going to be. Yeah. So it was like, literally they were. I want to say it was either the champion game or the playoff someone's going to happen with like, They basically like built the whole schedule right around the NFL schedule. So start the season right after the super bowl and like championship game the day after the draft, when there would be no other competition. Last question from me, and this is perfect segue. Do you like the February to April here, XFL timeline or the April to July USFL timeline. Well, I mean, from a football standpoint, I think that the February to April is better. You know, I certainly was watching more of the XFL. Then I have of the USFL. And I've been, I feel like I've been consuming at least as much sports content. You know, with the NBA playoffs. I live in Minnesota. That's enrolls we're in the playoffs in the first round is really into that. The wild. You know, in hockey, we're in the. And so like, I feel like I've been watching a ton of sports, but not as much. Football and. You know the idea. Behind the, as you know, the idea behind the XFL starting in February, is that there. The original research and analysis was that there was this huge yearning for more football after the super bowl. And there used to be the pro bowl, but that isn't really anything that gets anybody excited. Anymore. And so you, you just like, you basically don't let people go find something else. Like here's some more football, you know, and it's an easy thing to market and an easy thing to remember. Okay, next Sunday, I'll be watching the expo. And so. I personally like that better. Like, I, I, you know, it. I also work better as a. Segue towards the NFL for players who play in that season and then can still get into some spring. You know, tryouts or workouts. And then be ready for training camp, whereas, or USFL. Yeah, the USFL is missing. All those players are missing these OTAs and mini camps. If you think those are big deal or not, we could have a separate argument on that, but. You know, so I, I personally liked the February. To April. And I don't know that the TV ratings for the USFL have been much different than what the XFL was. So I don't know if it really made a. TV difference. But from a personal standpoint, I felt like I watched would watch more football. During that time period then during the late spring. Yeah, I hadn't, I really did think the April was better or give a people a little break and now I'm like, oh, it's Memorial day. Like I do weddings. I'm filming. On the weekend. People are going there. Barbecue is, is I just, I didn't think it was going to be as big of a deal. And the ratings Memorial day weekend, we raised were not good for the USFL. I mean, a lot of the games were on cable, but. We've got like 268,000 on Fs one, which is. Oh, a far cry from what the XFL did, so yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Kevin, I really appreciate it. I. I know you're busy getting back to all the MFL like OTAs and all that Well, I am thrilled today. We have a betting expert with the Yahoo sports mark Drumheller here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. You know, it's, you know, getting in through the summer. Now we have the summer sports going on. So a lot of action going on, especially with the USFL and you know, some of the other small markets CFL's cooking up. So doing very well. Thank you. Yeah, well, I mean, this is good, you know, this sports betting and fantasy, all of this has given me lots more people to talk to about this stuff. And what I like about you, you, you work for right for Yahoo sports. And you cover everything. So I'm always curious, because obviously you have the insights about the USFL, but like, you know, ratings came out today as I'm recording this and we're arguing about, you know, USFL ratings. And so I like you. That you can kind of speak to the larger sports picture as well. So, you know, we're, we're hitting week eight here. We're going to have our big Legion field games this weekend, but what have you made up of seven weeks and change of the USFL so far? Yeah, I think it's been a lot of fun. And I think, you know, the people that are really watching it on a week to week basis and have given it a shot, you know, have been pleasantly surprised in how the play has improved, you know, over the course of the season, you know, one of the, the. The big betting angles that I took advantage of the past couple of weeks has been the overs, right? Because the offense is have consistently jelled gotten more better on a week to week basis where the last two weeks teams are averaging 24, 25 points a game. So we're seeing that scoring tick up. And I think, listen, like some of the catches you're seeing out there, some of the players really making some great plays and they'll, you know, I think the play on the field has consistently got better. Obviously the beginning of the season, it was a little rough, a little spotty, right. They gave these guys three. Weeks of training camp before, you know, they met each other three weeks later on a football field, trying to execute. You know, intricate offensive scheme. So it took a little time to develop, but I think what you're seeing now, as far as quality of play on the field, I think it's been good and it's been exciting. The games are competitive as well. When it came for you to be covering USFL, was that a you decision? Is that a Yahoo? Like how does that work? They say, Hey, we're going to make this, you know, make an effort to have this content be available. Yeah. It wasn't me decision. So I've always liked this, the smaller markets and, you know, especially from a betting perspective, you know, not to get too deep into it, but there it's a lot easier. When you're betting into a market, you know, with a league. That is a new and a startup, as opposed to like the NFL or the NBA where, you know, these sports books have their best guys making those lines right. Where you know, where, you know, they don't get as much action on these smaller leagues. So there's a little more opportunity for you to take advantage of, but I've always liked these leagues. The one thing that I like about it is. That you know, there's not a lot of teams, right? So you can learn these teams inside and out pretty quick. You can watch all, if not, you know, the majority of the games every weekend. So you see every game theme play well in the NFL, it's a little bit more difficult, right? It's hard to kind of go through the all 22. Too and sit through 16 different games. Right. But with these smaller leagues, you can watch every game, every play real quick, over the weekend. And kind of pull in all that data. You know, [unknown]. You know, Cultivate for the following week. I totally agree me. That's the same with CFL. You know, we do CFL fantasy, you know, through their site. And I know mark, that runs a new salad. He has, we have like a new, new set fantasy too. And I know Yahoo has stuff like that, but like, If I can't get my head around, like you said, trying to wash. You know, you got 16, whatever match ups and trying to figure it out. Like, yeah, I CFL at us about, yeah, we got four matchups. You kind of figure it out. We were talking before, you know, a little wonky this right with rosters and stuff. It seems like in the other people I've had on the show. USFL has gotten better about getting this stuff out in a timely matter injuries and roster reports. Are you feeling that way as well? Yeah, I think so. I, and I think, you know, as the league matures they'll get better as they have more resources. And, and part of it is when you start a new league, you know, it's, what does your consumer want? You know what I mean? And I think that's a big part of it. So I think the fact that there was such an appetite for, you know, that type of information from a fantasy level, from a DFS level, right. From a sports betting perspective. I think that they, they were probably not as prepared for that and expected that feedback, you know, so quickly and abruptly. So, you know, I think they moved to make those changes, but you know, this year is obviously a learning experience for the league itself and kind of like their consumer base and as far as what they want. And, you know, I think that they'll kind of learn as they go to get through this year so they can kind of gear up next year and, you know, have a much more polished product. Yeah. Is this hard? Cause like you said, we're, you know, and ratings come out yet. We're talking to all this staff and like, I can say, I think the, a sports gambling and fantasy. It's a huge part of it. Right. And I just don't know, like, I don't know what audience they're trying to attract right in that. Right. I think it's like, okay, we have football on TV. Like that is step one, two and three. Like, we've done what we need to do. And like you said, I think there's a little things that they could be doing. Like. It'd be there. This game was pulling 2 million a week. It would be different. And I would say like, do whatever you guys want. Like clearly, you know, but I feel like there's like room where they can grow here. And like I said, having content for you guys, you know, We I've had other guys on talking like, oh, well there's no Adam Schefter or whatever, letting us know, like, you know, there's QB issues or what's going on. It's like, how do you find out all the information? Cause like I was looking through your articles before we hopped on you really in-depth right. Like these are the odds and I don't know any of that stuff. I. So for my head. I, this is Oz for Philadelphia. Like how do you figure out all that stuff? Well, this is, this is a good point in. This goes back to what we previously talked about of how it's, it's nice that it's a smaller league and you can kind of watch all those games. So the, you know, the other part of that is I pull a lot of data manually, right? There's a couple of websites I go to, to provide stats. Fox sports.com provides some stuff. Football database provides some stuff, you know, there's a couple spots I can kind of go to, but I actually manually pull a lot of the data and put it together in a way that's beneficial for me as the sports better. Right. So then I'm able to kind of use that from a content perspective when I'm putting it out. So, you know, I got, I got. You know, as a spreadsheet, you know, a book, just like everybody else, that kinda, you know, I pulled the data in each week and I kind of chop it up and that helps me kind of work through and pick up things that. You know, the average watch. The person who's watching might not pick up, you know, like one of the key instances we talked about how the scoring increased from about week four on, well, in week three, we kind of saw that, you know, from a yards perspective, the offenses were gaining much more yards, yards per play was up. Total yards was up, but it didn't really reflect on the scoreboard because there were still a lot of turnovers, a lot of sloppy play. All of the kicking was an issue, right? So people were going 70 yards traveling and then missing a field goal. And it looks like there was no offense. Right. So. That kind of helped me pick up an agent on the sports books, knowing that like, Hey, the offense is improving, but it's not really showing on the score board yet. So having a smaller league, being able to pull in that data myself, You know, really makes all the difference. And it kind of forces me to really understand like the ins and outs of each game, why the teams won. You know what they were good at, what they weren't versus their opponent. Is that stuff that the league could be and should be maybe do it. Cause I'm always trying, you know, like I like to criticize law, but I always like to like give a tangible stuff. So they should be providing a lot more of that data, right. That you shouldn't have to be scraping. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think is the league matures that that'll get better. And part of it isn't we seen this with other leagues, right? Like we've seen this with the NHL it's. You know, before NHL resigned with ESPN, it was like, it was hard to find hockey on ESPN. Website, right. For you had to go to nhl.com to get that right. And I think that, you know, a lot of sites and a lot of media outlets are reluctant to cover just like as many people are reluctant to get invested because they've seen so many of these leagues fail. Right. And listen, you know, I think the XFL got a roll deal with COVID. I think that was on its way to being successful, but regardless these leagues didn't last. So a lot of people don't want to invest the time unless they know that this thing's going to actually have a future. And I think, you know, the media outlets approach it the same way. Like they don't want to invest. In resources to kind of cover this unless they know it's going to be around for a full season. So I think the fact that it does look like the USFL was getting through a full season, they're selling tickets for the playoffs. I think it could really impact the way, you know, people, the general public and the media outlets approach the XFL next year and the USFL when it returns for its second season. It's interesting. Cause he's talking about, you know, certain media and not wanting to cover. USFL is very hesitant about like who they like, even like Birmingham, if you're brewery and ham media, they're local, like you can like cover the stallions. Like it's, they're not. The most forthcoming the witness that, but I use it. I would like, I would go on any podcasts in the world asking me to go on. Right. Cause like, not a lot of people are asking me that me to go on it. Like. I'm not too selective with that. It's interesting. You, as Adele's mindset of like, we're going to be very selective with this. But then also a lot of people are very hesitant about talking about this right now. Yeah. I think they're still figuring some of it out. And like, and one of the things is, is like in the, in the bedding space, right? Like I have developed a reputation over the past several weeks is like, Hey, this is this guy's like diving into USFL. You know, some people think it's crazy, but like I said, I think I can find a greater edge in those markets than, you know, some of the more popular markets, but in doing that right. Like, and this is Jen, I'm not saying this from like a personal standpoint or whatnot, but I haven't gotten any interaction with. With the USFL from a social media perspective, right? So I'm a writer who writes for a prominent. Outlet and Yahoo and, you know, I'm putting out content for the U S NFL. I'm getting people excited and I think it's very detailed. And I haven't gotten any, I haven't gotten a like from the USFL and, and that's not me begging for attention from them, but that's just kind of saying that, like, I think that there's ways that they can engage people that are really trying to push the content and are excited about the league better than what they are right now. And I think that there's, you know, room for them to improve there. But, you know, I, I think some of it is, is, you know, we talk about the USFL. In comparison to some of the other major leagues. And I think that's kind of the issue is, and why people. Get down on the league. So early is because of the expectation, right? Like I don't think anyone's expectations is, is that this is going to be like the NFL or rival the NFL. You know, the expectation should be more of like, The national lacrosse league or, you know, major league baseball, you know, when it's not during playoffs or, you know, the NHL when it's not during playoffs, like it's that type of league, it's a secondary league. It's not meant to rival. You know, the, the Kings of the sports world, the NBA, the NFL. And I think if you go into it with the proper expectations and can appreciate it for what it is, I think it makes it a lot easier. Yeah, my thing is, I just it's like these unforced errors, like you said, I, I think. I try to have realistic expectations for what we want it to be, but it's, it's unforced errors that they're doing that. Like, these are things you're doing that are like contradictory, really like hurting your product. I use it for. Yeah. I spent thousands of dollars to travel with my wonderful life during her spring break to Birmingham, you know, to live stream. Yeah, we did like an opening day show. I mean, I very much know what you mean. Very cool. But, yeah, I know what you mean about putting in the work and feeling like maybe it's not reciprocated back, like some of the work that we're doing here. Cause that was, that was quite the Testament to drag my wife across the country to Birmingham. So yeah. So you would think for, from the USL. At a sales perspective, they're like, Hey, we got somebody here, live streaming, like let's, you know, at least give him a little bit of push from our social media account or something like that. And it just seems like they were kind of. I don't want to say. Ambivalence to it all, but they're there. You know, listen, I know that the game is TV ratings and that's really what matters here. They didn't go to Birmingham because they thought they were going to pack the stadium. Like they knew what they were kind of getting into, but they fought that from a financial perspective. That was the best way to get through the first year of the league and all that makes sense. And, you know, I don't worry about it at all. You can turn on major league baseball and. A handful of teams got their Stanzel just like the USFL does on certain days. So I'm not really concerned about that. But I do think that from a fan engagement standpoint, I think that there are some people that are very invested in the league that are running around, you know, trying to get people excited about it from a content perspective that we don't see the USFL engaging with. Right? Like they should make it a point to kind of reach out to people that are pushing this content. Just even if it's a tweet from the social media account, piggybacking off an article, it's not hard to kind of, you know, search USFL and come up with content. Right. And when, you know, there's only a few creators that are doing it. So even just piggybacking off of that or giving it a life, but we don't see that from the USFL. So I think there is definitely room for them to improve from that perspective. Well, that's like how I found you, you know, I was like, oh, y'all. And I'm like, well, man, Yo, and I never know. I'm like, well, maybe this guy will talk to me. I have no idea, you know? Like, it's not a large circle of USFL content creators. I mean, I think I've interviewed about all of them at this point. It's a late. You know, I just, I, I think that we could do, I mean, even the XFL brought in, they brought in one of the fan podcasts, you know, to do, I would XFL at 2020, they had the XFL show and they brought those guys in and said like, we're going to make, you know, and not that I ever think that, like, I don't want any of that. Cause I want to be able to say what I want to say, but I'm like, that is the vast difference of kind of what these leagues are looking at. We're going to embrace this sort of stuff, or like, we're not even going to acknowledge that it exists. Yeah. Well, I think it's about like what the USFL could do better. And again, it's not, I'm not saying to USFL to be pushing my content family. That's not why I'm here. That's not the point. But what I'm saying is is they should have a greater. Hand in building the community. Right? So like they have the opportunity, they have the biggest reach of anybody. So they should have, they should be kind of bringing everybody together to. It does, you know, content for the USFL or, or that is excited about the league. You know, in a way outside of just putting out a tweet, being like, Hey, here's the standings, like who to, or who's going to be the player of the week. Like that sort of thing. Like find ways to bring these. People together, they're excited about the league so they can start to build a community. So they have something. Substantial the lean on when it comes back for the second year. What's the traction like for your us evolve stuff, compare. And like, obviously we're not getting compared to like college football or whatever. I know that you, I was reading through your bio. You talk all that stuff too, but like, I, you know, compare it to, I mean, you guys. It's not even the compare comparison. Right. But how do you feel like metrics are for the USFL stuff? Yeah. I mean, listen, it's again, it's expectation, right? It's not going to be for everybody. I think me being, you know, in the sports betting space is a little bit different, right. Because it's not about getting people excited. Like money gets people excited, right? Like if you're winning bets, people don't care. If it's on wiffle ball, they don't care what it's on. Right. It's it's money in the account. So. You know, the fact that I've been doing well from that perspective gets people excited, you know, and some of them are like, Hey, I can't watch the league, but if you got a bet, you can do it. I do content for the sharp app. Right. We have a discord. That you know, we've got a handful of professional betters that are in there that are with the sharp app team, right. They don't cover the USFL. They're busy doing NHL, blah, blah, blah. So I'm in there giving out, picks, giving out breakdowns, giving out, write ups for our subscriber base. So they have. You know that information as well. And the people there there's a small is I think it's just like any other community. There's a small sub circle of people that like it, they were excited in the beginning. They were like some people outside of the us had trouble streaming the games. But, you know, they're fans of the Canadian football league, whether they're in Canada or whether they're over in Europe or whatever, like there's an appetite for it. But it's always starts with a small community. Like I don't get, you know, like sometimes like, Hey, listen, if I, if I'm running hot and, you know, winning bets week after week, My content is going to get more attraction regardless of, of what it's about. You know what I mean? But as far as like, you know, the people that are really excited on a week to week basis about like what happens with the league. I see a fax it, have it with a sharp app with X community. I see a faction of it with Yahoo. And I just think that, you know, there are some people that just like football and it's funny because I think our culture there's a certain, for lack of a better word, like machismo about like, Hey, like, You know, I'm a football fan and I know everything about football, but I think when you find these smaller than with developmental leagues, I really separate some people that like football and some people that like people thinking they like football. Right. And it's kinda, you know, not saying that if you don't like USFL, you don't like football, but for me, It's like I've watched these players at the collegiate level, like, and listen. I've sat in up until two o'clock in the morning, like, you know, watching spring league, you know, when the FCS played their season in the spring and breaking down news games and doing that just because that's what I liked. Like I like football and it, you know, the quality of play might not be as good, but I think that part's kind of overblown in the USFL because if. You know, Shay Patterson might be a bad example because he hasn't had the best season. Right. But if you read it for Shay Patterson and you watch them play at Michigan. He didn't get worse. Like he's like these players all played in college and we all rooted root for them, but then they get to like a developmental league. That's not the NFL and all of a sudden their quality of play. Isn't good enough where, and that's kind of the part where I disagree with like, The first couple of weeks. The play was sloppy. Don't get me wrong. People are missing field goals all over the place. I get it. But, you know, I think that part of it, like the quality of play and the players just aren't good enough is a little bit overblown because we'll watch any college football team play. Like, and these players are better than news guys. Now I've got this weekend. I had to work a little bit, you know, it was tough with the Memorial day, but I thought, you know, super compelling staff, right. We had the first kind of overtime shootout, right. We have that. Very cool. Yeah. Breakers. And I always say at the Mariner game, I was, I was in, I was literally saying that the Mariner game watching it on my phone cause I saw the tweets, but we have, I want to get your thoughts cause this is our big USFL segment this week. But. I called him like the mad king Kirby, Wilson. Like he just went like. I was like full on mad king, like burn everything. What did you make of the bottlers a game? Was that early Sunday, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's like, you know, you look at the Maulers in the season that they had. Right. And there were a lot of questions coming in is the weather like, you know, that offense would be built in a way to be successful in this league. Because if we look back at the XFL. You know, the teams that were successful. Primarily we're, you know, You have to have an aggressive or offense, you have to be willing to like one of the things like they had the two, the three point conversions in the XFL, we saw Houston really being the first team to kind of go for that. And jump up on themes nine, nothing. Would you and Jones. And I think that that's it. When I was looking at teams to back this season. You know, I thought that, that, that was a really good trait to have, like, I think at Philadelphia, if there. You know, rusty fence steps up like they, and they didn't. You know, and Brian, Scott then get injured. I think that they'd have a different story this year, but I think that he just, you know, so I had questions about their offense coming into the season. And then you just kind of saw him constantly, like running on first and second down, putting his quarterback and third and long pan positions. Right. And, and then not being able to convert on that. And then, you know, he gets off Josh love. He goes to Kala Leta. And he doesn't work. And now they bring in VAD Lee, who I thought was a good match. I'm like, Hey, this is a guy who has some mobility. He wants to be run heavy. He has a quarterback that can escape the pocket. You know, and kinda, you can dial up some design runs for him. I thought that was a great opportunity to, I bet Pittsburgh, when they beat Houston, I thought that was a spot I'm like, Hey, you know, they don't have any film on the offensive Fadli. This is a spot where they can be successful and they do, they win. And then they kind of just revert to like, you just see him, like, not really. You know, I want to say, it just seems like a rough environment with his players. Like he benches badly for body language and, you know, there's a difference between like having standards and having like, you know, then, and, but really just like jumping all over the player for no apparent reason. And it just seemed like, you know, their play calling is an issue. And I think, you know, Kirby Wilson needs to kind of look in the mirror that way. But I think they've been a little bit of a mess and it's, you know, I would be surprised like, If I was the USFL, like, I don't know if I would bring him back just because of number one, like his style of offense. Isn't really the most exciting. And he doesn't seem like he's getting along with the players. Like there's issues there. You know what I mean? Like the culture there doesn't seem good and he's not having any success. It's funny and I'm going to just myself, mark out for a second. Here. I have, I've had a very successful week on social media. I got retweeted by the rock this week. I was very excited. Nice, nice. My second biggest tweet was I the first 30 seconds of Kirby? Wilson's post-game press conference. USFL provides all that. And he comes in and you guys like, yeah, we didn't execute it. That plays, you know, back to the drawing board games Friday. And so I just tweeted like, you know, grade Kirby Wilson's, whatever people hate Kirby Wilson. There was like 8,000. I just couldn't believe that. I guess I'll get this guy out of here. I'm like, I just didn't think it would be so vitriolic. Right? I mean, people really don't like him. Yeah. And it's, it's not likable like. Like for instance, you know, For that game on Sunday. Right. And, and we can talk about like why the mowers are where they are. Right. And it's not like town on the field. Third. They're comparable, but just the way that he calls plays, you know, It's just, you know, their best players, the wide receiver, and they don't even throw the ball. Right. So it's just goofy. And I think the players see that. And I think that's kind of what you were seeing with. You know, the quarterback with Lee. Him just getting frustrated with the play calling. Like it's like, Hey, you know what, it's the end of the half. We're just going to run out the clock and go into halftime and not worry about it. Right. Just completely not being aggressive. In key spots and there's a quarterback. It's hard, like when you're running on first and second down every series, and then it's like, you got third and long. You're not going to be successful. And I think that that kind of wears on the quarterback. And if they're a wildly, I'd be interested to see what those practices look like during the week, because it doesn't seem like him and the players on the same page. And. I think that, you know, the USFL could do better as far as a head coach. Like when I look at the Maulers, my impression is, is this is a guy who just was not ready to make this step because it's more it's. A big part of coaching. And we saw this in the NFL is it's it's more than X's and O's, it's like, you have to be able to relate with your players. You have to have confidence in them. You have to give them the latitude to make decisions on the field themselves and that sort of thing. It just seems like a really tight s**t, man. Like we laugh about like the pizza chicken salad thing. But there's probably some truth to it. Like, Hey, that was an indicator that, you know, It might not be like the type of program that the players want to come to and play. No, I tell, I agree. I mean, it's like we saw this coming, you know, we've had like game of Thrones, right? Like we saw areas like. Builds and builds. Well, no, cause I was, I hit, I turned on the game late on Saturday, right. That was a Saturday game. And I sit in there and they're like, oh, I guess that was the Sunday game. And they go, cause Bailey's on my he's on my fantasy. He's been my big. The Maulers have been horrible, but Gaither has gotten me like lots of points and they're like, I turned out like. Bailey game there with his first target of the day. And I'm like, oh my God. This is not going to be good. That's like the only that's the only thing the Mahler has had is like, they abandoned that. I don't, I don't understand the mindset there of abandoning. Like literally the one thing that's worked for you guys all season. Yeah, and I get it like, listen, it's like be 90 degrees out in the field and Birmingham, like I understand wanting to run a little bit more, like we've seen that with the breakers, right? When the world ends late. They could, I mean, they have the talent with like Adams and Dickson and Poindexter news guys. I think it throw the ball every play if they want to do and probably be pretty successful, but you've seen them integrate the running game because as the season progresses, It gives you the ability to kind of keep your defense off the field, where teams down physically. Right. And you want to be more balanced. And I think, you know, that's kind of part of football, but. So, like, I understand, I'm not saying that, like, he shouldn't be running it all, but just like, it's so predictable and so conservative that it's like, you know, it. I just feel like I would be surprised if they brought him back. You know, like, I don't think that the league is going to be in a position to expand, but I think that, you know, you also want to get. Coaches in there, like this is entertainment. You want to get coaches in there that are going to be. You know, colorful and have good personalities and that are going to make the fans want to root for them. And I think that he, he's just, he's just tough. Like he just bent his badly, who pretty much saved them. And you know, the other part of this too, is. You know, you look at. You know, Josh love, he looked like a different quarterback with Michigan and, and, and Jeff Fisher is not, you know, Mike Marks, right? Like that. It's pretty, you know, archaic itself. And he goes out there against a tough new Orleans team and really, you know, banged up his thumb, but really gave them everything naked handle. And that just kind of shows you that you know, his players in the league, when they see that. The players in Pittsburgh are like, wow. Like maybe if like I got released and went someone else somewhere else, I can make a bigger impact that could get me eyes that might, you know, really. You know, get me an invite into an NFL camp or something like that. Like, you don't want the player feeling like they're wasting their career. You know, sitting there playing on their Kirby, Wilson, I think that's the biggest challenge for them right now. No. It's like you go on like survivor and you, yeah. This has been your whole life and you get split into two tribes and you're on the one with like the maniac guy that wants to throw. And then you're stuck. Right? And you're like, well, I'm on, I'm on the Maulers. I'm never going to whatever. Eh, I'm looking here. I, so weeks. The games this weekend, I think are going to be a little bit more favorable. I want to get your thoughts on all this stuff before we go. Yeah, the USA Friday generals. Mahler's right. Are you. Are you as high on the generals? One, a one, a one B with the stallions or where do you sit with the generals? Yeah. So it's interesting because the way it played out and I'll try and give you the quick synopsis. I was very high on the breakers and I was like, Hey, like after like the first couple of weeks, I'm like, this is going to be the team that's gonna win it. And I was surprised that they got to handle the way they did when they played the generals. Because if you think about it, like at that time, the generals had the opening game against the stallions, which was just a weird game. Right. And then the teams played enter division and then they went outside of division. And that was the General's first game. So I was expecting them to get kind of like a huge wake up as far as like level of competition. Right. But then you saw them. You know, lean more on, on Deandre Johnson. The offense looked much, much better, you know? And listen, I'm familiar with Luis Perez, like when he played in Birmingham and AAF. You know, I kind of followed him with New York. And he XFL. So I know he has limitations and I was like, wow. Like after that performance, I'm like, maybe there is like three tiers. There's like the top three teams. Birmingham new Orleans, the generals. And then there's the bottom. You know, the bottom tier, you got your Houston, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, and then you got, you know, Tampa and the stars. They have a lot of talent, but probably can't put it together. Right. Tampa turns the ball over too much stars. Can't stop the run. You know, things kind of hold a news teams back. And I really think that's how it is down the stretch. It's really gonna come down to. You know, new Orleans, Birmingham. And. You know, New Jersey and it's going to come down to the quarterback position. So, you know, Jamal JMR Smith was great early in the season. I think the last two weeks, he really struggled and you know, he's going to have to get a lot better if they're going to end up winning this. You know, and you know, New Jersey, it's going to depend on 10 D. The Ontario Johnson come back, healthy, Kenny perform at the same level. If he can, I think they're alive to win the championship. You know, if Sluder is able to rest up these, you know, it. The following two weeks, if they can clinch this week, you know, they can get him some rest. Get him healed up a little bit. So he's healthy going into the playoffs. I think new Orleans can be live. So I think a lot of it's going to depend on what happens with these quarterbacks in these next three weeks. You know, and, and how healthy they are entering the playoffs. Real quick before and we'll tie this weekend. [Unknown] what do you make a ham? I watched. And it's really, so like my timing, like whenever I'm able to sit down and watch USFL, it's always like the worst parts of whatever. Like I'll turn it on and I'll be like, You know, generals or negative 54 yards or whatever. I'm like, all right, this is awesome. But like, I, I watched that whole half, I was driving. I had to go work and, you know, he threw like three interceptions in the half or, I mean, what is the seven for the season, right? Yes. The most interceptions. And he's up there. So Kansas city ruined that boy, I guess. Right. And that's really my like thing is like, you know, he, he finished up the XFL. He was one of the hottest names, you know, like I think if that league would have. Continued. I think they would have been right in the mix, you know, to win the title. Like they played solid defense and he showed a lot of mobility. Did some good things in the XFL. I, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen any of it. You know? So the only thing I know that happened. You know, in between that time was, you know, he got an invite to the chief's camp and, and, you know, maybe, you know, maybe. It, it kinda like made him indecisive and, and. You know, effected his confidence or whatnot because that's what I see. I, you know, early in the season, especially like, I think. What happened is as early in the season, I think you saw him. You know, really indecisive holding the ball in the pocket. A lot, not making quick decisions, not being comfortable in what he was seeing. And then I think as the season went on, I think Haley's probably urge them like, Hey, we need to ball out. You need to make decisions and he's not making the right ones. Right. So, you know, like that offense. And then again, this is, this is another part of it, right? It's not just the Ambu because that offense can't run against anybody. Right. So, so nobody has to stack the box. They can draw people back on them all day because they know that they have no running game. They probably had the worst running game. Any entire USFL. So that kind of helps defense is kind of pin their ears back from a pan fresh perspective. Get him pressure, which I don't think he does good with and then, you know, drop people back in the coverage. So yes, more windows to throw into, but he's definitely not the same guy. I see in a lot of like, we'll see. This proves and I don't care whether we're another, like this proves that USFL talent is so much better because he like danced around everyone. I think something else happened. I think it's a mental thing. He is not making correct decisions out there. No. And some of it could be that, like, it all depends on the player's mental makeup. And I'm not saying that as like a negative against yummy, right. But like, you know, would his experience have been different if he had two months instead of three weeks? To prepare with Tampa bay and to be under Todd Hailey's tutelage before just getting thrown out that a fire with guys that he met three weeks ago. Right. And, you know, I think all that plays into account, you know, I think, you know, some of the players in the, I think the talent is pretty much similar to what we saw in the XFL. You look at, you know, guys like. You know, Tamara summer summers, you know, great cornerback, you know, Over in Houston, you know, he had success in the XFL with New York as well. Like some of the good guys are still good. At that level. And then you see some other guys to kind of step up, but I think what other people have to realize as well is, is that. You know, the XFL wasn't last season. Like it was 2020, so there's a two year window. So some of the people in the XFL. That are playing in the USFL nail are two years older and that could be a good thing. If it's a young player, they can have more experience could have developed more arm strength or better athletic traits, or it could be a negative to where Hey. You know, me physically, right? I'm in my forties. I can't do the same things I did two years ago. Right. So, you know, that catches up with you pretty quick. So games here, I think right. Stand out has to be Birmingham or new Orleans at Birmingham, I guess, right day. You know, the other day at noon. I guess that specific it updates it for my thing. I kept thinking that. The Panther stars is going to be a big one, but see. They followed the one in six, like I just didn't expect Jeff Fisher's team. What's your number two game. I mean, is it, is it Philadelphia Panthers? It probably is. Right. I think from an interest perspective, it is because I think the two teams are fascinating. Right? So you had the stars who are probably the team that doesn't belong in the playoffs, but it's going to get into the playoffs. Right? Like they, they have a lot of warts when you look at the way these teams play during the season. Right. Philadelphia wins by one point in a game where Michigan ran for 250 yards. Right. Was, you know, plus was minus two and turnovers and then misses a 21 yard field goal, you know? To, to win the game, you know? And so, you know, they've since replaced their kicker. You know, Cole Murphy, I think Murphy's his name, but you know, their kicker kicked a 60 yard or last year, last week before halftime. So I think that's an interesting game. And you look at it from a playoff perspective, right? Star's trying to clinch, they can clinch with a win. Right? What does that mean? That means missing. It gets eliminated with a loss. So any hope that Michigan has. This make the playoffs and catch the stars has to start this weekend. So you're seeing. To motivated teams, you know, that are, I think very evenly matched in a game that, you know, Philadelphia kind of stole when I think that one stung, Michigan, they haven't won since they, they gave up that lead and lost that game. So I think that plays into it. And I think, you know, it's two motivated teams, so that's really what. I think sticks out and it's going to make that one, a number two game. No Philadelphia is my team, you know? A friend of the show, Brian Scott then got her. The show Matt mangled then got released. I mean, it's been, it's been a struggle. I think they still resemble enough of a team for me to cheer. My, my Jersey is finally been shifted. I ordered preseason. So I think, I think Philadelphia is still my team here. And. Into the playoffs. Yeah, so I'm from Philadelphia. So I that's the team that I root for. So, and again, I was, you know, like I said, I'm in my forties, so I was a young kid when they won the championship. You. You know, back in the first iteration of the USFL. Right. And I think maybe that's why I have an affinity for these types of leaks because the Eagles weren't winning anything back then. So the Eagles were miserable and it was like, Hey football, we're winning. This is great. Right. You know, God bless the USFL, but yeah, so I liked him. I root for him. I liked the way that they're built. I just wish they could stop the run a little bit better. Like I think, you know, the cornerback. Is it Stripling or. You know, five interceptions leads the USFL. I think he's great, but you know, they've been getting a good pass for actually lately that they didn't have in the beginning of the year. I think they have it's six sacks last week. I think they had four and three the previous two weeks. So that could help them out if they can just stop the run a little bit. They did a good job last week against Houston. I was surprised that Mark Thompson didn't have more success, you know, last week, but you know, one of the things we have to look forward to this weekend and I think is going to be. You know, really interesting about the other two games is that. How the teams like Birmingham. And New Jersey. Approach these games because they did clinch. And so it's like, are they going to be, you know, take their foot off the gas to try and, you know, make sure nobody gets injured or are they going to give it a hundred percent to kind of keep the momentum going? Especially a team like Birmingham who's undefeated. They don't want to get that first loss, but then, you know, you have to worry about injuries. Playoffs are coming in a couple of weeks. It's the rest versus rust and said the vein there's all this time, you know? Kansas city knows a lot about that ever every year. It's always like, is Kansas, are they going to play everyone go in there? And they've, they've clinched with three weeks to go, like what's happening. I know you can't win because when you, when you arrest people and you lose, then it's, it's the rest fall. Right. And then when you sit people and you lose, and then they retired. So. You know, You're like, damn, if you do damned, if you don't. Anything else from you? I know you got to hop off here. Any final thoughts? No, just, you know, I just urge everyone out there that like, you know, it football, football man. And if you just give it a chance and I'm not saying that you shouldn't be watching your things going on, I know it's hard with. You know, major league baseball's going on. And March madness was going on when it started. And, you know, as so much is going on NBA finals. But, you know, I, I just think the more football the better, and if we support these leagues and we give them a chance, then they're going to continue to grow and they're going to continue to get better in me. Somebody who's a fan of football. I would love to have it all year round. Like I know next year, you know, the, the talk is, I think the seasons are going to be staggered. So the USFL is going to start. XFL is going to start right at the super bowl. And then the USFL is going to kind of carry a little bit later into the spring to kind of get us through summer. So I'll take football. 365 Days a year. You can sign me up, but you know, so I, I just think people out there, if you haven't given it a shot, just support it. You know, give it a chance, you know, the play's not bad. You know, once you get the new, these teams and new the players. Yeah. Many months ago, it was said that this was the best time of the year for the USFL day to compete that they were there. There was nothing else in the spring sports landscape that this would be at the premiere. And now it's. Oh, my God, the Stanley cup playoffs. And we've got the date. Yeah, it is interesting because I gave us. They had November, December Darryl Johnson said we couldn't think of a better time to play. There's no competition now. It's like, well, I mean, we got a PR guy, we got premier league, we got F whatever. I don't know which one it is. Daryl. I don't know if it's the best time. I think they'll now, I mean, Memorial, they gradients are down and I think headed here in the jail, they'll be curious. Cause it's nice. It's nice. People are graduating. People have barbecue. Is people have a lot of stuff on the. Vacations plane. So it's like, you know, it's the CFL dilemma all over again. People don't want CFL in the summer cause people go on vacation. So. Makes sense. Mark. Hello. Thank you so much for taking the time. Maybe we can get you back on here at really appreciated. Let's get into this because this could be long. We'll see. All right. Well, I have an hour, 15 of episode in the can already, when we enter this right now. So we're at seven o'clock, 7 0 8 Pacific 10 o'clock Eastern. Mike is hopping onto the record. Mike Mitchell XFL, insider. How are you doing? Thank you very much Reed for having me on I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. So this is where Mike Mitchell calls me and says, I want to be on the shell. I want to talk as we talk, we're going to talk XFL. We're gonna do all that. But you said you also want to talk to him. USFL CFL. When Mike Mitchell asked me to come on to talk, I don't care. I don't care if we have Kevin [unknown]. On the show already. I'm going to put Mike Mitchell on the show as well. So we have a, a jam pack show tonight. I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate it. It's going to be hard to follow a C for it. I'll try not to mess this up. No, it's good. And I know that you helped connect us and that's. So, this is where late night I've come back from my wedding shell. I was not wearing my fan controlled football Jersey when I was out the way the show came back home. Got that. I have a couple of Shiner box. That is my beer of choice from Shiner, Texas. Mike has a shot of whiskey. I think at some point we might do this casual. It's nice. It's two friends casually talking to XFL. You as a volunteer for how's that sound like. That sounds terrific. Awesome. So first off and I am going to humble brag. Mike is Mr. Humble here, but I, I didn't mention this at the top of the show. Did you see that? I got retweeted by the rock this week. Did you see that? I did see that. I thought it was awesome. I think there's going to come a day where the rock is going to be on your podcast. I'll call it now. And Danny, so that's going to be amazing. And if you can, you know, you can see the reach that the rock has. I mean, he's a social media giant, so I don't really get, get hung up in this stuff, but I'm sure your impressions were through the roof. Yeah, we have. About 700,000 impressions. It's about 12 hours on sounds about right. We'll be at the Rocky take Arab. A lady had taken a cardboard cutout of the rock to her prom. And it was really cute in the cardboard. I looked awesome. Like it looked really funny and I think we had just gotten home. It was like Sunday night. Dorothy and I were sitting here getting ready to watch it. We watched that Cruella movie. And I decided that, and I retweeted, I said that, yeah, look at this girl, taking the cardboard, cut out of XFL co-owner of the rock. And then when the rock retweeted it, he even said like, oh yeah, she, it was, she was a great day. The Mike, she can't wait for the XFL. So I thought that was cool that it was a little bit of like XFL pub in the, in the tweet. So very cool rocks got a great sense of humor. Always has. And so I don't know if I'm going to have a cardboard cut out of Meagan. Good. But. But maybe one day I'll shoot my shot. But, but anyhow, but yeah, that was really cool. Dwayne Johnson to do that. That was awesome. So first off talking points, I want to make sure we hit on because the title of the episode is the XFL gets sued. So we came out today together. I've learned while recording the show earlier that it's called together. That's how you pronounce it. Like to get her. Cause it's like T O G E T H X R whatever it's pronounced together. Suing I tweeted out. I finally tracked down. [unknown]. You know, the complaint they had. The one thing that stood out to me was together. Claims if XFL properties, infringement, and unlawful acts are permitted to continue, that's them using the new XFL. Together we'll sustain further damage and irreparable injury for which damage they cannot adequately be compensated by law. It's pretty interesting story. I mean, we'll see where, where things go. I kind of find, I find it funny when peoples start off a sentence by saying I'm no expert and then use the term, but, and then give their knowledge. So I. You know, I'll do it. I'm no legal expert, but. You know, I don't know how strong or what the merit is with this case. Like I said, I don't have a legal background. I don't, I understand look, read your you're a small business person. You have your own podcast. You also are a videographer, right? You do. So you. So you do that. So anytime you're running a small business, it can be difficult because you worry that, you know, you, you put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into your business, and then you worry about someone else infringing upon your hard work and doing that. So I'm respectful and mindful of that. I understand where there can be some confusion in terms of maybe the brand colors, the fact that both brands use the letter X, the fact that there's a freeze frame for two seconds of the word together, onscreen also the words, purpose, and passion, and then everything else. But anyhow, if you freeze it, you'll see the word together. And two separated. Separated. Forms of the letter X. So that looks like somewhat similar to there. So I don't know where this is going to end up. The courts will decide that part of it. I can understand the sentiment. I don't want to say little person, but when you, you. You know, when you're competing against these corporations, it can be very difficult and challenging. If you feel that you're being infringed upon. I don't know some of the rhetoric there is pretty strong to me on lawful acts irreparable. What was it? Injury? I don't know about all that, but I understand those are Lee. That's legal jargon, again, not my area of expertise, but I don't think Danny Garcia showed up at the facilities and roughed up anybody. So, so I don't know about this unlawful acts business or reparable injuries, but I get it. It's not physical. They're talking about damage to their brand. I get that part of it. I'm trying to be respectful of their position on it. I have no stake in the game, but I don't think that the XFL was in is in any way, infringing upon that brand. I know that they have similar colors. They're both using the letter X. But. The brands are completely different. The word together or you pronounce it there it's together, I guess. But the exit self is silent, I suppose. And it's not, it's not two together exer. So the ex the XFL doesn't have the word together in any of their branding. They have it in that brief. Moment in a video. But they don't, they're not using the letter X. To represent a different letter in any other word. So, so. So like they are. And X has always been a part of their brand. That's what the league has called. I have an excellent. So, I don't know where this is going to all end up. I mean, Let's just assume scorched earth scenario. The XFL has to change their logo. They're still going to be called the XFL. They're still going to be a football league. It's the same. It's the same theme. It's the same, you know, whether it's silver, yellow, purple, green, whatever the case may be. It's the same theme of culture, inclusivity and all that. So I'm just, I just find some of those terms in the legal deal. A little bit harsh, because I, I don't see the gotta remind you here. Cause the XFL had a marketing and a design firm who came up with a brand. And they had to approve it. So it's not like, and I'm sure when you go through this process, The these design companies they'll go through and they'll, they'll look at other brands to make sure they're not. So they knew that the letter X could be problematic because there's a lot of companies with it. They knew that perhaps the colors black and white could be problematic, but you can't really copyright colors. I mean, So, I mean, or the word together, and the exhale is not using the word together. It's not part of any of their branding and merchandise or any of that. So. I probably rambled on a little too long about that. I'm trying to be diplomatic and respectful towards the other side of this coin, but I don't, again, not a legal guy. I just don't really see the merit. It's funny. So we, you know, our logo, which we're in the process of potentially changing your, the mark has, I've sent you guys some stuff about that. You know, when we started printing the XFL, whack really hadn't come back online yet. Like they had just announced everything. And Paul and I, it was funny because we had got some hats printed and some shirts and whatever through Printful that society that we use. And then it was like, once the XFL came back online, we got an email from them and they're like, you guys can't print this anymore. And it was interesting because we had gotten away with it for about a month. And I think finally, like, you know, they had got their legal people or whatever involved in, you know, print polls, like, okay, we can't, you know, we never got like sued or anything, but they. We're just like we can't do that. The interesting thing. Yeah. We've paid the design firm to do this. Now we're going to pay right. In some way to deal with this legally. Right. You know, whether it's just paperwork or we go to the court. I didn't mean that. That costs money riding me. Red bird obviously has lawyers. I bet. Yeah. My thing is like, You know, we're thinking cost now into this. They didn't need to be right. You know, we're, we're redoing the logo we're paying to do that. We did do no market research, apparently because everybody hated the logo, but we have the logo now that we've paid this firm to do. And now we have to pay to defend this logo that we really didn't even need to spend money on at the beginning. You know, I'm just like, sure. We're entrenched in this. So we've been following the USFL and all these other leagues that have these trademark issues. It seems like. But, you know, when you start digging deeper into all this start a businesses, new businesses, all that, they run into a lot of this. So this is a common thing with people who end file trademarks and file their own designs. There's always in the marketplace, the potential of other people coming about coming forward and feeling that, oh, Hey, that looks like my thing, or what have you. So. So this is the XFL. I know you read bird. Capital's a very strong entity, so I'm sure on the other side of the coin here together. Looking at this situation like, Hey, we're the little guys here and they're the big evil corporation, but I think they'd need to do more, a little more research on the, on the issue. And they need to look more than just that a free spring that has a particular word. In it for two seconds. XY by me if their ass Sally's. It's perfect. At the inches you think to me is, you know, sea bird, Seattle storm legend, right? Yeah. Mary, the Megan Rapinoe, very strong, like female advocates, right. In terms of like equal pay, we follow a lot with female soccer, right. And, and cheer and all that. And I'm trying to get paid the same as man. It's interesting. They made that a lot of their ire has been focused on like the Rock's XFL with Danny Garcia. Right. One of the most like pioneering champions. They're ignoring the fact that there's a, exactly what, what you're about to say, but I'm sorry. I had to say. As well. Yeah, they're ignoring the fact that the XFL is first off. Sports league, that's going to have a female owner, has a female owner right now and minority owners. So we're talking about inclusivity and people who are marginalized. So, and I've seen a lot of the rhetoric. I mean, social media has everybody has different opinions, right? So I've seen people go, go get them, get the rock, you know, look what he did to you. Look what he's doing to women. And, you know, he didn't even design it first off. And you're also forgetting the fact that there's a female here that's owning that owns a major sports league in this equation. So this is an, a. You've been targeted because you're a marginalized group. You're basically you're you're. Oh, you going after someone that, you know, Who has a minority ownership and a female owner. So those are groups that have been marginalized in terms of sports ownership. Look around. In the NFL, how many African-American or female owners do you have? A couple here and there, but not no African-American owners. So, so minority ownership. You got the cons, but that's been a problem in pro football and sports in general. So I think this is misdirected. I think this is a misunderstanding. I think if any Mount of research was done on this particular issue, you'd see that there's no malicious intent here to do irreparable damage or harm. So. It's a topic that I'd rather not focus in on too much. I think we'll see with how the courts handle it. Whether it gets thrown out, whether something gets settled with something it's worked out. But I don't think this is like a malicious deal by the XFL. They saw a brand that looked cool and they wanted it for themselves. This is not what's going on here. Yeah, it's super edited as Simone. Simone manual Chloe cam and Alex Morgan. I just want to make sure we touch on all four of the female, but you know, Sue bird, I think it's the highest profile. I bet. D to round this out. Any conversations you've had since the rebrand actually I have two questions. Has has this lawsuit season, this is anything entered in any conversations and you don't have to say names or anything, but if anyone that you've been talking to in the last cause this, this came out right after the announcement, and then obviously the official lawsuit came out this week. I think there was expectancy the possibility, not this particular brand. Per se, but anytime you release a new brand, there's always, you expect the possibility that someone could come forward. With anything you release, you know, any one of these leagues, any of these entities. So that's always into consideration. You you're mindful respectful of it. We've seen a little bit of an alteration on the YouTube video there as you posted on social media. So I don't think the XFL is looking to be an enemy to anybody in this space. So, so, and, but, you know, you have to expect this whenever you release, put out a new brand, whenever you put out a trademark, there's always a, that. That possibility exists, whether it has merit behind it or not. There's a good chance that you, whatever you put out there could very well be challenged. So I don't think there's surprise. I don't think they're dismissive as just comes with the territory. I, so I would say. Overwhelmingly. Either neutral or negative response, right from the public about this rebrand. Right. I don't see a lot of people really champion this. Have you had any conversations about that with anyone about kind of the lukewarm nature of this. Pretty hard rebrand across the board. No, you know, the rebrand has been something that's been in work. I've been in place for a while. It's something that Danny Garcia and Wayne Johnson and Redbird capital wanted to do for awhile. So they've been working on it for a long time. Like I said, they had a specific design firm working on it. So this has been in the works for quite some time now. And so, you know, I, I haven't heard anything specific in terms of one way or the other. And you know, many kind of like negative or strong feedback one way or the other on the issue. And I don't know. How people are responding out there. I think if there was like a blatant rip off. Like, if you, yeah, you, you coming out with your own sneaker brand, it looks like the Nike logo. I like, Aw, come on. How could you do that? How could you be so foolish? I think there would be a lot of public sentiment towards, okay. This company's just in big trouble here. They deserve whatever's coming their way. That's not. You know, that's not really the sentiment here with this situation. She's interested in, like, I, you know, this is the first real pro and I don't think we've had you won since we got the rebrand. You, I think we've obviously had you. Other bikes before, but like, This was the first thing that came out, you know, Danny and her sport, a co interview. It's like, We hate being secretive. We have all these wonderful ideas. We just we're, we're busting at the seams to share all of them. And then this is like the first thing that comes out and we're just like, We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens to when they re well, we'll see what happens too. When they released their new merchandise, when they released their team merchandise, I'm pretty sure there'll be a logo here and there for air. I'm pretty sure there'll be. I mean, the, the league already saw that in 2020 with the roughnecks renegades, everything else. So it's very possible that whatever they release for let's say Orlando or San Antonio. That someone will go, Hey, wait a minute. You know, the scorpions come on. You know, whatever I'm just saying, I'm not saying. I'm not saying that or it won't be the board apes that's for sure. But. I know, I see it. So anyhow, but yeah, so I, it's going to be a thing, you know, it's a, it's not, it's not what you want if you're coming out with new brands, but they, you know, it is what it is. I don't see. And I think van and I have vehemently disagreed on this with the. The respect that I guess the term carries in Texas. I don't see the XFL 3.0, having a rough necks team name. I don't know, to me, that's always felt kind of weird. I mean, dragons is kind of an outlier, but you know, you got the guard at the end, the Vipers. Rough necks. I'll always sound so much like rednecks to me. And I, I just, I, I know it's a working man and it's like, if the union, whatever, there it's always felt. I don't see that. Continuing just that's just me. We're going to see what happens here. They're putting their own stamp on it. They being Redbird capital, Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia, that team there. So we'll see how many of the brands that we love, you know, loved or, you know, back in 2020, how many of those return and how many of them. The ones that do return. How many of them have a different twist? It's going to be interesting to see what the jerseys look like, what the logos look like, what the colors look like. So there there's going to be chat. Like I've mentioned reported for such a long time. There's going to be a lot of changes around the margins. And this is part of it. You know, the rebrands, the names, as far as roughnecks go, I love the logo, but I can see why a lot of people didn't, maybe the name could be a little rough depending on where you stand on that. I got your opinion on it. There we'll see what happens that there was contentions contention contention against that brand itself, obviously for the logo and everything. So. These teams could come back with different names, you know, we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I've been digging on that for the longest time. Obviously the XFL is doing a good job of hiding their brands. They haven't really, at least not in this country. Trademark those brands. So it'll, it's fascinating. It's fascinating to see how many tweaks we get. Over under. So we got eight, right? And we're not going to hold you to this, but just at the time we had like a, you know, seven of eight returning, four of eight, one of eight. Maybe just your gut feeling. Sure back in April when I reported it before the coaches were announced the report of the coaches and the cities. What I heard was three. What I heard was 3 cent new cities. What? Orlando? San Antonio Vegas. And with New York, LA and Tampa out of the mix. Now we'll see, because back when I got that information, obviously in. A company with the coaches that I reported on. Back when I got that information, the talks were at the time of potentially having a hub in Texas. Now the league has shifted away from that possibility completely. And they're definitely looking to lock up venue deals for each one of their individual cities. That very well, this is why if you saw my reports, my tweets, whatever on these issues. It came with a caveat because I wrote the situation is fluid. Because now with venue deals, what could very well happen is even if they have designs on state and Orlando, but they find a better deal in Miami or someplace else in Florida, you could have a franchise there. So I think these venue deals are a key. Well, like they always are. And deciding what these cities end up being because they, the, the desire might be to be in Las Vegas, but will they get a favorable deal at, let's say Allegiant stadium. We'll scheduling work out there. So how are you going? How are you going to work that out? So that part is, I think the league even went in their press release and said in the coming months, When all of a sudden they started using the verbiage of venues and locations. So that that's when you knew for sure they were. Moving away from it. And it, although it seems like they're like kind of having their cake and eating it too, because the idea, at least at this point, from what I've heard is that they're going to practice in Texas, stay in Texas. How's the teams, the players, the coaches, everybody in Texas. For the entire season. And then fly the teams out to their cities for their games. Now I would prefer. I'm not writing the checks. I would prefer that these teams set up shop in their local markets. So you can connect with the communities and all that. But I mean, that's, that's another whole ball of wax in terms of. Getting practice facilities, setting up infrastructure, having buildings from a team headquarters. All that. So that's not easy either. So we'll see what the eventual setup ends up being, but it's going to be fascinating to see once these dots are all connected. It's a slightly terrifying. They made that. I don't think maybe timeline wise. I think you can figure out stuff right now. I think we're fine for February. Just from like a thesis of a league that we've had, you know, two years now to deal with this, that like, we're still like, well, are we really in San Antonio? Like, are we really in Orlando? That is a little terrifying to me. I just think that you should know where your bread and butter is going to be and the markets that you want to be out in target that, I mean, I didn't like. The USFL is rationale. Well, the USFL was in, you know, wherever Houston, back in the eighties. So we felt like going there. I mean, I just think AXA fellows should have a little bit more targeted of like, let's go to Ohio. The demos were strong there. When we played before, you know, let's go back to New York and not like. W we, we, weren't going to be in New York, but now we're with Disney and they want us to be in New York, potentially. I, it just, it's, it's weird to me that like, we're just, we're still like for do the lane with this and we don't have like a strong map for where we want to be. It's definitely been a methodical approach and that's like a lot of what. There's no doubt about it, but that's a lot of what Redbird does with these things. You know, it's like they don't, they don't, this is a different investment for Redbird capital than say they just purchased a Gerry card and I'll just purchase AC Milan. They've got Liverpool interests and connections with Fenway sports group and Yankees and everything else. Everybody by now. I want you to know if they haven't done the research on all these different things that red birds involved with. But the, the spring pro football league, their own spring pro football league, they fully realize what it's going to take. Financially to get it up and running what their vision is. And they've been working on this for a while. The league did get a little bit, you know, 2021 Was going to be wiped out, regardless because of the COVID. You're not going to have these types of leagues. I mean, you can attempt to have this type of league with no attendance, but that's not, that's not what they're looking for. Right. They want to connect with communities. And cities and markets and all that, and they want attendance. And so, so that's kind of the story there, but we knew 20, 21 was going to be out of the mix there. And then there was a little bit of a sidetrack. With the whole CFL business. So we've kind of landed in an interesting spot here. But I think the market's there considering the markets that I've mentioned that I've reported on. There are plans for each one of those. There are specific reasons why each one of them have been chosen. This isn't like a fly by night. Hey, why don't we try Austin? Hey, why? Don't well, Portland would be pretty cool. You know, that's not. That's probably how I would pick things. But let's go to Columbus. They, you know, there's a lot of thought and. Thought process and planning at the end strategy involved when you're making these types of decisions. It's a key one, the eight markets they choose. Very important. The stadiums have venue deals. They make extremely important. So it's going to be interesting where they land I'm. Part of me is wishful thinking, hoping that someone gets in my ear and says, Hey, Mike, They're coming back to New York. You know, Disney wants it. It's a big market. I'm dying to hear that because I would really selfishly because I'm a Northeast guy. I'd love to see New York back, but whatever eight cities they end up choosing I'm good. You know, I fully realized that they're doing it for the betterment of the league and for what they feel is the best decision financially. Moving forward. So it's part of the drill, I guess. I just, I think at some point you can be a little, you know, I'm, I'm very OCD. And like I've designed the many logos in my life with the help of Bekah that does all the marketing stuff for us. I just think you can get too in the weeds sometimes. And I just, I feel like, you know, this is episode, I think 95. Like if you go back to episode one of this show, I think Paula and I cracked the code for like, keep it in, keep it in New York, move it through red ball, keep it in LA, move it to wherever the soccer team is there, you know? Let's get out of the Tampa. I think we have this all wrapped up about, you know, 94 weeks ago. So I just like, I dunno, I don't want to get too caught up on that. I want to talk and I want to get your reactions. We have our big Randy character cracker, right? The St. Louis Guy. I think I, I listened to how he said his name and then, but I was talking about earlier on the show, but. We had the big June one promise this week, right? Wednesday, we, you know, we were going to get cities and the battle Hawks and we were returning. And all of that, I know this, you were a, you know, very silent in terms of like, you know, corroborating any of that. Right. Which is always interesting, you know, Randy came out. I don't like big time, like people like that, getting a lot of clout when they're reporting in like the alt stop that it really doesn't feel like Randy knows a lot about. I mean, I know he's in St. Louis. I've talked to some of the other St. Louis guys and they're like, well, Randy is not really, he talks the bigger game. Maybe that he's involved in what he is, but Randy said June 1st, we're going to come out. June 1st came. And when I was very upset on social media, what was your reactions to all of the, basically the, the wet fart that was the Wednesday news break. You know, what's interesting, Randy is a. I reached out to him. We communicated a little bit when he came out with this story, when he went on the air. Before he went on the air when he actually tweeted out. That June 1st would be the date that the battle Hawks are coming back and all that. And I'm not surprised by the battle logs coming back. I mean, that's something I've reported for a longest time, but. You know, Randy and I traded some information together and I told him what I knew and all that. And then he went on the air and he had some information there that he came up with Anthony back then, all that. So. I mean, it is what it is. I'm going to assume. I can't speak for Randy. I'm gonna assume that someone at the dome told him that they've reserved dates. And I'm going to assume that someone may have mentioned the possibility of a June 1st announcement. I'm going to assume. Now I hadn't, I haven't heard anything. And a specific date yet. I I'm have been told earlier today that the announcements are coming this month. In terms of cities, we're going to hear announcement as well in terms of directors of player, personnel, and coordinators for each team. You would figure that the DPP, the director of player personnel for each individual team and maybe the coordinators as well would be announced before the showcases come. You know, we're recording this on a Thursday night. This will air on Friday. But we're two weeks away from the XFL having their first showcase. And they're actually having two showcases within a three-day span and all the showcases. Have actually sold out. As you know, read. So, and it's pretty interesting because from what I've heard in terms of the registration and all that. Four of the six showcases are going to have over 200 players each. This is information directly from the league. And two of them are going to have a slightly less than that fewer, fewer players in that, that, that would be Hawaii. The, and the other HBCU. Focused showcase there in Jackson. So. So there's going to be quite a few players there that close to a thousand. In that, in that neighborhood that are going to be trying out for the league. So they're, you know, you would figure, as far as the cities go, as far as these big announcements go, as far as the personnel, the key guys, directors of player personnel, for some people, that's a boring thing, but that's. Pretty important in terms of player evaluations for each team, like how good these teams are going to be having the right people judging the talent. So, so anyhow, but you know, that would be good timing. You know that first one in a, was it a Maryland? Yeah. It's going to be on June 17th, Alec. And then for it is going to be on June 19th and then the Hawaii one on the 25th. It's weird how they lay them out on the website where we have all the June ones and then all the July ones, but yeah, the 17th, 19th and 25th of June. Yeah. So we got two weeks until that. So, so I would S. This month. For like what, I'm, what I've been told this month. We're definitely going to get announcements. So what we get specifically, you would figure if we're getting cities, we're going to get cities with stadiums now, whether or not we get team names as well. That's another story. How long it takes before we find out. What the uniforms look like X of one XFL shop opens up all that. Who knows. So th there's a lot of ambiguous. Ambiguity with a lot of this stuff. Like, you know, He was trying to figure out where everything is headed. Yeah. I mean, you can like print this stuff out, you know, like give us just the XFL. Just, you know, even if you don't want to say, okay, the dragons are like, give us the cities. I mean, we have the seas in the XFL for a year before. I mean, it was. It was like December and then August, we got the team names me and I remember watching it here and cause we thought maybe it was like the surge and then it was the dragons. But like, I think like just telling us where the cities are, I think would quell 98% of like the people like. I mean, I've heard that. I know it's hard to be patient and it's hard to preach base since. Patients to the XFL crowd because let's face it, you know? They've been waiting since 2020, right? So, so I get that part of it, but eventually they got no choice, but to reveal all these things, I remember the hysteria during the lead up to XFL 2020, how long it took for them to reveal their team names, how people are going nuts about that. How long it took for them to come, come out with the full uniforms and everything else. So. It's you know, it was pretty crazy. So, but we're going to get all this stuff is coming. They got no choice, but to play in cities, they got no choice, but to play in stadiums and got no choice, but to have coaching staffs, I have no choice, but to have a draft and draft players, we now know what stations are going to be on. We'll wait to see what this is, how the schedule works itself out. ABC, ESPN, everything else. But, but the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. They're just coming together slower than people would want, but you're going to get it a month from now. We'll be sitting here. Well, you know, and two months from now, three months from now, we're going to be sitting here talking about, I don't know if San Antonio should have had that red color. It looks ridiculous. On the helmet. So. Would this a long be forgot. But, but, but it's, you know, it's hard to be patient. Maybe it's that? What'd you say you have a. OCDC whatever. Yeah. So, whatever your element is, so. I remember when they reveal the uniforms. I was in Vegas, I was filming an event for my sister-in-law and I was in that, the Ferris wheel, like the high roller. And I was, I should've been working harder, but I was on my phone, refreshing it. And then I was, I was at McLaren airport, which I think since has been renamed, I think it has a different name now, but that was the listening to Mark's, you know, he had done the live stream. Let's. Cause I wasn't involved in all of this back then, but I vividly remember re. Do you remember read on social media? How the XFL T's their logos. So, what they did was they showed a little portion. Yeah. Each logo like the dragon there, you would see like a little green part. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a little puzzle. People were trying to figure it out for like a week. They're sitting there going, is that a tail? Is that a wing? Is, is that a horn? So. So it was pretty funny how that worked out. I ended up being fun, like when they were eventually revealed and all that, but it was like frustration that I don't know how you would figure, like, you know, the June 1st thing. Right. Just going back to that for a second. If the XFL is revealing their cities, you would figure they would do it in some sort of grand fashion. That it wouldn't just be some plaintiffs tweet. Or, you know, just a quick little notice because let's, let's face it. You know, they, they, their big announcements, their TV deal came at the upfronts, right with Disney, their, their, their coaching announcement that came on ESPN on get up. And they were on ESPN sports center all day. So you would figure if they're going to announce their cities. And then uniforms and everything else. That it's going to be done in a, in a, I wouldn't say a spectacular fashion, but something that's a little more spectacular than just this plain old tweet. Well, and also, you know, and max, you know, our, our great friend max was quick to point out, you know, Gerry card now is often Milan buying the soccer team. Like they're probably not. Going to do the announcement, you know, when like one of the major share stakeholders in all this. I just did the finalize the conversation on Randy. Cause I was, you know, I was like I said, I get upset when these mainstream guys, yo, cause I, I had tweeted at him that yeah, because of his actions and because everyone got so upset that the battle Hawk should be relegated to be, that should be an expansion team now. Right. Like. You don't get to be a part of the eight. Now you have to wait till 20, 25, the battle Hawks have to do that. You know, everyone's we, there, there, no. And they'll do all that stuff, but I did think it was fine that Randy wrote me back and he's like, well, or he wrote on Twitter, you know, like, well, I, I asked. You know, I just send them a message, ask him for the time. And like, they never got back to me. I go. Well, because you probably weren't supposed to say anything about the first, like if you told me something and I went and blabbed on the podcast about it, and then I messaged you for clarification, you probably wouldn't tell me anything else, because I probably wasn't supposed to say the first place. I'm like, Randy, like that doesn't surprise me at all that they wouldn't write back to you. Like you probably. I annoy people like crazy, like reaching out when, when, when the possibility of a June 1st announcement came out there. There was several people. Maybe 15. That I contacted. At least. That I contacted trying to find out if there's any merit to that, either confirm or deny. Is there any merit to that? And from what I got from the people that did speak to me, Was that June 1st is not the date. So when it, when I was told June 1st is not the date, they will not, they're not planning any reveal on June 1st. I very much doubt that's, you know, I don't know. Like I said, Randy probably got information from someone related to the dome that told him that June 1st would be the day they announce it. So I'm gonna assume that, but you know, that doesn't mean that June 1st is going to be going to actually be the day. So, you know, so that, and it wasn't obviously, and I very much doubt that it was done out of spite. Oh man, we were going to do it on June 1st. At this random, now this St. Louis Guy one in the air, screw that June 8th, June 8th, it is, or whatever. So. No, I don't. I agree with Allison. I used to think I give you leaks something that maybe you're not supposed to leak because you want it. I said, I mean, Randy, I came across, wanting to be really cool. I know this information, you don't, I'm in the Blab about it on my show. And then he got caught with his pants down and then it's like, well, they won't tell me anything else. It's like, well, that doesn't surprise me. I wonder we'll get the USFL stuff here. I'm rounding out. We're getting to the point now where basically we're confirming things that you've come out with before. Right? You had Anthony back to St. Louis that came out this week, air Wilson, right. NFL kind of insider, and then Bob soups to Dallas. Right. So we kind of have those locked up. Are we, do you have first off, do you have any comments on the, on either of those kind of more confirmations of kind of things that we've known. Yeah, it's Anthony. Beck's an interesting one because he has connections to Florida and to New York. If there was presumably. Tri-state area team for the XFL, but I think St. Louis makes sense for them. And I think that's one of the plum jobs. I know we're, you're trashing St. Louis A. Little bit cause of frustration with everything just. It's a glaze, but that is a great job. The St. Louis job, that's got a hot market. They're going to embrace that. That's a great job to have even better. If you win, obviously. So, and I think Anthony backed his son, Rocco Beck. Who's a top prospect quarterback plays at Iowa state, which isn't too far. Away from. So that's an ideal kind of set up for him if he's in fact in St. Louis during the season, we'll see, besides the games, obviously. Stoops obvious to anyone where he would be, you know, when I reported that he was coming back, people are like, wow. You know, that was the shocker of all the XFL head coaches he's coming back. He was one of the top paid coaches in 2020. A lot of people just assume that he would, he's working for Fox. He's not going to be interested in doing it again. Well, here he is. Wade Phillips and Houston, San Antonio is an interesting situation because I've heard different things. I've heard Reggie Barlow, which has been out there and reported, and I've also heard Hines ward. So. Lately I've been hearing more Barlow, but like I've mentioned back in April before the coaches were announced by the XFL on ESPN, the situation is fluid here. I've heard rod Woodson with Las Vegas. That's a fascinating one to me, Hines ward, presumably in DC, we'll see about DC. That's another thing. As far as venue deals, Audi field, all that, that's very expensive. The upkeep for that field, there's a lot of layers to this thing. So there's Oprah Jim Hazlett in Seattle. Interesting one there. And then, you know, I've heard some coaches, so I'm willing, I've reported some of these, but I got a list here of a few guys I've heard. So. Duane Taylor, one of the top offensive coordinators in the FCS. Who's currently at Alabama a and M I've heard that he's going to be joining the XFL. The problem I have again. It's, I don't know which team he's going to be on now. Some P some people I've spoken to LinkedIn to Anthony Becton St. Louis. That'd be interesting. Dwayne Taylor actually coached in the NFL PA collegiate bowl, which is a game that Anthony back in rod Woodson and others coach. I've heard about mark Lilybridge as people know him as bridge and football circles as the defacto GM, I guess, director player, personnel in St. Louis. Now, whether or not he ends up in St. Louis, we'll see, but he has ties to that area. So he's a respected name in the football circles. The Seattle situation is fascinating. And I think with Jim Hazlett as the head coach, I've heard of Randy Mueller, who was the Houston roughnecks director of player personnel was also with the salt lake stallions. I've heard of Randy Mueller with. Jim hasn't anybody who's followed their two careers. It's fascinating because back in 2000, Jim Hazzard was the NFL head coach of the year with the new Orleans Saint saints. The executive of the year was Randy Mueller. They were together there. Another person I've heard connected to that situation. We all heard is June Jones. He let that cat come out of the bag. He'll be the offensive coordinator there with Jim hasn't. In Seattle, the defensive coordinator is Ron Zook. Now, some people may be familiar with that name. So others not he's coached in the NFL ranks with Jim Hazlitt new Orleans, obviously in the college ranks. So. It sounds like he's got a pretty, has this got a pretty strong staff there and he's got experience Hazlitt in alternative league so that that Seattle team could be pretty lethal there. That's a pretty good group that Randy Mueller and all that. I've heard a Joey clink scales as the, as the director player personnel with rod Woodson in Las Vegas, they both have ties to the Raiders. They worked together with the Raiders. Clink scales was the. LA Wildcats, GM director player personnel. So again like Randy Mueller, this is important in these leagues to actually have people in those positions that have experienced in spring pro football and were successful. We saw the Houston roughnecks were undefeated. We saw the LA Wildcats were one of the hottest teams in the XFL. They had a very talented roster. So that's a couple of the names I've heard there now. So I'm interesting other coaches too. This is the CFO guys who listened to the show will know one of these names I've heard of Jamie Elizondo is the offensive coordinator for Heinz ward. That's an interesting pairing there. Jamie Elizondo was. You know, obviously the offensive coordinator for the Tampa bay Vipers. And he just finished. You know, a miserable season to CFL, unfortunately. It was considered one of the best. Offensive minds in Canada. Last year, really didn't work out for him too. Well with Edmonton, with the newly rebranded out. Jim Herman. I've heard his defensive coordinator with Hines ward. That's the name that not too many people know, but if. He won a super bowl with the New York giants. He was the defensive coordinator for the New York guardians in the XFL. He's a kind of like a hired gun. Anytime you wanted to beat the new England Patriots and Tom Brady, they went to Jim Harvey, the Steelers hired him, so he could come in and they could beat the Patriots that obviously the giants beat the Patriots on two different occasions. So that's a very good name there. So those are some of the names that I've heard. There are other names that I've heard that I can't reveal out of confidence is about maybe six or seven others, but, but you can see kind of like where the league is going. And these are important hires who the often, the earlier you get these staffs together. Now another thing that I've heard, you know, just information out there, a lot of the assistants. Coordinators director player personnel. They they're probably going to get started fairly soon. I mean, we meaning being on payroll, all that. I've heard the assistant staffs may not start until September. I mentioned Dwayne Taylor earlier, from what I heard, he's going to be staying at Alabama a and M to finish out the 20, 22 season. And that he's going to join the XFL after that complete. So since many camps, training camps are not starting till this presumably December and January. You can pull that off since the college season will end. Most likely in that November, December range. So, so there might be an exception there. So it's interesting to see which team Taylor ends up with. Like I mentioned, the possibility. Of him joining St. Louis. So these are some of the announcements that are coming our way. They're not as sexy as the cities. That's what we want to know. Right. So, but, but with the showcases coming up, these guys are all important. Oh, yeah. I mean, you gotta get, and I mean, it's going to be, like you said, the showcases before, maybe weren't as paramount, right? Maybe it was more of like a PR right. To kind of do the showcases, but yeah, the exit fellow needs to get this talent from anywhere. Right. Doing the Hawaii. And the HPC UN. When you talk about director of player personnel. Married. So that's going to be the president, right? GM like the general manager of a team that's responsible for. Like a GM with drafting players. I mean, it'll be a collaborative effort. Obviously, a head coach will have a lot of say coaching staff will have a lot of say, but the director player personnel is like the defacto boss. Now in the old XFL, the head coaches were listed as a GM as well. Yeah, but all those guys leaned on their directors of player personnel, Trey brown who's moving up. The bangles organization was very good with the St. Louis Battle Hawks. Back in the XFL. He's moved on to the NFL, back into the NFL and he's doing a very good job there. He just got another promotion. So obviously bangles don't pretty well. They want AFC championship last year. So, so that's, that's kind of the story there, but yeah, these guys are these. Th the, these positions are extremely important. It's like you're, if you've, it's not the top dog, it's the right-hand man. It's the person you're working with together. Say this is the running back. Running backs that I'm interested in or players that I'm interested in. So. That's going to be the, for football geek, like me. That's the fun side. The talent. Aspect is an interesting argument. You've had some great shows on recently, Eric Gallico. And many others. We've had this discussion with people it's going to be, and I've seen some of the, although I haven't engaged some of the arguments that go on on social media, people arguing that the XFL is not going to have enough talent themselves. You know, they're they're, they're gonna, yeah. I, I just find that fascinating, that whole, that whole aspect of it. So like, this is like a rhetorical question, right. But, and you can answer here, Mesa. You're supposed to ask me the questions, but like some of the best XFL players in 2020, they have a lot, they have something in common. You know, we're talking about PJ Walker, Donald par ham. Kenny Robinson. Camp Phillip storm Norton. What do they all have in common? None of them played in the AAF. And the reason for that is they were all in the NFL. When the AAF was ongoing. Another factor to this. So the reason why I'm bringing that up is because a lot of people are saying, where's the XFL going to get their talent from the USFL. Here's the assumption here, and I don't want to be derogatory towards the USFL. The assumption is that the USFL got the best of what's left. Right. So like where's the XFL going to get talent? Well, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to be detrimental because I li I love a lot of the players in USFL. I've enjoyed the league immensely. But there are a lot of players in the USFL currently that have been out of the NFL loop for two to three years. A lot of them played in the AAF. In 2019, and haven't been able to latch on an NFL team, not even getting to camp. A lot of them played in the XFL in 2020, and unfortunately, for whatever crazy reason, talented guys like dairies, Victor had been out of work for two years. He hasn't even gotten an NFL camp invite. When you watch him play in the USFL, you're like, how the hell is that happening? But there is. So, so there are a lot of guys in the USFL right now that deserve the opportunity to play pro ball, but they haven't been in the NFL loop. For two to three years, that kind of deal. So. So when someone asks where's the XFL going to get their talent pool from you just need to look back to 2020 because in 2020. Yeah. And helped when the AAF went out of business, but what people are forgetting to two parts of it, the AFS best players ended up in the NFL. So the XFL couldn't get them. The Garrett Gilbert's. Johnson's John Wolford's young, whole coups, et cetera. And the other part, the other part of that was the XFL. His best players were on NFL roster. So we're the XFL. They're not going to get all 700 of the players that NFL teams release in September that don't end up on practice squads. I'm taking into account the expanded practice squads. Not going to get all those players. But of the 700 that ended up outside of the NFL. You know, in a league, that's going to have 70 player rosters at least to start out with and a training camp and the regular season 560 players, it was going to be a good number of players in the XFL 2023 that are right now on NFL rosters. So I think that's something that's not being considered. When people talk about this equation, because as I mentioned, all the XFL. Top top players. The Jordan town was all those guys. They were on NFL rosters. When the XFO still like naming their teams and doing their uniforms and all that stuff. So that's going to be a big part of it. The XFL is. You know, Doug Whaley, Mark Ross, Russ Gilio they, you know, they've got a big task in front of them that entire football ops. Department. They've got a big task in front of them. Now, the leaks supposed to pay. I've when I've heard 65 K on average per player. They're going to have larger rosters. The quarterback's going to be paid higher. So they're going to have to do some heavy recruiting, which they've been doing already. And so they're gonna, you know, they're gonna have to prove themselves in the marketplace, but the definitely the general consensus amongst people that I talk to. Is, they don't believe there's enough talent for one league. So how can there be enough talent for two leagues? But I think I just described. An alternative viewpoint on all that. You say 65 K presumably. Yeah, average. I heard they're like 6,500 per week, like right now in the USFL it's 4,500 per week. That's what I've heard now. It could be more than that. That's just what I've heard. It could be more than that, but, and then that average could go up depending on how much you pay your quarterbacks, but from what I've heard, they're going to pay more. And that's what they've been telling agents to. And their pitch meetings that they've been having with agents that currently have NFL players. Some that have used. And players too. So they they've been, so that's just kind of the story there. So this war for talent, because mind you, you know, on the flip side of things, the USFL can also get involved. And trying to go after the players that are cut by NFL teams. But, you know, The leagues that pay more. This is great for players, but. Yeah, that leagues that play more are going to get the best players. So that's just kind of how it works. I mean look right. Navy. No better example right now. The w B N a w right. Having a strong number two that is able to offer, you know, Exorbitant in some cases with AEW guys, but to be able to offer, you know, competitive contracts. Presumably, if they're in tax is housed in the bubble like that, maybe won't have to pay for a board either. I mean, we're just making assumptions. They also told agents that they're going to pay. Housing for the Annette, like the USFL players. Are paying half or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, subsidize. So, so the X-Files also told that the players gonna have full coverage. The players are going to be taken care of the players on injured reserve. We're going to be paid. Obviously you're gonna have much larger rosters, more jobs, more opportunities, and that they're going to take care of housing and cough, the travel of course, and all that other stuff. So you got to buck your own. We're going to ask you a Texas, but you got to book your own flight. You got to fly, get your own. Yeah, they're not doing all that. So the entire league, I mean, we'll see what happens. Like I said, a lot of this is fluid, but from what I've heard and from what a lot of people have heard that. Not just myself, that they're going to be housed completely in Texas, the entire operation in terms of the coaches. Everybody. So we'll see. Last question. We got to get to USFL stuff here. Get your shot. Ready. The. So director player, personnel, head coach. Are we still going to have presidents? Do we need bad for all houses in Texas here? One that's a terrific question. I don't think we're going to have presidents. Right out the gate in year one. I don't think we're gonna have fully staffed or maybe, but I would assume we're not gonna have fully staffed marketing teams. There could. Yeah, there could be marketing. There could be also, you know, back in the. I believe it was elevate. Right. And trying to hit the memory bank here. I think the XFL had a relationship with elevate. So there could be something going on on that front in terms of. Selling tickets and all that, and individual markets, whatever relationships through ticket, master, all that. And I know the XFL is hunter. Big huge. I recently on that front in terms of connecting with markets and then the business aspects with that. So. It's going to be fascinating to follow all this. It's very interesting. I just hope I, this in a, we're going to move the USFL step here. I just, the one size fits all social media stuff. I, especially when you're in the hub, if you're in the modified hub with the XFL, like that's not going to work. Right. I mean, And I understand USFL is on we're shoestring budget and all this, but like this. The same tweet with every single team. Giddy up, get your tickets today, free beach towels. And then they, the. Mahler's are tweeting and they would ever like, if you're going a. That's an easy way to hire a couple, you know, hire some 18 year old kid out of college or. I'm with you. One of the best aspects about XFL in 2020 was their social media presence. And if the exfil is going to talk about connectivity, that's a big thing in today's day and age is connecting with the individual fan bases and the NFL has gotten, you know, Probably following some of the lead of the XFL. I mean, one of their teams, Washington's their entire social media teams, frankly, XFL people. But we've seen the NFL teams have been doing a much better job with social media and they're connecting to chargers are doing a tremendous job, their entire social media team there. The animating the MMA. And they did that. They did it all in house. Cause I'm like, oh, they hired snag. They. You know, clearly pay the million dollars. They have some anime from in Japan. Now they did that all in house. Incredible. And you need that. And I think in order for the XFL to connect with people in St. Louis to connect with people, I think they're going to have to ramp up, you know, it's early stages, social media for them. They're not, you know, once they get all these teams situated and all that, they're going to need to have social media departments for each group. I don't know if it's the 18 year olds that you mentioned, but you, you want to have talented people working for you. You want, you want rock stars. You want people who are going to do a great job. Not 5:00 AM news releases or pin pinning, a tweet to sell tickets and not doing anything else. I mean, so you see that pinned on a lot of the. I hate to bring it up with a lot of the USFL teams at the pin tweet. Once you go on their social media, it's right there by tickets. I know they're not interested in attendance, but that's their top priority tweet. On other social media. So you need to be more, you need to be more active. You need to connect with the base you need to. And I think the XFL is plans are to connect, to keep, to keep the fans connected to the league year round. And not just when they're in the stadium. So that's a big factor. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to save the money, right. We're not going to house, we're not going to, no, you don't got to lease all this up, you know, 65,000 a year, right. Times eight people, half a million dollars, right? Like. E very easy price to pay for saving tens of millions of dollars, right on housing and in dealing with all of that staff and insurance and all the different, like. Half a million dollars hire eight social media guys or girls one for each team. Like I just can't stand this. I think it says. Essentially mastering the USFL T like I said, if you're not going to be in the, in the markets, at least trying to be able to encourage people that way. It is the way to do it. All right. You asked about savvy, every shot. Ready? I have. My second Shiner. It looks like you've been drinking already. Okay. So for the purposes of this occasion, This is joining the mix, a logo that will probably be extinct very shortly. If it isn't already. So the, and. You know, I got the whiskey here. So here we are. I'm sure this will be posted all over social media. We got past all the confidential. So USFL ratings, right? You talk to everyone, you email Nielsen, you talk with the Fox sports people. You talk with all these people like us have already. If they, if they are higher than what was even the lowest expectations don't have to drink. If they were lower than even the lowest expectations, take a shot, please. All right. What do you, what do you make of, I mean, we had the bit, you saw the big blob yesterday, which was funny, like, yeah. Sasha and I, and I got a lot of like, whoa, Like mom and dad are fighting and like Seth and I talk every day online. There's really like not, I, I sent him that the, the cease and desist, whatever trademark tonight from that, you know, together people, but like, what do you make of all of this? When you write your articles, you try to be very diplomatic, but I want to hear Mike Mitchell's real thoughts on the us about ratings. Sure. It's tough because there's a lot of different ways to look at it. Right. So I, I, from what I know, I know what the public spin is. I know what the private spin is. So pro privately Fox was hoping that the ratings would be better than they are. They're hoping for better numbers on cable. And better numbers on network. So not to say they didn't expect that there will be some issues now. Someone I spoke to earlier in the day, that's closest situation told me that they felt that there was a few different reasons why the ratings aren't as high as they expected them to be. One of them is spring league fatigue. That's a term that's, I've heard a lot of in the last few weeks, and that's something that I heard earlier today in a conversation. The feeling is, and this is a big part of what the USFL is banking on. Right. So if you're, if you're, if you. Are bullish about the USFL chances moving forward. Is that. Because of what happened with the AAF. How they failed in spectacular fashion. Unfortunately. Because of what happened with the XFL because of COVID. That the public has no faith whatsoever in these leaks. So a lot of the mainstream football fans have not invested their time or given the USFL a fair shake. Because they figured they would be gone by now, to be honest, just because of the it's fair, unfair. That's been the case there. And so they are the executive I spoke to was telling me that they felt that. The. That's part of the reason why the ratings haven't been as high, because a lot of people are not giving the USFL a fair shake because of what happened with the other leagues. So the big thing for the USFL and what, from the conversations I've had. What they feel is that getting to year two? And you were going to see once they complete their season, I'm looking forward to the championship game and all that should be fun. Canton, Ohio, all that, once they complete this season, they're going to be popping champagne. And celebrating and we'll see that all over social media, all over the place there. The other spring league that finished. All that. Even though technically Fox has been in bed with Brian Woods since 2020. So even though it was a haphazard season in 2020, they finished that year. And Brian Scott was the MVP. And then a year ago in the spring, there was a spring pro football league that actually finished the season called the spring league. The new iteration so that them completing this, but I re I had degress. Back to the original point. The, the USFL is hoping that by getting to year two, That people will give them a more fair chance. When they come around in 2023, that people will see that this league is here to stay. And they will fully commit to it because there were doubts and uncertainty. About the league sticking around because others quite frankly did not. So, and then of course, there's the second part of this, the ratings, right. Which has also ties into this. So obviously more people give the league a chance to get more viewers that way, but then the big part of it is actually going into markets. So they think they're going to pick up viewers because people are going to see that this league has staying power. And then they think they'll pick up viewers when they actually go on the market. Those are two fair arguments. Those are possibilities. If they're actually in Philadelphia in Pittsburgh, I don't know anybody wants the Maulers at this point. But we'll, we'll see, maybe they get a new coach. He should. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, but if New Jersey, if the generals are in New Jersey, if all these teams, you know, are in markets, that's a factor because now you actually have, this is a big part of the USFL kind of should know this. You're going to actually have press covered the teams because, and you're going to be giving them information so they can cover your team better. And that's your promotional tool. They're the, they're the press that covers your teams. So you have beat reporters in New Jersey, in Philadelphia, in Pittsburgh, in all these markets that cover your team, they help you sell tickets because they're putting. You nowadays, not too many people are getting newspapers, but they're putting in the papers they're putting in the online publications, all that. So once you go into markets that picks up, so that should in theory, by default help your ratings go up. Because you're actually getting promoted in individual markets. So that'll make people attach themselves more because right now it's kind of strange, you know, to watch the Pittsburgh Maulers play in Birmingham. You know, in front of like 38 people, if that, so it's no, there's no, really you don't feel any attachments, Italy, but if they're playing in your neck of the woods, you're definitely gonna feel attachment. So those two things will play into the U S suppose favor, the ratings have been. I won't say if you're comparing, it depends where you like. It depends how you compare it, right? Because so like a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately when the NBC cutoff the USFL, they did a decent number. Even though some publications out there like XFL newsroom ran with the wrong ratings information after they took it from another site. Watch your. Yeah. So anyway, it is what it is, but they had a decent number of 1.1 million, I believe it was, but they got, unfortunately, this would have never happened to the NFL. They were cut off. So Sinai life you'd get on time. I guarantee you at the NFL was on. Lauren Michaels would have kept it on because the NFL's lead is like 20, 30 million people, whatever, whatever the number is, something ridiculous like that. So, so anyhow, the USFL got cut off. They did 1.1 million viewers. That's good. A year prior to the NHL was in the same time slot and did 2.3 million viewers. So it depends when you're, where are you comparing these things? So if NBC is looking at that saying, well, we had the NHL and the same time saw they did 2.3 million viewers. And we've got the USFL this time side that did 1.1. Now. There's a lot of different factors to this. It's not black and white. It's. You know, there's a lot of shades of gray in terms of how much are they paying for rights? You know right now. You know, you don't. The USFL is charging last for ad rates, but they've cut out the middleman so they can make some money off of that. That's great. They're not making any money off of his attendance. And they've cut down, costs their payroll. You know, roughly for players is like maybe $15 million, maybe 17 million in that range. I don't know how much your ex. Spending in terms of coaching, staff, training, staff, all that. I'm sure that factors in as well, there's no travel costs. So the costs are down. We knew this. That they were going to be able to complete this season. They just completed the spring league in 2021. If you're not spending that much money, you're going to be right. They weren't paying players back then. But at least not everybody. There might've been a few here and there. Anyway. But I think, I think the way we're looking at this with the USFL is if they can get into markets, that's the end game goal can, is Fox willing and God bless them. If they are I'm happy. The reason why. Fox and Disney. Our back in the spring pro football game is because of this. The success they had with the XFL in 2020. That's why they're here because if the XFL, even though it ended after five weeks, if it was a train wreck, Fox would have said, screw this, I'm not getting involved in any kind of spring league. This is ridiculous. It's got no chance. It has no viability, no staying power. Disney wouldn't be back at the table. So right now live sports rule ratings are completely, are down completely all across the board. And live sports content is where it's at, because it's the, you know, so. If you present a product that delivers decent viewership every week, you can have a place in there. Fox has designs on the, on, on this league, their league. Being more successful than it is. And they feel if they get to year two and if they get to the point where they can sell off these franchises, that it's going to be. A successful model, something that can last. So we'll see, I'm glad that Fox and Disney are in the game. You know that they're doing this, it's tremendous for players, for mentors, for coaches, tremendous for football fans. It's going to be fun to watch this transpire CR really shakes out. I, and I, so I got a bunch of comments here about all this, so, I mean, first off. You know the idea that, okay, we're going to go into markets and then we're going to, like, they don't allow people to cover teams outside of Birmingham right now. I mean, they could like, if you're a Birmingham local reporter, like you can only tie. I can cover. You can only go to the Birmingham. Like I. To me, they're so weird and secretive. Like I don't buy this spring league fatigue because they got a good rating. The first week they got a good rating. The second week they've got a bad rating week seven. Like I think people tuned in and saw it. Right. I think gameplay wasn't where it should have been because of lack of training camp. And I think now you're getting diminished on that. I mean, I think they got enough people to sample air, right? Like sure. You know, if I did my first podcast and I got a million views. And then I, the next podcast I do, I got a thousand. It's like, okay, well, people tune the. And then you get sent back like. To me. I, you know, I see a lot of like read, hates the USFL or like read, hates the hub or read like. My biggest thing. I want this to succeed. Like you said, you know, USFL. It is not a hot product right now on the podcast for user down Stefan's podcast, user down like everyone's USFL. Like I look at all the different like USFL network. I look at everyone step. Everyone's views are down. It's not a sexy product. I want USFL to be as hot of a product as it can be, because that encourages more people to watch my show. Cause like I have mark Drumheller on this week as Yahoo sports. Right? Betting analysts. He's on the show as well here. Like. You know, I talked to them. How, how was your traction for Yahoo? You know, you run Yahoo sports. How has your traction. [Unknown] it's down. I talked to Ian herd. It's you know, PFF. You know, lead fantasy podcasts, like, how are your USFL views? They're down. Like, this is what people tell me. Right. And it's because it is, it's like they saw the XFL as homework and said, Oh, you know, steel, can I borrow your homework? Sure. Like switch it up a little bit that right. That sane. So people don't think that we're copying it. And you know, they simply think that like putting football on the field is enough. And it, I say this in the private chats all the time. It's the bare minimum amount of effort. Every single day we have one PR person. We send out the roster. The roster transactions. When we feel like it, we send out the email for the games. When we feel like it, we send out press releases. When we feel like we didn't even send out a press release at the playoff. Playoff tickets were going on sale. There was no press release. Like these are things that like, People know this right. You know, NBC doesn't fly. The drone can, because it's not cost prohibitive that, you know, they don't want to say money, like everything about this. And that's what just, that's what I just, and I've said before I hear it's these, I'm the forest heirs of like, it's already a hard enough battle for this. I do not hate the USFL. I absolutely hate the way that they're operated all of this. And I don't like them to be rewarded. By doing. Like I said the bare minimum of effort when doing a little bit better is really not that hard for a company. The size of Fox sports. This is not a, and, and I'll give the same thing to rubber. I we've been critical about it on their interview here. I've been critical about it with Kevin Siefert today, but like, I, I I'm tired of this, like Twitter online, arguing, protecting like Fox sports, like one of the largest, like the, the largest broadcaster of NFL games in the world. They'd like, well, no, like you need to cut them some slack. It's like, no, you need to cut us some slack. Like I'm the one that's paying $3,000 to fly the Birmingham to do live shows for this kickoff. Like let's cut us some slack. I'm tired of giving these guys a pass when doing a little bit better as really not that hard. Yeah. It's you you're hurting yourself. If you don't have transparency. I mean, who cares about. I mean, you should care about all these passionate sites and podcasts that are willing to cover your league. And. Oh, you know, like myself write tons of articles and yourself, interview people and all that. You should care about that, but, okay. Let's exclude, take anybody who's covering the league or writing articles about an out of the mix, right? What you should have is. Number one is transparency. Give information about your players, your news, your injuries, because that's how you drum up interest in your teams. You need to be more active on social media, providing information to the media and to. Let's put it this way. Right? For. For them to understand which they should understand this. The fans are the consumers. Right. So like, if you want to drum up interest in fantasy and in gambling, Which is how you get people to watch your games. You have to be transparent with your information. I know, as an NFL fan myself, a huge fantasy football fan. Fantasy. I'm not a gambling guy. Fantasy football is one of the huge reasons I have such great knowledge of every team's roster. And why I'm so obsessed with watching any NFL game that's out there because I'll have a Monterey St. Brown on a roster. And I can't wait to see if he gets six catches cause I need to win. So, I mean, so that stuff is, and during the. It does. And it's not just game day, by the way. It's during the week, you'll go and look at the lions injury reports. He did. He did them on res on Monterey St. Brown practice today. Ms. J******f gonna play. Oh, great. He's not I'm going to, or maybe greater his plane. I'm going to start the bears defense this week. So, you know, that kind of deal. And I'm not alone with this fantasy football players in the NFL do this every week. And it's how you get knowledge of the players on each roster. This information is pretty much free to give out. It doesn't take that much effort. You know, five 11 in the morning. Deandre Johnson is returning. That should be big news. I've gotten some good traffic on that article. I wrote about that, bought him. And that's great to see. But you shouldn't be releasing that piece of information he's returning to your lineup. He's one of your star players, five, five o'clock in the morning. And really that's, that's all you got a little blurb. So, I mean, that's kind of transparency would help it. Doesn't take much to do that. That's how you rope in gamblers and fantasy players and all that. That's how you drive interest into your league. That's how you get people interested in your players. And all that. So, I mean, RJ young is doing a good job. He does player profiles. They're doing a lot of stuff in the house. They're not doing enough. I mean, that's just, just the way it is. And like you said, read. There's not a lot of buzz surrounding the week. And that's like the league. I'm Hursley I like the league. I watch every game. I've watched every single game, at least twice. I'm a nut. So you're, you're you're you know, you, you got me. But what if you want to get all the fans, you got to do a lot more. So, so that's kind of the story there. So they're not doing enough to, to drum interest. I know people are a lot very apologetic. You know, they're in a hub, you don't understand. They don't care about attendance. They don't care about ratings. Why do they care about. I don't know. So, do you want to have interest in your league? Do you want to have a buzz? Do you want to have popularity? Do you want to be successful? I don't know. So, if you don't care, it's no big deal. But, so, I mean, that's kind of, I mean, if attendance wasn't a big deal, which by the way, to his credit moose Johnson came out. And he said that he's very disappointed with the attendance. That he's he's shocked. They knew they were, they're not going to be able to have the same 10 to 12,000 fans that they have made sometimes 17, 18,000 in Birmingham games. They knew they weren't going to have that at the other games, but they didn't expect like 20 fans in the stands. That's a 41,000 seat stadium. I mean, I didn't think, I don't think they thought that the given out towels was going to be the trick, but they got 10, but $10 tickets, free tickets. I can tell you right now. You were in Seattle, your dragons guy, they drew anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000. Magine wa how many tickets would have been sold? How many people would have been at the games? If the games tickets were free. What the tickets were all 10 bucks. I guarantee you St. Louis. The one that had room in that stadium. If tickets were free, if everybody could get in. So, and so I'm back then. We looked at the XFL and we thought, oh my goodness, LA only did 15,000 fans. I hate to say this, but 50,000 fans is like 20 non stallions games and USFL. It's 50,000 fans. It's pretty damn good. The big, you know, compared to that. And when you look at it, it's really not just about the attendance, right? So like, okay. Big deal. The numbers are big. When you look at 10,000, 12,000, 15,000, 20,000. What's really important though, is having people in attendance that are engaged. And that are enthusiastic. So like I was at New York guardians games and yeah, that's a huge ass stadium that life, 80,000 seat stadium, what they only had like 19,000. 18,000, but I'll tell you what that crowd was amazing. The DC crowds, they were amazing with the beer snakes. Seattle crowds were great. St. Louis CRA even the Tampa LA crowds. You know, I know they didn't have big, big, a large attendance. But, you know, 15 to 20,000 is not bad in an. To be honest, that's not bad in a new league when you're competing in places like LA against everything you're competing against the sun. You know, to get new people, to come out to your stadium. It wasn't like they were game. I mean, I'm sure some people got in free some cases, but they weren't giving away free tickets by one. Get to see one game, you get three free or here's a towel. He just sunglasses. They didn't have all these little gimmicks and they drew pretty well for a brand new league. So that's a big thing too, is when you have fans in your stadium, you want them invested. You know, a lot of these leagues, they have people who are more, more so spectators, they just come and they don't know anything about the league. They'll come there. Just watch. They're sitting on their hands and not really that interested in it, but when you, when you actually have fans and markets that are invested, that's a special part of the league. Hopefully the XFL is able to capture that. In 20, 23, the way they did in 2020. And hopefully the USFL gets to the point. Where they can sell off their franchises and they can actually go into individual markets. Cause the hub. The Hub's situation is great for the financial aspect to survive. But at some point you've got to thrive. There've been other leagues that have completed seasons that got to year three and four. Like the United football league, which was the league I watched and enjoyed. Unfortunately that leak by the time they get to year three and four. You know, they never get sold off their franchises. They didn't have quality owners. They didn't get great attendance. And then they went away. So, so you hope that's not the case with the USFL. We'll see. I mean, I that's, the thing is, you know, we're talking like, oh, we're going to find that. We're going to find the owners on that stuff. Like. Okay. So, so let's say they move it. Let's say they move the Maulers into Pittsburgh and they, and they double ratings. Right? So they're getting, you know, five, 580,600,000, right. For the Fs one game. Right. Memorial day weekend, like, am I going to pay millions of dollars and, and carry a, you know, all these salaries and carry a venue. Lee's. Kerry insurance and trainers and coach it, like if I'm the owner of this team for 600,000 viewers on Fs, one like maybe, and I don't like, I'm not a TV exec. I don't know. I just, I got into the argument. You know, with sat, then we have all the rating stuff it's like, you know, and, and it was not, I mean, I, I think it was not fair that. You first have to compare, but yeah, he compared the, the ratings, the one cable rating, whatever on this area or the Fox rating was like 800,000 for the, for the Birmingham game. And the spring league back last year, you. It was like two and a half, three times. The USFL Rady was like two and a half, three times higher than the spring lake ready. And I said like, so we like Fox has invested a year planning with Birmingham. We've we've taken over a city. We've, you know, basically bought protective. I mean, not run, but you know, we've rented. Yeah, we have protected for the oldest. We have all these cameras. We have Joel Klatt. We have, you know, the lead. College announcer. We have Kurt McAfee here. I mean, I know there with the XFL stuff, like we have all these things. We have banners everywhere. We buy ads. We've drove this bus around town. We have, you know, the NASCAR we're running ads. We're doing all this stuff. When Brock Heward was on the show. He said that that first game that he was at. Super bowl level. Of the Fox executives that were there because we did our show at that Southern kitchen there, there was across the street and I was talking to the manager there. Clay I think was his name. And he said like the night before the game, they were hosting, like literally every single Fox executive upstairs there, they have like a private patio thing. And then the night after the game, Aye. Andrew will know this. Not many people know this. See, and Stefan get denied entrance to the pub that we were at after the game as screaming out. Like I did a live show here earlier as he got escorted out the door was probably the highlight of my Birmingham thing, but I digress. That the. The after party in that room that night, you had everybody there had add heart man, and, you know, Daryl, John Stan. I mean, I saw them all go in and you know, Heuer the joke. Like you have everybody in the Fox world there and it's like, well, we're going to get 800,000 viewers a week here. Eight. Like week seven. I just can't imagine that that was their longterm plan was like, okay, we're going to do two times the spring league where we didn't pay players and we didn't mark it. And we kept them all in a hotel. And, you know, we didn't even do media interviews. I basically had to like beg coal Boozer to get on a zoom call to be able to do stuff because the league wouldn't do anything like that. I don't think that that was their plan. Here a year ago. I'm sorry, maybe I'm wrong. I agree. And, you know, There's some people that are some people that, that are lending their ear to people that are connected to the USFL. And they're going to give you their spin that they want out there. So, so sometimes, you know, there are, you can paint a positive picture. Like there are certain aspects of the USFL. If you start comparing it to, you know, other entities that have been around forever. I've seen. Look, I think football. Here's the thing, right? You won't want. I know there's a lot of tribalism in this too. You don't want the USFL to prove that nobody cares about Springleaf? No. Well, anyway, now, It's bad. It's actually bad for the XFL. Like if, if like the USFL, all of a sudden, like the tanks and starts doing 300,000 on network television, 400,000. If their ratings keep going down and less and less, people are interested that doesn't really bode well for the XFL. You know, they might present a more sexier product. We'll see. Time will tell, but that's, you know, The use of a crashing and burning. Is not a good thing. So for the, for the market. So I do think there are ways of, if you start comparing it, I see people compare it to like MLS. Look at Kilz MLS and look how much money MLS gets. Well, MLS has a lot of different things in their favor. Not only have they been around for a long time, they proven that they can be, have staying power. They do have staying power. But they also have specific targeted demos. W, you know, so like that's easier for advertisers to sell to the USFL audiences and old. And right now that's measuring out the older crowd, 50 sixties. They're beyond nothing against people are 50 sixties. I'm. Hopefully I get there. I'm getting closer, but, but that's kind of the story there, but, and when it comes to MLS one six of their TV deals also on Spanish speaking stations. So, so they have a global outreach too. So that's why we'll when, when someone they're asking now, maybe they're asking for too much money. What they have a guaranteed specific type audience and they've kind of earned. I'm not going to say that they deserve 90 million or whatever it is they're asking for. But in today's day and age, if you can bring a specific audience that has value to advertisers and you have that kind of global outreach. You're and you provide that kind of content more games by the way than a. Then our spring pro foot bully, then you're going to have a market now. I think football is king. I think there is viability. I believe in it. I had to believe in the spring pro football concept, as crazy as that sounds to people who mock this, I think it can be something that lasts and has power. So yeah, I just think the USFL did, they, from what I know from the people who were like not trying to put out a different narrative out there, there's, there's, they, they have expectations and optimism that their numbers can get better. Those things I mentioned earlier in this interview, But they're not completely satisfied. With where they sit. They're very disappointed about attendance. Another big. Another big thing would Birmingham was the promise, the idea that they would create an event for people to, in Birmingham to go to, and that they would bring people local businesses market. So when there's nobody at the games. No, none of those businesses are vendors. All these people are making money. So if you don't have a product, that's drawing in a decent number of people, you're not helping this around areas. So I'm sure that was one of the selling points. Hey, we'll have every Saturday we'll have 5,000 people here or 3000 or 2000. There'll be families. We're going to like kids in for free. So there'll be families all over the place. Now, I don't know how to develop that areas. You were in Birmingham. I wasn't. So I don't know how, if that play, if. The area surrounding protective is ready for that kind of business, but it doesn't matter if it was ready or not. Because when you have 48 people watching them, the mall is blamed cares. So, so that's kind of the story there. So there are aspects of the, you expect this, you give a pass the first year leagues, even though this is the Fox's third year with the spring league, which is now called. [Unknown] but you expect this. But there are, there are things they definitely know internally that have to get better and that they're hoping that improve upon. We'll see how it goes. The rest of the way I'm looking from a football aspect. I can't wait till the playoffs. I'm looking forward to the championship. I'm happy for these players. I'm happy for Mike Riley and the generals I've been covering the team. I'm a huge fan of Mike Riley's. He always does good in these non NFL leagues. He's got a winning record in each and every one of them. So I'm, I'm happy for that aspect from a business aspect, transparency, how the league has been run. Hmm. I have my qualms. I got one more comment. If you have anything else, then we'll touch on CFL here before we go. Yeah. It's like spoiler alert. Do you want to know why? Like the cable ratings are not doing good? It is because the people watching the league are 60 years and older and they're not like they're watching Fox and NBC, they're not watching Fs one. They're not watching. I mean, and nip c**k is the outlier because I don't, I don't even have peacock premium, like. The times the games have been on like, I've been going to a wedding. I'm like, I'm not going to buy and sign up to watch 45 minutes of this game before I have to go. But like, they're not watching those games. That is why those ratings are down. Right. Cause I see like, well, why aren't like, why is USA that the 65 year old people are not like finding a Fs one or USA, like on the thing, because you know, the USFL has. You know, even though they own all these networks and they own everything, they, they, they don't have standardized times, right. Were Friday or Saturday mornings or Sunday nights, all this stuff. And the people they could be getting the watch. Today's the young kids. The sports gamblers, the fantasy people, they're not doing anything. So that's why I'm saying like, when I'm criticizing. Yeah, mark Drumheller was on writes for Yahoo sports. He goes read. I've been writing for Yahoo sports the whole season. Now. Not one person from USFL has ever reached out to me. You know, to talk to help provide me stats, I'll provide, you know, like, Hey, here's the injury? Like Margaret's for Yahoo sports. Like, I can't think of a bigger platform, you know? I mean, we're not talking Ian Hart. It's here. Like as, as much as I love him. And like, PFF, like this is Yahoo, fricking sports writing. He covers NFL college, UFC. Every this, he is their sports betting guy. Good guy. Very good guy. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, they don't like, they don't talk to me. It's like, well, that like, so that is why it's because you have the 60 year old people that are not watching the cable, the young people that could be watching. Art, because you're not doing anything to entice him to play anything because basically like add the Levittown was on and saying he does sports gambling for established the run. He goes, I do this for USFL because I can run circles around the people that are gambling on this because it's so few people gambling and it's such a, you know, I'm not dumb, but such an uninformed market because we don't know. Deandre Johnson is coming back or we don't know these players are coming back. So I'm able to run circles around all of them and gamble. That is why I like watching it. Well, that's not a reason to like the league either because someone can make a lot of money by gambling against people, because there's not a lot of people gambling. I mean, that doesn't speak well. You control the information. So transparency is important. I already brought that up earlier and you brought up a very good point in that we talked about this as far as the demo goes, drawing in younger viewers. And, you know, I understand it's not apples to apples. The XFL was in markets. I get all that. The last week they were in play. They only played five weeks. I understand all the criticism against the XFL. They folded, whatever. Whatever the narrative is out there. But they were in the top six and cable. There last XFL game. You know, we talking about Tampa bay Vipers, LA Wildcats, 830, 3000 viewers. That's pretty good on a late Sunday night on ESPN. But the number that was important was there 18 to 49 demo. They were the out of 150 cable shows in week five on a late Sunday night, which they came was delayed because of soccer before. They weren't sick. They were six behind walking dead in a couple of the real Housewives shows. They were six. This is a brand new league. That has very low, only been around for five weeks. It doesn't have a huge identity. Does it have teams that people know a lot of people don't know the players. But you need to connect with the younger crowd. You know, the people who are much younger than me. And so you, you need, you need to reach out and it doesn't take much, it takes communicating. It takes, you need to communicate through your social media and you need to be more transparent. Otherwise, you know, we'll be sitting here a year from now with maybe, you know, we'll see if the teams get sold. But maybe the same kind of. Lifeless product. That's not getting it. That's not getting a lot of buzz, so we'll see. Hopefully not. Before we go, I could go a lot of directions with CFL staff. You said you wanted to talk CFL. We got like 10 minutes on that and then we'll get, cause I gotta get this export that it's 1130 your time. Why, why do you. What do you want to talk CFL? I can go any direction. Sure. I'm a really excited about the upcoming season. Looking forward to it. I think we're going to have a better league play than we did a year ago. I think that's two year layoff was a big factor. Truncated season COVID restrictions, border restrictions. It was a lot of craziness with the CFO last year. I think there'll be very exciting. The, the rule changes with the hash marks are going to be a big factor. I think weakside linebacker is going to be very important than a CFL. They're actually going to have to be forced to cover more space. So I think it's going to be more wide open game is going to be a finally I'm happy that they were able to. Get past all the CBA craziness that was going on there for awhile. I'm looking forward to Toronto organized season. I think it's pretty cool that the Argos tonight, which would be tonight on Friday. We're going to be streaming the Argos Thai cats game. I think that's awesome. The CFO needs to do more of that to connect more people to it. And so I'm definitely looking forward to season. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be tremendous. I think it's going to be wide open. I think it's going to be fun. And I'm looking forward to the Argos. I, you know, obviously they're my longtime team. I cover them for CFL news, hub.com and you and I have a connection to McLeod Bessel Thompson, we're fans of his, and obviously we saw them the spring league and all that, and we've seen him succeed in the CFL. So we'll see how he does this year. And Yorgos have a lot of sex appeal and, and, you know, with the Andrew Harris and Jared Davis and Brenda's, VDB. And all that. And the great history of the franchise. So I. I I'm looking forward to season. I think it's going to be fun. I think it's going to, it's going to be an exciting year for, for CFL fans. I, I am enjoying it because I think this is probably the most obvious statement in the world, but like, I have a really hard time, like the first couple of weeks. I've these new leagues, like learning everyone, right? Like figuring out the team identities. Right. Even now with USFL. Right. We have like, Kirby will say, like, I've called in the Matt king. You know, like, he's just going crazy. We have, I like all the dynamics. Right. I love all the interplay with all that I love having now. Really been thrown into the fire. Like we were with the CFL last season, you know, really learning everything like, you know, does Cornelius really hang on in Edmonton? Right? This Arbuckle come back, you know, I know Darryl. The rider receive all new savvy Arbuckles is guy, you know, like does McLeod ride this? Chad Kelly come in there, right. You know, Edmonton, we have, you know, Kenny Lawler, right? Like highest paid wide receiver in the league. We don't know who his quarterback is. BC the Nathan work thing. I'm so excited about it. Cause it's either going to be like the biggest success and w. I think honestly, like if the Rourke Michael O'Connor thing works where they're both Canadians, right. For people, I don't know, who's still listening at this point, but if you don't like the two starting Canadian quarterbacks hasn't happened in like 50 years in the CFL. I'm an American and I'm rooting for that read. Ben and Nathan Rourke's, I think it's so it would be so cool because you know, everybody talks about the ratio and everything else. When you look at it, honestly. All the top quarterbacks in Canada in the CFL are Americans. Well, yeah, I saw, so it would be great. It would be awesome. If Nathan Rourke was a major I'm rooting for him. He's like my dark horse. To, you know, you've got lucky Whitehead and Brian Burnham. So that's a pretty awesome, as long as the lucky stays healthy, ironically enough, he hasn't really been lucky with injuries. But I think Nathan Rourke, I think Nathan Rourke has a real chance to be a mega star. He just looks the part. Hopefully plays the party kind of has like a little bit of a, like a young Brady thing going on there. So if he was, if he, if he turns out to be a mega star, it would be such an awesome story. It's great. When national players like that, You know, become superstars. It's like, it's a big part of the Canadian football league. So I'm definitely rooting for him. So that's I like, I like BC. I've always, you know, even though I'm an Argos guy, I've always like BCS, a uniforms, logo, colors, all that stuff. So there. They have a cool fan base. Cool franchise. Well, it could, I mean, it could change the narrative of the Canadian, you know, cause with all this, with the CBAs and the ratio and all that, like you said, You know, I want Canadian talent to succeed. Right. I think that needs to be important that the Canadian football league, and if. You could have Nathan Warrick and Michael Connor find success in that way, it could just change the narrative. I just think it's exciting. I think every team, rather than I saw Vernon Adams is, is, is coming back. Right? Like he hasn't had any, you know, play times as this big injury. Right. Obviously he's been on the show. Yeah, the trails, a scary team mantra. Montreal is like one of my dark horses to win it all. I got to stand back healthy Vernon Adams. They get great receivers. So yeah, the there's going to be. Fascinating to watch Vernon Adams play this year. Yeah. I, you know, Calgary, right? We have Jake Mayer, right. He's bound to show the mayor, you know, does he take over for Bo this year? You know, do we give Bo another year and the whole way through, I mean, I don't. I don't see Bo Lassie and 18 games right through the season. So I think. What's going on with Bo, I think people are like pushy. He wasn't very good. Last year, he had his moments. He, you. You know, it's got awesome receivers, Reggie Belton, and otherwise. But might be the most dominant receiver. But he came on late after coming back from the NFL, but I'm worried about Bo I, you know, you've seen some signs in a pre-season to ease. He doesn't look like the same Blair. And injuries might've caught up to him. So this is a big year for him. I mean, Eh, well, for one of the CFL's most decorated superstars on the pivot there. It would be tough to see him fade away, but. And not be the player he used to be, but I don't know something. Something's going on there. Oh, Jake Merrick could take over there. That's a tough one. That's a difficult person to bench because he has the championship pedigree and he's always been a superstar in the league, but I, you know, we'll see when the season starts, perhaps the narrative on that'll change, but I'm seeing some signs and maybe it's not going to be the player he was perhaps, as you say, because of injuries. I just want the games to be good because a lot of the games last year were not good. Like I just, I that's, all I want is I had heard. Through all this XFL stuff like that, you know, the CFL game and the business doesn't matter when you get on the field and it's superior just if we have the best athletes and they're fast and they're. The huge open field and we throw for a million yards and then like you watch the games. And like, I remember it was one of the BC's last games and they, they tied with Toronto. They went to overtime cause Dinwiddie couldn't figure out the clock and they, they need to early and like, Yeah, Toronto score. They got the two point conversion and the BC score. Then I'm like, Michael Riley is never getting this two point conversion. Like it's not happening. Like I don't care. Michael Riley is the greatest quarterback in whatever. In the last 10 years in the CFL, like he's not getting the superhero version. They didn't get the two point conversion. They lost the game. Like. Not a game that at least had some level of excitement, because I know there were some games last year with the red blacks and Edmonton, where. You know, like neither offense could get anything going or whatever. So that at least that came, had excitement and scoring and big plays down the field and all that. At least you picked out, even though there was some bonehead things that went on there, you mentioned Dinwiddie, unfortunately, but he was one of the CFO. Candidates for a coach of the year there, but yeah, there were some sloppy play last year. There was some, you know, you had situations where guys were down to their fourth and fifth quarterback playing in the rain. You know, like crazy, like crazy kind of like sloppy games. And, you know, unfortunately I think God was going to be better this year. That's going to help. I think admins is going to be better this year. They were very bad. Last year, those two teams, I think there'll be more competitive and that'll bring up the level of play and it always comes down to the quarterbacks. But yeah, I don't know. It could be interesting with Masoli is hit or miss kind of bipolar, but I think there'll be a little bit more exciting this year. Yeah. It was like the, it was the Ottawa against like the Alex. I think it was one of those Wednesday games. It was that rain game and I'm like, Nobody is watching this game. I get it's seven to three in the fourth quarter. Like nobody is watching this game right now. There's, you know, you want to talk about. Birmingham attendance. I mean, you know, there's like 500 people here. It's pouring rain. Like nobody is watching the CFL game. Yeah. And I see people trash, you know, that's funny. You said that. Yeah, that was probably the low light of the CFL season. They had a nice, the playoffs. Yeah, the gray cup was fun. I guess, more fun if you're not a Hamilton tigers, cats fan and watching how that ended. A great cup was fun. There was some hot playoff games and all that. And you know, it was, you know, it was a unique season at a CFL. I'm glad they're playing because they were really teetering if they had, we're not starting this season, they're teetering on doing damage to the league. Long-term someone argue that there's been some damage over the last few years. Anyway. But I'm glad that they were able to rectify that. And I think it's a wonderful league. I do think there are some aspects that need to improve and we'll see if these rule changes, help. I think, I think people are going to see that hashmarks. The hash mark change is going to be a big factor in opening up space for all offenses. I think you'll see that you're going to see scoring go up. I like how Danny Austin tweeted. He said, like I never realized. And I've had, we had Jim Molan on the show last week talking about, you know, the passing, all this stuff, but like, When they, when the CFL changed the hashmarks you sports still plays with a, you know, the old hash marks. So now there's just like a million hash marks on that field because a lot of these games are like on soccer fields and then you have like the college game and then we have the CFL, like there's just a million hash marks on every field. Plus we're going to have the digital ads, you know, I haven't seen me and said, we'll have that. The marks, you know, whatever. Labor day special, and then we're going to have a million hashmarks I'm very excited. Yeah, me too. It's a C4 for anyone who hasn't checked out, give the CFO chance. RI it's all, I've been a fan of my whole life. So it's a re it's a great league. It's fun to watch. There's so much history behind it. And so a. I think it's going to be a fun season. Anybody who hasn't given it a shot, give it a shot by now. I guarantee you'll like it. I mean, if you're an Argo spaniel, I get even better. I think they're going to be really good. Mike, this is your last year Anthony thing. And anything you want to share before we get out of here. Oh, man. I think we've covered everything possible. No, no elf talk tonight. Although I'm happy they're in play. Thanks Reed for having me on. I appreciate it. This will be good. We'll see. I, I, I. No doubt. There'll be feedback on. Like I'm sure. I, I think I'll probably get more. I agreed with this indignant about a lot of stuff in you. I think we were, I don't think you shared the baby, you know, I always tell my, like, it's like, My, my all-time favorite podcasts or Rob says during the, you know, when he talks about survivor, he says, I don't want to know the spoilers. Cause I don't, I want to be able to podcast freely about everything. And I always tell Mike, like, don't tell me anything. We're not supposed to know because you never know when I'm going to talk and blurt something out. So yeah, we that's, that's the level we're at. I don't care because I don't want to get anybody in trouble with anything. We're not supposed to know. That's awesome. If you have any questions you want to ask me, I can always give you a no comment. But I'm sure there's a lot of, a lot of fans out there want to know a lot of. This is exciting times coming up. There's going to be a lot of big news coming.

Episode 94 - The CFL is Back!

Well, a big double, congrats to the CFL for getting the CVA. Ratified tonight, Dave Naylor just tweeted out. We are alive. Breaking, you know, reaction here. I have football, Canada, president Jim. Molan on I'll plug this show here. We'll get into, but off the top, Jim, how are you feeling about everything? Maybe triple congrats that. That was a great reference. That was a great inside CFL media reference that you just pulled off there. So GM Moleskine we were on last week, we tried to do this last week. Of course, the deal fell through and all that. So now we are here at the Dade. Naylor is tweeted as of like three minutes ago, they ratified the new CBA, a great show coming out, Jim, we're going to get his thoughts here, breaking off the top. As you listen to this Friday morning, I have a really fired up Daryl Davis interview coming up as well. Darryl was great, and I saw Jim retweeted that promo already. Darrell was great talking about, you know, why this was needed to kind of protect the Canadianness of the CFL Jameel. I really appreciate that. And then we have lots of USFL talk today. We have Eric agar, Eric eager, sorry, I've a PFF coming on. And then we have, Cody may have established the run. So lots of CFL stuff. If you're off the top, it's not every day that we ratified a new CBA and then we'll have all of your USFL stuff. And then a big XFL week next week, we're anticipating the cities and logos and team names and all that. I'll look for a live stream for me, kind of when that all comes down, but I have a big XFL guest for next week as well. Jim, are you excited about the XFL teams? I am excited about the XFL teams and I'm excited to see what towns they operate out of, where they land and, and, you know, after the rebrand. I'm interested to see if the rebrand, the old brand, at least the 2.0 brand in some of these towns. Yeah. So Jim's going to ride with me here. We'll get his thoughts on all this, and then we'll kick back into the rest of the program, but I just figured it off the top here. We'll do all this stuff as opposed to [unknown]. [Unknown] around and then get Jim on. So Jim, we've just ratified. You know, It was all this work done just for an extra 250,000 and the ratifying bonus. Well, I do think it, it helped us your it in, I do think that it did come down to the ratio and. Oh, the ratio was going to be managed. If I'm looking at this as a CFL fan, which I am, I'm happy that they're back playing football again. If I look at it. From the perspective of being involved in Canadian football, as I am. I'm not necessarily happy with what they've done with the ratio. If I'm looking at it as a communications professional. I see this 49 50 1% thing becoming an ongoing pain. That's going to be hard to manage. It's the message. That's going to come out through this. On a week to week basis and how it's described and how it's talked about. Is going to take away from the product that. The two people that I want to be talking about in this market, aren't going to be the naturalized American and the Canadian going in and out of the game. It's going to be the two quarterbacks. The BC lions have. Which are two great Canadian quarterbacks. Let's get back to that discussion rather than getting into this discussion week after week, which inevitably we will. It just seems messy. It just seems like a really weird, like only in the CFL kind of thing that we're going to have this right. So people. Yeah. If we're catching that up, you know, we have USFL fans with ever. The big sticking points, where they wanted a million dollar ratifying. Belinas the CFL PA that's divided out among the members. Darryl. And I talk about this as well. You know, I think it's like 1500. Yeah bucks, you. I assume Canadian, right per member. They added 250,000 to that. So, you know, what does that add? Another, so 2000 per person, rather than me doing the math on that. Yeah. Yeah, like Getty Lee said with Bob and Doug 10 bucks is 10 bucks a. So, so we held that. So we got that, that they are going to remove that from salary caps here in the future. I'd in the 2027. So it's work. It's borrowing from tomorrow to pay for it today. Which I don't like because the players that are getting paid today are not going to be in the league. By and large in 2027. No. Of course. Yeah, of course. That's that's the average and the way it works out. I will say this about the, about the Canadian employers. Originally and some of the American players had to join in on this too. Originally rejecting the. The first ratio pitch that was being made. And it was agreed to by, by both bargaining parties. That was at least a move where they were looking at tomorrow. They were, they were paying it forward in that moment. I'm not sure if, if the money that came forward. Exactly as paying it forward, it's actually the opposite. So. So we're getting that and then we're getting, so the ratio thing, this was from whatever they propose before, right? The league had proposed this weird, you get the two and it's 49%. Right? I mean, that didn't change really only. The ratification actually has gone from the previous one that was submitted. Right. Yeah, my understanding of this, where is the, before you could get a naturalized American in as a non import. So. So you can play six Canadians and a naturalized American or Canadian. That's been taken away and now you have two positions that are 51 49. Right. So. It's it's going to be interesting in, in an era where we're going into sports betting in this country. Having this, this other random quantity that, that is open to abuse. By coaches is going to be frustrating for betters, in my opinion, it's one part out of many parts of the game, but, but it's still frustrating at the same time. What would you have preferred to see them do with that tweak or tweak that? Or what would you like to see? Well, you know, As, you know, as I mentioned with, with, you know, being an administrator in amateur football in Canada, I would have preferred just a very simple straight forward. Keep the line at seven personally, I think more Canadian should play in the Canadian football league and on the record of saying that, but keep it at seven and add to naturalized Americans. The, the ability to, from the CFL's perspective in bargaining to combine these two to the other was. In my opinion, a master stroke and bargaining, it was, it was really smart on their part because. It, it created the possibility for some division in the, in the players association. And when really these two types of players are very different. They, they both have these kinds of players. Do create continuity in, in these teams. Which is important to Canadians. Always brought continuity. And we, I think we've struggled well for 40 years to find a way to create continuity with some of the older players. So I think there was a place for both of them. I just don't think it was in the same category. I think you could have easily gone with two categories on this. And, and, and manage us, especially at a time. When. The CFL is going to be competing with. Two other leagues. Three other leagues. If you want to call the NFL competing with the NFL. To grant that status to import players where they're naturalized Americans are naturalized Canadians. And have that continuity and have that bonus for service. Is going to get them through a period where the USFL drops off or the XFL after two or three years. Decides to pull the plug or that's even stronger. Right. Who knows, who knows what the future is? The one thing that I do know is if I want to go back in the history books, Back to 1985. The BC lions, when the gray cup that year. At that time you, you had the star 10 Canadian players. There were five games in that season. We're the lions started 11 Canadian players. One of the reasons why was that the USFL was at its peak. Oh, it's in its last year. It had drawn import talent out. And the Canadians that they add were better than the Americans that they could bring in and they could win a championship with that Canadian strength. So it would not surprise me. As we go down this path with other competing spring leagues, tying up players. That. Some of these CFL teams are going to be playing more than just the five plus half plus half players. In their lineups as starters. Yeah, I mean, Darryl and I got into that today as well. That, and you know, obviously you hear it coming up that you, you should be incentivizing the Canadian talent and, and holding onto that because, you know, if USFL exists. You know, in two, three years, if XFL, like it's impossible for the CFL to compete for those entry-level positions. Well, I can just stay in Seattle or I can stay in LA or I can stay in whatever. Like I don't have to go up and live in Winnipeg for six months. Like it's not, they're not going to win that battle. So why not steer into the Canadianness of it? Not to like shun the Americans, like you said, why not add a roster spot there? Well, and I think I said it the last time I was on your show, it's going to be difficult even. If a CFL team can offer 10 to $15,000 more. Versus somebody staying home. You know, You know, staying in your home country has had some power to it, especially when we're talking about. Football, especially when we're talking about football, tied into American networks where friends and family can, can more easily see you where, where it's not a foreign property. I think the CFL, if the XFL was successful and especially the USFL hangs around is going to be forced to lean into Canadian talent. And it's, you know what, at the end of the day, I don't think it's going to hurt the product. With this says to me, is that this was far more about money though, for the players, this go round and it, I mean, this, we pushed off another week to get an extra 500 bucks. It didn't, I mean, they made no concessions at all on the ratio. It felt like it was all about the money on this. It was a bit of ratio juggling, I think. But you know, it, when it comes down to negotiations like this, it for both parties, it was just about the money. Come on man. Like, that's that? That's that? That's what that's what drives this. Then we can talk about player development. We can talk about grass roots. We can talk about the fans. We can talk about all these secondary things around it. But at the end of the day, follow the money. And that's going to give you the answer when it comes down. To, to labor negotiations. I will say though. That it's a big plus. And I think I said this on your show the last time it was on here too, that the, that the health benefits that were established, especially for the, for the American athletes. For that five-year period, huge plus, and having an active union that is. At least looks like it's, it's going to work in concert with the league is also a plus because I think that's something that the XFL and the USFL can't offer. That that the CFL can you got to union up here? That that to one degree or another we'll have your back. Whereas probably on the other side of the line and it's a little more, everybody's a free agent. Well, it's hard. You. Yeah. And I know Kenneth fair. I mean, friends of the show, they're trying to do that, right. I mean, they're working towards, out with the steelworkers here, but yeah. I mean, you have it. You have all of this. Pageant tree. You know, all the foundations, everything set out to kind of facilitate all this stuff in a way that you don't have in the USFL at all. Yeah. And at least there's a history here with the CFL PA. There there's a there's the long history it's. It's not going away. I am. Happy that the CFL and its owners at this particular juncture. I did not take the hardest line possible. Because they could cut up. Breaking the union right now would not be a wise move. The eyes of, of some of the fans and, and, and, and some of the base. In this case, you know, look. A lot of people have talked about the relevancy of the, of the CFL in some of the larger markets about the damage that this has done. Once they start playing games. We're just getting into the exhibition season right now, the free season. Once we get into the regular season, most of this is going to be forgotten. Outside of the 51 49 thing that I think is going to be an ongoing, ongoing debate, which, you know, I hope is managed well, but I have my doubts. Most of it will be forgotten. We'll be back to playing football again. And that's really at the end of the day, the thing we all wanted. So I overall the. You know, the kind of round this out before I let you go. Cause I appreciate you hopping on here late to do all this. Ah, We feel good. I mean, pre-season, it seems like are they going to be able to get the games in this weekend ride? No, the Toronto right there. They had canceled some flights, but I mean, they're going to get everything. It seems like all is all. Is forgiven here. Yeah. And I think Rob's a little bit of momentum in this first week of the preseason. The funny thing about preseason football. And I think people know this, whether you're an NFL fan or a CFL fan. You have a five or six weeks into the end of the season, you forget that it ever existed. So let's, let's not get into a, not about, about how the, some of these preseason games came off. It's it's just good that we're looking at a full 18 game season. With normal playoffs at a normal grey cup at a normal date. And maybe we can start talking about Michael O'Connor and Nathan Rourke, his quarterbacks of the BC lions rather. Than than talking about mixing and matching ratios. Yeah, well, I, I appreciate it. I'm glad we could get you on here. Like I said, we were trying to do this last week and then they got the extra 500 bucks, but I mean, I'm glad they got this. It was getting to the point of messy. I know I had fans message. You meet today. I really upset about everything. So I'm glad that. Like we can get forward with this. Cause I do think they were kind of starting to lose the public perception battle with the fans, the players, where that is. Well, I, I, you know what? I looked at some of the, some of the reactions on Twitter after the players rejected. In a vote. What was handed down to them by their bargaining unit. And, you know, quite frankly, I was embarrassed for a lot of people in the way they reacted. It, it, it, it was not a good look on them. Quite frankly, in terms of, in terms of the way they, and some people in professional positions. You know, directing anger at a, at a, at the players because of this. I understand that people get frustrated, right. I understand that and collective bargaining, it can be messy at times. But, you know, players standing up for their own jobs. Come on, man. Like, you know, and, and, and it's not like we're talking millions and millions of dollars here. Like some of these players have the opportunity because I've gone to a Canadian school and they've graduated or some of them have, you know, like Daniel out of a boy. He, he got his, he got his degree. You know, long before that he needed to, while he was still playing, like there's other examples of that, where they could go and follow their educational path and make more money. This isn't about this isn't about greed folks. This is about the, this is about. Having the opportunity to play the game. They love. Right. Yeah. It's about millions of dollars. Like. That's for that other league. Well, no, I just, I, I tweet out, you never forget the players or the product. I mean, everything else aside, you know, we watch these, you know, whether it's football or hockey or anything, the players or the product, that's what we watch, no matter what league it is. And you can never forget that I don't care that you feel like you buy the tickets for the CFL games and it's community owned. And I, I certainly appreciate all that, but the players are the ones that, that, that is the product that we are watching on the field. And from, from the amateur perspective here from university in junior and all of that, Like we're about. The athlete. So. So don't be surprised if we're very athlete centric in the way that, that, that, that we approach issues. Like when, when I openly talked on, on Twitter about. Hey, here's a solution play players, Canadian players in each position group. I'm thinking about that through the lens of this is great for development. This is great for all different types of athletes that can pursue this, that, and the other thing. That's not a plan that necessarily works for the player's association. And it's not something that necessarily works with the CFL, but in terms of, in terms of that missing element, that third element. That I think is key for growing the game. In in this country. It's important now that after the, this business portion has been put to bed, that we start talking about developing the game and Canada. In a holistic fashion, right? That we start talking about the ecosystem of the game, because it's taken a lot of notch through this process. And it's time to get everybody back at the table, working on the game as a whole. Well, there you go. I am glad we got you on, I think this is a good spot. We don't double dip a lot, but I think that this was good to get you on because we'd gotten, had the poop who last week. We had to kind of like, why did we do we kind of hold on for a little bit, but anything else before I let you go, like I said, we really appreciate you coming on tonight and doing this after the big breaking news. Well, I think now I think I may have. I'm thinking I may have brought this up on the last time I was here. I think this is like SNL and I'm, I'm in the five timer club and I should have a big velvet jacket with them, with a mark cast accent up to me and, and, you know, a nice purple the lure that kinda. Matches the red and the blue together would be very much appreciated in the mail. That's good. I am. Pontificating on a logo change. I haven't decided yet if we're going that route, obviously keeping the mark Casper. We'll see, because I accept foul and then you posted it. You. It's not the real logo anymore, but you post and you still get, so I've I've I have a designer working on it. I haven't decided yet. If we're going that route, I might put it up to a public vote. Yeah, I think it's a great idea to put it out to a vote, but I think at the end of the day, just, just the idea of a, of a logo change. But you, but, but you, you have to have her reveal it, it has to be developed by you and not developed by, by a committee. Don't develop it by committee. Yeah, that was the Victor queen. Right. That doesn't make you a queen fan, right? Yeah. Ah, well, there we go. Big, I guess that big double congrats that. That brought joy to my life today. Is so much. Th they, the online Twitter banter today was, was very happy to wake up to. I would say that was very funny between a lot of the CFL media, lot of pressure, a lot of high pressure stakes right now. I understand that, but it was funny to laugh along well. And I, and I offered to buy everybody. And in the media circle that were chastising me about saying, Hey, everybody calmed down, they'll have this figured out by the end of the week. You know, a beer online, like I was willing to send money transfers out to them so they could buy beer at their favorite bars. I don't see anyone coming back to me and sending me a six pack. Well, I know we're getting late here. I imagine it's like scotch time for you. Why this the late at night? What is the nightcap? Whether it's the gym. Well, a nightcap. I guess scotch, are you a gin guy? Sailor, Jerry and Coke. Well, we're going to let Jim go have his sailor, Jerry Coke. We're going to toss it to Gerald Davis. We'll go to Eric eager and then we'll go Cuddy, Maine. I'll be back at the end of this show, we're talking the exit fell. But no, it's good. I will let me hit record here. Okay. Well, Well, I really just wanted to sit and talking about Dave Naylor, dunking on Justin dunk on Twitter, but I think we will. Talk to not be CFL straight today. How are you doing Darryl Davis? Okay. And double congrats on all of these things, right. Well, this is interesting. So we're kind of in the same predicament we were last week where, you know, we had Jim Molan on and we're talking, you know, the vote is going to be tonight or yeah, there potentially the deadline right. To, to go to the vote. But I want to focus more on kind of the existential right. Conversation here versus cause cause you're with me, I don't think the season as a whole is any kind of jeopardy, right? I think Kathy, they both, both sides know that. The preseason might be in jeopardy, but the regular season won't be there. They've gone through that and realized that they're in financial turmoil. And if they were to cancel or lose any games, they're in big, big trouble. Perfect. So moving forward. So I said, so whether they decide to vote on that today, we move to next week. Right? It's come now. It felt like last week. The sentiment was very much on the CFL players. Right. Okay. They need to get where they need to get. Right. Let's stand by them. Now, it seems like that sour the little bit on them and it's more like, Hey look, like, what are you guys hoping to get out of this? Am I reading the room right up there? Oh, yeah. It's totally changed. Hasn't it? It was all on the owners before that they were trying to manhandle the players. And so they made. They hammered out an agreement and everybody thought, oh, terrific, good. Good good for the players for doing that. What do you mean? The players turned it down? The fans are furious because they're blaming the players now for turning down what they thought was an okay offer. But the OK. Offer, obviously didn't pass muster with the Canadian, with all the players in the CFL. Did you think it was a good deal? I thought it was okay. You know, both sides. You're going to going to be upset. That's the way labor negotiations work. You're not going to get everything you need. It looked like they had kind of left the racial alone a little bit. I know they were tinkering with it. But I think the scary thing is, and I was worried about that right from the start read is that they're slowly trying to keep, continue pulling Canadians out of plate. And I think that's what really terrified the player's union. Knowing, especially if they do it for seven years in seven years, they're going to take out more players. So they're making a stand for the future. And I, when I looked at it a little closer, I thought, you know what good for the players for standing up for this one. Cause I, you know, I'm in the Facebooks and Twitter and obviously that's a small portion, whatever, but I see a lot of like, so you're sacrificing the, you know, you're risking and sacrificing the league for a roster spot. It's not our roster spot. Sorry about that. I think it's going to be a whole bunch of roster spots, and that's why they're doing it. It's not just over the years. It's gone from 14 players to 11 players, to 10 to seven starters. And it just gets smaller and smaller and if they don't make a stand now read, they'll never be able to make a stand. Last year and just it it's. When you think about logically in terms of numbers, 45 players on an active roster last year, right? 21 Of them have to be Canadian. So technically they're not the majority anymore, but with 21 and a lot of the returnees and everything. You know, there's some Americans who don't vote. There's a lot of Americans who don't come back. This might be the last year that the Canadians have enough authority and the player's association voting to hang onto those Canadian spots. And I think they took a stand when they absolutely had to. So it's not just in my mind, not just one spot they're saving, they're saving spots down the road. Well, and that was, I wanted to have you on any way. And I did see your tweet about that, that, you know, this is. Because once you lock in, like you said, if we're ever diminishing every single time, whether it's, you know, five years from now or 10 years, those numbers are going to keep going down. Yep. And that's what they've been doing over the years. They continue to say that Canadians are too expensive. There aren't enough of them. There are good frontliners but they don't have enough depth. They've been saying this for 40 years, read every general manager and every coach thinks that way. My, my argument all the time is whenever you let the general managers and the coaches make the rules, they're going to ruin the game. So let somebody else make the rules for them, and then let them play by those rules because they're always looking for ways to wiggle around it. The coaches and players have always thought the Canadians are inferior. Most of the cook, most of the coaches and GMs are America. They realize that there's a never ending supply of American talent. There isn't that never ending supply of Canadian talent, but there's more and more Canadians. So why don't you go the other way and add more Canadians to the roster as opposed to taking them away from the roster. Well, and I would argue with that too, that, you know, and we can have this conversation next year and see how the USFL is doing and the XFL. But I mean, there are going to be alternative places for Americans, right. That. You know, even if the pay is not as great or it's similar, you know, not having to travel and do the whole thing for six months out of the year. Like, so I would agree, like let's bolster the Canadian presence of it, knowing that. This, like you said, never ending supply of American talent could potentially start being inhibited here in the coming years. This is the way to come to the counter Alex app. You're right there, diluting it. Right? Because as you say, USFL, XFL, all these other what the fan controlled league. Whenever that one is right. There's little places for players to go and they don't have to cross the border. They don't have to put up with the weaker Canadian dollar. They don't have to pay taxes in two countries and all those things that go on to residences. Right? There's so many things that the players have to deal with coming up to Canada. And as you said, it's such a great point that there are going to be fewer players, fewer top level players available. It's going to dilute the talent. So to balance that out, it should be the other way round. You make a great point. Why not fill it with Canadians as opposed to Americans? And I'm not saying there's no place for Americans and lake, not a chance that. The history of this league is full of great American players as it shouldn't be because they really bolster the game. But every other league, when you go to Switzerland and Austria and for hockey and you go to Britain and all those places for soccer, they have to have so many nationals on their team. Why is it bad for the CFL to have a rule like that? It isn't bad. So let's take advantage of the great Canadians who are playing and maybe the Americans who aren't coming up here, those roster spots can be filled by better, more talented Canadian players. It's just hard cause like this in, obviously it's so much more nuanced than conversation, right? This is why it's nice having podcasts like this, where we can kind of talk about it. Cause I don't think that that message is making its way to, I, I said it's very sour in this. Like we said, before you with most of the fans right now, following the sleek. Well, the fans always think they own this league. Right. That's part of the beauty and a lot of times they own the team anyway. Right. There's so many community. On teams, right. And didn't want to pay in Edmonton in Saskatchewan. So the fans really get bitter because they figure it's being taken away from them. They're not doing this for the fans. You can say the fans are the lifeblood of any league and maybe that's two, maybe more so in the Canadian football league. And if you don't take a stand sometime, you're not going to have any football for the fans. Right. There's been one labor. This is the first labor. Stop it. Since 1974 on the Canadian football league, the players have always given in, they don't have to give in anymore. The fans aren't used to that and they all just say, oh, well, you can't have my money. I'm canceling my season. Tickets. Go ahead. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They all come back eventually. And if they don't while you were never, you're never that serious about it. In my mind. So go ahead. Cheer for the players. You know, it's a great, exciting product. And let's see if they can hammer something out that makes it even more exciting. Why do you think it's now and not anytime in the last, however many years, you know, since 74, that this is going on, is it because of COVID in a year off and the reduced last year? Me, why is it now? A little bit of all that. I still harken back to the point that you and I talked about me earlier, in terms of the numbers. That they saw. I really think that they, the Canadian players in particular. The whole player's association used to be comprised, complete, used to comprise completely Canadian players almost now there's American Solomon elementary, and this is the president. He's an American. And I think the Canadians are starting to realize we've got to hold onto our Canadian talent and they were. They were, when they do the numbers and you really think about it, they're starting to lose that power to do that. And as they continue to weed out, as you say, one player a year, one player in seven years, then all of a sudden the Canadians won't have that power anymore. And I really believe that right now they realize this is our last chance to take a stand. And that's why we have to do it now. It's interesting. I mean, it's just, it's I think it's possibly the last worst thing that the CFL could have right now heading into this season. Just. Especially I've coming off of last year. This kind of, I mean, it was kind of a pissy season, right? I mean the game play there. I was hoping like, you know, I got to talk about this every week. I would do anything. I give them a full training camp, give them a full everything. Let's like, let's get this going here and not be worried about it. Yeah, players, but players don't like training camps. The veterans don't right. The veterans don't specifically, especially like a preseason games. They don't get paid a whole lot of money. When you see how little they get paid 400, 500, $600 a week for the preseason rookies don't get anything. Rookies don't even get the boat on this. Right. Rookies in the collective bargain agreement, do not have to be paid a dime during training camp. As long as the team pays their expenses. So. It's a bad deal for a lot of players, they need a little bit more money. They need a little bit more job security. I'm not always on the player side or the worker side in labor negotiations. Sometimes I take the other side, but this one for sure. I'm very proud of the players, especially the Canadian guys who were standing up. They got to the bullies. Somone Lawrence. So the Hampton tire cats, it says. Hey. Canadians don't want to play. Let's go get more guys on the college. To hell with you. Some only Lawrence get the heck out of here. They've given you a chance to play and now you're bad enough in them. Forget it. That's ridiculous. The split is caused by guys like somone Lawrence. And I think that's horrible that they're dividing the locker rooms even more. It divide between American and Canadians. Yes. Yeah. There's always been a bit of a split. And you can see it when good call is players come up here and you talk to them. And then they say, I think I'm the best player at this position. And you say to them what? Yeah, but there's a Canadian in there too. And they want to play a Canadian there. Rookies go. What do you mean. Well, he's Canadian. They have to have seven Canadian starters. You mean I'm going to lose my job to a Canadian. Who's not as good. Maybe. That Canadian will get better and will turn into, hopefully turn into a player, maybe turn into a legend into a hall of Famer, but there's been that split forever and ever, because you come up thinking I'm better than this guy players know where you rank. When you look things over, they can tell who the best players are. Right. And if you lose that job, even though you're better and you lose it because of the Canadian ratio, you're bitter and angry about it. And I think that they have to stop doing that. And make sure that they. Explain that a little bit better. At least at least to the rookies who are, who are coming up here and saying, listen, we have to have so many Canadians. It's not your fault. You're a good candidate. You're a good American player, but we need to fit our roster into the racial. It's hard. And I mean, I, you know, I have gotten in trouble with seven I've said in the past, you know, I don't think the Canadian football league does itself any favor sometimes in like, It's our league and it's our thing. And I understand it. Either side of that, and we have pride in everything and it gives everybody ownership, but it is very, I mean, I had to. Literally fight with a hammer. With walls to even be able to like, talk about this stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's challenging. So I could see players like God worth my whole life. And I come up here and, and like, it's not fair. I understand why they do the ratio and all that. But I mean, it, it, I would, I would be better too. Let me just say that. But, you know, what, if they stopped doing it, if you didn't protect a few jobs, I always worry about grassroots football, right. The the, the greatest players in Saskatchewan Roughriders history, the two of them are Ron Lancaster, George. George Reed Americans, but the next two were probably off Canadian offensive lineman. Then Roger Aldag and gene Makowsky Canadian players who might not have even had a chance to play in this league. If there wasn't a ratio. So you need to have the ratio, you need to protect it because there are players who are developing. Somewhere along the line because they want to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders or Canada's team, the BC LA. I'm sorry, America stand the PC lions. Right? So as, as you've claimed. Declared them so often. There are kids who want to grow up and do that. And I think that you better provide that, that, that opportunity for them, otherwise you might lose football to other sports, soccer, hockey, whatever other sports that are available. It's interesting. So we're talking that, you know, the roster, right. Protecting now, right. Trying to protect the future at this point. But then I'm reading too about them trying to get a ratification bonus. Right. And be able to get a bonus now. And kind of borrowing from down the line. So it seems like they also, then we, we want money now because we haven't been paid the last, you know, What 60% of pay the last two years. Yeah, but the ratification bonus is going to work out to about $1,500 for player. And if you've ever been in a union, which I was for awhile, you say, oh, the ratification bonus. Okay. We didn't get a whole lot, but at least I got another thousand dollars in my pocket or something. Come on you guys, you selling out the league for $1,500 and you make a very good point to read that. It's money that's coming from future salary caps. So the million dollars that they're going to use for the ratification is going to come from the players in the future. They don't care about that right now, because they want to get paid now. And if I'm not playing in two years, while it doesn't matter to me that I'm not going to get a raise. So it's a weird, it's a weird thing. So I think that they should pass on the ratification bonus. And let their salaries go up a little bit as they are and take that, take the seven Canadians and hang onto that as tightly as you can. And let's move on the weird thing to me. Then we've talked about this on a few of our radio shows around here reads. A week ago. It was okay for the CFL to say, okay, seven Canadians. That's good. And then they come back with their counter off and say no, six Canadians. What the heck you agreed to seven earlier. Why? Why are you taking that back? Cause you're playing bully and you can't play bully in a game like this. You mean the league is saying that. The league is saying that back to the players, right? You know, a week ago they had said in their initial offer. Yeah, we can handle seven Canadians, but now when they came back with the, take it or leave it though, a final offer, once again, it's a now down to six, so they're playing hard ball. I realize you have two alignment negotiations, but it was something you gave in to in on a week ago. Why wouldn't you give in on it now? Do you think Ambrozy is doing enough to kind of help mediate this? No. His statements the other day, he's gotta be the bad guy, but he's not really involved in the negotiations. But he's got to come out and say it. This is our final offer, because that way it looks United. People are blaming Randy Ambrozy for the negotiations. He didn't have, he had very little to do with it, but he's, he's just a mouthpiece of spokesperson. For the owners, which has always been a bit of point of contention for the Canadian football league, right. When you look at the NFL. Goodell. And all the Roselle and all those guys spoke the way they want it to when the owners fell in line behind them. It's the other way round in the Canadian football league, the commissioner has to step in line with the owners. So he's taken heat. But he's got to come out and say, okay, this is it. This is our last offer. And stand up there and pretend that he's the tough guy. And it gets him in a, puts him in a bad light. And I don't think they're handling it. Right. You can always say it's the last offer. It's never the final offer. It is interesting. Cause I in NFL world this week, they're doing, they're trying to work on right. Hiring men, minorities and outside candidates. And so they did this whole big. They have this spring meeting and they brought in a bunch of candidates that wouldn't normally get talks. And they said to the owners, like, you need to come in and talk with these. You know, guys and girls and kind of get to know them. Right. Potentially too. Move them up. And it was one of those things where the owners didn't have an option, right. It was like, you need to come here, you need to make yourself available. You need to do this. They didn't have a choice to, to not. And like you said, it's very interesting when you look at how the dynamics of the two leagues, it's very different. Well, true. And that's the way it is in the NFL. There's one owner, right? Every team they're not open by corporations like the, you can't be like the Toronto Argonauts and owned by several people or. Bye bye. Several corporations you have to, the NFL is one guy it's Jerry Jones, right? It's Robert Craft. They they're the ones responsible. It's their money. They make the decisions. And that's, that's why they operate that way because it's one person it's like the commissioner one person, he talks to the owners before he makes a decision. Of course he does. But then when it's decided, this is what we're doing, they all fall in line behind the commissioner. And that's why the. That's one of the reasons why the NFL in my mind, why the NFL is so successful in the CFL is always floundering because they don't have one person in charge. It's not a democracy. Sometimes it has to be a dictatorship. One of my favorite coaches, Don Matthews used to say that when he was coaching the teams. It says, this is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. And I'm the head Dick. And it made a lot of sense because you're in charge. You're the boss and that's the way it works in the NFL with every franchise and with the league itself. And I think that's a real falling down point for the Canadian football league that it doesn't operate that way. Do you think, you know, we, we move along here. Right? We pass it today. We pass it next week. You know, we lose two or three preseason games. Like. I mean, I even had one of our listeners long-time CFO guy messaged me today. He's like, I'm so done with this. Like I'm not posting about anything. I have we, are we apathetic now towards this? I don't think so. You talked earlier about how the fans are responding. They're not apathetic at all. They feel something important as being taken away from them. And that's the beauty. I tease the fans about how they think they own the place, but, but they also are passionate about the game. And even when you talk about markets that nobody you think nobody cares about in Vancouver and Toronto Montreal, there are people who love the organized and the yellow wits. And the lions everywhere. In those, in those centers all the time. And they do care about. It's I don't think it's apathetic. I think it's a lot of anger. But who do you throw it at? It seems like they're throwing that anger as you noted earlier at the players, but they just want football as we all do. We want it to go back to normal. We're looking after the pandemic, we're looking for everything to go back to normal reading and football Canadian. Football league 18 games with a great cup in Regina. Beautiful snowy cold Regina. Bring your long Johns. I will see you in November. That means it's bad. Things are back to normal. I am very scared for that. I had to tell Dorothy, I. I think it's going to be significantly called it. Wasn't Hamilton. I really oh yeah, absolutely. Will. Absolutely. To ask your buddy Jordan Eberly T say hi to Jordan for me. Okay. From your favorite Seattle cracking team, ask him what it's like. Cause he grew up four houses away from me on a, down my street. We played street hockey. Oh, For a long time in Regina. So ask him what it's going to be like in Regina in November. That was that. Now we, we have our crack and season tickets. And side we're like the Eberly. My friend, Paul Williams is a big, a big boisterous man and we get a lot of them. Cause you know, it's quiet at the crack. Again, sometimes you have a lot of booming Everly chance going on. So yeah. As you should. He's a great guy. He wrote the pho. He wrote the forward from the book I wrote about NHL players from Saskatchewan. Jordan wrote it for me cause we were all family, friends. His younger brother and my younger son are best buddies. So we go way, way back. And it's always good to see. And it makes me cheer for the crack and I'm a Detroit Redwings fan, but I do steer for the crack and because of Jordan ever, well, we might need to off. We didn't, we, I might need to arrange a meeting here. [Unknown] getting back to this. So, you know, The CFL. Th the people on the league side that are negotiating right. Former players, right. Wade Miller. And the other one is. I'm lacking right now. It's way back. That's right. So, I mean, should they be. I mean, it seems like they should be more empathetic right. To the player. So, I mean, obviously we're trying to like labor negotiate here, but it seems like as people they've got roles, you know, with the gate agent ratio and all of that, that they should be more inclined to work on that. They're business guys. And write Scott Mitchell's bought a share in the Hamilton tiger cats. Wade Miller as business profits quite a bit from its relationship is other businesses profit, quite a bit from their operations, with the Winnipeg blue bombers. So they're trying to get a good business deal in place. They don't care. As a lot of companies, don't what happens to the players. They just want the players to give in so that they can get more profit out of it. And, you know, That's the way it operates. It's unfortunate, but the CFL has to operate that way. I haven't don't have any problem with them running it like a business we've said so often the leagues rules and all this other things are pretty good. How do you operate as a business? That's where they've always fallen down and now they're trying to operate like a business. And I think they are, as you point out a little bit heavy handed. But most, most. Cope companies seem to be a little bit heavy handed. Wade Miller was a, a scrappy player who didn't have a lot of talent and worked really hard when he was on the ice. Scott Mitchell knows the game from his father, Doug Mitchell, who was a longtime commissioner of the Canadian football league. So they, they understand the inner workings of the game. And I think that there, they realized. The, what they realized the most is that the players have always given in and are probably going to give in a little bit more again. And I think that's maybe unfortunate, but you always use tactics and your advantages when you are negotiating. So they're doing what they have to do there, there are other people involved in the negotiating committee. Great Dick from the, from those CFL offices. Who leads us in our Canadian football hall of fame discussions is also involved in that. So they've got the, the numbers all figured out, but you're right. They know what from a lot of different angles and. Still realize that they probably still have sweaty when it comes to the voting. Well, I mean, I think the very fact that the players are still practicing right now and on the field, right. Doing training camp says. I mean, I don't think that that is the best color for like, I mean, I think it's good for them because I want them to be engaged shape when we figure all this out and move forward, but it certainly doesn't look like, oh, we're holding from here that we're not going to. You know that we're going to keep our end of the bargain or whatever. But then when all of a sudden the owners say, you know what, we don't, we have too much uncertainty in terms of our scheduling. We might lock you out. So that that's probably what's coming next. Some of the teams are practicing, but the Edmonton Alex and the Toronto Argonauts both canceled their flights today to go to Ottawa and Winnipeg for a pre-season games, the Saskatchewan Roughriders canceled today's practices. They called it a recovery day, which understand and let the players meet, I guess, but maybe there's, there's a little bit of that play here. There's so many other things going. Behind the scenes read that we hear a lot about a lot of things, but there are other things on the go that we're not aware of. So. W how this happens. Flip a coin, right? We thought. By now we'd be talking about the upcoming games, but the interesting that we're not. Final thoughts before. Before I let you go. Like I said, you know, fluid situation, I still think there's value. Either to why we got to this point, right? You. What, what is worth holding onto what's worth letting go? I mean, even if, like I said, they vote here this evening, I think like, I just don't want it to be lost. Like, why are we going through this and why we're doing this? True. I think that they do have to come out and say, this is what we really wanted to hold on to because I've heard conflicting reports, right? Nick Arbuckle, the quarterback from Edmonton said it had nothing to do with the Canadian racial, but every other person I hear from says, that's, all it has to do with is the Canadian ratio. So it's not so much the money anymore. What. What's really happening. What have they decided is important? You're right. Come down to this. Now it looks like they're just. I think the reason that the fans are mad, it comes down to the players, looking a little bit more money hungry, and you say, $1,500 A person. And this is what you're holding up the season four. Come on. You guys. No, no. It's way more important than that. Come out and tell us why, what you're negotiating is so important, why it matters to you as a player's association and why. What's the most important thing to you? It was the owners ownership group too. So. Let's get this going, but I don't have, I haven't lost faith yet. I know that they realize how important it is. The CFL is important to all of Canada and getting back to normal. Is is important for the players. The coaches, the general managers, the owners and us in the media, and even more so I'll give them credit the fence. There you go. I will say, I, you know, the CFL PA I think could do a better job vocalizing some of this, you know, we get a lot of, like, we're sending our, we're sending out messages to our, you know, members we're meeting, whatever, like you said, I do think them coming out. You know, either now, or obviously at the end and saying like, this is why we went through all this, because I think that there is Goodwill that's been lost. It's been very interesting to me. Like I said, how we started the conversation, the flip that's happened over the last week. It is it's, it's really interesting. And that, and that's what to me, what the players have been fighting for as much as anything is transparency from the owners, right? In terms of the revenue sharing to what are they doing? Why won't you let us look at your books? We're partners. You tell us we're partners yet. You're telling us our revenue sharing. We can't look at the books to make sure that you're paying us our 25%. 25%. Every other league is 50%. So come on owners, let's be a little bit more transparent. Tell us what's going on, but the owners have to do that and the players need to tell us why they're fighting so hard. For this. Protection of the racial. And I think that honesty is always the best policy. Isn't it? Isn't that an old please say? And it still rings true. Let us know, we're the guys who, who follow you in the media and the fans who pay the ticket prices want to know what's happening. And it's only fair that you tell everybody what's happening. Well, Darryl, you were fired up today. I appreciate this. I think this was a good outing for you. I, you were a good person to have on. I appreciate this. IDEO Davis, are you afraid of the shell? Hall of fame reporter. Right. And. Yeah, treasure for the football report. Secretary treasurer. Okay. Yeah, that was it. Football important to Canada. So. You're a paid member of your. You're our first American member in awhile, since the nineties, when we were down in the United States, traveling to Birmingham and street port and almost dying. Let's just get, well, we'll have you on again here, but we'll see, you certainly see you in November. Hopefully right. For their great gov on the 30th. which is great. Cause it's good to have these elongated conversations every week. So that's right. Yeah. All right. Well, let me hit record here. Anything else before we get going? No, I think I'm good. Okay. Well, I'm excited that today we have another PFF member of the family joining the podcast. We have Eric eager. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing great. Happy that, you know, we're, we're what. Six weeks in and we, we have, we still have. Games, unlike the XFL, which ended, you know, a little bit too early. I know we're at that point now we've crossed the threshold at gameplay seems to be going up. I deal a mat. You know, ratings. I wish that. I we were saying before we recorded it, I think a little more preseason with a health kind of as, as the gameplay is going up, I do feel like viewership is struggling a little bit. Yeah, well, and you know, early on when they opened the markets up for this league, you had Fox bet. For example, had game totals that were, you know, in the fifties. And then by the time it was all said and done week one, everybody bet those things down into the low forties. And then the first week, you know, you had an over on the first night, which is cool with the generals. And the stallions, but then you had three straight unders and kind of bad, bad play. And then week two, you had, I think three out of the four games went under in that game as well. That week as well. But now the last two weeks, week five and week six, all eight games have gone over the Vegas. A total, which has been great. You even had the rule change where in the first and third quarters, incomplete passes were followed by the clock starting over, which caused, you know, scoring to go down a little bit, at least initially. But now it seems to have rebounded. Like I actually think the last few weeks you've actually gotten really solid quarterback play Jordan. [unknown]. Who was really good in the XFL struggled the first few weeks he's played well in the last couple of weeks. Case cook is, has come into his own, you know, in New Jersey, the second best team in the lead right now. You had an injury of Deandre Johnson, Louis Perez came in and was, you know, kind of okay. And instead, and then even though we've had some movement, the quarterback position, even with a starter getting cut this week and Shea Patterson, I even think she Patterson's been fine this year. I don't necessarily think he's been quite as bad as we thought. Yeah, I, I got hammered on the, we had Ian on and we said, we said the USFL quarterback play better than XFL 2020. And man, I got absolutely thrashed online about that. I think. The breadth is better. So I would say the, you, especially now that you have gladly and in for Pittsburgh, a team that was extremely offensively challenged the first couple, you know, first week, a bunch of weeks of the season. And then, you know, you have, you know, case cook is I think Brian, Scott was playing really well, but you'll cook us in his, in his stat has been okay. You'll call us loaders than the best quarterback in the league. I think. If you look at the XFL from 2020. Josh Johnson and Phillip Walker were both better than Kyle slaughter. And I think, and Jordan's Yahoo is probably better, but the worst quarterbacks in that league were like way you. You know, when you had, we're getting the Steelers quarterback. Who is starting for one of those teams. You know, where they, you had, you had some really bad quarterback play. At the very bottom of the league where I think here all the quarterbacks in this league, they're starting currently are better than I liked. The bottom three or four quarterbacks started for the XFL. Well, I agree with that. Yeah. I think, I think the floor is higher on the USFL, right? The ceiling. I said PJ and, and Josh Johnson. You're better than anyone in this league. Right. I think Brian Scott was trying to get there. I was, I was in the, I mean, obviously he's, he's not playing right now, but I thought. As good as he was, he did feel like I was a big stage for him. Right. I think he was getting the momentum going, but I do think the first couple of weeks, cause it is, you know, you go from playing spring league and. [Unknown] or whatever, and then you go and now you're on Fox. And I thought he did really good considering. It is a shame, probably one of the saddest storylines of the season that he had to go home. Well, the [unknown]. And it worked, the season works backwards to like in the NFL. You generally, the trend is passing is really hot at the beginning of the fall. And then once the weather cools down the efficiencies go down. And in the spring league is sort of the opposite, right? At the very beginning, it was you starting a league in the case of the XFL and the AAF you started in February. And then it got warmer as the season progressed here. You started in April, which is still not, you know, in Birmingham, not cold by any stretch of imagination, but now the weather's relatively warm. And, and so you, you, I think even from like the ambient. Expectations of what passage should be. It shouldn't be going up, right. Because the weather's getting better as the season progressed. Just overall, I'm kind of wanting to get into some of the week's news here with everybody. Overall thoughts on USFL. I mean, has this been successful in your eyes? So far. You know, I think. A lot of folks will look and say, you know, we'll, we'll wait until we see if any of these guys get into the NFL. We've seen contributions. I mean, Josh Johnson. Plate started a game last year for the Ravens, played some for the jets. You'll fill up. Walker has been a competent backup quarterback in the NFL for a couple of years now. You know, Donald Parham is a part of this, the chargers offense, you know, down the list, you, you see players storm Norton, is it. As a tackle in the NFL now. You know, you want to see this league be a feeder league into the other leagues, but in so far as the league in a vacuum, you watch the interest. And I think, you know, unfortunately like, You know, the interest just wanes, you know, when it has to compete. And that's the thing, like, I actually think it was smarter than them to wait until April to start the league, because then you're not competing, like the super bowl hangover thing. And then people are kind of in February, March, or like a little dragging and stuff, and people don't want to go to a game. Like let's see Seattle in the middle of March when it's the weather's terrible. I think once we start to see like all the cities being able to host their games, you're going to get better. We saw it the other night when Birmingham hosted their game, there was a lot of fans in the stands. It's probably the most well attended game prior to the. Other than the first game TV ratings are down, but like it's competing against the NHL finals. The NBA finals and baseball to a certain extent. So, you know, we have to temper expectations there. You. The DFS markets, you know, the, the first year, the first game. I believe the top DFS pot was a hundred thousand dollars. Now it's $10,000. So you're certainly seeing less gambling on the league as well. I think if they get through the year and then there's a plan to play next year and they play next year, this year will be thought of as a success because I just don't see, you know, I need to see that out of one of these leads before I'm going to be really happy about it. And I think they're trending in that right direction. I mean, again, I don't think ratings are great, but they're not a disaster. And if you look at the Birmingham games, people go to the Birmingham. It's interesting. And I've thought a lot about it this week and not to be argumentative on it. I, I really did like the April timeline when they announced everything for all the reasons you said, right? Like let's avoid the Superbowl hangover and it's not, you know, it's not going to be 30 degrees in Seattle or all these things, you know, we can get nicer weather. Now we're hitting this weekend. It's Memorial day, right? They front-loaded the schedule so many, you know, NBC Fox games this weekend. There's only one right on, I think Fox NBC, the other three are on CA. You know, cable. People are going that side. It's nice weather. I I'm really afraid that this is not the right time of year, the play, especially with the Stanley cup finals, with the NBA. It's so funny. Like we had Daryl Johnston on, I get November, he was on a radio station and be like, this is the perfect time to play. Like, you know, we've looked at the calendar and we're going to get players into camps. We're going to do all this stuff. And now it's like, well, I mean, we're competing against the premier league and we were competing against. You know, it's the best time of year that competed until it's not, I don't know. And I don't know if the XFL that February, I don't know if there is a good spring timeline, but I feel like this is not trending in that direction. Yeah, I get worried because you know, the finals are end of June. Like a player would almost have to stop playing for their USFL team and sign almost immediately to play with an NFL team where, so if you're trying to be a feeder league, maybe that's not the right thing. Also like the second or third knows, the third week of the season was competing against the NFL draft. Which again, like it depends upon if you're me and you're a degenerate about football and you love football. You go straight from day three of the draft to watching these games and you love it. Aye. Aye. I, you know, I would be a bad. Television executive because I, I'm not the target audience. So you know that those are all things like, I think that, you know, have to be taken into consideration when we, we discuss this stuff. You know, I, I personally, for example, I know you're wearing the CFL hat. I love the CFL because it starts like in this, but again, that's part of Canadian culture. That's already embedded into how everybody's doing everything, right? Like this spring football is not embedded in the United States culture. And. You know, So it's going to take some getting used to, I, I, I really hope that the NFL sees one of these spring leagues and says, okay, I want to be able to, I want to invest in it. I want to get better because look. Again, from the way that is it working. I, I think you're, you're at least getting reps for quarterbacks who are young and. And currently in the NFL, there are not developmental quarterbacks. Like there are two quarterbacks that every team one's a veteran, terrible guy, like Jen Henny and another guys. A guy that if you get hurt, you're screwed. And, you know, and partial PO most of that is because of the CBA. But part of that is because we don't have a developmental league in the NFL anymore. And so if you get, or at all, and. And so you get this kind of, you know, traction. I think that it can benefit football in general. I am surprised. And especially this week, you know, we had the big XFL announcement last week, right? ESPN, ABC Fox owning this. I am a, I watch NFL network every morning when I run on the treadmill. And like, the content is horrendous right now. Right? Cause it's like this weird we're post draft. We're getting ready for this we're ranking running backs from the nineties or whatever. I'm like. The fact that the XFL or USFL, like the NFL network. I can't give them a slot during the week to like, let's talk about this stuff. Let's bro. Broadcast some of the games like that to me is how you're going to get this to the next level, because there's not enough NFL. Like right now, is that dead time? Do you. I'm saying like, and Colin coward in south, like he pretends to talk about it, right? Like all I'm going to read the highlights and we have like skip and Shannon talking about it. But I really think if you put an hour on there's so much content right now and NFL network, I think they could utilize some of this on their streaming. Yeah, I agree. And I think that that's also one, I mean, last year we had the FCS that was happening during this time of year and, you know, it's. We're just not used to talking about. Like, we're not used to talking about football, unless it's the most amazing thing in the world. I mean, And that's the, the other part of like, when you have a, you know, college football schedule that overlaps with the NFL. I was this way before I, I worked on football professionally. It's. You can ignore college football. If you're an NFL fan. Right. So there. And you could ignore the NFL for your college. And you can be completely safe. Sad. Satisfied because they sort of overlap and, and maybe there's a little bit of that where the NFL is seeing in their. You know, data that their fans only really want one week. I think the way to lean into it and maybe get more people interested is to, is to do, is to lean into bedding. And I know, you know, the XFL really tried that, you know, ultimately it was, it was. They were poor at doing it because most broadcasters don't have experience talking about fantasy football or gambling during a broadcast. But that might be how it has to be because honest to God, like most of the people that want to talk to me. And most of the reason I'm watching USFL is because I like to gamble on football. And I think there's a real edge in some of these. Developmental leagues. The, the leagues should probably lean into it. And I know. You know, in the last year for arena football league, they really did. Ultimately, it wasn't enough for them to stay around, but like that has to be it for. You know, basically all of these leads that aren't like a top four. Male sport in the United States. I really do have to you'll lean into that stuff because the gamification is what causes people to play or to watch more sports. I mean, the data is very clear. If you gamble on sports, you play fantasy football, you just watch more sports and. The more that we, you can lean into that the more the, of a piece of the pie is available to leagues that aren't endowed with, with the privileges that other leagues have at the very beginning. That reminds me of like speaking at CFL, like last year when they, you know, cause they pass, they go game sprites, batty. Like you had met some they'll Steagall, like every week are you taking the over you taking the over you take. Like you said they don't know. I they know they're supposed to talk about it, right? Like we're supposed to talk about gambling, but they don't, they have no clue. Like you think I, God forbid like, have you or someone on that? Entrenched in the staff go do a hit, you know, I mean like you got brought Heuer than the satellites are surrounded around. [Unknown] have you on. I'm looking at the over renders here. I'm like, I mean, I don't even know what the hell you talking about, cause I'm not in the world, but like, Certainly I think that that would be a really easy way, you know, have someone sitting at their computer at home and, and looking at this stuff online. I think so. I, yeah, exactly. And I know, you know, there have been some bet casts. We at PFF did a bet cast for three playoff games. Last year was a lot of fun. And it was viewed by a lot of people, you know, people love that. And I just think the broadcasts are like not really equipped right now to, to sort of do that in. Other robust way. But that doesn't mean they can't in the future. We got, I like looking at like tangible stuff that we can look at here. In terms of kind of the roster stuff this week. It was interesting. Right? So we had originally we had Che powder sand. And then Kyla let it cut. And I think a lot of people were surprised about that. You talk about the sports betting and all of that. What do you make of like how we announce roster transactions, roster moves with the USFL. I mean it's, it's. What, and if you. If you're just betting based upon like team level metrics, kind of like I am. It's fi it's actually better probably because there's not like the, these little nitty gritty. Ubiquitous, you know, reports that we have, or just not available. I spell, right? Like, I think back a couple of weeks ago when. Jomar Smith got COVID. And then everybody's like, oh, he's cleared. And then we all thought he was going to start. And so then that point spread moved out a little bit. And then we found out that Magoo was going to start and then that points. I moved down and like, I think for me, like I got in that game and again, I lost, I lost one of the best ones. I had Tampa bay plus four and a half. And then I came back with, with Birmingham, with Birmingham minus two and a half. Right. And. That last deal got the end screwed over by ability to get a middle there. But you know, that kind of lack of clear information and lack of being able to synthesize it into. You know, points, spreads and totals and stuff like that is, is advantageous for matters. Right? That being said. Trying to understand the league and trying to ingratiate the lead to bands and stuff like having a B. Not knowing that that Paxton Lynch was going to start over Shea Patterson. In week three until the last minute. Like people don't necessarily, that's not things like people, although all of a sudden prefer, I guess. So I think it's a little, it's a double-edged sword. I would like obviously more information, but you know, that requires beat reporters and that requires, you know, standardizing, you know, everything because let's be honest. The injury report in the NFL is standard is standardized because of sports betting. Well, that's the hard thing is, and it's, it's like PR department of one right now. I mean, it's really challenging with the USFL. Like I get that it's. It's frustrating to me, some of the cost Katy measures we do considering like they're owned by Fox. Like I get this, is it. Arena football, trying to go. We got a bootstrap or they see that like you're all in by whether the major for broadcast, like we have the money resources, it's just like, It's a lack of wanting to do it because they don't see why would I spend, you know, a hundred thousand dollars on another PR person. We're not going to see a hundred thousand dollars of revenue back. I just think it's shortsighted across the board. I just, I, every week it's like, it's the bare minimum we can put in to get by. It's kind of my feeling. I agree. I think that that, that's where they're sloughing off a little bit and they, and to me, that's just an admission that they might not get. What it takes to, to, for these leaks to really work right. They really do need. In my opinion to really lean into the game of vacation of. Of sports. So, what do you think? So now we have Kyla Leta. He's going to the general. So yo. We thought they were cut and now they're gone. Nine shape power sent into the breakers. Obviously, so the Andre Johnson writer. Hurt more than we think for the generals. Right. Is that why we're bringing in little? That is the backup. I hope not, but, and interestingly, so like, I guess I take my cues from the markets, your. It was very interesting while we've been talking. There's been money on Pittsburgh. Birmingham open and I give Birmingham a full three point home field advantage. Birmingham open, you know, at as 12 and a half point favorites in this game. And now it's down to 11. So, and I know that all Loleta, wasn't starting for Pittsburgh, it was five lead, gladly looked great in relief against Houston. A couple of weeks ago was not very good last week, except for at the very end where you see some betting in on Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. And then interestingly new Orleans open is five and a half point favorites. I got bed out six it's now back to five and a half. With this, you know, Shea Patterson news that the Muslim Paxil is healthy enough to start. Or people are buying into whomever. The, the second option there is for the Panthers, but New Jersey open is three point pavers against Tampa bay. In theory, I think because the Andre Johnson was such an upgrade over Louise Ferez longterm, and that's been moved out to four. So people have embedding New Jersey. Even though there's a ton of uncertainty about what the Andre. Johnson's statuses. It'll be interesting to see if that number stays there as, as these limits go up and people start actually putting real money on these games. Are you able to gauge, like, is there a lot of interest right now in the batty? And like, are you able to, like, I mean, I mean, compared to comparatively the, like, I mean, what do you, I mean, that's always, the thing is to say, well, you can't compare the. You guys, and I'll be like, I don't know, compared to like the Stanley cup playoffs. I mean, it is, that's not even a fair comparison. I mean, have you look at the USFL like sports Betty market right now? Well, The market's move enough where I know that the, that people aren't betting. That much yet. Right. So generally speaking like a premier league game and NFL game. By the time you get to Sunday, those markets are so. Liquid that like. You know, you can bet a million. You know how I pinnacles taken a million dollars aside on a, on a, on. On a premier league game. So like, and those numbers don't move because eventually. You know, once enough people have put their. Money on the line. Like the number is pretty sharp and USFL. You see a lot of movement, even like I remember the new world, the new Orleans game, where everybody got lucky. If they bet new Orleans. Against Houston, that game. New Orleans opened is three and a half point favorites close to six NAPLAN favorites. You just don't see three point moves in NFL markets or markets where there are a ton of betters all that often. And, and that's to me is an indication that there aren't as many betters in this league. And they're and they're, and they're coming in late because they don't have to get out ahead of the sharp players early, like they do in some of the more established leads. It does seem like, like. Like, if you have even a modicum of, of knowledge of what's going on in the USFL, you're able to kind of run this table right now, right. More or less. I don't know, like closing line value has not been worth that much in this league. So like, you know, most of the time. And slowder got lucky in the, in the last game, but like a lot of times like teams, like new Orleans will take money and then they won't cover. They didn't cover this past week, which is good. They opened a seven point difference at closed at eight point favorites. So, you know, if you bet with closing line value there, you, you won. For a few weeks unders were getting steamed pretty heavily. And then a lot of the games started going over. So like, it's, it's very unpredictable right now. It's not like it's, I don't think it's it's. It's indicative of an NFL market right now where sharps bed numbers moving their way and they win a significant amount of time. I think. I think the sharp money makes sense. Like I would bet you know, a team. You know, for example, like I, the one bet that I really liked this week, I bet Houston at plus four against Philadelphia. I just don't think Philadelphia's defense is very good, even though Houston defense is also not very good. I've also been over in that game. That was, I believe 43. It's now 44. So you're seeing things move in the right direction. But like, you know, it's a small sample size game and all the reasons why I'm betting these two things like. I'm saying that Philadelphia doesn't have a great defense based upon six games of work. Right. Whereas, you know, I can better contextualize that in a sport like college football, NFL, because I have multiple years and I have multiple teams. Oh, yeah. Carry over to next year. Right? I mean, obviously, and it came out Mike Mitchell with our site expo. I haven't had the, you know, Part of the contract that suite. Like they're adding a new clause in where basically, if you, if you get released to go to an NFL camp and you get caught, you revert back to the USFL. Like, I mean, hopefully we're going to see carry over into next year. Right? I mean, that's, the key is kind of establishing these routines with these players. I mean, do you anticipate having a lot of continuity for next year? I don't, but. It'd be nice, right? Like, I, it, it was one of the reasons why I really liked betting the CFL this past year, because the year in between sort of reconstituted our priors a little bit on what the. On what the rosters were like, what the quarterbacks were like, what the coaches were like and things like that. And there was continuity of course. The teams that were good, you know? Stay good. And, you know, so on and so forth. But, but for these leagues, I'm almost always going to regress to the markets more in between seasons, just because there's less of, there's just less staying power. When people can move up and, and move away. And, and also just like league rules will change. I guarantee you, there are going to be league rule changes. If this thing gets to a year or two that make, you know, the way in which we bet, like, no. We've only seen one, three point attempt this year so far. Like there's gotta be ways to incentivize that there's gotta be ways to do. To, to, to make this. This game more exciting. And like I said, of the three leaves, like I bet. You know, a lot of. A F about a lot of XFL. This has been the league so far. That's been the most exciting, in my opinion, as far as like games going over the total high scoring affairs. And it took a while for that to happen. You know, maybe next year they'll implement rules that will make the game exciting. Just very right away from the get-go. You do feel as though the quality of game play has been good. The last few weeks I've I. Early on. It was rough. And, and honestly, You know, my biggest, my biggest ripe with all of these leagues is that. The coaching. The coaching needs to. And I don't, I just don't know what the incentives are like, you know, in the AAF you had Mike Martz who was once a brilliant mind. And then, you know, you had, Mike Singletary was never really a brilliant mind and like, you almost always just had like, Retread coaches who were just bad at playing football. The way that the, the NFL coaches were. And so you didn't get innovation on fourth down, you didn't get innovation offensively. And so on and so forth. So. That's. And this league, you have Fisher, you have, you know, you had Todd Haley guys who have had success in the NFL, but are clearly over the hill. Who like, why w why would I expect Todd Haley to be kind of woke on fourth down? Like, it's just not, it's not in the cards there. I think the players are fine. Honestly, I think the offensive line play in this league has been much better than offensive line play in the other developmental leagues. Maybe that's because defensive line play isn't quite as good, but the quality of play is perfectly fine and asleep. It's it's to me, you can boost it up another notch by making the coaches more innovative. I totally agree with that. Yeah. It's like we bring a Kirby. Well, Sandy, I mean, I think if you have someone else running that team, I think it's an entirely different, I just, eh, They hits with the coaching they've been hits and the messages have been pretty rough day to kind of live through. I mean, even Jeff Fisher is like, what is going on with the Panthers? I mean, he was a big crap. Favorite going into it. Exactly. And now what he's one in five and I think like one in five against the spread as well. So like that. I was not in a particularly strong, like, You know, Come back in. And then again, like what was the reason he got kicked out of the NFL was. He got kicked out of the NFL because he was slow to adapt and he was coaching. Like it was 1994, as opposed to. 2022. Okay. And that's, you know, that's always going to be an issue and, you know, he was never a great tactician to begin with. He was a great motivator, but I think he needed more than that now. Any final thoughts before we let you go today? I mean, Like I said, I gameplay is continuing to improve. I worry this weekend with Memorial day and everything. I'm a little scared of what the rate is going to look like. I finally found it here. You'll have USA has got, you know, the wine Fs wine, and then we have another peacock game on Sunday. And what are your thoughts for the weekend? I'm in. I think these games are going to be. You know, I'm looking forward to all of them. Obviously there's going to be the one kind of Suze or we at Birmingham, Birmingham is 11 point favorites. It's Pittsburgh. That one. I've already laid the points at Birmingham. I don't, I don't think Kirby Wilson. He poached. I think the gladly thing was a one game sample. And I think Birmingham, there was a little bit of an issue, obviously with, with Jomar Smith. Even though they covered the spread last week, Jomar Smith was kind of iffy and then you put an Alex will do at the end. And even then they needed that. Like. Third and forever pass to be complete for them to, to score on that last drive. But you have both Scarborough. And I, I sorta like, I mean, physical teams that run the football in the NFL, like that's diminished because. Quarterback play is so important, but when quarterback play is not as important in things like this, Like teams that can just run the football and out physical other teams late in games to me. Can cover the big spreads. I like the over in the Philadelphia Houston game. I, neither defense is very good. Houston is obviously, you know, has been, has had the lead in every game at halftime so far this year. I think Clayton Thorson, you know, can, is wild. But you can be effectively wild at times. And then Philadelphia has the running game that I think can really push the football down the field, along with case cookies. And then lastly, like this to me, it'll be interesting to see, but I like new Orleans lane, five and a half against Michigan. I, a slowdown has been up and down, but like on balance has been the best quarterback in that league. And I think like in this particular game, You know, they run the most plays by the way. Yeah, they're a little slower, but it's weird. They run the most. The games have the most plays. So I like the over in that game as well. Well, Eric, you're here with. Ah, PFF. I really appreciate you coming out. Hopefully we can. You know, touch base here again, seeing it, and then maybe near the end of the season. Oh, I'd love to, this was fun. I loved chatting spring leagues and all that good stuff. Yeah. That they traction is not there. I mean, I love talking to CFL, but like the views are not, that does not. Yeah, have a good podcast, mate. So. All right. And then Cody Main, right? Yes. I just always like to make sure. I never know, never know. Well, we have Cody made here from established a ride. We had your, I guess, cohort Adam on a couple of weeks ago. How are you doing today? I am great. I guess you could, you could call Adam. My boss, Adam is the co-founder over at ETR. I'm just one of his little minions, trying to try to help out, make the, make the engine run. Well, that's good, but this is good. Like I've said a couple of times on the podcast. This was the lifeblood of me trying to find good USFL people to talk about getting involved with all this fantasy. He's you know, like we have our writers and staff at XFL. Do you said the cover or I should say USFL do sub mark. They cover all this stuff, but like, you know, trying to find quality people every week to talk USFL is, is challenging. Sometimes. Yeah, it is. And people like yourself and Ian and Adam and, and others in the industry that have covered it from, you know, an entertainment and media perspective like you guys are. And also from the fantasy and sports betting side, like we are. I think we've got a good mix of people really have eyes and ears on everything that's going on in the USFL now. So, what do you make? We're approaching you week seven here, right? Memorial day weekend here. What do you make of the USFL through six weeks of gameplay? I've been impressed. You know, I'm coming at this from a fantasy angle. I had my worries coming in. If you will, you know, we've been through this before with the XFL, with the AAF. All to varying degrees of success in terms of fantasy and sports betting. You know, I w I would say from the beginning, I wish they were a little bit more willing to embrace our specific audience. You know, the fantasy side, the sports betting side. And really put an emphasis on that. Now the fact that we have lines available almost everywhere, where you can, Sportsbet the fact that we have DFS that we can play weekly has been encouraging. And really the, the play on the field has been better than I had expected, you know, coming, coming in. I think we've got a lot of good quarterbacks now in the league, as we approach week seven, we've got a lot of good offensive play callers, which was something I wasn't so sure of coming in as well. And some teams. Zigging while others zag and making a good mix of, of pass first and run first teams and really putting good product on the field. Week after week. Yeah, I'm kind of, I, I have. I've kind of exhausted myself with like, complaining about like things they could be doing right now, because it does just feel like we're riding the course through the season. I've kind of resigned myself to that. I think there's really easy, tangible things every week here that could be done to kind of help. Not just, I just feel like we're writing, like we, we shot the rocket off week one and like, whatever that fuel is taking this season, like, that's what we're doing. We are not changing anything. We are not a tried to do anything else. We're going to make little tweaks. Right? Like, we're going to add some more practice squad people, but like, overall, this is that the hand we've been dealt for this season. And I think the, the small additions that they have made, the small changes that they've made, whether it be, you know, roster related stuff or. You know, the, the play c**k play clock thing that we can get in through, you know, with them. Reducing the number of plays by speeding up the clock in the first and third quarters stuff like that has been good for the product that makes the game a little bit shorter. Makes it a little bit more watchable and then adding practice squad players, you know, that was one small tweak that just seems so necessary covering this stuff. You know, from a fantasy perspective, there were, there were weeks where, you know, there's only one active running back on the roster weeks where there wasn't a backup quarterback lease where wide receivers were playing 100% of snaps because there just weren't enough bodies. So. You know, I agree with you in the sense that they haven't, they're not really too willing to make a big sweeping changes now, which is probably the correct move as an organization. But the small changes that they've made have been a welcomed by, especially by people in our industry. Well, the prizes squad and having that, you know, It was to write to, to the roster. So 38 to 40 and then an extra three. So yeah, we have 50 people. Right. Am I doing the math there? Yeah. You know, Here. We still don't have the stars still don't have a backup quarterback. Mark Andrews. I mean, I think he's this way for Brian Scott to get back, which is fair. I think Brian's trying to kind of get back here near the end of the season, but like, It was interesting timing with the accident fell announcements and everything with the USFL, adding the roster spots. There's now a new clause in their contracts that previously you could be let out of your USFL contract to go play a, to go a either try out or get to be on an NFL roster. And now if they cut you any time during the year, you revert back to the USFL contract, which is interesting. So, I mean, they're, they're making tweaks. I think some of it is pro us at Val. I do think some of it is, is more like we're protecting against the XFL. Curious to see where that. Winds up. That's going to be an interesting thing, you know, having both of these. You know, I call them the developmental leagues, having both of these spring leagues available. And then you've also got, you know, the CFL that's also competing for talent as well. I don't know if there's going to be a large enough player pool to field competitive rosters and field talented rosters. When the XFL is running, when the USFL is running, when we've got CFL games. There's just, you know, we get into this situation fairly quickly where we don't have enough talented players to field a product that people are willing to watch. So I hope we don't run into that situation with the XFL and the USFL where we've got enough, good players available, and maybe the XFL can steal some talent, you know, from guys directly coming out of college that would help improve their process as well. But yeah, I'm curious to think what, what you think in terms of, is there a large enough talent pool to. Tofield good. To the deep rosters for a USFL league and an XFL league. Well, I mean, we had Eric gal come on a couple of weeks ago. You know, Eric was a director of player personnel for XML 2020. And he said, no. And it was funny. Cause a lot of people were like, why I, the other grew without. I don't know, man, like the dude built the li I mean, you know, he was the one that set up the rosters, but he had said. Wait, when he was ready. Yeah, not ready, but when he was in his role at the XFL, he had a list of every available offensive lineman that wasn't signed by the XFL. And as the season was going on. They were bringing in guys and bringing the guys and that list was getting smaller and smaller. And he said like, when they stopped at week five, There wasn't a lot of names left on that list, right. And this was a small sample size of the XFL, right? This wasn't, we didn't have fan controlled football. We didn't have the USFL like EA terms of quarterbacks and O-line play. I just don't know if there is enough. I mean, we see here and I want to get your thoughts on these, you know, quarterback moves with the USFL this week, but like we're even seeing some of the USFL quarterbacks, not. Producing, maybe the way that we thought that they would be, you know, let alone having another league. Yeah. You know, there's a handful of guys that I think are clear, cut above and are, you know, the most talented in the league. And that list includes, you know, Jaymar Smith and Alex Magoo, both guys. Just happened to be other Birmingham stallions. As, as easily, the best team in the league. And then you've got the Andre Johnson, who's kind of this rushing. Dynamo that no one can seem to handle, but he's dealing with an ankle injury. I really liked Brian Scott. I really liked what Brian, Scott and Bart Andrews were doing. I hope he comes back fully healthy by the end of the season. That would be nice. And then, you know, callous loader as a guy who plays NFL preseason. Then your, your toes into some quarterbacks, you really haven't shown much. And then we've seen some of this movement lately, you know, kind of inner squad with some quarterbacks changing teams that hadn't been producing. You know, we've got Shay now as the presumptive quarterback three in new Orleans, we've got Cal LA. Leta changing teams. You know, I'm just, just curious how deep that player pool can continue to go. When you're talking about now, eight teams in the USFL, eight teams in the XFL, and you've still got NFL teams that are going to be competing for some of these guys to keep on their practice squads or to have just as preseason arms. You know, guys that they can, they. That they can rely on in games that are meaningless to them. So, you know, I just don't know if there's enough quarterback talent, first of all. And then you get into the other positions. You know, as a fantasy guy, I hardly even think about offensive line play, but that's so important. And there's just how many, how many of these big guys can you put in the trenches and keeps them healthy and keep. To keep teams full with, with healthy bodies. It's just going to get to a point where I don't think we have enough. To keep all of these leagues up and running. Well, and this is, you know, where we had three now of. Kind of the, you know, the, the eight first draft, right. You know, with, well that not really. Grey. I mean, maybe they weren't in the best positions. Right. You know, shape pattern. You know, when we saw it yesterday that the number one draft pick was cut. Right. You already had that homes get sent home from New Jersey. Right? So now we have Liletta movie and Shay Patterson, like. Those are like three of the top eight guys that were picked. I mean, obviously the quarterback was the first round of it. Right. But I mean, this was three of your top eight guys pack. Number one overall was Shea, everyone questioned after the Righetti. And, and now it's interesting that like, We're still struggling with these guys. And these were, I would think would be your sure-fire picks that you would have, and that's the frustrating thing, right? From what you see. You know, from the general public to, is it just serves as confirmation bias for these people that were already against the league. And then they see, you know, Or had had negative things to say about the leave without ever watching or, or being involved in any manner. And now all of a sudden you see the first overall draft pick. Shay Patterson being, you know, waived released or, or, you know, whatever the case was and ends up on another team and is now going to be. Backup quarterback, and that's not fair. You know, like, you know, Jeff Fisher in Michigan is doing what they can to, to feel the best possible team that they can and shade us. Wasn't the answer, you know, whether it is Paxton Lynch coming back from injury or one of these guys that they've recently added. You almost have to give them some credit for willing to kind of cut bait. On a guy that just wasn't getting it done and our mistakes going to be made NFL GM's make mistakes in terms of evaluating player talent. Sure. But I've, I guess I've been more impressed than I have been disappointed in terms of. The level of quarterback play. That's been fielded in these guys getting cut, released, traded, whatever it is. You know, it doesn't that doesn't damper my expectations. I think I've, we've seen more good quarterback play than we have bad. To this point. Well, I agree with that. It's interesting. You know, cause we were talking and we'll bring in the guys here. We had that Lee last week came in. Look, I could God, San to Pittsburgh. Yeah. Or two weeks ago, last week really struggled. And it was so funny. I was actually, I was like watching the broadcast while I was driving. And they're like, well, you know, That just, he just hasn't had enough time, you know, cause Gaither, they just like their timing's off. And then like he came at the first week and did great. So like, I mean, I think part of it too, is they just, then they're able to kind of study up and figure out what's going on. I mean, the XFL saw that with. The dragons, I think it was versus a battle Hawks. And like we pull branded silvers and we put in BJ Daniels. He looks great. And then we still lost, but it was like sometimes if they're just not used to like that game plan, you know, v*g comes in like four or five days out, but it was funny that there, well, you know, he just needs more time to it. To figure out the time he with Bailey, I'm like, well, he didn't seem to have a problem last week with that. That's another thing that these guys just didn't have a whole lot of time, not even just VAD, but all of these teams in general, you know, the, the training camps were very brief. These guys, haven't had a lot of practice time, even now, six weeks into the season, you know, you think about. NFL rosters that are together for years and just frequently continuing to add pieces to them. But they've got full training camps. They've got years. Worth of. You know, installing a playbook years worth of just that continuity. And we haven't had that with the USFL. So I would be curious, you know, if these teams stick together, the nucleuses of these teams stick together in terms of. You know, quarterback offensive line wide receiver running backs. Will we see a step forward in offensive play next year, even when they've had more time together. That was one thing coming in to week. One that we had noted in all of our content was. Damper, you know, lower your expectations a little bit for these offenses. They just, haven't had a lot of practice time. Haven't had a lot of time together and I think we're starting to see that improve. I think that's played itself out in the betting markets as well. I think the last 11 or 12 games have hit the over, you know, we're seeing more offensive explosiveness now, and I think that's a direct correlation with these teams having more time together. So, right. We talked to USFL adding this. You know, the clause would ever get players back for next year. I had part of that, you know, like I said, this. I saw a lot of complaints from like the XFL Rogers. I'm like, oh, well, they're trying to lock up all this stuff. Well, that's good business, right? Hey, it's good business because you need to have players be like we said, help. Increased continuity. Right? Okay. Let's keep enough of these guys together. Right? CFL struggles with that sometimes. In terms of, so let's say we do keep the players together. Right? We get a good batch of Birmingham back together. Skip holds probably isn't the best example. Like, do we see all of these eight coaches, like, is Kirby Wilson getting another run at this? Like is Jeff Fisher getting another run at this? That's what I hope the league is just like some of these coaches have been willing to cut bait on players that haven't performed up to expectation. I hope the league is kind of willing to do the same. In that aspect, right. We've seen pretty good coaching. Or pensive play calling. We've seen pretty good coaching decisions, both in game. And from a roster perspective from a lot of these teams, and I hope that's rewarded, and I hope some of these coaches that have struggled while, you know, never happy to see anybody out of a job. But while I hope that some of these coaches that have struggled, I, I am hopeful that the league will do what they can to improve, you know, kind of some parody. Within the league. I think you've got a clear group of top teams right now separating through week six and a clear group of teams that are just not there yet. And, and I think that that would continue to play itself out. If they ran it back next year. So guys, you know, like Kirby, Wilson, who this is his first time as a head coach. Guys like Jeff Fisher who struggled at the NFL ranks and was probably the biggest name guy coming in. But. You know, get, get some young blood in here, get some guys that are trying to climb up the coaching ranks, as opposed to, you know, just starting to leave the coaching ranks. You know, Kirby Wilson was a running backs coach for 29 years. Right. Let's get some, some guys that are young and upcoming and want to take this path wherever it may lead them, as opposed to kind of taking, taking it into retirement. So, yeah, I've been impressed by guys, like skip holds. I've been impressed, starting to come around. Again on Todd Haley as a guy that's shown a little bit more offensive. Genius now with Jordan TAMU and ban BARDA Andrews. As a fantasy guy, as a guy that plays, you know, points per reception fantasy. I love watching Bart Andrew's dropped back, you know, 70% of his offensive plays and just let his running backs, let us quarterback step back and sling it. So give me more guys like that that are willing to kind of push the envelope and do things a little bit in, in kind of that new age way of that. You know, that we starting to fall in love with, with the NFL. It's getting to the point where, like you said, in terms of Yosemite, these teams are, are so great, right? Like Birmingham. It's getting to the point where these match-ups aren't exciting, right? Like here we have the stallions this week on Fox. Right. That's, you know, get all the people there, whatever it's 11 on a Sunday. So, you know, we had got the church crowd. I see a lot of. You know, like that guy's up. But yeah, that's the big game, but then they're going up against the Maulers, right? Like, okay, so now we're getting, you know what I'm saying? Like, even now some of the big teams, like there's such a disparity between some of the good ones and some of the bad teams that. And they're not the most enticing match-ups I know in that game, I mean, 12 and a half point favorites are the stallions and, you know, I think about that in terms of, you know, in terms of an NFL game, you're thinking like, you know, peak Patriots with Tom Brady versus like the jets, you know what I mean? Like, and people aren't lining up to watch that game. You know, for, for an NFL game. And I have been impressed by the USFL, just continuing to turn out number after number in terms of TV ratings, go, I've been very impressed by that, but you do have to wonder like how many, how often. You know, our casual fans, how often will they continue to sit around for a game? That's a, you know, double digit blowout. You know, you, you have to try to get some of these premier match-ups. In the right time slot. So we get the most eyeballs on this league. And again, just serves as confirmation bias. When you see these like 35 to seven scores between teams like the stallions and the Maulers that just, that just people don't want to say that there isn't enough talent to, to get this league through, but I just don't think that that's the case. It just happens. So happens that some of these teams have separated to a point where they're so, so much better than the bottom end of the league. And I think that, you know, looking at. The stallions and the generals. And now Philadelphia is coming on a little bit. There's these top teams just look a clear cut above the three or four that we would think of as the bottom. So we did this kind of last week. We're curious your thought. So, you know, Birmingham number one, right? With a bullet generals, number two, you would put stars at number three. Yeah. You know, and I know they've gotten lucky here over the last couple of games and they've been in some pretty close games with Michigan. In last week with Tampa bay. I think if it's, if it's not stars and again, this is a little bit of a personal bias because I'm high on Andrews. I'm high on bar. Brian Scott hope he comes back healthy at the end of the year. I think the breakers have a really good top to bottom roster. We haven't seen what we've wanted to out of cows loader over the last couple of weeks. But I think that when he is on. He might be the best real life quarterback in this league, maybe behind Jaymar and you know, the, then you've got the whole different dynamic with, with the Andre Johnson on the rushing ability. But I think he might be the best real life quarterback in this league. So I think when he is right, this breakers team might have as high a ceiling as the stallions. Where's team, right? Mahler's yeah. Yeah. No, unfortunately, because you know, and it's easy to bag on Kirby Wilson, you know, they, they didn't start out hot with the pizza gate incident that they had in training camp that was broadcasted widely, but you know, I have to give them some credit. They came out in that first game against Tampa bay. With you. We can only be considered just a god-awful game plan of 7, 8, 9 offensive linemen on the field. And just running directly into their backs and he, he's starting to pass more. He's doing what he can and part of that's game script, right? Like they're down. They have to pass to come back. But he's brought in badly. He's trying to do things to. To spark this team, but I think it's pretty clear that they're, they're kind of the bottom of the barrel. And then up from that, I mean, Houston, Michigan, and that, to me all stems down to play calling. And quarterback play, right? Like, you know, Clay Clayton Thorson. Wasn't a good quarterback. A great quarterback in college, Clayton Thorson. Wasn't a good quarterback. In the NFL preseason and he hasn't proven to be a great quarterback here. He's had some big plays. He sparked some, some really good offensive drives, but I think the consistency isn't there. And then with Michigan, you know, I think when they, when they went to turn to Paxton Lynch, there was something there. And then he got injured and had to go back to Shay. And that's unfortunate because I was, would have wanted to see that team for the last couple of weeks with Paxton Lynch under center. Maybe we're talking about a different situation here, but as it stands, I mean, Mahler's Houston. Panthers is probably the three worst teams in the league right now. I, I, I had a joke earlier. I was going to make an, I forgot. It is like with the Kirby Wilson thing, or like with Clayton Thorson, like. You do in life, you know, you fail up until you can't, you know, you go as high and then you fail at whatever that saying is right. We've discovered like, okay. Kirby Wilson is a good running backs. Coach is not a great head coach. You fail up in life until you cannot. Continuing. And then you get knocked back down a peg and, you know, that's it being a head coach in any league? I can't imagine as easy, especially with no previous experience he's coming in as just a running backs coach, you know, and I like the running backs. I like Derek Groesbeck. I like Monterey London. But, you know, it's a whole different ball game when you've got a game plan when you've got to be kind of the CEO of a football team. And I think that's just a whole different ball game for some of these guys, you know, it's been one of those things which has. It's been weird to see Jeff Fisher not have a little bit more success because he was a head coach for so long. And you would think that, you know, some of that. Would translate here, but he's just been to unwilling. You know, to, to do things differently offensively, and maybe he knows he was limited by Shea. Maybe that's the reason why they got him out of there, but, you know, You have to be willing to evolve and adapt in these types of leagues. And I think the coaches that have done that are the ones that are being rewarded with success. Well, that's like, you know, my dream, I didn't coming in from, you know, huge. He was in the European league of football. Right. He was with Alf company. Like he has been fine, but I don't think he's been, I think he's on one of my fantasy teams. Like he's not. To my recollection. That's not had the outstanding season like he did last year in, in elf. I, you know, when I saw that signing and saw the, the stat line that he put up in European league of football, that would be the year prior, man. I was taken aback. I had. I had to look at it to see like maybe every running back in this league does this type of thing. Maybe this is just a running league and it wasn't, it's just, this guy is just, was, was freakishly good in the European league of football. It's been disappointing not to see that, but yeah, I think there's. You know, kind of a clear group group of running backs, who some of which I think could, could easily play, you know, an NFL preseason teams make NFL practice squads. You know, you talk about CJ Maribel on that stallions team. And then both Scarborough coming in, who has had a cup of coffee in the NFL, Matt Colburn, who, you know, People that have followed me, people that follow our content at ETR know, I have a love affair. With Matt Colburn, three touchdowns last week, he's been impressive. Reggie Corbin on that Panthers team, despite them not being very efficient offensively, he's been a really good running back for them. And then, then, you know, you've got the bowling ball in New Jersey with Derrius, Victor. He's he's an interesting watch. You know, big, big, short, short, but big and, and tough to bring down. And then Mark Thompson for, for Houston. I wish he was on a better team and because the offensive line just isn't doing a whole lot of favors for him, not creating much running, running lanes. For him to get through, but when he finds a man, he puts his foot down and goes. And it's fun to watch him in this league, that big body running in. And we've seen that on, on display a couple of times, but I think there's a handful of running backs here that, you know, are really, really good and really fun to watch. Yeah, Colburn is great. I mean, I remember he was in the spring league. You know, two ago, I remember he had like a walk-off. Pot return for, I can't remember if it was a kickoff for a touchdown or a pantry chair for a test shot. And I was like, this guy is a fricking star. I mean, that was two years ago. Like, I'm so glad that he is kind of getting, you know, some recognition for that now, because there are some of these guys, it had been like mainstays for years. That I I'm happy that this, I, I, I go back and forth, right? Like we want this to be a developmental league, right. But, you know, I don't want these guys to go on and then be sitting there, the practice squad, or, you know, you're riding the bench, you're getting paid. Like I would rather them be able to stand out here, but that's probably not what they want. Right. It's torn. Right. Like, what I like about this league is also like probably the worst thing about it. Cause the best players are going to move on and then maybe you'll look at PJ Walker. I agree. A PJ Walker fan, is that excited to see him comment at Carolina a couple of times a year, like. I don't know, not really. I in from a player perspective, you have to hope that eventually the financial incentives align. Along with, you know, what they w what you imagine, what they want as players. Right. Like I agreed with Matt Colburn. I don't think he wants to ride a bench, you know, on an NFL, but, but he's getting paid a lot more to ride that bench. Right. So you hope that if these leagues do find that level of success, where they can afford to play their best. Pay their best players more. You know, you hope that eventually those financial incentives align where the best players can stay in the league because they're getting paid well. Along with having that opportunity to play. I would imagine that all of these guys would say, I want to play, but if you're going to sign me up for an NFL practice squad and pay me four X or five extra, whatever you're going to pay me to stay here, I would take that opportunity. But I think there are so many guys that I would love to watch play at this level. You know, if we can keep it going play at this level, as opposed to, like you said, just sitting and cheering for them to maybe one day, get in an NFL game. If the guy ahead of him gets injured. It's all right. It's like with a problem, the CFL has, is. I've asked the majority of players would not choose to play the CFL if they had the opportunity to go anywhere else. Right. And that's the same thing with the USFL or the XFL, I guess that we need this lead to be around a couple of years in to be able to financially incentivize like you want people to want to play in the league and not have it just be a stepping stone. I don't know if we'll ever get to that point. Right. Obviously that's the million dollar question. And great with all of that, but. That's what I would like, because I like seeing these guys have success and there's nothing worse. I mean, like for the one highly key in the world, right. It goes to Washington. I mean, you have so many guys. You know, par, I mean, we can name the four or five guys, but other than that, it's really, it's like the 1% of everyone that goes on and I wish we could make it a better place for the other 99%. I know others have brought this up in the past and it will be cure. I will be curious to see what, you know, maybe the XFL does. And you probably know more with, with, you know, financial incentives. But others have brought up. What about a league setting aside a certain pool of money? To fund. Contracts for, you know, the bad to say the best quarterbacks, you know? Yeah. There's a base salary for every player. You know, 50,000, 60,000, whatever the case may be for the 10 weeks that they're playing. But then you set aside, you know, $5 million pool for the eight quarterback spots for the starting quarterbacks. And they split up that pool. However, that may be, and then once you start getting good quarterback play willing to stick around because they're getting paid more than they would to be in, you know, an NFL on an NFL preseason squad. Then can you attract more talent? Can you attract a bigger audience? And then can you start paying the rest of your players a little bit more? It would be, it'll be interesting to see. I wonder if the league would ever attempt to do that just to, you know, we, we know the quarterback position. Is the most important on the field? Obviously it all kind of starts there. Can we start. By paying quarterbacks more and then funnel that down to the rest of the roster. Once we have our fan base built up. Yeah. I mean, so the XFL 2020 did that. Right. They had like the base. Quarterback was like 250,000. Right? I think a couple of the guys got a little bit more like signing bonus is, you know, maybe like two 70. I know the USFL. I, I wouldn't say, I know, I have heard that the U S valley has paid some of the quarterbacks slightly more and not nearly the discrepancy, but I agree, like, you know, you can, I mean, I hear like Blake Bortles named, brought up all the time. Like if we can play. Hey Blake. Bortles, you know, 800,000, whatever the company. And then play it like, is that better than some of the guys? I think. I like the fact that Chad Henne. It shows to go to the CFL and not play in the USFL. You know, he's like Jim Kelly's nephew or whatever. I think they, I think the USFL could have paid to get him in if they wanted to. And they chose not to write. Yeah. And that would be the thing, like how many of these guys want to play here as opposed to sitting around on practice squads or, or going elsewhere. And if you can get to a point where guys actually choose to play there. It would be an interesting situation to have to actually have too much quarterback talent. You know, if that was, if that was ever a possibility, but it will be interesting to see where, you know, the XFL starts to pull from. And as the USFL continues to progress into year two, where that quarterback player pool comes from, in which guys that they start to target. I think they have a good mix now of. You know, electrifying guys with that rushing ability, plus some, some peer pocket passers and it makes for a fun, fun viewing experience. In my opinion. Before I let you go. USFL tweeted this out here since we've been on I've, I'm looking at it here. I want to get your take on it. I've heard a lot made about this, right? How competitive the games are. It says here 17 of 24 games. So far, I decided by one score, five games. You'll lead change in the final minute. At one point games, four consecutive weeks. I've heard it both ways, like I've heard it like too much parody is not a good thing. Right. And I've obviously you want games to be close to the, where do you fall at that of, of having the 17 of 24. Like, is that a good thing? That's an impressive stat, as we were just talking about how, you know, we think Birmingham is going to run away with this game against the Maulers this week, you know, maybe we get a closer game. Then as being projected by Vegas, I guess just anecdotally, I thought that maybe there had been more blowouts than we had expected. So that's a good tweet there by the USFL. I would say that having a good mix of parody and kind of these super teams like we're seeing is, is about as good as the league could expect. I think that everyone knows that the stallions. Are the best team in the south. Everyone knows that the generals are the best team. In the north and then there's kind of this group in the middle. And then the group at the end, and I think you want that. From a fan engagement perspective as well. Just think back to, you know, like, Stealing an NBA example, that warrior super team, right? We kind of knew that that was a foregone conclusion with Kevin Duran and, you know, dream on and clay and staff. We knew that that was a foregone conclusion. It's not exactly a foregone conclusion that the stallions are gonna run away with the league this year, but it makes for a good rooting interest from both sides. You have the, the fans that want to see this team succeed. One of, you know, the hometown team succeed. And then you've got everybody rooting against it on the other side, right? Because they're this powerful six and O team. You know, we want to see a little bit of these, these underdogs come up and maybe have a shot towards the end. So I think if your, in the USFL front office right now, you've gotta be pretty happy about where the league stands. I think having a front runner like this, that everyone can chase down that Birmingham is. I think that that makes for an interesting storyline heading into the playoffs. Any final thoughts before that you go, I really appreciate you coming on. I used to. Maybe we'll get you on here again before the end of the season. Final thoughts. Let's get Brian Scott back healthy. I am a big Brian Scott fan. Brian Scott followed me on Twitter. Send me a couple of DMS, just thanking me for, you know, just. I've engaged with him in. Some tweets and just been a big fan of the way that they play football. So let's get Brian Scott back and healthy. I think that the stars have a chance to run down. The generals in the playoffs, I would love to see Philadelphia versus Birmingham in the championship game. Yeah, Brian, Scott longtime, friend of the show we had in mind when he won the MVP back in 2020. Awesome. That's awesome. The big, I don't even think they called it. Cause the mega bowl was last year in the spring league. I don't know what they call. I think it was just like the spring league championship, but that was, did you follow with you that like they canceled the season because of COVID and then played the championship and the Orlando has had even on your radar. It w it was it wasn't, but I went back and, you know, it's really tough to find the spring league stats and spring league stuff. But I did fall in love with Brian Scott because of his appearances in the spring league. And watching some of the clips on, on YouTube watching some of the highlights on YouTube. He was an interesting player back then was an interesting player through the first couple of weeks of the USFL. It was, I was just, I mean, like as devastated as I can be for a guy that I really. You know, don't know and a guy that I haven't rooted for for a long time, devastated to see. The injuries, the sent him home. Because, you know, it was just, it was a joy to watch him. It was a joy to watch. That team and in case cook is a stepped up and played well, but I would love to see Brian, Scott get back. Yeah, the history of the TSL and they were in San Antonio and they, they like, they allegedly weren't feeding their players or golf. So they were going out to the Riverwalk and then they got COVID and it was all on the bubble. And then they had to shut it down. And we had, we had Bri. What the hell is his name? They the commissioner, who's the president of the USFL Brian Woods. We have Ryan Woods on the show and he was defending that and he was saying that, and we had Kent Shelby on and he was, I mean, this was like, this was the reality TV show. This was, I think, peak Marc cast about a year and a half ago, we had all this craziness going on. And who the hell would have thought that they all would be in the USFL now on Fox is pretty crazy. That's awesome. I'm bummed. I missed the spring league. Now hearing those stories. I mean, it sounds like perfect made for TV type stuff. I will send you the episode. It. I think it was called, like rip whatever. Yeah, I'll send it over, but Cody, I really appreciate this.

Episode 93 - Broadcast Wars

We always get all the good XFL set up to talk about how are you doing? You know, I'm, I'm doing great. And I'm really excited that, you know, the XFL has made all these announcements and I'm expecting a lot more to come, but yeah, overall just couldn't be happier with bleak and just how everything's progressing. You know, patients. Or good things come to those with patients. I appreciate you coming on today. Pitch hitting here, making time in your busy schedule. We're going to be talking about the new TV deal. I know mark did a little video on it. We've got some new stuff coming out, talking battle Hawks, and then Houston that's new south. It's come out today before we record. So first and foremost, the exit fail. Now let's say an exclusive multi-year broadcast agreement with Walt Disney and ESPN. Did you have a chance to watch the upfront video, the XFL posted to that? No, I have not because again, I've been so busy. I haven't seen the video, but I didn't see all the announcements. I saw the stuff on ESPN and again, Disney xFi. So I looked at all the platforms just as kind of see how they were breaking it down and yeah. I mean, I think it's great. You know, we talked before, when I was on here last about the USFL and you know, how big of a deal was to sort of secure those TV deals. And, you know, I just think it's great that the. The league is doing that. It's a great, a great step in the right direction again. Yeah, it's one of those things. Like I think we all expected this people seem a little poopoo. We on the announcement, cause we kind of like knew this was coming. I don't know. We're kind of in the spoiler verse, if you want, if you want to be info, hungry, XFL people. Then they use comes out. You know, it's the same thing with the cities, right? Like we kind of know Seattle now. So when Seattle's announced. I do we get excited, you know, it's kind of a weird dichotomy. We're in. Yeah. I mean, you know, We've got Seattle now. And then we'll, we'll get into a bit, you know, St. Louis and Houston, which were just announced, which are both two big markets and yeah, I mean, I think the cities will be definitely be the next thing. All of them. Officially. And then I think team names will come after that. And then, you know, the showcases will happen and then we'll start looking more at, you know, rosters. And the draft and then, you know, that's a lot, you know, to get to before really all of this, but yeah. So we had this deal. I watched, they posted XML, posted the Disneyland front. Yeah, XFL is going to be on ABC, ESPN with FX in there. It's it's a similar deal listener, Seth, our, our friend that's on it on Twitter. Sat that legends. If I say last name, right? TG master, he's saying. Satisfies and some of his TV friends, he thinks the deal is similar to the Fox or AB. The XFL deal back in 2020, where they're basically ESPN, ABC is going to be healthy with the production costs, and then they're going to be spreading TV revenue of the XFL. That's kind of new. That's come out. We're waiting on official word from the league. But I would imagine the similar thing, right. Fox is in a different situation where they own USFL. Yeah. They're able that you sell that you. Licensed it kind of NBC, however you on the look at that. But to me it feels odd. That XFL now is basically the same deal they had in 2020, just minus Fox. It feels a little lacking to me. Obviously, Fox is already tied up with USFL. Yeah. Again, that's the main reason, I think why we're not seeing Fox here because you know, we we've talked before about sort of the USFL and XFL might be in a competitive environment, assuming that. The USFL lasts until next year, but you know, I think ESPN is equally as good, just because there's more sports focused and obviously Fox. NBC and all those have their sports divisions, I guess like there's Fox sports, there's NBC sports, but ESPN, I think is really sort of the, the mainstream network. And that's where they're really going to make progress in terms of viewership because they already have, you know, sports fans tied in. So again, I just think it's great. And I'm, I'm really excited to see. You know, How the games are presented and, you know, maybe they'll use some new technology. Will. There'll be new rules probably again. I know you have, you've had. Sam on here who created the rules back in 2020. But yeah, no, I'm just, I'm, I'm really excited to see how that all goes down. Yeah, I, I wanted a little more yesterday. I tweeted today, you know, I thought it was a little snoozy. I, the rock was trying to do some comedy stuff. It didn't really play in the room. I don't know if that's the right demo. Right. You're trying to got these TV exact. Rock was doing his own. Announcing came out with Danny. It felt very much like Vince when Vince did the 20, 21 where it's like, we're going to have technology, we're going to have fan staff. We're going to have this. And. Ultimately battle all came to pass. Right? The man, I think XFL 2020 is like that as a success from a lot of the innovations they made, but that initial announcement for Vince McMahon in retrospect is very lackluster. And this had the same thing, like rock. Okay. We're going to have culture. We're going to have to do technology. Okay. We'll see you later. I mean, I know that this is the place for that, but, but it felt like nothing we haven't heard kind of come from the league in the last nine months. Right. And I mean, you know, the rock. And block is similar to Vince McMahon and sons. They have a similar background, but also just, you know, the rock is a guy that, you know, he's always been sort of on the screen a lot, you know, with his movies and the Superbowl, he did the kickoff announcement. So he's always kind of been that, that facial figure, if you know what I mean, and you like. Stand up. And be that guy, you know, he likes to be vocal and, you know, That's really shown again with these announcements, with the league. And I mean, I think it's, you know, it's good to an extent because everybody knows who the rock is and you know, that's a familiar face, but of course, like you said, you don't want to overdo it. And I think they do have to be careful because this is a sort of third go round of a league. You know, it was there in 2001 was there in 2020, and now you've got 20, 23. So you really want to get fans to buy it at this point and say that it's going to be a longterm thing. You know, they secured those TV deals, I think for. Four or five years doing. It's a good four or five seasons of content, which that instills confidence, but you have to present it the right way and say, you know, Hey. You know, we've got all these TV deals and, and this is. You know, we're going to have all these games on here and I'm, you know, I think that's, that's really important where you have to lay out that plan and they've done a decent job at it, but a bit more information would again, be helpful because we've been talking about that for a while now, sort of this, this buildup, if you know what I mean? Yeah. So we had the confirmed SA Saturday, February 18th is the kickoff that's been on all the whiteboard, the Danny posted back in October, but that's. Then the log, wherever they give a lot of this is confirming things. We've now Saturday, February 18th, 43 games. That's 10 weeks, four games at PS, two playoff games, a championship game. Going to be a Christ, ABC ESPN NFX. Are they going to be on ESPN plus potentially. It'll be curious to see how all these games are laid out. Right. Obviously ESPN or ABC carry a lot more weight than like FX or FX ax or ESPN. Plus you could get into the thing, like the USFL where we're relegating games. You know, peacock or USA. I mean, not all of the networks on the Disney tree are all equal. You know what I mean? Yeah. No for sure. And I mean, I. You know, we talked about it again last time, but you know, the USFL, like the, they say they have these screaming, the deals with MVC in. And Fox and things like that, but you know, like the peacock thing, well, that's not really UNBC again, that's an exclusive streaming service. So you have to be a bit careful with that because not everybody's going to be able to access it. I really hope that the XFL kind of breaks that trend and says, you know, when we say ESPN and ABC, like, we really mean it. It's not some sort of subplot former, you know, ESPN two, or maybe even ESPN three. You know, something like that. So I really hope they try their best to, you know, Find that audience and given, you know, the ownership group, again, just talk about the rock, how he loves to be sort of that facial figure in the media. I really think that that's gonna help and that he's going to put, you know, enough money towards that, to where we will see this on a larger platform than just, you know, the occasional mainstream game on, on Fox or on NBC. But then we're most of the games I'm talking about, the USFL. It would be on Fs one or peacock or something of that nature. Yeah. So if this is true, if they're going through the similar TV deal that the XFL had in 2020, and this is why it's important, far more reliant on ticket sales concessions fans in the stance, right? So if we're doing the modify, the hub, if we're flying the teams into the cities to play, like if, if ESPN and ABC are all they covering production costs and they're not paying the exit fell far more valuable for them to get fans in the seats, that's where they're going to make their money. And that's where they're kind of liver. Ever die because you have to be able to get fans and to pay because otherwise they're only breaking even with a broadcast. That's the only way they're going to make money on this is packing. You know, fans, whether it's in St. Louis Houston and trying to minimize the cost of that way. Because if they're not being paid by ESPN and ABC, that is a disadvantage compared to the USFL. I mean, yeah. Putting, putting people in seats. This is a huge deal. And that's, what's really, I think, in a set apart, you know, the XFL from the USFL, of course, you know, both of them have TV deals. Both of them have, you know, a few rule changes, which we expect to come and the expo you. You know, they've done some stuff that's a bit, I guess, advanced now with the showcases and you know, their partnership with the NFL is, again, I think a super underrated component. They have something with the alumni group as well. But yeah, no, I think we're really co. What it really comes down to is, you know, Well, again, it's this whole conversation about the hub format, right? You know, you've got all the teams playing in Birmingham in the USFL right now. But if you look at the fans there, you know, you're lucky to get a hundred, 200 people at a game. You know, when the Birmingham team's not playing. And in the XFL, you know, We saw teams, you know, sort of develop a culture because you had, you know, 20,000 or even 30,000 some cases, you know, fans in the seats and whatever stadium. I was talking to a Todd Schwab the other day, who was a. Linebacker for the Houston roughnecks. And, you know, we had a bit of a chat just about, you know, how it was a very fun atmosphere. To play in Houston because you know, they really pack the stadium. At the university of Houston. And, you know, just to sort of see that, I think that's a huge component, not only of the fan experience in person, but also when you're watching on TV, you know, you want to see if other people are actually there watching and indulging in the game. And I think, you know, in this era, if the crowd noise is actually real, because you see them often pumping crowd noise, You know, through the TV stream, like in, in the USFL. So I think that'll really be the game changer because if you play in your city, the bottom line is that you're going to develop a true fan base and a true culture, and more people want to support, you know, they'll buy your merchandise and more people will just watch the games in general, whether that be in person, you have season ticket holders, or maybe they'll be watching it at home on their TV, but that's okay too, because you're still getting those views and streams. And whatever. Yeah, I just. I think this is good, right? Obviously this is, was he expected? Move? Having Fox tie them with the USFL, I think is a big disadvantage. I, the one thing I'm curious about is this NBC thing, because. You know where obviously they're, they're not promoting the USFL, right. As much as Fox is Fox broadcasts, I think are understandably, you know, a little better staffed, right? It seems like they're a little more invested on the Fox side. It's still putting games on NBC in front of a different market. I like being on as many different platforms as you can be. I know in my wedding business, I'm on like Yelp and wedding wire and the nod and Google and everything. You know, even if some are stronger than others. And I think that Fox and NBC have a different enough demographic that I think that is valuable to be on two different ones where. Where it's ESPN. ABC ESPN. Under the Disney umbrella. I just, I do. I don't think it's going to be like a death nail to the exit fell, but I like USFL being on multiple different diverse properties that way, where everything's under that Disney umbrella. Yeah. And I mean, you know, on the topic of that, just, I think back to week one, when they had the simulcast for the first game, and I think that was really pivotable, pivotal, excuse me. Something that, you know, the USFL did, it was really kind of above industry standard, I guess. And I get your point, like, you know, being under that sort of Disney umbrella with ABC and ESPN could have some disadvantages. You know, Disney might have more of a controlling role where, you know, compared to the USFL where it was two separate individual platforms. But in my opinion, like Disney, I think is going to come to rule the world at some point. So you may as well develop a partnership with them, you know, as quickly as you can, because they're really starting to take over everything. And, you know, even if they have a bit more control and it might limit what the XFL wants to do in terms of possible expansion in the future. Through media. Of course, I'm not talking about physically, but you know, maybe that'll put some limits on it, but I mean, Hey, Disney does present a lot of advantages in terms of the media market and there can be a lot of promotion gain from that. And I think. Again, it's a good point. You bring up, but there's still a lot of positives from this. That I do like, and I do think it is very. ROC. S, I guess, as a term again, we talk about. Media and marketing. It's a word I keep using, but I feel like, you know, it was, it made sense for him to connect with a company like Disney, just given his background. And again, you're trying to compete with the USFL who has, you know, the two other networks kind of locked up. So it, again, it all just kind of makes sense to me. No, I like it. Yeah. Disney's going to rule the world when they write another. I, you know, there we have, I know mark and Perry had hypothesized. And NFL network deal or Netflix or something. Obviously they have streaming that, you know, they could do things with Disney plus. ESPN. Plus I live on a lot, being able to watch cracking games and stuff. I'm used to that it's not the most. Accessible platform. It's not inaccessible. I think it's, it's, it's, it's fine. Right? I think people are able to get on there if they need to. It's certainly easier than like a peacock eat a seven. ESPN. Yeah, that they advanced, I guess the ESPN plus premium or wherever the hell they call it. But it's fine. I just would've liked a little bit more creativity with the broadcast slate, but it certainly is a good swath of kind of there's a lot of different places. They could put things if they need to. Yeah, well, I mean, NFL network is another good point. I'm glad you bought that. Brought that up. Cause I nearly forgot about it. I would've really liked to see that too. I do agree that that's. I think one of the things that you know, was left out that was kind of significant because they had announced a few months ago, now this partnership with the NFL and then you've got the alumni academy and all this stuff, like you're really developing close ties with the NFL. You know what the USFL we've looked at, how big streaming is in terms of, you know, getting the actual product to the hands of the American public. And, you know, NFL network would be massive because not only, you know, does NFL network stream NFL games from time to time, but you've also just got. General NFL shows, content, fantasy stuff, all the stuff that sort of intersects and can really play a role again in the leagues development, you know, that they want to put together this sort of futuristic and unique product that really kind of changes the game of football. I mean, the NFL of course is the leading example. And having a partnership with them is big, but you really do need to capitalize on that. And I think. Missing out on that NFL network opportunity. If there ever was, one was definitely sort of a, one of the few misses from the XFL. So far, there hasn't been many, again, I give one a credit to this league, but. You know, I would've really liked to shoot up because that just, I feel like there's a more people that watch NFL network than you might think. And that just comes with so many unspoken benefits where, you know, if you have this partnership with the NFL and NFL network, isn't involved, well, you know, what else are you going to do it for them? I'm interested to see how that plays out in the coming years. Totally agree. Also, I saw comments online, you know, cause they, they said 43 games. Right. So is that, is that locking that the league into eight teams for five years? I don't think so. I, I assume even within the five-year, cause it's like it's 20, 23 to 2027. So do we count 22 8? I think it's a five-year four. Like it looks like it's a weird how they did the math on that, but I. I'm assuming like year one, too, right there locked in, maybe in year three with more revenue. The split changes. I have to imagine that they want to add to teams. So expand those. I do not think this locks them into eight teams for five years. I would not read into that number that way. Yeah, and I mean, on the topic of expansion really quickly, it just, I think I agree. It doesn't really lock you in because you know, five years is super long time. And I think it's the league does. You know, even if the league lasts two or three years, you know, I think there's an opportunity to move from eight to 10 teams. You know, the CFL is obviously trying to get from nine to 10 and maybe eventually 12, but that's a different conversation for another time. I think the XFL. You know, there's so many football markets that just aren't served, but if they can get their foot in the door with all this stuff, They're doing and all of these unique products and I really think expansion could be on the horizon. Sooner than they might expect. Again, with the USFL. It's, it's harder to do that because with the hub format, You know, adding more teams just creates. Yeah, logistical issues. You know, again, there's that whole fan base issue that I touched on earlier, where you might not have as director of a connection. So you might need to stick with those original eight teams for longer, but again, you know, we'll see, there's still a lot of things that the XFL hasn't announced. And there's still a lot of question marks where we can assume, but we don't really know. And I'm excited to see. I keep saying, I'm excited to see where this goes, but I really am. You know, intrigued because I've, I've liked. There's very few faults that the XFL has so far. I mean, I, I will praise the league, you know, constantly just for, you know, the way that they've handled things. And the rollout and, you know, the redesign very few things that I dislike, but, you know, wherever this goes, I'm definitely gonna support it. And this, the TV deal that we're talking about whole point of this conversation, you know, I think is really like that is of course the big step one. Can you get that? And can you develop a strong partnership and considering they locked it down for five years, that's I. I mean, that's just phenomenal. To wrap out the conversation, your city that is underserved NFL market St. Louis. We ever report coming out. Mark's got the article up on YouTube. Came out today. At KSD K's Frank Cusimano is reporting that at the Dom and America center, that's where you have the ballot. Hawks played is open to welcoming the XML back to town with the lead, the sec to kick off next spring. The DME has reserved five weekend dates for next spring for possible XFL home games in St. Louis. Not known yet. Right. If it's a, I don't know how they know those dates, unless they've been maybe talking with the league, right. Try to try to set up kind of the tentative schedule. What do you make of that with them coming out saying, Hey, we have reserved these five weekend days for the XFL to come back to St. Louis. Yeah, I mean, You know, One of the first things I can remember seeing this was months ago before. You know, any of the new XFL redesign stuff came out and before we've had any of these announcements as of late. But, you know, there was talk of St. Louis coming back, you know, as early as a year ago. And you know, all the St. Louis fans. You know, on Twitter or wherever it's been, they've been very vocal, you know, about a return. More so than a lot of fan bases, I think of course. You know, St. Louis really stood out. During the initial process in 2020, I'm just a fan base. And you know, they like you, you can clearly see it on TV. Like those fans were, you know, some of the most dedicated in the XFL kind of reminded you of some of those loyal NFL fan bases, like the Steelers and the Packers, and maybe even the Cowboys. You know, fan bases where the Raiders are, not the ones who just words. It's really about that, that culture component. And I, again, I've used this word culture about three times now, but you know, Teams like St. Louis or cities like St. Louis. You know, those football markets. It's really important to. Bring football back there. You know where there was a team before and now there isn't because that's usually where the demand is going to be the strongest. You already have people in that city that supported the team in the past. So, you know, putting a team yeah. Back in a city like St. Louis would just be massive. And I think that, you know, a lot of people are going to be in support of that because St. Louis I know pulled in some great attendance numbers back in 2020. Yeah, it's always been expected. This is good. I think as obviously they, they figure out these more venue things. That's why I think they're still a little bit away as from announcing all of this. But this, this all gonna come out right? St. Louis. Obviously we had the June Jones thing. Would you have Haslett up in Seattle and be the offensive coordinator here? The other news coming out, university of Houston and T D E C U stadium. I source from mark Berman, who it switches Fox 26 down in Houston. The university of Houston and the stadium will host games in the XFL. When the league begins play in 2023. That's per his source. You know, that was the exit fells. Headquarters kind of base of operations for 2020. Obviously this season it's going to be in Dallas Arlington area. They have all that set up, but to keep that presence at the university of Houston, right. To play their stadium and in Houston, what do you think about that? More smoke coming out from this city as well? Yeah. I mean, you know, Houston's a bit different because well, a, they already have an NFL team and B they've got a USFL team. And even if that USFL team isn't playing there this year, if the league last in the next year, you know, you could possibly have three football teams professional in Houston. And, you know, possibly. To competing at around the same time. You know, and that would be very interesting to see, because again, I think all of Texas is a great football market, you know, Houston and Dallas are two big cities. I'd like to see, you know, what. The headquarters in Ireland. And I'd like to see what happens in Dallas too, but ultimately I think, yeah, the, the Houston news is just as about, you know, equal to the St. Louis news, because. Attendance was great and Houston, and obviously they were the best team in the league. They produced a lot of great talent and people really liked watching the rough necks. So I don't think they're going to come back as the rough next, just because there was some trademark issues. That's a difference with St. Louis too, because I do think they could revive the, the battle Hawk's name. I don't know that there's any issues with that. But yeah, ultimately that could be. Very exciting because we could really see, you know, a bunch of these football teams competing, you know, some of them in the spring, some of them in the fall, all in that one city. So that could really be a leading example of what's to come. You. For years in the future. It's going to be curious with the ax. With the us about there. So just around this out, you know, Obviously the LA team likeness was reported. It's moving new. York's moving rights. We're expecting Vegas, San Antonio, and then Tampa bay moving to Orlando. I think we're safe here at T D C U stadium in Houston with the roughnecks, whatever you want to call it, returning. Choctaw is it chalk chaat? Choctaw. Yeah. In Dallas. Yeah. All by the renegades with every team. It is returning. Seattle team. I have to imagine it's at Limon field. I live here. I don't, I Memorial stadium maybe where they did the showcase, but I have to imagine they're going to be in lumen. The Dom and St. Louis. So we've got four of them there. We need to figure out where Vegas is going to play San Antonio. Do they do the Alamo dome? Is that that's pretty big. But by the be curious to see these are more dominoes falling before I let you get out of here. And the other thoughts on the Houston or St. Louis stuff or any of the other city venue things, maybe I forgot. Yeah. I mean, I'll just, I'll just end this with a comment about Vegas, because when I was on here last, you know, we had a discussion about, you know, that would be a pretty big XFL market, at least in my opinion. And, you know, I think in terms of venues there, there's the UNL V stadium. I think that's a bit. You know, outside of the city. I don't know if it's in Las Vegas or if it's some Henderson. I'll have to double check that. But I think it would be great for the XFL deploy at Allegiate right in Las Vegas. I know that's going to be a bit. A bit ambitious, just because, you know, it's such a big stadium and, you know, you saw teams like the guardians play at MetLife. And that seems to be a bit much, but, you know, I think with. The Allegiant stadium, just because it's so close to, you know, all the hotels and stuff. And because it's kind of right in the middle of all the action, I really think that would. You know, put the Vegas team above possible, you know, other teams in the league, just because they're getting so much tourism in that city already, you know, people might just come not as fans, but just because they want something to do that day. And I'll be very interested to see how the things team progresses. That is one team that I really have my eye on because a is going to be new and B you know, depending on where the venue is, that could really change a lot of things. So excited for that. Yeah, Sam Boyd stadium, right? It looks like it's a little north of Henderson. I think you're right outside of the state. Allegiance is so big. Other than if they can do Allegiate. There's that one stadium this across for the strip. I always, when we always go in, I was trying to find it on the map here, but anyway, that will be a discussion when we get the Vegas staff. You know, good news on Houston. Good news on St. Louis. Yes, sir. I always f**k up. I do my, I do my CFL SAF and I get all my Canadian names wrong. My pronounced. Nightmare. No worries. Okay. Well, I am very excited today. The prolific tweeter rider, you know, podcasts or YouTube or wherever. Whatever we have Ian Hartitz. That's here with PFF. How are you doing, sir? Doing great, man. Appreciate you having me on the pod. You know, it is the middle of may, but finally, with all these teams set, I feel like I'm in the thick of fantasy football off season. And at the same time, we have actual live games being played every single week and with the USFL. So I'm keeping busy. It's a great, that'd be great. Yeah, I'm really curious, like what your thoughts. Yeah, which tried to reach out to these fantasy guys, sports, Betty kind of different people than the normal kind of USFL Twitter. I existed. I mean, whether it be your thoughts so far about the season, I've really enjoyed it, man. Like the biggest hate. Or pushed back. I kind of see on it, like I'll post a highlight of a sick one handed catches. People are like, oh, look how the stands are empty. Like get over it, man. It's I been games in Birmingham. I'm not surprised that people aren't lining up to go sit in the stands for hours on end, you know, kudos to the USFL for seemingly making it pretty affordable. And it seems like for the, when the Birmingham's down. And they're playing. They get a little bit better turnouts, but anyone that's watched it, like we have had the pleasure of doing. It's actually been okay. Enough quarterback play shockingly. Good. I would actually say it like, yes, it's relative. It's not the NFL. It's not called football. Guess what's not on right now. The NFL and college football, like anyone, no one that I've ever talked to that appreciates the USFL has been kidding themselves. Trying to compete with the NFL. It's a completely different sport because it goes on at a different time of the year. So I've really enjoyed that. I think some of the production quality has been great. The broadcast teams are being able to just actually watch the games on cable. You. Pretty easily. Has been nice. Helmet cams have been incredible. Some of them miked up moments with the players talking s**t. I've got a great time with a man and you know, again, if people want to go out there and just complain about it, not being. The NFL or call it football. I would just say it, like give it a chance because I really, you know, oh yeah. This was the last time I was looking for 20 games been played so far. 15 of them had been one score game. So the hat. So to have that sort of parody in year one. Love it, man. You think the quality of play is good enough that if, if you're not the hardcore football fan, if you tuned in on, do you think by week five now it's at the point where we're like, okay, this is competitive enough. What is the hardcore football fan? Cause I see all these hardcore football fans on Twitter, just complaining about like a freaking to a throw to Tyree Joe or stuff, or, you know, talking about a schedule release. So whatever freaking nonsense the NFL mainstream media pushes across on a day-to-day basis. What was it yesterday? Dalvin cook is getting snapped as a wide receiver. Like we jumped through these same dumb hoops, every single off season. And when we actually get a chance to have live football, play, people have the audacity to stick their nose up at it and say, it's not. Good enough football for them, man, miss me with that, I'll take high school. I will take USFL. If I see a couple of kids playing flag football across the street, I'll probably give it a long block before going on with the rest of my day. All right. So you said. Eh, quarterback plays good. I know you're XFL, right guy to live through all that. Like. Grading the two, I think the USFL is probably a stronger quarterback class overall than the XFL is. I think PJ Walker was better than the best court then probably at Kyle's floater has been the peak of cows loader and the USFL was miss salt. I would say the USFL was beeper overall with some of the quarterbacks, but probably that. PJ Walker, like some of the things he was doing, I never really thought that he was going to translate to the NFL. Just, you know, It wasn't the hottest take in the world. My God, we're talking about sprinkling against, I'm not hating on the guy, but like his play style, which is very entertaining. Like almost a lot of his big plays were coming when he was holding the ball for three plus seconds and he was athletic enough to get away with it. So just like the highlight BOMA, PJ Walker was better than anything we've seen a slowdown of these guys do, but yeah, man, everyone's kind of had their moments. Tamara Smith with Birmingham. You know, really just hoping that him and Deandre Johnson are finally the set guys for their teams. We solved the Andre with New Jersey. Finally get to play the whole, whole, whole, whole game. You know, he's been splitting with Luis Perez, who to be fair. He's out a couple. Okay. Moments too. That's the thing with all these guys were talking about quarterbacks that most of them aren't even like 25 years old. They haven't had a chance to start games for years because they had to go from college to the bottom of NFL, Def charts. So, you know, when I saw Louis Perez play in the AAM, I was like, my God, the sky is the slowest process. Assessing ever. He is terrible, but then all of a sudden I'm watching him in. Different portions of USFL and it's like, yeah, he's gotten better. It's allowed for that. To happen only disappointing things. I would say having the injury to Brian, Scott and Philadelphia, like by far the most past happy team. You know, case Cocus has come in and done some good things. He makes a couple of great throws down field every game, but I was really liking what we were seeing out of the stars early on. Now they're just looking like probably the worst defense in the league pair with a bit more inconsistent offense. And I want to see a little bit more out Jordan. [unknown]. And the Tampa bay bandits last week, probably his best game of the season. He's been flashing a little bit more, but man, just, you know, for a team that was really favored and people were expecting a lot out of that offense with him and Todd Haley early on. I haven't exactly, you know, been killing it so far. New Orleans breakers. And of course our undefeated Birmingham's downs deserve most of that credit and the generals, you know, run the hell out of the ball to. It is fun to see New Jersey going so far against the grand because we get so caught up in that you need to pass the ball all the time and in the NFL, when you have the best players in the world, and they're so efficient at doing it, it does make sense to throw the ball more, but, you know, college, high school USFL. If running the ball and you're really good at it. Like the generals are not the worst idea in the world either. Lots of lots of react to it and a processor. So you think Kaslow, you think he's the best quarterback in the USFL? Yeah, man, he's honestly had some flashes in the preseason. Like you. At some pre doing this league, like the quarterbacks he was with for his like PFF passing grades. And the preseason was like my home's Justin Herbert, like the best of the best. And we can all see who the outlier. Of that group is obviously, but I mean, for someone that has already been bouncing around rosters, it's just been great to see slaughter go out there and slung. It mentioned, you know, Brian, Scott, DeMar Smith, the Andre Johnson, these guys know some good things as well. Clayton Thorson makes one or two really good throws a game. And then you look at his stats at the end and he had like 125. Passing yards, Shay Patterson actually played well last week it's been a disaster otherwise. And then for the Maulers, I actually really like what Josh Luv was doing, but they cut him and now he's on the Panthers. So I have no idea what the Maulers are doing. I'm happy. They finally got their victory. First one of the season last week with a guy named badly under center, who they literally signed like six days ago. So like you have to have the confidence to basically cut Josh love in favor of Magoo and then the poor and the poor McGill. That much quicker. Yeah, not, not great for the Pittsburgh Maulers but Hey, keep doing new, I guess. Well, that's the thing is, cause you were going to say, you know, the stars, right? Bar address, like not surprising that he's kind of able to adapt to this. You know, he did the XFL team nine and he did the, the spring league and all that, you know, Kirby, Wilson. It seems like he has no idea what's going on. I mean, this is like pure lock-in of athlete came in and it was like an all star this week. He's just getting lucky that he has two of the best wide receivers in Bailey gay there. And Trey Walker. I mean, these guys are coming out there every single week. And just making one play after another. I mean, Walker for those games I gather was out, was getting like 15. 16 Targets and making the most out of it. And that was the other thing with, I mean, that come back last week, like watching. Did badly just playing like a chicken with its head cut off out there, man. Like. It was a look, eight minutes laughing. He just pulled off one of those, like getting sacked. I'm going to throw this ball back across the field. And it was a miracle. It wasn't picked even the first touchdown to gay. There was like thrown in double coverage, but. What is the one is a win, but yeah, really just, you know, Pittsburgh. Maulers when I previewed the league with Cody, may we did like a 90 minute pod. Like they were the one team that was just easiest to see like, okay, this is going to be an off man. That's just going to be old school. And what do we see in the first week of the year, man, them lining up with like nine offensive linemen or some madness. So it's a, it's unfortunate, but at least we got those two wide receivers to look forward to watching. That's the great thing about this league, man. Cause that Maulers game, that was between the Maulers and the gamblers, in my opinion. You can talk about the Michigan Panthers, but the Panthers are one in four. Would they like a plus seven point differential? So they're bad, but. In my opinion, the Maulers and gamblers are the two worst teams in the USFL. And for them to have a game that went down to the final play, like, I'll take it. That's your two worst teams and that's the product we get. Sign me up. Yeah, Bailey gave there's weird. He was one that I got in. We did fan as he threw a Mark Perry with extra Bellevue PSAP. He has this new set fantasy, and I basically just picked guys that had been on the show before and I got. It's something that happened and I got kicked out. And so that was my auto draft. Is this Bailey gave I'm like who the hell? I got to try that. Yeah. I'm like looking at social stuff like, well, this is a mistake. He has a, he's probably one of the most productive guys I have on my fantasy. He has been crushing it, man, gay there, and again, his teammate, Trey Walker, Victor Bolden, over at Birmingham, he's been doing a lot of good things. Former NFS. A former NFL or, but it's mostly been the new Orleans breakers passing it. And that's how it's been the most impressive. Best player in the USFL, Jonathan Adams, Jr. Wide receiver for the breakers. I mean, some of the catches he's put on film. I really think that we're just going to see him continue to ball the hell out over these next five weeks. It's one of the most past happy or offensive floaters, the best quarterback and looking at their, you know, round participation and stuff every week Adams is, you know, far and above the rest. You are also good. Sean Poindexter, Johnny Dixon, former Ohio state guy. He's been, you know, I think he might lead the league and receiving arrows. He didn't putting up big numbers, even God, Taiwan tailor former Tennessee tightened. Wide receiver out there making plays as well. So I still think even though there's three and two, like the best version of the New Zealand breakers, I still think is the best team. And the USFL Birmingham is really, they live on that pass rush. Offense has been a little bit up and down. New Jersey has their thing, but. I want to see what happens to New Jersey when they actually have to play from behind one of these games. So, Hey, you know, it's, it's good. If you can keep the lead the whole game, more power to you, but I just wonder what the Andre Johnson. How well, this run for style and you know, a little bit more gimmicky or offense, you look at the play action, stuff like that, how that will actually do when you just need to put up points in a hurry. I think I appointed extra. I think he was someone that tweeted out today. He got a fine cause his pant legs were like that. That's. That is a Brian Woods moment, then I'm just like, God, like you just, you guys can't get out of your way sometimes. Come on man. Like w what are we worrying about this for NFL players? They always talk these receivers don't wear knee pads. Then none of them do. I don't know why it seems terrifying to me, but I don't know at the end of the day, Those little styrofoam pads, probably aren't doing much when a helmet comes at your knee full speed in the first place. So we're really worried about uniform violations in the USFL. Let these guys. Whatever the hell they want. You, you can't go more than a player with you without seeing one of those dope visors. And that's probably a medical red flag. I remember in high school, you weren't allowed to wear them because if you get hurt, you know, doctors can't see. Your eyes into your helmet and condo appeared. Okay. So like, come on, we're worrying about what we're talking about. A guy wearing where he's wearing a socks. Come on. In terms of, you know, quality of gameplay here, midway through, I had people message, Hey, yo, let's do check-ins and kind of figure out, you know, a week of like, are we. Are we at a good spot? Team-wise have we progressed? Or do you feel like halfway through the season quality of play, you know, interest, everything else? Like how are you grading the overall USFL experience right now? I some DFS hiccups the side early on the year. Oh man, for me, I love it. I'll give it an Hey, f**k it. Like I'm, I don't know. I'm not judging it by either viewership numbers from what I see are good, but I I've never cared all that much about it, man. It's it's just weird. Again, the people that are like seemingly trying to side, like with the NFL over these, like. You just players trying to play like football. It's very strange to me, but I've seen it in other spots. I'm a really big, I'm a Mayfair now. I love the UFC. That's easily the premier organization in the world, but you'll see like in, on Twitter, which, you know, toxic place, whatever, but you'll see like UFC, you. Fans like hating on Beltour one championship and these other organizations and yeah, like they're not as good, but it's, it's okay for other people to make money doing this sport. Like we don't need the. Be sticking up for like this, the league or the brand or the billionaires, whatever you want to do itself. You know, I've, I think all eight of these teams, as we've seen, you know, all of them at least have one win and even the bad ones, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Houston. I mean, though. Probably Philadelphia. I think those are your bottom four teams. Like even they'd bring something to the table every week and the trick plays are out and about. That's been fun, you know? Seeing these offenses be willing to spice things up, man. I've I've been a huge fan of it. I am concerned. And I don't like to, I tweet more of the rating stuff that I even really talk on the podcast here, just because it gets people kind of conversing online, but it is concerning to me that ratings are going down as gameplay is going up. Right. Like this last weekend was the best weekend of games. I've had many people tell me. And it was like, that was all time. Lowest ratings they've had so far. That is concerning to me that not as many people are seeing the good games now. Isn't that how, I mean, I'd be curious. Does NFL ratings go up as the season progresses? I know I've seen like the fan, you. In our content meetings and s**t, like I've seen the fantasy interest. And from obviously we've won, it's out of peak and then it just steadily goes down throughout the year. So now it's not ideal. And we have the XFL. I'll be curious to what happens. What happens with the XFL? Cause they want to start on February 27th. They have the ESPN backing. The Rock's gone crazy. You know, it seems like they have a pretty good spot. And I think their plan is to go city to city. So I would imagine that lead to some better attendance, but if the USFL wants to stick to April or even push it back a little bit to may, I know they're trying, they don't want to hold back players from having chances to get into NFL training camps. So I think that's the risk of pushing it too far back. But man, sign me up for a year round football here. I'm deciding. Hey. Take the ratings and go down, whatever, man I'll be watching. Did you prefer the February or the April by guests? I just interviewed here. He's like, absolutely stay away from February. I'm done with football and then now it will give me all of it. No, I don't, I don't have time for basketball or these other silly sports, you know, I'll throw a baseball game on just to take my mind off of the world, but. Hello. Football. I'm on football. We're going to watch. We watch college. We spent three freaking months talking about these damn rookies coming into the NFL. And if you look historically like they're not going to make that big of an impact, the overall majority of all these guys we talked about, if you literally just took a line at the end of the third round and then just scratched off everyone that was picked beyond that, you're going to be, have a pretty nice hit rate of guys not making an impact next year. So did it's what is it February? No. I think people are just, they're afraid to compete in the football industry. Man, get out there, watch these games. Ignore your family for a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. It's four games a week. Four games, you know, easy. It is to catch up on that. That's a Sunday afternoon of an NFL sleep. We can have that whenever any month of the year, this shouldn't be a year round league. Now I I'm at that too. I like this spring. I w I'm an NFL guy. I'll tell you, NFL network content gets really thin, like this time of year on like post drought, like we've got the week out of the schedule. Right. And now it's like, oh, we are, I think good morning football was ranking quarterback, strongest arms or something. And I'm like, But it's all and it's all the same. Right? I. I guess it's, you know, Alan Mahamas without I get sustained less each day, just with a different adjective around that. Like. That's what I wish when the XFL announcers step this week that they would have maybe had something with NFL network or Netflix, like being on the ESPN Disney thing. Does that do anything for you with the XFL? Yeah, I guess, well, NFL network, you know, they're not going to cover this because they don't show any of the games. So it's too bad. Good for ESPN. And we see a skip. It's just how it works, man. And, you know, skip and Shannon. Talk about USFL for a segment cause they're on Fox and Fox out of some of the USFL games. So I'm sure, you know, even though ESPN shown no interest towards USFL, there'll be all over the XFL because it's in their best. Interest to do so. So that's just kinda how it works and you know, I'm sure PFF will keep providing grades for all of it. So I'm happy to continue to spread the good word. Anyone else willing to watch. It's hard. Yeah. It's hard where these networks now getting involved, it's like, we're pretending like, you know, this. I get Rappaport. It's like, wait, what is all this. It's like E like, you know, these other things exist. Like, can we please, like, not it's. What is USFL like? He. At McAfee show. It's like let's I don't like that. I don't like pretending that they don't know. So I didn't even hear about that. That's some b******t and, you know, rap sheet. I think he's been, you want to talk about no. Like seriously, the rap sheets, someone, I, in my opinion, like if you looked at the Shafter verse rap sheet, a leaderboard three years ago, and now look at it, it's either flipped or, you know, you can say it's a lot closer. It's been a good year. Good year for rap sheet, but yeah, that's some b******t. They're always just trying to find something that's going to get the clicks. You know, he was saying. Oh, How he wished the Sam Howell, like chicken nuggets story would have been released earlier. It's like, dude, this was out last year. It's just some, I don't know, man. So. Whatever. Hey, he provides a great service for all of us. I'm happy he does because my God is someone that has worked news before that grind is so freaking stressful, man. I can't imagine just the amount of notifications phones going on. Never having a second to sit still. But it's like, come on, man. Give us something. What, what p****s me off about this? We have now during this period of the year, Instead of just letting teams announced the decisions that are being made. We have reporters like trying to win it. When this I don't win. What I don't know, we're finding out about the same damn rookie contracts that aren't even different. And haven't been for the last 10 years ever since they put the rookie wage scale and, and we're having a national reporter. Break the news that they signed the contract only to have the team then tweeted out 10 minutes later, officially. And then we have to of course have the national Porter quote, tweet that, and then say, oh, now it's officially official. It's like, what on earth would we do without these reporters breaking it down first? And I'm not trying to hate on reporters or beat writers. Specifically for their job because there are great ones at it. But man, during the season, you see teams as tweet out injury reports and all the beat writer, does it tweet out the exact same injury reports like, oh, thanks. Like this is. Use your damn platform, use the extra access to give us something. Give us some investigative journalism, no copy paste, whatever the hell is happening like that we would, I don't want to hear something from them that I would find out a minute later from the team account. That's all I ask. Nothing. I want to stick ideas about, but I will say the Sam hell that he doesn't eat steak. Right? He'll eat chicken. That was as a Washington football fan. That is. That was the most insane story I ran all week. No. I know, and it's interesting. I was just wrapped. She was saying how, like, he wished they would, this had come out in like March and they could've done a whole show on it. And it was like, well, if you're dug for it, actually. Was out an entire year before, but no, yeah, that is a, that is crazy. He said he won't even try it. Like what the hell man? That's the, that's the worrying part. Yeah. For my life, that's listening to the same house who is like what? The fourth round draft quarterback. Right. Like he he's never eaten meat, never eaten steak. He only eats chicken nuggets. That's all or chicken tenders. That's how he does not sound like a it's like, it sounds like a, he voluntarily signed up to do the Marinovich plan and just like freaking starve himself for the good of his NFL career. So. We'll see. So top teams, generals, I've heard, are they taking, you know, I know Birmingham has the, the home, the home team and I hit vantage with the crowds, but. Do you think generals, is it their game to lose now? I think there's a big three. I think Birmingham, new Orleans. And New Jersey are the top three teams. And then I think there's a tear break. And then it's Tampa bay. You could argue, Philadelphia is in there when Brightwood. He's doing his thing. Yeah. It is right now. Hey cook. This'll be okay. So I put Philly narrowly there behind Tampa bay, and then probably again, the bottom three teams are going to be Pittsburgh. Michigan and Houston out of that. So it's it's, I don't live. New Jersey. The fact that they seemingly have made the full switch to Deondra Johnson, who, despite his flaws as a pastor, like he's not the most. Beautiful pastor ever, like, but the thing is, people hold that against like guys like Lamar Jackson and stuff, and they're like, oh look, you know, it was a broken coverage. They just bet on the play action. Well, those are things that happen when you're as good of a rusher as these guys. So, you know, the Andre Johnson, like they really do lean into his play style. And if they're going to continue to do that over the course of a whole game, there were tough office to defend. They're not. They're not this unimaginative run first off offense. They have Covanta Turpin. Who's like a slot receiver, but he gets a handful of carriers per game. They have, you know, basically like there's thunder and lightening. Mix-up going on there with a Derrius Victor, but you know, just being. I'm in comparing them to a Doug Martin. He's like the USFL, his muscle hamster out here that dude's a bowling ball. And then we got Trey Williams doing really good things, catching the ball, kind of being the more of the lightning back there. So just a lot of different looks I can give you on all offense. When they, again, when they can play with the lead, I have no problems. We just haven't really seen them have to trail. I mean, they're only lost came in week one that was in Birmingham, came back and won. Kind of in the final minute with that DeMar Smith. Come back. So. New Jersey. They deserve to be number two, you know, they're the only other form one. They're the only form one team, Birmingham being five and now, but I do just continue to lean towards like the best off fence. The highest subset offense is counselor in the new Orleans breakers. I mean, they just kind of had some. Weird luck, dude, for that. That Houston game. They had like 530 yards of offense in 23 points. Like if they can just run hot for 60 minutes, we can see that like, they're the only team I could see, like putting up 40, 50 points without too much of a problem. That's sort of upside their passing game. Has. Birmingham, like I'm happy that seemingly Jomar Smith is going to get that full-time job because he is the best quarterback. And Birmingham. Oh yeah. He's he's with. I think I said earlier, Magoos on Pittsburgh. I met Kyle Lou, let us, sorry, guys messed up one of these names, you know, even I'm not perfect. So, but yeah, it seems like they're finally going with Tamara Smith, which is great. The thing about Birmingham man, like. Some of the cool PFF stats we have behind the scenes, like their pasturage isn't another world compared to these are teams they're pressing a. Pressuring opposing quarterbacks on like literally close to 50% of their drawbacks. You're not seeing any other defense like hired like 33, 30 4%. So with that, Birmingham is N any game, because I think that pass rush can just take over. You know, we've seen, resulted may do it to my homes in the super bowl. A couple of years ago, even someone like Cal slowder, as we found out, he can get slowed down in a hurry when they're on their back, the whole damn game, but with Lamar Smith and not offense, I just don't know that they're gonna be able to keep up with the team. Can never, again, just keep that pass rush at bay for 60. 60 Minutes. Is, I, I feel like the breakers are kind of that under. I dark horse, I guess. Have you called, I mean, I think the Birmingham. I think part of the vicious being in like that premiere, like it was the first game and it's the generals in this sense, I don't feel like. Breakers get enough credit then. Yeah. I mean, looking at the breakers on the season. And maybe you're giving them top three in the league, which I have to agree with. And I think, I think Philadelphia is falling down to stab. I mean, I think cookies is fine. I think people are really optimistic that Brian Scott's going to be back this season, which would be interesting to see if he did like a week eight or nine return. The one problem with the stars. They do throw the ball up. I think what you see, and this is a real thing that I think maybe we can do a better job quantifying, but when you're throwing the ball all around like that, There is something to be said about your defense, just getting worn out and having to run back out on the field, not having any chance to freaking show because your offense is just trying to. Keep their foot on the gas. And when you have cookies, you isn't bad, but Brian, scholar's running that offense. Just, I think a lot. Better and more consistent like cookies. Again, he's hitting on a couple of the vertical shots per game, putting up a few points here and there. But just hasn't been quite the same consistency that Scott had. But luckily my PFF colleague, Eric eager has been tweeting out some EPA numbers from this lovely league and all seven of the eight defenses have allowed a negative EPA per play on defense, which is great. That means they're, they're doing a good. Philadelphia. Knock it, they are by far the worst defense in the USFL and, you know, EPA per play. And then even on offense, you know, they're kind of a middling fourth unit. So you want to put them again? I think, think they deserve to be in the same tier at Tampa, but to me in new Orleans, they're only two losses are two, the two other best teams in the league and New Jersey. And Birmingham. So to me again, I want to chase that often. The website, demean new Orleans acid. I felt that people were a lot higher on Tampa going into the season, right at the Todd Haley Evans with taboo and everything. That connection. I it's just hasn't are they okay. Kind of the middle lane of the road, they just haven't hit their peak yet. They've been, they. I'm embarrassed by new Orleans back in week two. And like that was their low point. They even like subbed out to Yahoo for someone named Brady white, who. I've never heard of up until that game. And he was in there since then. They've been back to only Chiama out there on the field and they've gone to him. One, the games I've been a little too close for comfort. Last second, when over Houston is not very good, you know, 27, 20 against the Panthers last week, that's a game you would have liked to see that. Maybe stretch a little bit more than they couldn't pull off the w against Birmingham, which is understandable. But we have started to see stretches of Tiara looking like the real deal. And that's what they're going to need to be overly competitive because the scan doesn't. Seem like. Anything overly imaginative, but Hey, the letting them do flea flickers on the second drive of the game, he's making big plays happen out of it. So that was the concern kind of coming from the XFL. Because again, as someone that watched all those games and grind it probably way more than I even needed to, but with the St. Louis Battle Hawks with Yama was on there just overwhelming amount of play action, RPOs, low average target Def, and it worked, it was a, you know, kind of a. It was a, not all that creative scheme, but they just, they did a few different things. And it worked out for them fun, but coming into it more about like a pro-style offense and Tampa bay and what Todd Haley's doing, hasn't been the best star for it. With [unknown]. Jamo can get that on, on the end. I mean, again, and week four, that loss, they had the Birmingham though, the one touchdown he threw when he was rolling out to his right. I mean, that was a true NFL throw, in my opinion, one of the best ones. Of the season. So if he, that's why I didn't want to, like, I think Tampa bay as a team probably deserves to be almost in that bottom tier, along with Michigan Houston, Pittsburgh, but because of Chiama what he's showing still, I think they're right there with Philadelphia. I'd be down to put the stars ahead of the bandage that they have blind Scott though. I just, yeah, I think people thought to Yahoo. I was just going to like, come in and like run circles around everybody, you know? Not quite, not quite, that's been the, honestly, the Andre Johnson more than anyone. I mean, how about that dude? And the things he's done former, former last chance use star now seemingly getting the BD guy under center last five weeks of the year. We'll see, man. It's good. I mean, do you think he get. Getting access coming out or getting kind of visibility coming out. You think he's the top of the list? You know, I think stock-up, I just don't see, you see him throw the ball sometimes and it just sometimes we'll, you know, go, it seems like the wrong direction. About 10 yards. I don't know if he's ever going to be quite pure enough as a passer to really get the chance to make it happen. But at a minimum, maybe he does get like Jordan, Jordan Gian was sort of like scout team opportunities to help things out. And the NFL, I think Kyle slaughter in this league is the only quarterback that's really going to have too much of a chance to go back and make an NFL. Def Sean, maybe John. As well, because he's already had those, but I don't know. You kind of a lot about scheme, I've heard. Yeah, critiques, you know, we're bringing in these coaches, not all of a bit head coaches before some of these guys are older, maybe not the most electrifying in terms of play calling and right. In terms of like putting that. The actual product on the field. What are your thoughts on that? The coaches and the play calling. You know, we, we, we s**t on the Pittsburgh. Maulers a little bit, I don't think it's been that terrible otherwise. I mean, even Jeff Fisher with the Panthers, you know, we've seen them doing some fake ponds, trying to get, get the squad going. I mean, they should be. Again, for them to have a positive point differential at one and four kind of tells you all, you need to know they should have won. And on week four they missed the 21 yard field goal. That's the one thing we haven't talked about, the single worst part about this league has been how atrocious these kickers have been and how the. You know, off offenses and some of these old minded coaches refuse to adjust for that. And, you know, for these kickers to make as big of a fuss as they did after week one, because of all the new technology and the balls. This is why we're missing our kicks. And then they come out over these last four weeks and continue to be absolutely dreadful, missing way too many extra points. Chip shot game winners. Like not it's it's ridiculous, man. I need to pull up the stats. I would guess these kickers are like 60% on everything this year. It has been atrocious and yeah, so I've always been team band kickers and never more than this man. Just eliminate them from the game. I think we would all be better people. For itself. I kind of forgot what the question was, but cannot get, I have gotten enough of kickers. Please get them out of my beautiful league. Well, Mike, now he was advisor. Michael was a punter. If it got caught from the Panthers, I mean, he was not, he was not a place kicker. I mean, that's this. I heard that I feel see, I couldn't have made the cake. I couldn't have made the cake. I heard a lot of people say I got all, I could've made that cake. Kicker though you have one job, man. You're getting paid to make that kick, make the damn kick. It is the most one dimensional job in sports. They don't even practice with the team half the time. Cause they usually have soccer, some other s**t going on. They show up for like 10 minutes a week and then they expect to make this chip shop fuel, go and get carried off the field. Like you're the hero? Like, are you freaking kidding me, man? They literally stand there. They take three steps and swing their leg. If asked to do anything else. It's like a fish out of freaking water, like, think about like, what's the comparison to like another sport. I'm trying to think of another thing. So useless, like the bat boy and baseball. That's like, you know, maybe they have the, some P they have the kids sit down the down the foul line. Maybe they have to go get a ball from time to time. It's not goalkeeper. Like that's actually important, you know, you're trying to fend for the entire team you're out there on every single play. Kicker is just that they walk out on the field for like four times and the amount of people that actually, you know, try to treat them like they're worth a damn for making a freaking kick is just ridiculous to me. I'm going to plead the fifth here. I don't want. So I'll tear gas, but I accept, I accept here. I'm done with them. I'm done with them, man. You guys develop announced today that they're expanding the rosters, right? 38 to 40, and then you got seven practice quite that's going to be 10. Like thoughts on that? Cause a lot's been made of not having enough guys on defense, not having enough, like special teams, right. Not being able to have two or three quarterbacks for each. The stars don't even have a backup quarterback right now. At all. So, I mean, what are your thoughts on them? Expanding the roster out? Yeah. Price on the shirt on earlier, but credit to them for getting it done now. I mean, that was what was so great about that team nine and the XFL just kind of keeping those quarterbacks and the free agents engaged and, you know, just accepting that, Hey, we're going to need these guys at some point, you know, you can't just go through the year expecting there to be no injuries or anything like that. And as we've seen, man, the easiest way to produce a bad football game is to have back GB play. So, yeah, man, I'm all, I'm all for it again, kind of. I wish they would have done that a little bit earlier, but it is what it is. I just hope that we can get these. Maybe, maybe something resembling a little more information on it. I mean, that's the one annoying part. I mean, obviously the infamous Reggie Corbin game, where he was supposed to be inactive and he's gone off and that's happened a handful of times. So, you know, like you're the biggest fans of this league are a lot of DFS diehards and people trying to make money on it. And to just like, you can't even get out to those people. So the team accounts usually do a good. Job, you know, they, I, they send it out like 2:00 AM, whatever, but they let you know who's coming in, who's coming out, who's questionable. And then before the game who's out there, but you know, God wouldn't kill you. The USFL, you can't even get usfl.com. Someone else has that. I've accidentally gone to that website plenty of times, but give me an injury tab. Like give me something here. Like that was one, one of the cool things about the XFL two was they had, I remember them having like pretty much the beat writers for every single team. Like the fact that we had to go into this season, knowing nothing about. Basically these dev charts and stuff. It just didn't do us any favors, like, please just give us this information. I'm happy to talk about it. Can't do much. If you're going to be saying that, you know, guys that are active or inactive and things of that nature, though. It's it's a stubbornness that. Baffles me to know. And like, I just, it. It'd be one thing. If you know, they were getting 2 million every week and they're fricking YouTube, like they give RJ Yon hitting. He gets out. He was getting all these views. I would be like, yeah, I mean, who the hell are we? And whether my, the critique, all this. But we're not, you know what I mean? I want, at some point I want the deep dive into the 2:00 AM roster release, whatever. 'Cause I don't like, are they up at 2:00 AM? Are they trying to like bury it? Is that like his like fan controlled football, like kicked out the Greg Miller and all of them. And then I can now. I could midnight cause they're like, well, we don't want anyone to see. It was like when they would do their 5:00 AM, press. They would do their news releases at 5:00 AM. Pacific. And I I'm emailing their media people. I'm like what? Like who. Not even if you're on the east coast, are you ready to do this s**t at eight in the morning, I'm getting up at 5:00 AM to do USFL press releases to tweet them out. Dude, it's terrible. I would love to, normally I tried to start doing my research and my article previewing the upcoming week on Wednesdays. It just seems appropriate. I'd like to get it out there and give people a couple of days to digest it. And now it's like, all right, wake up Thursday. Yeah. And start like going crazy on it in the morning. And hopefully, you know, in the next, usually only 36 hours or so people have a chance to consume it. Cause we usually have those Friday night games. So I kind of wish they'd get rid of the Friday game as well, especially that one at 10:00 PM. Like, come on guys. I can't. You know, I got the, I got the, I got the fiance. She's taken the last name. Heart. It's, it's tough to really convince her to let me sit around Friday, Saturday, and Sunday watching USFL. So I really like when they go to games Saturday, two games Sunday, and yeah, man, spare me the freaking threat and release. You're not practicing at 2:00 AM. Just. You clearly hadn't decided what was going on at some point in the afternoon. Why they can't just send that out at that point remains incredible to me. I would, I would normalize the schedules a hundred percent. I don't care if it's every Saturday, the afternoon game is on peacock or it's on Fs one or peacock premium. Like I don't care, whatever it needs to be normalized. You can't have this like, well, it's on at noon on E. On NBC and then the afternoon ones on Fox. And then the one that I can't, I can't even, I have the email here that they sent out today. I mean, I can't even keep track of. We have Saturday one Eastern are these outfit. They don't even have the channels with them. We got NBC NBC, a one. And seven 30 and then 12 and four on Sunday. Is that NBC and N a F F a Fox. On Sunday, it's Fs. And Fox. I don't even have this on the email. They said that they don't even have. The networks on it, they say Saturday. I'm looking at the website. Hey, the good news is for week six and week seven. They are done with the Friday game. So I think I didn't see that the, I'm not sure how last week's Friday again did, but I remember two weeks ago, like, okay. Yeah. So there's two weeks in a row, the Friday games doing terrible, like. The, yeah, the ones in the afternoon seem to be doing it. Right. Which, which makes sense, man. People. They have things to do at night, man. It's. I can get behind a 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM game away more than these nightcaps. I don't want to keep you too long. Anything else you want to make sure we chew on here before I let you go. Nah, we're good, man. Probably, you know, cave. The USFL fan out there, everything they want. Yeah. Just again, like if it's not your thing, if you have other things to do in life, enjoy the sports. Go ahead. But I just spare me the competing with like this USFL, NFL. These are ultimately a bunch of guys whose NFL dreams didn't work out and they're just happy to be playing professional football. So like, when you, who cares about the people in the stands, listen to the players, talking to s**t out there and like still giving it their all, both Scarborough was back playing in Birmingham. He looked like he couldn't cook. I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world out there. So for me, it's just a great opportunity and I'm happy that, you know, even if it's not 10 million people, it does seem to be hundreds of thousands and maybe even a Millie here. And they're also enjoying it. So good talking with someone else that appreciates this lovely lake. My man. I very say Ian Hart is. Thank you so much for coming on and I'm sure, like I said, people will check out your articles, all the previous stuff. Cause they don't. Eh, I, I talked with God. Bless. Jessica Freeman last week with run the sips. Like that was the same thing. Like if. If you're not, if you, as the league, aren't going to do written up features and articles and stuff every week, like at least give the people like you that are doing that work, at least give you guys the research. You know, tools that you are able to, to do the. If you're not going to do it, it doesn't cost anything to tweet out the roster. Stop at 8:00 PM and not 2:00 AM. And like, that's what it's going to cause people to like, not come back when you have something like that happen. And that's just the biggest problem. So yeah, it's just basic roster information and it really is crazy, man. Like even the NBA hasn't figured out like injury reports yet. So it's not even one of those things that we're necessarily USFL. Yeah, no problem. All right. It's hard to find like USFL people to talk to about this s**t. Oh, I'm sure. Cause I got to do. I do three or four guests a week. So I got to find like I used to have, I used to have a co-host and so it was a lot easier to kind of fill the time. So. Yeah, that's a lot of USFL talk. Well, we do CFL. The CFL players are striking. I mean, there's always stuff going on up north, but yeah. Got it. Well, I'm very excited today. We have Adam Levitan here with establish the run. How are you doing, sir? Hey, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I've kind of fallen down this spiral of getting involved in all you smart people that you fan the sea and analytics and everything else about the league. So this has been exciting to kind of find new people to talk with USFL about outside of my normal crew. Yeah. I mean, I. Yeah. I, I it's people, I don't want to hear it, but like I'm out here to make money. And so if there's football out there and there's markets, there's betting and there's, and there's fantasy, like we're going to be in there. So, so yeah, I, I think that the same stuff that you can apply to the NFL can be a flood. The USFL with, with some understanding of the changes for sure. So, what is been your we're halfway through the season now, right? We're approaching week six, like overall thoughts, USFL in general. How has it been for you? Oh, I think the player has been better than I expected. The quarterback player has been way better than I, than I expected for sure. And, and overall the placement better than I expected. I think the issue for me that I have the USFL is like, there's been no innovation whatsoever. Like there's nothing really different to me, at least about USFL and the NFL is just like, Minorly like we're spires and worst coaches, you know, so I wish that they had done some cool stuff. I liked some of the stuff the XFL did with various rule changes and, and all kinds of cool broadcast angles, and different things on the broadcast. Like to me, the USFL product is just. Worst version of the NFL, which is still cool, but I was just hoping that they would go, go, go for something different. How, you know, cause we, we live in this USFL, Twitter, right? We've never talked about this, except just kind of scheduling you, come in on, like, you know, you hear the USFL is coming back. Like, was that exciting to you? Is it, or did you just look at it like, oh, it's more football to bet on in the, in the spring. Yeah, exactly. I, I think, yeah, I like spring. Football because the market isn't solved. In other words, like, you know, in the NFL, like edges are going to keep getting smaller and smaller it's covered. So, so, so, well, you know, every injury, you know, every coaching tendency, you know, people who are trying are a lot of hundred to get to the same. Place with their NFL projections and stuff like that with the spring leagues. I mean, nobody even knows who these players are. So if you put in the work to understand the coaching tendencies, to understand how they're going to play, what their run pass ratio is going to be, who's going to be have the biggest target share. What was fluky the week before, like that stuff isn't out there as much. And so it's just a way bigger opportunity to make money. So, I guess before we get too deep, but what is established around? What do you guys do? Yeah. So we cover fantasy football, basketball, and golf from mainly a DFS perspective, but also, especially for football season long. Perspective and yeah, I think that we have a good mix of guys who are very, very data-driven and would like never, ever watch a football game in their entire life. Everything is. All projections and predictions are built through models. And then we have a mix of guys who like to watch the games and, and understand some of the soft skills stuff. Understand what's going on with rotations and reading newspapers and understand what beat writers stake. And so, yeah, we try to put all that together and, and I think we come up with. The best projections and rotation projections that are out there for sure. Where and where do you kind of fall on that? Between data and football, loving. Yeah. God. I mean, I think that there's different things. When I watch a game, I'm not like, oh my God, you know, like this guy just caught a 90 yard touchdown. I can't wait to get all my money on him next week. You know? I think your eyes can deceive you a lot there. I think you can pick up things when you watch games. Like for example, an NBA. Seeing, you know, one guy plays 30 minutes. Another guy plays 30 minutes. It's not the same, you know, one guy might close the game and another guy might only play in blowout time or something like that. And like, understanding. That kind of stuff, I think makes a big difference. I try to mix it. You know, I don't think that I'm like a talent scout or anything like that. I think. 99.9% Of people get into big time, trouble. If they try to say. I found this guy. He's the outlier. He's going to be a superstar. Like that's, that's hard to beat the market on like the market should, is already pricing all that stuff in. I think. The big thing about the USFL when they announced this and working with Fox and they say, well, Hey. It's not going to be attendance base, right. It's going to be TV broadcast. And then we're really going to lean into like sports betting. Right. We have Fox bet, all that. I CA I stumbled upon you originally because of Jeff. Edelstein. Who's a friend of the show. He covers sports, Betty that you and some other people had had voiced some frustrations, right against the league and transparency with rosters and transactions, all that stuff. I mean, is the league doing a good job kind of catering to you guys and what you're trying to do. They just say nothing. I'm fine with that. If you want to just make it. Hey. You guys are on your own to find out information. And then, you know, I used to play WNBL pretty seriously. I would go to girl's Instagram pages and see if they're like in a cast or something. Cause there's no information out there. You know, there's no beat writers, just like for USFL. There's no beat writers. So they were just wanting to say, Hey. Throw it to the wolves. You guys got to figure this all out for yourself. I don't think that's the best move they could make. But I would've been okay with that. Having wrong information out there is just completely unacceptable, like to say guys inactive and then have him play. We don't know. Who's starting quarterback for New Jersey. Or Birmingham a lot, you know, we didn't know if Magoo were or Jaymar was gonna be a starter last week. Like, I feel like you can. You can help your product a ton. By just telling people who's playing clearly. Like, I don't think that the leagues and NBA the same way, like, I don't think they understand. Like what percent of their people are watching because they're playing fantasy or they're betting on the game. And if you want to help them feel good about their bets or their fantasy, you need to know who's playing and who's not. It just, who's starting. Just tell me who, who started the game. It should not be that hard. Is this guy active or is he not like, that should not be that hard, but you know, so that was frustrating over the last couple of weeks, I think after. Everybody kind of theorists. Think about it. They've been better in the, and the reports have been accurate that the teams have tweeted out. You said, you know, quality of play decent, right? Where you were you expecting better? Were you expecting worse? I was expecting worse. You know, I thought the quarterback playing the XFL was worse than it's been in the USFL. I thought. You know, and I, and that's what Brian Scott getting heard. I thought, you know, Brian, Scott didn't play great before he went down, but I thought he was unlucky a bit and, and would have been fine. And, you know, I mean, I think the quarterback play has been. Way better than expected. I mean, I knew slaughter. Would be good, but some of these other guys, you know, like JMR Magoo, Deondra Johnson, like th these guys have been better than. Then I think I thought they'd be and yeah, Tom, who's been fine. And. You know, Yeah, it's been better. It's been better. And it's so much football comes out the quarterback place. So for them to find, you know, Spy reasonable quarterbacks for the league. And that makes a huge difference. Do you Aussie neither by football. And are you just watching the USFL? What was the one? They, they, they appreciate that the docu series that United by football? No, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen, I know what you're talking about, but I haven't seen it. Ryan Scott was like a star on there. He was like I said, if, if they, if this was survivor, he would've been voted out first because he was like running around. Like this and off the wide receivers and they call them like a team meeting. Like I Brian's been on the shot. I mean, Brian's a funny guy, but I was like, I thought he was a bigger star, but he was, he was playing really well. It was sad. I mean, cases looked really good though, right? For the stars. It really seems like, I mean, I know they lost it the General's right last week, but it really didn't seem like they've lost too much of a step. Yeah, no. And, and some guys on our team, you know, we have like a four man USFL team. They think that couscous is just as good. If not better than Brian, Scott, I kind of disagree, but yeah, cookers has been fine. I've been. So disappointed with the stars though. I mean, I've lost. So much on the stars. This team has been the death of me. So, so yeah, I'm frustrated with fucus, but, but, you know, They just keep turning the ball over. They had the penalty. I don't know if you guys watched the stars getting out of the penalty last week. I mean, they could have gotten the ball back. They get roughing the kicker on a punt and to try to tie the, I was just so frustrated by the stars, but yeah, I think, I think Scott's better, but cookies has been fine. I think that people and we've had conversations this week online, like I think people look at the XFL quarterback play a little bit rosier that maybe it was, you know, we had Eric alkaline last week. He was a director of player personnel for the XFL. You're talking about all the stars that they had. It's like Cardell really? Wasn't a star, you know? It was good. You had PJ. I mean, I do think overall USFL is equal to, or better quarterback play. I mean, I don't even think Tommy was that good in the XFL. I thought Tommy was just like, okay. I thought he was played a little bit better here. For the bandits that he did. In the XFL and yeah, PJ was obviously absolutely. Sensational Cardel was not good. So. Yeah. I don't know. I think that the quarterback plays deeper now, obviously like what's going on with Michigan. And Pittsburgh and Houston to some degree for in the U S Vela has been bad at the quarterback position, but you know, it's not like so egregious. Validly coming in, had a good game for the ballers. Right. Brought them to their first. When did you track that at all? Before he came into the USFL? Yeah. No, I didn't know much about him, but anytime a quarterback can run the football, like, like he can, I mean, your floor and ceiling is raised from a statistical perspective. And so yeah, I'm excited to see what he can do clearly, like. Pittsburgh. Wasn't going to be able to throw the ball and they didn't want to throw the ball at all. And then like, they, weren't gonna be able to throw the ball too well. With Aleta or, or Josh love or whatever. So I like going to gladly and getting the Russian guy in there. We found conversations. I think it proves it for the spring leaks. You have to have a mobile quarterback, right? The. The line just isn't strong. If you got to have someone that can kind of run around. I I, yeah. And the NFL is, is adapting to that also, you know, I mean, NFL was taking more and more rushing quarterbacks early. You're giving more and more. Russian quarterbacks starts, but yeah, I mean, you see when new jerseys. Doing right now. I mean, I mean, Deondra Johnson is a legit like NFL caliber quarterback, rusher of the football. Like he's so good. When he runs and yeah, it makes a huge difference. And under New Jersey defense has played well, but I mean, yeah, to me, like, I guess they're the favorite now to win in and Deondra Johnson is. Is huge reason why obviously. Yeah. Are you kinda, you know, obviously he came in late, but Perez coming in and E G. Got the start, but now has seen me like kind of lost that position. Right. Oh, I think I, I think you gotta be crazy to go to Perez. I mean, press the press was bad for New York. On the XFL. I mean, yeah. He he's, he's not even for spring league. I think Luis Perez is like, Bob below average. And so yeah, if it was me, I would play, I would play Deandra Johnson, the whole game. You're going to I'll say it again. Luis Perez is like a king Stan. Like the XFL fanboys. Yeah. I'll be happy to hear that. It's Martine the Lewis for as his good name. I'm sure he's a great guy. I just, I didn't think he was, they think he was good for New York. Yeah, they, in fact, he turned around the franchise there. He was in the spring league. He. He took the job of service to the, the mega bowl championship game they lost, but he was, he was the way. The fall that loser quarterback in the mega bowl. I mean. He's probably, I mean, he's definitely better than Shea Patterson. Do you think he's better than, than Clayton Thorson? Thursday has been kind of not, not super consistent either. I. I would take Louise over Thorson, but that's just me. I might be. Okay. What about, what about LA Leta or, or Louise? Probably Luis, right. Yeah. Yeah. It hasn't been great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. So he's probably about average. I see you said gender was really impressive. People wanted us to kind of do like, you know, we're halfway through this season. I'm like, I'm not going to like grade all the teams, but teams performing maybe better than you expected. I mean, the band that's, I thought like TAMU was really gonna come in here and run the table and he really has struggled a little bit to get this flooding. Oh, yeah, I don't, I. I thought Tommy was overrated as a. As a player anyways. Sorry. I'm just pulling up the odds here. Yeah. I think that I was lower on Tampa. I was higher on, on the stars. I mean, I thought the stars would come in and be the best in the league. And maybe, you know, I can make an excuse and say I was only wrong because Brian, Scott got hurt, but they were losing a little bit before then anyways. So I, I, maybe I was wrong there. I still think the stars. Our better. I was worried about Shea Patterson that turned out to be true. I, I thought Pittsburgh will be better. Than they are. So that other ones didn't been disappointing and. Yeah. You know, I thought new Orleans has been about as expected. You know, slowder can obviously have some really big games and obviously they have something with. Jamal Adams. So. Jonathan Adams. I'm sorry. So, so yeah, Northern has been impressive for sure. What do you make of the Michigan thing? I mean, they have the weird kicking staff and you have the punter and. Michael go. And Jeff Fisher. Yeah, it was kind of the big fan favorite coming in, but now it seems like he's a little lost. I mean. Yeah, Jeff Fisher was like the laughing stock of the NFL. For a long time. I'm not sure that he's doing a great job with Michigan. They also took shape Patterson. First, overall, I believe they had their. They had first overall pick that could have taken to any quarterback. They take Shea Patterson, I guess. Cause he went to Michigan. But like that doesn't really matter when all your games are in Birmingham anyways. So I don't know why they were like, it was pretty clear. I think to everybody that slaughter was the best. Quarterback or TAMU and they go Shay Patterson, just like a piece of hometown fans, but the hometown fans don't even exist. Cause all the games. Or in Birmingham. So, I mean, that just was like a disaster from the start. What do you make of there's a lot to be made of this, either bubble, attendance, all that. What do you, I mean, where you're watching this purely trying to make money and set, but does that affect you? The attendance and the crowds? Yeah, it looks like s**t. I mean, yeah, it looks. When people are watching the games on TV, it looks like. Like, why am I watching this on TV? No one even shows up to the game. I think it's bad. For the product for sure. To have a huge stadium with. With the 95% MPC. I don't know what they can really do about it, but yeah, I think it looks bad for sure. Well, they tarped off the one end zone. I think they need to tarp off the other end zone. I think they needed a tarp off the top of the things I saw I was working last weekend, but I heard that they were even tried the kayak shifts, some of the fans to the one side like they do in WWE. Right? Like, let's move them all to the camp, you know, hard cam size or whatever, so we can make it look a little bit better. Yeah. I'm not a TV production person, but there's gotta be something they can do to make it not, not look as bad or playing a smaller stadium, you know, or something. I don't know. It's hard. Cause like I said, it's one of those things you turn it on. A perception is reality. They're giving away a beach towels this weekend for the gays. If you go without entice you, if you lived in Birmingham to go to the USFL game, to get free beach out. Probably not, but I would go to the games anyways, because I like it. But yeah, I don't think that's gonna entice someone who wasn't going to go to a game to go to the game. I in terms of the broadcast staff, right? Like you said, In terms of the rule innovations were, were very similar to the NFL for better or worse broadcasts were doing the drone staff are doing the mix. He has some stuff carried over from the XFL. Obviously the drone work is a little new, like, does that do anything for you from a football watching? Not really, like, I would've liked to see them like. Force every team to have. Three wider sheers on the field at all times, or like for, you know, just, I don't know, try different things, like try something new. I don't even know what the answer is by trying something new that isn't the NFL with worst players, you know? So I don't know exactly what the answer is because it still has to look like football and you want to use to be able to compete on a, on an even playing field. But yeah. I don't think that just having like straight minor league. Football. Is necessarily the best answer and like they're gonna compete with the XFL suit. And I'm sure that the rock and Vince McMahon and ESPN, whoever else is going to come up with like some things to entice fans, you know, it's going to be. To me, USL is fighting. Like if it was just right now, like head-to-head, I would bet on XFL to beat out USFL. Just because of the rocker because of time or because of, yeah, I think cause the rock and I think there'll be more innovative and their promotional stuff will be better, you know, they'll understand more like. I don't think the rock and mystery man with. A hundred thousand empty seats or 50,000 empty seats be on TV, you know? They so USFL on my Fox, right? NBC pane, the air, the games, USA peacock. Them announcing the XFL that, that Disney ESPN ABC deal. Right. W, what do you think of that? Just from like a, a TV landscape with football and, and kind of getting the most eyes on the product, if you notice. And now they don't cover USFL at all. I mean, they don't even mention it. They act like it doesn't exist. I guarantee you that when the XFL is there, that'll be on sports center. There'll be showing highlights. There'll be showing top 10 than we talking about on ESPN, because ESPN has an investment in it. You know, that's just business. That's just the way it works. And so obviously ESPN has. Massive region. If they're showing XFL stuff on sports center, people are going to be more likely to turn in. Tune into the games and they'll be able to talk about it in the morning. They're betting shows. Whatever, you know, like it makes a huge difference. Do you think that Fox having locked into just all their properties? I mean, NBC does a little bit of the broadcast, but blocked in really the Fox it's on con coward. It's on. Like skip and Shannon, but I mean just limit their broadcast reach. Yeah, I, that stuff's just not as popular as ESPN. Right? So then our reach as many, as many people, I mean, you say what you want about ESPN, but to me there's still like the very clear leader for the casual person who just wants to like. Catch up on sports or watch sports. So, so yeah, I think it makes a huge, huge difference. Looking forward here at the games, like you said, do you think the generals are favor? Like, are you tracking that in terms of like favorites to, to win the, what is it called? I don't even know if we have a name for the championship yet, but like the championship game. Yeah. So two teams from each division are gonna make the playoffs. So, you know, anything can happen in one game of football, but I mean, to me, either Birmingham in New Jersey, Are the two best teams right now, probably give a slight edge to. To Birmingham, but I mean, the stars could have beat Birmingham last week and I had a bet on the stars. Last week, which is obviously a loser, but man, it was so frustrating. Like stars legit had plenty. They were winning 17, seven. You know, Oh, God. I mean, at the end they just choked so hard and bad, bad penalties. And so I don't think Birmingham's like unbeatable. My favorite bed I, that I took this week was stars 19 to one. To win it all. I know that they're not going to be the number one seat in the division, but they're still really likely to make the playoffs. The stars are. And so, you know, can they beat. New Jersey and Birmingham back to back to when all like, not likely, but better than 19 to one. So I like that one. ELA. And it stars. It's been, they didn't score the second half of this game. They didn't score. I think the second half of the last day, it might've just been two full. You know, games worth of games. Game's worth of time now where they haven't been able to put any points on the board. Yeah. So, I mean, so frustrating and CA. So frustrating for sure. I still think that they have like, One of the best schemes. I mean, they're actually running an NFL style scheme. I mean, they're throwing like 70% on first down. Nobody else. Third more than like 55%. Their third rate of expectation is so high and they have really good weapons. I think. So. So, yeah, I mean, I still think the stars are good. They feel like they've been on lucky, but maybe that's just my bias. In terms of the, the sports, Betty and landscape. Are you able to track like, is a USFL popular? Like are a lot of people, cause you said you liked the USFL. Cause you're smarter than the room. And you're able to go in and kind of write like Pitt good bats, but is it, is it resonating in that world? I don't know. The action on, on DraftKings for DFS has not been great. They started off with really big. Contests in week one and interest just was not. Enough, they look, they made it smaller in week two. They still didn't fill it. And now they've kind of settled into kind of a small range. Of contest, you know, something on the same level of. Of probably soccer, hockey. Maybe a little bit bigger than WMB. So, yeah, somewhere in that range. Does that surprise you? I was optimistic that it would be more popular because people love football so much. But yeah, it surprised me that it has been more popular, I think. Yeah. Cause just cause it's football, you know, and people just loved to bet on football. Cause that's. Yeah. Having discussions all week, you know, ratings are down and it's a lot of like, well, yeah, the rain doesn't matter. Yeah, but I think like, yeah, and I'm trying to gauge this from a variety of things. If sports betting and interest is down, attendance is down. Ratings are down social media track. Vic is down our podcast, listens, talking to USFL are down. I mean, are you getting, when you post your content, are you getting good traction on USFL stuff? Not really. No. I mean, you know, No. I mean, people. Yeah, you're right. As the season moves along, there's less and less interest. Right? So like when we add a lot of interest in ahead of week one, you know, and people really interested and then. I think. They're not ready for the grind in the spring. Maybe are there. They don't know the players or, you know, the games are on a tough time for them or whatever, and it gets to week five and they're just kinda like over it, you know what I mean? And, and yeah, that's going to be risky. And to. Fair like. You know, The dog days of the MBA. Seasoned aren't that popular either. You know, it's like people are excited the beginning and they're excited for the playoffs, you know? And so that's, I think with every sport though, But, you know, I, I don't want it to be this way. I mean, I, I, yeah, critique because we're trying to figure out ways to like improve it, but you would think of the 10 week season. Week six, we'd still be able to have some generates some interest. I dunno. It's not like it's an overwhelming. So I have the CFL season here. We got 23 weeks or whatever, right. No, you're right. I mean, we're already in the second half of this season, so, so yeah, you would think, but yeah, I just think people. I mean gambling too. Like. People think that it's gonna be easy money. They realize that they lose or whatever, and then they give it up, you know, like that, that just, that just happens. In terms of quality of play. I think this week was considered maybe the best in terms of like watching football so far. You know, coming the week five and you know, I, a lot's been made okay. With trading camp, maybe could have been longer, get these players ready to go before week one. I mean, do you find, you know, ratings are going down, quality of play is going up, but maybe not as many people are seeing it now. Right. That could also having the fact. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I don't think people realize how, how good the play has been, you know, and, and I think there's some like legit NFL prospects. In the league too, at the skill positions, you know, and, and it's hard for these guys to get a chance, but I think when people think of it like that, they can get more. Excited, you know, but like, even like Donald Parham and. I mean to me, Donald Park is like a legit NFL tight end, but they just have not let him, the charges have not let him like get the full-time role. They, they had Jared cook and then they. They let you know, Jared cook gone, but they signed Gerald Everett. They're just not ready on par. I mean like a lot of times these guys get stigmatized when they're on drafted, where they're in spring leagues, they just don't get. The chance. So, yeah, but. I don't know, man. You know, the quality of play has been good and you're right. People probably just don't respect it enough. Other standouts from the USFL, like you said, there's a handful of guys that you see. You know, showing up on, cause this is a dream, right? Go through USFL, wind up on the NFL. Who are you looking at this as standouts. Yeah, I tweeted a list. Let me see. I can find your, I definitely had Jonathan Adams as like. Number one. Yeah, Jonathan Adams, I thought what, like clearly an NFL prospect, like clearly to me, Jonathan abs can play in the NFL, whether it's like a number five or six receiver. I think at the running back position like Reggie Corbin, I know he's in like a timeshare, but man, If. Reggie Corbin looks like an NFL. Running back to me. Victor Bolden. Yeah, he's had, he's played in the NFL. I think he's can definitely. You know, be on someone's practice squad at worst. Bug Howard's been in the NFL also, you know, If he can actually play the tight end position, which is harder in the NFL, because he's going to be asked to block like defensive ends and stuff. I'm not sure if he can do that, but there's a lot of guys in the end, I found out like tight ends, who don't even go in line like micro sicky, like never goes in line and maybe bug could play that. And. Mark Thompson is one who like. You know, I mean, mark Thompson's. Good is NFL caliber running back, probably just cause I don't think that like, those kinds of running backs matter too much in the NFL. So I think Mark Thompson could be Leonora third or fourth string early down back for someone to, and yeah, that was just kind of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's other guys too. And, and there's other skill guys that non-scale guys that I don't really look at that I'm sure, you know, have some chance also, but again, it's, it's hard for these guys. They get stigmatized and then when they get to the NFL, they're just like so easy to cut. They're not making any money. You know, so it's just hard for them. I mean, do you think we should continue this experiment? That was spring football? I made it it's hard because I get what you're saying on both sides. It's like, you want to give these players opportunities, but then like you said, they do get sick with. Where do you land on that? Yeah, no, if I, if I was one of these guys and NFL, wasn't give me a chance. I'd for sure. Play. Yeah, spring ball, because you will get a chance you will get to training camp. You'll get, you'll get a chance. In preseason. You know, it's hard to become a starter, but like Donald Parham now is going to make, you know, 800 K a million dollars a year. You know that that's, that's pretty damn good. You know, so. Yeah, I think they, I think Ally's guys deserve better, but it, you know, it's better than not playing football. I was looking at your tweets here too, trying to find your list on. You had. We yesterday about the XFL announcement and all that. Do you prefer from sports betting football interests that February window for kickoff? Or do you like the April window for the USFL? I prefer April because by the end of the NFL season, I'm so burnt out. I'm just like looking for, for a break basically. And I think a lot of fans deal that way too. Like I think there. I think it's dangerous for them to start right after the super bowl. Like, you know, NFL season is over, football's over. People are like, all right, I'm going to go back to my life now. I'm not going to revolve my life around football. And now you're gonna tell me that I'm expected to watch another league. Now that starts right out as you bro. I liked the idea of starting it later. I can barely get my wife to, I. I can barely get her back on track by the next NFL season. Let alone I'm like, Hey April, like I. Got unless the stallions play right now. I mean, It's hard. Yeah. I mean, and I think that's a major reason for like the lack of interest is just like, Hey man. I've concentrated on football from August until January. I need to, I need a break until next August. I was going to tweak this. I never did this week because I've seen a lot that. I yeah. A lot was made because the Birmingham game was like at 11 on Sunday and people like the old people are in church in Birmingham needs to be better. And I'm like, maybe be able to just have s**t to do. Maybe I don't, I can't go to 10 home football games here every Saturday, Sunday for 10 weeks. Like maybe I got to go to the grocery store. Like I just, I mean, we live this. I mean, usually I just, people got stuff to do. I got to go do chores. I exactly like, and I don't even like watch a lot of the games because like it's the weekend and I, I'm not going to sit here and watch, you know, Every game, but yeah. I don't go out of my way to watch them, but when I'm home, I watched them, you know, I feel like that's what a lot of people. I feel like I. Adam, anything else before we let you go, this has been, I guess I like getting the. We live in this world. I like getting these outside perspectives. Right. You're looking at this from a totally different viewpoint. I appreciate that. Yeah, no for sure. Thanks for having me. No, I'm. I don't really have much else. I'm excited for the playoffs, I guess I'll say. And hopefully I'd had 19 to one and to start, even if the 19th one hits, I'll still be down my, on the stars, but maybe. It would be closer to breaking even on the stars at the 19 to one to one to get there now. Are we talking like hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars. Like, what are we talking here? Yeah. You know, you're, I've been able to bet, you know, my accounts are, are, eh, I'm not a good example. I, you know, a lot of my accounts are limited. But if you're just off the street and you wanted to bet a, you know, 500,000. I doubt you could get more than that on a USFL game. You know? Yeah, you could, you could. No problem. We have high you rent $500,000 in the USFL games. Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I would bet more if I could, for sure. But, you know, it just kinda, you, you get. When you bet this stuff, you know, like I bet WBAA and I bet, you know, player props and, and all kinds of other, like, kind of niche stuff. When you bet this kind of stuff. You know, and you win the sports books, don't like it. And so, you know, My max on, on most sites now is, you know, a dollar or $50 or something like that. That's just the way it is for people who we don't bet sports like. If you bet this kind of niche stuff and you win. Ah, it's not your counts. Aren't gonna last long. Let's put it that way. I think my freshman year roommate in college, I think lost $10,000 over freshman year gambling. And that was like the most money that I rare, never in my life. I mean the, you know, that's the sports books dream, for sure. So, yeah. Don't don't do that guys. All right. Well, let's do it here. I'm sure you're busy. Well, they told me that the XFL talks were the worst thing that's happened to the CFL, but now this is officially the best, worst off season ever. How are you doing Jim Mullen? Ah, I'm a. I'm B mused. Well, you know, watching all of this play out is frustrating. I'm sure it's frustrating for the, for the players. I'm sure it's frustrating. For those with the, with the Canadian football league, we hope that there's a. A quick resolution to this. I think this is playing out a little bit later than when we're recording it. Maybe it's all resolved by the time. People are or resting their eyes on this. So. You know that, that's what we got to hope for. Yeah. And so that's the hope. And so, you know, we were going to talk, I was going to do a segment last week. If they felt like they weren't going to go forward with it. I thought it was too uncertain. I think we're all under the understanding that this is going to resolve itself. Sooner rather than later, whether it's today or tomorrow, you know, the preseason game ride this Monday. I think I saw so. But I wanted to have Jim on, cause I wanted to have a conversation. Like what does this mean going forward? Cause I don't think the season is in jeopardy. Right? I don't think anything. Right. We're not canceling mainstream games. Right. But, but let's look at forward here. I like the relationship now we have. With the CFL and the CFL PA, and then also the CFL fans, I'm kind of interested in. Well, let's talk about the, the agreement portion. What I can, I can hope for, for what's in the agreement as a, as an interested third party. You know, through football, Canada, the thing that we've worked on now intensely for the three years that I've been president and a couple of years before that is all about player safety. And, you know, throughout the sport. We want something that's, that's consistent in that regard. To supporting athletes no matter their age, no matter their development. And then include. That includes professional players, which are a tier that's out of our reach, but, you know, we're, we're very much. In the same house on that in terms of player safety and how you support those players. You know, when they do get injured. So hopefully the two sides can come to a, to a. A fair resolution. On on that piece. And the other piece that I think is important, and I think it's rankled a few people. Just because of the nature of labor negotiations. Is that at the end of this, you want a mutually beneficial partnership. And, you know, it's good that they've had a mediator there throughout the process. But. A lot of the rhetoric that's come out of this from both sides, quite frankly. Doesn't match up with the, with the on ramping from the, from the previous year that led into it. And make no mistake. Everybody's. Well, a lot of people are assuming that, you know, they just got together over the last two weeks and they're sitting down and it started. You know, cold from zero, two weeks ago. That's not the case. There's been a slow build between both parties. And there's been dialogue and there's, and there's been constructive dialogue from what I understand. For a very long time leading into this bargaining session. So T to hear that there were extreme positions on certain key elements. From an outsider looking in that's very discouraging. You know, in regard to creating that partnership because the players need to buy in to being. Part of the package to sell the package. I mean, they already are to a great degree in terms of their number of community appearances. I I'd put CFL players up against players of any league of any sport. In terms of the level of commitment that they have to their communities and getting out in the community. So if you, if you follow some of the players on, on Twitter, if you follow them on other. Platforms of social media. You'll, you'll see them in the communities and engaging with kids and running football camps and teaching reading, and all of those things. So. You know, to have them as engaged partners, where, where they have a stake in, in, in growing the business portion of the game, I think is, is critical. Oh, I think it's a hundred percent, like you said, it's, it's rupturing this trust, right? I mean, I even saw. In the midst of all this, and I didn't want to go down the XFL route, but yeah, they announced their TV deal and stuff. And you know, we had friends of the show, Derek Dennis already retweeted that and say, well, see, you know, this is we, why are we. Why are we up here fighting all this? Why are we, like you said, you know, We want to be out in the community. We want to be doing these things to build the league and do all that. Well here, here's another option where we don't even have to leave the states to go do. If we want to next February idea, you want to continue enticing these players to come up and play in the CFL, which I do think as from everyone from you and everyone we've talked to, you know, the benefits to go into the CFL are clear, right? Establish, you know, you know, it's going to be around, but also like you need to know that you're going to be taken care of. Right. Well, yeah. And. We met that, you know, we'll wait and see what Dwayne and Danny do in terms of creating that player centric culture. But I don't think it's necessarily going to involve a union or a players association. That gives you a S assurances that gives you a path to pension that gives you a path to learning opportunities in the off season. It's there to create opportunities for players and prepare them for when they come into the league in day one. That as they leave the league, they leave the league with more opportunities, not starting at another day one again. And that's really important in these short-term careers. The more you talking about it is really disheartening. I think that. Would you, would you characterize these negotiations as like tense? Oh like argumentative. You know, I'm not in the room. So, so I can't, I can't, I can't draw a conclusion on, on what the tone is. In the room. I'll put up this way. I was surprised when, when I saw a 10-year deal with no real increases with a lot of things taken off of the table that were. We're previously. Offered to the players, you know, and, and especially the ratio piece. You know, for me in a leadership position with amateur football in Canada. That that's key to who we are and what our development is and showing that development path. For players, it makes our university level and our junior level. Relevant. W w within having a next level that they can go to, it gives us an opportunity to, to showcase outcomes, even though the NFL. It's starting to become that place where Canadians have outcomes regardless of ratio. But, but, but it is, it is what the system has been built around for 150 years. And to, and to suggest that you're eliminating Canadians, starting positions. Is harmful to the system. So I was. I heard rumors about it going into it, but I was surprised once I finally, once I finally heard that, now I understand that. You know, within, within a labor negotiation process. You know, you got all kinds of tactics and maybe that's a tactic to, to scorch the earth and then try to rebuild on it. But. In terms of the level of partnership that was talked about over the last two years. Two or three years with this leak. It just runs contrary to all that language. So when they come to an agreement, it's going to take. Some rebuilding of trust, I think, and in between those two parties and, and quite frankly, the, the greater community. Of football in this country where we can all start to seek partnerships based on positives, not on confrontation. Well, that's the thing is, I mean, The CFL, you know, the players. I mean. I have any league. It needs to be this union, like you said, Them going out into, you know, that. Communities doing that work with the fans, you know, I. And tweeted and I was telling you before we got on, you know, I tweeted this week or last week. You know, the CFL players getting a fair contract is more important than you being able to watch a CFL game, you know, in two weeks. And I got a lot of like, well, no, we are like, we are the ones that fund the league. We buy the tickets, we do all that. So. Yeah, of course again, I'm wrong. At my evaluation things, but so they did almost as these three pieces of work together. I mean, how have the fans. And they kind of lost their patience here with all that, you know, the canceled season and the XFL stuff. And now this, I mean, where's the CFL mindset. Well, you know, I, I think in a sense in Western Canada, there you are fortunate that the Oilers and flames are facing each other in the second round of the NHL playoffs. So people aren't really focusing on. Heavily on this. In football's Heartland in this country. So that's a positive, you know, blue Jays are a couple of games above 500, especially. Thanks to those awful Seattle Mariners who are playing them right now. That's a whole other topic. So there's other distractions out there in, in terms of, in terms of the soft fan, but the hardcore fan. You're probably getting a lot of that sentiment from the Prairie's. Where you have community owned teams where people. Actually as a ticket holder, they are in best. They are investors of those teams, not just invested, but investors of those teams. So you're going to get that kind of a, that kind of pushback. And they're aware of the business model and how ticket revenue dependent. These these these Canadian football league teams are. So to a certain degree, they have a point and you may be wrong. Oh, wait a minute. First time. But, you know, For me, you. You know, tracking this. Let's go right back to the, to the XFL discussions. And I realize, you know, as a business, they need to explore these things. The CFL does. But, you know, Like, as you explore these things. You need to control the messaging. You need to get ahead of it. You need to shape that message with your fan base and have that connection. And I'm not sure if that's something that they've successfully done through that through the proposed rule changes. And then, and then to this piece, you have to know that if there is a, a negative position that is put out by either party in. In a labor negotiation, it's going to get leaked out by the other side. So, you know, Every time, one of these negatives come up and they're not ahead of the issue. In terms of controlling the message, it gives the fan another day to engage with that negative message and make the evaluation. Do I want to stick with this or do I want to. Oh, do I want to go watch hockey or the blue Jays are on or every night or maybe I get to learn my wife's first name again. All of these things are, are other things that people can do rather than to engage in something. That that quite frankly has generated some, some negative messaging because the league itself needs to do a better job in my opinion of controlling that message so they can control the pace of it. And the meaning behind it. It's odd a where, you know, we deal with the USFL that can with Fox. They control everything. Start to finish nothing that is outside of the Fox bubble touches anything. And then, yeah, like you said, you have the CFL where it's, it's very much the opposite. They have that. I mean, When they put it out there, we were messaging when they put out that tweet and they're like, well, here, this is what we propose them. And they said, no, so here you go. You're like, Wow. That's a weird way that like bold strategy cotton. Let's see how it pays off. Like, that's a weird way to kind of go about negotiating. Well, the one thing that's strange is is that, you know, in Canada, A baseball lockout basically destroyed the Montreal expos. Right? We've had hockey lockouts that have focused a lot of buyer against the players. In years past. You know, our football fan in Canada understands the issues. You know, we, we may not have the numbers of hockey. In this country, but the ones who are engaged are really engaged. And I think they've. Learned about the player's health issues. I think they understand the, from at least 30,000 feet up the finances of the Canadian football league. And. I'm surprised in the positive messaging that I see on social media platforms supporting. The player's position. I really am. You know, usually these things are about a 50 50 proposition. It's not 50 50 right now. Now give it a few days. If this thing isn't solved. And that may change rapidly. Right. But, but at least at the hour that we're talking. Right now, I think the. The players have a, have a lot of support behind them. Well, and I think they s**t, like I said, that was it to, you know, speak to my, my tweeting, whatever it was like. You know, I I've, I've never put on pads. I've never done anything. I am in no one to judge anyone's position of saying like, we need more securities or we need more health practices or we need more post game. Like I have not won the judge any of that year. It's like, you're the expert, you know, that's what you're telling me. Same reason why I bring on people like you or whoever on the show. Right? Like, I don't know these things, so we need to. So that's why I'm glad that the fans are savvy with the players in that regard, because I think unless you've put pads on and done that, I do think there's a disconnect. Well, like I say, they'll give it a, give it time. Because if, if this doesn't get resolved, opinions can change fast. And, you know, maybe the CFL gets control of the messaging. If this thing isn't solved and, and, and shifts the tide. You know, we don't know. I think at the end of this, though, And like I said, hopefully as people see this, it's already ended. That, that this is something that's built on partnership to grow the business. So the game between those two parties and. And that partnership. Filters down to other parts of, of the, of the football ecosystem that, that I've described here. It's like I say, it's different than the United States. We're all a little bit closer together. We're all a little bit smaller. We all got to band together and work together. I think in the sport, that's a definitely number two behind hockey. To, to, to keep it prominent. Across the country and all the different regions of the nation. I do think it's good timing right now. Like you said, with the playoffs in the soundly cop, I mean, It's hot series right now to have to kind of, this is all going on in the background. I mean, I think a large portion of casuals won't even know that this happened to really care for too much. No, not until it, until it eats into the, into the regular season. If it, if it does eat into the regular season, Then all bets are off. Right. I don't see it going that far. I think both sides. Care about the game care about the outcome, but you know, there, there's also another thing here too, was that. And this exists beyond players after we've gone through COVID. We've seen people walk away from careers that they've put a lot of time and to walk away from jobs. Look for other paths in life. This is. It's it's. Football players are not immune from that. From that process. You have a Canadian players that have gone through youth sports and in most cases, Football in Canada really emphasizes education. So these guys are sitting on degrees and, you know, two years ago they, they, they had the year off. So they went more into that. Life after football, even before football or in the midst of football. And now they're, they're weighing their opportunities. Against playing a game that they loved, but, you know, You know, life moves on and, and, you know, as dedicated as these individuals are they're, they're, they're going through that same sort of decision-making that I think a lot of people have through this. Through this last two years. So. In terms of being hard line. With the players. It might not be. It might not be the, the best strategy to take. If, if you're looking outside of the bubble. Well, and that's the thing is if you know, Because we were told the whole off season, this is going to be easy. There's not a lot of things they needed to deal with. Trust is higher than ever. All these kinds of things. I mean. W it looks as though this was just a tactic by the CFL to try to like, get what they wanted here last minute, right ahead of the season, basically banking on the fact that the players are going to want to work versus they are. That the players are going to have to work, to get money, versus that they're going to want to work. Well, there's that. And then, you know, the one thing that the, that there's always been an labor negotiations with in the CFL space. Is two very different camps between the Canadian players and the American players. That doesn't seem to be the case this time around there doesn't seem to be that split. And, you know, perhaps it's because the American players know. That there's the possibility of going somewhere else and earning a living right now, we're in one of those cycles where there's alternative leagues and maybe they won't make as much, but they get to stay at home. And, and, you know, Canada's a great place, fantastic place to live, all kinds of opportunities, but there's no place like home. So, you know, you know, that could be playing into that as well. You know, how fully invested are you? When, you know that. There may be other equal or parallel opportunities out there. Right. So you're saying that it's, the Canadians are more. Involved in this and the Americans are more standing by, is that what you're saying? Well, in past years, there have been different issues, especially when there were more Canadians starting. What a lot of people referred to the players' association as a group of offensive linemen, looking out for their own interests. And in years past, I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. I think that the leadership of the, of the PAs has done a good job of, of, of working across. Cultural lines within, within the, within each, each dressing room to get everybody onto the same page. So what's this raps, right? Whether it's today, Friday, you know, whatever. Moving forward. I. You said that there's going to need to be some sort of like healing reconciliation. I mean, is this. First work stoppage and I think 46 years. Right. They made was this. Are we able to move past this? There we are. Especially if it's a good deal, right. You know, Exhibition games or exhibition games, pre-season games or preseason games. Preseason football is. You know if you're, if you're, if you're really into the sport, it's great. Cause you get to play the role of scout and coach and all those things. But, but for, for entertainment purposes, It's, it's not a very good. And. And it doesn't matter what league you're talking about, either. It doesn't matter if it's the, if it's the, if it's the NFL or the well, Well, the U S avail didn't have it. And I don't know if the XFL will, but, but exhibition football is, is not the shell. So, you know, you know, moving beyond that. I dunno. I, I, I think that. If the type of partnership and the type of transparency that the players want in terms of revenue sharing. Is in place and there are some medical supports there. For for players when they get injured after the, after the fact. They might be able to, to give up space on, on term, right. You know, the 10-year term is definitely out. You know, the league is looking at seven players, probably want five. Maybe there's a compromise in there somewhere. You know, I think there's, I think there's a path forward. Where they can at least hit reset, and then start working on that trust thing again. Just kick the can down the road, right. Well, a new deal. Wouldn't be kicking the can down the road. It w it would be resetting things and it would be resetting the conversation. And, and if anything, it's walking it back and having to, having to, like you said beforehand, You got the impression that trust was up here. I'll trust appears to be here. And now once they have a reset it's here and now they've now through each transaction. They've got end up building that trust back between each other. So it's, it's possible. It's been done before. I think a longer term deal will probably, you know, help that incremental arc of trust. All right. I want to ask a year. Opinion on something else before we go. Anything else on the labor staff? I think, I guess I just kind of wanted to have a philosophical little stop down here. You know, like I said, we don't know everything. Anything else on this? Nothing else on this. I just want it resolved. Well, that's the thing. I was really looking forward to going into the season and having all the training camp and everything and starting hot. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And a real complete. Season all around. Right. So, you know that, that's what I wanted. I know like Amar Dobbins got a, got a concert. He's got to run right. He's like, I like all these things are in place. There's a great fundraiser for, for Ukraine, with the Edmonton Elks. That'll that'll be a positive in that community. That'll create positives outside of their community. They're there, there's all kinds of things that I've been looking forward to not only as someone in administration, but someone who's a fan of the CFL and a fan of what it stands for in Canada. So, you know, the sooner that we're, that we're out of the boardroom and onto the field, the happier I'll be. I think for now. You'll have to refer to him. His friend at the mark has some, our domain. I think that that's fine. Before I let you go. I just see, was curious your thoughts on the XFL announced Disney partnership with ESPN and ABC. I mean, obviously we've talked USFL here in the past and. Just, I mean, obviously details are still coming out. We're hearing that it's more of a, they're carrying their production cost, splitting revenue. Like it was the first time that's kind of the rumor coming out right now where NBC is paying Fox to air USFL games. Right. This is more of the traditional model and that the XFL was before thoughts on that. Well, I think the Disney thing makes it a compelling because I think there's some over the top. Disney plus things that they might be able to do. And get into that space. Where, where you've got something of an app that's instantly accessible and. And, you know, going in the direction, what apple TV's done with Friday night baseball. Right. That that's that's the next frontier for sports really is. It has to be integrated on those platforms. Yeah, it's a, it's a good start. I think it'll be interesting to see if the USFL makes your two, how they position themselves against each other. I see. I see a year or two for the USFL. You know, I, I hear scuttle buttons. You know, from some people inside the CFL saying it will make it to your, to, you know, I, I think it'll, I think it'll find a path and I'm interested to see how the competition competition breaks down between the two. It's fascinating. This. This is truly, is like, not that I wanted to CFL strike. I wanted the CFL to play in normal and then have these. This is peak all football podcasting time here. I. I mean, really, we can ask for them for much more than kind of all of this going on. So well you were patient with it. Like, you know, when they, when the XFL disappeared off into the COVID sunset, You guys said. Well, you had every reason to, to pack it in for awhile. He stuck it out. You kept, you kept producing and here you are, you have a cornucopia of non-mainstream football to capitalize on. I'll tell you at beds have been made in beds will be laid in for people along the way they've taken shop with other, I mean, not that I've not that we're the XFL homeworks, but I think a lot of the people that hitch their wagon to other things here. Opposed to really a enjoying everything. That'd be curious to see, because I have takes today on the XFL set this week. I mean, I'll, I gotta record that later with Evan, but I have takes on the broadcast deal, you know, so, well, We'll see, it's not all rosy, but yeah, I think some people settled and didn't hold out for, for true love. Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see how it breaks. I, I. The one thing about. Spring football. I enjoy it for what it is. And I think more people need to do that. In terms of, in terms of knowing that, that it's not the NFL, it's not even the CFL. Quite frankly, in terms of. In terms of the talent level and execution and history and all that sort of stuff. But the interesting thing while watching the XFL for me is, is that. If you listen to the and read about the history of the, of the USFL. Is that what you see right now is actually what they were originally going for there. They were going for that. Low cost league in that pocket, they weren't chasing. Doug Flutie and Herschel Walker and, and, and, and those guys, Mike Rose year and Heisman winners. That, that they were going to stay in that comfortable pocket. In spring. And now that we have it here, let's see if it's actually sustainable. 30 odd years later. Oh, I guess I think now if any time you, I think you have quality of talent. I think networks are so hungry for content. I mean, I think that this is, this is the days of the XFL. Yeah. The XFL 1.0 is still pulling in like 7 million viewers a week or whatever, when it canceled. I mean, it wasn't like it was, they were getting. I mean, we talked 265,000 watching Fs one. USFL games. I mean, It's a different world we're in now where it's like, what is an acceptable TV viewership for something based on like what Fox is putting in, which is not a lot. To produce this content there. The one thing that I, that I do want to know, maybe you have the answer to this. What is the median age of the USFL viewer? Because, because I know that a lot of people will point to MLS numbers. On a national level. In the United States. And, and quite frankly, MLS numbers in Canada, too. They're not very good. But I do know a lot of the major leagues in the us, the, the MLS is by far the youngest median age. Of of any group that watches any sport, it's still, it's just scraping into 40. Now. It used to be in the high thirties. And, you know, when you look at 'em. PGA tour golf and there, their median age is 66. The future, isn't looking bright in the golf world. I will tell you the USFL is demographics are much lower in the key demo. Are there numbers in the key demo are much lower than XFL. Two point. That was Hmm. Yeah. I mean, cause they day my get. Yeah. 900,000 viewers, a million viewers, right? Fight. It's like a 0.2 and the demo, you know, I mean, I think you'd like to see that be more like a point a and or a one. You know, So it's, there is a vast majority of your outside of the 18 to 35. Well, it's still got a functioning eyes watching. Football in the spring. So that's okay. Nothing wrong with that. I have a nice, you go get back to I'm sure. All your insider tax in south. We'll see how this, I don't think this will be to Daniel, but we'll see how we do. When the episode airs. Okay, let me see here. Oh, oh. This just in there's one report out there of a tentative agreement. There you go. Just just got this all to see. So maybe everything that we said. Well, though, I actually, we did a lot of look ahead here. So, yeah. So maybe there's a tenant of agreement who the heck knows. I just hope it's done. And I hope it's done by the time this airs. I I, the gym. Jim Allen president football, Canada. I host. What is it? Crown grade? Our nation on TSN. General secretary of a. Don't forget that. The morning dealing with international football. I think your Twitter just says busy guy, right? The guy, I am busy guy.

Episode 92 - Talent Wars

Well, I am excited to today. We have a blast from the past fan favorite. I got a lot of excitement when I posted this, we have Eric Galco, former DPP of the XFL, 2020, and now the director of player personnel for the [unknown]. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Cause I talk about. Some XFL, some spring football it's been awhile for me. Well, I'm excited because you, you know, someone that's been involved in this stuff for a long time player scouting and they with. [Unknown] I want to get, you know, your sense of where are we at right now? How's everything looking, you know, kind of your thoughts on everything. I think this is a good check-in, but first off, what are you going? What are you working on now and talk us through where you're at in your current position? Yeah. Post to post XFL 2020, which was heartbreak, which I know we'll get into, but I consulted again. I've been consulting for a long time. My career with professional teams leagues. Agents, et cetera. So did that. And these west Reinbold was an awesome opportunity. It's the longest standing college all-star game. It's for the Shriners children's hospitals. So a great purpose, a great mission. If I do a good job. Promote awareness and donations for a great charity, a great hospital. And that's a real benefit of the job I have now. It's a lot of, there's some similarities to my role, the excess, a little more operations, which I like doing as well too. But. Same amount of talk NFL players. And Scouts. And having the best players in the country, companies by tribal. At the XFL now. So a lot of similarities, but thank them for the job I have is a lot of fun to get, to be competitive, but it's, it's kind of a little, same, some overlap for sure, with my time in the XFL. Well, a long time. Listeners know we made a donation to the Shriner's hospital called Boozer, came on the show back and feels like a million years ago now. And I can't remember the wager we have, we had seven sort of the bat and we made it a donation that's trying there. So we have. Been long entrenched in that. And you guys had a big year this year, right? Vegas and the li you know, all that. What was that like just before we get into all this spring football set, but I had to be a big accomplishment this year, right? It was, and I'll use this word a few times, reimagination, right? Classic XFL word, word that we invented. I always joke all the time. Jason Wright, who's now the Washington commander's president. He claims he invented reimagination. Oliver, take some credit for that too. But regardless of the next step, that I'll create a word. And that was kind of the protest with the shrine bowl is, Hey, it's been around for 96 years, but it needed some upgrading. It needed some reimagination. And that's what we kind of did this year. So move the game to Vegas part with the NFL league office and the pro bowl. And yeah, and things went well compared to pass the beds. We had 60% more draft picks. Right. The 50th overall pick a lot of NFL scout feedback was great, obviously. Obviously being in Vegas, never a bad thing for a sporting event, as we've seen. It's pretty fun time too. So. Things well in the new role for short, it was fun to kind of reimagine and rebuild. Did the XSL. Awesome. Yeah, no, I think it's really exciting. Looking here at kind of everything here where may 20, 22, right. Actually it fell. Just announced another hire today. You know, USFL kinda mid season. What is the biggest storyline for you? Kind of the you're tracking outside of your current position with all this crazy off football stuff. It's a good question. I think it's, I think in terms of like this landscape, it's going to be. And obviously a bias because of my background, but a lot of the player personnel and not scouting, right? People always think that scouting is, is player personnel. Are they very similar? They're actually very different in the sense that player personnel was a lot more strategy-based. And I think when there's two competing football leagues and I lived this and we lived this back at the XFL against the AAF at the time was planning for necessarily how to, there's never a co. I did like stealing players. It was like, Hey, we want to follow the rules here, but there's going to have to be adjusted in strategy. So I'm curious now on. You know, we'll see if the USFL finishes their ear they're they seem to be liking to do so, which is, which is great to see for all those players and coaches, especially. I think kind of what happens post USFL season. Pre XFL year is going to be, I think really interesting. And I would hope that people, the XFL now are. Not just thinking back s**t, laying the groundwork for what that looks like, because the answer is not going to be necessarily showcases. And I think they know that right. It's going to be a little bit more strategic and, you know, Player personnel, net strategy. I think the successes that we had, the XSL, some were luck. Some were, you know, players being better than we expected. But a lot of it was a long-term planning and there's stories behind PJ Walker and Jordan tab. Lou would a lot of players that, Hey, that wasn't a, here's a contract come play. It was a year in the making and a lot of planning involved in that. So. I think that that's what I'm fascinated now to see, like what kind of major dominoes I know those temples you have to kind of hit, but what you don't see right now is what matters most, because it'll play a role when inside the next PJ Walker, Jordan tab with the XFL, for sure. Is weird. I've been thinking all week, trying to kind of like, what is, what are we calling today's show, right? What is the theme? Whatever. You know, USFL is going here. Anthony backed. I think it was on a radio show this week talking. Okay. Teams and cities are coming to summer, right. I don't. It's like what has been happening the last year and a half with new management and everything kind of leading into this here. We're talking Dallas now. Like, I don't know if we have this long runway that everyone felt like, you know, the exit valve, you know, 2.0 had, right this two year thing. I mean, you shake your head. What do you think? Yeah, I, I it's, it's a lot quicker than you realized. And again, it goes to the point that like, at this point from just the player personnel lens, There's a chance the XL might be behind and a good chance of that. And not because like, you know, my, my friend, Doug Whaley, he's waiting wrong. It's just, if you aren't hitting certain, tentpoles you fall behind pretty quickly. And what that leads to is not a necessarily a bad product. It just leads to inefficiencies. And because you're dealing with player and the player pool that unlike the NFL, where every college athlete played football Watts played the NFL. And they'll come to you'll do whatever it takes to do that. There are a lot of players who are out of the league that may say I'm just going to hang around. Or I'm just gonna wait for NFL, try out, or I'm going to the CFL because they've been around for a hundred years or I'm retiring. I'm gonna go coach. And I think it's, it's a much, it's a bigger player pool, but it's also a much more wider range of outcomes. And that's where it's it's. Having six showcase they're gonna have, right. Having six showcases having a draft, it's not that easy. It takes a lot of new wads discussions with agents and players. I tell the story all the time. It'd. It'd be a habitable to get publicly, but you know, Jordan Tayyaba with the XFL. That started at ironically the east west Ryan bowl, which was January of 2019. And we, we met with Jordan Tammuz agent over burgers in St. Petersburg saying, Hey, if the NFL doesn't work out, We want to have you the XFL and we believe in you so much that we want to give you. A franchise quarterback contract that started, you know, nine months in advance before we signed him. And I think it's has been a good scouting and good process, but also that way, when Jordan was in the NFL, it was a quick discussion. It wasn't overly recruiting. It wasn't a big negotiation. We were all on the same page, sent me for PJ Walker the year prior to, so it's one of the things that like getting a top end talent. And to me, that's one of the problems that USFL product right now is that. I'm not sure of the ton of top end talent. And that's why even close games. Aren't getting huge ratings because people want to see star blades. Right. I go back to PJ Walker, but like is fricking sidearm throw for a touchdown. Like that was awesome. That was over sports center. And I, you know, I haven't seen that a USFL plays on sports center, not trying to. Diminish their product, but that's the value of having star players and star player, state planning strategy, and an execution for sure. Well, and part of the, and we've talked in weeks past you though, Fox owning all this right. ESPN. Isn't like. Unless it's some phenomenal thing, right? I mean, I think they did the limited right week one you'll highlights, but unless it's something truly phenomenal, like they might run the fan controlled football, something that isn't a competing, you know, competing network, then doing the Fox USFL stuff. What do you think about the quality of play? You said. He lives, you know, obviously keeping the eyes on USFL. I think it's been, I mean, it's been fine. I think, I think there's enough talent in the football world to have a good product. Right. There is the product of quality play with players are paying to go, right. Which is a different kind of the spring league model. Which that level is, is, is not great, but you can get by, I think the next level above is you're paying players. You'll get, you know, guys who played college football, right. And maybe at a high level, they'll, they'll want to even be paid a lesser amount, but, but be on national TV and have the opportunity to get that level. But there's this, there's this area. And I think people misunderstand it sometimes. You know, USFL players, your goal should not be having the guys, the XFL players to the goal was never to have non NFL players, right? It was to have players who weren't in the NFL. There's a difference, right? PJ Walker always should have been in the NFL and the NFL had a different film of him or a different view of him. He isn't the weak and we using efficient methods, got him there. And I think it's really important to find guys who. Should be in the NFL, but aren't a nasty kind of way you win early on. And, you know, I have watched enough. USFL films. So I can't speak to the whole talent, but I know the first couple of weeks and just see the rosters there. Weren't a lot of guys that talking to NFL personnel or outstanding process were saying, wow, what a great get, and I may have talent for sure. And there's some guys I liked quite a bit in that league, but you want to find those guys that are kind of above the NFL line that you kind of got as star players. We thought PJ Walker was a star. Right? We were so happy to get it. We were like, this guy is an NFL backup at minimum. He's not a bad NFL player, right. You never want to be in our philosophy was I talked to St. The day, actually, Sam Schwartz, Dean. And, you know, our philosophy was like, we didn't want to be bad at NFL, and it's really easy for kind of the spring leagues to kind of fall into that. Like you don't want to be, you want to be your own state and, and you don't want to have bad enough L players, I guess really one thing, I think a little bit from watching the USFL. And again, I'm not saying every team is bad, some teams that are great job, but there's not as many guys who are, I think NFL quality of the league is that maybe they were hoping. Well, you know, I mean, here we have, you know, like Ben homes, right. Drafted to, you know, the generals, you know, cut before the season even cited. Right. They bring in Luis Perez who now is his seemed to be the, kind of the backup now. But yeah, that was someone like, God, that was the fourth overall pick of your quarterback. Couldn't even make it. You. T to kick off here two and a half week training camp. Yeah, it's tough. It's not big quarterback stuff would make mistakes on. And I think one thing. And I'll always give credit. I think this was Oliver's idea early on, which was, you know, our goal initially was, was eight franchise quarterbacks, right? Eight tier one quarterbacks, but we ended up calling them. A closer to the season as we were talking, we're like, we probably need to franchise quarterbacks for team because you just don't know. Right. And, and, you know, I was surprised when I saw the USFL draft with Ben holds got picked. For sure. But I think it goes to show that like, Hey, you need to really have two, really three good ones in camp. Right. I look back at the Tampa bay Vipers and, and, you know, Aaron Murray. Wasn't a popular choice for that franchise quarterback either. And tiller, Cornelius wasn't either. Flowered with either, but we're like, you know what, the good chance one of those three guys ended up being a guy. And that's what you really, you need two or three guys and especially for a spring league, again, I'll keep saying PJ Walker. I was positive and I made mistakes. I'm actually I'm great or anything, but I was positive. It was gonna be special. And I wasn't really worried about their backup spot, but every other team, I was like, we need to have two guys, Jordan Tambo Taylor Hideki. Right. We had two guys there. Jordan won the job and Taylor was the backup, but we had two guys there. And I think that's what I think the USFL you can't miss on quarterbacks. And I think that's one of the other problems they've had so far is a lot of quarterback turnover. As you just, when you miss on quarterback, it's hard to kind of build fan excitement, fan engagement. I just decide now and keep in mind. I have assigned Brandon silvers. Sherry here. BJ Daniels. She hasn't been the starting quarterback for the Seattle dragons. Right. And can we, I mean, just three years in hindsight, can we please. Yeah, I think both could have been a good quarterbacks. I will say. Brendan was coveted in the deck. XFL. So we had a process. I won't reveal too too much, but we had a process where we're basically, you know, myself and Doug Whaley and Oliver asked our head coaches. Hey, here's a list of quarterbacks who are out of the league. You know, Likely out of the league or could be cut and it was about. I made that 50 guys, 50 quarterbacks that we. I pre-vetted saying like, Hey, these are the guys that have any sort of experience. Right. The. And you'd be shocked. How many librarians? Silvers? I think park was because he had just played well for one of the AFTs and it was like an obvious thing and I was surprised. And at the time we're not. I had input on the quarterbacks, but at the end of the day, we let the code, the teams decide who they want in a quarterback. And as much as I was like, are we. We f*****g sure about red Silver's being the guy. Teams wanted them. And I think, and I think is the beds. If he's in maybe a different scheme, a difference give, if he's in Houston, who also had interest in Brandon silver, maybe he's as a better XFL career, but. But yeah, I was surprised. I love BJ Daniels. I actually worked with BJ Daniels at your called football, which was a startup league couple of years ago, about six years ago now. And BJ's team leader. Great guy. So I was hoping to beat you wouldn't want that job as well, too. I think there were some teams we saw towards the end of the XFL cardiol Jones. Versus Tyree Jackson. He might've won that job. I think if we had more runway. That would work itself out a little bit, for sure. I, Carlos, John signed to the Edmonton Alex right now, which is. Shocker. Well, I mean, I don't want it. We don't have to go to that in that, but I did not think that that man steps a foot on the Canadian football field this year. I don't care how lie their narrow, their hash marks are out there. I think that that is. So. So Ben Holmes, the mass USFL. Cause I want to get to XFL here too. But like you said, the quality of play is fine. Right. And it is, I guess, fine. And I get people hate me. I'm like the negative, you know, I'm the anti Mr. USFL, but like, It doesn't to me, it's not permeated any sort of like society at all right now. And I was not podcasting when the XFL, right. I got into this stupidly when the rocket and everything, by the end of this, like, XFL when I was watching it, it felt like he was a part of the society where this exists, like on Fox platforms. If you check it out, Yeah, I think part of it was, was the great marketing that the marketing team did. I think that it really liked that we had kind of built up this excitement and to some degree, the AAF. Doing okay to start. And then kind of ending in the fire Fest way that it did. I think it kind of felt people were robbed and that really, I think helped us for week one, but again, I give a lot of our deep, our college DPPs. Or I'm sorry. Our DPPs those teams building good rosters. But again, we had cool place. I went to the PJ Walker side on her play. Like you don't want to talk about when I say that play, write the play. The back of the kids go to camp Philips. And Kim Phillips having three touchdowns either week one, or whenever it was like, it created a star. And that was like, did you see the XFL play? And I have not talked to anybody. And I'm in this Zeit guys for sure of USFL. No one's ever told me. She said USFL, plight. And again, maybe the Xcel had that same problem. Maybe it's a sprinkle ball problem. Now maybe it's we're over it as a society. I'm not sure, but right now the USFL is not grabbing the star player attentional in that I think it's probably a little bit mostly talent, but it could be. Twitter. It could be TV. Broadcast could be sports that are not showing either, but that's maybe they're missing right now. It's close games are part of the excitement, but people aren't watching. The first bit of the game, they're going to care about a close game later. That's the problem. I think that's a great point. Yeah. I mean, we see a lot of [unknown]. And the 18 games or whatever have been decided. Then the last year it was one possession or one, whatever. Am like, yeah, but. Yeah, like you said, if you're not watching to the end of the game, you don't know that that that's a lot of D. Three games like that too. They're a lot of D three. Little games are also pretty close as well. So if you want to watch those either. So that's interesting. Yeah, you exist in this world, right? You said USFL, not really permeated. You're not having conversations like that. Does that surprise you knowing that like Fox and everything that is so much money and effort behind this? I will say it seems like an eye. A little bit of information here, but I think one of the goals of a spring league, right. We have had a spring league play here to sense the UFL and mid two thousands. So there is, there is a. Thought nothing. It's a guarantee. A thought that momentum might be what does it, right. Hey, USFL plays a whole year. They kind of champion, every player gets paid. Right. And it's just like, okay, now we have your two. That could be a real momentum where you have helped me. You know what? Let's just get through a year, not have terrible ratings, have a good production value. Then people know what to expect. Hey, I'm a Birmingham. I forgot their team name. Drop. They have an identity. New Jersey general Stan. Right. And I think that's what they're hoping for betting on. I think it's a good strategy. I think it's like, you know what? Let's not try to kill ourselves here. Well, hopefully I have some star place let's get through the year as well too, but I think it's concerning because the question that you'd have as Fox is is this worth it? Is this ever going to happen for us? And I think when they try to go, when they increase the cost of having a team in New Jersey, having a team in Michigan, Is the fandom going to rise? We'll see. I'm not sure it will or not. So it's just, it's a lot of questions that if you're not having the momentum you want to have it's. Year to make sense, but I think the plate at Fox is momentum. And I think it's, I think it's a decent play it's expensive life. I think it's an expensive idea. Like, Hey, let's do what. And I give the FCF a lot of credit that I think the FCF has a real brand. And that matters. They know exactly who they are. They have some weaknesses for sure, but they know exactly who they are and they're building identity, brand awareness, et cetera. And that that's hard to find. Did they get the USFL was struggling there right now, in my opinion. Yeah, we haven't. We have a love hate, hate. That's the app. We go back and forth with that on. I know Bailey's involved over there as well. So now that. Interesting how they. Interesting how they spend their analytics every week. Right. I would say that. You know, you are. 2.5 Million people are not watching the product. I mean, 2.5 million people see the product on the Twitch home page and move off of it. But I know, I know. I just don't like that. Before we get off USFL. Yeah. A lot's been made the 45 minute or 38 man roster 45 total with the practice squad. Yeah. First couple of weeks. It's fine. Now we're seeing, okay. We had that punters being caught because they can't feel goalkick right. Brian Scott goes down injured, right? We only have one quarterback for a lot of teams, like thoughts on that. Just have a 10 week season with a 38 man roster and kind of how, like, even adding, I understand that tremendous cost, but like God adding making it 45 across the board. It's tough. It's tough. I think one of the hard parts about scaling back. Is, you need to be creative in the sense that, Hey, they don't have a team nine, for example. Right. I think having a team that would solve a lot of these problems. Another group of people who are there on the ready list, but. It's really hard. And what I'll say XFL story, right? I would have a list. I had every, I looked at it every morning when I wake up and it's what caused my hairline to start receding. Is the list of offensive linemen. We thought we could trust it. The game on the street, not in the league. So we had all of our teams, we had team died and then I had a ready list. And every offense of light injury, we'd be closer to it. And. It was very small towards the end elite, right? Often Deliman, especially, they're hard to find. And I think it's one of the hard parts of having a smaller roster is that. You know, we have the benefit of team diets. We had, I think we had 10, or we had six offensive lineman on team guy, meaning like those guys were paid in the system through HR in shape, readily be dispersed. So if the guardians had injured, Which they had a ton of them back then. Right? We can, we have a guy ready to go? And that's important. And I think if you're the USFL, will you start losing players? It's not as about bringing guys in, because what happens is the guys coming off the street to play receiver, play offensive line, especially, or DB. And they're coming off the street and you're aware of how much shape they are. Then you have a torn Achilles, and then you just wasted a spot and now you're in trouble. And then the player's upset too. And that agent's upset and everyone's upset and that players won't come back next year. So it's very hard to have smaller rosters without having kind of a, a ready list of guys ready to go. And I think that's something that big that they had to do again, I would hope they kind of look at that closer. You can, I think you can get by on smaller rosters. But you can have small rosters with no fall back option. That's a real concern. I have. But if they had pop-up workouts, You know, showcases if you will, right? Every two weeks. Where people would even come in. If they're unpaid, they're paying to come in, whatever, but like having people who are in shape ready to go, I think it was really hard to do. So that's what I worry about is that again, you can't get the quality of product, right? You can't have. You know, we saw position players playing baseball at pitcher, right. You can't have a first basement starting a game for you as an MLB team, you can't have a running back. Starting a game for you at quarterback of the USFL. That'd be a real tough situation. So smaller rosters can make sense, but you can't just say smaller rosters and discussion. It's really hard to do that, but often why was it. Well, no, I mean, especially cause like you're in a bubble, like it's not even like you'd have to, he could walk across the street and go join ISI. Like I'll be out of flying up to New York or whatever we got to get like. You stay at the hotel. I mean, I just. Yeah, I it's one of the, that's the Bryan Woodson. That's the Brian Wood spring league. Like we don't need that many guys, but spring league also ran for six weeks or whatever, and didn't go 10. And then the championships and the Plaza, I mean, 12 weeks is a long time. I didn't play and did play full games early was kind of a scrimmage mentality. It just, it was different back then. And also, you know, guys that spring league at the time were playing. Like, this is your last chance, right? I think for the USFL, these players are not going to leave it all on the field. They're pro athletes. They want to not ruin their life. So if they have a above ankle, they're not going to play right spring, the guys that we're paying to be there may have been more likely to do so, but it's. It's tough. It gets dangerous. You know, one thing that the XFL I'm really proud of that we did was we never, we never worried about the money side from adding players to the roster when there was injuries. Right. Hey, if you needed players, let's get you players like this, not have any issues about it. If we have to break our protocols, we'll do so we don't want any player feeling. Like they have to play because their team's down somebody. And that was important for me. And the whole week, but I, I cared about because I have it, the tribal as well. Cause I want players agents know we have their back and that pays dividends year two, year three, year four. And I think if you do wrong by an agent or agency, They may never send a player there. And that's when you start really losing momentum as a talent pool. So I think the USFL, I don't think they've done that by the way, they think wrong by that. But when you would play or see a players are competitive, they see like, should we only got three linebackers? So like my ankle hurts, but like I'm going to play. And that's when you have a player of a catastrophic injury and you have coaches and personnel guys in the league office getting in trouble. So it's, it's a slippery slope. Or you have a player say, I I'm, don't want to say I'm injured because then I'll be cut. And then they, you know, there's no. You know, cutting guys when they're hurt too, was also. But I know they've done a little bit USFL. I know the whole details. I won't speak to it, but when you start cutting guys, because they're hurt. That also was not a, not a good thing. My opinion. So, how does the XFL now, you know, they they've been going out scouting, right? We see CJ everywhere. You know, they're all at all the college staff were doing the showcases, like how do they avoid this talent thing? You said maybe showcases is in the end of that. I mean, what, what do you see? How do they prevent this? There's a couple of ways they can, they can look at it for one. I think you have to play in. For the USFL being around and although flares outside, having to your contracts, you have to plan for that at the same time. I think it'd be naive to not be prepared for those players. You've got other deals. Right. And you don't, you can't say. We're not going to scout the USFL guys cause they may be available or USFL guys. We don't, I don't know what their office and plane is. Right. They may decide to scale up to 90 players in the off season. That's what we had planned to do after the year. The XFL has put players under like futures deals like the NFL has it basically lock them up, us film. I do that. That's where I got to go back to like, The XFL. Can't just wait until June, July, because it will see. One thing we learned, I learned from last exfil time around is you also can't rely on NFL cuts. Right? So one thing we did a year ago was. Two years ago now is we said, Hey, let's get all of our personnel guys in one area. And let's hit the phones. September 1st with NFL makes their cots in hindsight. That was a battle. Now we had other meetings too, which. It isn't worthwhile. It was good to everybody together. But it was a mistake because a lot of those guys get cut from the NFL. Want to wait. They want to wait to see you at the animal calls of it a week or two weeks. They want to, they're exhausted from training camp. They want a couple of weeks to think about it and you can't rely on NFL cuts. You can't rely on. You know, the end of the NFL season, those guys are starting futures deals. You can't rely on that either. We learned as well, too. So. A big way to prevent that I is being really aggressive at the 2022 drafts. The guys that just were undrafted or, or, or mini camp guys. Or guys that the NFL may have missed, you know, Georgia was a mini-camp guy after the draft. Wasn't a high PFA. And they got to camp later on, but we were confident as a scouting team. We did our homework on that as well, too, with. It's a little bit of uncovering those guys because the CFL is going to get those guys too. And I think if you can't have the 2019 through 2021 draft classes, cause USFL has a lot of those top guys. And the CFL is right there. Like you. XML can't sign guys now. But they have to be planting the seed for a lot of players as soon as possible. And I think that's what I hope they're doing right now. Is really attacking the 2022 draft class. You don't want to be too young as a team. But you can't, you can't wait for cuts to add your rosters. They got to have a good player pool built by now for the 2022 draft class. We're also going to be in trouble. Their partnership right with the NFL academy and all that. I mean, And then working alongside like, obviously. Good PR right. All that mean. Is that going to be bountiful, right? If you're, if you get the contracts you're in everyone that's involved in that, right. Kind of gets into the XFL if they want. I don't know. I don't know if I've. The NFL academy, I think. I think, no matter what. What I want to do with the expo. I'll speak to what I did last night or what I wanted to have lasted in my role was I didn't want any player to be told to me that existed that we already have a report on are face down. Right. I don't want an agent to call me or even you at DNB. Yo. You know, this player. I want to be like either we know that player and he's already in our system and here's our information on him, or we know that player. He's not good enough. Ray's out. Right. And I think if you're being fed players at that position of the XFL, that would be concerning if it was me, because when you get a player from the referral who you don't already know about, You're scrambling for information and you're going to make bad decisions. So I would hope that the XFL right now is compiling and has a really robust database because you have a lot of, there's a lot of power. If people refer you to a player or an agent says I've got a guy and other spring leagues, haven't done that. Right. I've talked to agents who have told me. I told the USFL about a player. They said, Tell me about them. Right. And that's really scary if I was in charge and I'm like, you know what? That age is going to be biased. Maybe not nefarious, but biased. And it's not a good process. So I think if you're the XFL, you've got to have an installed robust. 2022 Database of players, the 2020 draft class. Ready to go so that at the NFL academy or wherever else refers players. You're not looking like an idiot. You can't be the last to know because you gotta be really, really efficient. And information is going to come in. I get information from. The XFL colleges, agents, NFL Scouts. And that information is hugely valuable, but you got to put it somewhere that already exists. And I think at the expos and have that right now, there'll be really behind. But my recommendation at a high level is to, to not gloss over it really spend time on every point that just. Graduated from college and not miss out any of those guys. Yeah. And, you know, I made now, I think it was last week. They announced this partnership. And inside the league and FBX, eh, F. FB. Exchange. I don't know. These acronyms. I mean, it seems like they're building those building blocks, right? I mean, I guess the question is, is may do we, do we need to have this maybe in January, is this right where we're ramping all this up? I just, I don't know. It feels like some of these things were things that needed to happen a year ago, but we didn't because maybe we were talking to. Yeah, partnerships. Partnerships are easy to get the right partnerships and especially integrating them in the right way is where it really matters. Right? So like I know FBX run by Dan Rambo. They do a great job. I'm not sure how, what they do is going to fit in the XFL perfectly. You. It's easy to have partnerships, easy to have a lot of analytics and data. The real key and NFL teams or figure this out is integration. That's the word? Right? So if you're partnered with all these different companies, it's great, but are you integrating it properly? Because if you're not, then you're just actually wasting time having these partnerships were not right. So I can't speak to how those partnerships are going on, not intimately involved, but you know, if they're going to use a partner or a platform. You have to integrate them as soon as possible. And it's really hard to do that. Decision-making process. Right. Doug Whaley. I know. You know, he's a VP of player personnel. He, you know, came from the NFL as a GM of the bills. At our first conversations in November of 2018 was about. I give so much credit to him because he's done things in the Pittsburgh. She was waiting for a long time and he was like, we've got to integrate. We've got to be creative here. So Doug, I give Doug so much credit as someone who's done it, the old fashioned way for so long. And wants to really integrate all the new data analytics. He's been to slowed conference. He's been across the analytics gauntlet last couple of months, dog talking to him and catching up with him. So, but in the key is. It's I'll. As an XFL league. Every once a part with you, every single company in the football world wants over the XFL, if the rockets everything right. But. Partnerships Rita to get integrations. What's hard. And I think it's going to be hard to integrate all these partners unless they have a plan in place. Again, you have to have your own infrastructure to take on partners. You can't rely on different partners to give you what you need. You have to have your own process first and foremost. Well, that Gwalia could be. GM had a, that. This deal is here. Right? Yeah. The time, this airs. That could be moving on from that. I can't remember when we started recording. So we'll get off your seat. Cause I've obviously had good. Half an hour. But, you know, it is. Like you said with the analytics incentives, kind of what I feel with like the CFL right now, not the, you need to speak to much of that. Like. But genius sports, right? Like, oh, we got genius sports where he got all these analytics. I'm like, but if you guys don't like, you don't know what to do with it. Like it doesn't, you can have all these partnerships in the world. Right. But like you said, it's easy to bring in people it's incorporating that stuff. It's hard. It's hard to do so. And again, we had Sam Schwartz. Dean was in charge of auto partnerships at data last time, round the XFL. And he'll even say to that, like, yeah, we needed another year to figure this stuff out. It takes a lot of time too. So I would say for, for fans of these, you know, spring leagues in general and follow this stuff closely, it's. Don't get over excited by a partnership. I think it's more about like, Hey, let's what. What are they going to do? What are they going to actually add? Besides of the Pete press release says before it's it's worthwhile, but I, you know, inside the league does a good job. I know what they do for blockchains and ramp. I know what they do as well, too. So it's nothing against that, but it's about, it's easy to find partners, right? I can. I can email the XFL. Hey, here's 25 more vendors would love to part with you who are good at what they do. That part is easy, but finding a way to integrate them is really, really important. So kind of wrapping the conversation here and moving forward with the XFL, right? I mean, We're getting there. Right. I mean, it just feels like, I don't know. It feels like we were promised this year long kind of like run. Yeah. Okay. Well, they've got two years now. We're getting a year and behind the scene shows and all this kind of stuff. Here we are. May we're maybe getting cities and teams at summer. I mean, even with the XFL before we knew cities, we didn't know the team names, right? Like at least like we know so little right now it gets a little frustrating. Yeah, and I get, I can't speak to humbug is secrecy on purpose versus unsurity. So I can't speak to that. And I think it's a fair question to ask, but, you know, I think just the football side of things, football, operations, player, personnel. Guilt necessarily need teams or need a lot of stuff in place, but again, you have to have that base, right? If it was B right now, The XML said, Hey, you know, What would you do right now? Player personnel wise. It's at an even football operations wise. It's planned for every outcome right now. And overstress ladies, it won't matter. Right. Knowing me, I would have those 50 quarterbacks that we need to have for next year. XFL class. And the top 250 offensive lineman. At my desk with their agents calling those agents one by one. Hey, is he alive? How's he doing? Because. If you want to play football still because you can't wait until, you know, the XFL draft was fun and stressful, but fun because we were prepared. And when you're not prepared, like some other spring leagues have had a F wasn't, all that prepared perfectly. The USFL was, was kind of a lot as well, too. Right. It's it starts things off on the wrong foot and players. Now it is special. If you see that utilization. Possible of USFL players. You can't f**k around. Right? You can't really mess around. Players, you can't be late. You can't be. Incorrect, you can have all your facts misplaced. So I think players are more sophisticated. I'm happy to see it. I've talked to some players that have been part of unions or utilizing things. And I think it's great. And I think it's important to that. These leads recognize that we can't be as we can't be fly by night. Like, I think the UFL kind of was way back when, or. Or even lesser, the spring league has been nothing against spring league, but that, that quality of player attraction is not going to work. In today's world with Edyael with unionization. I think all these leads have to be really, really buttoned up what they're doing and you can't be late. I do that correctly. Yeah, no, we threw out, we had kind of Pharaoh on last week talking to all that. And working with the steelworkers. I mean, it's, it's needed because yeah. Yeah, the contract sleek and like the, you know, they're paying for hotels or whether they do it, like. It's you know, you get the AAF. Everyone gets cut, sent home XFL too. It's hard. It's the hardness. The contractor tough man. The USFL. Wasn't transparent with their contracts and they don't have to be, you know, we weren't as much, but I was very sensitive at the XFL route because yeah, there was some quarterbacks, you know, PJ Walker was at the highest paid XFL quarterback. He was the best quarterback. And I thought he was. And. Coming into the league when we signed them. Right. But he wasn't the highest paid, but what PJ was getting paid. I think. We, we all felt good about it, right? If, if, if his agent, whoever else found out where the salaries were in that lower belly, you know what that's okay. And it's really important. Build. The right way, right. We didn't want to under, we don't want to get a good deal on somebody, right. Especially for a league like this, where agents and players are your partners. You want to make sure that. You, you don't have to be transparent, but if you are transparent, you don't. We'll get it in idiot. Or a terrible negotiator, I think. The USFL made some mistakes there, misled some people. High-level agent wise and contract wise that wasn't a strategy. I recommend either, but with unionization, that's going to become more transparent and I think it's good. But I also think it's going to make these again, all of these leagues, all spring leagues. I have to be more organized. You cannot get a good deal. You can't, whatever else you've got to be a lot more big picture. Hey, we have this budget that on quarterbacks we should plan to spend. When these things generally to save and not trying to get a good deal or Rob somebody else here too. So I think with unionization, you're going to need a lot more. Organization and being prepared for every outcome, which I think is really important. Electrical the time I made it as a player budget and I want to make sure it, players at quarterback were going to pay a lot of the same thing, but I have what I call, which is not what we actually was, but I call it the caprylic fund. Where we had enough money set aside in our player pool that if just in case Kaepernick, One play and everyone's signed off on it. We had an available, but it took a lot of planning to get there. And I think we, I made sure we were always below budget just because I wanted to go to my job, but also because in case something came up, but I think you never know when things aren't building momentum wise to have that availability, but it's also important to make sure players are not feeling they're being taken advantage of. So. I have one last question. Who is the highest paid quarterback in the XFL? I don't want to say that, but I was at our highest state quarterback was, was not our best quarterback and that was okay. I think there was some strategic reasons why. But, but it was, it was. It was a quarter past, I want to say. I was it, Brandon silver is playing twice. There you go. Final question. Cause we could talk all day. This has been I'm sure every. Loving all this stuff. You talked about the USFL, you know, Not all NFL ready talent, right. Quarterback issues. Now we're talking scouting for the XFL. I mean, do you think that there is, you know, 16, 16 plus eight, whatever, and fan controlled football, like ready quarterbacks to play? I mean, is there enough talented to supplement it to bolster XFL and USFL that they bought through here and next. I think so. I don't think so. I don't and I think it's a really. Worrisome thing. I think you have to. If I was, you know, if I was recommending the expo has to be really. Creative on their offensive staffs. Right. You know, for example, Jordan Tayyaba was a star in the XFL and he's been struggling in the USFL. I think a large reason is because the office of staff in San St. Louis Battle Hawks was outstanding. And I think you have to kind of have coaches were ready to be adaptable. I hope the ex-felons have the same mistake. The USFL had it. We had the first number out too, but like, you've got to have mobile quarterbacks. You just have to. The offensive line is not as good as you want it to be played is going to break down. I'll say like the best, the highlight plays at ESPN or the ones with the quarterbacks rolling out to his right. Every pat of the home's great throw almost is what he's rolling out. Right? So like, Get athletic quarterbacks is really important too. And have enough guys that can do that. But when the CFL was figured out and they've done a good job, especially the older, the spring leagues is I think a lot of CFL teams know their identity. And they know. I hate his quarterback works for us. Not every team is great, but they do a good job of that. And I think. We were, that's why we wanted to lean towards that our coaching staffs and picking the quarterbacks, but sometimes coaches are bad at scouting. So it was a delicate balance to find the guys that fit the scheme and the coaches want as well as getting the best talent available. So. It's tough. And I think. There's not enough quarterbacks to answer your question. And I don't what that means. Does that mean that the U S felony exit belt will have half their teams? Suck. Quite possibly. Could there be a huge bidding war. Yeah, that's really can afford it, but it could be a huge bidding war as well too. But again, I go back to the idea that. If I'm the XFL, ADA, my quarterbacks are guys that are in the 2022 draft class because they're yours to get. Don't let those guys go away. And the other eight you'll have to find from NFL. Cods are available the street or one by the USFL too. But, but no, it's, there's not enough. The more importantly, there's not 16, there's not 16. Maybe not even 20. Good quarterbacks dot and the NFL that you can get. The art concerning thing is there's definitely not 40 off of the alignment. For both weeks. Good offensive line 40, not even one leagues worth of off his lender out there, unless you develop it yourself. So often a lot of quarterback. I think I'd be losing sleep. If I was, that was my buddy, Doug Whaley, Ivy was asleep right over a quarterback to know if it's flagged, which I'm sure Doug is knowing how good he is at his job. Oh, Eric, this has been great. I'm so glad we could connect, you know, Sam and you, and I'm reliving XFL. [Unknown] through all these, you know, all this stuff now that I lived through watching as a fan. I really appreciate it. And obviously with the Scheibel and everything else you do, and now it's very exciting. I appreciate it, man, too. And yeah, I, I, I'm excited that, you know, the tribal piece has been fun. And the Jordan taboo story. I appreciate because we talked with his agent, Kenny Zuckerman. At the shrine bowl at the XFL at 2019. And it's come full circle as well too, but it's been fun. I'm rooting for the X number of the USFL and a lot of people, especially players there that are involved too. So I'm hoping these leads work out too, but it's, I think it's a very different world than when the a F. Announced, they were going to play in 2018. I mean I'm, I'm, I'm down for, it sounds like we're on the same page and. I'm not happy to get into a you, you steer the ship and I'll hop in wherever. All right, we'll do it. All right. Well, let me hit record here. I'll do a little thing here and then. Our, our show's evolved or it's mostly just all interviews now. So I just want to just kind of piece this together. Guys. Well, I'm exceptionally thrilled today. A, just to find someone to you to talk us about football about, but we have Justin Freeman here with run the Sims and I stumbled upon this. I'll kind of talk through the story about how we came in contact with each other, but first off, How are you and tell us a little bit about kind of where you fit into this crazy all football world. Yeah. We were just kinda talking about this. How, like, there's these little quarters of the internet where you, you, you don't know that there's other folks out there with the same kind of quirky interests that you have. I have zero friends. I can talk about USFL football. That's. I'm glad to be talking with you, but I I'm Justin Freeman from [unknown]. It says.com. We are a fantasy football tools and bedding. Website. And so we're, we're, we've been hyper-focused on USFL trying to soak up every detail. We can get our hands on. I've been watching all the games and spent a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm always interested in and more football, more football is better than less football. Every single time. Right. So I'm all about it. And it's nice to kind of meet folks like yourself who are also all about it. And I kind of come at it through this fantasy lens. I'm big into, you know, could we create tools to help you a draft Kings and. Obviously DraftKings is carried. A lot of viewership, I think for the, for the league. And a lot of folks are watching just for their bedding takes or just for their DFS take. So, you know, We come at it from that angle and try to help people be successful. Well, I'm thrilled because, you know, I guess there's not a lot of people, people forget. We're producing this podcast like yeah. Especially with the USFL is sometimes less than helpful with finding people to talk to. It's really hard to find new smart people that are like educated that actually watched the games that are qualified to talk about this. So I had come across Jeff LSD. Olsteen a, he's been there. Edelstein. I always say it wrong has been on the show. He covers sports betting and all of that. And Jeff had an article out talking about the USFL needs to immediately embrace sports, betters and DSF D F S players. And that got me got to think in a, you were on there at Jeff was on there, you know, obviously writing about this and this is a whole nother world where we've been. Told for months, right? Attendance doesn't matter. It's all about TV viewership. Fox's viewing this as a TV platform that they're going to parlay, you know, for lack of whatever that way. Make the jump. Yeah. And they attended, but you know that they're going to utilize sports betting and the a Fox bats and all this stuff. And here, I see you quoted in this article, a tweet saying like, you know, USFL is doing nothing. Even provide you guys with the info that you need. So how did you, how have you viewed the season? I guess so far here we are approaching week five, which is crazy to think about. Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely came into the season super, super eager. Like I was a huge, huge fan of a XFL 20, 20 edition. I had a lot of fun. That was a really. That was a really fun sweat DFS wise. I love the way there was two Saturday games, two Sunday games, because a fantasy player that's almost ideal. It gives you a little bit of time to reevaluate your lineups between times and. And I think overall, like the USFL has been maybe just a little flatter and I think, you know, Well, I know it's a made for TV product. Obviously the lack of fans in the stands is a little distracting for a newcomer who turns on the channel for the first time I was like, wait, is this. There's like a COVID operate. What's going on here? You've got. Kind of reminds you of those yeah. NBA games. We're getting an empty stadiums there for a while, but so it's a little, a little strange of an experience that, so they've done a lot of things really well. But, you know, my sort of take on it. I have this sort of fantasy lenses. I want more information and there is no Adam Schefter. There is no Ian Rapoport for this league. Who's going in and scooping all the news stories like you think about just like the last couple of weeks. All of a sudden we had this surprise game where Shay Patterson's not the starting quarterback. It's Paxton Lynch. Well, nobody knew that was going to happen. We've seen Paxton mix in just a smidge, but we didn't know he was going to be the starter. And I granted he ended up getting hurt on like the first or second driver that game and ended up not mattering, but I'm still like, we need somebody to tell us that, like, is there a quarterback controversy brewing in Michigan? Like, that'd be super. Cool to write a story on I'd, I'd read that story and kind of helps you get engaged with things, you know? Throughout the course of the week. And obviously the, the big thing that kind of came to a head and week three was the lack of injury reporting and the injury reporting has been hit or miss. Consistently throughout the. Of course of this season by week three, it came to a head because the leading rusher of the entire week, Reggie Corbin was marked inactive by the official team Twitter account. So here we are thinking that Reggie, Corbin's not even in the picture. We've got Cameron Scarlet, we've got Stevie Scott, the two running backs for the Michigan. And I was obviously a super heavy on Cameron Scarlet that game. So I was not very excited to see Reggie Corbin. Consistently go bang his head off the goalposts, his scores touchdowns out there. So, yeah, there's just a little, yeah. Things like that, that could be cleaned up that are super easy. Like fans just want more access and. Obviously they've tried with the, the docu-series to get us involved that way, but it's, it's really just more like routine news reporting, not things that are like super breaking or anything like that. Just like. Is there some depth. That's Sean turnover type situations we should be aware of. Should we expect to see. A different style from this coach heading into this week or whatever that type of storyline might be like, help us know what to expect going into it. Otherwise we're, we're flying blind and that's not really a super fun experience for anyone. Oh, no. I just [unknown]. And, you know, we're, we're critical on it because these are tangible easy ways to kind of improve. And that's always my thing. Cause I get a lot of like, okay, you're hating on the league or. You're you're hating. You don't want this to succeed. Yeah, I want, like you said, all football is good. Yeah. This doesn't interfere at all with the XFL CFL. Anything else? It's little things. Like you said, you know, sending out injury reports that aren't at three in the morning, right? Having a, you said a, maybe a, a built out PR team. I mean, I get that these are kind of growing pains here. One bit. It's also Fox sports. And so I have a really hard time, like giving them the past when it's okay. Fox sports just paid $350 million for Tom Brady. Right? To go commentate. NFL games, but yet here we are. We don't have roster reports for supposedly. What is your big spring kind of football endeavor here? Yeah, exactly. So it's like, to me, if you're complaining without solutions, then you're just kind of a, a hater, right. But if you have solutions. That could easily be implemented in the league. To me, that's just constructive feedback. And so I wanted the league to do well. I want them to do better. Like I just. I don't want to be frustrated by my viewing experience. And that's kind of the way I felt after that week. For sure. And I mean, even we had a quarterback change this past week for Pittsburgh, you know, with Kyla Leta, taking over at quarterback again, so to speak for that team. And. You know, it's just like, there's a lot of things that could be known. They're very easy to know if you're working at it and you're, you've got somebody down there reporting on it, but it sounds like they've actually actively. Kept Birmingham media from covering any of the non Birmingham teams, as I understand it. So the local Birmingham media can cover the stallions, but they're not allowed in practices for the other seven teams. And. Yeah, that's a lack of access. So it's like, you could actually just leverage the people right down the road in the backyard. Who could go out and give you some of these Rappaport Schefter type of scoops. Yeah, just based on what they're seeing in practice, right. And your little sound clips that they could get from players on their way. You know, out of the gate on the way to the bus, back to the hotel or whatever. I mean, like it's not a huge amount of work and Fox has talent down in Birmingham. Like it's, it's not like it would take a huge lift. So I would love to see them just consistently try to get more nuggets out throughout the week, because you know, whether you're a person who just loves to watch the game and follows it throughout the week or your fantasy player, like you kind of hang on those days, if you, if you think about how the NFL sort of seasoned flow works. That weekly rhythm, you know, after the Monday night football game. It's kinda like, okay, you get the Tuesday injury reports, you know, the Wednesday injury reports. You know, you get some news about, so-and-so's a little banged up. We're keeping an eye on this. We're monitoring that. And then by Sunday, you've got like 30 storylines that you're kind of watching the way, see how they unfold. There's drama built into the way the game plays out. So that's what I'd like to see the league just sort of build up more and they could like it's all right there in front of. I was Googling here. I. I'm trying to find the, so Josh love here now has been signed this week. Kind of the major, one of the major storylines coming out. He's been signed to the Panthers, right. From the modelers, which we can also eliminate the Maulers here at another time. But you know, that's a major story, right? Like why, why is Josh lab. You know, coming in right shape. Patterson's her, is that what's going on? Or his led shirt? Paxton Lynch's hurt right here. So, I mean, you know, here's a major storyline. We have one of the quarterbacks jumping ship, right. To the Panthers. That's, you know, whether they, I would say the largest fan bases of the, of the league right now. I feel like more buys could be seeing around that. They just like, well, here's the social media graphic that we put out. Like, there you go. Moving on. Right. So there's another example where you talk about sort of lack of connectivity, the T or the let's see the Maulers tweet out at 3:00 AM a couple of nights ago. That they've signed. That lead quarterback and we're like, huh. So they're going to carry three quarterbacks now or what? And I go check the website and Josh loves missing from the team website or something like, oh, well they obviously also release Josh love or wait. You know, wave to him or whatever the proper terminology would be for that. And that, that w that part was not reporting. I'm like, well, that's a huge story. Like that should be, you know, brought up and then you don't find out until the next day where Michigan puts in a claim on them. To get them. It's like, well, this is, this is the stuff we want to see. And luckily, you know, we have plenty of time to react and adjust it's early in the week, but like that's a story. That's a, that's a usfl.com article. You know, that should be. Included in their coverage. Beyond there. I just found there. They're sort of handling of social media to be really surface level. Like when we. You could be linking out features to, you know, important stories that we care about or could care about. Well, I've inside. They were pulling some guy did a video on YouTube talking about the joint field goal. And like they copyright claim Tam. I thought that was kind of a story. They had come out this week. Like, God forbid you have anyone. And I think he gets more views on his YouTube channel. Then they get on like Fs. And there they have like the last week. So it was kind of funny, like, well, maybe you're rushing us back. You would want him to promote that. It's a weird, I know in the article too, that Jeff had, and you were quoted in other kinds of fantasy in sports betting experts, like. It is a weird surface level approach to the social media. And I get, again, this is all I grassroots bear, bugs, bike, even fan controlled football. And I don't know if they have two or three different people running it, that social media. I mean, I know it's not eight people for eight teams, but they're able to give all their teams personalities, even if it's just a couple of tweets a day, making it feel like, okay, I'm invested in this, you know, this franchise versus a different one. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you think about sort of what it takes to, to make that happen. Th they obviously have sort of this tweet by volume approach and they, they really crank them out and they're going to hit every team account a couple of times a day. And I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a consolidated group of people, or even just maybe one person who's in there logging in, logging in and out between the team accounts and getting them out. And you can just sort of tell by the rhythm in which they come out of. You've got the notifications turned on, like I do. So, yeah, but it's like, where's the substance. I'd like to see something a little, a little bit deeper. And I know you can only get so much out in 280 characters, but, you know, linking to features and things like that. I think it would be super helpful. It just feels like it. You said, you know, they, they let the Fox people cover Birmingham, right? Not able to cover the other. It just feels like they exist in their own bubble sometimes. Right? Like I see no USFL ISS stumbling upon you. Now write a couple of the other guys I'm going to have on the podcast here in a couple of weeks, but. It's a small circle. It's, it's really weird that this exists, like our viewership of podcast viewership was down last week, just because I think it's kind of anemic right now. It just doesn't feel like it's a hot product. Right. We had the late Friday game. We have the Saturday day game on peacock at me, but you guys cover this. I saw your YouTube videos and seven mean is viewership. Good for this. Do you feel like it's good traction for the USFL? No, not really. Oh, this s**t was a little bit better, honestly. You know, I, and I love it though. So I guess no complaints from my end and I enjoy doing it. And I find it to be a fun DFS for, for me personally, because I get to go in and get an information edge on my opponent. So that's not something that's as easy to do in the NFL where everyone has access. To really great information, but you know, if you're willing to go out there and grind the, the tweaks and, you know, look through the, you know, read between the lines on what the coaches are saying, you can really, you know, get yourself some edges and playing USFL, DFS, but yeah. Th the interest level has been really low. You know, we've got a good discord of folks, you know, talking about it from the fantasy angle and stuff. But it's kind of the, the crazies, the sickos that are. That are left here, you know? It's not a large mass appeal. Th the people who I've tried to reach out to who, you know, are not, not what I'd considered USFL native, you know, they. I have no real interest in watching it. They do get turned off the first time they turn the game on and, and there is something to that. And I would like to see that improved. Obviously there's only so much. I'm sure the league would probably consider letting people in for free if they could get away with it. At this point, but I think they've got some deals in place with the city of Birmingham to use the protective stadium. So probably not on the table, but overall it's just a. It seems to lack a little sizzle that the XFL have some sort of magic. In the bottle and I can't really explain what that is, but it does feel different. Having been a part of both of those. Yeah, cause I mean, I didn't do any of this when the XFL was around the first time. I mean, this wasn't like I came in and was deep entrenched and all this. I got into all of this after the rock bought the league and kind of all that stuff. But, you know, even just casually with that, I mean, I would see the games on TV. I would see the games at bars. I would see people wearing stuff. I mean, obviously. It helps having the teams in the cities we've talked about this. And I just, I worry that by the time we get to year two, If we coast along at a million, which it seems like viewership is on, on kind of the prime time games, obviously not, you know, the late night Fs one or whatever, but yeah, a million people a week. If we cruise through the April and then come back next year, like, I don't know if that's enough to bring the cities, bring the teams into the cities, like. I w what do you think about that? I mean, obviously, you know, their business plan and kind of, yeah. I mean, at least in theory, right? What they're planning to do. Yeah. Well, I think, I think that's their best chance, you know, is to. Hope that bringing them back into the cities does invigorating. The, the sort of loyalties associated with those teams and the attendance for sure. And we saw. It's just going to be interesting to see how much the, the XFL, I guess, steps on the toes or how much they are compete, like direct competitors with one another in the sense that like they're competing in the same time slots and that sort of thing. I think that could be an absolute disaster for both leagues. If, if they can't find a way to sort of segregate the calendar and say, Hey, we'll take a. Early February, mid February through may. And you guys take may through August or whatever. Like, I mean, I think there has to be some sort of separation there otherwise. You know, people, people want a little bit of breathing room right after the Superbowl, before they're ready to dive back into a fringe football league. But, you know, maybe it's, it only ever exists as like the thing that people turn their TVs to when they just have nothing to watch. I don't know, like. I am not particularly bullish on the longterm after what I've seen so far, like. The football's been okay. But even that's not been up to some of the standards of spring leagues that we've seen in the past. I saw an interesting tweet today for in pro football focuses. Eric eager. He talked about comparing the passing grades between the XFL 2020, which is. I had a four week shelf life and the, the USFL, there were 176 drop backs for quarterbacks and XFL and only 1 35 for USFL quarterback. So a significant lack of passive volume, which I think people, you know, people tune in to watch people throw the ball around. And the average passing grade in the XFL was 82.8 versus 53.7 here in the USFL. So we've seen some, like, I'd like to think that the football's not been bad and it feels like it's not the bad. That the games themselves have been close. But we haven't seen like spectacular play. Like we haven't seen that. Like if you told me. Yeah. Are any of these quarterbacks going to be getting phone calls from NFL teams in the fall? I mean, maybe Kyle slaughter gets brought back in. Any of these guys could get brought back in to have a cup of coffee during training camp when they need some extra arms around. But I haven't seen anybody. Standout in a major way as like guys who will definitely count on getting a phone call. From an NFL team. So the football has been a little bit below par, but still it's early enough where I'm willing to give that a little bit of grace. Hopefully that'll turn round a little bit here soon. Yeah. If you're a fan of the pro football focus, I would just say too next week might have some good stuff coming up there as well. I'm very excited about that. Awesome. I know it's hard and like, I know. You know, Got friends at the show that we've had. Right. Brian, Scott got her, had to go home. He's someone that really could have Excel or good Excel had excelled so far. Yeah, it was really helping. This was his shot. You know, I know a lot of the special teams guys have been released or moved around. We have the puncher. With the Michigan, right. That got released. Cause he couldn't kick, but you know, You're putting these guys in this adventure. This advantageous situations. That's a hard word. I'm like then. Some of them are failing. Right. For lack of, it's not even their fault, but then it comes across is as poor play and then pour on them as well. Right. Well, they see, that's why these guys can cut it and that's why they're in the USFL. Right? It's a weird, self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, it is. But there are some things, you know, some positives to take away as well. I don't mean to make it all doom and gloom. It's a. The football has been super competitive, even if like the quality of play hasn't been amazing. The games have been super tight, super fun. They've all come down to the wire. You felt like all the teams have been sort of having to keep their foot on the gas. For four quarters. That means they did a good job. Are you creating parody within the league? You know, something that the XFL did not have, you know, you saw the Houston roughnecks and that league just sort of walk away from the field pretty early. With a dominant quarterback and a dominant receiver. And here we don't have that. Like, I, I don't think even though the stallions are for no, right the second, like I'm not a huge. Believer that they're just talent-wise heads and tails above anyone. I'm like, I think. I think they may not even be the best team in the league despite their four and a record. So, yeah, like I think, I mean, I think the, the, the first down technology. I've considered that a major success. Once you remove the kicker issue that went along with that, but they fixed that. I mean, I can appreciate the speed with which they are fixing the problems as they arise. And that's one of the only things you can sort of ask for there is that they are. Adjusting to problems as they see them. They're not waiting to the off season. Yeah, they sped the clock up because that's something they felt like they wanted to do. Well, I think that has obviously some pros and some cons associated with it, probably overall a smart move for them to speed the game up and not occupy so much real estate on TV. But yeah, I think overall. You know, I like watching football in the spring and I think they've done an adequate job. Rising to the occasion. Yeah here, MFL where we're now having longer over time, USFL, like we gotta get outta here. We gotta got the game store. I mean, what do you think about that as a fantasy person? I, I missed the, I missed a lot of that, this last USFL weekend with work and some of the time slots, peacock premium, it's really hurting me there. But, I mean, did you notice a time clock? Was that that big of a ride or die moment? It was a big deal. It. I wanted to say it took away about eight plays per team per game, which is about a drive's worth. And so it's, it, it definitely decreased your fantasy scoring expectations across the table. It's not as good for us as fantasy players where you like to see enough volume across the board for your good plays to sort of rise to the top. But overall, we'll adjust there. It's not a problem for me, especially when we're going to have kickoffs at 10:00 PM. You know, some nights like that's, that was a long night trying to stay up for that game, but we made it through. Yeah, overall, like I'd love to see more plays, but understand the time constraint. And I think it's, I think the intent there is exactly right on like, I mean, I went to a baseball game with my four year old son last night and it was college baseball game nine. Any game started at six 30. It didn't finish till 10. And it's like, I can't be out that late with my kid. Like give me a game that's in and out in like two and a half hours and we can do that. But once it gets much longer than that attention spans, get weak and get the late at night. And, and everybody's just had enough so I can appreciate speeding it up. It's hard. I. I liked the games. I'm having fun. The attendance really bothers me. I know some people I've watched baseball my whole life. I get that. It's really hard. I mean, even the NFL piped in some noise and stuff and tried to kind of make it feel like there was a little bit going on. It is really hard and it's a really hard sell. You know, we had this, I guess, came out after the last episode aired. Yo Farhand lodgey, who's like one of the he's the premier like CFL media guy, right? It's been on the show. And he's like, Hey, I finally turned on the game Friday night. Cause the Stanley cup, I think Edmonton had blown out the Kings or whatever. He goes like, there's no one there, like what is going on? And it's like, this is someone that says connected to football as anyone could be. And like, these are people that you want supporting in the league. It's just really hard. It's really hard that. Not every single person that's turning on the game, exists in our Twitter sphere of like, we'll see, you know, this is the plan year one, and then they're going to do. You can't have that conversation with every single other person that's turning on the game. And like, I think there. I think we found a floor and it's 1,000,005, or whatever, that's going to watch this game, but I don't know what we do this season to kind of spark. Any more interest in that? Yeah, well, I mean, I also wonder like this, obviously a new league there's some novelty associated with that. Does that mean that the numbers actually inflated a little bit more than where the actual floor is? Like once the newness effect wears off? Does it shrink back down a little bit more in which case, you know, the leagues probably got some real decisions to make in terms of, you know, viability and that sort of thing. But also do wonder, like, from Fox's perspective, knowing how much it costs them to execute the league. What is sort of the break even point in terms of how many viewers they need to, to succeed and to be viable. Like, I mean, If it's either, you know, throw this on or throw a rerun of American idol on over. You know, whatever the alternative is, like, you know, This probably does better than whatever the rerun was doing, but it's also a lot more expensive to pull off. So. I'm confused as to how that works. That's above my pay grade, but I do hope it can make it through, but I'm like, I've explained the, like the hub format to my, my group, me friends. And they're like, you know, Whatever. I don't get why there's not people there. So. Yeah. So we brought you on either, right? We were talking. Fantasy. Right. You're betting all these kinds of things, DFS. So you wanted more transparency, right? Injury stuff. Like whether some other, cause like we said, we want it to be tangible takeaways things, you know, not just complaining for complaining sake. Like either things that you wish the league would, would kind of steer into either throughout this season or especially when it's like regroup time. Cause I do think we see a season two in some format. I don't think that Fox is pulling the plug. I mean, I don't. The ratings are fine. It's all, everything is fine. It's like the base level that we can do. We're we're bulk tweeting. We're doing everything. So what, what would you like to see at least going into year two? Yeah. So I think like from the injury report side, I'd love to see just a page on their site. That was simply all eight teams with a day of the week column and the list of players on the left-hand side, a DNO. You know, Jonathan Adams limited hamstring Wednesday. Yeah. Full practice Thursday. It doesn't have to be super complex. Just show me what everybody did each day of the week. That would be pretty in line with what the NFL does. And have your inactives report come out. At some standardized time, pick your time, you know, 24 hours before the game, two hours before the game who cares? Like just make it the same time. Across the board. I think that would be good. I'd also like, you know, one of my recommendations and this wouldn't be a, this season fix, but it'd be a all season. Takes would be go ahead and expand the number of players on the roster. I think you're seeing some real problems develop. By the fact that rosters are served, then. Like we went into the Michigan game last week with literally one quarterback, actor. I mean, what happens if Shay Patterson twists his ankle in the first quarter? The way past the lynched it the week before. And you have nobody. I mean. Who wants to watch three and a half quarters of some wide receiver running loud cat offense or whatever, you know, like, I mean, That's not fun for anyone. It doesn't have to exist that way. You can just add five more players to the roster, 10 more players, whatever the number ends up being. I mean, I think NFL rosters are prohibitively thin, but they're, they're probably right in the sweet spot of where you wanted to be. Financially speaking. So yeah, I'd like to see that. I'd like to see. Let's see. So the injury reporting, the player depth. I think those are the two big ones, but then also it's the, it's the features. It's the end week features the end week storytelling. Of what's going on around the league, not just, and I, I love watching the United by football show. Like I think it's great. And I tune in every week to watch that and see who's eating ribs with who and you know, what's going on? What stories are we telling? But. But also give me the nuggets from, from practice, like in the NFL. What's great is you've got, you know, half a dozen beat writers covering any one particular team and. So every time the Tampa bay Buccaneers practice, you get. You could have a Twitter feed full of nuggets, you know, Hey did not see Giovanni Bernard and pregame warmups. And they are, did not see Giovanni Bernard in the open portion of practice or whatever that might look like, or, you know, saw the backup quarterback practicing with the first team office, you know, Things like that would be really cool. Just to add flavor throughout the course of the week. And so I think that's what I'm looking for is more like finding your rhythm on a weekly level and what that looks like. How are you engaging with fans beyond just telling them, Hey, show up on Sunday at one o'clock or whatever the time is to, to watch the game, like, give me a reason to want to tune in, give me some storylines to hang on. Give me some chum in the water between every weekend, you know? I have begged them like every week, like anybody, like let's set up cause like I'm, you know, and I'm sourcing and like we have rock Heuer the on last week, like I had to re you know, I had to track him down through my former life of like emailing past coworkers, like Kevin Cougar, like, yo, we're getting people from the league on, but it's like, It's basically through like sheer force and them not wanting to right. You know, it's me literally, like not begging. Yeah. Th the guests to come on, but like you're begging the league them saying no me trying to find other ways to reach out and, and. It's just, I don't want it to be that way. And I'm just tired of this. Like, well, we exist in the Fox sports world and that's enough. And like, we're going to let you know the Fox stations in Birmingham cover this and like, that's fine. And. I don't know. I think by week five, I think we're, we're stabilized enough. Like, let's try experimenting with some new things. You know what I mean? Like I get the first couple of weeks, like, God, we got everybody here. It's a kickoff weekend. We're moving it there. Like we're in season now. Like, because my fear is like, when this goes away, we. You know, we have a championship game like this disappears for nine months, and then it comes back again. Like I just, I don't know whether USFL off season looks like. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I do wonder, you know, what, what type of turnover they have personnel wise among the players and coaches? Yeah. How many of these guys are going to get an opportunity in the NFL? How many, how many names will we know? Or will it be a complete learning curve again? As we head into the next season and. I mean, I think even if that's the case, that may not necessarily be a bad thing. And, but I mean, I think the. Then they've got to figure out how to maybe get some better quarterbacks and the player pool, and that may be increasing the salary for quarterbacks. And we, I think. I think we've seen at least one league, if I'm not mistaken, raise their men salary specifically for quarterbacks to try to float the entire league. And so, you know, maybe if you get some guys to have some actual solid NFL starts under their belt, we get a little bit better. Quality of play. But I think overall, like if you're watching football in the month of may, you probably really want to watch football and that we, eh, anybody watching this right now will probably fits into that category. So. You know, w w we'll just watch anything. So. We're going over here on time. I applied to it and a couple of quick, last things I wanted to be sure to sure. We hit on. The quarterback play, like you said, You know, Ben homes, right? Yeah. One of the first pigs got caught right now we have Brian Scott go down right. Passing the Lynch's down. And he was kind of questionable as is. I mean, like you said, we're really running short here, you know, XFL comes back next year. Like, I don't know. Are there. You know, eight quarterbacks plus backups for both of these leagues, plus fan controlled football. I don't know if that exists in your world. Right. But they take, some of the quarterbacks has felt like, are there whatever the math is there? 32 quality or 40, whatever the math is quality quarterbacks that are going to come in and ride this. I just don't know. Yeah, it's going to be a tough challenge. And then, you know, I mean, there's barely 32 good quarterbacks to fill out NFL hosters, you know, like, I mean, think about how big the gap is between a mediocre quarterback and a bottom of the barrel NFL starter. It gets. But he draws up really quickly and you know, the same, thing's true at the offensive line. Like, especially the top tackle positions, like that could be a place where holes become evident really quickly. And maybe we're seeing that in Philadelphia right now, they're taking a ton of sacks and, but maybe that's also got to do with their volume as well. So yeah. And the they've got some personnel. Things to, to try to figure out over the next little while I, in many ways, like I'm excited to see the XFL show up as well, but I'm also a little worried that the timing is not fantastic for anyone involved for the XFL to be coming exactly one year after the USFL. Like it would be great to see the USFL grow its own legs. And operate as a freestanding league without having to worry about another, a competing property, breathing down its neck. But Hey, that's the hand they're dealt. We'll see how they rise to the occasion. Well, I think that's good. I think we'll leave it here. I really appreciate your time. I would lock you back on at any time, just because having smart people, like I said, they could talk about the USFL are, are few and far between sometimes. So I really appreciate it. Jessen Freeman with run the Sims and you know, for all your DFS staff, you guys have, I, this is way over my pay grade. Stand any other fantasy, but lots of great tutorials and tools and everything. I've spent time going through your side. I just don't quite understand all of it. Yeah, absolutely. If you, if you play a USFL draft, Kings DFS, we're the place for you. We can help you build a bunch of lineups really quickly, and the type of lineups that you would need to succeed. And hopefully. When a tournament and they, you know, We'll get $20,000. I'll talk to the winner of this week's tournament. So come check us out, go to, go to run the sims.com. I appreciate you having me on read. Yeah, I just went, we came to my fantasy. I just drafted guy. So like I knew they had been on the show and my baby basket. They've gotta be. And it turned out well until Brian Scott got hurt. And then my hall. Everything went to grab. So I had to take a case. I had to go with Philadelphia. That's my team, but they're, they're releasing all of the players for my team now. So I'm very, to them about it. You know, but it's, it's hard, so. All right, well, I'll hit record here. We'll get going. And then it should be. Well, I'm thrilled today. The welcome back friend of the show, Paul Reese. Now, you know, you're known as a USFL historian, but also you run our sports central as well. So I mean, you, we bring you on for your USFL expertise, but obviously you cover all minor on all football. How are you doing today? I'm well, thank you for having me back on. I appreciate it. So, you know, we talked. Had you on last, the kind of the USFL lawsuit. You know, they're in mediation right now. It sounds like they'll probably settle at some point, but we haven't talked with you since USFL kind of kicked off. So I wanted to bring you on kind of get your thoughts are heading into week five, right? Whether your thoughts so far of the USFL season, You know, it's been interesting. I think some of the concerns that we had to begin with. Have borne out. Particularly the lack of attendance for three out of the four weekend games. And. I understand. You know, this is a television show. That. And that's not a mental totally. It's owned by Fox. Obviously they're doing it as a television property. I don't know that they properly considered what virtually empty stadiums. Would look like and how that impacts the television product. So that that's on the negative side, on the, on the positive side, you know, we've had a lot of. Good close games. The, the teams generally seem to be fairly well balanced. So that means competitive. Match-ups. A weekend and week out. And. You know, it's, it's kind of been fun to see it evolve a little bit. It's interesting. And you know, it's so much. This is made of the attendance staff I got in trouble on Friday. [unknown]. And then a friend of the show he had turned on, he was watching. And the AHL playoffs and, you know, Edmonton was killing the Kings. So he turned on that Friday night game and AI imagined this was the first time he had watched any of the USFL. And he said like, man, I mean, there's really nobody there. And I don't, I hate, you know, There's all the debates. I'm like, what is surprising to me is that Fox hasn't considered changing their approach to how they film those games. Right. That it's. Why drone shot we're going through. We're showing the ends. I was like, yeah, even Debbie Debbie II, when there's no crowds in the stands, right. They'll kind of position or moose around. They just, it's weird to me that Fox is just dove in and said, like, we don't care. We're just filming it as we would. Anyway. And if you're a fan of one of these lakes, you can tend to, when you get that overhead shot, you see kind of the empty stadium on the one side and. 10 In the back of your mind? Well, maybe everybody's sitting on the other side then when they show the drone side. The drone shot. You're like, Nope, there's actually no one there. So that's yeah, I agree. Yeah. They maybe would want to go a little bit tighter on those games. And, you know, I don't want a pound on it. Yeah. But I wish that they would have considered. How that impacts the television product. Just a little bit more. It's weird to me that, and I've said this a couple of weeks ago that like, I think they should've just called them the stars, the stallions, the generals would have opened you up to negotiations with other cities. If we needed to. I mean, not one person I think in the world is watching because it is the Houston gamblers. I think they're watching because they like spring football. Right. We kind of found this week ratings have kind of stabilized right at a million, a little over a million for those broadcast scams. I just, I think you would've done it that way. And maybe Birmingham would have been more open to it. It's astounding to me that people aren't going to the non Birmingham games. Yeah. I mean, you look at this though. If you are in Birmingham. You already can go to see 10 straight weeks of football for your hometown team. So. I mean, that is a tough. That's a lot too, to ask as a fan to begin with, but then to ask them to see extra games on the weekend. I think that it really is asking a lot of the Birmingham fans to have them come out and, you know, the downside is that it ends up looking and feeling a little bit more. Like a scrimmage. And so. You know, I know that that's not what they want to give off with these games, and that's not how the players and the coaches are approaching them. But it does give that, that feel, unfortunately. What do you make of the talent level? You know, I we've had, we have Justin Freeman on today. He does kind of DFS sports fantasy. And then Eric Alco at Eric said, you know, the games have been fine, which I don't think is, is what we want when you're really the only spring league in town right now. Right. You're not competing against the XFL or. I mean, fingered show football to some extent, but what do you make of the overall talent here? Four weeks in. You know, It's so hard. You know, it's so it's easy to jump in and criticize, especially when you see guys making missing 21 yard field goals. I think that is probably a little bit. Better than the critics. Than what the critics say. It's really amazing that once guys get shots. They can be ready to step up and competition level. I mean, we, we saw Sam mills, you know, an original USFL guy who was thrown out of the scrap heap. He was not going to get another shot. Now today he's a hall of fame. I mean, that's. It's just so difficult. I think for the average fan. To look at. The overall talent in the game. What you're seeing is okay. Maybe you're your wide receiver. His 40 yard dash is two tenths of a second slower than the NFL top. But so is the defensive back. That he's facing. So it, it really is tough. We've seen some fantastic catches in the league. Quarterback play has been, you know, Much less even, is that because of lack of talent. Lack of continuity. Both of those things probably come into play a little bit. And I think we will see it improve a little bit. As the season moves on, but it is really hard to get a feel for that. If anything, I think our concerns about. The this inaugural coaching staff. I was coaching staff. Some have done better than others. But you just wonder what if we, what if we. S D Spurrier, June Jones. And pick the top three names. Each of them would have recommended. Just to, just to live and things up. You know, the, the offensive seem a little bit. Old. And I, you know, I think that there's probably more imagination, beheading coaching staffs. Well, and even a lot of the rules that have been brought in, right, is things to kind of spice it up from the XFL or whatever you want to say, that they took the inspiration from. Yeah, we saw the one, three point play a couple of two point conversions, not, you know, the double forward pass. Hasn't really, it feels. I it. It doesn't feel that inspired. And like you said, I don't know if that's the coaching staff. I mean, Kirby Wilson has been just a failure. I think across the board, you get. Both on the field and off even Jeff Fisher this week, you know, going for the field goal, you have a puncher, I mean, weird decisions that way. Yeah. Yep. And that, I mean, that's the kind of thing that I'm looking at. I mean, you look at the Alliance of American football. Orlando first. First game out of the blocks, they. They threw the past to the quarterback for a touchdown. You have a June Jones running his crazy offense in Houston with the XFL right from week one. And here we are almost halfway through the USFL season and you're really looking and you're really waiting. We're kind of that breakout on offensive performance. And I, you know, I will say Philadelphia whatever's, he gets, he's doing there. He's lost a starting quarterback and they haven't seemed to have missed a beat off. That's a plate. You know, maybe a guy who's. You know, showing that. She's in a good place. But some of the other. Decisions. I love new Orleans end of the game. Aggressiveness. Contrasting that with Jeff Fisher's. Lack of aggressiveness and really new Orleans was in a better position to make that field goal. I. I think they had more confidence in their kicker. Only needed the tie. So, I mean, I would like to see a little bit more, more variety from coaching decisions. Yeah, the, the Brian Scott thing was a big blow. It it's hard. And we're running into this now, you know, Michael, the puncher for, for the Panthers he'll got released. Either because of the, the field goal thing. I, a long time friend of the show, you don't Matt mangle here that the star has it brought in and you kick her there. Yeah. It's these players kind of being put in situations here. We have the chip gate and then we get rid of that. And now we're asking punchers, they kick it, just it showing. I talked to Dorothy about this last night. Like if we had five more players per team, but you know, you do the math, it adds up really quickly, right? I mean, Philadelphia right now is playing without a backup quarterback. Same as. Paxton Lynch's out for the, for the Panthers. Right, right, right. And so, you know, maybe it's a simple adjustment on the leads part. You know, maybe you come into next season as it's like 40 men active. You need to have a ticking specialist, a punting specialist, and you need to have two quarterbacks on the roster. So I. I mean, just as a simple little adjustment like that. Could make a big difference. But, you know, it's like you do the math, right? So these, these guys are getting paid, you know, 4,500 a week. Right. And then minus with everybody. Yeah. So call it five grand. You add seven more players. You know, 35 per team, eight teams, 10 weeks. I mean, you see why very quickly that adds up and, but, you know, Th the money they're spending, you know, we're talking about a TV show, you know, the money you're spending per these games is a lot less than you're paying for a lot of, you know, like even friends or you think of these high profile shows that, you know, networks. I'm friends with this terrible event. Yeah, it hasn't been on the air in 15 years, but a lot of these shows where we're paying, you know, it's a high salary cast for the actors. Right, right. You know, Another three to five players per roster, proactive roster. I don't think you're breaking Fox's bank on that. And you know, if you have, if you alter the perception of quality, as I think you probably would have with a few more, maybe kicks that, that. The average football fan is going to see missed 21 yard chicks. And say, ah, come on. You know, you can make these in your sleep, even though they, you know, they have been missed in the NFL. But, you know, the new league is always going to have to. Have to prove itself. So. Yeah, those are some things that easily alter the perception of your league. I just, you know, I know the game plan and we've talked and. Getting the all we gotta do is get through year one. We're getting the cities, we're getting the seas, all this stuff. I always argue. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. And what's living through this year with this. I'm hopeful. Right? I want that. And the ratings are fine. I don't think that they're phenomenal. I mean, they went up again this week, I guess. I think we're finding that settling point. They went up, I think it's overall 12% from when they had dev to put like, It's not, there's not setting the world on fire and I don't see it building here to the playoffs. I mean, do you see, like, I just, I see it leveling out. If anything, I think the going gets tough. Right? When you view ratings. And, you know, even going back. 40 Years to the original USFL that the summer weather becomes such a draw. So the problem is that as your playoffs races are heating up, as you get into the meat of the season, and what would normally be a bigger draw? You have an even bigger draw from the outside, nice weather in a lot of areas. So that, that, that is going to probably impact TV ratings. I would not be shocked at all. To see a little bit of a slide. Through the remaining month. That's it's very possible. I just, I didn't anticipate that, you know, they pick this timeframe. I really thought, right. Because the art, you know, Darrell Johnson came out and said, you know, normally they do it in February. We're going to do it because then we're not competing against March madness. Yeah, we're competed against baseball and stuff. NHL is so hot right now. I have four games a night to watch or day like I am. So even though the cracking her out, like I am so all in on the Stanley cup playoffs right now. MBA, if that's your thing. And like you said, the weather it's weird. When we got involved with all this CFL of, at all, when we were talking with the XFL. That's always their thing. It's like, well, people don't watch in the summer and their vacation. I always thought, well, that's kind of hogwash. But now I do think that the USFL might kind of consider that plus Birmingham is going to be hot here coming up. Pretty sad. It is good. So you think that those, those crowds are small for the three games riding? Helmet my kidney, but smaller. But, you know, it is what they pick. And that is one of the things that, you know, maybe that is a test for the league this year. Then they'll see how this timeframe works. So, and you're right. The, do you battle March madness or you. Do you battle? The improving summer weather. We'll see how this ends up working out for them. If. The ratings don't slide. If the ratings. Increase or stay steady. Maybe they have thought where they want to be. I would be a little bit surprised if that happens. Ideas. You know, if what I would pay to be on the fly in the wallet, if Fox sports headquarters or whatever, like. It is 1.1. Is that million for the prime time? EO Saturday, it's hard. Like, is that what they envision here? When it's like it's it's 50 million it's three-year plan. We've got this. We had Brock Heuer. Don last week, you know, he said that the opening kickoff game was like the super bowl in terms of, you know, People executives that were there and in the production trucks and stuff like is all this work for a million a week when it's like, we can re air. Any show in the world in that time slot, you know, by, by, by a movie, right. Air, the old Avenger stuff. Like, I just don't know if that's what they want. That's what they envisioned. Yeah. And I don't know what their viewership target, you know, is I. My guess is that they wanted to average somewhere around a million and a half over the course. The season for the, the network games. I think it's going to be hard to hold that. They're probably about there right now with the big start. But, you know, I think that there will be a little bit of a slide. From here on out. So it'll, it'll probably wind up underneath that million five. Now with Fox. Does take the long-term view on this. They may say, Hey, you know what? We've got neutral site games, three out of the four games. Didn't look all that great on TV. We. We know this, we, we got it. Okay. If. We have areas where we can kick up operations. I don't think that there's any reason why we can't do a million and a half, 2 million. For network games going into next year. If we're in home cities, if we go big. You know, before the season starts. You know, And if we continue to build this thing, Network TV. Is not often the most patient parent. So we'll see if they have that kind of long-term vision. I would like, it's hard. I mean, Danny and the rock right now, you know, Anthony backed, I think, was on this week saying like, they're still negotiating. You know, leases for cities, which is terrifying a little bit, just cause we're in, in may, you know, I questioned the XFL Simon all the time. You know, I, I, it is equal opportunity kind of at that, but like, That's a ton of work. It's a ton of money. It's a ton of more logistics like that, that 50 million or whatever they've got this year. It's a huge job to have these guys in all their cities and have the teams and have all the training camps and all the different practices. And. It's a big leap. It's a big leap from this. To next year and I don't. We, we said out here, you know, getting through year one is the goal, but it's kind of what you look like. When you get to the end of year one. Right, right. They're going to assess the entire year. They're going to assess. You know, on a replay at the right time, are we playing in the right place? Places, you know, what can we do? To continue to build this thing and. You know, I think that there are a lot of things that they can do differently. I think that there are a lot of advantages just coming back. Provide you're no longer a new entity. There is a little bit of continuity there. Broadcast lots. You have some consistency on Saturday night. But otherwise games have kind of been all over the place. So. Maybe bringing some consistency to that. And that might take a couple of years because you have to work with other broadcast properties that already have spots in the schedule. So nailing down, some of those things could provide some extra benefits to. I do want to agree with you too, that, you know, I'd like to see the XFL a little bit further ahead. Where it is now. You know, I think you're definitely getting into the part of the calendar where you want people to know where your teams are going to be. And you want them to know when tickets are going to be available because you still have a few months, but the time is ticking. Yeah, for the life of me, I can't figure out this Fox time slots in the networks. It made sense. You. No XFL was paying to be audio. They're paying their own staff and. I get you a splitting the ad revenue, I think was kind of the deal they had with that. Like, okay. It makes sense. We got some games on Fs, two and some on Fs one and some or whatever, but like, Fox controls this whole thing. I just don't know. Even if it is peacock every week, like it needs to be peacock every week at two o'clock. You can't be [unknown]. Swan on Friday at this time, like you guys built the slate. You, you own all of this, like the TV now. I thought that was the whole benefit of the TV network controls all this, but then it's like, well, we're going to put it on. I yeah. That Friday night, whatever it got to 72, I think was, I mean, I think that's a great rating for that because that's a terrible time slot. I agree. I agree that. The number of viewers is higher than I thought it was going to be for that terrible time slot. And especially when you consider that they had two Eastern teams. So if you have any whole market interest, You hurt yourself by putting two Eastern teams that late. So, I mean, Fox is Fox and NBC are throwing these things on where they have room. When they have holes. So. I would hope that they've taken into account that there's probably a bit of a rating set that they're taking. Because of the irregular time slots. Yeah, I do. I think people are so habitual. Right? And that, that, like, it seems like we got the Saturday prime time. If it's on NBC or Fox. But like, I couldn't tell you week to week, you know what time anything's going to be on and yeah. Like we cover this. I mean, this is, you know, I do this every week. It's hard and I just don't know how. You've got your heart chorus now. Right. And I kind of debated the title this week and like improving the USFL. I think I'm going to call it, the USFL is talent problem. Just cause we're running into issues with the roster spots and stuff, but like how do we bring this to the next level? How do you attract more than, you know, million water, whatever it's getting casuals that are kind of finding the habitual time slots that they're going to tune into and putting games on peacock premium. Like. That's such a step. I didn't watch it. I didn't, I'm sorry. I didn't lost that game. Yeah, I didn't either. I was a little bit tempted to, and then all of a sudden it was past. The game time, you know, so. It is a little bit, it is a little bit tougher and I do realize some people get. Free as part of cable package. It's honestly, not that much. So. If there was a game a week. Does that change the equation for people? And I, you know, I think a lot. Just looking around. A lot of people were unsure and they're like, wait, wait. What, what channel is the game on today? I can't find it. Okay. It's on peak cut premium. And there there's still a little bit of an educational aspect to it because maybe some of the older viewers aren't used to. You know, these, these pay services. And so they. They're hesitant with it. Maybe next year, that looks a little bit different and especially with a regular game on there. So again, you know, all these things box and NBC are going to have to look at. After the season and, and determine what worked and what didn't. I, you know, I do hope they look at the broadcast windows and decide, you know, we, we need to be a little bit more consistent and I know that they're doing this kind of, we'll let you know the schedule two weeks before. I don't think that helps anything. People can't look ahead. There's no planning involved there. Here's just a hint of Fox. Okay. Your best game to televise on Saturday night, it's going to be Birmingham. Everybody else's it's going to be empty. Okay. It, it doesn't really make much of a difference otherwise. You could set the schedule for the rest of the season right now, if you need. Tell everybody you, you can flex the last two weeks. Everybody knows what that is. The NFL does it. But get your schedule out so people can actually look at it. Figure out when the games are going on. Yeah. I mean, ratings going up is positive, but like, let's be honest. The demographic is horrendous. I mean, the D it's like a 0.2 and the key. I mean it's, it's not a good, so your, a vast majority of your audience is over 18 to 35. And so, like you said, trying to have them figure out [unknown]. Or USA, or if I pick it, you need to cater to that audience. And in, like you said, put the schedule out. I don't use. It's not doing any favors. I get depression leases and I share it. It's like you said, it's, it's two weeks in advance. And then people like, okay, well, what are the games this week? I'm like, well, this is for two weeks. Cause that one was a week ago. I mean, it's very, I get. Not everyone exists in this world that we are in. And we are at this point trying to attract this league to people that are outside of the message board you're in or the Twitter space, or like we are trying to get the casual audience and nobody follows any of this stuff. No, it's, it's, it's really hard. You know, the casual fan you've been in Birmingham, I've seen people like, when are the games again? And I looked and I. Kind of interested in traveling in, but I'll come it doesn't say what game is on Friday night. You know, in three weeks? Well, that actually hasn't been determined. So, you know, I, I do think that some of the things that box has done. Out of concern for TB ratings. Probably R R hurting it in the ratings a little bit. That that just lack of people being able to look in advance. Okay. I'm going to have a regular Friday night slot. I'm going to have a regular Saturday night slot. I'm gonna have a regular Sunday afternoon slot. I really do hope that they examine that as part of what they're doing. I don't think that this, oh, Hey, we'll give you the game of the, you know, the best games and the. The best. I don't think really most people care. I think you could throw, you know, Pittsburgh, Michigan. In there, and I'm not sure that it's going to do any different than the other two, not Birmingham games. No, I think it's whatever is the most accessible that people turn on. I mean, it really it's whatever is that Saturday with Arizona, NBC. I don't think the Birmingham helps the crab, but I really just think it is the time slots. It's a bay, give them the basket. They look the best. You know, we, we hashed that out. I don't want to be. You know, A little critical, but things that positives standing out right. A Birmingham's looking good. The General's right. I mean, Are you. Happy with, with some of the standout players we've seen. Right. I mean, this is a league of opportunity. Are we happy with some of the opportunities that players are getting? Oh, I mean, that is. Kind of the overriding thing is that these coaches and players are getting opportunities there. They're able to show what they can do. And it's not just about making the NFL. It's about. It's about playing football. And yeah. To me, that's fun to watch. It. Yeah. Guy like Scooby, right. It's it's difficult not to watch that. Up there and enjoy what he's doing because he's a difference maker. And. The end of that new Orleans game, it was. The whole time. I was thinking of to contrast this to how Michigan finished their game. They kind of screwed up their time out at the end. Like, you know, what. We're going to throw it to the end zone. If it doesn't make it, then we'll kick a field goal, but that aggressiveness paid off. So, yeah, there have been some fun moments. No doubt. And of the Tampa bay game. Mayfield goal. Houston. Finding new ways to lose every week, but they're competitive and they'd come up with big defensive place of the blue. So. Yeah. There, there, there have been some good moments to watch. It's about. Yeah. They the excuse me, right thing. And I still love the United by a football. I got a watch this week, last week. I'll screw that. But the time slot, like, cause I think they did, whether the games got delayed and then. It was uploaded like half to the Fox app. Like it was only 22 minutes of it. I said, I don't want to speak to the, I don't want to speak to the popularity of. I buy football, but it is odd to me the only half the episode is on there. And it's been like five days and not one person that said anything about it. Like, I don't, I don't want to, but I do think we're getting good insights like Scooby, you know, talking to the coach and he's like, Hey, I don't want to like. Pump you up too much here, but like, you're the best guy we have, right? Like, I love you. And. I mean, you're getting these good moments. I think that describes me. I think you almost get more standout from some of the players on there. You know, like Brian, Scott had good moments. Then you do on the field sometimes because you are getting to know the guys a lot more. Right, right. I, and, you know, I'm surprised that hasn't played a little bit better with the younger demographic. The whole getting, you know, just looking at the demographics. I do wonder what they're lacking there and if they can identify specifically. Why maybe a younger generation hasn't tuned into this. While we're shortening the game. So, you know, we're trying. I mean it is that you're there. They're making. They're making strides kind of mid season, which is interesting that way. I don't, if you're going to shorten the game clock, I don't know why you can't just say, Hey, we're adding a couple more guys who have these practice squads. If that's like, I give we're making changes, midfield, add three people to every PA you may get 10 people on the practice squad or whatever the hell it is. And then yeah. We're going to the effort of changing things. Mid-season. Right, right. You know, I kind of like to see that timing rule apply except to the last five minutes of each task, you know, just make that, make that consistent across the rest of the applicant. Now we're doing the five minute timing rules, and then we're going to do the two minute timing rules. Okay. It's it's pretty simple then, but having it, you know, two quarters and not the other two quarters, or at least the 10 minutes of those two quarters is kind of strange. So, you know, But they are looking at things and they. I do think length of game. It's very smart to address that. The one thing that stood out to me about the Alliance of American football games was their game time. They had rules specifically implemented to speed up the games. And so those games. We're blowing through and about two and a half hours. And I remember watching a, I think it was a 17 to 12 games. And. They were like five minutes left on a game. Like holy cow, this has been this kind of otherwise boring, defensive battle. And it's been, it feels tight. It feels like a very tight product. So I think Fox was wise to address that. Again, I'm not quite sure why that didn't pop up earlier. Maybe before the season started, like, okay, we're probably tracking over three hours here. That's going to mess up our broadcast windows. But at least they did address it. Yeah. Like I say, if you got to address some things, I would address other things where I still maintain this roster thing. As we get into, and I've been talking to Mike Mitchell and everyone knows we get week six. Seven eight. We're we're running out of guys here that are, that are capable of kind of stepping in to take these roles. I mean, we just, we're finding that with special teams, Eric Alco is talking about the offensive lineman and that being a pinching point for the XFL. So. We'll see, I just let's address some of these things as we can. Right, right. And it brings to mind, NFL Europe a little bit where they, when they were the world. Of American football. They always had this team Dallas. Which was essentially guide. A team of guys practicing together and throughout the season. And so as soon as they were injuries, the other teams could call on team Dallas and pull somebody out of there. Who's been in who's in game shape, who knows systems, who. Who's familiar with the league and, and knew they could plug them right in without as deep of a drop-off, as you see, when you have. Pull somebody just off the street. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't imagine that being called and Hey. I come at yo games Friday, you know, calling me on Monday. I'll see ya. It's. I don't care. How good of a player you are. I mean, that, that's a tremendous. What's a what's 40 more guys, you know? In training. At even half the rate. That the other guys are being paid. And if you get called up, then you get the full rate and you're on that whole deal. But I think that they need to. They kind of, it feels like they kind of went cheap on roster size. And that has impacted the quality of product. It is all the money has gone to Tom Brady is broadcast. Contract that is they, they saved it and they say, Paul, I could talk to you forever. I. Any last stuff. Any final thoughts at me? I'm sure we'll bring you back here in a couple of weeks, but any final thoughts today before I let you go? So, yeah, we're halfway through the season. Just about this this week and we'll mark the halfway point. I think we have seen. Improvements in areas and some perplexing maybe lagging. And. Not the same improvements in other areas. So how does Fox adjust going from now through the end of the season that they played kind of close to the vest and not change a whole lot. Or do they address some of the issues that we've seen? As simple as you mentioned, roster size, even just a couple extra active guys and stipulating gotta have a kicker or a punter. Got to have a kicker and punter and a couple of quarterbacks on the roster. That we just part of the quality of product thing. And, you know, after this, then are there. Yeah, I guess I have not heard any rumblings in local markets about, oh, Hey, the Maulers are actually gonna be here next year, or it looks like they're talking to. I haven't heard any of that. So if, if that's going on, they've kept it awful. Quiet. I think if there were even some rumors about that happening. About Houston playing in Houston next year. You'd see a little bit more local excitement. You don't, maybe you could head off some of that rating slide. Yeah, I just. It's interesting. I think that this is such a sliver of Fox, right? A lot of the people involved in this league. You know, have been doing, they're doing other things since also, I really think that they just have their head down of like, we are going through this season. And like you said, they may be we'll negotiate. Do that stuff. I get that, but like, This is when everyone is talking about the us. I felt like I do not know what a USFL off season looks like at all. Like, you know, obviously we're going to be covering CFL and XFL getting ready. And obviously any news that comes out, but like, I just, I think this is your time to handle a lot of this stuff. Making changes, improving the rate. Like I get it sucks, but that is when all the interest is, is when it's in season. I don't, I get frustrated same with the CFL when I want to talk to people during the season. And they're like, oh, it's crazy. It's too. That's why people want to talk to you right now? I mean, The NFL knows how to handle media. That people want to talk to you when it's in season and yeah, I don't know. I, you know, Mike's mentioned a little bit about that. We talked about it in the kickoff and we really haven't had too many rumblings, like you said about other ship groups or anything since. Kinda Mike. I think Mike's last. Appearance on our kickoff show. So yeah. And, you know, reaching out. Okay. I know that there are a lot of people who watch or listen to Colin col colored. Okay. But there's a lot of people who watch and listen to ESPN too. So are you content in writing that off? Communications I think is an area in which the USFL needs to improve vastly and could do it today. They should be much better at, they should be casting a wider net, not just with the Fox affiliates. Okay. If you want to do something exclusive with your Fox guys. Due to exclusive. Then an hour or two later released. Everybody else. But do release it. Write press releases. Get out injury reports. Transactions. Everything you can do to get anybody talking about your league. You signed a guy from university of Wisconsin. Send a press release up to the Madison paper. If 5% of that. Mixed local media. It's another mentioned that yearly. I could not it, I could scream against a wall and I know there's even Mark Perry has been my counselor with a lot of this stuff. And in private messages, it kills me this like it's Fox or not, then that's all we're doing. We're going to, you know, we're going to give RJ young, you know, every person in the world. You know, keep in mind, our ratings are, are, are pretty comparable to USFL content. I mean, obviously RJ and, and the other guys have yo tremendous college staff, but like even out kick like the, this, keeping everything in the family and I've just speak from a selfish, like I want to talk to these people and spread whatever, but it's, it's not like you're light in the world on fire. It's not like RJ. Young's Brian, Scott interviews getting 10,000 views on YouTube. So like whether we, what are we parsing here if we're going through that effort? Yeah. Yeah. I mean some great stories. You know, the Birmingham stallions kicker. You, you you'd need to cast that out. You need to cast a wide net, because if you just count on the people who are regularly tuning in. Fox. Or NBC. You're missing all the ESPN guys. So absolutely. You had made the comment go bigger, go home. And I think that applies to the way that they've dealt with the media. I think that they've chosen to stay home. Unfortunately. I hope that strategy changes. Yeah. I don't think Colin coward, like sleepwalk reading highlights of the weekend games. Like I understand like we're, we're like it's three minutes. Yeah, we're, we're doing. Like, cause that's the thing. I was like, well, it's on there. Like skip and Shannon. They're talking about it. Like they're not watching the games, they're watching the highlights. Like they're not, if you think that she hadn't sharp is sitting down and watching the USFL on this. He's not it's they like they're giving them Colin could not care less. I mean, I think Collin wishes, it would be big so that he would have some things to talk about, you know, in the spring, but like, They're not, they're not doing the work. They're just there. They're broadcasting it out. And I think people read that. I think it reads as hollow and Colin calorie. This kind of sleepwalking through the USFL highlights on Monday. I. Thanks. So. Yeah, and I casting a wide net. And bringing in somebody who's interested. Actually interested in, even if it's just a quick segment on sports center about the, a player feature or. All of these guys have stories. And if you pitch them right. And pitch them to the right people and give it to somebody who can tell it in a compelling way, it only helps your brand. Well, Paul. This has gone long. I appreciate it. You taking the time today, but this was good. I think this was a good conference. I don't want to be negative. Like when it's my always my thing is if you can back it up with things that you can change that are tangible things like these are little things that can be done even mid season, not costing the lot roster spots. You know, obviously that, you know, that. Exception, but these are tangible things that we can work on. And I think honestly, they would have vast improvements and kind of raising the visibility of this league here, as we end out the season, right. Some things to go through the end of the season and some things to consider in the off season two, obviously they're going to be playing in Birmingham and. Three of the games are going to be lightly attended. You're not going to change too much about that right now, but there are some tweaks. That I think will alter the overall perception of the product. Going through the final weeks. And I hope that Fox considers them.

Episode 91 - XFL Road Trip!

Well, I am over the moon today. I think w now we just got done interviewing. Bonafide CFL team owner last week, but I think people were more excited even have you on this week, I think partially because of the Pacific Northwest, right? Yeah. We have a lot of Seattle. My wife, you dab. We have a lot of [unknown] people in the family. Brock here. How are you doing today? I am doing good, man. I am thankful that you got up early. I don't know what your normal taping times are for the podcast, but I'm thankful that you were able to work around. Kind of crazy schedule the got crazy for me with this USFL, which I didn't know till about six days before the league began, that I would be in this role that I was in, basically with Fox three years ago for the XFL. But they called. And so schedule has been a little crazy and I had a couple of windows. So thank you for moving your schedule around to make this happen to now. I. I would move heaven and earth for our guests. I appreciate that. So you have been on the sidelines, people have seen you, you know, doing the player, interviews, doing everything else. I'm curious about that. You said you found, because I wanted to know, you know, your story entering the USFL this season. So a very short window for coming on. How did that go? Yeah. It was somewhat similar to the XFL. So I don't know. Am I seeing the Seattle dragons behind your right shoulder? I am. So the XFL worked in a similar vein. I moved, I was 12 years of ESPN college football. Loved it. But there was just kind of a barrier that I was never going to jump over with Todd and Herbie and as good as they are. And instead as they are. And Fox came to me from a college football side and just took great care of me. Got. Chance to be the two. At Fox. And just jumped on it and I've loved that opportunity. And I guess two years in my second season ended, the XFL was starting. And not really heard anything that I would be involved. It was kind of curious, right. And how that was all gonna work. And I knew that they were throwing great resources at it. Manifests, clap. The number one. NFL director, rich Russo is his name literally went from the Superbowl. To the XFL. In like five days. So I knew that it would be a good product because of the commitment they were making. Yes. And I was on my treadmill and I got a call from someone at Fox and whenever she calls, I know something's up. And she's like, Hey. I hate to do this. We're going to just make it as easy as you and possible, but can you do some of these first XFL games for us? We're really in a pinch. They had wanted some NFL players to do it. And those NFL players said, yes. And there's like a closer, they said no. And so I got a chance to do that and I got to tell ya, Doing that redoing that job opened further doors for me working, rubbing shoulders with rich Russo and others in that truck that are NFL guys. Was really beneficial and I loved it. You know, we did two dragons games. There's like 27,000 people there. 27,000, I think for the first one. And what's the St. Louis with a battle Hawks. And there were like 35,000 and fill them out the Edward Jones dome. But. That thing was going and it was getting ratings and it was building momentum. And then like everything else, the world stopped in March of 2020. So fast forward now, two years, basically. USFL is coming to board. I know the class is doing it. I know that the top producer in college football is doing, I know some of these guys and gals are doing it and wondering, huh? I'm wondering if I'll get a call and never got a call that didn't think much of it. And then my agent called six days ahead of the first game and said, Hey. There's a direct flight from where you live now to Birmingham and they really want you to be a part of it. And so that's how it all came to fruition and jumped on the plane and jumped right back into XFL mode. Where if you remember, I was kind of in the same capacity field analyst. Ultimate access. Talk to the players, talk to the coaches. Be creative. Whatever you want to do, bring it to the table because especially now with this league Fox owns it. So there's no, there's never a no. Everything is a yes. From an access standpoint. Well, it's cool. You know, because people remember that. Right. And we were there front row at century link. Now Blumenfield via, we were yelling Brock. See if you work in the sidelines. But it was exciting because no one had ever seen that before. Right. And now USFL, I mean, it. There are some critical people online that say they're borrowing a lot. Right. But. But it worked and it was cool and it was exciting and it was different. So when you found out you were going to be involved with the USFL, right. You know, jumping back in to this. Big property, Fox Ellen's what was that feeling like? I knew like the XFL that they were going to be committed to this and even more. Right. The XFL that was partnership with Vince McMahon and that, you know, that whole circuit. And that whole world and the WWE folks were involved and it was cool, man, those guys and gals are marketing. I don't want to say geniuses, but they are marketing extraordinary. It is. They know how to market their product. And so it was, it was neat to rub shoulders with those folks. But I knew that this would be the next level. I knew when Fox committed what they've committed to this from a resource standpoint that they want to make this work. Their partnership with the NFL is important to them. This is a league all by itself. This is not a developmental league. This is not a feeder league. It truly is. Hey, you know, you, you guys have 10 weeks in Birmingham. Semi-final championship. You guys go attack this, get better into your careers, and we'll see what doors may open for some of these players. But I knew that the commitment would be top-notch. And then when I went out there, so find out six days at a time, fly to Birmingham. Sit at dinner the night before the game with every Fox, big boss, like, well, They're all here. And oh, by the way, NBC's big bosses are here. And I didn't even know some of the names I'm like Googling, like. I can handshake. You know, Put on a good hello. Great to see you. But it was important to them that that truck. That night of the first game that we did. I mean, it was, it was a Superbowl S. Bus when you have. 36 People mikes you have about 50 cameras, including the pylon helmet cams. To sky cabs, drone cam, all the operators. I mean, it was, and you have the big bosses in the truck. On both NBC and Fox, like it elevated the temperature, elevated the. The stakes tremendously and I give a ton of credit. Chuck and Mitch producer director who are working under that microscope. I know the sound early on was a bit messy with all of those mikes and trying to figure out how they were going to make this sound and look and feel. And I think over the three weeks, we've, we've found some traction and we'll continue to do that over the course of the season. But yeah, man, it was a pretty, it was a pretty neat environment to be exposed to that kind of leadership after the game. The party and dinner and reception. And, and once again, seeing everybody and talking and connecting with folks that. I'd only seen on my emails. I'm a big company, wide emails. It was a good experience for me too. Yeah. You won't remember. I, we were at that restaurant at the, after the game. When you guys all came in to go to your big, exclusive after party, I saw the ed Hartman's of the world, the Joel class, and I. I gave you a big fist, Bob, as he walked by, we were waiting with the piano. I remember that. And we talked about this. You know, and just like, Hey man, let's make this thing happen. And then I did see your emails. No, I remember. And there's. How about this I'm last week doing the game. And I look up in the stands and Hey Braga, you know, whatever. And I look up and it was a Tyler Lockett, neon, green Jersey. I'm like, Oh, that's unique here. That must be a 12. Right? And it was a high school kid and his dad. And they come down to the row and. How you do, and they're like, ah, go to PLO. High school. And I said, Viking power. We'll survive through the class of 95, of course, which is what I always do when I see if I can hide. And great kid. I said, what are you guys doing here? And they're like, man, we just love football. We flew from Seattle because we want to see football. We're a little disappointed. The drone isn't out. The drone wasn't out last weekend. I don't think it was for technical, but maybe budgetary purposes, but the drone wasn't out. But they said, yeah, man, we just love football and want to be a part of it. And sure enough. I mean, that Jersey stands out. Right. So they were at the first game I thought, oh, maybe they just came. Nope. It was a double header. I look up in the stands. They're up there with the Birmingham fans going crazy, just loving ball and pretty neat to make a Trek from Seattle to Birmingham, simply to be a part of a league that has new some players whose names they recognize, but more than anything. I just watched it in love and pro football. Yeah. What have you thought? Well, I guess first off you talking about the broadcast staff. We had Kevin Kugler on last week. Amaze. Like you said some audio stuff that really amazing how good the broadcast is span. I mean, like you said, you have some of the best in the business doing the broadcast, but I think from starting off in a fresh stadium chassis and everything, I mean, I think it's been tremendously successful from that point of view. I would, I would agree with you. It is a great setup for, for those that want to make the Trek to Birmingham. It's very convenient. You can stay right across the street. I mean, I know. The silver cloud right down there by Safeco or not Safeco field anymore. They've all changed names. T-Mobile park where you could walk. Right. And it's illumined field as well. They've got the same setup with a couple of hotels, so super convenient. Everything is there. The players have talked about the commitment to the weight room, the training room, the food's pretty good. Usually players all complain about the food. I haven't heard that have said. Yeah, they have given us every resource from a player standpoint, top-notch coaches pepper Johnson chatted with him this morning. Jeff fishery yesterday. You know, Todd Haley, Schiphol. I mean just some quality coaches, Mike Riley, that know their stuff. And want to impart their wisdom on these guys and, and those players do feel that. And, and so, yeah, I think you just see an overall commitment from a broadcast standpoint, resources from the players' standpoint. I think picked a really good locale. Other than the thunderstorms. You know the answer out there a little bit, then we gotta work around outside of that. I mean, it's just a, and I mean, that's not a coincidence. They spend a lot of time looking at a community to say, okay, where can we do this? Where can we kind of incubate eight different teams and put them all in one spot and have Legion field and have protect the stadium and be able to manage meeting room and meeting space and weight rooms and hotels. And yeah, by all accounts, these players are still very much enjoying it just as we are covering it. Thoughts about the quality of play? The. Thus far. Well, you were there, right? You got to see it. You got to see them week one, whereas a little more ragged. Especially the offenses, the offenses have gotten better. I think they've covered the over 75% of the time or darn near close to it. Other than that Pittsburgh team. It's got some problems. That's a hard watch. We have. The podcast. We have a voice that now we have a voice. A long time listener. As a Mahler stand, but can't wait to hear that. Outside of outside of Pittsburgh, that's just really struggling everybody else. It does feel very similar to me, again, being at field level with what we saw in the XFL. And it should, these are NFL guys that have started NFL games. You have first round. Second round third round fourth round fifth round six rounds, seventh round picks all over this league. About 350 guys. I haven't quite added up and I may have the research team do this. Although there. A little hesitant because they want to make this about them. And I get that. It's not about the NFL. But, you know, there's hundreds of starts of NFL games. When you add up these players. You know, guys that have been productive at that level. So it, it is. You know, it it's higher level than a lot of the college that I watch. Obviously, the NFL plays at the speed and violence level. That is. Unlike anything on planet earth. But it's getting, you know, I think in time getting better and better, I think, you know, and I know in every one of your listeners knows and every casual football fan knows. That the QB play dictates it just like a pitcher does. Right. If you watch. Oh, man. If you watch little league baseball, 10, 9, 10 year old baseball, it's hard. Pitchers can't throw strikes. It's probably the most brutal age to watch any youth sport. Because they just can't throw strikes. And, you know, if you're you be. Can't play and play productively and consistently and accurately, it makes the product. You know, a tougher watch for any fan, whether it's, you know, somebody that's played the game at the highest level or somebody that's. You know, just the casual fan that loves her fantasy football and those, Hey, I can judge the QB position. So that's the one that needs to continue. I think, to find some consistency. That's the one where, you know, I think in time, you're going to see. You know, I say this to people all the time. Like my older brother, 12 years in the league read. He doesn't play one year in the NFL. If it weren't for the Frankfurt galaxy. He was out of football. He was cut by the bank goals. He was working for Paul Allen. He was saving the sea ox. He was going down that road and. The dolphins called and said, we want to send you to Europe to play. And Damon became Damon, the demon. They went to the championship game. He comes back to Miami when it's a job and 12 years later, You can look back at that experience like Jake Dell home, like John Kitna, like Kurt Warner, like a lot of those guys and go man. If it weren't for that league. I may have not have had any NFL career. So eventually. Got to get through the season, got to play all 43 games. Like that's what it is. You got to play all of them. You got to keep getting better. I got to see someone emerge like the XFL did a couple of years ago, right? With Walker, the QB. But then made the Carolina Panthers. It then started games. So that is what, you know, this league will continue to need because much like the NFL draft last week, you need quarterbacks and the quarterbacks at the top of the draft, you need quarterbacks in the USFL. And you certainly needed the highest level two. You're hitting all the points here. This is good. I noticed that the waste. We have a question. I talking about this freak lake, see importance of it given the overall growth, right. Obviously you're a proponent, you know, having been involved in the XFL as well. Ah, talking about the overall popularity lesson, 15 years, developing the professional game and expanded it into other non us markets. Right. Obviously we've seen the NFL guts to Mexico. But just the importance of having that spring, all football landscape, like you said, with NFL Europe, with all these alternatives to give people that extra shot. Yeah. And it's really for these, these players and especially, and I think it's even more heightened. Read then for my years or my brother's years, because back in the day, right last century, when I was drafted, In 1999. You know, we got drafted and then like you're at the facility. April, may. June you get like a four week break training camp, double days, full pads, scrimmages intense. Fast forward 23 years. I mean, yeah, you could kind of show up voluntarily if you want to lift weights the first two weeks of OTAs in April. And then we'll do about 10 practices and may and June. Can't have any contact got league officials all over. Everything is videotaped. If you try to break rules, you'll be fine. You'll lose draft picks, which we have seen. All across the NFL. I mean, it's just, you don't get the work that you used to get. You don't get the reps, you don't get the training, you don't get the intensity, you don't get that developmental piece. And then all by the way, you get to training camp. And what do you get at training camp? No double days. No live tackling. No scrimmages hardly right. Very limited, limited reps. If you were to compare and this isn't to be like, wow. When I played, we didn't get water in the 1980s. I'm not going down that road. But if you were just to simply compare. Analytically. The amount of reps practices. Tackling scrimmages from the guys that played in the eighties, the nineties, even the early two thousands through the two thousands. Compare that to post CBA. When those veterans were like, yeah, man, we don't need the off season. You know, we're going to limit this as much as possible. We're going to take our win on this side of it with the off season. And, you know, be able to enjoy. You know, four or five months with very limited, mandatory work. And so these leagues, because of that, I think become that much more important for the developmental phase of, of some of these guys that are close, that are just missing it. Whether it's a couple inches of height, whether it's a couple of ticks on the 40 time. Whether it's just a, you know, a couple inches of arm length. And, you know, they're just missing some of those. Check the box get right in the camp, get opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. A lot of these guys need those reps to hone their skills, to get yet another opportunity. You talked about the, you know, college play, right versus USFL, you think seven. You've seen this, but our friends at fourth and long had had a question about that. And then also about, have you gotten any pushback from players on the sidelines? Have you wanted to do interviews, but first on a, just. Finalize the thought about USFL versus college for that. I mean, it's really tough if you put the Georgia bulldogs out there, come on. I mean, 15 dudes drafted. They're basically a protein, right? Since daddy bear cats had what nine guys drafted. So. And obviously spring ball and off seasons and winter conditioning and fall camps and all of the reps and those guys in those teams are so established. So. It would be impossible to say, Hey, Tampa bay bandits, go play the torture bulldogs in Athens. How would you do. There's enough pros. There's enough, man. There's enough experience on that roster that they would not be blown off the field by any means. Would they beat the Georgia bulldogs or Alabama or Cincinnati? I mean, I don't. That's hard for me to gauge. And it's probably a no simply because these guys have been together for six weeks. So give them winter, give them spring, give them fall camp. Give them a bigger roster than 45 cut down to 38 on game day. So it really is not apples to apples. It's very hard. I think to compare those situations. But you just do look at the roster and you do see guys that have played have been productive. All Americans in college, all conference in college. And, you know, there there's some, some very good players. So that was a, that was question one. What was the second part of it? About pushback with players. No. Every one of them is unbelievable. Every coach has been tremendous. I'm kind of been weighted read for that moment. Like. All right. When is somebody gonna like kick me in the shins or. You know, dog custody in the heat of the moment, or, you know, just be like, what the heck are you doing? And get out of my face. I hate your shadow. You're bothering me. But I have not got any of that. The only. The only little pushback was the running back. For the gamblers, Mark Thompson. Because you heard on the broadcast Sanchez kept saying, gosh, number seven. Two 30 runs up, right. It just looks like for Annette, you know, I mean he just kind of stylistically looks like Leonard for Annette, so I not on air, but I was off the air. I was like, so, you know, So do you wear number seven? Cause it's fortnight. And he looked at me with darts. He's like, what? We should talk about. I'm like, oh, nothing. Yeah, you're good. You're just keep playing great. Pat him on the back. Like no, no problem. So that was about the old lady, like. No, I don't where cause the four net. My number. I'm Mark Thompson, get out of here with that. Try us. So, and I told Sanchez that too, during the break I'm like, thanks. Really appreciate, really appreciate you getting me in trouble for the first time down here. As good at listening to Jerry here as a witness. In this lifetime, he wants to know if you ever get nervous with that. I mean, obviously you have kind of set up your own, you know, you're the man, the maniac man kind of running around. Right. I mean, is that. Your directive, is that where they've told you to do? Or are you just taking this or writing? Like how much per day producing do they give you? I guess so there's a producer there with me, Ryan Daugherty. Great guy. Works again on the number one college football crew knows this stuff inside and out. The producer. Chuck, McDonald's that number one? College football producer. The best of the best at Fox. And those guys really do just empowerment, whatever. Idea that I want to bring, I try not to get into, so my little mic, I've got a little talk back button for those wondering, you know, from a geeky way, how do you guys communicate and do all of this? So I have my ear pieces in and listening to the broadcast. Just as if I was up in the booth as the analyst, and then I could get in there's a little button on my mic that I can talk to the producer directly into the truck and say, Hey, you know, I got Louis pres here. Hey. You know, we're going to walk through this play. I got Jay Mar let's walk through that touchdown. Or Victor Bolden or these different players or different ideas. And then every time we go to break. You know, I try to communicate with the booth, what I'm hearing and seeing, and, and, you know, just some of the stuff that interactions with coaches and players that you never ever, ever get at the college or pro level. The NFL is so guarded with every bit of their material as they should be. You know, they make the rules there. They've got the gold and you with the gold makes the rules. So, you know, the access is so limited. College at the power five level follow suit. In many ways, some programs don't even let you entertain any kind of conversation during the game. This is just the exact opposite. And I share with those guys and they all watch now enough to know like, That's pretty cool. Like, I, I kinda. Kind of want that access, gonna want that story told Clayton Thorson and Louis Perez and QBs have been great. And I want to get more defensive guys. So this week, Friday, Friday night. Josh Bandera from Philadelphia is about as good. Defensive guys I've talked to in my career, like just QB on the field. Coached at Oregon state last off season. And I really want to walk through some of their defensive stunts, right? Some of their blitzes, some of attacking productive protections and, and, you know, Fox. I'm talking a lot. So I'm sorry to read. If you've got a ton of questions to get to. But Fox did after the first week. And I don't know if I should share this, but I will. They did kind of like they do during political stuff right. Where they have these, these polls and people and, and you can get instant feedback from fans that have watched the game. And the number one piece of feedback. Is we want football. Right. We're here and we want football at a higher, different level. We want hardcore football. So you've seen Joel do hardcore football breakdowns. And so that's some of the impetus that's been, the push is. You know, the most casual bands, maybe there's some bedding fans that enjoy it. But we don't have fantasy football yet for this. So maybe some of the casual fan is not quite clicked over those that have, or like you, those that have, or like your audience, they love ball. They love these leagues. They love these players and they want to learn. And yeah, it's kinda my job. I feel on the sidelines to. To bring it in a new creative way, as much as I possibly can. One more question for me. And then we have two quick voicemails. I'll let you go. Cause I know I promised you 30 minutes here. Player. That you've been impressed by the most, you know, obviously our friend of the show, Brian Scott, just either had to take time off here. Knee injury. We have a lot of guys that we've tracked through the CFL and exit foul and, you know, spring league and all that stuff. Who have you been really impressed by that you've seen so far? Probably JMR. When is the backup new skip Holtz, right? Some of these other coaches are a little. A little testy that BARDA, Andrew's got his guy for three years and Brian, right? Like, oh, that's nice. We get two weeks. You've got three years of equity. He knows the system inside and out. Oh, great. Skip. Thanks. You get Jaymar for who you've known since he was 16 and you recruited to Louisiana tech, but it's not even necessarily his play. Right. Because he's pretty inaccurate. He gets too amped up and the ball will fly into the fifth row. But it's more of just is it's just. Charisma it's his character. He owns it. Like when he makes a mistake, he's got it. His teammates love him. It wasn't supposed to be as job, right. It was Alex and Magoo and even going into week one. The day before we meet with these coaches and skips, they don't know. It's really Magoo. You know, I'm not going to split reps. It's going to be Alex. And then he struggled. So mightily hurt his ankle, opened the door, Wally PIPP, and here comes Jay Mar and he's just been, he's just been awesome. So he would probably come come right to mind. There have been. And I'm not just saying this because it's in a public forum. There really has not been a bad guy. Like they just, you know, pepper Johnson today was talking about his team fighting too much that they just pick her and complain and argue amongst each other too much. And I've sensed that a little bit from, from his crew, but that's about. The only unit really on any of these teams, even the Maulers I know you'll get to this voicemail, even those guys, I haven't seen finger pointing. Complaining whining. Woe is me. I'm getting screwed. I'm not getting my, you know, feed me. Right. All that stuff that you sometimes see. I have not synced really any of that from any of these players. And I think when you've got only 38 on game day, There's, there's not really that opportunity for factions and for bitterness, like you're playing, okay. Maybe not getting the ball, but you're on special teams. You're running, you're playing, you're tired. You're exhausted when these games end with these kinds of numbers. But yeah, you asked that question and right away, just Jay mark comes front of mind. I, this is a long time. This is one of our longest I've listeners. Janet, little hard to hear. I think we're going to get enough out of it. This is Jen is a long time Lawler's fan. She is a CFL, Ottawa red blacks fan long. Long time. Mahler's fan. So like six weeks. Six months. She called. She called it. You know, even like she is a Boston sabers fan, she always has said. She doesn't always pick the best teams. But she quotes trick, man. I don't know the quote. And then she has a question about the mocha. Hey, Jen. My question is for Brad. I need Pittsburgh mollies. If I can try. Like I shouldn't be. Let's start. What would you say to them? We had a lot of staff, even I shared curvy Wilson's post game press conferences last week. It was a lot of blame about the players and we coach and they play. I mean, what are your thoughts about this? My thoughts on this one. And I would say this to Kirby and he is a good, he is a good man. He interviewed by the way for the Seahawks coordinator job. You realize that. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Interviewed for that was Schottenheimer when shoddy got it. Yep. Pete reached out to Kirby and yep. You watch your games. You kind of know why, like I'm going to run the ball and I'm going to run it five straight times. I'm gonna run it on third and eight running on third, seven running third and eight. And. And I'll tell you what. What was interesting was after the first game. So we had them week two. They're competitive game, where they played much, much better actually score to move the ball. And I asked Kirby going into that week. I said, what did you learn from week one, Vic? And it'd be like, oh yeah, it was. Whew. It was rough. And his answer to me struck me. He said, It was the greatest experience of my life. And I was like, what? I mean, I didn't say that. I was like, really. Expand on that. And you know, what to his credit, when you have not been in charge when you've not called place, when you have not run the show, when you have been the good soldier for decades. Right. It is, he's been professionally as a running back coach and one of the best running back coaches. Now you get elevated to a spot you've never been before. You can kind of understand that like, Hey man. Yeah, it was, it was, it was rough. The production was terrible. But from a personal experience, man, I loved calling place. And. And now the challenge is you got to just keep, you gotta grow, man. You know, I said this last year was Shane Waldron in Seattle. Like there's going to be a learning curve. I don't care how bright you are. I don't care what scheme you come from. I don't care what your resume says. If you've never flown a plane, your first time is going to be a learning experience. I don't care how much football, you know, I don't care who you've talked to. Even practice runs first time in a broadcast booth. It is going to be an experience and you are going to fail and you're going to have to learn from it. So there's a, I always say a learning curve to climb. And it doesn't matter. The NFL college high school, when you've never done it, there's no substitute for experience. He's learning on the job and it's certainly been a struggle. And then the play-making they have at the QB position is, is a struggle, right? I mean, you don't have some of these other guys, you know, Jordan to AMO could run a little bit Clayton Thorson. I can run a little bit. These guys can get themselves out of trouble. Certainly the Andre could run really, really well. They're two guys. Can't. And so you get exposed when you have that kind of QB with some of the challenges they've got offensively. Last question, just because Paul's from the UK, we got to get this. This is about NFL Europe and you and your brother and all that stuff. And so I wanted to make sure we got Paul's that voicemail right here. Hello. Hello, the show from the UK. This is Paul. My question from Brock is. Or did he have other guns? All Europe, like his brother Damon. And how did that help David in his career? Hi. I look forward to watching. And obviously we touched on them, but you're more about you and in. And decision to do that or not. Yeah. And Damon did, by the way, have a decision to make. He was not real enamored after he got, let go. The NFL Cincinnati obviously went to one of the, kind of the tougher NFL organizations from a budget standpoint and everything else. And. And loving what he was doing with Paul Allen. He was part of save the Seahawks part of the campaign that went across the state. To raise awareness and ultimately raised some tax money to build. An amazing stadium and, and Damon was a foundational piece in that saving the Seahawks with Mike flood and many, many others. And then when the dolphins called it, wasn't just a, oh yeah. Let's, let's go. I'm ready. He was newly married. I think they were having a baby. I mean, it was a, it was a commitment. To make that move. Into the unknown. And, but the dolphins were the first to say, Hey, we're going to sign you. But we need you to go over there and play and, and he loved it, man. And his wife, Julie loved it. And the environment there in Frankfurt was amazing. And some of the chance that, you know, we still we'll joke about 20 some years later in that environment, they had a big. Huge in Frankfurt, like poster of him, of demon, the demon. That was his nickname. So, and, and from there he. Yeah, it was, it was invaluable to his NFL career to do what we talked about earlier. Read what these players are not getting in the NFL today. Scrimmages practices, live reps, live bullets, faster speeds. All of the things that, that you used to get. They're not getting what I play in this league. The challenge for me was six years. My six year was on the IRR. I had some fractures in my low back, and I did not want to get a fusion. And then I, I thought, well, I'll just rehab. I'll do traction. I'll do all this stuff and build and get back. And then I went and took a physical, my last, my last taste of the NFL. Was flying first-class to Tampa. John Gruden was the coach. Marvin Demoff was my agent. Those two were very friendly. I was like, wow, this is nice first class. Yeah, it'll Tampa. Maybe I got a shot here. Stay in the hotel that night, next morning workout. And it was me with a lot of recognizable Curtis Conway. Older receivers, older running backs, kind of guys that have been pretty beat up and shoot up in the NFL. But John liked veterans and Doug Williams was a GM. And I think Paul Hackett. Was the OSI and we have a workout and before the workout had a physical and it was the first time this doctor like measured, my legs kind of looked at me and, and it's like, let me measure your right calf and left calf. And it was sizably different. And I didn't realize my left thigh and my right thigh were as well. And that spoke to just the dysfunction in my low back that it was just, it was a mess. And so I think even I threw pretty good. It was a hot humid day and I was like, I'm on just launched this ball 70 yards. And, and, you know, my arm was still pretty good. But I don't think I had any chance of passing that physical, nor could I played in the league like this or the CFL or anything, and just physically survive. So that's not read, I'm not the guy that I run into at the bar. Okay. That says to me, You know, Brock. I've been a first round pick. I blew out my shoulder and high school, you know, I'm not telling you that story right now. There's no sob story. There's no. Oh, injuries ended my career. I wasn't good enough. My body couldn't sustain enough. So unfortunately for me, this league wouldn't have fit. Having said that Colin Kaepernick, you won't play football in the NFL. Come on. Come on. Come play. I'm serious. There was an article written about it. And I haven't necessarily said it on a broadcast yet, but you're working out you're at Michigan spring game. You're in Seattle throwing that you want to play. After six years of not playing. This is this, this is the opportunity to go play chip Kelly, and we're going way long. So don't worry about it. Cause I'm the one talking so much. But chip Kelly said to me, I saw him, like I had a weak one. Pitt temple in Philly. He was coach of the Eagles. They just made cuts. He was at the game on sidelines, pregame. And he said, yeah, you know, we just cut Teebo and I told him. Go play. You need to go play. Like, I think you could play in the NFL. If you actually go and not just spend 10,000 hours with Tom house, trying to fix your delivery, you got to go play in the CFL. You got to go play in the arena league. You got to do what? Kurt Warner, Jake element, Damon, you or John Kitna. And those guys did. And Tim wouldn't do it. And obviously he makes an enormous amount of money elsewhere. And has his other platforms and things he enjoys Kaepernick makes an enormous amount of money, elsewhere platforms, things he enjoys, but this is the league man. This is calling. If you want to get back in the league, I assure you. I could almost promise you that if you came and you played great for the next six weeks. And you took a team to the championship. And those ratings went from a million and a half people watching back up to 3 million watching because they want to see you play and you handle this and you carry the team. Read you tell me you don't think an NFL team would sign him. I absolutely believe they would. And this would be the environment to me. That he could get back in there and show after six years of rust, knock it off, go play, go play. Great. And I do think an opportunity in the NFL, what abounds. Well, I think also in, just around this out. Just cause this is real football. This is right. I mean, we see a, we cover this fan controlled football arena, internet, and we get like Dell. This air and Jamis, Winston was throwing stuff and not a real game, but yeah, you get these guys like it doesn't translate. I mean, this is real football and it's on Fox, real football. It's you, you occur Joel, it's everyone. Like I think the transition there is far, far easier than it is even say the CFL and we live in cover the CFL. This is Tom Haley calling NFL place. This is Mike Riley calling NFL plays, right? This is even the college coordinators. No MYZONE has gotten in some NFL background with Larry fedora, skip Holtz, those guys, whether you wanted to do some of that read zone or whether you wanted to play in a conventional pro-style system. You're playing with guys that have been in the league, maybe even former teammates, you know, and Victor Bolden was in, I don't think they quite cross paths, but he's in San Francisco. So those guys are there. The familiarity with is there, this is not the CFL. This is not funky motions. It's not three downs. This is NFL football and NFL style. And as I said, man, when you've not played in six years, your speed, your timing, your anticipation, your accuracy, all of that stuff. Right? This would be the perfect forum. I would think for, for guys like him and who knows who that will be in the years to come. I think there will be others, you know, like Walker, like others that have, you know, been able to use the league to get that bounce back into the NFL and who knows over the next six or seven weeks in this lake, right. With these opportunities, there will be guys that get into NFL camps. There's no question in my mind. I have these 350, you're going to see corners and some safeties to the plate pretty well. You're going to see. A receiver. You're going to see maybe a quarterback or two. You guys are running back. You're going to see guys going to NFL camps, and then we're going to root like mad that they make a team, make something happen and know this experience made them better for it. Well, thank you so much for everyone, for being so gracious with your time going over. I said, I, I mean this, when I asked you are coming on. You know, across the board praise. Yeah. You know, not only from what you're doing on the sidelines with everything else, you're a big fan favorites. I really appreciate you taking the time today. Well, you know what read, let's do this again. Before the championship game will be, I'll be flying to Canton and we can do that now. I don't know what are we? Seven, eight weeks away from that. So after the Hay's in the barn, You know, play all these games, get to our championship week that maybe that Thursday before the title game, we'll do it again. That'd be fun to catch up. Oh, that's good. That's good. Let me hit record here. Cause I know you're running around doing stuff. And the, I, this worked out good time. Maybe we'll have it on the show tomorrow. So this is a scrap. Perfect. And the official title is still president right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. Well, I am thrilled today. We are joined by a longtime friend of the show. Now, both from watching you play the XFL, you've been on the show. We have candidates Pharaoh, president of the United football players association. How are you doing today? Pretty good man. Pretty good. How about you? We're good. So this is big, exciting news. We have coming out, right? You guys are working with the USFL, helping the players kind of unionize with the steelworkers, right? So. There's a lot of questions. I've seen a lot of people post stuff online. So I guess. Let's start with kind of what you have, and we'll have some questions from there. Okay, sounds good. So, what is the status update kind of as of this week now, whether we're looking at. Oh, you know, right now, you know, the. That hit the wire that. Everything has been filed to be able to unionize. And so, as far as our partnership goes with the steelworkers, I was kinda, you know, We knew that wasn't going to be a big piece and trying to set up a players' association that really has the ability to go into a CBA and get things done. And so we're kind of letting the steel workers kind of take that, you know, and kind of do what they do as far as the labor relations go and that whole process. So. In the middle of. Figuring out, you know, details for. You know, dates and you know how that process is going to go along. So it's kind of two separate things, right? We have that car going on, where we're really trying to unionize and being able to get at the table and have a voice in what goes on with the contracts as they move forward. And then there's the organization apart from the. And that was kind of what we've been able to do down in Birmingham, getting resources set up for, you know, corporate housing and meal prep. And you. Massage and chiropractors and. You know, just trying to set up as many resources for the guys to get through these 10 weeks. And I think as an organization that's been, our main focus is we want these leads to be able to be sustainable, to be able to continue on year after year, because that provides opportunities for the guys. And we know that there's a lot that goes into trying to get these leads off the ground. And we feel that, you know, as players, there's gotta be effort put into some of these things that just keeps the guys on the field. And so we've kind of tried to take that on as best as possible to try to help guys out and not only the guys, but you know, the league as well to, you know, we know that there's a lot that goes into marketing and, and XYZ. So to try to be able to take the burden off of that and just help the guys out is, you know, what we're trying to do. And we've been pretty good at it so far, being able to get quite a few resources for guys out there in Birmingham. So you guys said. Football players association that existed before right. Coming out of the XFL. You guys established. A lot of players were kind of left in the dark, through the bankruptcy, didn't know. Right. The correct filing dates and being involved in making sure you got all the information out. Right. So that's kind of where you guys started. So now this is the next kind of major step in that, is that how I'm looking at this? Yeah, absolutely. You know, We felt that, you know, being left in a dark in the bankruptcy. You know, some guys in it. Received the information to even file for bankruptcy, you know? And then that's a situation that us as players. You know, we've never been through a bankruptcy case before playing football to try to get, you know, whatever was due to us, you know, contractually. So we took that and kind of use that as the catalyst to bring everybody together. And not only that, but, you know, there was guys that, you know, were expecting X amount of money for the year that got cut short. Had to go home along with everybody else. It was HR. It was, you know, everybody that was part of these leads. So to be able to help all those guys out and try to get everyone filed from the bankruptcy that really brought us together, that really, really. You know, solidified us as a, as a, as a membership group of being able to get everybody on one page. And from there, it's just grown and, and to, you know, what it is today to try and to be able to put together a players association that really has a voice in the collective bargaining process. And as this thing moves forward, I saw questions like, okay. So now is this going to be the USFL players association? Are you guys looking to incorporate like with the XFL as well, do other. Leagues that way. What what's kind of, I guess, from the organizational standpoint of it, how are we looking at this? Right. So we see it as, you know, each of these leaves that start to come up, we believe that there's no reason to have a leave without a player's association. And I think through the past two years, we've been able to talk to, you know, Some of the best football minds, some of, you know, some really big names throughout the football world, people that were involved with starting the AAS, same with the XFL. So this isn't something that, you know, Us as God just kind of came together last minute. This has been two years in the making of talking to, you know, all types of people and kind of just gathering support and just affirmation that, you know, this is going to be needed for us as players. To not only protect ourselves, but I think it's a key component in making sure that, you know, these leagues are sustainable and things. Go smoothly. When you know, these leaves start to get up off the ground. So we've kind of view it as every lead that pops up right now is doing a lot of work. And I think each league needs a players association. So as the organization right now, we're looking to be able to go in and step in and establish those things and whatever league that pops up. What is your guys's kind of relationship like with USFL management right now? Do you guys have strong relationships with the higher ups there? You know, it's been, it's been a little bit. Hidden miss, you know, we've been able to set up a bunch of resources. I think as players. Myself and some of the other players that are involved in getting this off the ground. There's already existing relationship with so many of the coaches. So many of the people involved there because, you know, I said it, the football world is. It's a small community, you know? Everybody knows each other from players or coaches. I played with Mike Riley go, someone was my college coach. So there's so many connections there. And I think everybody at the end of the day knows that, you know, we're there to try to protect the players and help the players as much as possible. So it's been good. You know, we, we haven't had any issues trying to set our resources and communicate with guys. I think as it starts to go into the process of being able to actually create a players union and things like that. That's when it kind of goes into the court. It's still workers and Fox and things like that. And that's kind of where we let that process play out. And that's where the strength of the partnership with the steelworkers is going to hopefully prove to be, you know, worth our time and doing all this stuff. So, like I said, there's. It's been good. We know everybody, everybody knows us. So I think it's been pretty mutual to this point. But we understand that they have a lot going on in there now you'll season to try to even get to the, to the end of it. And we, by no means, want to. Put a wrench in that we want to see these guys play the championship. We want to see this thing be up next year. But we also want a voice in some of the stuff that has been put in place as this thing continues to grow. I absolutely echo your sentiments there and I totally know you're coming from cause I get a lot of pushback of that too. Right. Yeah, we're trying to get people on the show or try to do whatever. And it's always just like, It's crazy right now where the. It's the same thing I deal with with the CFL. It's like, people want to be involved in the work. The work always comes when it's the busiest, right. So w. Just because it's, it's crazy that it's universities like that is why this is so important, right. For you guys to come in and work through. This is because we don't want these things to slip through the cracks. And then we get to year two where we get like, that's why anyway, I just, I very much echo and. Get your sentiments. You want to make sure you are eight at the ground level here because you go a whole season and then it's like, well, that's the way we did it. And we'll do it again. And why do we need you guys when it is important to establish these guidelines now? Right, right. And like you said, I mean, there there's so much work that goes into these leads. We understand that fully, this players, I think there's a very good. There is there's extremely good understanding of everything that has to go into this thing to make it work. Being a part of, you know, two leagues in the past and seeing just kind of the positives and negatives, you know, we believe that, you know, they have to do what they have to do to get it off the ground. And we have to do what we need to do to be able to establish something that can turn into a partnership and, and something that can grow moving forward. Well, I mean, you've put in the work and the time, right? I mean, you were in Birmingham that we tried to connect and you were doing your craziness and I had the live show and everything, but I mean, you guys were on the ground there, you know, working with people, getting to know everyone. Talk about that and how important it was to kind of build those relationships and be on the ground for that, you know, for the inaugural kickoff. Huge because, you know, I think. As we've gotten this thing rolling over the past two years, I think the whole point of a players association is to be able to help the players. And coming straight off of the field from XFL. You know, this is you. You know, this is something to wear. You know, I had coaches in there saying, Hey, w you know, why aren't you playing this year? You know, so it's not, you know, we're not removed from this at all. You know, I'm still in the process of. You know, training and doing everything I need to do to potentially be ready for the XFL. I think this is a little bit bigger than, you know, playing right now. So a lot of our efforts and energy are putting into this right now, but to be able to get to Birmingham connect with local resources and connect with people that are. Or passionate about football, but also want to help these guys at the end of the day. If we're gonna, you know, Move and try to be a players association. We need to have resources set up. So I think the biggest thing was being able to get things like, you know, chiropractors, massage therapists, corporate housing at a cheaper rate than what the guys have to pay for now. Meal prep companies for nutrition. You know, a lot of guys don't a lot of people don't understand the ins and outs of popping in a bubble city and happiness. Be in one place for 10 weeks. Like you only have so many food options and things like that. So, Being able to give tangible things. So the guys that is going to help them, not only get through the season, but help them develop, help them stay healthy, stay on the field. And, you know, after the season, you know, some guys are looking to make that next jump. And if you can't go through a season and take care of your body and be eating right and doing things, it's going to be a long year for anybody that hops on an NFL roster. So just trying to alleviate as much of the pain points that we can. Because we've been doing the last two years, we've had to set these things up without an organized collective body helping us. And so just try and do as much for the players as we can. And a lot of these guys, like I've said, I've been in the locker room with. We've gone through these situations. I got teammates plan right now that, you know, I was on the team with, so everybody understands kind of where we're coming from and you know, everything that we've been through, like I said, we're not removed from this at all, you know? I still got the itch to get out there while I was down there in Birmingham. So. Well, it's hard because you know, they set up this thing. They, yeah. Hey, come to Birmingham. You either got to pay two X. Oh, sorry. I'll edit this out. I was thinking like picture. Well, it's interesting, you know, They get all these guys and they say, you know, come to Birmingham and it's basically like, you have $150 or whatever, either stay at the hotel here or else, Hey, it's up to you. Go figure it out. And not that, like, that needs to be on the USFL to be like, let's hand hold you and like find you somewhere more affordable. But that's a lot to put on the player's plate when they're coming down, they're riding trying to get ready and moving and setting up their family to be apart for three months and doing all these things. And so having someone, even for something. As seemingly trivial as that, but it's, it's monumental. It's where you're going to live for the next three or four months. You know, having those assistances is, is huge. I think for having these players that maybe don't even know what to expect walking into this. Right. A lot of these guys haven't been in a pro league. Either before or in a while, you know, it's kind of a shock a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. And so, like we said, you know, the biggest thing as a player is you want to be able to go somewhere, stepping into a professional setting and focus on the job that you got to do. If you're worried about, you know, the rent back home, your kids, your family. Setting something up to where you can make it all that, you know, sustainable for three to four months. That's a lot of extra stress that goes into having to go out and perform on TV and do what you gotta do. And so, like I said, I think we understand their predicament as far as the financial situation that these ladies are in. And. And I think the biggest thing is the timeline. You know what I mean? These guys got there to training camp with 25 days and they were playing a game. And so realistically, when you're talking about learning a playbook, you're talking about. Figuring out. You know where you're going to be on the team and, and all of these things. And you got practice, you got meetings. You don't have a lot of time to do a lot of these other things when, when it's that short of a timeline. And so to be able to go out there and perform at your best. And being able to walk away from practice meetings and go to a situation where you're comfortable with. It's something that it's almost, there's not enough time in the day for these guys right now with what they got to do. And so being able to take some of that off their plate and let them just go out and play is kind of the whole goal with everything. So to round this out, so steps moving forward. So you guys have announced partnership with steelworkers. Either players so that they're playing now. Are they going to need to like opt into this? Is that being taken care of behind? I mean, how is it all even for next steps here? What are we looking at? Timeline for this. Right. So, you know, we had to go in, we had to share, you know, we had to know a part of being, setting up the resources, the partnership with the steelworkers. We had to get card sign of guys saying that they wanted to, you know, be represented. In some way, shape or form. And then, you know, now it's gone into that process of, is there going to be election? You know, what date is that going to be? And so that's kind of where, like I said, we've, we've kind of stepped back and we love to still workers kind of do all the, all the things that they do when it comes to labor and things like that. And so. We're still kind of waiting to learn details about that process. And, and, you know, like I said, this is, this is new to us as well. You know what I mean? We, we've not been in this situation as players, before where we're trying to, you know, set up a players association. So that's why we felt like we had to get a strong partner in the labor and the labor industry. And I think there's still workers provide that for us. And so. You know, we're learning on the fly too, but we also have somebody that has done this for decades and know exactly what they're doing. And so we're just trying to guide the, you know, guide the ship as best as we can. And we're waiting to hear what the next steps in the process will be as well as we move forward. And he said you got, how many signatures did you get from players to go about this? Oh, we got a pre super majority it's fluctuated, you know, when guys get released and things like that, but we're at we're at a super majority of the league. So. Way more than what we needed from just legal standpoint, to be able to organize and start this thing. So we're looking really good right now. Also, well, I know we'll have some more. Of your counterparts on here in the future, talking about all this stuff. And obviously we'll get more timelines and set, but I, you know, we we've had you on before talking with all that. Post XFL and the CFL and everything. I firmly believe that there needs to be a, you know, an independent body that is helping these guys out. There's just so much to maneuver and manage. And like you said, even just getting the right signatures you needed, we have players being caught and brought in, and the turnover of these leagues is tremendous. So I, I definitely, you know, we support you and what you guys are doing. If people want to learn more about all this stuff that you guys have going on. Right. And. And where they can get for more information. Where would you have them go? Yeah, you're not a players.org. And then, you know, we've, like I said, we've been doing so much work, focusing on getting these things set up, but moving forward on, on social media, Instagram, Twitter, United epi players. So we'll be putting out a lot of stuff like that. Moving forward. Now that we've kind of got some of these things set up in stone. So you will continue to be able to, you know, kind of read up and learn. Just find more information as is as the weeks continue on. And, and that's a nother thing that you hit on, you know? Part of part of the board. We got Ryan cave. Who's a part of the arena. AFL P. Player president for a long time, too. So. There's a good mix of guys that are a part of this organization that have been at every single level. You know, no, whatever single level looks like. And then I think, you know, that's very, is promising for us because even at the arena league, you. They were able to set up a players union and things like that. So, you know, so there's a good mix of everybody with experience all over the place to kind of help move this thing forward. And obviously they education and they, they growing pains. You guys go through now, you. No XFL comes back. Right. I imagine you guys are going to be in talks with the league as well to kind of help facilitate that if that needs to be done as well. Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, a lot of guys are that I've talked to so far and kind of seeing the updates that the XFL has been putting out. Guys are excited about that. You see guys like Heinz war to roll Buckley. You know, white foot. You know, you see a bunch of big football names that have done it at a high level and the professional ranks for a long time. And so, you know, I think they're, they have, they got something good going. And I think it's going to be. It's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out, because I think they've brought in a lot of good people to make it go. And so, like I said, to be able to be a part of these things as they start up and, and be there for the players, you know, Most of our membership has played in the XFL. You know, so, you know, nobody's too far out from that. So we're excited about, you know, just the landscape of football in general. There's a lot of opportunities coming up for a lot of guys that have missed a lot of opportunities because of. COVID and everything that's gone down the last two years. But that's kind of the big stuff. Right. Draft takeaway. And then I just want to make sure we get, cause mark did the draft stream this week. I didn't do that. So I just wanted to make sure we have some content on. Okay. Sure. And I don't know why this is putting the people's names on my record now, but yours is fine. They used to never do that. And now it does. So. I've read reconfigured mine. Because every time I used to just, it used to just come up like Ralph Dan. Yeah. And it drove me nuts. So I reconfigured it to read this, but. Oh, that seems to work for some but not everyone. So. Oh, I used to be able to turn that off and now it, it won't, I think zoom must've done an update or something, so it could be, could be. Well, I'm thrilled today. I don't know if you've been on the show since our big Hamilton live show. We have Dan Ralph at the Canadian press. How are you doing? I'm great. How about you guys are good? We're we're moving through. We had the big CFL draft this week. We're getting ready for training camps and the collective bargaining agreement, negotiations, all that stuff. So I figured we'd do a catch all with Dan today, talking about all that stuff. Perfect. So we had the big CFL draft this week. It's weird. Right. You know, Americans and following the NFL draft, which was this like four day spectacular in Vegas and had fountains and had ice cube and marshmallow and all this stuff. Th the CFL draft is a little bit more of a tone down the fair. It's like saying one's night and Wednesday, right? Especially when the consideration. That the CFL held two drafts in the same day. So they did the global draft at noon. And then, then they did their. They're big free for all over two hours later that night. Yeah, I know. I watched all three nights at the end of all, three. Days and or nights at the NFL draft. And it was a little different. It's a little different, so takeaways, and then we'll get into the collective bargaining and all of that headed into training camp, but takeaways. I, I watched some of, you know, Marshall Ferguson and, and their, you know, global draft, lot of kickers, a lot of specialty ear punters, right. Australian punters. I saw. Takeaways from the global draft. Is this the best use of that? Well, you know what. I think what it does is it allows teams to get. Pointers. At a, at a. I don't want to be nice about it. Premium. I did very, very definitive cost. Yep. And, you know, And let's face it. Some of these Ozzy kickers are very, very good. I mean, I remember when Josh Barcelo came up here and he was, I think the first that we saw you, you was very good at directional kicking. Very good at taking into the wind. And, and dropping the ball and making it go where he wanted. And so when one is, I mean, it's like anything else, it's a copycat league when one team as success doing one thing everybody wants to, to, to jump on. And so, yeah, I mean, I believe there were 10 kickers of this. Of the 27 were taken eight were punters and a S and a seven of them were from Ozzie. So, yeah. And so, yeah. You're going to see a lot of that because there's the opportunity. I mean, you know, they don't. You know, they, they pay. The, the global player, somewhat like $10,000, less than the bare minimum for. For a regular player in the CFL. So it's, cost-effective, especially if that player can do two jobs and that is the punting and the kicking or the planting, kicking and kickoff. If he can do all three, then that's. That's significant. Boom. You know, bang for your buck. Yeah, I saw a lot was made in, you know, John Ryan last year when he, you know, retired or stepped down from Saskatchewan, like. I know that he was injured too. And a lot was made. Okay. He's a little older and he maybe he's injured, but that was his thing was we're getting these global guys in there taking the position where. Yeah, maybe John, Ryan's asking more than the minimum, but at least you have these guys that could be getting the minimum are getting overshot because of the global guys. I think he brings up a valid point. I mean, John's you know, back in the day when he was in Seattle. You know, it was making. Seven figures. Right. And then to come back. And I think he came back to his hometown team for 100 K, which by comparison is like meat and potatoes. And then you've got guys who are making 56 or 58,000 to do his job, then. And they're younger. Then yeah, I, I, I totally get where he's coming from. I really do. So global draft is this, is this working. This is the thing that we like is this. Is this beneficial right? To growing, to getting a new player talent in there. Wow. Good question. I know when they brought the concept up. Four years ago. I mean, Randy, Ambrozy at the CFL commissioner. I talked about getting European and Mexican players, you know, into the league and, and hopefully. That paving the way to maybe getting CFL games broadcast. Internationally that hasn't happened yet. So if it has it, hasn't generated a significant revenue stream. This year, for example, you know, usually kickers. Or the first players to go this year, a defensive lineman. From Syracuse went first overall. And this guy was good enough to sign a free agent deal with the Buffalo bills after the NFL draft. So, you know, maybe we're getting better players. Maybe we're getting more specialized players. I'm I'm willing to give it a shot, willing to get to just continue watching, see how this develops, but I think. Right now, a lot of teens are looking at it as a way to save some money and are approaching it as such. It's interesting. You talking about growing the game. And I thought the same thing yesterday for the XFL. NFL right. Announced there. You know, we're doing the three games in London. They gave me, me and Nick and then the game in Mexico. And I thought. MFL being able to schedule a Monday night game in Mexico because of the time zones. Right. Because of travel and all of that. Speaks to why? Like you said, trying to get CFL games, you know, broadcast, like you said, in Mexico, in the states XFL expanding whether it's teams or broadcast rights into Canada in New Mexico. Makes so much more sense that then, then try to, like you said, incentivize Australian, whatever. Cause we have punchers or German, we're bringing in all these, like that's a huge ONTAP market and the, and the time zones and travel and jet lag, make that so much more beneficial to try to coordinate. Yeah, they do. And I mean, It sounds good. And for the NFL's the cost involved in making those, making that switch? Is a, is more than, you know, more than manageable. I'm not so sure the CFL has the same economic means to, to do that. You have, you know, the production cost. Getting games from Mexico. To Canada or, or, you know, from wherever. So I, I think the concepts, I like it. I'm not sure. I'm crazy about trying to cover a CFL game in Mexico city. Having been, but you know what it seems to be the move the movement in, in pro sports now is to, is to make the games more international and make the games more global. So I, I mean, I understand it. I just wonder from. A cost point of view, if that's really. If that's really doable for a league, like the Canadian football league, which is, has to operate within its own means. Yeah, I just would like to see you at a minimum, more wider broadcast rights. And even in the states being able to watch. It's so hard for me on ESPN to find some of these games. And it's like, I'm the diehard. That's trying to cover it. You know, for this, like, if you're someone casual, it's not even on your radar in terms of trying to track this stuff down. I remember watching, you know, NFL Europe, just out of curiosity. And I did for a little bit. And then my I'll be, I'll be honest, my interests with Blaine. And it's the same with, with all the other startup leagues. I watch the curiosity, but you know, my interest. I will admit my interest points pretty quick. So we had the, didn't have the main event, right? The big CFL draft. It was curious to me that the CFL them broadcasting on YouTube they're global drafts with Marshall and all that got way bigger viewership like mark with new sob guide, decent viewership on YouTube for the CFL draft and their three down broadcast as well. It was surprising to me that the global, I know CFL put it, put that one on their channel, but it seemed to garner more, more viewership. It's always interesting to me how low the CFL draft interest is until it, you know, it's kind of explained to me. Right. Okay. These are a lot of like secondary positions. Maybe you have guys that aren't even going to make it into the league, right? Like John menschy, which is kind of interesting. Thoughts on the CFL draft this year. Well, I mean, the person who went first overall was no surprise. He's somebody that we had been trumpeting as the, as the favorite to go first overall, since the combine and. And he was at. You know, taro Richards was a compelling story. Having gone to the transfer portal and not playing football on two and 2021. I can't explain why the draft doesn't do better on, on TV. I know this year. It was two hours to do the first, the first two rounds. And, and it's funny after you watched the NFL draft and you know, it takes them three and a half hours to make 30 plus picks on on Thursday night. The fact that it takes two hours. To to make. The better part of 80, you know, 18 fix to me, there was. Way too much time in between too much. Talk too much lagging. And, and it really takes away. And I mean, I'm not saying I know all of these guys, but I know enough about them that I really don't need it. The era rehashed four for two plus hours. I don't know. I don't know how you jazz it up. I don't know. You know, maybe you go live with it, but I think they're afraid to go live because there might be just us and that's it. Right. And family. So, and then, like I said, there's those production costs, but. I mean, I'm always intrigued by drafts because you get into the nuts and bolts of them. Who's picking why and, and, and who, you know, who. Who as being this and so. Yeah, I mean, but you know, I mean, They're not the, I'm not the person they're trying to attract. So I get it. I get it. But I don't know like, who is that person then? Cause if you're not, you know, if you that covers it, isn't. And like, Yeah. You know, I it's a straight up there. I don't even think you can watch it in the states, you know, cause of the Tia, Sandra, I just, I don't know who it's even produced for. I know Farham was on there. I think Duane Ford was on there. David Sanchez was on there. And try and marsh. As well. Yeah. I mean, we're putting the work into it. I just don't know. It's like the XFL right now. Some of the decisions are making it's like, I don't know who they're trying to attract. I guess this isn't for the hardcore, but it's not for the casual. Weird all, all the moves ahead of time. Like, you know, Edmonton tradie back and made it feel a little bit more NFL E just in terms of like, Hey, we got some movement day up. Any thoughts about all of that pre draft kind of movement? Well, yeah, it's interesting. I'll be honest with you. I'm glad they do it during the day and they didn't do it. The nature of the broadcast, having gone through that, that just makes from, from a reporting spec point of view, it just makes. A very hectic night. This year, everything went as you would expect. And I think that's because all the heavy lifting was done during the day. I mean, we wondered a week ago whether Chris Jones was going to make the pick or whether he was going to trade it. And, and I thought Danny Muchow too, did a. A very, very good job of positioning themselves. Both in the global draft and in the, the Canadian goals draft to, to get Canadian content. I mean, he got arguably the best player. In the draft. He got another first round pick and he picked up a really good Canadian receiver and any, you know, and he made a deal with, with Winnipeg earlier in the day. And, you know, and sort of, you know, improved as to his. Canadian content that way. I mean, I thought he did very well. I have no problem with the deals coming during the day of the trade. Bring it on, I guess I don't need the drama. And, you know, all of a sudden. I didn't want to hear. All right. Montreal has traded for the number one pick with Edmonton, and then you're scrambling to find out what the details are. While you're waiting to see the Montreal is going to pack. I mean, You know what I, the NFL does a good job of that. But they don't tell you exactly who made. All they do is they tell you is so-and-so traded up. And then you wait later in the broadcast to find out for what. And then it's hard to keep track. I mean, it's hard. It really is that the hardcore fan kind of thing. I mean, I couldn't imagine Dorothy, trying to watch, like yeah, because you see, oh, the Eagles traded up or whatever with the Baltimore, but you don't know it. Yeah. 22Nd pick then UCL. Okay. Now with all kinds of makes sense or like, We had players traded ahead of time. And then they, that was kind of all finalized day off, you know? I mean the NFL draft on Friday night. I mean, for example, John mechie gets dragged, gets drafted. And he gets drafted after, after the team that drafted him, Houston. Traded up to get ahead of Baltimore. And I get the reason why. But when that happened, that exact reason or that exact second, it's like, holy crap. Now I got to try and write this as I'm waiting and yeah. You know what? Let. Let Chris Jones and Danny [unknown]. And Kyle. Make all those deals during the day, all they want. I'm more than happy to write little briefs. About who made the trade and then let the draft itself go as, as expected. So, you know, but that's a purely selfish point of view. So I'm Steve corral in the office here. Can you please explain it to me? Like I'm five, how John mechy gets drafted by both the Texans, right. And the BC lions. Sure. John Metz, you finished the year as the top ranked prospect for the Canadian football draft and justifiably. So. But before the draft, he got drafted. He got taken in the second round with, by the, by the Houston Texans. The mere fact that Houston took him so high. Suggests to you that he is definitely in their plans and definitely will be given an opportunity to play there. So if you take him high in the Canadian football draft, You're spending. Pick on someone who's not going to be here for the foreseeable future. So you're better off to spend that higher pick. On a Canadian college kid who will be in training camp or has a better chance of let's say is going to go to an NFL mini camp. And then, you know, it hasn't signed a deal. Mechie will sign a four year contract. With the Houston Texans. That's a lot of guaranteed money, yada yada, yada. So you take him knowing that potentially you may never see him. He may play four years with the Texans and then sign with the Baltimore Ravens and then sign what the Miami, you know, whatever. Whereas, so then why would you invest a high-tech. On that kid. When you may never see them. Whereas you spend it, you could spend that pick on a kid from university of Ottawa. Who doesn't have any NFL aspirations or any NFL potential, but he'll be in your camp on day one. If camps open on the 15th of May. It's just bizarre. It's bizarre that we're drafting players that may never even step foot in the Canadian football. And that's why BC drafted. Mechie where they did. You know, seventh round, right? In the seventh of eight rounds. So, you know what. If John ever becomes available, then BC. It's the jackpot. If he doesn't. Seventh round Canadian college kid is going to be. I'm not going to say he's not going to make your team, but he's tooth and nail to make your team. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a calculated gamble. Trey for, I saw a lot be made about that highest drafted Canadian quarterback in I think. Since the nineties, I'm trying to remember the stats. I sound. TPN, similarly eighties. Yeah. And he's the, he's the top ranked Canadian train, a Canadian college quarterback. Because the kid that had been drafted ahead of him and I believe it was one spot. Played quarterback at a us college. So the thing with, and so that's what, that's what makes you know, Edmonton selection. So. Impressive. That not only did they take him in the first round. But he's also a Canadian kid playing a position. That that is predominantly. You know, Gone to an American up here. And he's, he's getting looks in the states, right? I think he was attending the Buffalo camp or there's a couple of camps he's attended. He's going to go to a couple mini camps. But the, the beautiful thing about that is you're going to, to the mini camp you're taking, you're going to a workup. You haven't signed. Anything. So you've got to go to that workout and impressed. To get a free agent deal. And then you go to training camp. I mean, He's going to take the long route to get to the NFL. So again, Edmonton doesn't need Trey Ford to play this year. They've got, they've got quarterbacks that play. So if, yeah, so if, so, if Trey does, you know, go to an NFL team, gets in, it gets an NFL. Deon goes to training camp. And it doesn't become available until September. Again, Edmonton can bring him in, in September or October. Let them learn. And ease him in so that in 2023, he might be in a better position to, to battle for a roster spot. It's just, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Edmonton. I don't know what they're doing at their credit situation. It's very fascinating. It's kind of bizarre. It's. I mean, it's like they're loading up and whatever, and, you know, What's it, the old adage, you throw enough on the one you're going to see what sticks. That's good stuff. I want to transition to the getting ready for training camps. Any other broad thoughts about the draft? I mean, you know, I don't think the deep dive on is the place for the, this show to be the time in the CFL draft, but I want to make sure we touch on any notable points. Yeah. I mean, you had, you had, you know, a lot of. Talk about Trey Ford and his twin brother Tyrrell. Both of them got drafted. There were two other twins, the fill pot twins from university Calgary. They got drafted. On separate teams and Calgary and Montreal will be interesting. What, what two teams open the CFL season? Yep. That's good. I like that. The two twins are going to be playing their first ever pro games against each other. Well, on teams competing with. So that'll, that'll be interesting, but no, it's a. The draft. That always is what it is. It's interesting. There was you. You know, some interesting moves, some interesting pits, but. You know what. Let's let's now make sure we have a season before we, before we do any other deep does. Yeah. So it's wild. How, you know, this time last year, or it was even later in the year. Either we with COVID and we didn't really know what was happening now. The season's going. We have everything laid out, great cup scheduled, all that stuff. But now we're w I was always told for the last few months, like, this is not going to be a contentious negotiations. The players are very much on the CFL side. There's a lot of transparency going on now. I mean, we're a week away the Saturday, a week from Saturday, right. Training that. Things expire training camps. You said opened on the 15th. So, you know, a week from Sunday. Now we're hearing that there may be is contention. Yeah. There's voting to strike and all this stuff. Can you break us down? Yeah, sure. I mean, first of all, there was a 95% vote. Strike a strike vote. And I mean, that's, you know, the alarmist goes all know, right. But it's part of the collective bargaining process. You, you know, you, you sit down, you, you start talking. And to sort of give your bargaining committee strengths and to give it. Clout at the bargaining table. You do take a strike vote during collective bargaining. And your bargaining unit does encourage you to vote. Yes. So that we can send a strong message to the other guy, to the guys on the other side of the table, that we're serious. That's all it is. It is, you know, w when they. When came news that they were going to take a strike vote. I know my initial reaction. I mean, I'm, I'm part of the union where I work. We go through and we went through the same, the exact same process. Just this, just this past year. So. Been there done that. And so there's no. And I wouldn't read more into it than, than there is. It's part of the process. And a 95% strike mandate is a good strike mandate. But back in two 19, the players gave their union a strike mandate over 97%. So, you know, And they didn't go on strike. So take it for what it is. Ah, The contentious issues, right. Talking about the ratio, right at Jessie and the ratio. Any other contentious issues that you're seeing leading into this, anything to do with money? And be it, the salary cat. I be at the, the minimum salaries. Be it. And, you know, I'm guaranteed contracts are guaranteed part of contracts. Is anything to do with money is going to be contentious because, and. And then, you know, the, the league wants to do revenue sharing with the, with the players. Now exactly what that means though. Players will have one idea of revenue sharing the legal, have another. The problem is, is, you know, you gotta, you gotta find something that the two can agree on. So that's good. Like I said anything can. I say the word contentious because it has been contentious. The last few CBA agreements. So, I mean, I'm thinking. Yeah, they're butting heads, but every bargaining you butt heads. So, I mean, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not as concerned or as worried about it. There's been one work stoppage in, in Canadian football league history. It lasted, it was during training camp. No games were lost or rescheduled. Neither is, this is a situation where neither side can afford. A full-blown strike or full-blown work. Stop it. Let's not forget. Play. If the players don't get paid this year, it's the second time in three years that they've not received a paycheck. And even last year they received 1480s of their regular pay. So let's, you know, I mean, I'm I'm all for, you know, CBA process and negotiation, but. Let's put it in a little perspective first. That's all. Yeah, it was a little bit of a, you know, panic online and okay. They're organizing the strike and all of a sudden to me, this. Even player contract it, all that stuff is contentious even. Lamar Jackson and star quarterback trying to, you know, negotiate his contract without an agent. I mean, this is all, it's all contentious. I mean, this is obviously going to be negotiated. We have the report, you know, friended me of the show. Raj Madani he's talking about a 10 year collective bargaining and I think I was reading. Usually they're four or five-year deals. I mean, this would be substantially longer. You said you've been trying to reach out about this. Any, any word about this 10 year? Agreement. I don't Dell. The, the reporting of it. It wouldn't, I mean, it would be hooved the CFL. To have a long-term deal, you know, and to ensure labor. You know, That there'd be no labor strife for 10 years. And that would be late. That'd be labor harmony. But to do that, you got to give the re the players a reason. You know, to, to settle for that. And. And so if you want me to settle for 10 years, that's great. But you're going to also make sure that I'm over this over the course of that 10 years. I am. My, my salary is going to go up 25 or 30%. Right. On an average basis, a 2% or 1%, whatever it is. So. Again, I don't doubt it. I think. I knowing the CFL like I do, they would probably say, yeah, we want 10 years of what we have, what we're at right now. And the union would look and go. You know, they've traditionally had five-year war five-year deals. This past one. I was three years. And they, they went through years because they thought was that the economic landscape changes drastically over five. And after three, you get an idea of where it's going and then you can negotiate for the future. I for though I would be stunned and I would bet my mortgage. That there's no way they agree to attend your deal, unless the leak guaranteed that there would be, you know, significant increases in pay in revenues. I mean, how can you put a 10-year deal on, on the, on the table when you don't even know what your. What's your revenues are going to be like down, you know, five years down. Let alone 10. So I'd be very, I do. I think they probably are. They probably put it probably tabled it. But the players would look and go. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Now we want. We want three and they're going to negotiate something in the middle. Well, especially just with, you know, presumably if all the stuff announced by Ambrozy here at the grey cup this year with the genius sports. And like you said, with the revenue sharing, I mean, we don't even know what any of that is really going to look like single game sports betting. I mean, a lot of stuff has come on the table in a good way in the last year or two. That could potentially really exponentially benefit the CFL. So you got to see where that stuff's going before you. And why would, why would you commit long term with. Knowing, I think. I think it as. Again, The union is in the business of looking out for its players and. And unless it was a deal that they couldn't say no to. I can't imagine a tenure proposal getting nothing more than a snicker at the other end of the table. Yeah. I mean, my house will be paid off in 10 years, 10 years, the city turned to be. And how do these guys make, make an, an agreement for guys now that won't be in the league 10 years from now? So, so you're making the deal for the kid who's who's used in high-yield in his second year of high school. It's preposterous. Well, Dan, this has been good. I'm I. Yeah, I don't wait to bring people on just the, you know, I like to, I don't like to bug people too much, but I'm always glad we could get you on and have your insights on this. I knew this would be a good spot to get you on. So I appreciate. Drafts CBA. So anything else before we let you go? Nope, that's it. I'm just like everybody else waiting to see how this next week transpires and. Figure out whether I'm going to train and camp on, on, on Sunday, or am I going to go visit players on a picket line? Yeah.Do you enjoy your time in Canada? Is it,do you enjoy getting up there ahead of time to prepare for the season? Yeah.Canada.Our unique. You know, you make Providences around here and stuff like that.So it's definitely, always cool.See something different from what you're outside of seeing. It's definitely. I feel good. You know, get back and just get acclimated to things that will need to be done. My child made a good run last year. Wasn't far enough. Thoughts anticipations headed into this season. I say. Just week in, week out, you know? Every day, you. Once we start count from day one, just, you know, The focus. Just making sure everybody's on the, on the same page. And, you know, we work together as one. Ultimately come out on top is, you know what? Everybody's set out. So, you know, be the, the, the grey cup champions in the beginning, but it's, it's on the, you know, the team that, you know, Comes together and. Realized that in. The sacrifices of the smarter things. Ultimately get to the gray coat. Do you guys talk a lot in the off season? All the teammates you guys keep in touch. Yeah, we keep it into our CNR. Our burden Vernon. Try it. Offensively and stuff like that. Brian, try to get the guys together at least once on the off season. Get out of there and throw and just get back reunited. And bond with each other. Were you part of that big campy out here on the west coast? Was it like a couple of weeks ago now? Three weeks? Yeah. A couple of weeks ago. I actually, I had some stuff back home that I on some family issues that I had to take care of. Stuff like that. So I didn't really get to make it out there, but. Like I said, running a BR here. Or tomorrow. So we are. We'll make up for that time loss. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't think it was. That's why I asked, because I was talking with will stand back, spin on the show and Vernon's. But on the show, Isaac, I didn't think you made your way out there. I wanted to make sure. Talk about that though, having someone like Verdin as a leader, kind of willing to do that, you know, willing to take the time out. I said, he's coming up, work with you that way as the leader. You know, in the clubhouse that he is. Just the growth, you know, far as. No, this is my work. Second, would it be my second kind of full half season, I guess, with the code and stuff? However that we manage that, but just saying a burden and growth. You know, from when I first met him until, until now. It's phenomenal just to see, you know, the leader that he's becoming and doing those types of things like that. It's what leaders shall do, you know? And once you have somebody like that, That's no leading you. You have no choice, but to. But to up your play and ope, your level of focus and just to. You know, to be on the same level as him as well. Talk about the, the city of Montreal. You're up there now? What is it like? Do you like living up there being a part of the community? Yeah, most definitely, like I said, you know, different, you know, You know, different league and whatnot, but it's always good to. Be able to build off our platform that would already have. The man professional athletes and stuff around here. And. You know, a lot of people. And the, in a Providence and in an area, you know, the kids, even the older people. Just kind of, you know, we give them something to look forward to her. And to be that. Be that fire for people is always. Always good to be able to do those types of things. Do you enjoy that? That either. CFL is a little bit more accessible, right? With the fans and the players. And you guys hang out with the guys in the stands, kind of all that stuff. It means you enjoy that comradery with a, with a fan base up there. Oh, yes. Most definitely, man, like I said, That's our that's all. Comes with, you know, the love for the game, you know? And just the bonding in. And the communication and stuff like that with the fans is. You know what we do where we do, you know, There's been a lot of talk in the CFL. Off-season about, you know, fixing the rules, fixing the game, all of this kind of craziest. What do you love about the CFL game? What is it that, that you enjoyed the most plain? Like I said, I mean, I don't hope. I will hope they want to change, you know? Too much, too much from. From what's already been going on. And I'll just because, like I said, CFL CFL for a reason, you know what I mean? And the uniqueness of the three now. You know, the three downs, it's just have you on a different focus level. And I mean, and like I said, I don't think they should. No, that's not my safe zone. What they should do. You know, far as with the rules and stuff, but like I said, with the CFL, you know, I, I. It's a lot of little things, you know, that I like, of course, you know, the waggle than just the two nouns, you know what I mean? The two, you know, the first or second. wow. I'm excited that we'll be good. All right. Well, we'll get into it. Yeah, my power died for like three hours. And I, luckily I done all my other interviews and they're like, it's not coming on until four 50. And I'm like, I'm going to have to do this s**t from like a laptop. And I have like, I do live streaming, so I have like capacity to run for a couple hours. But. I was like, well, it's not the ideal. The imagination. Yeah. Sorry. Drop that. Oh, you're good. And you're just a commentator. The voice of the gay seven. Seven FL and producer. Perfect. Yeah, I'll always have a sham right here. Well, I'm excited today because this is going to be a learning process for everybody. We have voice of the [unknown]. S foul and I f****d that up. Sorry. Well, I've excited today. We are going to learn alongside our listeners are going to learn alongside me. We have the voice of the [unknown]. And FL and producer, Matt, Ryan, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I am so excited to be here, to talk about the a seven. And FL and give, give your listeners a little bit of an understanding about what we do every. Ah, every spring for the last eight years. Well, I'm excited because, you know, we cover a lot of these fluky duke leagues and we have like, the major league football right now is they've been trying to get off the ground. You know, the last 10 years. And I get all these questions about self we're, obviously trying to promote CFL, other leagues outside of the NFL here, you guys are eight years trust. You know, you know, it's going to be here, right. You have a reputation out. So I'm excited to kind of dig into this so we can learn alongside of that. Awesome. Yeah. No, there's a lot of great football out there right now. And there's a lot of opportunities for the advancement of the sport. I consider the a seven. F L to be the future of football, the way we play football, the approach we take to a more fan. Fan focused game, a lot more excitement, a lot more big plays, a lot of innovations that even the USFL are starting to take. In the way we manage our clock and we managed special teams, I think. In the most exciting way in spring football. Well, and also, I think you guys do social really well. I mean, that's something that I think the USFL this year through Fox, it's kind of like a one size fits all. They have one or two people kind of managing all these teams. I think you guys have a really strong brand identity at, you know, I've spent the last week since we got this set up kind of looking through a lot of that. And so I think obviously it speaks to that side of things as well that people are looking forward to. Well, thank you. Yeah, no, we take pride in the highlights we have in this league and we take a look at. What I feel to be the highlight standard, the, and one mixtape tour. That to me is the standard of highlighting your player strengths. I come from the world of pro wrestling, the world of pro sports. That's where my background is. So I come from the business of accentuating positives and mitigating negatives, and you're always going to have in pro sports, the opportunity to accentuate your positives are positives are a dynamic style of play athletes that you can really relate to. These are guys who are working nine to fives, Corey Hammond, who will be calling the action with me live on stadium this week. As we come to Orlando for the first time ever, we're taking our games of the week out of the Northeast and we're bringing it down to Orlando for a really big. Play off. You know, basically a playoff eliminator setting up the stage for our divisional round of the playoffs. And he not only is our, my color commentator. He's a starting quarterback in the league. And at one point last week, he came in to do half-time after having a perfect passer rating. Did not miss a throw made. All of his passes. Had two touchdowns came in, did halftime with me at Asbury park stadium, then went out and finished the game and called two more games with me the same day and went to work the next day. So for those who don't know, what is a seven S football? What makes you guys unique? So the [unknown]. FL is seven on seven, no helmets, no pads, all action football. We do a hundred yards traditional. You know, United States style football, no shade on the CFL. But it's, you know, 120 yards end zone, the end zone back event zone tobacco men zone. We truncate the field by a third because it is seven on seven, but it makes it a more dynamic style of play. Because you have less people on the line, you have a lot more pressure on defense and you have the, the opportunity for offensive innovation. For me, the game of pro football historically is carried by innovation. Innovation on offense, leads to innovation on defense. It's how we got to the 43. It's how we got through the flex defense. The 46, all of that came through forced off offensive innovation and what we do at the a seven FL. L is innovate. We have a running clock in the first and third quarter. The only time the clock stops in the second and fourth is under two minutes. On on incompletions and running out of bounds. Outside of that, the entire time the clock is a running clock. We have no kicking in our game. So you have to earn every single point. In the [unknown]. And FL and also. Our returns after touchdowns are un-timed downs. So if it's a close game, That completely blows away. Any advantage of team with the lead ads. It's interesting. You talk about the clock we just reported today. USFL is updating mid-season there. Yeah, their clock. They're having a running clock now for center. Very interesting. You were saying people. You know, good ideas be get good ideas. But it's interesting to see that that is literally, they, they just made that announcement today. Well, imitations, instant, serious form of flattery ended up. That's no shade on the USFL. Like. People are gravitating towards that style of pro football. I believe the [unknown]. FL is a superior on the field product, not because of the athletes, but the style of play. And also we have athletes who have done time in the NFL have played in major college, major high school. We have a Shauntay worthy. Who's probably the best player in spring football bar. None. He's a former Mr. High school. He's a Mr. New Jersey high school football player. Held various records before other teammates on his team broke those records. If you've not watched the Trenton BIC, go to watch stadium.com and check out some of their games, we have cutdowns, they won a game this week 80 to nothing, and that's not against, you know, a blow over team. It just speaks to how dynamic that offense is. I've been calling games in the [unknown]. [Unknown] for three seasons so far. And the evolution of the offenses. Have gone exponentially year over year. And it's about a dynamic. It does a pass heavy offense the BIC have, but they're able to get you on the run. If you're establishing play action in this league, you're the most dangerous offense in the league because of how wide open the game is because of how quick your reaction time needs to be. Sometimes these quarterbacks have under three to five seconds to make a play under center. And it creates the ability for hybrid quarterbacks like Gerald Llewellyn, who plays for the Hawks or steri Kadri. Drinken Jr. Who was a high school quarterback in college was converted to a seat to converted to a cornerback and a safety playing in the secondary. Came to the BIC as a safety. But Corey price who's the quarterback for the BIC went down with an injury who also was a natural secondary player was a natural cornerback. Transitioned to quarterback and he's been setting records the last few seasons. Sorry, Coddington's a rookie of the year NDA seven. [Unknown] might be the MVP or either him or his teammate, a shot. They worthy might be the MVP this year. They're one of the best one to combinations in the sport. Outside of a shot of a Quatro Huffin and Corinne moon who are on the defending Patterson, you back to back champions, they suffered their first loss in three years against the BIC in the third week of the season. And that to me is the. The game to watch out for that's either going to be the championship semifinal or the championship final for the second year in a row. What I like about this too, is, you know, watching some of the highlights. I mean, it, it feels like football, it feels a little rugby sometimes. Right? You get. Got a lot of movement with it. I mean, describe the, having the seven on seven. No, no pads. Right? I think people are envisioning like, they're going out, they're killing each other, but it's not me. It's still, it's still professional sports. Resembles right. It doesn't. A little more. It, it gives it's imagining traditional rap tackling, leading no leading with your head. And that that helmet gives you a helmet and pads give you that element of safety. To where you're leading with your head, it does more harm than it does. Good. So we've taken the helmets and the pads out of the game to create a safer product and, you know, injuries do happen. It's pro sports. These things do happen. You know, no matter what line of work you're in injuries on the job will happen. But in, in the a seven. FL try to focus on lowering concussions. We're very concerned about brain trauma and traumatic brain injury, which is why we Institute these things. Horse collars, things like that. We try our best to mitigate those negatives and mitigate the possibility of that. Becoming a liability, not just for the league, but for our players. We care about the safety of our players above everything else in the [unknown]. And FL, but it is still pro football. It's still traditional tackle football. Like you take a look at the a seven. NFL ball. I have one right here. It's a white football. So a lot of people thinks. I think it's rugby, but it's a traditional pro football. It's a regular football. Got your regular football grip. And it's, you know, it's not big, it's not bulbous. It's not fat. It's not like an old school, 1940s back when they, everybody would play. Half back defense knowledge. It's a traditional modern pro football. But the. If you've ever played NFL street, or if you played football outside as a kid, If you play, you know, I grew up in the streets in New York city. We would play, you know, modified three on three, four on four seven on seven style games. And this brings you back to that. It gets football to its purest form, its purest level of competition. I liked the eight. So the players that you guys attract that want to play in the 87. I keep saying that wrong. A seven FL. Eh, what kinds of talent are you attracting for the league? We hold open combines in all of our divisions. We have teams in Las Vegas, Los Angeles. We have teams in Cincinnati, Ohio. Orlando and Tampa, Florida, New Jersey, Baltimore, Maryland. On Washington, DC. We have teams across the United States. We expanded this year from four divisions to eight. And we're going to continue to expand next year. There's a lot of places in a VA. If you want to bring the a seven FL up to Seattle, you could do that too. You can go to our website if you're watching this right now. And you're like, I want to be a part of this. Go to 87 fl.com/owners. And you could fill out the information to bring it to your town. Like there's there's opportunity for growth in the a seven. F L and it's. Finding the players who never got their opportunity, never got their chance. Guys who were tremendous high school players, but never got scouted or had to stop playing football to take care of their family. They have kids, they have responsibilities. These are people that have to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders on a daily basis. And this is a refuge for them. And it's also an opportunity. The prize pool this year is $50,000. It's double of what we had last year in terms of total prize money. So we're giving these guys the opportunity to make money playing football. Is it the money you're going to see on a, you know, the top draft pick of the NFL? Getting no. But it's the opportunity for them to showcase their skills on national television, Ron stadium, every single week with our games of the week where we're taking our show on the road this week, we're going to Orlando for the first time ever. We're going to be live from a non Northeast city. And that's something I'm really excited about. And one of the things I wanted to talk about today, Cause we have to undo an undefeated team. A rematch of our Florida championship game and expansion team. Who's undefeated trying to make a statement in a division featuring a team that made it to the final four last year. There's a lot of opportunities in a lot of stories in the [unknown]. FL. That if you sat down and watch the game, I think you'd be hooked. If you love pro football and you love watching. The great tackles, great plays, highlights players going off. Celebrations like a great football celebration. I'm a child of the early two thousands. So I remember the Sharpie in the end zone. I remember all of those things that made wide receivers people you wanted to F like before Twitter, you just wanted to see what they did next. And that's what we have in [unknown]. FL, it's the closest to feeling like you're watching Madden oh four than anything else I've ever experienced in pro football. When you guys have good distribution, like you said, you're on stadium, but I mean, you're, you're streaming on a lot of different platforms, right? Talking about the accessibility, being able to watch the product. Yeah. So we have our games. We have a backlog of games. We've aired on FUBU before we have an international deal with fight. So if your viewers are outside, Of north America in Australia, the United Kingdom, you're able to watch us on fight TV. We were on fight TV last year for our regular season. We have a great partnership with stadium. We aired our two marquee games of the week. From across the United, you know, the Northeastern United States. Now the Eastern United States, we've been at Ripken stadium. We've been in Delaware at Abyssinia stadium, which is one of the most beautiful facilities I've ever been in to produce a game. We were at Ripkin stadium in Baltimore. So we're bringing you, you know, unique fields, unique looks every single week. And we're bringing it to you from a part, you know, a great partner in stadium who gives us tremendous reach a tremendous potential audience. And you can also watch us online. Watch stadium.com. You can also watch any of our backlog games and we can CA if you don't want to sit through a whole three hour broadcast, Because it's 20, 22 on our attention spans or, you know, law for thin. You can watch our cut downs. We have our long versions. [unknown]. And 60 every single Wednesday night. And they also live@watchstadium.com slash [unknown]. And FL, well, what I like about this too, is you're talking about the cities, you know, crossing the country. That's the issue right now. People are trying to get into like USFL, even the new XFL cities, right. That they're going to announce you're soon. You're not hitting large Sloss of the country. Right? USFL is totally Southeast Northeast. If you live on the west coast, Like Seattle, you know, if I'm covering this, if I wasn't covering this, I have no incentive. Right? There's no team by me. Whereas it, you guys have. You have, like you said, Vegas Columbus all the way up and down. I like having that people having nearby home markets to be able to look at it and feel like they get support that as Sarone and there are players from those areas. So if you're from Trenton, New Jersey, or if you're in Patterson, New Jersey or Cincinnati, Ohio, Covington Kentucky. These are players from your hometown. These are people you probably went to high school with, you probably saw them play in high school, or you knew them from a cousin. These are players you can truly identify with because they have stories similar to your own. They get up in the morning, they go to work, they practice, they work out, they come home and then on Sundays, they're on national television. That's just that little difference between them and you. But at the end on Monday morning, they're, you know, they're rubbing on some CBD, they're taking a hot shower. They're popping a couple of Advil having a hot cup of coffee and going into the office. I like this. I, you said higher offense, right? High scoring. I mean, it feels exciting. Right? A lot of that I see a lot of the social stuff is like this, the most insane touchdown you've ever seen there. I mean, it's a lot of guy memorable moments that way, right? Yeah. It's it's a game break. You get a game breaker. Every single week. And the three on one, which is our version of the return. So punt return kick return. We do a three on one. So it's three defenders against one returner. And no hyperbole. No. Bull S this is the most exciting play in pro football. Bar none. If you watch a Marcellus pack or an Ashanti worthy or adjacent Sussan returned the football. You're watching someone in real time. I've compared it to like jazz watching miles Davis, try to improvise a song. And just make this thing happen in real time. You're seeing. How these players make their decisions, make their cuts. And then you get to see that one-on-one, that you rarely get to see in football. You rarely get to see straight up a defender and a returner face off because then you get the scrum and then in kickoffs and punts. The L the possibility for injury, the possibility for concussions, the possibilities of a gunner coming in and taking you out. Those are, those are real fears and we've taken that out of the game and we've also taken kicking out of the game. I love pat McAfee. I love a great punt. I love a 60 yard field goal. To ice the game. But. Having a three on one throw off is more exciting. Making your team play all four downs when you're on inside the 30 yard line. Those four, every four down, every down in those four downs matter. Every yard matters in the 87. And FL you don't need to get to a certain line. And then you're like, okay, we're going to bring on Martine. Chromatica he's going to kick one and we're going to be up by free. No, you got to earn it. And also we have the one point in two point conversion. So you don't just get a free point. It's not like playing blitz. Back when we were kids, the arcade version, we don't get the kick. You just hit the extra point and they automatically, you get a point. You earn every single point in the a seven FL. I like this. So. It looks like it runs March to may here. Right? We're getting. We run until July, July 10th is our national championship. We'll be crowning our eighth champion. We'll also, we'll be crowning our MVP. We're giving our MVP and a ring this year from our friends at Herff Jones. They're going to actually going to get an MVP ring. To where, but that, that will be July 10th. If you're looking at our website now [unknown]. L.com. That's just our regular season schedule. And as soon as our playoff schedule is announced, you'll be able to keep up to date on what's going on there. And also you can follow us on social media to find out when what's going on. And where are you going to be able to watch these games nationally? I like this. Well, if I think this is great, I love introducing people to new different forums of all football on here. We got a lot of like weird tribalism sometimes. So between like XFL and USA, it's kind of weird. I think. This is great. You know, like you said, we're, we're supporting the players. It's your coworkers, it's your family, friends. It's people that you go, you know, with the school, with whatever. Anything else before we let you go. [unknown]. And that fell.com to get all the info, like you said, on stadium. Anything else? If you love pro football. In all its forms. If you live, breathe and die. If you take a look at my bookshelf, I have a book on the history of the four, three defense. I have been to NFL films to watch tape there. I have watched a FC. If you want to talk about alternative leagues, I watched a F C footage. In the same building that Steve Sable and ed Sable walked around it. My love for pro football. Is only exceeded by my love of pro-wrestling. And I love me some pro wrestling. I work in pro wrestling. If you look me, I am Ryan consulting, my Twitter handle. If you want to give me a follow-up. Calling a seven NFL games. Is some of the most fun I've had in a 15 year broadcasting career. And I've called every conceivable sport. And. It combines the, oh my God. How did that just happen of hockey? The highlight real aspect of basketball. And the never say die attitude of pro football. And you have players who risk it all every single week. To go out there and do what they love and. How do you not root for that? How do you not root for a Cory Hammond? Who's a father of five. Going out there every Sunday, trying to make something happen and then go into his regular job. And the shop, they were the, a guy who should be by all, you know, in the XFL, in the USFL, but never got that opportunity or adjacent Sisson. Who's a young kid just out, you know, in his early twenties. Who's a dynamic speedster. If you love. Watching things that happen in an instant, if you use Tik TOK, if you use Instagram. Or you just grew up like us watching the old NFL films tapes and just seeing someone get completely walloped. On national television. I've seen people get spot and busters in this game. I've seen full blown shoot. Suplexes like, this is if you're a true football head. And you care about the sport more than you care about what's on the front or the back of a Jersey. And we also have really kick ass. I'm not gonna lie. You know, I want to own a couple of myself. You should watch the gay seven FL. And if you don't like it, or you want to tell me off, tweet me. I am Ryan. Consultings my Twitter handle. If you want to call me a d****e, if you want to say my commentary sucks. Tweet me MRI and consulting. You know, we welcome your letters, but give us give alternative. League's a chance. Give the a seven. NFL chance. I promise you this Saturday. At 1:00 PM on stadium, we're special because it's mother's day on Sunday and people want to spend it with their mothers, obviously. We're going to be live from Orlando, Florida, starting at 1:00 PM. Eastern. It's going to be the QC crush against the Orlando ghosts. Pardon me? The Tampa nightcrawlers. And then it's going to be the Orlando ghost against the Tampa, a team, a rematch of our awesome 2021 Florida championship game. And that one's available on our YouTube channel. Go to our YouTube channel. Now we've got full games up there. We've got highlights. Go to our Instagram. Jared who cuts all of our Instagram reels is a wizard. And he's got NFL films level I on the, on the highlights. So if you love cool stuff, And you want to watch the pro football equivalent of a mixed tape. Watch the seven FL this Saturday at one. I love it. I look at here, you could even get an official game ball and the listener Seth will be ready. We have a couple big football ball heads on our, on our shows. Yeah, you can buy, you can buy a ball from us on the website. You can buy merged a whole bunch of stuff.

Episode 90 - The XFL Is Leaking Info

So there's somebody got. Happy to be here. Thank you. And let me make sure I've got okay. Cool. Well, I am thrilled today. I know our listeners are thrilled this while we're joined by a very on CFL team on there. Mr. Amar Domin of the BC lions, how are you? I'm doing great. This is very exciting. We don't get team owners on the mark CAS here at south. How are you doing first off? How's your day so far? Hey, everything's great. Certainly the days are always busy, but. You know, adding the lines. The mix has been fantastic. So we're having a lot of fun with it already. So, yeah, that's my question. You came in kind of a tumultuous. Just in the middle of the season, you know, you come in. Now that you've, we've gone through the 20 to 21 CS and we're into 2022. How are things settling out for the lions? Things are shaking out really well. We're getting a lot of buzz locally here. We're really trying to re-engage the fan base. And of course we've had some tough seasons, so, you know, he could do a lot of things. You know, with the fan base. And cheerleading and that kind of stuff, but you got to put some wins on the board as well. And some tough years. So certainly that's been part of the, you know, the problem out here, but we're really excited about going forward the team. We have the coaching staff and there's a lot of continuity to it. And I think that's going to deliver some dividends for the team. And I'm busy cheerleading the heck out of this team in the background and investigate. Yeah, that's the thing is, I mean, you can have as many ideas as you want as many sales and marketing ideas and set, but yeah, the wins, you have to have somewhat of a, of a. Conceivable football team, you know, winning games, right. Exactly right. And Vancouver. Famous for having sickle sands as well. And I'm one of them with the Canucks. They're not playing well. The building gets empty pretty quick, but certainly here we've got an exciting. Very exciting team and under our ownership now. We're doing some really good things for the community and youth football. COVID restrictions are gone. So, Hey, look, I think. The season's gonna be pretty exciting coming up here. Your connects, but quite a thrashing of my crack. And last night I was watching the game. That was not an enjoyable experience. Yeah. All for none, but you know, we'll take the wind even with a backup. Goaltender, like we had last night. And finish this. The season ended. On a high note, even though were eliminated. So are you on the football team? Are you're a sports guy? I mean, this is deep in your bones. Something that you enjoy, what is it about sports that you love so much? Yeah, you know, I've always loved it since I was a kid playing a lot of different sports, but certainly my kids are involved now in sports. Football and the opportunity. The lions came up a number of years ago at Mr. Brayley and we were off and on negotiating. For the club. Certainly for someone like myself to get back to the community. Number one. Put the lions back into solid hands here with local ownership. They're in solidarity. You know, distance ownership with Mr. Burley, who was great, but. Local in the CFL matter. So. So when I had this opportunity, Over the years to talk to him about buying the club. I think you saw my sincerity and sadly, he passed him. Got the deal done after that wasn't a state, but the couldn't have been more first class with me. And I think they saw. You know exactly what I told David, which was the truth. To invest in this. It really revitalized the lions for the longterm. And make it the hot ticket in town. Again, it's going to take some time, but we're here for the job and we're not going anywhere. We've got deep pockets to invest in the team and we're doing that. Cause that's the thing is I think people expect immediate, you know, results of any kind. They may, especially at this day and age and Twitter, I mean, This is not a six-month or a one-year plan. No, it's not. It's going to take a number of years. You know, one fan at a time and we get that used football. We get. You know, kids playing at halftime again in the dome. You know, we're going to have a lot of fun with it in. And in the summertime, or we now have entertainment, I'm throwing a massive party here. On June 11th for the opener. So I hope everyone's going to attend that. I think we're now. Great attendance. We're going to announce a bunch of stuff next week. As far as the entertainment goes, I think it's going to be pretty exciting. And it's going to be. A fun event to really kind of kick off the, the relaunch. Of the lines. Yeah. I was talking with Matt baker bath that he said, even it's been tight lift around the board of what these announced. Yeah, things are going to be that the entertainment, I guess you call it. Exactly. We're going to kick off the season in style here. And I think it's something that hasn't been done. You know, when the CFL for a long time, as far as, you know, really opening things off of the bang, and we're going to do that against the Elks and have a really good evening that night. I hear it's about that actually. So, you know, You come in, you're announced as a team owner, it's huge fanfare, everything that first home game against the Alex. Having that loss. Not. I just cause the whole time I'm sitting there and we've done podcasts that week and I've been talking with Canadian reporters talking about you coming in and all this, and then having that party there kind of get, what was that like? Well, it was welcome to the business, right? Certainly a, you know, It hurt. Certainly the winds you. The few we've had and a few losses there and that streak. Alert pretty quickly how different it does feel as a fan and as an owner. It's just the emotion is a million times more is what it is really. The passion isn't any different, but you do feel like you were the losses, but when the winds come. Matt is exhilarating. It's the biggest high you've ever felt in your life. So it's really cool stuff. And it just, I think. Reconfirm my passion for the BC lions. In that, but yeah, it was disappointing. I was on TSM that night and everything. It was a bit of a blur. I was pulled in a lot of different directions. I addressed BC places. You recall. You know, we're pretty pumped up. And then now that we take an L, but. You know, Hey, we're, we're working through. Our roster. And I really think our guys have got everything in good shape. Ready for 2022, but it wasn't the best way to start things, but we've got a lot of years out. A lot of games. What else did they? It seems like at least in the off season here. Unique approach you with Nathan Rourke, right? We have kind of, you know, we have a bargain right chip right now with our quarterback. We're, we're developing a lot around him spending a lot of money around him. I mean, do you say anything in that? I mean, do you let Rick and the guys figure that out? It just felt like there was direction from on high. Like we want to make big changes here in the off season to really propel forward. You know what. I leave the management team alone to run the X's and O's frankly, they're professionals. And I've always said, look. I wouldn't want the BC lions coming in to run our building materials companies and other entities. And I wouldn't come in to run their. I just have to make sure we have the right team in place as far as the management team is, and they'll go take care of things, but I think they can see. You know, my excitement. My caring about the team. And I think some of that will resonate spillover. End of the management team and keep them fired up because I'm fired up. We really want to give BC, you know, a new look and really house. The fans really, you know, A lot of options. They've always had options. But certainly we'll say I want to go to a lions game again. And I've really had good success with my business colleagues here in town. I leaned on every single one of them, every single one of them has come through. Whether it's to buy tickets, whether it's to buy sweets, whether it's to support all of the great things Alliance do in the community. Everyone's showing up. And that means a lot to me. And that really does, I think help re-engage the team as well as management and as well as the community. So we're coming out. At all angles. And again, no quick fixes to get the place packed again and even lower bowl. We can get that filled a few times a year. Ah, we've got to win some games. I think that's easily doable in the city. It's not the building. The building's great. We're having great meetings with them and. They've become very accommodating to us to help us. What else can we do for the lions? So. There's a lot of good stuff going on in the background. Read. It's all right. It's like you said, people do have options. I mean here, we had Netflix, right. For the first time, you know, in 10 years or whatever, post the last, I mean, there's just, there's so much other content and the CFL is competing against, you know, not just the NFL or the XFL, whatever we might have been. I mean it's streaming and Hulu and everything else. I mean, How does that weigh on your mind when you're trying to figure out the game plan, moving forward. Yeah. I think what we have to do is just really worry about ourselves, because look at. The Canucks seems to, you know, get filled that. Even on most nights and they're on a tough season. We're still getting 16, 18,000, and now they've got those same options. It's Netflix and everything else. So our job here is just, you know, look, get the lions more front and center. We built the dance team up to 40, from six. We're going to have a lot of advertising. Our whole new campaign comes out. We're going to get a sneak peek on May 2nd. Then the full rolls May 5th. We're doing an event to BC place and we're really going to kick things off and reengage it. It's up to us. And it's not up to, you know, Other eyeballs, looking at things. We've got the genius thing happening with the CFL, which is great. The wagering. The CFL's coming along way. Quickly, as far as getting engaged on the technology side, which we've been behind on and that's come quickly. So I think you're going to see a lot of things, galvanized hearing. It's really, again, up to us to put the product on the field when games. And I think you talk about the Canadian quarterback situation. That's a great conversation piece. You know, first time in 55 years, we've had two Canadian quarterbacks. From my hometown, Victoria being Nathan. It's a great story. And I think having that continuity and for the fans to look at someone that can relate to. It's something that's slowly been lost in the CFL here and there, because these one and two year contracts, everyone's just moving around. Right. And. And for the fans, it's hard to engage and go who's who's the team. And one of our, you know, Our jobs. I think is to try and keep our team together. In the teams. You know, there've been winning, you know, Like the blue bombers, et cetera. And the Thai cats. Their teams stick together and we need to grease sign guys. And we've got an incredible offense. You know, our defense is going to be good. We just need to keep these guys together, such that they become a team and the fans can identify, know who to cheer for. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, it's so hard. I mean, it's like success begets success, you know, like Winnipeg doesn't have any problem with any of this stuff right now. Right. But it's, it's getting to that position, right. It is. And it takes a, you know, a lot of work and time, but. That's the fans will give us a shot here and can come back in. We're going to try and make things affordable. We've got those family packs out there that are ridiculously cost-effective. For families to come in a whole different zone for them as well. So there's a lot of things we're going to be bringing to the table that are new. And cost-effective all subsidized and perceive. If I have to, but we're really going to have. You know, a team feeling again for BC. And the fans have something to pull for here. You talk about the genius sports in Yola Ambrozy came out. You had the big announcements leading it. Where do you see that? I mean, you obviously smart, successful person. Where do you see the benefits that genius is going to have for the league? Well, number one, genius is a proven entity. All the other leagues in the world. They know what they're doing. We've done some meetings with these guys they're top shelf. They're going to really help us on the technology side, where guys are going to be able to do analytics. They're gonna. To be able to bet on those analytics. And it's a whole different view. This won't happen overnight. But we've got the best in the world with us. I've got to credit Randy, for that, he's done a great job in putting that deal together. So that is going to evolve over time. It's early days, we just put it together a few months ago, but it's done. And we are now at the leading edge of all technology and gambling. You know, with any other league. We're right at parody with anybody else. So time, we'll see how this evolves. As we get more eyeballs back into the CFL. Which is exciting. And you know, we're looking at a tennis team for next year as well. So the schooners a, you never know, could come back and we're hearing good things about that. That's another good piece of press for the CFL. And I just think the eyeballs are coming back and it's going to take guys like me to really drum it up. Yeah, that's interesting. The Atlantic scanners. We have a voicemail here as well. About the game that's taking place over there. I mean, realistically with that. Is that something that you actually see happening in the next few years? And I know you don't speak for all of that, but is that something that you see happening? Yeah. Just being around the CFL now and being on the board of governors, we're hearing some things about that. So, you know, they they'd go up the game sold out now for July, which, you know, the tickets were gone. It's seconds, 10,000. You know, it's pretty cool to see that passion for that football. And that was close to the use the term on the one yard line pre COVID. For that expansion to happen. And then COVID of course changed a whole bunch of things. So I think that train gets back on the track. I'm in. Enthused about that. And again, it gives us a true if it happens in national league, right. Coast to coast. And frankly, something new for the CFL. I think that's pretty exciting as well. So I'm hoping like every other fan that happens. Oh, I mean, having the 10 teams and having the Eagle, all these. A lot, the world is made a lot easier for the CFL. I believe with 10 teams across the country. Oh, absolutely. Even number everything else. And then. You know, perhaps there's a, you know, BC lions versus, you know, The Atlantic. Some kind of a marquee game, because we'd like to have one of those two. It maybe that that could be created. There's a lot of neat stuff that could come out of that. And I think the fan base out there is starved for something like this. So I think this lines up, and I think the guys that are working on it are top shelf as well. Yeah. It's all right. Cause BC does exist. Kind of on an island sometimes on the west. Yeah, you look at a lot of those division rivalries. You know, I like the banjo bowl and all that UBC kind of gets left out a little bit. It does. And, you know, I was joking with Randy saying, Hey, I can start lipping off a few cities to start one, but. I'm not going to do that. We're going to stay classy out here at BC. And let the, let the players find their own battles. And things like that. So, We are, we're enjoying this and again, want to keep BC classy and also. Really make the team about BC, not just Vancouver. So. We're going to be going out. We're visiting 130 schools this year. Now the COVID restrictions are off. The boys are doing a great job. As far as community. We're going to have rallies downtown, but want to take. The team out in the dancers out to different regions, whether it's up north to prince George. Kick them out, terrorists all over the place. Spread the orange. Handout swag, get to youth football. I'm doing that myself. I'm doing the coin toss this weekend in flag football and the north shore. And, you know, the turnouts have been amazing when we bring the lions around the Aboriginal thing. It's huge. The indigenous, I should say it is really. The fact of kits. That's my dream. And I figured, you know, Hey, look, if we can. It's like one child getting into football, picking the right path. Or just turning them on to football. Let's start generating and breeding a bunch of fans like to do in the U S we can do it here and make it more visible than it was. And that's my job. I mean, that's the thing. The best thing about the CFL is how the approachability with the players. And that'd be it, you know, whether it's online or. Social media getting out in the people like that. People like feeling like they matter, right. When it comes to that, you watch the NFL. You're like, they're not paying attention to any of these guys that are, you know, tweeting at them or girls that are watching this, that I think is a Strat, one of the strongest points of the CFL. Well, it is, and I think we can do even more without it. And we've got some things coming out that I know that the fans in BC are going to like. With our profiles, video clips. Trying to get, as I talked about earlier, getting that fan. To connect with the players and that's what you're touching on. And it's a bit lost if not lost in certain regions. We really want to focus on that fan re-engagement with the team. And you'd like the days at Lulay. Were those household names? Well, listen, we've got some of them on this team. There's some personalities. All of them are great, but there's some, there's some outliers there. We need to leverage. Really. Get re-engaged with the fans and it's pretty exciting stuff. Because I'm pumped about it. You talked earlier about sports betting and partnering that with the genius sports deal. You know, it's off to a slow start riding mean lots of things to, to tackle that way. And it's really up to the teams each ride. It's not a league wide solution that way. Where do you guys in BCC? A single game, sports betting and all of that kind of growing with you guys. I think it's going to build as we. You know, reengage the fan base. And it allows people to do something with their phones. And really, you know, connector in the game. It re-engage. You know, make it more exciting because, you know, frankly, before the genius deal, we didn't have anything and most other leagues, if not all, do. So now we're right up to speed. So we can compete with that. So, Someone's in on a Friday night for a game, you can bet on the house, the corner, you can do all those things that you can do on everything else. And in fact, the NFL, of course, being a world-class league, probably the best. In the world. As such a leader in that. And now we've just talked in right behind it with the exact same strategy. So let's give it some time read, but I we're there, which is great. You can come in. A lot of ideas, right? Successful outside of the football. You come in, you know, you're one of nine, but you're still kind of part of that, you know? The fabric of the CFL. Has it been harder to maybe implement things, bring ideas in, you know, we have a mix of ownerships and, you know, we got the MLSE of the world and everything, but when you come in with ideas, how has that met? League-wide. Well, you know, it's been very well. I've been very well received. From all of the other teams and the commissioner. And of course our management team here and. I'm just saying, you guys, I'm here to support, what can we do here to help this club and help British Columbia? And relating to UBC SFU. Trying to get the Trumbull going again. And all these things we want to revitalize not to bring back the old, but there's so many good pieces of that that have just fallen off the table and. No pointing fingers. It just is what it is. But there's certain things that we want to bring back that will also bring back. That sort of, you know, call it 10 to 30 year old, right? That's that's been lost a bit here. Everyone knows the NFL. They know the Seahawks and selfishly, I'm glad the Seahawks have got the wheels coming off it because. I might get some more eyeballs on Canadian football during the summer and into the fall. So I do like that. And, you know, not a Seahawks fan anyway, but certainly, you know, if we can get to that demographic and give them something that's affordable, exciting, and with good technology. I think we're going to have. You know, this work. And again, my thing, as far as wanting results. You know, Being in business, you need results quickly, or you get rolled over pretty fast. You know, sports is no different when you're on the field. I've gotta be patient back here knowing that what I'm investing in is going to be for the next 20, 25 years. We're not going anywhere. And we're going to revitalize this piece by piece and really put together. We hope an exciting product for the fan to come in and watch. It's been said that, you know, the whole, you know, COVID year off and the XFL talks kind of everything that's happened the last two years. Kind of was a wake up call maybe to some of the CFL higher up like, Hey, we really kinda got it. Maybe, you know, it's like, you, you got your house and stuff's gotta be painted. You kind of push it off or whatever. And now it's like, Hey, we've maybe taken the foot off the gas a little bit. Like you said, we need to reengage and really make sure we're touching those demographics. Is that kind of how you feel? Yeah. The colon and all that didn't help. And of course the Ms. Season hurt. Hurt like, heck and. You know, it hurts for the players. It hurts for everybody. And. And it just sort of disjointed. Everything then we had the truncated season. We couldn't do a full gray cup party in Hamilton. Still was a great gray cup. I was out and it was fantastic. Looking forward to Regina this year back. To Hamilton and you know, maybe that's a good segue into the great cup. We're going to be bidding extremely hard for 2025. To get that back into BC place and just know that. You know, myself and our management team will be doing. Everything to bring the great cop here. For 2025. And I know we're going to have competition. With everybody, but I'm going to give it my all. Yeah, we, we did a live show. My wife and I came up, we did a live show in Hamilton, at the bar for the grey cup there. Well, we have our flights blocked at, or I guess not our flights, but we have our Airbnb buck and I man with all the football reporters of Canada, I'm the one American in the group that they let in. So won't be there. But it would definitely be an easier commute to go out to BC, then it wouldn't be. Got a Hamilton from Seattle. Oh, for sure. I'll just get a nice high five drive and you're good. Yeah. I curious. Things maybe that you've wanted to accomplish so far that maybe you're taking a little bit longer, anything. I mean, obviously, you know, the long five-year plan 10-year plan, but anything in the short that you've wanted to tackle so far. Well, I think the team has been doing a great job as far as everything in the off season. I mentioned in a recent interview that, you know, I didn't realize how hard the team works in the off season to kind of okay. Off season. It gets pretty quiet, but the planning, the scheduling, I mean, I, I just kinda blown away my first, you know, kind of first view in all this. And how hard these guys work. And of course I'm throwing a lot at them as far as what I want to deal with the opening day. And. Entertainment and half-time and all these things. So there's a lot of work going on. I've got to credit them for that. As far as what I. Not, I would say, I don't think I've missed anything so far. I just can't wait for the season to get started and, you know, get, get out. And again, when we finished the season, very nice. Nice. And the Alex, which is good for the team. And the morale. It was the end of the season, the game that didn't really matter. But still a win's a win and athletes are athletes. And that left us with a nice finish. So. What I'd like to make the playoffs. That's one thing that I think I would have said, but anything else off season is emotion. Or our team is great and they're, they're managing my pushing pretty well. I have a couple of voicemails here. At one more question before we get to that. Just as a football fan, you know that you said that pounding the Alex, the last game we sell a lot of Nathan work right now. He's, you know, heading up the team here. I just as a football fan, as someone that's involved in the team, what do you think of Nathan work? I think he's fantastic. Number one. In Ohio. He was fantastic. He's got a warrant. Is also just a very hard working guy. And I'll tell you being under Mike's arm. Last year like that. And book-ending the season a little bit. That's great. I know he doesn't have a ton of CFL experience, but he's got the grit, the work ethic. And he's putting the time in. Every day, whether it's pouring rain, it doesn't matter. He's a football player. And I see that commitment. How hard he's working there. And again, having that experience with Mike. Now that's, you know, you just can't get that. And I think this lines up very nicely. He's a dual threat. He can take off on you. That's shown he's strong and he's an accurate thrower. And he's a great guy to be around. He came out. I mean, he's coming on a lot to all sorts of different. You know, events with youth. And he's the real deal he wants to be there. He's excited to be there. You got to drag her, this kid off the field. He doesn't want to go anywhere. He just wants to be playing. And I'm sure he just cannot wait to get started. And. I'll be visiting all the guys in training camp. It may up in Campbell up. So look forward to seeing all the guys together again, up there too. That we have a couple of ways smells here. And then I have one more jokey thing before we get out of here. This is a voicemail. I did a call from our listeners. This is from van van to longtime listener asking the ballot I'm merchandising with the CFL. My question is for Mr. Domin. Why don't you have a merge? Fulfillment center. I can't believe. That's something that the CFL teams across the board are not doing. It's very difficult to get merged here in the United States. Thank you for your time. And look forward to hearing your response. Okay, thanks for that question. Yeah. You know, I don't have a great answer for that. I don't know how the volumes would be sort of being dwarfed by the NFL down there in the U S which I know the U S well, A lot of our businesses are in the states. What I can tell you though, is the online experience is pretty much where this heads and a lot of my, my team and employees down the U S order online. And I would think if you go to BC lions.com. Find the merge. You're going to find a lot of good merged new era and a whole bunch of stuff there. I'm investing in inventory. We're going to be tripling our inventory on everything here. And we're also going to in Vancouver and this doesn't help, help to call her, but. In Vancouver, we're going to be setting up some kiosks and some in season sales. And sort of billboards and displays if you will, as well. So you want to get the orange and black back out there locally here. But I think if you're in the U S I think online is going to be the strategy, which would probably suit you best. Point click and it'll be delivered to you right away. Yeah. It means expensive though. That's I think that's where van spumoni is it sometimes. It's cost about $20 to get a $20 hat, you know? Sometimes, I think that is the. The sticky point for a lot of Americans, we have a lot. You know, our listenership is probably 60, 40 American, and it is it's that shipping getting another cross rev. You have local fulfillment. You maybe you wouldn't have as much of that price point. We'll loosen. I'll definitely make some notes on this and see what we can do. In the Pacific Northwest and maybe get some orange and black down there. And. That would be, that'd be fun to do that. At one more from mark here, not out of the mark Hass market as Mark Perry is the one that runs CFL Nissan. Mark's out of question for you. Hey Mar this is mark. Appreciate you being on the mark Cass question for you is, you know, with things success like the touchdown Atlantic selling out within an hour. Where do you see the CFL? And the next five years you think there'll be more of these games scattered throughout the, throughout Canada. And where do you, where do you kind of see things what's kind of the five-year plan for not only your team, but the CFL. Yeah. I think the CFL Randy's best answer. You know, some of those strategies, as far as, you know, taking the. The show on the road, if you will. And there was some chatter about doing some international. As well, just to get more viewership. On for expansion, I think, but really to get more eyeballs on the team. But as far as BC goes, you know, I'm hoping in five years that certainly we've got a whole bunch of kids wearing orange and black here locally. And really re-engaging with the lions coming out with our families too. You know, enjoy a good Friday or Saturday night. Like they used to here and getting that re-engaged I think in five years, if we've got a much stronger. Susan ticket base. A much stronger fan base. Hopefully. A lot more winds is going to solve a lot of things as well. And I think we're heading in the right direction. There. There's no question for the roster. We have the successful team. I think much. You know, more field stands, if you will. And certainly some of these things where we can take the team on the road and promote a lead that. Randy in the CFL. To work through those matters. And they've got that handled. I think you're going to see a lot more excitement with those things and ideas where we can get sort of out of the box, if you will. Re-engage some people in different cities. Even do preseason somewhere else. Training camps around things like that to just get more visible as required. So I'm just going to throw a lot of ideas. You know, on the table as I get my feet wet, more being a governor now. Try and get that. You know, Word out more if you will on the road. So for a good question. I don't have all the answers for you, but. Year by year. We're going to improve every year, just like we do in business. Last question for you. And I've been waiting the whole time for this. So I famously have called so. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, our cannabis, the CFL team, arguably, whatever. Dallas Cowboys rider. America's NFL team. I have called the BC lions America's CFL team. Where do you stand on that? Branding? I know Matt baker. As a fan of it. Do you at least support me in my class to try to confer the BC lions through American CFL team. 1000000% Rate and I'll tell you what it's, it's crazy how. We shouldn't say it's crazy, but when, you know, in my business community, In the U S we've got a lot of, a lot of stuff going on. Everybody knows the BC lions. You just mentioned the name or they mention it. And, you know, you go back to sort of the Pamela Anderson days. There's this sort of profile with the lions. That's hard to explain. Like, I don't want to say it's like the Dallas Cowboys, but it's a known entity. They. I think if you mentioned maybe the lox or something, does. Who's that. You know, in certain places you mentioned BC lions. Oh, yeah. We know who that is. And there's just a. Doug Flutie was here for a bed. There's some profile here that is resonated in the U S and I love that. And. I certainly want to keep that going. I know sometimes it's hard to find the game on ESPN five or ESPN plus. I was down in the states, watching the road game. In LA and I finally found a sports bar on Saturday, so it's called crazy. And I'm in the corner with my buddies, trying to watch the lions play the lox. Back in October. You have the game on. And all of a sudden we had a whole bunch of people with us watching. The lions play the lox and you know, they like the three down football. It's fast. It's fun. It's different a bit, but it's engaging. So I'm happy to hear that. And I want to continue to beat the drum and. And we'll make sure the lions are you. Canada's America's team. I visited them. And I could not thank you enough for your time today. I really appreciate it. And that will be up there. I have to work. I can't make it to the home open air, but won't make the track up from Seattle. I'll be curious to get your thoughts on all this stuff. Absolutely. Alright. Well, I'm very excited today to be joined by a longtime friend of the show. Now, Kevin Kugler, last time we had you on, we were previewing the mega bowl for the spring league. Now we're talking USFL, how are you doing? I'm doing great. I've kind of forgotten about the mega bowl for a while there. That was a, that was a fun year, you know? I think you and I are on the same page that I like football. You like football, basically. Anytime we can get it. And that was fun. Last year. This is a, this has been fun too. I had made jokes a little bit about, you know, spring league going into USFL and all that. I did get legitimate questions like this. The mega bowl lineage. Does that translate to the U S advice? I don't think so. I wish we lived in that world. Oh, yeah, I don't, I don't believe any of that has come along to the USFL in this new incarnation of football for the spring, but you know, I'd love to have another crack at the mega bowl. That was a lot of fun. Well, I'm excited. I, you know, obviously Fox and USFL and coming out with all this and I had reached out to you. Cause I thought Kevin, right? We didn't know the announcers or anybody. I thought Kevin would be someone. I mean you're with Fox, your whip, you know, you're familiar with all that. What was it like finding out, being involved in all this, you know, The premier kind of prestigious Fox product right now here, they've got all this money and filed dead. I was fired up. I mean, look, I, I was interested in being part of it from the very beginning. So it was something that I was kind of hoping would come my direction and it certainly did. Anytime you'd be on the bottom floor, the ground floor of something starting out like the USFL is with Fox this year. I your. You're always kind of jazzed by that. And again, I love football. I love it in the fall. I love it in the spring. I think it's a great opportunity to tell some stories and the way Fox is fully invested in the USFL from the dozens of cameras and everybody being miked up. Mike Pereira being involved as the head of officiating for the USFL Darrell Johnson, our colleague on Fox NFL coverage in so involved with the league on the league side where the USFL, I, I ju there's just so much synergy, which is such a stupid buzzword, but it really does pay. It really does matter here because there is just great synergy between the league and the networks and everything that they're doing to try to present football in a new and exciting way. Well, it's getting to that now. Cause it, you know, there'd been a lot of hesitations kind of leading into the season and about whatever I do feel like, you know, when you have like skipped shepherd, You know, talking about it, you know, they're debating it. We have, you know, I, I'm not as high on the Colin coward segments. I think he's a little bit more like, Hey, here, read this paper, but I think you're getting good Fox. People talking about it. It does feel like it doesn't exist in a bubble that makes it feel like it exists on the network with everything else. Well, and I think one of the big keys for that is that. We've invested our own, our own people in it. I mean, I'm doing these games. I do games for boxing in the NFL season. My partner on the NFL season, Mark Sanchez is with me in the booth this weekend for our games. Brock you, or do you see them all over college football for Fox? And of course, Joel Klotz, the number one analyst for college football and Kurt metaphase is on eight hours a day on Sunday. So you've really got a lot of marriage between prominent people that you see with the NFL and Fox is really committed to that by bringing us over to the USFL. And I think. To be taken seriously. You have to do that. You have to bring in people that people are recognizing throughout the Fox network, doing other things, whether it be college or NFL. And I think Fox has done a really good job in making sure that that legitimacy from the NFL and the college football coverage carries over to the USFL. And so now you've been involved in it now a couple of weeks brought in, had been a part of the meetings. Right? You had said you had meetings today. We were scheduling this. So, I mean, what is the vibe you're getting with everybody? I mean, obviously they're putting out, you know, we are very proud of this. W we have a lot is that you're getting those in those like internal meetings, right. We want this we're a hundred percent all onboard. Well, here's the, here's the thing I can tell you about the meetings and then the meetings are, we do these as backgrounds. So we'll talk with coaches and we'll talk with players and we'll get some stuff that we can use for the broadcast. And I don't think I'm talking out of turn when I say this, because these coaches are a lot more open with us in meetings and they would be in a press conference situation. We sat down with Kevin, someone who we had last week, and we have, again this week head coach for the Houston gamblers. And I asked him flat out, you know, What do you make of this league so far? And he said, I am. Pleasantly surprised by the level of play that we've seen, you know, and nobody knew really what was going to happen. If you're a coach or a player. Your teams are put together and you show up and you go through a camp, but you don't know when the balls roll out there, what exactly is going to happen? And up to a man, you talk with these coaches and that's the thing that they keep coming back to is, Hey look, the quality of football is good. I mean, it's, it's continuing to get better. I think it's gotten better each week and we're going to see blow outs. Like we saw in a game with Tampa bay last week. Those are going to happen because it happens in a regular season for any league. But I really do think the football has been good and the coaches seem most pleased with how that's gone. You know, you can talk about everything else with a new league and try to get out the kinks. And you've got all these different rules that are, you're trying to figure out and learn on the fly. And you're trying to figure out who's miked and who's not, where's the camera, all this stuff, all of those things continue to evolve, but the level of football has to be there for people to be interested in it. And I don't know about you, but, and I'm probably biased on this. I think it's been pretty good football too. I've really. Enjoyed watching these games. Most of them have been really competitive coming down to the fourth quarter. Well, I meant so that I wanted to say, cause there's been a lot, you know, that, you know, the ratings have come out, we got into beef with a lot of the CFL media guys this week, making fun of the USFL. I mean, I think you can criticize lots of things, right? You can criticize the idea of, do we need spring football in general? Right. I think obviously the attendance issue has been top of mind for a lot of people, but I agree with you. I think that the quality of play, especially considering this is week two of the season now going into week three, we have. You know, two and a half weeks of training camp, one week of preseason. I think the level of play has far exceeded. I think what I was looking forward to coming into this season. And you and I both watched different spring leagues over the years and different attempts to have spring football. We talked to him earlier in the conversation about the spring league that we did last year. And you didn't know, week to week, what maybe you were going to get? I think this has been a more consistent level of play too. So. Not only do you have good football, but it's a pretty consistent level of good football and that's, I mean, you have to have that first. We are doing all kinds of cool stuff with production. We're doing all kinds of cool stuff with the rules of the slate. But if the football's not good, it's hard to keep people in there. And I think that's the one thing, one of the many things the league has going for it right now is that the football has been pretty good. The first couple of weeks. Yeah. So you were on the Birmingham call last week that. That was kind of the prime time game. Yeah. Birmingham, just by nature of it being in the city there, that team gets a lot this week. You said you have the Tampa game against Houston. What was it like, you know, Calling that game and kind of your experiences with that. And then I have some more questions. It is, it is fun. To see how the city of Birmingham is kinda jumping behind this Birmingham team a little bit and that's, and I don't think that's a big surprise. I think a lot of people expected Birmingham to back it in. You know, you're going to see, hopefully some of those fans trickle over to some of the other games as the season goes along since everything's being played in Birmingham. But calling that game. I mean, it was, it felt good. It was a good football game. It's fun to watch and to have that kind of energy, to have the fans there who are engaged in it and you can hear them. And they're really the presence in that moment. That's a good thing. That's good for the league. And it's a really good watch and, or listen for people who are just casually stopping by to see what the USFL is all about. Competitive too. I mean, it worked out well. I think, you know, the Friday game was a little sleepy. I'm the Fs one, but the, the stars game, I watched start to finish against the modelers. And then I watched the stallions game driving and I had to go to a gig and back, but I mean, great Saturday at football. I think if you were someone that was looking for that, you know, college ball or something here on the, in the spring to kind of keep you occupied, right. Oh, there's, there's no question. Look, this is a, this is a league for hardcore football fans. You know, if you love football, you're going to watch the USFL. In fact, we tailor parts of our broadcast to the hardcore football fan. Last week we call hardcore football. Joel Klatt, we'll go real deep. Mark Sanchez this week. We'll go real deep on specific place and say, this is what you're looking for in the pocket. These are the different reads and they'll break it all down from the quarterback standpoint. In a way that you probably won't do in a college football game or an NFL game in the fall, but this gives you the opportunity to really go hardcore and try to even teach a little bit more about football even to the folks who know football really well, because no matter how well, you know, the game. You don't know what the way a guy who's played in the NFL or sat in that pocket at a high level, college has knows the game. Are you just, you can't, I can't, you can't, nobody can, unless they've been in those shoes. And so that's kind of where you go with this is all right. Let's delve, hardcore football, and we did it last week. We'll continue to do it throughout the course of the season. I'm curious just from a production standpoint and obviously, you know, you'd be in the on-air talent. You know, you have your role. I'm just kinda curious. They have so many bells and whistles ride and all this cool stuff and the drowning. I mean, it is cool. We're. We're doing the drives where we just hear the coach calls and we're doing these, we're tossing the Brock all the time. He's interviewing people. Did you guys have to do, go through like run-throughs and stuff. I mean, obviously you've done stuff before and been involved in that, but just the high level of everything they're trying to do. Cause it's been, it's been a really clean broadcast for, with everything that's being thrown at it. Yeah. It's, it's unique. I can tell you that when we had a little bit of this with the spring league last year, where there were different guys miked up and you could hear the quarterback and coach conversation, but. This has gone to a completely different level with that. So it really does require less from me in a lot of ways, which, you know, it's kind of a, it's a unique thing. I do a lot of radio, as you know, and I also do TV and TV requires less than radio when you're doing play by play. And this version of TV requires even less than a normal version of TV. So I mean, there's, there's a lot of times in the game where I don't say much for. 2 3, 5, 6 Plays, maybe more. I mean, And that's by design. And the whole point of this is you want to be able to hear what's going on on the field. And so for the USFL, we're trying to take you as close as we can to the game, put you in the huddle, you hear what the players are saying on and off the field. You hear what the coaches are saying on, off the field. And those, like you mentioned that the driver will just listen to a coach from start to finish. You'll have his commentary on during the drive and we'll hear what he has to say as the play is unfolding. I. It's a very different thing, but yeah, we have some run throughs. We have some practices where it's like, okay, in this position, you're going to have to not say something. And during this drive. Coming up, we're going to kind of just lay out and let people listen. To all the microphones and watch all the different angles that we have and get into the game that way. So it's a really different thing. And I think for the crew, for our side of things, once we got used to having all that, because that's new for everybody, it's new for the crew to, once we got used to having all that, it really has flowed nicely on air. Yeah. I mean, cause obviously you have Fox sports and some of the best minds in the business, you know, working on everything, but it is just, you know, it's still a new league and it's this new stadium. And I mean, we were down there for the kickoff and we were at the hotel across the street and you know, you could hear them doing the run-throughs and figuring stuff out, but. I mean to be on broadcast like that, and really have the broadcast be as clean as they have been for a new thing. Is it just speaks to everyone involved with that. Like I said, I used to be kind of in that world, not nearly as in-depth as Fox sports, but. Crazy. Just how clean everything's been and how high produced everything's been. Yeah, we, we've got two really good producers in Chuck McDonald, who is the lead college football producer for Fox and mark title. And who was actually my producer. For our NFL package in the fall. And so you've got two high class really solid producers to start this whole thing. We've got great directors and our crew has been fantastic. I mean, the audio crew, the drone pilots, everybody that's involved. And there's so many more involved in it. Then even a normal NFL Sunday afternoon game. I mean, we don't have drone pilots on our NFL games. Most of the time we've got every camera known to man, woman and child out there. We've got cameras and helmets, ref cams, Chu, counterweight. You name a place? We've probably got a camera on it out there. And we're probably going to show you the angle from that camera, at least once during a broadcast. Well, it just seems cool. It seems like this is every idea that anyone's ever wanted to do. Right. And you know, maybe some of this stuff makes its way to the NFL, but it's kind of like, what do we have to lose here? Like, let's just roll with it. And I like the raft cams and we've got, some of them were even like the frame rate. You're only seeing like every fifth frame or something cause of. But you got to get it's cool. You're this, you're seeing a lot more. I like that it is experimental because, you know, I mean the original XFL Burt, the sky cam that we have now in the NFL, I mean, th these are things that do. You know, tangibly translate over the other leagues and camp there. There's no doubt you get the chance. From a broadcast standpoint, we see with rules in the USFL, you get the chance at a rule standpoint to play with stuff and see how it works in a real live situation. Maybe you don't want to gamble with that during an NFL broadcast or during an NFL season where you gamble with a rules change, but in the USFL, you can do that. Let's see what this looks like. If it works great. If it doesn't work. Okay. We'll try something else. You get the chance to, to really tinker. And anybody who's been in this business knows. That engineers, camera folks, producers, directors love to tinker and they love to think, well, what if I do this? Well, what if I try this? Let's see how it works. Let's see how it goes there. Maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it does. And I think they're the same way with the rules. You know, we've seen different rules in different spring leagues. We saw last year in the spring league that I did for Fox. And you're seeing it again this year with USFL, some really fun rules that. They're probably not all going to the NFL, but maybe one or two of those get adopted in the next three or four years because you see how well it works. In real application on a football field in a real life game. I have flashbacks to Jerry Glanville and how mummy trying to figure out the overtime and like, we're going to pick our spot. Okay. Now you're going to have the way I did. And they had no clue. It was like this five minute explanation, but you know, I mean, why do you have to lose here? It's something that you can experiment with. Yeah. I have flashbacks to that as well, trying to figure out how am I going to decipher all of that for the audience at home. Because they don't really know. And the not sure the officials knew at that moment, that was, that was one that John Harbaugh loves with the head coach of the Baltimore. Ravens loves that overtime rule. But then when it was applied in the spring league a year ago, I don't know it was, it was a very confusing thing for sure. Yeah. Now that you've been involved in the USFL at yo. We've kicked off. I mean, are we having lots of conversations with people? Like, is this something that I'm just always curious, like, does it exist just in our niche? Is this permeating and I. I mean, how widespread are you having conversations about this? I, you know, I I'm, I think it's still kind of in the, in the niche world right now, where it is, people are learning that it's happening and that's okay. You know, this is a, this is the first year it's week three. So. It's not surprising that it is still trying to figure out a way to blossom, but we saw it with the ratings, especially in week one. There were a lot of eyes that were tuned in. They were a lot of eyes that were exposed to this for the first time and the football was good. So maybe some of them come back. You'll see, I think some good numbers this week, both of the games on Saturday are on over the air Fox network Fox. So I think you'll see some good numbers for the games and look, they, they put the Birmingham game on, in prime time on Saturday night, which will have a crowd, which will have a lot of intrigued two undefeated teams. I mean, there's just a lot to talk about for the games on Fox this weekend. And. And the more these games show up, the more people see them, the more they're gonna be intrigued by what they see. And I think that's where you start to grow it. You can't expect in week three of a brand new league to have everybody just like, oh, this is great. And all of us are gonna watch it. It's going to take time. I mean, look. It just, it's just, it's a brand new thing. And as it grows and Fox continues to be committed to it and NBC continues to be committed to it. It's going to have the opportunity to blossom. There is a spot I firmly believe this. You and I talked about this last year. There is a spot in the American sports landscape for spring football. There just is there's enough of a passionate fan base for football that you can find room in the American sports landscape for it. And I think the USFL has a good shot to be that spring. Leap. Yeah, I just don't know what else are we airing now? Yeah. What else is Fox running with? A bill? You know, we have four games a week on this across, and obviously some of them are on either peacock or Fs, one, whatever, but like, You know, We, I just, I never understand this. Now here, you know, Netflix has given Martin square says he like $300 million to go make. Okay. We'll go make a movie or whatever, and it's like, we don't have, like, we can't figure out a network. I do agree. I agree. I don't know if it's USFL or XFL bay, but someone's got to crack this because the, the dry for content for all of these platforms is too high right now. Well, and I mean, we've known this for a long time. The one thing that consistently draws eyes, televisions still is live sports. Live sports is the, is the ultimate leader. If I'm a fan, I don't want to watch a DVR game unless I have to. I want to watch it live because more likely than not, it's going to be spoiled for me by somebody in social media. If I really want to see this game. So I'm going to watch it live and look, live sports. And specifically live football is a, is a huge, huge driver in the world of American sports today. And if you can put football on your TV, you've got an excellent chance to bring people in. But as I said earlier, it's gotta be decent football. The good quality has to be good. You can get them in one time, but if it's not very good, They don't come back. That's where I think the USFL has a bit of an advantage right now over some others is that the football has been good and it's only going to get better. You've got legitimate coaches and these teams are going to start to continue to improve over the weeks to come. I have a voicemail here from longtime listener van. I'm going to play. Van wanted to send them like sex. I said, Emilio. So I have a question and this continues off of our conversation. We had about you prepping for players in the spring league last year, riding kind of the extra work that goes into that, that maybe people don't think about it. So hopefully this works. My question is for. Kevin. When you're preparing for a broadcast, you're actually go talk to each player to find. Find out. Proper pronunciation of their name. And how long does it take you and your spotter? To build up your lineup cards so that you have all this background information. Appreciate your time and enjoy. Your broadcast. Both really good questions. Pronunciation is one of the things that I am an absolute stickler for when you're doing NFL games, it's a lot easier because they. You know, well, a lot of the guys or guys you've seen 5, 6, 7 years, you've learned it, but B there's just a lot of support behind that though. The one thing that's been really good about the USFL is they have really worked on pronunciations. But the other thing that makes that easier is that. College school, college programs, college. Sports information departments have done a really good job of making those pronunciations known. So I'll go with, and look at a bio from somebody from their college days. Some of these now have actual vocal pronunciations from those people as to how they say their name on the website. So I can actually listen to them, say their name to me. Pronunciation is, is something that I am an absolute stickler about. And if I mispronounce something. It just, it sticks in my crawl for a long, long time. And as far as building my boards, I do it myself. That's always been the best way that I can learn. How to do that and, and, and learn about the teams. You know, I typed them all up myself, try to do as much research as I can. Some of it's easier than others. You know, guys who have gone to Mars hill, for example, not as easy to find information on those guys, as somebody who went to Oklahoma or Alabama, obviously there's a lot more. People. Interested in that. So there's more stories written about that. There's more information available, but you try to find as much as you can about each and every player because in a league like the USFL, it's all about opportunity and there's so many great stories to tell. Of guys who have gone all over the world. To try to help their dream become a reality. That's my, the biggest appeal for me, reading in these, in doing spring football and doing the USFL is these dudes are going all out just to try to have a shot, to get noticed playing the game they love. And they're 27, 28, 29 years old. And their story isn't known. And it's a really cool thing to be able to tell just one of those stories, sometime about a guy who you don't know, or maybe you recognize him. And then for three years you haven't seen him. And all of a sudden, here's this dude again, that you remember because he played against Georgia one time and you saw him have a big game. Where is this guy been? That's the, that's the excitement for me. The passion for me comes and being able to tell those stories. Well, that's the thing is, you know, I just people, you know, and we get critical about these things. And I had pat one of the writers on last week, we were talking about a lot of this stuff, either. It is this one shot for guys like. I am Matt mangles, a long time friend of the show he's been in the spring league. He went up and played in the CFL. Opted to come back, play in the USFL. He's on the stars. And there was so cool to text him cause they won last week. You know, text him. Congratulations. And they'd be able to tell him, you know, they'd be announcers and I know you didn't call it his game, but, you know, Joel and them were, were so high on you. And when you came out and they were like, oh man, this guy is killing it. And he's from USC, all this kind of stuff. And for them to get that and know, right. That that message is getting out there. Stories getting out it's really priceless because like you said, they just haven't had the opportunity to have a lot of eyeballs on a lot of their stuff and ears on their story. No. And that's, that's the cool thing about, I mean, I. I'm doing the bandit says, you know, this weekend and they have a linebacker named Christian Saint with 16 tackles. This year, Christian Sam was a sixth round pick of the Patriots. He led the pack 12 and tackles all the way back. In 2017, but never has played in the NFL. Despite being a draft pick bounced around with Miami, a little bit, San Francisco, a little bit, the lions, a little bit Patriots, a little bit, never got into a game, always in camps, trying to figure out a way to stick on a team spent last spring with the Joe sisters in the spring league. And it's a guy who led the pack 12 in tackles. So you're not talking about a guy who was an unknown. I mean, he led a major conference in tackles. If you're a college. Football fan, you probably ran across his name at some point. That was five years ago. What's happened to this guy? Well, that's the, those are the kinds of stories that are fun to tell because somebody's watching that game this weekend. I remember that dude, he was really good in that year. He was all over the field. Where's he been while he's been doing what so many guys do when they leave college, trying to figure out a way. To get to that next level for him. Now that next level is USFL and he's trying to end he's off to a really good start. 16 tackles in two games. See what he can keep doing over the rest of the year. It's those kinds of stories. I think that hook people into the USFL. This has been great. I know you're busy prepping everything for the weekend. We have the big NFL draft on it as well. That I thought they'd be a, anything else to get from you. This has been so good and insightful. Cause I do something. People get, you know, you guys in there worked in all this. EO in these alt leagues, it is so much more work to do them. It's so much more research to figure everything out. You know, I think we said before when we talked, Spreedly like everyone knows Tom Brady's story, but not everyone knows Christian. You have to do all that deep dive. It really is a love of the passion to do what you do in these leagues. That it is. And, and I, and I hope that passion for all of us comes through when you're watching, because if you're watching, I've always believed if you're watching in the broadcaster. Isn't having fun and doesn't seem engaged in it. I mean, I'm a fan just like you and everybody else. When I watched games, if, if the person calling the game doesn't seem like they're into the game. The nuts saying to me, well, I don't need to invest any time in this because they're not into it. There's no reason for me to be here. They don't even act like they want to be here. So you'll, you'll never get that from me. I, I, I think this stuff is so cool. I think the USFL is a great, great has had a great start. And I think it's only going to get better and I hope people, if you've not tried it, I hope you'll give it a try. I think you're going to enjoy what you see. It's different because there's so much going on. There's so much different audio, so many different cameras, different rules, involved, different players to learn, but it's worth time that you have, All right. That's always so loud. Well, I'm delighted today. And especially because of his shirt choice, I think he's trying to impress a friend of the podcast. Now, Mark Tillman. We have Evan Wilson. More sporting the wonderful BC lion shirt. How are you doing? I'm doing great. You know, a lot of good news to cover this week. So just looking forward to chatting it up with. Yeah, this is going to be good to Evan is kind of my catch all this week. We have a lot of XFL stuff we're going to start with. We're going to do some USFL stuff, and then we're going to talk. CFL rule changes at the end. So first off, do I guess we'll start chronologically. We had the big, your article here on XFL news hub came out. We had June Jones, you know, Likes to run his mouth a little bit. We had June Jones spoiling, potentially the XFL returning to Seattle, and that him being involved with the team as the offensive coordinator, why don't you walk us through kind of your article, what we know so far? Right. So it was a few days ago now I think on Monday or Tuesday. But so June Jones put in his Twitter bio. That he was going to be the offensive coordinator in the XFL, under Jim Hazlett for a team in Seattle. So obviously there's a lot to unpack there and he had that up for maybe half an hour and then took it down once word started to get around that. You know, maybe he wasn't supposed to put that out there yet, but it told us a lot. Of course, Jim Hazlett was one of the coaches that was announced as part of the. Eight coaches back a few weeks ago now. Almost almost been a month, I guess, but that happened, you know, he put that out there and again, Under Jim Hazlett. That means there's a team in Seattle. In my article. I said, we don't know if it's going to be the dragons yet. We don't know if they have the naming rights still, or you might know more about that than me, but these going to be office coordinator in Seattle, under Jim Housel. That's what I was able to take away from that. And we believe that this took place at the meeting in Dallas or Arlington, which happened, I think last week, too. All the XFL people were meeting there and we believe that. You know, maybe they were sorting out coaches there or something of that manner. I've talked to a few people that say there might be an announcement coming as soon as next week. So lots of exciting stuff, but yeah, that article was just sort of highlighting June and you know what he's done, what he did in the XFL in 2020 with the roughnecks. But then most importantly, you know what he brings to the table coming back in 2023 and so far, he's the only guy confirmed returning from the XFL. The only other guy is Bob stoops, who was the coach and the Renegade since. But many seasons is the head coach in Oklahoma. So exciting stuff. Yeah, it's weird. Like June was the one that, you know, We had just started the podcast and he was the one that came out. Oh, the XFL they've got their TV deal all set up and they're ready to go with. Yeah, he kinda got the kibosh put down a bat. I just, it's so funny to me and I'll put up the tweet here so people can see it. Cause it, like you said, it sends spam removed from his Twitter bio, but like you're savvy enough to go on to think like I'm going to go on and change my Twitter bio, but you're not like. Obviously that people are going to see this. Obviously people are going to figure out about this. It's just funny to me. You know, obviously a lot was made that June wasn't part of the eight coaches that were rolled out right with the Hines wards and everybody else. Good to see him involved. EO still. With the XFL. Thoughts on him not being the head coach, but just being an offensive coordinator. Yeah. I definitely thought it was an interesting, interesting choice. I thought maybe, you know, he didn't want to have that pressure of a head coach anymore at this point in his career, or maybe there was just a better candidate on the table. But I mean, personally, I love June Jones. I love his sort of offensive style. You know, I love what he did in the XFL used to coach in Hamilton. Back in 20 17, 20 18. You know, he was in the original USFL. And then recently he was in the spring league, I think not last year, but the year before in 2020 when they had the season delayed. So no, just a great guy. Great coach. I do think as an offensive coordinator, he'll be able to sort of hone in on his skills more because he's always been an offensive guy, you know, him and miles Davis. Kind of invented that run and shoot offense that propelled the rough next to a great success with PJ Walker and cam Phillip Phillips. Of course, all the XFL celebrities, I guess you could say, but yeah, I think. It's a good fit for him. And Jim has. You know, I didn't mention this in my article, but he's a pretty defensive guy. I think his last job was the linebacker's coach for the Titans. So, you know, I'm excited to sort of see them mesh where. You know, Jim has a little, probably focus on. You know, the defense and that sort of, you know, stopping the offense, but then you're going to have June Jones controlling their own offense, which is going to be just as explosive, probably as it wasn't Houston, because everywhere he, where he's gone, you know, you set records. People who really know him well will remember. You know his time at Hawaii where he coach Cole Breton and they set a bunch of records. So it should have been just very exciting. And I'm excited to see him sort of in that sole coordinator role where he doesn't have to manage as much. I feel like the offense will only be better from there with Hazlitt. And in Seattle, of course. Yeah. I mean a lot. I mean, I think for the better part of a year now, people, oh, Jean Johnson is going to go back. It'd be Houston. Roughnecks are going to run it back. Kind of all that stuff. I mean, Seattle really was one of the more struggling franchises in the original XFL, right? Yeah. Jim Zoran there. Mike Riley was the original offense coordinator. He had to leave for health concern. And now it's interesting all of his stories that are coming out in the USFL with his wife. I wonder if that was involved in all that as well. Maybe why he had to take time. Off with the original XFL. So you had Jim, Zorin kind of doing a lot of the play. Call me flora, the dragons. I can tell you that was not a successful combination. I saw both in person. At the stadium, we were at the 50 yard line first row there watching the games. And then I can tell you ITV, seeing Jim very concerned with being able to do play calling. So this is huge. I mean, like you said, Jim has late tremendous career. We kind of know where he's going to go now, too. Right? Cause they had the original XFL coach announcement two weeks ago now. Coaches. W we, we are coaches with no teams or cities, right? Like a man has no name. And now at least we're kind of putting the pieces together. Jim Hazlett in Seattle, which June Jones. Thoughts on w we don't know if the dragons are going to come back. Like you said, trademark issues. I remember talking with Andrew Murray, your friend and mine also from XFL news hub. A lot of the, the new, like the new XFL logo doesn't really mesh with, like this Dragon's logo. It almost meshes more with those secondary logos. Like the battle Hawks won. The dragon had that ass. I will be curious to see, and I want to get your thoughts on that. If we keep at the dragons, I CA I can't see this logo existing in that same world. Yeah, well, you know, it's, it's kind of funny. I didn't notice this until recently, but somebody pointed out with all the USFL stuff. You know, the USFL was playing at protective stadium, which is the home of the UAB dragons, university of Alabama, Birmingham. And I, I kind of picked up that, you know, those two logos look similar to the Dragon's logo in the UAB logo. And, you know, that's not the first time the XFL has had logo problems. I think the roughnecks. Had there. Sort of logo issue because it was similar to the Oilers. From back in the day. But yeah, I do think considering the league changed their logo and sort of their identity, you know, the whole dreams began with the X thing. I do think that the logos will also change and I think they might follow a more. I don't know, what's the word, like an Easter. Or a certain style approach because you know, they've already sort of done. If you look at the way they announced the coaching hires and things like that, everything was sort of set up in a chronological manner. And like you could tell that they were really. Thinking that through. And it was like, there's just a specific way they want to portray themselves. Now, I think that's one of the things that they're making a priority is in the world of media and all this digital stuff. You want to have a good product on Twitter and Instagram and everything just to bring in more fans and retain the fans from the old league. So, yeah, I definitely think there's going to be a few logo changes, you know, even if they were to keep some of the names in the cities, I think that, you know, for trademark issues or for other things that just, again, a refresh would be nice. Welcome, whatever. Yeah, I just, I, I don't, you know, obviously the Cleveland guardians, that whole issue, right. With going on with New York, I always say DC. I always say DC. But, you know, like I've never thought the roughnecks was like a great name. I, that to me feels a little bit more like Vince McMahon, like, well, it we're, we're the ref next. I guess I just, it sounds too much like rednecks. It sounds to me. I never really got behind that Brandy. And I mean, obviously the team is successful. Dallas renegades is fine. Dave had trouble with that trademark as well. So I could just see a whole refresh across the board. I mean, I really wouldn't be surprised without I've said the long time. I think XFL homers are going to run into trouble as well. Kind of holding on to some of these past. Things. And I don't know if they're too interested in that, especially with all these city changes. Do you like the, and we'll transition here to Vegas, but do you like them? Yeah. The teams in Texas, we're pulling out of LA potentially, we're pulling out of New York. Wait, what do you think about that? Absolutely. I mean, I think it's important for them to sort of retain a west coast presence to some extent now. We have an idea that Seattle might be coming back and, you know, Vegas might be the new LA, but, you know, I think. The sort of city strategy that they might be planning out. Of course, we don't know where the cities are going to be at both. Good guesses that are sort of doing it. You know where they know football markets have been strong or they're increasing. So obviously Texas is a huge football market. I do like that. They're keeping a lot of teams there. Although if the USFL moves out of their home format and lasts in the next year, there could be some competition, but we'll, we'll cross. Well, we'll get to that eventually. But I think, you know, Vegas to me is huge. That one really stood out to me above anything of Vegas is really becoming a football city. Now, just in the past few years, I mean, the Raiders moved there obviously, but then they've had the pro bowl and then the draft is today, which is going to be outside of the Bellagio. I think. So a lot of football related stuff. The the, the shrine bowl was there to the college all-star game. Hosted by a quick shout out to Eric dulko who used to work in the XFL great guy. Crude product to the shrine bowl. They're doing great things over there, but no, I think the cities are going to be great. One. The two, I guess, that I would like to see return there's St. Louis is one and then a Florida team. It's not going to be tablet. It sounds like it's going to be Orlando. Now. I'd like to see those two return because the Apollo has had success in the AAF and Orlando, and that might be kind of a cool revival. And then San Antonio was where the commanders were, not the Washington commanders, the San Antonio commanders. We've got to make that distinction to people who don't know now, but yeah, the San Antonio commanders were there and you know, I've been to San Antonio several times. It's a, an underrated football market. I'd say. Just kind of like St. Louis, they're hungry for football. And that would be a place where I think ticket sales will be through the roof, assuming they don't follow the hub format, like the U S supposed doing, but no. I think they're going to do a great job with the cities and I trust the ownership group and making good decisions and the right choices. But to me, the most important part is that west coast presence, just because the USFL has like no west coast teams. And I feel like they did a good job. You know, there was the wild cats and, you know, the dragons, all those teams in the original XFL. So yeah, I'd be excited to see that happen. Yeah, I think I is more than we talking about this. You know, we had the XFL announcement last week of Texas is the headquarters a lot to me. And I've talked with listener, max, give him credit. I know Mark's written articles as well for XML new SAB. You know, I don't think it's going to be a bubble. Right. I think, or a hub. I think that they have seen that, you know, some of the backlash that they've gotten, you know, the USFL, some of the issues, maybe with attendance that way, I want to talk about that as well, coming up, but. You know, if we keep everyone in Texas, if we practice in Texas. You fly to Seattle, you fly to Vegas, you fly. Did you know. Ah, DC for the weekend player games come back. You're saving a little bit of money that way at ye and that you're keeping everyone housed together. You're able to practice all on the same fields and stuff. That feels more like what they're doing then the USFL. Okay. We're going to have Birmingham and. New Orleans and whoever all play in Birmingham. Yeah. It feels like. I think whether or not this was their original plan. I think they're seeing the backlash of the USFL hub. And I think they're learning from that, which is an advantage to go in second in terms of this race. Yeah, for sure. So we have, oh, I pulled that beer trail Buckley. That's the one that's talking about. The Orlando he had come out. With that. So. The San Antonio they're Orlando with that. I guess I don't love the three teams in Texas, but if you're housing, everyone there and flying around, I think that's. I don't know. I don't think LA is we're dying over. If you, if we're, if we're worried about getting here this season, too. The other news, and this came out last night. I tweeted this, it got a lot of attention online. Listener max at this over rock was at the airport with Connor Widom, who is one of the head guys for the seven bucks production over there. He's with the rock on all of his stuff. From the Vegas airport. We also thank you, Las Vegas for the unbelievable love. Love you back. We have big plans for your amazing city. With the rumors, right? Mike Mitchell's reporting of the Vegas franchise. I feel like it's pretty confident to say he was there working on that. What, what do you think about that? That got a lot of attention. And I was surprised with how much, just my retweet of that got in terms of eyeballs for this. Oh, definitely. And I think, you know, we just spoke about how I thought Vegas would be, you know, a really good city for the XFL. But if you go back to 2001, When there was the team there, you know, that was a very popular team, maybe for different reasons, because back then the XFL. Was a bit more. You know, off the rails, I guess would be a term, but no, again, Vegas would be just such a great place for team. I really do think it's an XFL city given sort of the vibe and, you know, there's, there's a lot of people there just to begin with. So even if there's not directly XFL fans, people would still come check out the games. I feel like because it's so close to the city. Yeah, no, that would definitely be exciting. I think it makes a lot of sense. I've seen a lot of concern about that. A lot of concern that, you know, Vegas is becoming over saturated. Now I don't, I don't buy that. I think Vegas is a good tourist destination. I think. Maybe some of the trouble you have with players living in Vegas. And that they ran into that the last year with the Raiders, like little extra curriculars outside the football. If you're housing everyone in Texas, I think he could get away from that. I don't know. I, it works to me. I think you still keep that west coast presence with maybe not something as I think he just gets swallowed up in LA. I don't think XFL is a big enough. Name, really to resonate there. It's the same with New York. I think the New York media has other things to talk about. In terms of that, but you know, it's exciting if the rocks there right now talking through XFL stuff with them, I mean the city announcements have to be coming soon. I mean we're we're end of April. Now, as we kind of look at the calendar. Right. And the other thoughts on the Vegas stuff. We'll transition, USFL. Any other takeaways do you have with the coaches? Any other thoughts on we've had a lot of XFL in these last couple of weeks. Yeah, I'll touch on the coaches quickly first. And I got one more point about the Vegas thing, but with the coaches. So in my June Jones article, I mentioned, you know, A few, well, I really only mentioned one possible candidate to return, although I definitely think there's probably a dozen. I have written down. But the one that really stands out to me is how mommy. Who used to be the offensive coordinator for the renegades under Bob stoops. So how mommy is a big air raid guy? You know, another offensive system, similar to what June Jones does with the running shoe. They were less successful with it in the XFL. But I do believe that, you know, how mommy, after that he went to the spring league, won a championship with the lineman, looked great. There, put a quarterback in the NFL. So I, I really do believe that you know how mommy is probably at the top of coordinator availability, availability, excuse me, for the XFL. And then just with the Vegas thing for, for one last. I guess funny bit before we transitioned, you know, I was thinking the other day, especially with the Rock's post about, you know, the Vegas stuff. And I figured that'd be the perfect place to start the beer snake again. You know, we got to bring that back. I think that's one thing. For the XFL, but that has to be done because that was. I talked to all my friends and the one thing that they remember about the XFL. Cause they didn't really watch it. They remember seeing the beer snake and I said, we got to bring it back in some form in 2023. So again, excited for that. Hopefully it returns. I think it's good. I like the Vegas. These are all easy flights, you know, Dallas to Vegas. This is all easily trans AI transferable. Transmittable, however you want to say the word without I liked the Vegas aspect of it. You're calling back the Outlaws back in the day, right? Paul McCallum. Alan who's been on the shelf multiple times. He's at CFL legend kicker. He scored the first ever points for the XFL back in. No one flipped to with the Outlaws. We wouldn't, they do the XFL at Vegas sake. We'll bring Paul back on. Paul's got like crazy store. I think that the XFL, oh one was like nuts when they were in Vegas party. And I really think we could get some fun stories out of the ball. Oh, do you think before we move on? How about me, his bag with Bob stoops, right? I mean, does that make sense to you? Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. I think. You know, if, how mommy comes back, it's a 95% chance. It's under Bob stoops. I would say so. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Keep him in Dallas. You know, run it back, right. Renegades, run it back again. That to me makes more sense. I am surprised with the app. The June Jones as EOC, like you said, maybe he just doesn't want the pressure anymore. I mean, that's just, you got a lot more on your plate, balance that out with Jim Hazlett. I liked that as a, as a Seattle guy. I liked June, although I'm not the biggest. I don't know, June gets in trouble. Sometimes I said in the group chat, I single handedly blamed June Jones for the hysteria that was seen from the CFL XFL merger talks because June was the first one that came out that said, they're going to go the four downs and I, to this day, I blamed Jean Jones for a lot of the drama that we dealt with in the, in those six months. Yeah. I mean, June has always been a guy. You know, Last last point here, but I, you know, like I said, I love June, but he's always been, you know, very, I guess I don't want to say casual in a bad way, but you know, he turned up at the XFL press conference with a Hawaiian shirt and LA you know, he's always been very laid back. He coached to Hawaii for several years. He's kind of taken on that. You know, island lifestyle is if you would say so. I think sometimes, you know, maybe especially given his age too, you know, he's not. He wasn't around back when he started coaching, like social media, wasn't really a huge thing. And you could maybe say more things. So I feel like that still carries over into what we see now. And it's, it's kind of funny sometimes again, love June group coach, probably like my favorite coach of all time, but, you know, I just, I didn't think that was funny when he put that in his Twitter bio, I knew something was wrong. Let's just put it that way. Yeah. All right. So the transition USFL we're coming off, I just had Kevin Kugler on, you know, we're transitioning the end of this year on the shell. What have you made of the quality of play USFL kind of high level stuff. Now we're going into week three. Yeah. You know, I really enjoyed week two. I thought most of it was an upgrade from week one. Of course, there were still some lopsided games and there were still some plays where it's like, okay, what are you doing? You know, is this a lack of training or practice or whatever, but I think that's always going to happen with a new league. Overall. I was very impressed with the play. Quick, shout out to Brian Scott for leading the league in passing yards. And you know, he's, he's been great. He went on. Or Jay young show. With the USFL podcast on one Fox. He was kinda breaking down, you know, what it means to him. So to have this opportunity and, you know, just, just a great guy, he's really handling this well. And you know, to see guys like him, get that opportunity, you know? Cause he employed at a D three school as a quarterback. You know, this is huge for them just to see guys. Get that opportunity, you know, that's what I'm all for. And that's what these leagues are all about. So it's been good to see that over those first two weeks as well. Yeah, I'm excited. I know ma I texted Matt mangle after the game when they won. I think Matt looked gray. I think he got a lot of compliments from the announced team over there. I think Brian needs to slow down a little bit. If I, if I could be you. Whisper in his ear, kind of give him some advice. I think this is a really big stage for him. I think the spring league and everything else, I think he was always kind of the big fish in the small pond. And I think this is a big showcase for him. I think he has excelled tremendously, but you see a little bit with him. Hey, we gotta go guys. Like we gotta go. We gotta go. I thought it was interesting. They had the United by football show, right? With Brian Scott holding the house meetings. I said, I messaged a couple of people. I said, if the USFL was like big brother or survivor, Brian, Scott would definitely be voted out first, like happy to have the house meeting with all the wide receivers, having to have the house meeting and bring everyone over. Brian's got his own rental home. I thought that was interesting. And a lot of these guys are sharing. It was, it was Brian Scott's rental home, you know, in the. Hi football. I just, as someone that's known Brian A. Long time, it's funny to have him as a character on there. And obviously they're, they're playing that up. How do you think Brian's come across on the United by football? Yeah, I haven't seen a whole lot of that episode with Brian and it's, so I won't touch too much on that for the sake of, you know, just like being respectable. But I, I do think that, you know, as a character, just seeing him. You know, on the sideline and interviews and Washington play. I put this out on Twitter too, but you can really tell that his past experience in this league specifically is paying off and it's paying off, I think more than some other players, just because he spent all that time in the spring league with board Andrews. And it's just kind of been training for several years, really for this opportunity. You know, some guys come off the street, they had a COVID year. They're not prepared. And you know, I'm not trying to hate on them or push any negative press towards them. But I'm just saying, you know, I think Brian has sort of stayed on. Top of everything through all this, and he's really believed in himself. And now it's finally paying off. Like I touched on before, just to see that, you know, Fondly. Him getting that big break on such a, a big stage. I think is really, you know, again what these leaks are all about. And I, that's why I encourage more people to watch it because, you know, even if the product isn't on a level of like the NFL, I mean, it's still, you know, you're seeing guys that could possibly sign an NFL contracts later, or they could, you know, start making a name for themselves in these league. And, you know, the XFL sort of had kind of a cold following back in 2001. You know, they had the, he hate me guy. I'm blanking on his actual name, but. Right rod smart. That's smart. Yeah, it was brought someone. I knew that. But some, you know, like you, they sort of, you get these players that kind of have a cult following. And I think Brian, you know, might end up being more of those guys just because, you know, he's successful when he kind of has a bit of swagger to him, which I've always liked. But no, again, Yeah, excited for him. There's a lot of other people I'm excited for too, of course, but I'm just very excited and interested to see how this goes for the next eight weeks or whatever we have left. Regular season is good. Yeah. And I would say, yeah, the United by football, anyone give that a shot. I think it's such a bite size. It's like 40 minutes. I think they have done a tremendous job, but I didn't mean that, like, you kind of got to look at it with a little bit of reality TV, eyes to it. Riley made they're recording all this stuff, but it is. If you look at it through the world of a reality TV voting people off, it is, yeah. We have boogie Roberts. He's a character. We have chase, right. She has the more easy character, you know, we have all we've established now where we too, right. We have kind of our main players in that shell. And I think that that's interesting. And I liked that the stars were one of the focal points of that. I know that Matt mangle had they, Hey, we're recording ham, do it Mike step with him. And I think he was saying like, they were coming too close. They were getting in my way when I was trying to like, practice and do preseason stuff. So maybe that's why he isn't in the show as much as I think he was a little more focused, you know, Matt is like, I'm going to go play football. Like I'm not going to do all that stuff. So we had the ratings come out. This has been kind of the interesting stuff this week. I'm adjusting my camera here. It's getting a little, the light shifting in my room here. 58% down week one to week two. A lot has been made. We have Brian Woods, his brother tweeting out, you know, XFL people need to be quiet. We have, you know, the vice-president you have Robert [unknown]. Is there has his name right up. He's one of the Fox exacts, right? We had, who else did I see? A lot of basically like anyone ed, ed Hartman didn't tweet out anything, but basically anyone involved with the league. From a social media perspective, tweeting out. Don't worry. The sky isn't falling. What do you make of the 58% drop in week one to week two. Well, you know, it's not the first time we've seen it in, in spring football, you know, week one. Oh, is the tracks a lot of buzz because people are excited to see a new product, but you know, after that, sometimes they've had enough with it. And, you know, I think those drops are expected, even if they are dramatic. It happened in the AAF and you know, the XFL wasn't as bad, but like it happened, it happened in all these leaks. That's, that's my point. And, you know, I saw that and to be honest, I, I wasn't. Not concerned, because again, I expect that I've studied this kind of thing before I was like, okay. You know, week one is probably going to be. You know, the highest you're going to get. So you might as well make a good impression. I thought they did a decent job again. I do think the play in week two in increased. So it's a shame that, you know, maybe those could have been swapped and then the ratings would. The drop would have been a bit less significant, but yeah, I mean, I think those ratings. Usually the plummet from week one to week two is probably the worst. You'll see. And after that, they kind of just stabilize on the way and you get about the same amount of viewership every week, which is of course a lot lower than you had in week one. But the most important part here of course, is those primetime. TV deals. You know, a F and XFL had them too, but that's what I feel like is really going to keep them afloat. You know, at least people will be able to see it on their TV guide because you know, if you don't have that, then people are really not going to know who you are. And we've seen that. I guess we haven't seen it with too many other leagues cause they were broadcasting, you know, like the spring league on Fs two. [Unknown] sometimes, but you know, even that wasn't getting the same type of press, so sort of having that mainstream Fox or NBC, ABC, whatever it is, you know, even ESPN of course, I suppose I don't deal with them, but. Just having those primetime TV deals is really important and that we'll get some viewership every week, regardless of the numbers. Yeah. And you know, a lot's been made right. W w I think the Fox. NBC numbers, I think are the ones that I'm focused on. Like I, this Fs wine your Friday. So we have the numbers here. USA Friday, they pulled them 363,000. That was down. Yeah. I mean, everything was down, but that was the USA game on Sunday, the week before, with 771,000, obviously, you know, Sunday versus Friday. Saturday game on Fox got 1.05 million viewers. The Saturday night game on Fs. One got 400,000 viewers. And then the Saturday. It was split, sorry. It was between Fs one and FSU. So 4 0 2 and then 88,000 for that, that the split of that game. And then the Sunday game on NBC, you got 757,000. That's the drop to me. That's the scariest going from 2.1 Sunday, the previous week to 700,000 on NBC on Sunday. The following week, that to me is the scariest drop off there. Hey thoughts on that. I mean, yeah, it's again, it doesn't look good on paper, but I almost expected it. Like I was one of those people who saw the tweets of the numbers and gassed. I was like, oh my God, the leak. It's going to fail, you know, to me, I was more like, okay, you know, it's, it's not a good look like. You know, like that's a significant decrease, but you know, That's like, like I said before, that's probably the worst drop off. You're going to see. It might still continue to drop. Don't get me wrong. I don't think it's going to. You know, stay at that 771,000 for go up from there. But I think the drop off will be, I don't know, I can't give you a specific number, but like maybe 50,000 per week from now on like that's not. You know, compared to a number of literally in the millions between week one and week two. But no, I'm not, I'm not shocked. I'm not horrified. I don't think that this is the league's biggest. It shouldn't be the league's biggest worry right now. Our biggest concern, even though some people saying. You know, It is my main issue, I think is like, Keeping the quality of the plate. You know, to a sufficient level because you know, people are really going to start watching if you know, You have like a, a Panthers generals type game that we saw that was the first game of a week to where it's, you know, 10 To six and, you know, quarterback plays in great and defenses or, you know, Middle of the pack at best. You know, I think that kind of thing. You can't have too many repeats of those games if you want to keep viewership up, but we choose overall positives. Like the stars Maulers game I thought was great. And the stallions gambled his game. Might've been even better. Although I only saw. Five minutes of that one or whatever, but no, I think overall, even with. The viewership decline. There's still a lot of positive. To take away from week two. If I could workshop and I, when I criticize and there's been a lot made this week, criticizing leagues, Haiti, non leagues. I don't do this to Halon anything. I criticize. I always like to give tangible things that we could work on it. If it was me. And I've, you know, I've seen a lot and it's Robert Gottlieb, I think is pronouncing it right yet. A lot of this, like we have to build ed Hartman did tweet out like, well, He's the EVP of us, Val, you know, well, it takes more than two weeks, right. To build habits and all that stuff. You only get one shot for a first impression, right? Anything in life, especially TV. If I could have workshopped it, I waited then two more, at least two more weeks of training camp den. A couple more preseason. I know they did the shortened timeline to save money. Right. Well, why did we want to pay for another two, three weeks we're housing. All these guys were feeding all these guys. But the problem is. That first game was fine. The first year the Birmingham General's game started off hot is slow the little bit. I think the crowd there really carried it kind of over maybe the quality that that game actually was. But then you did kind of have three stinkers. Friday night was a stinker. And then we finally got the double-header Saturday. So you had got through four games then since the kickoff to finally get like two really good games. And then the Sunday game was good and I'm just afraid that. That those four games and the re the dropout that happened all of them, like now the gameplay is good. I don't know if we're showing back up this week now. That's what I fear with the audience is you only get that one shot to make a first impression. I would have, I would have gotten these guys a little bit more reps before we hit the prime time games and tried to do a little bit more. Pre-season what do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, you know, There's been a whole discussion about how the training camp was so short and, you know, the turnaround from both the regular draft and the supplemental draft, I would have liked to seen. You know, a bit more time for players to prep and sort of mesh together. You know, people of course also came out and criticized that when the first United to football episode happened and there was the infamous incident with WN Smith and the pizza and Kirby, I want to say Kirby smart. It's pretty well. So. I always say Kirby smart cause the Georgia coach. But anyway, You know, there was a bit of criticism surrounding that and people were saying, oh, but if you had more time to bond with your teammates, you know, you wouldn't be in a situation like that. And I do agree. And I think, you know, I'm not going to pick one league over the other here, but you know, the XFL, in my opinion, you know, back in 2020, they had sort of a longer turnaround time. Their draft was in like October of 2019 or something like that. We didn't kick off until February, 2020. So that was a few months. And I think they're going to do that again. For the next edition in 2023, they're probably going to have a few months. Between the draft and the actual kickoff time, especially given now what we've seen in the USFL where, you know, some guys might not be as prepared for others. And it's just kind of, you know, now we're all in Birmingham. What do we do? You know, this league is happening, but no overall, I mean, it's not. It's not terrible, but I do agree that it is definitely something pointing out and there's these sort of little things do you see, like again, the whole Maulers business where it's like, you know, maybe that could have been prevented if you had just spent a bit more time together. Yeah, I did want to see that too, just while we're talking about the pizza gate. Cause obviously. Like out kick did another segment this week on this, like, I really kind of thought we were done with the pizza gate thing. I was really surprised that they brought back on Kirby, Wilson again, to like talk through this. The biggest takeaway to me because a lot was made that he didn't. You know, when, when he let Debbie and Smith go, it didn't shake his hand. Didn't get up to do any of that. When he, you know, dismissed him from the team. They bring him on. He does a Kirby. Wilson does a five and a half minute explanation about why he let Debbie and Smith go. Never mentioned the man's name one time. Like that to me. It says something, you know, it says like that is very, it was not lost on me that you bring it back in. Like we're specifically bringing back in Kirby, Wilson. He doesn't even bring up the guy's name. He's like, well, you know, this player that doesn't even belong on our team anymore, we had to let them go. I'm like, I don't know. I just think that's a weird luck. And I thought it was weird that they double down on that again, that out kick was like, well, we need to bring Kirby Wilson back on now. Like give his side of things. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I think, you know, It's almost, I don't want to say that they're well, they might be milking it for views at this point, just because obviously, you know, that one clip alone of w on Smith, I think got more views than the actual, you know, like prime time viewership of the inaugural game. So, you know, at that point, like they kind of, they kind of have to capitalize on that, but it's such a negative sort of sequence of events that you have to be careful with the way you portray it. And I, I do think, yeah, I agree. At this point, like it's been two weeks now or whatever, like it's time to move on. You know, like the teams are progressing like. You know, w on Smith, hopefully you can get back in the league or go somewhere else at some point. Cause personally I do still want to see him play. I was very excited to see him play in the USFL and I'm disappointed that he no longer has that opportunity, but I have no control over that. And at this point, yeah, I'm just kind of ready to move on as well. Yeah. So week three, here we have the, the F the. The Friday night game at Kevin Kugler, that was just on, it's going to be calling that we have the bandits at the, at the gamblers that one's going to be on Fox. The salary they doubled to, I double prime time. We a doubleheader, whatever you want to call it. A, the Mahler's at. At Panthers, that could be a little scary. That can be a little scary. I would, if I were the flex, the Jersey stars game into that early spot on Saturday, they Mahler's Panthers. I mean, they could wipe the floor with the Panthers, honestly, and they a stallion Spreakers, we're putting all of our eggs in that basket. That's on the USA. I'm reading this off CBS sports. I thought that was on Fox. That's why weird to me. I thought so too. I thought they might've, they would have changed it by now. Oh, I'm reading this wrong. Sorry. Wait. It's April 30th. I. Hang on. I'm going to cut this out. I got an update. No, this isn't the right. Hang on USFL too. This isn't the right. I'm pretty sure I saw it up there. So it was going to be on Fox. Like they moved it into that prime time slot on a, on Saturday night. What is. The fits on USA. That's a huge mistake. Like, I'm sorry, but that like, you can't like the U S. You got to say network, like, I don't know anybody who really wants to see USA network. Okay. So there's no Friday game. I thought there was a Friday game. I thought so, too, but I think there was okay. So I got confused recently as well. Maybe it was this week, but the USFL put up a graphic on Twitter and on Instagram about week four. And there was a Friday night game on, in week four, but for some reason they just completely skipped over week three or posted week four prematurely or something like that. But I was looking at, you know, my whole schedule was kind of a messed up now, too. So maybe that's something worth bringing up. Yeah, that's a, that is all. Okay. So here, so let me, I got, I got it here. Now. This is off a USFL. I'll just remember that at this. So looking forward to week three, here we have a double-header Saturday, and then we have two games on Sunday. So Saturday at one, I assume these are Eastern. We had the bandits and the gamblers that game's going to be on Fox. Then Saturday at five, five o'clock the big prime time is going to be Birmingham against new Orleans Sunday at 1130 on USA. We're going to have the bottlers taken on the Panthers. That's. The flight of the O and T team. Oh, and T teams and then Sunday at five on peacock, which could be a very, very scary rating is a General's versus the stars. Which game are you looking forward to of that swath? I mean, I guess the stallions breakers, right? That's the game of the weekend. Well, hear me up. I mean, yeah. Stalin's breakers is definitely going to be like that. That has the potential to be the best USF phone game yet. Like, I feel like each week. You know, the football is getting better, but this, this could really be a make or break because the breakers and the steins have been pretty consistent with their plate. Brinker's had a bit of a rough week, one on offense, but it wasn't terrible. Of course, they improved a lot in week two costs loader to look like the guy that you had been marketed to be, but Brandon's gamblers is kind of my sort of dark horse for this week. I think that, you know, the band is sort of looking to rebound and, you know, the gamblers. Played extremely well. Last week, but came up just short. I thought they had a great performance bunch of great players in that game. So it'll be interesting to see who comes out on top in that one, because I feel like that one is the hardest to predict for me. So definitely gonna be tuning into that on Saturday. Are there stallions off Magoo? Are they, are we on? Is JMR Smith, right? He's are we off to demagogue? It kind of leaves that starting job. Whoa. It's interesting because. They've been, you know, well, Magoo. Apparently, you know, he got injured, I think in that week, one game. And since then they've signed a Monto Kozart. Quarterback from a Boise state who I've seen workout in person at home football. You know, he great guy he'll use a backup to GMR another Hubble. I did an article on that, but you know, he, yeah, I think Magoo. It looks like at this point. He might be, I don't know if he's done for the season. There's been no injury update on him, which I kind of thought was interesting. Cause he hasn't been released either. He's it's just, you know, he appeared in however many snaps for that week, one game. And ever since then, it's just kind of been riding the Jamore Smith train, which I think is great. Because Jamar Smith and skip Holtz, you know, have gone back for many years. They have that great connection together and it's working out really well, but I feel like the Magoo thing is, yeah, it's very interesting. He's kind of just. You know, Going away from the public circle. I can say the same about Kawada too. You know, the Maulers have been starting Joshua, who was their second quarterback pick in the draft. And you know, there hasn't been much word from a lot of he's maybe played three snaps or something on offense. And you know, there's been no real reason as to why they're starting Josh love from my knowledge. So, I mean, he hasn't been terrible, but I'd just be interested to know what was the decision behind that, because I truly thought that Lola was going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the USFL. And then what do you make? We have the injury reports came out today, a lot of stars players out, or I think there was like 22 players on that. I mean, hopefully they're giving them the day off. Right. They're not playing until Sunday. So that gives them that cushion there. But I mean, it's a really hard training camps here and not training camp really hard, you know? Season, we just don't have a lot of guys to move in and out. I mean, this is you. I know Mike Mitchell talked a lot about this. Leading into the season, right? The 38 man roster seven man practice squad. It's just not a lot of room there when people started getting hurt. I know Brian Scott was on the injury list today, and then I believe also case cook it. Right? I mean, cook is both. Both stars. Quarterbacks are theoretically didn't practice. Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, this sort of brings up an issue about, and I was talking to a few. People about it, you know, it was just the engine reserve, you know, like where is the engine reserve was? Where can you store guys if they go down for a few games, because right now with the roster size being the way that it is, I feel like it's just, you know, it's not right to just have a guy get injured and then cut him because he's going to miss, you know, maybe not even the entire season, maybe he's gonna miss three or four games, but because there's no depth, you just have no room for him. I think that that's. Flawed. And again, I'm not going to take a preference on leaks here, but you know, the XFL roster says. We're larger and I'm pretty sure the XFL had a nature reserve too. So I would like to see the USFL, maybe incorporate that in some form or if, at least. You know, if they're gonna cut the players or put them on like an injured list where, you know, maybe they can't be activated. Or something like that. I don't know what the situation will be, but I'd at least like them to get some sort of compensation and recognition for their work, as opposed to them just being straight up released. And we kind of act like nothing happened and move on to the next week because that's, I think very disrespectful to the player. And I also think it can be a bad look for the organization. Well, yeah, and I mean, email accidental had that team nine, which again, see these things cost money. Right. So when you're looking at the USFL. How can we minimize expenses, short training camp, short preseason. You know, even like RJ, Young's doing all their, like all their media stuff. Like, okay, well we have, we're not having anyone else do anything or coordinating any of that stuff. Like, and part of that is the team night and you don't have a backup squad there of guys that are game ready to go. You're drafting guys that are. You know, staying in shape off on their own, but it's not the same as having, I get bar Andrus and the XFL, having guys practicing, ready to go, they'll be able to come in and if people get hurt, they already know the rules, they already know kind of the game set that way, you know? Of course. So moving anything else? USFL. I want to get, yeah. CFL stuff here before we gotta get outta here. Right. No, I think we've covered everything about the USFL. Like I said, just excited to see. Where it can go. And I stress this, you know, last time I was on the show, when we were doing the supplemental draft stuff, I'd be really excited to see, you know, the USFL championship game, because you know, the spring leagues have had trouble making it to that point. You know, the XFL had, COVID a F. I've had financial problems. Of course, the spring league, you know how to championship and they've had a few championships now, but I'm like, that's signifies, they made to the end of the season. And that's great. But the issue there is that that doesn't have the same publicity and, you know, people labeled that as a developmental league or one way or another. So I feel like, you know, reaching that sort of end of the season championship game milestone would be huge for the USFL. And I, I feel like I feel confident enough right now to where I can say that will happen. Yeah, I think it's, I think they're in for this season, they have so much invested. I just, I don't know. They say they're committed. I mean, you just have to see how the ratings go at, you know, at Fox. You know, there's a lot of money behind this, you know, they I've seen a lot made, right. Oh, well, you know, NHL costs X amount of money. It did. I mean. Fox is putting blood, sweat, and tears into like producing all of this as well. This isn't just like we're paying, you know, we're handed off or we're acquiring content. It's just a lot. I, I, you know, Kevin was just on, Kevin says that, you know, they're all in committed. I think, I believe that when they say that, but I just, it was very odd this week to have so many people come in and be like, don't worry about the radians. Don't worry about the radians when. I don't think, you know, sometimes a say last or say, yeah, tell me more. It's telling me whatever, like. If this isn't an issue, why are there 70 people telling me it's not an issue? That's where I kind of lay it, laid down on that. Yeah. So the last thing it's a CFL, this was exciting. We're getting ready. You know, the CFL draft is next week. I think Mark's going to be doing the live show for new sob on that night. I had kind of debated doing. Alive. CFL draft. I don't think that's in the cards. I think I have to work. They have their nine role changes. We had batted around a lot of stuff in the off season. No four downs. I know three down nation is going to be upset. I know dunk over there that there's no four downs in the CFL. We have the, you know, the big changes or the hashmarks moving. We're, you know, we're, we're thinning the field kind of the field of play that way, you know, not the physical field, but kind of limiting, you know, th the hashmarks that way, moving people and, you know, moving back the kickoff, there are incorporating some game day staff where they're going to have someone be more like communicated between the coach and the officials kind of getting ball spotted and timeout, stuff like that. The two quarterback thing. Now you can have two quarterbacks on the field, feels a little more like that's a gimmicky rule to have than anything that's going to be actually seen on the gameplay. I big takeaways. Any of the rules that you saw that you felt that needed to comment on? Yeah. Well, I mean the two quarterbacks thing you brought up is really the one that stood out to me. Not because I feel like it's going to be used often. I feel like that's going to be more of a package play. But a scenario where you maybe have that. Like once or twice a game at most. I mean, of course that'll depend on, you know, the offensive coordinator and the head coach too. But, you know, I do think that that's interesting, that opens up a lot of possibilities. You know, it reminded me a lot of Chris traveler because he was more of a running quarterback than. A passing quarterback and you also, you know, caught a few passes. So he was kind of doing everything. And I feel like, you know, having a guy like that, that's more versatile could draw interest to the league. Again, even though it's probably not going to be used that much. You know, struggle or had a lot of success in that role. Got an NFL opportunity. So I feel like he's kind of the poster boy for this rule almost because, you know, he found success in the CFL as a quarterback with a not traditional quarterback role. If that makes sense. But no, I'm excited. I think all the rule changes are great. Of course, I'm glad they didn't move to four downs. I was quietly against that because I feel like three downs is what makes the game interesting. And. You know, it definitely makes the game more fast paced. I feel like there was a bit of a lack of offensive production last year from teams across the league. But I do think next year that's sort of fast paced. The offense will return in full force as long as they keep that three downs, which looks like it will be official now. Yeah, I I'm glad we kind of moved off of that, that we were still Aaron Steph last week three down talking about, believe I be advocating for four days. I think the year off just killed it. I think the guys, you know, it's the same with the USFL. These guys aren't in game shape every day of the year. Like you are in the NFL and you're just not able to kind of turn that on. And I really do think having the year off just really killed that. I'm really excited because it really did kind of get to be a little bit of a slog, the CFL season, by the end, just with some of the games that like, we're still kind of struggling through. I am excited for that. The interesting thing where the quarterback. I saw Farhan and Naylor were all very supportive of all these rule changes. I really didn't see anyone that was really like. Upset. You know, no real outburst against any of these. The thing with the CFL though, is, you know, quarterback injuries that happens so much, it's such a thin roster as well. Like, are you, are we really sacrificing like two quarterbacks for one play? Like God forbid, if anything happens, like we really give it. That that to me was the one that I saw the feedback about. Like, we're really going to have like Vernon Adams and Trevor Harris out there, whatever, like, God, you know, someone gets hurt and then we're now we're on our third string quarterback and like what's happening. So. That to me just feels a little more gimmicky. I thought Danny Austin was funny friend of the show he tweeted out. Like, I definitely didn't know that that wasn't allowed before. And I thought that that was kind of funny cause. You know, I don't think if you really think about dressing two quarterbacks that way, obviously they have to keep the ratio rules in check. The hash marks. I think it'll be good. I mean, I think it's all just a little tweaky stuff. It feels. It feels fine. And nothing feels like out of left field, nothing feels game breaking. And the other talk about this, I thought about bringing someone on specifically, but I just didn't feel like there was a lot of like game breaking stuff that we needed to kind of break down about. No. I mean, I think all the changes are just pretty minor and I think all of them were meant to, you know, continue to improve the game. Especially after a lackluster year in 2021. And I do think all of those rules will successfully help, but I'm almost glad that they didn't do anything too drastic because it's like, you know, last year CFO was like, okay. But I feel like if you made a bunch of major changes, This year, then you wouldn't have sort of that. Like returned to the way the CFO was before code. Cause that's what I really think 20, 22 is going to be, you know, I feel like it's going to feel more original, more traditional, you know, all these things that I didn't get to see last year when I started following the league more closely. And I'm really excited for that. So I'm glad that, you know, they didn't do anything too over the top and, you know, sort of make it like an arena type game or something like that. Nothing gets to run a football. Of course, I love that. But no, I ultimately, yeah, I think all the changes or, you know, nothing really noteworthy, but sure. I mean, And we could highlight it and I'll, I'll back them and say that it's good for the league. Yeah, the other interesting thing. I thought that kickoff, yeah, they moved, they kick off back five yards. USFL had moved it back at 10 yards, right from the 35 to the 25. You know, try to give more distance for the returning team to be able to get some field position. I just thought that was interesting that both leagues and not that one stole after the other, but they're both. Both sets of leagues in analyzing gameplay and stuff decided like we need to start giving these guys more of a headstart that way that put them in scoring opportunities. Also the. The no yards penalty, right. CFL kind of has that halo rule in terms of being able to receive the ball. That's always going to be a 15 yard penalty now where it used to only be a five yard penalty. If the ball had balanced before the player retrieved it. So again, like we're trying, we're incentivizing, like we're moving guys out. We're moving guys that, which. I like, I mean, I also like to see a team go from the five yard line all the way to the end zone. So. To me. I think you lose a little bit of that. Like, I don't love the XFL shootouts, anything like that when we're starting from the Tam. I mean, I like seeing the field beach traverse, but. If the CFL feels the need to get these guys, you know, closer to the 50 yard line, I guess have out of that. Yeah. As my neighbor backs is loud. Car. Here. I'm sure you can hear that here before we go. Any other notes, any other XFL CFL? The USFL staff. I know you're kind of the catch out of the day. Anything else before we let you go? Oh, not really. I mean, I think we covered all that needed to be covered. I'm just excited for all these leagues to continue. And I definitely think it'll be interesting if you know, we have the USFL now. The CFL comes summer. And then next year we have the XFL USFL competing. I feel like this is really the return of true spring football that we've been wanting for a long time, because even, you know, before COVID like, The AAF, I feel like it was one of the. The first true pioneers since the UFL going back to like 2012 or whatever, that really, you know, Put their foot in the ground and said, you know, we want to have a league. You know, that doesn't really well. You can have the whole NFL competition debate another time, but just to leave that people can watch during the NFL off season as a way to put it. And I'm, I feel like now we're sort of being surrounded by all these leagues and you know, some people don't like it because they only want one personally. I love it. I think, you know, the more, the better, because it gives more opportunities to more players who otherwise wouldn't have that. So, yeah, I'm all for just excited to see where. Everything progresses. That's ultimately the main thing here. Yeah, my last comment I had someone. I leave a feedback on the YouTube. Do they talk, I really zone out with the CFL. You know, we really have, we have our XFL or USFL now. I really, I don't need the CFL. And none of these compete, they all overlay. I mean, honestly, if you didn't even watch the first couple of weeks of the CFL, if you stayed with the USFL through the championship and then switched over to the CFL mid July, I mean, you're really just missing the first couple of weeks of that. So I just, I don't get that like, divide. Like you sat there that, well, I have one, I don't need any other, I mean, the CFL's rolling from June all the way through November Eno. If you want to overlap that with NFL or not, but you could still watch the XFL next year or the USFL and then transition right into the CFL. So I just, I thought that that was an odd comment. Evan. I really appreciate it. If people have wine, you know, check out your work, anything else? All the news hubs, CFL, XFL, USFL, DSL. Yep. I'm good to go. All right. Cool.12D75 Well, we have Jake [unknown] here today with the Edmonton, Alex, how are you doing today? I'm doing good, man. How are you? Hi, I'm good. I appreciate this. We have Victor CUI on a couple of weeks ago. We're at lots of accumulating, lots of friends at the podcast. Now James Wilder as well. How is your osseous and going? It's been going good. You know, we had a tough year last year and. At the end of that year, we had to play three games in seven days because of COVID issues. So. I think this all season for me has been more just about like healing my body and. More just getting everything fine. Tuned to get ready to go for this year. Are you sensing a lot of excitement and optimism from the club kind of heading into the season. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, with our new management in place and new head coach and Chris Jones. There's a lot of good buzz around the team right now, which is good. Going into the season. But at the end of the day, we got to execute. So. That's that's the plan. We'll see how it goes. What is good shows like. I actually haven't I haven't got to meet him yet. I just got back to Edmonton. Recently. So I haven't had a face-to-face. Interaction with them yet. So I'll have to get back to you on that. But I, it seems like he is, I was reading an interview is that he knows nothing but coaching the, he like is his wife and family, that all he is the, the,like the sole reason he's been put on this earth is to,to coach and win football games. Yeah.I'm sure. I can't speak about him cause I haven't met him.So you'd have to ask him or someone that knows him, but. Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.The players that I've talked to you that have played with them afternothing but good things. And. In that.You know,we're going to be competitive and we're going to win some football games. So I'm excited for that.Talk about the decision to stick with Edmonton,to resign and be with them. And do you feel at home there, what is it about the team that you enjoy being there?Yeah, you know,I like Edmonton a lot. I think this is a great organization. I like the people in the building. So.After I played for the New York giants and I was coming back to theCFL. This was like the first destination that I had in mind. And I. Past success, your play. During my career. Right. So I wanted to go back to somewhere that was familiar somewhere that I, I was successful at before. And that's kind of why I chose to come back here. What do you enjoy most about playing the CFL games specifically? There's been so much off season and rules and everything, but what, what do you enjoy about it? Whether your thoughts on that. Yeah. I love the game. I've come to I've come to like the CFL game, the three downs. What I like, you know, as a defensive lineman is being able to pass, rush a lot more. Cause there's only three downs. So I liked that aspect of the game and just how, how quick it is and how. You know, you're always in the game, in the CFL game, even if there's like two minutes left a team to come back from two or three scores down just like that because of the 22nd play clock. So. And only three downs. So it's, it's, it's a fun game to play. Okay. So I was reading this wonderful article on the Edmonton Elks website about your mother passing away. I'm so sorry to hear about that. Lost my father to cancer at a very young age as well. What has it been like prepping for the season? And then I wanted to make sure we talk about the event. Coming up in may as well. But what I mean, obviously tumultuous time, everything going on. Yeah. Thank you for your condolences. Yeah, like. The off-season is kind of just been, been healing for me. So physically healing from the end of last year and kind of mentally and emotionally healing from dealing with that. My mother passing away. So that's kind of been. The focus of my off season. And you know, you never really get over it, but you learn to take a step forward. And kind of my mantra is, is to. Be the best version of myself because my mom. Because of my mom. Right? Cause she worked so hard to give me a good life. And she did give me a good life. So I need to take advantage of that. And kind of be the best version of myself in her memory. So we have. Elk's women's dinner on May 5th. And we're raising money for ovarian cancer. So. If you go on their webpage. You can find a link to, to help donate and, and, you know, every dollar counts to trying to find a cure for this. Cause. And all types of types of cancers. Talking about your mom and being able to talk to her after the games, having someone like that. [Unknown] what was that like? And how are you going to carry on that? Yeah, the memory. And in, in that. I guess yeah. The respect of that kind of headed into the season. Yeah. I mean, you know, like no one loves you like your mom, right? She loves you unconditionally, no matter what you do in life. So. My focus is, is, is to just carry on her memory with me and to just play for her and to just. Always be happy. And live my life, how she would want me to. Certainly going to be a good, a good chip on your shoulder to carry into the season, you know, a good something on your heart to make sure, you know, I know she's going to be proud and watching and you know, it's something it's interesting when you lose a parent and then either you have success. And I know I talk with my mom about, you know, having my father pass away. You know, they'd be so proud. They're watching all the, you, you feel like you're doing it kind of in their honor and that hopefully that they can see that and be proud of that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I a hundred percent agree with that. And that's kind of my focus. I saw you or I hanging out with James Wilder as well. You're going to get part of his. I was researching you a lot of good friends and friends of the podcast you're involved with. Yeah. You talk about working with the other guys being involved in the other things to do. I think James is running a camp coming up that you're. Being a part of just building that social interaction with the team. Right. And the other teammates. Yeah. I mean, James is a great teammate. We've got a lot of good guys in the locker room and. And still, and. You know, he's got, he's got a camp coming up, I believe May 7th, and I'm just helping him out with that, you know? He asked me if I could help, help them out. And. It was just, it was just an app. Yes, a hundred times over, you know, a low health. And my teammates out in. Kind of getting that bond and we got a lot of guys coming. Here to Edmonton early, before the season starts. So we're trying to kind of build that chemistry and get things going before.

Episode 89 - The XFL Is Moving to Texas

Coming up today on the markcast. Yeah, we are moving to Texas. We have Danny busy Instagramming from downtown Dallas. The rock is jet setting to Texas. We are packing up the XFL and we are hitting the road. Huge implications. Is this the dooms, the a scenario hub season of the XFL are we setting up businesses there? Is that gonna be the home base for operations? We have a long time friend of the show, your friend of mine, Greg parks from XFL board.com stopping by It just doesn't sound good. And it, it gives the impression right or wrong that financially the league is not will to go as far as it needs to, to make this league successful. And then we still have lots of us L stuff to talk about. Uh, remember that big lawsuit that, that was pending, that was threatening the shutdown of the season. Whatever happened with that? Well, it, it kind of got buried in the news the Thursday before the us L kickoff last weekend. So luckily we had Michael calling trademark and I people stopping by to fill us in on all that. When you go through discovery, you do depositions, you, you do interrogatories and all that new evidence might come to light that might contradict some of this Stuff. We are also joined by pat Rapino of XFL and us L news hub. We're talking all the us L week one news coming out. We got chip gate pizza gate, the new kicking balls for the USFL talking, all that stuff. And previewing week two, I'm not an XFL hater because the thing is, is when you hate on these leagues, you're hating on. You're not hating on Dar Johnson and, and Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia. You're hitting on Louis Perez. You're hitting on John Wilford. You're hitting on these players who this is, this is going to make or break their lives. And then we got your CFO loves always. We have Jagar Davis courtesy of the Toronto Argonauts joining us Football leagues besides the NFL. Y'all gotta capitalize on their opportunity. Cause like, if you don't, you gonna get left behind you don't wanna go from second you to last and your afterthought once your afterthought basic history. And the CFA has been around too long and too big of opportunity for them to maximize it for them not to do so, Should be a loaded show. Thanks for stopping by, Hey guys, Reed here. Welcome to the mark cast. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Really appreciate you checking out the show. Lots of news to get to in the world of the XFL and the USFL. I don't wanna be too prophecy today with my plugs. I'll try to keep short cuz we have a lot of stuff to, uh, you know, dig our teeth into and digest here. Uh, the XFL are, are we moving to Texas? That is the question. Are we setting up a hub in Dallas? Danny is busy, uh, Instagramming stories from downtown Dallas. The rock is jet setting to Texas talking about setting up an XFL headquarters there. Uh, what does that all mean? Is it the doomsday hub scenario that we've all been dreading, uh, with Mike Mitchell's reporting? Is it a modified hub? Are we setting up a, uh, home base of business there? Uh, we're gonna talk about all of we're also recapping week. One of the FL uh, talking all the games, all that stuff, pizza gate, chip gate, everything coming out, you know, attendance, TV ratings. And then we are looking ahead to week two of the USFL as well. Uh, plus some CFL stuff, if you want, even more us L I did a pre-game show on Monday a, so on the YouTube stream and it's on the podcast, you know, audio stream. Uh, if you want more USFL, I did a call in show that way, lots of indepth talk, uh, coming right out the weekend. Kind of getting the initial thoughts on that. So, uh, you can check that out as well. Uh, if you want, uh, huge guess list today. I, I know I say that every week, but this week, uh, I really do mean it longtime friend of the show. Uh, I am a fanboy of his, uh, from PW torch. I've listened to him for years podcast about, uh, wrestling, raw SmackDown, impact wrestling, all that stuff. Greg parks, uh, contributor and calmness for XFL board.com joins the show. Really good to get Greg on. We've been working on this, trying to schedule, uh, Greg is a busy guy, uh, really good news, uh, for him to come on with all the XFL stuff breaking this week. So that really worked out, uh, able to talk with Greg about that. Uh, we break down all the stuff, you know, the, the hub scenario, uh, we get Greg's thoughts on the coaches and the cities, uh, the whole world logo, rebrand, kind of all that stuff, everything XFL, Greg parks is your guy today with that interview, you will have all of your news covered. Uh, then we, uh, transition to a little USFL. Uh, I'm bringing back on Michael Cohen, uh, our trademark and IP lawyer to kind of put to bed the us L lawsuit, the real us versus, uh, Fox sports USFL. Uh, for the meantime, uh, that broke kind of late Thursday before the kickoff, the judge, uh, denied the preliminary injunction, uh, for the real USFL trying to halt the season. So that's probably gonna either move to a, uh, either to court, obviously to a trial, uh, or to a settlement. So I, I, I will wanted to bring on Michael, you know, we'll probably talk with him again in the future. Uh, but for the meantime, kind of put that story to bed, kind of figure out where we're at with that. Uh, then lots more us L stuff. Pat Rapino is joining us from XFL and, uh, USFL news hub, CFL news, sub the whole family of that. Uh, pat, uh, we're breaking down all the us F L you know, players, standouts things coming out of the weekend. What did pat think of the attendance ratings, all that stuff. We talk about the chip gate, the new footballs that the USFL is getting, uh, for the special teams that is exciting. And then we're looking forward to week, uh, two of the USFL, a really good, uh, long in-depth talk with pat, uh, a little more extended, I think we anticipated, but I really appreciate Pat's time. Uh, lots of thoughts about all that stuff. Pat is like me very passionate about these leagues and the players. You know, we, we criticize, uh, the, the leagues, uh, cuz we want, uh, unforced errors, right? We want them to, to, you know, there's so much going against alt football. I really want everything, uh, to succeed and, and that's why we give, uh, the criticisms and the notes that we do. I really appreciate pat, uh, pat also wrote an article for, uh, the mark cast.com all about kind of alt football, QB, um, salaries, how we're late to the NFL, uh, players kind of journeymen players working through these alt leagues, uh, the amount of money they make, uh, you know, really interesting statistics that way. Uh, so we kind of round out the discussion with pat on that that article will be linked, uh, in the description. If you wanna read more about Pat's work, uh, pat does two or three articles a month for the mark cast. Uh, really appreciate him doing that. And then finally, courtesy of the Toronto AOS. We have jugar Davis coming on to talk little CFL, jus traveling, getting ready to head back up north for the CFL season. Really appreciate him taking the time to come on and chat some CFL. So there you have it. We have Greg parks, Michael Cohen, power Fe and jugar Davis. Joining the, I think I'm recording late enough today that if any craziness, I think all the craziness is broken for the day. So I'll probably check back in at the end, uh, please like, and subscribe if you enjoy all of this work, uh, we're still hovering trying to hit that 2000 mark. We have our big giveaway, all our great cup stuff. Our custom Jersey we're giving away from oil retros. Dustin was on the show. You are big USFL. Our pre-game show. If you guys haven't checked that out already, uh, that's on the YouTube as well, really appreciate everyone stopping by and viewing that very happy with it, with the turnout that we did for that. Uh, and then, uh, but yeah, like, and subscribe, get us over that 2000 mark. We have an AAF commander's Jersey. I've got extra rally towels from Dustin from the inaugural game. So lots of stuff. Well, I can subscribe. I'll check back in at the end. Thanks for watching. Well, I could sit and, uh, chit chat with my guests a long time before we hit record today, but I wanna get into it cuz we have a lot of news and everything to talk about in the world of XFL Greg parks. How are you? I'm doing well, Reid, thanks so much for having me. Well, the last time we were on, we were kind of talking about, I think cating, lack of XFL stuff. There wasn't a lot going on. Well now today, uh, crack the Zo, I've got my XFL hat, uh, lots of stuff to talk about. How are you feeling about everything? Um, I'm feeling good. Uh, I, I know the last time we were on, I was on with you was probably what July of last year. And we were just kind of catching up and kind of touching base for really the first time that I had been on the show. And it was sort of like, we kind of left it at well, you know, the next time that there's big news, we'll have you on again. And I'm thinking, okay, maybe in two or three months, you know, I'll be on again. And it's been, I think nine or 10 months now. It's just, there's a much longer lull than I think anyone expected, but we are firmly in that area right now where it's gonna be boom, boom, boom. As it has been for the last couple weeks of, um, hold onto your hats, the news is coming. Yeah, I like that. Could I interest you in any Texas barbecue? Well, you know, it really sounds good right about now. I'll be honest after the last few hours <laugh> so that is the big news today. As of recording, you know, we had, you know, my Cav reports out there were rumors kind of floating around about, you know, are, are we doing above a bubble in Texas or we're doing the hub? We don't necessarily know yet. Danny posted today, a photo she is in downtown Dallas. Uh, the rock posted this wonderful photo of him. Like the arms are very like, uh, army is, uh, getting on the plane to get very formal. It was very odd. Uh, with the, with the caption, it says, I guess he's making the X. It says the X of our XFL represents the intersection of opportunities. And that's my job as owner to create opportunities for players to ball out, live their dreams big day for us today in our entire X L organization. Great state of Texas. Here we come, wheels up hashtag F uh, XFL HQ. So what do you make of that? Well, not there. Yes. Um, I, I hesitate to make too much of it yet. Uh, you know, no matter what decision hub, no hub partial hub, uh, there was going to have to be a, a business headquarters for the league somewhere just like the XFL was headquartered in Stanford, Connecticut, and yet, you know, there was no hub in Stanford. There was no team in Stanford. It was where the WWE was headquartered. So it made sense, uh, was dim McMan owning it at the time to, to headquarter there in Stanford. So I'm not really sure how much to read into it. Uh, it sounds like they're having, uh, pretty high level meetings with head coaches this week based on, uh, the reporting that's out there. So, uh, certainly it there's that going on in Texas this week, but to read anything more into it in terms of, um, hub location or anything like that, I think if there is a hub, it probably will be in Texas just because it makes sense to have it in the same location as, uh, as your business headquarters, not to mention the fact that there's potentially three teams going to be located in Texas. So it makes sense for, for a whole host of reasons, but I don't think we can really draw that conclusion out from what we've seen teased on social media today. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, and that's the thing I think maybe they had, you know, in the last week or two that maybe had thought about doing the hub, got a lot of negative, like kind of vitriolic reaction yeah. From me, by the way, that was one of <laugh>. Well, and I wanna, yeah. And I mean, originally I was gonna bring you on cuz of your, your column here. I have pulled up and we'll get into that on XFO board.com, but you know, it, it's one of those things they claim, you know, we're a league of the people, right. And, and, and, you know, DOD even to use the rock and all that pun intended. But you know, Danny has said, you know, we wanna be open, transparent, have all this communication and everything. And then yeah, when you come out and you say, Hey, you know, rumors come out, we might be doing a hub, uh, that was not met with good reaction. Right. And I think you bring up a good point of the XFL. What does it wanna be about? Certainly it is that connection between the fans and the players. And I think that was one of even the four pillars that they came out with when they revealed the new logo a few weeks ago. And it's very hard to do that when you're at arm's length as a fan, you you're going to your favorite teams games. You're not interacting with the players in the city. You know, they're not making appearances necessarily. And who knows, maybe they'll fly 'em up to those cities and make appearances and ho no with the fans, but then fly 'em back to Texas for games. I don't know, but it just doesn't sound good. And it, it gives the impression writer wrong that financially the league is not willing to go as far as it needs to, to make this league successful. And for all of vis with man's faults, he made XFL 2.0, um, with, with the money that he had earmarked for and with he, the money that he had spent on it, he made it first class for a, an alternative organization. And you know, when you start talking about hubs, it feels very minor league. It feels the message that it sends is we're not ready, whether financially whether they don't have the leases because they got a late start, whatever the reasoning is, it just gives it, doesn't give a real positive impression, the fan base that you're trying to attract. Well, especially when that has been the number one complaint against the us L is, well, this is fake or this isn't, whatever FL comes back, it's gonna be big time. We're gonna be back. You know, there's a lot of divisiveness online right now. I don't know if you in your life and see a lot. There's a lot on Facebook and the message for on Twitter and stuff as well. But you know, a lot of like, uh, tribalism one way or another, and that was always, the mark was well, when the Exel comes back, we'll show you how it's done. We're gonna be in all the cities. And then you hear this and like even a modified hub. You mean anything besides eight teams and eight cities is going to seem like a failure to a lot of fans. It is. And, and that, that was sort of one of the reasons that I looked at the XFL as having advantage starting a year later, there, there are not a lot of advantages to starting a year after the USFL. I think that was one of the huge mistakes that the XFL made is not starting in 2022, opening the door for another league, like the FL and, you know, XFL ownership had probably no idea that that was going to happen when they delayed a year. So it's hard to blame them, but, you know, the, the advantage that they had with the USFL announcing very early on that they were going to a hub in Birmingham, was that the XFL would be playing in front of real live audiences each and every week in those home stadiums before us F L season two started. And, and that was the one real advantage that the XFL had. Now, if they do a hub and then they're in the same situations as the USFL, they're punting on that one advantage that they had It, it seems like. And, and I, I, you know, that I'm, uh, blocked on XFL board stuff, but it was sent to me that, uh, on social, it was sent to me, uh, I believe you had done a podcast interview right over there with the, and the people had reached out. I can't remember if it was you or mark, you know, two XFL asking about some of these missed deadlines and timelines. And the, the response was a, like, we, this is harder than we thought it was going to be. Is that, does that sound accurate? Yes. Uh, something like that. Yeah. And, and I mean, starting a, a football league from scratch is very difficult. I I'm, I'm surprised we need to make that statement. You know, it is, and it's especially difficult when you have the bones of a league as E Garcia, the rock and, and red capital did of XFL 2020, and basically kind of disregarding it and wanting to start. It seemed like it was their desire to use the name, but almost nothing else. <laugh>. And so, um, and I get it like when new ownership comes in, that's what happens. They wanna put their people in place. They wanna put their stamp on, on things. I get it. Um, but you know, that was, again, part of my frustration with not, not starting in 2022 is you had an opportunity. You had a league, you had all the background, the financial information, all of that stuff from XFL 2020. And it, it doesn't seem like they were really quick on the ball with utilizing it. It's so weird. And I don't get that, cuz I would argue there's so much more negative baggage against the XFL with, you know, media and, and fans and, and you know, people that follow all this stuff that if you're gonna take this long, I've said just call it rock football league or whatever you wanna call it. But like, I just, if you're not gonna capitalize in 2022 and be there and, and flip on the switch or run the bubble season in that would've made sense to do the bubble in 2022, but to wait, have different cities, a different logo. Now we're bringing back, you know, we're, we're not bringing back certain people, they were integral to it. Right. You know, like Sam Schwartzstein, we're bringing back Dean bla Dino, like it's weird where we're making delineations, uh, and then doing the whole, I just don't get it. You just started something else. That's surprising to me too, a little bit, you know, when you're buying the league, when you're investing that $5 million seed money as each owner, did you know, what are you really buying? Um, and certainly the name and, and, but what does that mean? Because like you pointed out XFL 2001 certainly has a very negative connotation to it. Um, to most people, uh, XFL 2020 unfortunately is seen as a failure. You know, it didn't make it through the first season. There are extenuating circumstances, but ultimately that's the facts. We've had two seasons of XFL. Um, but no second season of either one of them. So that is on the mind of a lot of pundits, a lot of fans when they hear the word, the letters XFL. And so I'm a little surprised that they didn't rebrand completely. They may have seen the opportunity with, you know, we've seen what they've done with the X and what they want the X to represent. So that's something that they are pushing very hard is, is the meaning of that X and the bringing together of, you know, uh, fans and players or, or all these different things. So I, from that point of view, from a marketing standpoint, I guess it makes sense, but you're right, when you are basically starting from scratch and you have some people like the Doug Whaleys and, and folks like that who are coming back. Um, but you're almost starting completely over again. It is a little surprising that they didn't do a complete 100% rebrand. It felt, you know, when they came out with the logos and stuff and I w we'll backtrack here cause I we'll do code. I think we'll just go backwards in time here. We can do coaches and, and all that. But when they came out with the refresh and, and we, we were here in the bubble and hearing all this stuff, I, I like, I, I don't know. I don't wanna cause panic on the 20, 23 thing, but it does feel like, and we're like, they've decided now, okay, we're, we're really gonna do the eight cities or whatever. Like this is a really short, this is USFL. I mean, they announced in, in may of last year that they were coming in April, like, this is about that timeline here, April to be kicking off in February. It's very, um, jarring from day to day almost when you, whatever news comes out, because there are some days where it's like, oh boy, like I'm not feeling so good about this. And then there are some days where like, yeah, like, you know, when the news came out that, um, the personnel department had met with agents and they're saying, we're gonna pay more than the us L we're gonna give more benefits. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that. And it's like, oh, maybe they are, you know, gonna throw the necessary money at this to attract players that they need to attract and make league successful. And then you're right. You, you know, you hear about the hub and you hear about all this other stuff and it's like, oh boy, I'm not so sure. So you get kind of queezy going back and forth, uh, from one day to the next feeling, really good about things and then feeling not so good. So, um, still a, a, a long ramp, not as long as it used to be to start up. So, um, even though cities have, haven't been announced, hopefully they have an idea. And sometimes you hear these like every six months or so someone will talk to someone at the St. Louis, um, sports authority, and they'll say, well, we're talking to 'em, but we don't have a deal. And you're like, what is taking so long? Right. So it's just, those are the kind things that kind of make you take a step back and say, what is going on here? It is real, like you say, it literally like day to day, just, it it's this, and it's not a war, but it is a war, right? It's this spring football and, and, you know, they're competing for the same, you know, WWE competes against Netflix and all these, you know, everyone's for eyeballs. And like, I, I always think back to when we had our big fight with RO Madani one of the big CFL pundits and he came on and he's just, you know, just crapping all over the XFL. And it's like, well, what does this even mean? And everyone's defense was well, the rock and Danny, like, they never failed. They've never done anything fail. They know. And then, like, I see some of the decisions you're making now. I'm like, I don't know if that's enough. Like, they're just there. I don't know. I am a little, I I'm happy to eat Crow if maybe the rock that this was his one misstep. Yeah. I think that that's part of what has, um, given the rock and Danny Garcia, a lot of leeway from fans is their track record. They have a tremendous track record in entertainment. Uh, this is a completely different animal granted, but they obviously have a very good business sense. They have a good head on their shoulders. They know how to use social media for their benefit. And we can, uh, nitpick their use of social media, their teases. Cause I know that's not for everybody and not everybody likes that. Um, but their, their track record speaks for itself. So I think that's part of, what's given a lot of XFL fans. That's given them a lot of cushion in terms of all right, this doesn't seem like the right decision, but let's let it play out because it's the rock and Danny Garcia and they can do no. So we had, I want get into the head coaches here. So, you know, the week of the big us L launch, right, we were already on the road, we went to Nashville and then down to Birmingham for all this stuff, um, they come out, you know, ESPN get up, we announce the coaches. You know, we have a lot of like cell phone video of the coaches at home. Like it felt, um, the, even, even the, the, the talking like on ESPN was a lotted about like, well, why did you buy the league? You know, Danny, like, why did you do this? And like, we've heard that we've heard that story now for a year and a half, but what did you make of, of the coach, uh, announcements and how that all panned out? I think the most interesting thing is once again, it was on ESPN and we've seen, uh, the XFL and its ownership use ESPN to get the word out, which makes a ton of sense because ESPN, as they call themselves is the worldwide leader in sports. So if you want to get your message out, that's probably the best way to do it. But you also wonder if there's more to the partnership than that. Is this a sign maybe that ESPN is going to be in partnership in some way with the XFL showing games, perhaps. Um, but yeah, I think it's still, you know, the, the people who read those stories that Danny Garcia gave interviews to upon purchasing the league, you know, that was almost two years ago. So I think it's okay to sort of repro the league and reintroduce the league and these people to a wider audience. Uh, the, the amount of people that watch get up and pay attention to espn.com is probably a, a wider audience than read those stories that came out initially when they bought the league. So I didn't really have too much of a problem with the way it was presented. You're a lot more patient. This comes from you hosting wrestling, not in America, you're a lot more patient about people's frustrations. Cause I just sit there and it's the same thing with the us F L I'm like, and you know, not, I mean, obviously selfer, but it's like, God forbid you talk to some or organization that knows what this is already like, same with the us L like every interview they do. It's like, well, we're launching this thing. And I'm like, God forbid, you just come in and talk about like actual, like football and stuff. <laugh> uh, did you think it was odd that we had the coaches and we have, we, we do you felt like, do you feel as though the coach announcements were rushed because they started getting released? Um, not necessarily, if anything, it may have been rushed to give some news the week of the USFL starting. I have really been hesitant to claim that too much of the XFL news that's been released has been directly, um, affected by anything that the USFL has done. But I think it's pretty obvious that we had, I mean, three days in a row, I think we had news drop that week. And I think it, you know, it's, it's too much to be coincidence that it's happening this week when the us L is launching. So I think certainly they wanted some big news to get out. Um, you know, we had seen that Reggie Barlow was leaked as a coach about a month or two before <laugh>. So, and the XFL was radio silent after that. So I don't think the leaks really had anything to do with them feeling the need to get out in front of it and to get out and say, um, Hey, you know, this is, these are the guys officially. Um, but I think it was more, Hey, we wanna take a chunk out of the, the us L's coverage, maybe Because it's odd because, you know, if we don't have the cities figured out yet, right. If we're still, you know, are we hugging in Texas? Are we just setting up base there? It's not like these coaches are being picked up by anybody else right now. Right. I mean, NFL hiring cycles pretty done. Um, you know, obviously USFL is riding with them. So like there wasn't like an immediate need to be like, okay, we gotta like, what's Hines ward doing right now. We got a lockdown Hines ward here for 2023. So that's why I just felt, I mean, obviously the timing of it, you can speculate, but it did, I, I don't know what Bob stoops was doing. You know, he had turned down right at the college broadcasting. I mean, he's kind of just hanging out. Yeah. And, and that's kind of why I think it's, you know, they probably had these locked up and were waiting for the time to, to release them. That was going to be most advantageous, not only to the XFL, but also most disadvantageous to the USFL. And they decided it was the week of their games. Uh, I did think it was odd that you would name the coaches without naming what teams or what cities they're going to be associated with. Um, that's, that's a little strange to me. And so, you know, obviously I think part of the reason is either they haven't locked down the cities, they haven't decided, um, whether they're doing the hub or not. So, uh, to have the coaches out there is great, but to not yet know what they're coaching is, it's a little strange. I just wish that when someone talked to us, we like, we, I just feel like we could counsel them through a lot of these, like, you know, I, we live and die by this. They're often their ivory towers. I feel like we are like the front men, right. Like on the battlefield with a lot of this stuff. And they're just, they're, they're up, you know, they're in King's landing and we're out there. We're, it's very hard. Sometimes they They're, they're dropping the news and we're like gathering around and saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's see what this means. Yeah. <laugh>, I mean, even today with that, that I just retweeted the rocks thing or I, I, like, I took photo from Facebook and I tweet, I mean, that's got more traction than anything I've done all week. Like it was crazy. I'm like, that's just the, the power of the XFL. Any of the coaches stand out to you or, you know, the, the philosophies behind, we have a lot of former player coaches, uh, or a lot of former players as coaches. Yeah. Um, one of my more recent columns for XFL board was looking at the coaches and sort of breaking them down. You had, um, four coaches, uh, African American coaches who have very little head coaching experience. You know, Reggie Barlow has all the head coaching experience for the four. And then you have, um, the, the white head coaches, the non African American head coaches like Wade Phillips and Jim Haslet, uh, and Bob stoops have just this, this gigantic head coaching resume, uh, Anthony Beck is sort of the outlier there. So it is strange how that delineation was made. And I think you certainly, if you're going to go with first time head coaches, the way that the XFL has, I think you do wanna balance that out with more experienced voices. So I think it was good that they in, obviously Wade Phillips is a coup, um, Bob stoops, if you had asked me, uh, who from the original XFL 2020 would be brought back as a head coach stoops, would've been near the bottom of my list. I'm, I'm really surprised they brought him back, uh, please, you know, um, but surprised. And, um, Jim, Haslett's a name who's, you know, always, you know, he's kicked around the league in so many different spots in the NFL in terms of that. And that he's a, he's a well known name, but, um, to give these African American coaches, their first head coaching jobs, uh, many of them, um, I think is, is something that should not be surprising. The rock and Danny Garcia want to make the XFL, uh, I a very diverse league, not only players, not only front office, but also coaching staffs. And, you know, the, the NFL's problems with diversity in its coaching ranks is very well documented. So if the XFL can get out ahead of that and say, Hey, we're going to give an opportunity. Some of these folks who may not get an NFL New York college opportunity for that matter. Um, then I, I think that's a good thing. It was interesting. And I, I believe listener max brought this up. If, if I was like, think, give credit to me, we are watching. I don't know. Did you live through the, this weekend? I'm sort of a us L agnostic. Um, I, I don't wish it ill or anything. Um, obviously any place that players and coaches can apply their trade and, and earn a living, I think is a good thing, but I'm not super invested in it. I don't have that connection to the us L I wasn't alive when the first us L was, so I don't have that nostalgia for it. Um, so I don't, I just don't have that same feeling the way I had the XFL. So I followed it kind of peripherally on social media and things like that. Uh, well, a lot, so a lot was made. So, you know, they had some, you know, unique head coaching as well. So yeah, Kirby Wilson on there, you know, who had a long time, you know, running backs, uh, running back coach, uh, really struck, struggled in the Monday night game, right? Play calling very odd, offensive scheme. Really. They, they, they probably looked the worst of any team of the weekend ride in terms of like, I think we only had three wide receivers even like dressed and eligible. It was just very odd. And so, uh, the, the feedback I got, like I said, I think it was max that said, you know, that's just something to mind if we wanna give these guys our former players or, or not former head coaches, if we wanna bring in some guys, maybe make sure you have some good offensive coordinators and people around them. Right. Because he looked very lost out there and it, it, wasn't a good showing for that as like, this is an example of giving someone a shot. Yeah. And I think Anthony Beck, uh, there was an interview published with him where he said, you know, he's been in contact with, you know, building a staff and he's gonna have some really strong assistants because this is his first, uh, head coaching job as well. So you hope that that's the case. You hope that they bring in some experienced voices. Um, but really head coach is, is not about scheme so much. It's about being a leader of men. And I think when you look at those head coaches that the XFL has, that are first time head coaches, the rod, Woodsons the Anthony Becks. Um, the, the guys like that, the Heines ward, I mean, they're oozing personality, you know, they're the, the players that they coach are going to be drawn from for them and their players, uh, coaches, excuse me, who've played in the NFL for a long time. So they'll immediately have the respect of their players because they've been through that grind. They've been in the NFL for a long time. They'll have that respect of the players that they coach on that team. Yeah. Anthony Beck is a weird one. Like he's followed a lot of the XFL like news app. And I think he follows us like it's been for like a year now. I mean, I feel like he's been under the radar involved in some regard for, I mean, he was the Least 18 months. I think his interview said 18 months, that it was the process of, of, um, being hired as a head coach. And I mean, that's, that's certainly ammo against the people who are saying, oh, these are last minute hires. And the XFL is doing everything by the seat of their pants. If Anthony Beck has been in the hopper for 18 months and they've been talking to him, I think, you know, that speaks to how long this process has taken. And, and really the seriousness that the XFL ownership has has put into this. I some would argue 18 months might be too. I mean, once the NFL hiring process, like two weeks, right. We call up, uh, uh, God, what's the new Miami guy. Like we call up Mike and bring him in and mean he was higher than like two weeks, you Know? Well, we also dunno, like, I, I Terrell Buckley apparently recently just signed his contract cuz he put that on social media. But um, you know, who knows Anthony Beck could have signed his contract three, four months ago and they've just been keeping it under wrap. So it could have been 18 months up to the announcement, but maybe a little shorter lead time before that. Do you like the, uh, list of rumored, uh, city names now we have the San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Seattle Vegas. Uh, no New York, no Tampa. Orlando. Am I missing one St. Louis? Yeah. DC. Uh, I think DC. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's, you know, LA New York and Tampa were, I think some of the more underperforming as far as live gates, uh, of XFL 2020, and yet there's the push pull of that. Plus it being such a big media market, especially New York and LA, do you really want to abandon that? Um, when it's such a big media market and you, you can draw at least viewers to watch it on TV who may be invested, who may not be going to the games. So a decision had to be made and, and the, ultimately the decision may have been made by the rent that they would've had to pay by playing games at the stadiums, you know, New York and in LA I'm sure cost a pretty penny for the XFL to play in arena or stadium in those states. So that may have been the deciding factor when you're looking at the, the positives and negatives there. I think San Antonio Orlando were two of the better performing Alliance of American football franchises in terms of live attendance. So to go into those areas, I think is smart. You probably want, uh, uh, a team in Florida if you're not gonna do Tampa. So Orlando makes sense. And you know, the, the odd one kind of is San Antonio, because that gives you three teams in Texas. Um, but if that's going to be your headquarters or if you do a hub there, then it makes a little more sense. I, I feel like it was in the last week to, I saw something about, uh, MetLife still having not been paid or whatever, but I don't know if that was involved in the bankruptcy or all of that, but like then maybe they're gun shy about hopping back in, or I don't, I mean, you gotta remember a lot of these guys were burned or still were getting money from the bankruptcies before. So, you know, maybe they, yeah. Uh, I don't know, New York is a hard one. I mean, I, the red bull arena or whatever had always been argued that thing besides that caverns, I mean, MetLife is cavernous for, for even the jets and, and, uh, and giants to plan it. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, yeah. And the other thing you have to keep in mind too, is not only are these stadiums probably feeling burned by leagues that have come before and, and flamed out, but also the latest reporting, I think, by the athletic about the Oliver in Smith man lawsuit, and now Oliver luck being sued by the, the bankruptcy <laugh>, um, people, because there was an accusation that he had announced the locations of the teams before he had signed leases, thereby giving all the, um, all the, you know, the giving them the, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Like upper hand leverage The upper hand. Yeah. The, the leverage in the negotiations, because the deals hadn't even been signed yet. So those deals may have been extremely advantage just to the locations. And if you know, Iraq and Danny Garcia and red are saying, Hey, you know, MetLife stadium, we'd like to come and, and have, um, the team back and MetLife stadium said, okay, we'll do it under the same, uh, uh, deal as we did before. And they're gonna say no way, like that's, that's foolish. So, um, that could be an other factor in this whole deal. I there's, I think X, L 2020, I would want the docu, I want the hard knocks of that. I want the hard knocks of the X, L 2020, like, you know, the, the famous, like Vince wanted to be in Seattle cuz of like a house show, people cheered loud or like you, I mean, there's a lot of weird, like people don't realize like that could have been somewhere totally different. Like the drag is very much not, could not have existed And they ended up drawing well, so Vince was right, but yeah, I think, you know, we got the, uh, 30 for 30 on XFL, 2001. We should really be getting a 30 for 30 on XFL, 2020 coming up too. Uh, I more questions, but just, uh, really quick tangent, insane that Vince McMan beat pat McAfee in at Russell media. Who's gonna say no to Vince, right? Who in his inner circle who within WWE? Creative is say, Vince, maybe, maybe you shouldn't do this. You're 76 years old. Maybe don't get in the ring. Maybe don't take your shirt off. You know, even though he's got an impressive physique for a 76 year old, maybe this is a little too much, but no one's gonna say that to VI it's his company. He's the chairman and he's vis MC man. It was, that was good. That was pat had a good spot. Like the, the leave off the top and then jump back up. I mean, I'm not the biggest bat McAfee fan. I am more enjoying him this week. Roasting the USFL a little bit. He's been a little, a little, he's been a little horri on them. So I like you pat. Um, the, so the original reason you, we wanted to have you on, we were, you know, we had the big logo announcements and all that. The branding, uh, you know, talking about the style, I have your column here, you know, they deliver too much style to a little substance, obviously a little dated, you know, we've gotten more stuff, but in general, in general, how are you feeling about how the rollouts gone Hit or miss? Uh, I think, think I, I always want more. Right. And, and the diehard fans always want more. We wanna know, we wanna know what kind of soft drink Danny Garcia is drinking right now at XFL headquarters. When they're meeting with head coaches. I mean, that's just the kind of information we want. And, um, especially when you're a league, that's promoting itself on the idea of transparency and to be radio silent for as long as the XFL was, was very frustrating, uh, to a lot of us fans and, you know, really, it was kind of like a, prove it to us, like prove it, prove that you're in, uh, prove that you're gonna be a hundred percent into this as, as owners and we as fans. Uh, I don't think felt that way. We didn't feel like we were getting the commitment from the ownership that they were going to put everything that was necessary to make this league successful. So, you know, you get the, at the time my column was written, we had, I think the logo had just been revealed and we got the four pillars and we got the press release that I mentioned to my column seemed more aimed at sponsors and, and broadcast partners than it did fans because of the, the corporate speak. And we've gotten a lot of that. And I think fans were just kind of tired of it. We want something more concrete and, you know, to mention the fact that the logo didn't go over well with a large percentage of the fans. <laugh> what do you think of the logo? I have it wonderfully on my hat here. I think it's one of those things that's gotta grow on me. I, my immediate reaction was I was not a fan and I'm still not totally on board. I think I've softened a little bit, but I think it's one of those things where the more I see it, the better it's gonna be like, and, and let's be honest, no one's going to watch or not watch the XFL in 2023 because of the logo or because of what it looks like. And to be honest, I wasn't really a huge fan of the color scheme of the 2020 logo. It was the same logo. They just switched the color scheme from 2001. So, um, I got used to it, uh, you know, I was fine with it in the end. Um, so hopefully my eyes will get used to this one and it'll be, I won't even think twice about it. Yeah. The old, oh one, whenever I have to pull that up to use it for like thumbnails or whatever, it looks so dated that oh, one logo. I mean, it really looks, I don't know. I mean, I think the, the, the, you know, obviously we have our logo, mark has that looks similar to, you know, the XFL one. Like, I, I, I think it's a little more timeless, but you know, this thing, it even prints weird. Like on the hat they print the like copyright on there. Like it doesn't print, right? Like the merch is still, these people need merch consultants. Like whoever is doing this, <laugh> USFL has failed with merch and, and the XFL, like this is just like fit hat. Like we, you can buy one that says the mark on it. That's literally the exact same hat. Wow. Yeah. It seemed like that was, I mean, they had that stuff on sale the same day. I believe that they announced the logo. Uh, so that may have been just something to get out, something to open up the shop and almost like a, a little bit of a, um, you know, put it out and let's see how our system handles it. Let's see. It almost is like a trial run for when they put the real stuff out there, hopefully, you know, with the, the teams and logos and everything. I, I will say to critique the merchandise. I remember the 2020 merch was just like Seattle 2020 or whatever. Like the original exit film mech was horrendous. If you remember that <laugh>. Yeah, but I mean, if they sold it, Hey, all the more power to 'em I guess <laugh>. I wanna, uh, before we go here, we're, we're gonna wrap up soon. Um, the, you know, we've talked about the transparency, you know, keeping fans with arms, like, it's just interesting. I think it was the sport of code that Danny and I think, uh, Jerry were on talking about, oh, we like, we, we, we hate being secretive. We have so many ideas, like we want, we wanna share, but we, you know, we gotta be quiet and we we're just so excited. And then like the first big thing they have is this logo that like, completely, like, the bad, like part of my, like language I'm like, maybe we should engage more then maybe this isn't the right approach. Yeah. That that's tough. Um, I don't know what deals they have in the making that they do truly have to keep under apps. I don't know what they're just choosing to keep under apps because they want, uh, some big rollout or they have an idea for how to roll out all of this information. Um, so it is hard to say you do wonder how, if they hopped it, like if they brought in people and showed 'em okay, here are the three logos we wanna go with. What, what appeals to you? Like part of me thinks they're just, they so secretive about everything. They wouldn't want any of that to leak even to anyone. So, um, yeah, this was not, this is not great. I think, think your description of how the logo was received was accurate. Um <laugh> and so, you know, I'll go with that, but yeah, I, I don't know how much they're really going to, as they roll out the news, how much they're going to engage, um, the XFL fan, because I just don't, I don't know. I think they're just trying to appeal to such a wide base of fans, that the person who's been the, the fan of 2001 and the fan of 2020, and now the fan of 20, 23, I don't know if that's even on their radar to kind of appeal to, we sort of saw that with the teases on social media. Obviously they were playing two cell with that. And the only people who were going to care about that at that time were the diehard XFL fans. Um, but as far as, you know, roping them in, on any kind of big decisions the league is making, I don't get the sense that that's going to happen. It's almost like, and I was just thinking about this. It's almost like the rock is like too big of a star. Like if that, like he exist is like his own planet. Right. I mean, the rock could be bought and sold right on the, on the stock market. And it's almost like, I, I like, you know, you're trying to like, maybe you're trying to interact online. You're trying to like talk to them or like, you gotta, whatever, like you gotta schedule time. Right. Okay. We gotta get the rock on the call next week for five minutes. Like you, we need like a minor celebrity this in charge. Like maybe like, could tweet back at you about stuff or be like, oh, Hey yeah, Greg, that's a good idea. Like, you know, like Kurt Warner, whatever, like Kurt Warner will be on like NFL network. And then like, you can tweet at Kurt and he'll be like, quit making fun of me. Or like, like go back to his day. I, you know, I, the rock almost feels like it's too big, like too out of touch with like the normal fan that is watching this, this league specifically. I think he has done a nice job of feeling, uh, making himself feel approachable, but I mean, it's the rock. Yeah. He's the biggest movie star in the world. Like how can you, not, at least to some fans come across as, oh, he's way too big of a star. He doesn't know what we want. He doesn't, he's not concerned with us. I think he tries very hard on social media to relate to people, uh, in a way that you don't always see big stars, you know, the size of the rock do. Um, so I'll give him credit for that. But yeah, it's it, it's a little tough, I will say. And I don't know if this went for the previous version of the XFL, but the XFL Twitter account does accept direct messages. Their DMS are open. Uh, and again, I don't know if that was the case with the previous version. I don't remember it being the case. So Reed, if you have some thoughts and ideas, you can send them there. I, this is a message for Jake Henry right now, if you're listening, do not get any crazy ideas. This is a message for Jake Henry. Uh, specifically don't go crazy. Jake was the one that broke the shop was the one that they had the password on the shop. And then he entered so many fake ones that they like shut it down and they're like, okay, get, stay away. They shut down the website. So, I mean, we can be dangerous here online if we need to. Absolutely. And maybe that's what they need to know. Maybe they need to say, wow, these people are really interested. They're really invested. You know, that's a good thing. I would say. I think it's a good thing. Uh, Greg, we could talk for another hour. I so appreciate you hopping on early after, after work and everything to, to fit this in, we're gonna talk with Michael Cohen here and kind of put to bad this, uh, real USFL trademark stuff, kind of final nail in the coffin without lawsuit. But, uh, any, any other final thoughts words before we let you go? No, just really appreciate you having me on. And I'll say the same thing I said probably, uh, last summer when I had you on, uh, be happy to come on again, when there's more news, I would have you on any time I would get, I would walk through traffic to get you on Greg. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Michael Cohen, we, we took off in the plane together and gosh, darn, we're gonna land this plane together. We, we lived and died this whole summer with everything with this and all through the fall. Uh, how are you doing today? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. So I, I joked off the top. I said, you're done hearing from me now that we are, you know, the preliminary injunction with the real USFL. You said not so close. Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, one phase of, uh, possibly more, you know, so the case goes on, doesn't end from here. So for those keeping track, you know, the Thursday before we, like, we had literally just rolled up in Birmingham, like we'd been on the road for three hours and like, Dorothy and I sit down to have a beer and I get the email like this all came out. So I'm sitting there like on my phone trying to, uh, you know, figure out what's going on. Uh, what is the latest with the real us L versus us L lawsuit. Okay. So what, what has happened is what previously happened was a preliminary injunction was filed, um, by the, by the plaintiffs and what, what that was, is to get them to stop, to get the defendants, to stop the, you know, proceeding on for just moving on with the league. So if that was issued that would've put a kabosh on everything. So the J came back without any oral hearing, which I was a little bit surprised about. I thought there would be a, a hearing, um, and just on the papers, uh, issued an order denying, denying the, uh, preliminary injunction. Now we talked about that the preliminary injunction, um, is a hard standard. So it's not an easy thing. It doesn't mean that they have a good case or a bad case or whatever. Uh, all it means is that the judge de decided not to, uh, put a, a kibosh or a stop on the, uh, defendant's activities now. Okay. So the case will proceed on progress on and just go through its normal course. Uh, it said that in reading through know a lot of the reasoning behind it was, you know, stopping this league that was getting ready to kick off all this money, everything versus like the real USFL being able to sell t-shirts and stuff. It wasn't an equal, um, right. Uh, like damage or, or potential damage. Right? Yeah. There was a little bit of that. So, so look, this, these preliminary injunctions. It has to follow very, you know, stringent, uh, uh, methodology. Okay. So what they do is they look at what's the plaintiff's underlying legal claims. It was trademark infringement, right? So, so the judge has to say, okay, what's the likelihood of the plaintiff's winning on trademark infringement. So they kind of do that analysis ahead of time. And then they say, all right, well, there's a likelihood of success for the plaintiffs, um, that they're gonna win. Then the next thing that they look at is, uh, who's gonna be irreparably harm. Is there irreparable injury that needs to be assessed right now? So here's what happened. The, the judge came back and he said kind of good things for, for both sides a little bit. So there's some nuggets that each party can, can take away with it. One is that the judge said, yes, uh, the plaintiffs actually have on possible success on the merits in regards to their trademark infringement claim. And they did the whole analysis of why they believe. So they said that, you know, the plaintiffs, they have a, um, a claim to ownership, even though the defendants are the registrars. There's a good argument here that they're the actual owners <affirmative>. And then the next part is there's a good argument in regards to infringement, the marks are the same marks and so forth. So that leg of the analysis went towards the plaintiff. The second half of the analysis goes in regards to reparable harm. And, uh, a few other things went towards the defendants and the, uh, namely that there wasn't enough immediate harm. Cause right now for a preliminary injunction to be issued and a little bit to what you said that there's other for them to be compensated monetarily, as opposed to stopping it, Uh, thoughts when this came down without actually even making it to the oral hearings and just have the judge preside in the written, like you said. Yeah. I mean, that happens. I mean, it happens a lot. It, it doesn't mean, uh, that, you know, one side is better than the other necessarily. Sometimes it's just the judge's style to do that. Um, other times the judge has a question that they're not clear about, so they want the parties to come in and have their lawyers argue in front of them, uh, and put them in the hot seat a little bit. Um, you know, and other times the, the judge can just decide on, on the merits. Were you surprised that they, uh, preliminary injunction was denied? No. No, I wasn't surprised because it is such a big Pearl it's it's, I mean, it's really hard. And, um, especially because the, uh, it, you know, the, the league was already in motion. It would be a, a huge thing to, to stop them. Now, now, uh, the plaintiff still made, uh, have a opportunity to be heard and go through trial and win in the end. And no one knows the fate of that quite yet. I mean, we have a, we have a little bit of a, a glimpse in regards to the trademark infringer that the judge thinks that there's a, a plausible claim there. Um, but you know, the case has to move on and they have to go the next phases and a lot can happen. Not that I, you know, I've been accused of being pro USFL or pro really USFL or whatever, but it does feel odd that like, okay, well, Fox have more money. They have more invested right now. They have more people hired, they're more high profile. They're getting ready to kick off like, you know, little old and I'm not trying to deme, but like little old real us felt like, well, we'll deal with this later. Right? Like it just, it felt like, well, if we have the ability to steamroll, we can just steamroll kind of here. Um, yeah. I, you know, I, I, I, I guess you can, you can think of it that way. You know, Fox is the, the big Goliath. And so I don't know what you mean by steamroll because they're the defendants in this case. So they were just, you know, putting on a, a full fledged defense. Okay. So, and they weren't, you know, there was some discussion and cease and desist letters and things like that, but Fox seemed like they were always in motion with this and they were moving forward and they put their head down, and this was something that was gonna happen regardless. So, you know, this, the, the plaintiffs in this case, they said, you know, now is the time we just like, do or die. We have to file the lawsuit now, Uh, timeline now for moving forward. I mean, obviously this thing could out for a long time. Yeah. So, uh, I went through the, the docket a little bit, number one, that judge who I mentioned last time, he's off the case. So whatever hap, you know, sometimes these, uh, district courts, they have, they, they reassign judges for no particular reason. Maybe it's just, you know, just reshuffling on their own end. So it's now, uh, to a different judge. I, I don't, I forget the name of the, of that judge, but Walters is out. Um, and then I saw a stipulation that, um, the parties agreed to. They agreed that after the order of the, whatever, the outcome of the preliminary injunction is that the answer that the file and answer to the complaint hasn't been filed yet. So that's due in 14 days. Okay. And that's not gonna be too exciting. Most answers are just kind of procedural in nature. They're not, it's not gonna illuminate too much in the case. Does it, the fact that this judge ruled and said they have merits or whatever, and now if it's reshuffled and then you judge moves on with it, I mean, that the way he looked at it may not ne necessarily carry over. Right. Of course, you know, there are different people, uh, judge Walters may have a different opinion with, in regards to what the new judge may think, but, you know, obviously any, any new judge who comes uh, into the case is going to review the docket, review the pleadings, go through the analysis that was done. Um, and so, you know, they're, they're going to base their opinion, um, uh, based upon the prior pleadings and worse. Uh, so fi so yeah, 14 days to answer in your gut. Do you feel like this really goes through the trial, or do you feel like maybe this was our big pulley and now we're just gonna settle and try to get some royalties? No, I mean, you know, I keep saying anything can happen, but yeah, sure. I mean, you know, they have a, a, a, you know, a decent firm and, you know, I think they're committed to the, the case and I don't see why they would not go the whole way through if they needed to. Um, and of course, you know, parties always are interested in settling you. Um, but depends upon what the motivations are of the, of the plaintiffs. Do they really want to end this? And like, you know, what's the likelihood of, of ending it. Um, so most likely this is gonna reach to some kind of settlement. I mean, you could argue even that now with the us L kicking off that if they were to figure out some agreement, cuz I think the know us L's big complaint was, well, we can't sell any of the merchandise right now because you know, they, Fox had kind of put the kibosh on that and if they're able to sell their own merch, like it's almost worth more to 'em now, then it would've been a year ago. Right. When the, yeah, That's that, that, that's a way of looking at it, you know, because, uh, there's, you know, a much more attention has been brought this, presumably, you know, I, I don't know how, how much publicity this, this lawsuit is getting. Um, but, but conceivably yeah. You know, so the names are becoming even more valuable because of the controversy. Well, no, and I mean, we had, they had, the kickoff was Saturday had 3.5 million people watching. Oh That too. Yeah, of course. That's what I mean, like, absolutely. Yeah. But I mean like the fact that the league has, has continued now, it almost like I, again, I'm not what pro one Saturday or the other, but you could almost tell Airhart and I'm like, if you could just be allowed to year on merchandise, it's almost worth more now than it was six months ago. That's true. And that could lead to a settlement that could be part of a settle settlement, negotiation. I mean, anything goes in a settlement, there could be very creative, uh, arrangements in which they, they allow, you know, Airhart to do that, you know, or it could just be a cash settlement, you know? So it could be, it could be anything like that. Any combination of That in another life, I think I'm a trial lawyer. I any other, any other final thoughts takeaways from this? I mean there a lot here, I skimed through a lot of it when we got to Birmingham, you know, going through a lot of the different, you know, they have a lot of this. I Mean, there was a lot of interesting quotes, you know, so like if I were to, you know, and, and, and by the way, these, these are just, you know, the orders of public document that if you're smart enough to figure out how to pull it up, you can pull it up and, you know, it can give you kind of a glimpse up to, you know, in regards to how this might proceed, you know? So there were some, uh, just really quick, you know? Yeah. Uh, some of the takeaways I got from this was, uh, I liked when the judge said, indeed, it was defendant's intent decision to capitalize on the public's interest by calling its new league U SFL, you know, so that that's a little bit telling, you know, um, and then let's see what else, um, you know, and then there was some good quotes in regards to the ownership of the trademark, um, and then, you know, likelihood of confusion. Um, but anyway, so I mean, if you were kind of to parse through this a little bit, you can get a sense of where you know, of how the judge is thinking in regards to like the roadmap of how he might rule later. But of course, when you go through discovery, you do depositions, you, you do interrogatories and all that new evidence might come to light that might contradict some of this stuff. Yeah. I, I know I we're the, the discovery, I think people are excited for this goes forward and you know, we're actually getting some real depositions and I want, you know, let's get Brian Woods on the stand, let's get, uh, Steve Earhart on the stand, you know, let's, let's figure out, uh, you know, let's going on in their minds, making them tick. That's where it gets juicy, right? We're you have some good video, uh, footage and that get, gets leaked on YouTube. <laugh> I I'll I'll offer I'll film pro pro bono. I film depositions, I'll film pro bono. Really? You that's wants me to come out and do it. I will, I will gladly do that. Uh, Michael, thank you. Uh, so much for this. I don't wanna hold you up too much kind of reiterating, but I, I thought it was good to kind of put this to bed for now. Right? I feel like we're doing due diligence with that, For sure. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Well, we couldn't have him join us for our big live show in Birmingham. So I wanted to make sure that we got him immediately following pat Rapino with USFL, XFL, CFL, all the new hub. How are you? I'm doing really well. Re thank you for having me. It's gonna be good. So we have a lot to get to today. So we're gonna kind of segment this out. We're gonna talk us L with pat, we already had Greg parks song. We did a bunch of XFL stuff. I do wanna get Pat's thoughts about all the XFL news, Texas, all of that stuff. And then pat, pat writes articles. If you, if you didn't know for the mark cast, you go the mark cast.com/articles. Uh, we'll post this one as well. Pat's put in a ton of work, uh, looking through, uh, like QB salaries and as it relates to like alternate full and quarterbacks and things like that. So we're gonna do USFL XFL, and then we're gonna have pat talk about that, cuz he did so much work on it. We wanna make sure that we get that on the podcast. How does that sound? Sounds great for me. So first off, uh, big news, we did it, we fixed the USFL footballs. They just came out today. Darrell Johnston said that, you know, the kickers were complaining the chips and all that. Uh, what do you think about them about facing with that? I still think there are a bunch of, uh, kickers on the market that still deserve a shot to be, um, professional kickers. Uh, Tyler recently know, I don't know if you, uh, saw that, uh, tweet I made of the 3:00 AM, Hey you up to type thing towards him. Um, but at the same time now, like guys like Matt mangle and Tyler, uh, Tyler, uh, Raha will actually get a fair shot, I would say about proving their worth as kickers. So I'm pretty excited about that. Um, and obviously it transitions to the NFL or to the NFL or Canada. If these guys do decide to go to a different league or get cut and whatnot. So it does streamline the process. Well, I was, it was worrisome cuz I watched that game. I watched the stars game mingle. He was one for three on field goals. I mean, and that's not, I'm not trying to just mark out. I mean, that's just not stereotypical mangle, like missing him from 45 yards twice like that. Uh, I also saw a lot of quarterbacks struggling with the spiral and, and, and throwing the ball too. So it, it seems like, okay, we're maybe we're correcting it with the special teams, but they still need to cuz I think the difference here is they're practicing with regular footballs and then the first down marker chip technology, we only really use twice a game is throwing off the balls when it comes to actual game time. Yeah, it definitely is a little bit disappointing. Um, you know, if anyone's played any sport, it's always practiced how you practice, how you would play. And uh, when I played football or when I played baseball there wasn't a microchip in practice. So hopeful, we'll see a little bit better quarterback play, um, you know, these kickers kinda like, you know, uh, for the generals, Nick rose missing two field goals that wins the game for them obviously. And so there are, that did have an impact on, uh, on these guys' career. I don't wanna say careers yet, but it could have actually an impact on these guys' careers. Like Nick, Nick rose is a fringe NFL kicker. You know, he's probably on a couple guys' short list. He's played in a couple, uh, spring football leagues and he's been in the NFL. So now he goes one for three, you know, if you don't put the actual in depth work into it, okay. Those two field goals are missed and he ends up missing two more field goals throughout the season. Now he's 10 for 15, 10 for 15 is a lot different than being 10 for 13 or excuse me, uh, 13, uh, 12 for 15 or whatever. Are you surprised? I am a little bit that so quickly, but I, I commend them cuz I believe me, I get the read is negative Nancy on the USFL and all that, but uh, are you surprised? I'm so glad they changed this right away, but I did not expect it this quick, but I applaud them for doing it. I mean, I think they had to with uh, chicken salad, pizza gate, whatever you wanna call it. So they had to do something air quote positive. Um, but it also, it shows like darl Johnson as a man, like being a, I don't wanna say a, if the word correct word is a man of integrity, but just a man of action more than anything. I know they, they spotlighted him with uh, you know, doing the Gatorade stuff and maybe that could have been PR and maybe he was the only one doing it. But regardless as the league knew there was an issue and they corrected it. So it's better to do that better than to just kind of, oh, we'll review it at the end of the season. It's like, no, this is your league with these smaller leagues. Obviously there's a bigger impact that an individual can make. There's less, uh, red tape maybe I would assume. So. It's good that they did something pretty quick. You're talking. Yeah. Dar Johnson got highlighted in that first episode, the same episode that had the whole Debbie and Smith and we talked, uh, and I'll preface this at the top of the show, but I kind of did a call-in show rundown about a lot of the USFL stuff, uh, kind of coming out of the weekend. I feel like the chicken gate and all that. I don't want to deep dive in that part today just cuz I think it's been beaten to today up, uh, if you're really interested in discussion on that that's on the YouTube channel, the stream we did for Monday, the pre-game for the Tampa. But in that same episode they highlighted Darrell Johnson. Yeah. Moving the G AISM, which I thought was a really good move. Like we, I, I got into a deep dive with Greg parks and you know, interview leading into this one about XFL, wanting the league of the people and feeling a little bit, uh, too far out of reach, right? We're like we're conducting business in the shadows here where us L being Fox owned. I, I think people expected to have that wall between them, but if they're gonna be the more transparent approachable league, like I fully commend them for that. So this league of the people stuff is kind of is kind of running a little dry for me and to dive and I don't wanna, I'm not an XFL hater because the thing is when you hate on these leagues, you're on, you're not Dar Johnson and, and Dwayne and Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia, you're hitting on Louis Perez. You're hitting on John Wolfer, you're hitting on these players who this is, this is going to make or break their lives. You know, that, that gentleman, uh, 10 slates, the right tackle on the, uh, on the pay for a lot of these guys, this is it like maybe they didn't make the best choices in college academically. Maybe they were just, you know, maybe they didn't graduate. Maybe they, you know, there's a lot of things economically that can make or break, um, a human being's life. So when I hear the rumblings of like the XFL wanting to put the USFL out, it's like, and we can talk about this a little bit more in the article is that there's only so many spots for a professional athlete to be especially a quarterback specifically. Right. I think in my article I wrote there's like 192 north American non league, like getting very specific into a, it obviously like not arena league, livable wage quarterback positions. I mean, when the rock talks about, oh, I, I was playing number 54, so I know what it's, it's like 45 to $55,000 for a lot of these guys, it's a livable wage to where they don't, they're doing what they love. And they don't really have to work BS job to where they can actually enjoy who they are and like not have to work at a motels or giving training lessons to like spoiled kids. So when we talk about that league of the people stuff, that's kind of where my, like my mindset goes and maybe I'm incorrect in that, you know, maybe, maybe I'm, I'm taking it too personally, too sensitive, but that's how I view it personally. Yeah. I, I want the deep dive. <inaudible> too game play, uh, sticking to USFL for minute here, game play out of the weekend week one. Uh, what did you make of all this with, you know, because we, we didn't even talk the, the Pittsburgh and Tampa game, you know, that was before the, the, the, after the stream we did. So what did you make overall thoughts of the weekend? Uh, for the us about, Um, definitely sloppy, but it was expected, right? You had, what about three weeks of practices before everything kinda went to, went to, um, full throttle? Um, I love the first play call, like Lee Perez throwing deep to a SA Randy Saterfield like, I don't know. It felt you seeing that in person, but I just loved it. Like first play like 50 yards down the field. Like, let's go, you know, a spring football legend, Luis Perez, let's, let's make this happen, kick the, the game off. Right. And then to have a kinetic kind of touchdown, a contested touchdown, to an extent, you know, with him throwing the touchdown pass. Like I really enjoyed that. Um, the gamblers, the gamblers Panthers game, I covered the Panthers, uh, very disappointed in how slow the Panthers started. Very sloppy, a lot of stupid penalties by the gamblers in the third quarter and fourth quarter that kind of kept the Panthers in it. Uh, a little disappointed with the breakers and the stars when they played. I thought that'd be a way more electrifying game with Kyle slaughter. Uh, obviously he got hurt, so a little bit sluggish, but I'm hoping as the season goes on, players get more in shape in that game shape. Rather players get more comfortable with each other. And from there they're able to go out and put on a better product, but you know, um, this is the fourth week of practice. So how, how much can we expect? And now the playbooks can hopefully get a little bit deeper. So there there's definit a lot negatives, but I try to focus on the positives because like I said, these are these guys' jobs and, you know, no one comes to our jobs. It just says like starts booing us. Like Sam darn was saying the other day, if I was a plumber and someone came to me while I'm, you know, fixing some pipes, they're not gonna be like, man, you should really like, think about being another plumber or something like that. Even if I, I did bad up, uh, no one's really gonna be that aggressive towards me. Uh, the thing that I, I will say, and I've been thinking a lot about this and I, I was on a couple different podcasts this week, cuz a lot of the talk has been, um, you know, we knew it was gonna start slow, you know, it's training camp and all this stuff, you know, the, the Mo most people that are gonna watch the USFL any game this season, I'm, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm happy to be proven wrong was the Saturday kickoff game, right? The 3.5 millions cast, you know, maybe for the championship, but just be because of the sheer amount of advertising and everything that went into that. So that is going to be the vast majority of people sampling us L right. You already have pat McAfee going, you know, crap talking this as much as you can right or wrong. A lot of pundits, you know, talking their thing, you know, the us L could have had a six week training camp. They chose not to, you know, they chose to save the money cuz it would've cost a lot more to house 'em and feed 'em and you know, train 'em and the coaches. So like it's their own selfimposed timeline. Right. And, and we know they, we know the gameplay is going to get better, but like Dorothy, that watched it, my wife, or like if my mom watched it, like, they don't know, oh, they they're gonna, you know, by week five, it's gonna be really good. Like this isn't, um, like breaking bad. We're like, oh my episode six, it's really going to get good. Like people turn to watch football. And if the, I don't know, My only caveat to that is that, is that what by the us kindish I wanna say being, I would more frugal, more financially responsible. It guarantees us the week, the 10 weeks plus the playoffs. And I'm very curious to see what looks like, because now it's a new venue. You're gonna have Ohio fans. You're gonna have people from the Midwest and now it's like, okay, let's go like the new. And I think it's gonna make those, those, um, actual home cities, like, you know, like Pontiac, Michigan, wherever they play in New Jersey, it's gonna make those crowds a little bit more. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to do this and come out. So I think the Ohio venue will say a lot about the future of the league, but I think I said in of chats as well, like I wouldn't get too CRA. I don't think anyone's losing their mind about money yet. I think everyone kind of kind of realized that this was, I wanna say a, you know, a, uh, gonna burnt a hole in the pocket, but I think they realize like people in Birmingham are, people are only gonna want to go to Birmingham so much. So The, the other fear I have is, uh, we don't do well in post history to contextualize things. Right. You know, the ratings came out, they had good ratings on Saturday. I thought that USA rating I thought was phenomenal. I thought to get 778,000 on USA on a delayed game, 'em on Easter. I, I mean, I thought that was tremendous. The 2 68 is concerning. Um, you know, because we are not gonna remember, you know, we will, but the vast majority of people won't remember it when the rule, you know, the, the history of books are written about this. Like, well, you know, that game was gonna be on Sunday and then they got postponed and da, da, like people are gonna see 2 68, Monday night and they're gonna be like, well, see like major ratings drop. I'll be curious to see what the ratings look like this weekend. What did you make any takeaways of the ratings from week one? So definitely it was Uber pumped that first, what was it? 3.5, um, USA, same thing. The fact that they got pretty close to a million really impressive. Cuz I had to cause I used that as my, my gym, my gym game. So I went to the gym to watch the game cause they, I, cause they had it on the gym television cuz I have Fox sports. I got peacock. It's a lot easier to have, uh, to watch those games a lot more accessible. So the fact that not only did you have the delay, but then you also watched the game along and relatively sloppy game between the gamblers and the Panthers and then someone and then you continued to stay on. It's a good time. Uh, I would be pretty satisfied with that if I was in the box office or excuse me in the management office, the, that Monday night game though was uh, very, very disturbing. Um, I don't watch much cable TV, so I don't know what the, what law and order is dominating the, uh, is dominating the, uh, the people's televisions. But I do know that I was hoping to see at least like 500 to a million or 500,000 to a million. Cause what else do you got going on? You know, on a Monday night, but obviously people had other things going on. So it's disappointing. It was, that was definitely like, I was surprised how many people watch the Panthers game to, to crack that like two point, what was it? 2.6? You said 2.5. Uh, the, the NBC one have like 2.13, I think for that. Yeah, the early I was, that was impressive too. I mean, I think for Sunday afternoon, like I think that was great. That was the most impressive one to me. Like I, I, you know, everyone's gonna watch the first game and it's gonna be awesome, but uh, you know, two, 2.1 for, you know, on Easter after church type stuff, very, you know, it, it bodes well to an extent, but you can, you, you can take numbers and you can spin 'em however you want. Right. Well, I just, the one thing I hate and I didn't want, I didn't, I didn't dare tweet anything because I knew I was gonna get crap for it when they came out and they said the NBC game was the highest early Sunday sports window in April. And I was like, I am the tallest wedding videographer named reading Seattle. Like, I mean, that is not like it's I like you don't need that. That's my point. And I wasn't gonna tweet anything cuz I don't like they should just be proud of that number. We proud of that number. It's a great, I don't wanna take anything away, but I was like, it's just funny when they, when they rationalize it, I'm like, oh, okay. Like of Sunday in April and did that. It was very specific. I got a, you know, I went into that deep dive on like quarterback statistics for like post 2000 alternative league, uh, stats. And even I had people calling me out and they were like, well, you didn't include the European like league stats. And I was like, dude, come on. I'm just, I went down a deep dive of players. We know, I, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't care about these other guys who like play at the university of Troy for a year and then went and finished in, you know, some college in Germany and place where the hamburgs now man, come on, like, can't do this to me. So people will, if people would've went out of control, if you, if you, uh, tweeted something out, cuz I was, I was a bad guy cuz I didn't know how many touchdowns Brian got through in 2018 in the spring league. Yeah. It's it's in uh, so we, you know, so we we've pizza gate, nothing really up on that. I reached out to Debbie and Smith. Didn't hear back about, you know, I just was curious, like not to get him on the show, just like, Hey, are, you know, are you going to FCF? Have they worked with you with the USFL? Like I was just kind of curious, you know, lifestyle wise that way we got the chip thing. Talk that, so let's look at, let's look ahead at week two, I wanna get an XFL stuff, but uh, week two, see, uh, us L we had the Friday night slot USA, Panthers generals, Saturday doubleheader noon. Eastern is the Mallers that hopefully this is a win for the stars with the picking on the stars, stallions taken on the gamblers. We're gonna see like, oh, we're gonna get 15,000 again. We'll see. And then the Sunday weird times for a Sunday afternoon, 3:00 PM. So noon Pacific, uh, breakers, bandits, which of those four games are you looking most forward to? Um, so I am a Panthers guy, but there's something in each one of those. And this is kinda a cop out answer what I'll say. There's something in each one of these games that intrigue me. Um, no disrespect to Deandre Johnson, but I, I don't wanna say he lost the game, but I think Mike Riley's play calling lost the game. I have no problem with Deandre Johnson taking 20 consecutive snaps, but do have a problem. Is him not throwing the ball for 24 consecutive snaps. If he's gonna be your quarterback, let him actually throw the ball once in a while, unless you're running a read option, then it's, that's how your offense is. I'm not ignorant to that. So that's kind of my thing on the generals in general, uh, the generals and, uh, Panthers and Panthers coming up and I'm also really intrigued to see like how are the second, that second half Panthers team look pretty good? Um, she Paterson did a really good Johnny Manzel impression of the offense line of the Panthers looks terrible and that's not even talking about, um, the Senator, the Senator stop, Sean Paul. Uh, so that's something else going on. Um, you know, the tou versus is, uh, Tom versus Kyle slaughter, which those two guys are my top two QBs in the league. I'm really curious about that. Slaughter kind of disappointed me a little bit. Um, because overall I think he has the most experience at a professional level between the traveling on the practice squads, their teams and his preseason work, which he's thrown like 13 touchdowns or something like that in, in the pre-season. So, and tou obviously is a recognized, not only does he have NFL camp experience and practice squad experience, but he also has his experience in the XFL. So he does have reps under his belt and he's got pre-season experience. So that probably would be off for the offensive output. What I'm looking for. I'd like to see a 35, 20, 28, 35 game, um, you know, just cuz it's, I think it's good. It's a good optic to see the, you know, high flying offenses and whatnot. You, the breakers bandits. They, they need the ball. Yeah. Yeah. I think I spent actually, because I think a lot of people do hold slather in a high regard and a lot of people think Tama is in a high regard cause, and those two guys to me, if they have a good camp or excuse me, a good season, they're back in the NFL. Like those two guys, like people like I, I could under, especially with a week 20, 22 QB class, I think there are people who are looking at those two guys that are like, yeah, these are people that we have an eye on. These are our shortlist guys. I never get that in the NFL. Like, okay, we're, we're signing your biscuit again. Or we're we're going with even like jamas. I mean, God bless him. Like some I'm like let's give a TEU and, and pay him 4 million and just see what you can do with it. I mean, even with Heineke like Washington didn't fall apart because Heineke Washington fell apart because of a lot of other things that were happening there. Like, I mean, was he not, I wouldn't say he was the most amazing solution for them, but I thought for the money they saved, they could have spent otherwise. I mean, that's what CE is doing in the CFO right now. I mean, I'm incredibly intrigued to see what BC Alliance are doing this year. Cuz they have a quarterback that's cost them like $45,000. So they can spend $250,000 on the wide receiver, but I just never get why they don't like TEU and them, they don't get more looks and some of these like retread guys, And I think I talked about that when, uh, we were talking about adding the XFL, if like both of the, because I do think at next year they will, I think the USFL is coming back. I like, I just think there is enough money put aside that they will, they will come back. I think the piggy bank is good to go. And obviously the X is talked about having bigger rosters. And that was my big thing is like who, who are the, who are the 24 quarterbacks that you can name like that? Like, and then, you know, we, we have a little debate in the group chat and you know, all friendly stuff, but it's like, you know this at some point I, because that was my concern. I think the XFL is gonna go more for the reread guy versus the us, which went with the spring league and more semi unknown, like one or two weeks on a practice squad type thing. I think you're gonna run. I think you're gonna run out of credible QBs here really quick. When you have, you know, two, a piece SFL, two a piece X, I mean I even FCF, I mean, FC It'd be free and if, if they're doing 70 man rosters cutting it down at 50, they'll go three quarterbacks deep for an 18 league. That's 24 guys. Yep. Like It's a lot, uh, question before we move on from us. L how did you think Bryan Scott looked? I had my fanboy eyes on the stars. How did you think Bryan competed on, uh, last Saturday or Sunday? Whatever that was. I love the fact that, uh, Bart threw the ball. Um, I think at like some point, like I think there were 24 to three plays at some point, um, with stars having all those plays been granted, there was the, the turnover and whatnot, but I just, I think he's just getting used to it. Like this is probably a highest level of competition he's played, you know, and nothing against people in the spring league, but now it's time for him to kind, I think he's been a little bit of a big fish in a small pond to an extent. And now that he's kind of getting, you know, he's around players who have played in the NFL and the closest thing he's gone to the NFL is probably being a quarterback, come in and throw and throw routes to a wide receiver who they're actually looking at. You know? So I'm, I think it's a learning curve with a lot of these guys. Um, I'm glad you gotta touchdown. I'm glad they let 'em throw the ball. Um, but you know, let's, let's keep opening it up personally, personally it's and a lot of things too is like these out routes for a lot of these quarterbacks. It's a hard route to throw as well. So that kind of takes away part of the field. So, and he's a little bit shorter, I believe. Right? He's not like the tallest guy either. He's timing. Yeah. So it's like they gotta, you know, roll, moving him around and whatnot. So, but if anyone's gonna do it, bar's gonna do it. They have that repertoire. Obviously a lot of people are high on the stars because of the, um, the history that they have together. So I am pretty, pretty excited to see if they actually do open it up and whatnot. Uh, final note on us, L I, I did watch, uh, I need to finish tonight. I watch the majority of the United by football. The one thing I really liked about that, and, and I'm not a hard knocked guy. I mean, I watch NFL all just, I don't watch a lot besides the games, but I thought when they showed all the coaches addressing and doing all the different, like intro meetings and they cut back and forth, I mean, there was a really long, it was like eight minutes or whatever. Yeah. And I thought it was so cool. Cuz you got to see how different all the coaches were and like you had Bart there and he goes, I'm not gonna yell at you. Like I'm a teacher, you can't yell at someone to fix, you know, if, if you're making a mistake, yelling at you, isn't gonna fix that. Then you saw Kirby, Wilson like screaming like a mad man. And I you're, I here, you know, and then you have like Jeff Fisher, Hey, I'm kind of cool. I'm Jeff Fisher like, well, I just thought it was really neat. Kind of got you in the head of all those different people. Like I tremendous, I guess I didn't really even talk about it on the, on the livestream we did. Like I thought that was tremendous getting to know some of the players getting to know like chase and Brian and all that, but then especially the coaches cuz like you don't get much of them. And I haven't felt like we've got as much of them on the field as we did with the XFL, with like the, you know, Winston MOS yelling at people or whatever. I mean I think Outside of Kirby, Wilson, a lot of these guys don't have much to prove and even Kirby Wilson really doesn't have much to prove as a football co I think maybe he might, he might, the cameras might be making him kind of maybe, and I don't know this man, so I'm, I'm speaking from the head. You're fine. But um, I mean like Todd, Haley's got a ring, I'm pretty sure with the Steelers and whatnot and you know, he, I think he had opportunities to be a head coach and he chose to be an offensive coordinator. It's Kevin, someone's had six status in college. I know, I know Paul, Paul will reboot that, but it's re in reality, you know, Kevin, someone, statistically, isn't a terrible head coach, Jeff Fisher, he can go seven and nine, all he wants, but he still managed to make a 22 year career. Uh, you see the thing with Mike Riley and his wife, you can tell that football while football is really important thing in his life, um, as we've seen what, you know, Dwayne Haskins and whatnot, it's a very small part of life and it humanizes these guys a lot. So, you know, Bart having his approach and I did, I love, and I did love that. Like he was like, I'm a teacher, I'm, I'm building young men. Like I'm here to mentor human and beings. That's when the rock can come out and say, it's like, we're the league of the people, all that goofy, you know, all that rah stuff. And I, I have nothing against the rock either, but like, I mean the us L yeah, they had a slip up with this chicken salad pizza thing, but I've seen no one else, you know, come at any of these other coaches like that. And that speech by speech by Jeff Fisher, you know, was pretty rad during halftime. He's like we were, we were beating ourselves. It just felt, you know, in the locker room and whatnot. So, and you know, I do know someone who used to work with Jeff Fisher and what you're seeing on television is pretty, uh, is pretty real to who he is. And I think he was also with the hard knocks as well, moving the franchise. Uh, he's done that twice. That kind of makes positive, uh, you know, give him kudos for that. Well, so he's been on the hard knobs and so he's kind of a professional of this. I, I, yeah, I thought it was good. I thought, um, I, I feel like, you know, us L like I said, had a lot of missteps this week, you know, the pizza get all that. I think they announced that the press conferences are gonna be available to all the media via zoom. You can, you know, download them log in like little things like that are going a really long way. They, you know, the United by football is good. I, I just gotta be careful. I think this week to round out the USFL discussion, I think that this week is the week to watch. I wanna see what all the TV ratings do with all the games happening that they're regularly scheduled, announced times. I wanna see what Birmingham to us with attendance when it's not the kickoff game that was been promoted for six months. Those are the things I'm looking for. Anything else on that? I wanna get your talk on XFL and then we'll do the QB. Uh, no, I obviously, um, the only thing I'll really disagree with you on is every week will be a big week. Um, cuz these leagues are semi scrutinized and kind of like fighting for supremacy and whatnot. So, you know, and just the, all these all spring football leagues and people want this league to fail. I feel like in a weird way, like Ian, what was it? Ian Rappaport gets on. He's like, oh, there was a football game this weekend. It's like, you Hate Ian. I hate SMU. I more than Anything that to me revealed so much about that man's character. Cause it's, and I, and we'll probably talk about this with the XFO as well, but like, if you want this league to fail, that's fine. But like people are out of work, like, like, you know, and you know, it's just kind of, I don't wanna say it hits a because I never a professional football player or anything, but I've seen people who, you know, and this, it goes into, even my article was like, these guys are stacking these paychecks together at hopes to either a, that this thing will last for a couple years or B that they get to the league. So when he wants to come up like that, it's like, especially in today's society, we're very sensitive towards like what's going on and are worth and whatnot. It's like, dude, you're literally just kind of, there's hundreds of people whose livelihoods rely on this to work. So not everyone can just sit from their ivory tower and get a text message about Deshaun Watson contract or something like that. No, I don't want anything to fail. I just don't want these leagues to make easy misses. That's when I get critical and people like, I don't, you know, like this XFL logo thing, like the us L with the chip or whatever, like, I, I don't just don't want them to make dumb mistakes. Like you have, you have the world's act against you. That is why we're critical about these. The only thing I really don't like is a lot of the time is fan control football, not all the time, but some of the time I don't like, oh my God, we, I can't, we can't cause segue to, but, um, that is my thing. I just don't want them to make easy errors. You know, let's no, no unfor errors here. You got the world against you. Uh, moving the XL. I, we can't, we've been on so long, but I wanna get your thoughts on this, uh, XFL to Texas. That's the big news today. We're, you know, it seems to be transitioning away from a hub, more of just like, you know, the, the home where the XFL is going to be with three teams there. We don't know if we're gonna be flying teams into the stadiums and back, or just doing training camps and things in Texas. What do you think about that? So I don't, I don't, and I've gone back and forth with, uh, Mike Mitchell about this is I, I, I'm not pro hub for the fact of everything staying in one thing I'm pro hub, because I think it guarantees a season. And because we haven't gotten through a season in 2019 and 2020, if we can limp our way to the end end zone and make sure that all these players are air quote, doing the right thing and that are showing up for the games. And we're, God forbid, if you know, some other disease comes up and we're able to semi neutralize and keep the league going. And obviously like kind of contradict myself cause you know, football, when terrible things happen and football isn't the priority. But you know, if we're able to kind of keep the ship afloat, it creates that hunger for that next season. And everyone's like, you know, I did like watching the Panthers in Alabama, I can get a $15 ticket to go do Pontiac state or Ford field. And then I'm, you know, I'm, I'm in, I'll get season tickets. I don't care. So kind of creates that hunger, Texas, you can kind of get away with it because you have, you know, I, 35 we'll take you to San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. So you know, all within several hours of each other. So it kind of Texas is a good place to maybe do a stadium in Dallas, maybe do a stadium in San Antonio and you know, it's a hub, but it's not really a hub. So it gets, and, and you know, you get UT UT obviously in Austin and Austin being a school city, it's like, yeah, you wanna go drive 45 minutes to San Antonio and watch a football game, 15 bucks type thing. Like, I think there's a lot of benefits to that as well. I think the ideal, if you want the easiest thing to appease the most people and save the most money, uh, hub in, in Dallas or San Antonio, and then a hub in St. Louis, you know, then you're only dealing with two stadium leases. You can fly the people around if you don't wanna fly, 'em do the interdivisional stuff like the spring league did for a while. Uh, I, you know, there's a lot more logistics there, right? Cause then you are flying people. You know, if you need to move people around, it is more expensive. But I think that at least is a little sexier and a little better. And you're gonna get that for whatever, you know, St Louis, you, you, that you have to keep them in mind when you're doing all this. Cause that is like a beast over there in the east that like, you gotta feed them and you gotta make sure they're happy When people talk about St. Louis and they talk about the lack of football, like this is like beast people want, I still see battle Hawk. Uh, t-shirts going around sweatshirts, all that goofy stuff. The Edward Jonestown is not a convention center. Like there needs to be sports in there. And it's for like St. Louis needs that football team. Like once the blues, once hockey, season's done depending, you know, people have the Cardinals and whatnot, but you know, there there's stuff that can be done here, especially the football cuz everyone's really upset about clunky and paving. And now they're really upset. The Rams won. So it's like they need football. And if you give them four teams at a minimum, if you want to do a divisional hub and you give them four teams, the fanboy over the city will go nuts. And the thing is too is you're not too far from Chicago. You're not too far from Iowa. St. Louis has a lot of people within an hour east or east, Northwest and south that will come to these games. It's always a joke here in St. Louis. Oh, I'm from St. Louis and like major cities as well. Well, where, where are you actually from? And they're like an hour west that's helped big the St. Louis market is, and then you got people in Kansas city that will drive three hours to come watch football too. Especially if you have like a former chief that's if you know, um, you know, Shane Bouch Shelly, who's the back one of the backups, like we talked about in the group, if he came to Missouri and you know, he's got a little bit of a following now in, in Casey, watch him play. If he was a battle off quarterback, they bring back to which I don't think they will, if the us keeps going obviously, but will fanboy. It feels. And if I don't know, it feels easier to get to Birmingham is a tricky spot to get to like, yeah. And that's the one thing, you know, people talk a lot about, oh, they're, you know, they're gonna travel into the us. We're gonna do all this. Like, you know, we flew to Nashville, drove down Birmingham. There's not a lot of direct flights. You gotta fly to Atlanta and then drive in. There's just, it's not as accessible as, as you would think of like, oh, we'll just, everyone's gonna travel in. I mean, we spend a lot of money and stay staying at the hotels and stuff. Like there's not a lot to do in Birmingham except for the, the football. Like we were there three nights. And I mean, thank God there wasn't more cuz I was running short of stuff to entertain my wife with. So, you know, it's just, I, I think if you were in the San Antonio and the Dallas and the St Louis, you would be a little bit better of that. Uh, you know, the coaches and stuff that all came up before. I don't wanna retread all that with, but any other big takeaways with the XFL right now? You said you were a little sour on it at the top. You don't wanna hate on it too much. I don't, I don't, like I said, I don't, I don't like hating on the league because when you hate on the league, you're hating on Anthony. You're hating on Anthony back. You're hat on Buckley. You're, you're hating on Reggie Barlow. You're hating on guys with an amazing opportunity to show that they can actually be productive members in football. So when people start hating on the league and, and like, oh, this league's a joke or there's a football game. It's like, Hey yeah. Some guy's been working his tail off to go show that he deserves to be on television and you don't even care. And you're an air quote. Like I did, I did appreciate the 2020 for the love of football, like logo cause or mantra. Cause yeah, it was for the love of football. Cause guess what? Like why was the Landry Jones out there? Like he's second round pick, you know, or excuse me, third round pick, you know, from the university of Oklahoma at that point been in the league five or six years probably has a little bit of money in his pocket. Like why was he out there? Cause he loves football. Cause he he's never gonna be a starter. He's never gonna be anything, but he's there because he probably likes playing football and he likes, he doesn't know what else he wants to do with his life. So he is like, well, I'm good at this. I like doing this. I'm gonna play some football. There's a lot of guys like that. So when I heard those rumblings of kind of like the XFL, trying to like under undercut the USFL a little bit, it's like, ah, guy, like, you know, you're, you're talking about, was it 45 man rosters times eight, almost 300 people's 300 players, livelihoods, not including coaches and all that goofy stuff. I, I think that for the love of football was a better mantra than tomorrow's league today or whatever the hell it is now. I think like that is I would, if I could workshop that better, I think for the love of football is a lot more straightforward than like we're combining league and culture and it's the X, it's the intersection of everything that you've ever cared about. Like I think when you have to send out a press release along with your logo to explain like, well, and then the landed lines, like that means because like we are all from different walks of life, like whatever the hell that was like a two page thing about like this was, and then the, the font face we used this I'm like, you thought too much about this for the love of football. Okay. We're in. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, I don't know, you know, in today's today's age, I guess everyone wants to make a statement and it's like, you can be pretty open. It's like, yeah, we like football. This could prop us and we can give people an opportunity. Just be real with me. Like I don't need the intersections of your life. Yeah. Are you gonna go to the left or to the right? And it's like, I don't, I don't know, man. I'm just, I have free time on Saturday and St. Louis has a football team again. And I appreciate that. That's that's the intersection of my life. Maybe, Uh, Maybe I'm spoiled, you know, I, you know, I'm spoiled. So what, what, what can I say? I'm sorry. Uh, before we let you go, I wanna talk. So you did the, uh, the quarterback. I can't remember what we ended up calling it like quarterback salaries, as it relates to alternative football. Uh, you put a lot of work into this, talk me through the inspiration behind this and what went into this article. So I was, when you see some of these guys, um, I was talking, I was talking specifically, I think it was about pack and Lynch, right. It was like, why is ply wanna play football? So that was part of it. And then another part of it was Tom Brady unretiring. And I think I said in the group I was like, well, that's four people's lives that are just different now. Like someone was like, yeah, what do you mean? It's like, well, Kyle doesn't have an opportunity to be a starter now. Right? So he goes on the back burn and it's like, they're for string guy, Ryan Griffin, are they gonna bring him back now? Or because, or they gonna, you know, so they, you know, Ryan Griffin ended up getting signed. So that's another practice squad, like seventh round on draft, free agent that doesn't come so of by Tom Brady, not retiring. It affects four other people's lives from other more. And you know, maybe this is a very, very minute fact, but it's the reality of it. So with these alternative leagues, like now you get the showcase, your skills and all that stuff, and you'll have the opportunity to obviously make more money, but also buy the living team, not only yourself, the family, but then it also goes back and we've seen these stats all the time. It's like Mike Glennon has made $17,000 for every pass piece. I'm originally from New York. I watch giants games all the time. I do like the giants I's fan, but I like the giants. I don't like seeing Mike on the field. And, you know, last year when he was with the Jaguars, I'm glad he, he got another opportunity post his time with the bears, um, to show if he could play in this league. And I saw a player who was not that good anymore, and I'm not this big Jake from guy, but Jake fr why was he taking reps from Jake fr why was he taking reps from Brian? Luer why was he taking reps from clay? Th like, I don't think clay Thorman to start, but I know who Mike Cleon is. So it was talking about kind of the economics of that and the trickle down effects. And, you know, also I'm a big numbers guy as well. Um, so it was cool to see like how much money, like Ken, you bought here played two weeks this year and make $45,000. And it's like, okay, now you start thinking out that kid he's 22 years old. It's like, how does he live at home? Like he starts getting a little bit personal. It's like, does he have a kid? I don't know this guy, you know, Jordan, Tom is the, one of the stars of the us L and he's only made Eric won of the stars of all league football. And he's made about 150 grand in three years, you know, not including his EXL paychecks. Cause I can't, I can't find those records and I think it's messed up of and whatnot. So, you know, it was to see a 11, there was 111 quarterbacks who were on a roster during a regular season this year. So it's, it's just a weird, deep dive for me personally. Well, it's interesting. And like, you know, you have obviously has like Brian, Scott, I think you had, you know, hasn't made any money. Right. Cuz he, and you're like, yeah, these are guys. Then there are like, I don't know how they're financing, you know, working and, and what do you, you know, because he's like training and you're posting these things. I mean, that's the thing with these alt guys, you know, we talk CFO all the time and guys having jobs outside of, you know, the, the summer with the CFO, it's the same with this, you know? And like Ernesto, that's been on the show, Laka, you know, he's in the arena leagues and like, you know, he he's working. And I mean, I remember I had to have him come on a podcast and he was like, oh, you know, they gotta call me into work. Cuz I, you know, he's like I told him, I couldn't cuz I had to do the podcast and it's like, you know, these guys have real lives. And then they're trying to, you know, still struggle to train, to be professional athletes and then go out and compete. Like I don't, I don't can't wrap my mind around that. I wanted to put those numbers out there. You, because they're not the most hardest thing to find, but it does take a little bit of effort like, and I I'm hoping that some of your listeners could kind of, you know, maybe who are, I don't wanna say anti S L but not as, not as a pro SFL and waiting for the XFL to come. It's like maybe the talent of some of these guys like this, all this all gets filtered out at some point as far as like rising to the crop. And if these leagues do sustain, eventually we will have 30, uh, 32 actual quarterbacks, professional level quarterbacks in the NFL and then we'll have eight professional level quarterbacks in the, and then so on to the us L and then so on to the, uh, the XFL, if in a perfect world, this is that's how everything rolls out. But at the same time, it's like, I do want like Louis Perez has made $15,000 in, in the NFL between all his camps and whatnot. And he's, uh, from what I and university loved by the cult of spring football. So, I mean, I just, I just think it puts it in perspective. Like you're saying it's like this, guy's probably teaching some random kid how to throw, throw passes. And a lot of these guys will throw at the pro days and whatnot as well. And you're wondering if they get paid during that. So you, it's definitely fascinating to me. That's hard. Yeah. I mean then that's what I just to round this conversation that like, you know, anti any of these leagues, it's the same with the CFL. Like if you got love for the guys that are involved in the XFL or the USFL, it's the same thing. I, Jake, uh, Wendy Keon, like two weeks ago, you know, he's talking about substitute teaching kids and teaching people E classes in the off season and get ready to go up and train like, this is, you know, these are not the leagues to like <laugh>, uh, And he's not a family too. Like he's, he's got a child like a pretty young kid as well. So it's like, you know, That's why I, you know, yeah. You can criticize the leagues, don't criticize the players. Uh, pat, I really appreciate it. A deep dive today. We'll get you back on, you know, we're gonna have to rotate because we're gonna, I gotta rely on a lot of you guys this year with all the USFL, everything to do a lot of this. So I appreciate it. I I'm sad. We couldn't get you in Birmingham, but I think this was a good treat. I appreciate it. Yeah. And no, it definitely, definitely a little heartbroken. I wasn't there for game one, but, um, you know, I'm definitely looking forward. I'll probably go to Ohio since it's a little bit closer to me, a little bit easier to get to. And, um, you know, if I need, need to be the guy on the ground for us in Ohio, I will, uh, make that sacrifice. But, uh, you know, until then just glad to be talking glad that we have football and you know, grateful to be on the show to talk about regardless and on April 21st. I appreciate your time. Thanks. Well, I'm thrilled today. We're continuing our ours, uh, media coverage here. We have Davis, how are you doing today? Uh, man, I'm blessed, man. I woke up this morning. It's a nice Sunday day out here in LA, so I can't complain. Yeah, you're traveling now. What are you doing down in the state? Uh, man, I'm obviously besides traveling, training, spending a lot of time with the family. Uh, is that where you guys are based out of, Uh, in Texas? Yes, I live, um, I live in Houston. Uh, that's good. And so, uh, getting back, getting ready for the season this year. I've thoughts heading into the season. Excitement. Are you, are you motivated? Well, what is your what's kind of on your mind right now? Um, for me, like I was just telling a couple of my friends here that I'm starting to get that itch again. So that's how I know is getting about that time. Kick football back off. I mean, I'm excited just to one play the game. I love two I'm know I'm going with new team, but it's a lot of familiar face. Like my head coach de coordinated DBS coach and a lot of the players there as well. So it's like, um, you know what I'm saying? A new, a new stepping stone, a new journey, so to speak. So I'm excited to see what, um, what we can do. Yeah. Going from, uh, Hamilton to Toronto. Do you get, you know, set for rivalry there? Do you get, I mean, fans, players, I mean, do you get a lot of crap for that? Oh, absolutely. I still get crap for it. Right. First I had to Hamilton tiger, like hands down with some of the best I ever had the opportunity to play for and uh, put on a black and gold and I everybody. So to time I get back to just telling how I made the wrong decision and how I'm supposed to still be a tie cafe. So it's good, man. As I know, I was loved and hated all at the same time, Uh, motivations to go to Toronto. What led you to that decision? Um, one, like I said, it was, um, a lot of familiar face though, though my coordinator and then the potential business opportunities was days You talking potential business, you talking, uh, payday, right? Oh, no. I'm talking about, um, like them helping me branch my brand, like push my apparel, selling my shoes and stuff like that. Just getting it on the big market. Uh, talk about that. What are you looking to do outside of football? Oh man. Um, I have so much going on, but as far as like the piggy back, what I was just saying have my like brand or JG logo, meaning just go name it, shirt, shoes, uh, workout types, men and females, uh, undergarments, um, about to actually drop aour like designer where wore the whatnot. And I have, um, what, four least four pair shoes right now, um, working on my fifth one, but I'm probably gonna drop start football season. So as branching that is getting that out there for people to understand, like it's not secluded just for athletes, it's for everybody. Um, um, everyday people who get up and just go, regardless of what they got going on in their life, they figure out a way to get it up. Where does the motivation and, and knowledge to do all that stuff outside of football come from? Um, like me and my cousin had said down like, like when I first came out, college was like, man, we wanna start something. Doesn't just know what I'm saying, shows you in a football life. But outside of football, like it's like, we're more than just football players. We're more than just athletes. And more times my people on the see us and that athlete, they see us on the football field, us on the basketball court, the track on the tennis court. So they, they never really understand the type of person we are side of that. And for me, I'm definitely night and day for what I do on the football field to where I am I, the football field. So just being able to shine, like show people that we're actually normal people, just like everybody else. Uh, when you say you're night and day, what you mean, cuz you're, you're looked at as vicious on the field and, and, and not, and more, I mean, what is that night day? Yeah, like, um, everybody said, feel I'm a giant field. Like they'll never expect I play football. And then when they actually see me play football, they'll never, they always, they don't like they the same person. So it's always funny. It's like for me, it's a switch. So <laugh>, it's something I have fun playing with. Uh, so going to Toronto, bigger market excitement that way are you, you know, all of this isn't made, right. You know, Toronto, it's a big city trying to get the fans involved. Right. Trying to get the CFO fans. Where do you, where do you fall on that? And trying to get more CFO in, in Toronto love? Um, just making it fun again. I mean, on it's Toronto, so it's humongous market. I mean they battling with the Raptors, the blue on the maple league. I mean just the city in Toronto along, it's always stuff to do. So getting them that excited about wanting to come out 10 football games and just being in that, that type of atmosphere is all those things you saying, you don't get everything is like me coming from Texas, going to football is God in Texas. So knowing what that atmosphere is and what it's like to, to grow up in that type of atmosphere is something that once everybody should be able to experience at least once and get bringing that atmosphere to Toronto, like I said, it's a big city, one of the biggest, um, Metro populated cities in Canada. So it's more than enough people who love to get their experience now while not having in Toronto. Well, that's been made recently, you know, we're talking CFO off season and moving around the hash marks and moving around the, you know, the, the downside, all this kind of craziness about all that. I mean, what's your thoughts on the CFO game? What do you like about it? Are, are there things you would change or what do you make of all this? You know, online chatter? Um, honestly the CFO, I like it. I mean, it's one of those things is we don't know. It's like, uh, what's going on. Like it's too many different dynamics and, but you actually sit down and know what I'm saying, just make it plain. The simple, it's still basic football. And like only thing I would probably, I would like to see change is probably to yard off the ball. But at the same time I get it. Cause it's an offensive base league. So, and way if I wanna see if I wanna see points or I would see balls being flunk, flunk around. So I mean, I really wouldn't change nothing. I mean, I just won't, like I said, the biggest thing I said, they should change about the, is how they promote it. Like it's at least almost half players or superstars are from the states, but you don't really see know I'm saying commercial, you know what I'm saying? Billboards growing up about them promoting the, in the states, like I said, I'm from, I'm from Texas, Texas love football year round, but you don't hear nothing about the like has an untapped market in the states when well, when season starts, it's in June ends in November. So for roughly two and a half months, you're not competing with nobody. You, I, so it's easy to get those TVs, get those, get those viewers football is one of the America's greatest pass time sports besides baseball, I sport. But it's, it's one of those things it's it's too, it's so easy to be done. They just won't do it. Why? I don't know, but the can be 10 times bigger than what its now they actually take the opportunity to try to do so. Why you, you said you, why? I don't know, but I mean, what would you, what do you think? Is it, is it because it's certainly not lack of knowing that things need to be done? Um, honestly like C is based off old money. And like when we, we used to old things a certain way change, a lot of people don't like change and for it to grow, adapt to what it potentially could be. A lot of change would have to happen. And I don't think like I'm saying before fathers and people that have has it a certain way, they don't wanna change that and they're not going, cause this is like change scares everybody and everybody's not can, don't really know how to adapt to change and the, in the proper manner on handle change. So they rather leave, leave things as they are. And know what I'm saying, worry about mix stuff up and going. You know what I'm saying? Shaking things up a little bit. I mean, which unfortunately is gonna be, is gonna have to happen eventually. Cause every day things are changed. Everything. People are growing, everything, people everything's adapting, especially with how social media is just taking the worry by storm. It's too easy for you to do a minor adjustment and it would go a long way. Just I'm saying you have to accept it and do it. So, and that's the thing and I don't want the, to get caught up in know I'm saying getting left in the cause like I said, thess, like it's like the big brother, but you got all these new constantly popping up, got the coming back next year. I know the rock. Do things with that for the, he doesn't his name behind, nothing's not gonna be know, I'm saying prosperous. You got, um, got all these, all these, they trying to build football over in Europe. So my thing is causes one of the oldest sports football leagues besides the NFL, y'all gotta capitalize on their opportunity. Cause like, if you don't, you gonna get left behind. You don't wanna go from to last and you, once you basic history and the CFO has been around too long and too big of opportunity for them to maximize it for them not to do so. So it's interesting, you know, cuz a lot has always made CFO, increasing Canadian viewers, right? Getting more Canadian viewers, but you're wanting to see more expansion and not expansions, right? Where, but more exposure in the states to try to tap into that market more as well. Mm-hmm <affirmative> cause that's the thing like unfortunately, unless people in the states unless die hard football fans or they have somebody that know somebody that plays in the most, people don't know about the C most people don't even know the C exists. And it's crazy for when, when you speak about how long the C has been around. So it's, it's one of those things where why not do it when, like I said, it is, it is free. Like, like I said, I live in, I live in Texas know full by in the south period is football and California football, just all over the world. Just everybody loves football. So why not take advantage of the opportunity when you have it? Yeah. I just, you know, we covered, like I said, we just got back from the USFL kickoff and you know, I, I guarantee any CFL game I watched last year for the most part equal to other than any of the games that we saw over the weekend with the USFL and, and you know, part of that is they had to really reduce training camps and get ready to go whatever. But you know, people are wanting quality of play. I think the CFL ahead and shoulders is above, you know, a wide Mar margin of what we saw over the weekend by far. I think people would agree. Yeah. So it, like I said, and then on top of a lot of guys wanna say, kinda get lost in the shelter. Cause there's still a lot of prominent guys used to play in the NFL or play at these big universities and getting up, going on the, making a long career up there. But long time, a lot of times people don't know about it cause they don't publicize about, um, unless they school mention it, then it does not. So they basically get lost in the watch. Well, I, it certainly worked to be done thoughts, any other thoughts heading into the season? I mean, I know we're excited, you know, getting into Toronto, making a, made it run last year, you know, uh, bringing in joining the team that way. Any other thoughts on the actual C season ended up coming? Um, I expect this to be probably one of the best seasons yet. Um, we saw a lot of movement and know what I'm saying, no signs, trades and whatnot. So I think it's gonna be a way more evenly mad season. I mean gonna be a lot of teams that people kinda sleep on this, gonna make a lot of noise. Like I know Otto made some big, big moves in, in our front office end with signing place. Not y'all still gonna be tough. Like I said, Toronto did what they did. Hamilton is Hamilton can never sleep on there. If you go to the west, the west is I always been sitting that's the better division, but I think it would be way more even than match and it has in the past year. So definitely, definitely expect a great season. Upcoming. Do you, uh, last question for me, do you, do you pay attention to that? Cause I talk to some players, I ask 'em about movement on other teams and they say, oh, I don't, you know, head to the right. I'm just focused on what I'm doing me. Are you paying attention to the other team movements and what's going on? Don't I mean, I know it's happening, which for me, I enjoy it. Cause it, what I'm saying makes a better competition. Everybody wants to compete and be the best. So at the end of the day, I want everybody, every team to put their best foot forward. Cause I want plug no, no watch up team or no trash team. Cause then you not gonna get your best. I want everybody that's like everybody know when they step on the field, me, they gonna get, they gonna get my best. So they have to gimme their best or it's not gonna look good. It's it's not gonna be a great showing for them. So I, I, I enjoy it for the simple fact of, I know what, what it brings it comes with. Great competition comes with a great game. I'm saying everybody don't want no lands game, everybody going last, take the game. So when all these going around it's so mouth fluid. Well, I really appreciate your time today. I wish you safe travels and thanks for taking time to talk a little CFOs, uh, CFO. I thought this was a good conversation. Good little, uh, psychoanalyzing, the CFO here a little bit in the off season. So I appreciate it. Uh, no problem, man. I appreciate you just on just a little bit, what's going on in the, the upcoming season and what to look to. Awesome Davis. Thank you so much again, talk soon. I appreciate it, man. Have a great day. Appreciate you me on if y'all wanna see what I, I going on. I www I'll take it up. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'll be promoting it. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. I appreciate it, man. Have a blessing. Huge. Thanks to all of our guests today. I really appreciate Greg coming on. That really is a fanboy moment for me to get to talk with him. Been listening to Greg for a long time. Really appreciate him. We're working with schedules and, and making time today to come on to chat kind of all the breaking XFL news, uh, really appreciate Michael Cohen, busy trademark and IP lawyer out of Beverly Hills. I told Michael, I said, you know, uh, we took off on this journey together. We set sail together. We've took off in the plane together. I don't know if the, uh, Destin, uh, was worthwhile, but I think the journey definitely was. And I wanted to make sure we could land the plane together at least, um, for the time being I'm sure we'll check back in, you know, when they go to trial or discovery or a settlement or kind of any of that stuff. I really appreciate pat, you know, really, like I said, long indepth talk with pat. I think pat is a really thoughtful guy, a great run. And I think it's great when we get to have, uh, like him, Matt Lyons, Andrew Murray, all these talented writers, uh, come on the show cuz you know, it's written word and these guys are so passionate, uh, are so knowledgeable and I really appreciate each and every one of them for stopping on the show and to kind of chat through that. And then Jagar Davis, you know, courtesy of the Argonauts really appreciate them. The team over there for setting that up as always, uh, again like, and subscribe the marque.com/uh, review. If you wanna leave us a review, uh, if you're on apple podcast, all that stuff, feel free to leave us a review. Really appreciate it. Like can subscribe on YouTube, give us over that 2000 mark really trying to hit that. Do our big giveaway. I got a big thing plan for that when we, when we hit it. So, uh, thank you guys all so much for checking out this show and we'll see you next week.

Episode 88 - Live From the USFL Kickoff!

Well, we are live here today with the markcast live in Birmingham, Alabama, outside of, uh, protective stadium here for the us all kickoff. I have Andrew Murray with me from xxl news hub. How are you? I'm fantastic. Reid. Thank you so much for having me here. This is fun. Uh, we're we're in the, in the thick of things here, not too many people here yet. We'll be curious to see kind of what the, what the turnout is, right? What, uh, are, are you expecting the big crowd tonight? Um, you know, kind of, I feel like it's gonna be maybe half full it's. It's sort of ominous with the weather going on and a couple other factors, but I, I would think it's gonna be, at least my guess was 25,000. That that was kind of the number that I had shooting for. I don't know how about you? You know, it, it's weird at Birmingham has been very dead right now. We were out here last night, you know, they have a weird compound here. They have some restaurants and bars, uh, outside the stadium. It's really nice. We had very severe, uh, weather last night. That was not good. Uh, I think with startle people a little bit, lots of rain, lots of thunder overnight, uh, seems to have cleared up today. We're outside. We weren't really sure about that, but it, that might be too much to, to scare some people off. Yeah, it might have, and it really depends on the weather reports and which ones you check, I guess, cuz last night it said it was gonna be thunder lightning all day and so far we've been okay. Uh, and I guess I wanted to preface before we start, uh, this is a probl <laugh> podcast. We have the, the USFL mascot announces. What do you think of blob? What do you think of the Phil star blob? I I've gotten so many different comparisons with him. I've seen Grimmy um, I've seen, uh, gritty the, the Philadelphia flyers guy, but like, uh, what one of my friends said was gritty 0.5 is what he said. Um, I I'm, I haven't quite worn up him. Apparently. He's supposed to be like one form of his star, like a, I camera, a dwarf star or something of that nature. Like it's very, I, I heard that's like one scientific explan explanation. I don't see it though. Personally. <laugh> uh, so I guess to set the stage here, Andrew's gonna be with me for a little while. We're gonna have Mike Mitchell zooming in here in a little bit. Mike Mitchell. I think we're gonna talk a little XFL today. You know, they, we have the coaching announcements. Are they trying to poo on the I'll kickoff? I wanna talk with Mike about that. Uh, we're gonna have Dustin with Royal retros. He was already around, he was handing out, uh, the, uh, rally towels, Dustin with Royal retros, had those coming out. Uh, then we're gonna have Roy S. Johnson from ale.com on Roy's been our big insider here along the way, doing all the protective stadium agreements and everything with the city. Uh, then Mark Perry, uh, chief editor of XFL, new sub CFO, new sub us L new sub, uh, mark is going to be coming on. Uh, we have Ron J Frederick coming on. Ron is a former USFL, uh, Birmingham, uh, wide receiver back in the eight, these, and then Andrew's gonna come back out. I wanna do some calls at the end. So if you guys have calls, if you have comments, we're putting up comments on the stream, but if you have, uh, calls, we're gonna do that near the end of the show. Cause I really wanna make this interactive today as well. What do you think about that? That sounds fantastic. I'm glad that you got so many people to come on, even, you know, virtually or in person. Yeah, Excited. So we're here, we're at the Southern, uh, Southern kitchen and bar here outside of protective stadium. Uh, Andrew, you wanted to give a little background about the city and about the stadium before we get going. Absolutely. So, um, I was very curious as to why Birmingham was referred to as the magic city. Uh, it's a very, a very unusual title, at least for me, uh, for someone who's not versed in all of Southern culture and all of the cities and municipalities and what I found out was so, uh, Reed, you're familiar with Birmingham being a producer of iron, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> the steel city. So apparently the magic terminology comes from the fact that when they were starting their operations here, they discovered that there were three very key elements they used for building iron and forging iron. So it was, it was limestone and, or, and one other, one other element I'm trying to, uh, off the top of my head. I can't quite remember what it is. <laugh> I'm blanking here, but apparently they had the three core elements or coal. That's what it was. So they had the three elements they needed do in order to forge iron, which was very rare to have all three of those re is a readily available is a very rare thing. So that's why they call it the magic city. Cause they have all the magic components. Yeah. It's very Interesting. Oh, it's exciting. Well, this is good. I have, we have a question here, Brandon. And if you guys have comments during the show as well, we'll pop up, uh, some of the rules, uh, us, I, we could talk about this. Andrew was actually on the show with me. Oh, about a month ago. Now when we broke down the us L rule book, uh, they're borrowing a lot of rules from the XFL. They're borrowing a lot of rules from the AAF. Uh, we're gonna see the double forward pass. We'll be able to go for three points on the, uh, you know, the extra, uh, kick, you know, or the extra point after the touch end. Any other rules that you're excited to see today? I'm not sure if we'll see it today, but I really wanna see if any team goes for the fourth down conversion, the, the, uh, the fourth down instead of going through the onsite kick option, because that was something that was in the AAF. So we haven't seen that role in three years now and only a couple times it was used and it was in dire situations. I'm not sure if there's gonna be a team that's like gun ho for going for it after scoring in the middle of the second quarter. But I would be curious to see if we get that one also the kickoff. I wanna see how this kickoff goes because it's moved back. Let's see if, how, how much action there is on the kickoffs. Because obviously that is one of the biggest discussions we have in, in spring league is how kickoffs are enacted. Yeah. I, I like that. It's the AAF, it's the FCF flip the field from fant control football is, is the fourth and 12th, right at your, uh, your opinions on the trophy. They did release the replica or not the, uh, the replica, the actual us trophy here. We saw photos. I saw ed Hartman, right? He's former ex Fox exec. Uh, what did you think of the trophy trophy reveal? If I could speak Well, it's no Stanley up. You can't exactly drink out of it, which I think is kind of the common complaint online. But, um, you know, it's fine. It's, it looks like a knockoff Lamar basically, but you know, it is what it is. I think it's a fine trophy. It's not, it's not a crystal ball or, um, one of those strange trophies we find in college football, for instance. So it's, it's, it does it's job. I think, Uh, here behind us, we have a listener long time listener van and Dorothy, Hey, Dorothy, how's the stream holding up, looking good. They're looking good. I wanna make sure we're doing good here. Uh, Richard, uh, Richard though, for real on this track, have they named the starting quarterback for the generals? You know, we were just pontificating about that before we came on. I think it's Louise press. I'm pretty certain. It is. Uh, just based on pedigree, his experience, uh, his ability to lead teams in different spring leagues. I've seen this guy in person. I saw him play for the Birmingham iron in San Diego. When he came and played there, he, he balled out. He was fantastic. He's he's performed well in, uh, in the AAF, in the XFL, obviously in the spring league last year, led the Jowers to the championship. Uh, I think his, his Bree and his knowledge and his background with spring leagues is just, it speaks to its, um, itself. And I think he's the logical starter, I guess I Would say I, I sure hope so. I saw him, they were doing the giveaways here the other day. Uh, I guess Friday before, uh, I saw he was out meeting people. You, Ben Holmes was the rafted starting quarterback for the generals. He broke his foot, I believe the first, or it was like the first week of, uh, of training camp. So he's down, they sign Louis pres they bring him in, uh, good, you know, former XFL guy, like you said, spring league, someone that knows a system like this is able to come in kind of right away. Yeah. He's very steady. And you know, the, the thing I, I see him as is more of like say a Jimmy Guo or a baker Mayfield. Like he's not gonna, wow, you physically, he doesn't have exceptional tools. I don't believe he pushes the ball down the field that much, uh, from all the games that I've seen him play, but he's very steady. He, he does not make a lot of mistakes. He's very well in control. He keeps the team calm. He really steady the, the New York guardians when he came in, uh, when they were going through a bit of turmoil, one back to back games with them. And he really started to kind of steady them before, um, everything, uh, shut down in the league. So I think he is somebody that you absolutely look for as far as leadership and intangibles, for Sure. Yeah. I'm excited. So we have, you know, we have the generals playing today against Birmingham stallions. We have the three other games tomorrow. Uh, Alex, McGoo starting quarterback for the Birmingham, a big, big spotlight here for both of these quarterbacks. I mean, especially, you know, Louise, you know, XFL was on Fox, right on, you know, ESPN and stuff, huge spotlight for, for a lot of these guys. What do you think about Alex? McGoo? Uh, I like him, I've seen some of his tape from, uh, Florida international. I didn't really see him much when he was in college. Uh, but again, he seems to have kind of a similar, uh, intangible as Perez does. He doesn't have a huge arm. There's nothing about him that sort of wows you, but I think he's very steady. He does have a little more mobility, which might be a factor in this offense, uh, for the Birmingham stallion. And I mean, look, he has a, an opportunity to be a hometown figure. I mean, he is going to be the face of the Birmingham franchise, the marquee franchise here in the league. So for him, I mean, this is a huge opportunity to not only get, um, national notoriety, but also local notoriety as well. Uh, being somebody that this city can sort of, uh, lean into as far as a person that they connect with and an athlete that they can, uh, sort of revel over. Good job. You're doing good. This fun. Yeah. I'm fun. I'm Having a blast. Good. I love, I Love this. Uh, James said, well, we have a pre-game show tonight. So they're airing the first episode of the United by football. That's a hard knock S L that is supposedly the, you know, kickoff year is six 30 local time, seven 30 east. They're playing that at six 30 Eastern, uh, five 30 central. Uh, we are gonna lead you in here till at least 4, 4 30, uh, central time. We're gonna do, like I said, some calls and stuff at the end, we have a lot of guests coming up. So I don't, I don't know if they're doing a traditional pregame show, like you would say, but, but that United by football, I, I know that they wanna have a lot of eyes behind that. That's the NFL crew of films that's been working with the, the us L Yeah. So working directly with NFL films and kind of getting all that documentary footage out there, huge, obviously, as far as the visibility of the league, I have it taped right now, actually on my DVR. So I'm gonna go back and watch it afterwards. Uh, but I think that's really cool that they were able to finally get that level of exposure, whether it's gonna be hard knocks of, of exposure that still remains to be seen. Obviously that's one of the things that they kept talking about, but we'll see, uh, I think, but obviously just to have that access to those resources and technology is really huge. And I'm curious to see what their, their message is or their angle. Well, it leaves a lot of questions because, you know, we've been promised where we're, you know, you get XFL fans, you get USFL fans, you get a lot of these spring league. And there was a lot of, you know, pooing on the USFL. We're we're in a hub city, right? XFL is going to be doing all this behind the scenes access, and we're gonna be having this year long worth of TV shows leading up to the launch. I mean, we're in, uh, April here. I don't have seen any of that for the XFL yet. And now we're hearing reports, Mike Mitchell, who's gonna be on here in a little bit, talking the XFL is, is, uh, contemplating the hub city in, um, Arlington Dallas area. Uh, now that the USFL is bringing them the NFL films crew to do hard knocks, I, I struggled to see, and, and whether they were ideas that were borrowed or thought on their own, I just struggl see what the XFL is gonna bring now with a lot of these things replicating what presumably is going to be a successful launch with the USFL. Yeah. So like, what's their ramp up to it, right? Like what kind of information are we gonna get from the outset? And also just philosophically it's, it's such a change of pace, right? I mean, the USFL, I understand from the standpoint of Brian Woods, his, his vision and what he did in the, in the spring league, it was a similar concept playing a hub city, have teams assigned, but they didn't even have city names assigned originally, but just sort of the slow buildup, as opposed to the XFL, which, you know, I mean, at least the last version we saw been there, done that they had all the cities, they had all the communities, they had obviously the Seattle community with the dragons. Um, they just had kind of a different way of attacking it. And I'm not exactly sure what difference it is. It's gonna be with them in the hub city. And what happens through this iteration of the hub city? Like what, what happens if they see this and it, for whatever reason, maybe it doesn't go as well as they thought it would. And then maybe they start to reconsider it. I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure whether they got the idea or borrowed the idea, like you said, It's tough. Like I said, there's been so much criticism, you know, curiosity about this SFL will this work now, you know, presumably today, like I said, we're, you know, kick off here, uh, even at the inclement weather and everything else, uh, you know, they've done what they've set out to do. The us L has done what they've set out to do so far. And a lot of the criticisms, like I said, against the XFL, it didn't really seem to matter. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So now what is the XFL gonna do next year? We have some comments, Jenna, long time listener, Jenna drop the hammer. We're excited. Uh, van sit here walking by the background. Uh, it was exciting. I ran into, and hopefully he sawed today, friend of the show, Matt mangle, we were hanging out last night, walking around protective stadium. Uh, they we're gonna have the red end zone and the blue end zone. You've seen the photos and stuff inside. How do you think of them and the, and the dress up they're doing for the stadium here? Well, I like the, the iconographic around the stadium and the imagery that goes with it. That part, I really like a lot. It all feels very lack of a better term patriotic because of the red wine blue. Right. But it does feel really nice to have all these colors and all these schemes kind of the, the, the images outside, inside, inside of the stadium. Uh, funny, you mentioned your you're boy, Matt mangle. Um, because actually re and I were, are having our, uh, our fantasy draft, our writer's fantasy draft. And while he was actually in person, I actually ended up drafting Matt mangle at that time. So, uh, I guess I caught you while you weren't looking Call me on. I thought it's excited. We Mark's doing the fantasy with the new sub fantasy on there. Uh, getting excited. I, I, I like same. I like the CFL fantasy. I like the smaller teams. I think you're able to dig in a little bit better and do it that way. Uh, exciting. We get to know a lot of the players and we're seeing trucks drive up and down right here. Uh, it really cures. I, I saw a tweet come out to, from a us of news. We follow Jack on, on Twitter, uh, that normally there's 22 broadcast cameras for a Fox game today. They're gonna have 55 cameras here. Uh, what do you think about, you know, that we we've seen the first downs with the laser technology, right? We're tracking the laser that way. What are you thinking about the additional technology that Fox and NBC is bringing in for the USFL kickoff? I think it's long overdue and listen, I think this whole laser concept is something that should have been implemented in the NFL, especially with marking first downs. The chains are AAIC method. I cannot believe that they still do that. They get them to cut out and try to do the measures and try to do those one little tiny links to show like a millimeter off. I'm a first down it's, it's absolutely. It's, it's dinosaur. Like it's unbelievable. They still do that. And my, my I've talked about it. My dad is like one of those guys who has been imploring the NFL to put, so it's really cool that they finally are gonna be able to do this and we get to see it. And, uh, it's full form, Uh, Dorothy points out. Yes. Uh, they move the big football inside the state. But James here, yes, we were out here late Thursday night. Your boy Reed had a little bit too much drink. <laugh> had a, had a tweet kissing the giant football with my EXL dragons Jersey on courtesy of Royal retros. Dustin's gonna be coming up on the show as well. Dustin, with Royal retros, like I said, we have Andrew here. Mike, Mitchell's gonna be zooming in here. Moment, Charlie. We're gonna talk with Mike, got Mark Perry coming by Roy S. Johnson, uh, Ron Frederick. And then, uh, we're gonna be taking some calls here at the end as well. Uh, other excitement for the weekend. You're staying through Sunday. We have to fly back Dorothy's teacher. What are you looking forward to with Sunday scams? Well, you know, it being a triple header, obviously that's a gauntlet. There's a lot of games. Uh, I have to figure out exactly what the policy is as far as me only going into the games. And then if I can like step out for a second, because I might need like a breather, uh, I love don't get me wrong. I love football as much as the next guy, but I also need to be able to, you know, get some fresh air, which cause we're on outdoor stadium. But you know, I mean, To be able to live a little bit, nine hours of football is a lot. I feel bad for the broadcast guys. I feel bad for the Phish. I feel bad for Mike Perrera. I mean, that's a, that's a ton of work going in triple Heather on Sunday and we're Friday game coming. Won't all be, uh, you know, those triple headers and doubles, but it is certainly fascinating. One ticket gets you in all day. Uh, you know, you can come tomorrow or Sunday morning be here all day watching football mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. And, and it'll be interesting this see what the crowd is. Cause obviously it is also Easter Sunday. So there may be some obligations for people around here. Obviously church goers, family gatherings that might kind of alter the schedule as far as what the availability is for a lot of people. So that part, I'm also curious, like how many people a show up B states of the entire time and which games maybe they sort of cherry picks, which ones they think are more important. That part I'm also curious about cuz obviously those teams have no such affiliation with the city whatsoever as opposed to tonight's game. Yeah. I had a note here. So, you know, obviously the game today, 6:00 PM, central seven 30, you know, that's gonna be the big Fox NBC Simcast, but then tomorrow we have the, uh, noon Eastern kickoff that's on NBC o'clock that's good. But as we get later in the day, right, you have stars, breakers. That's going to be on USA at four Eastern and then Sunday night you have that Fs one band at smaller. So that could be a scary time slot there. I, I expect good viewership today, but that could be scary as we get towards Sunday night. What, uh, what is your production for total viewership for today's game only combined with both stations? Well, I think we were taking guesses beforehand. I initially I said 2.6 million, but it might be a little higher than that. And when I start to think about the S casting part of it with an NBC and Fox, you know, that's, and as you mentioned earlier about them having over over twice as many more cameras than they usually do in the stadium, I mean, there's just so much more exposure that way. I, it might be more towards 3 million, but again, you know, we've, we're more used to just basing off the numbers that we saw in the XFL, for example, right. Those sort of hard line numbers. And so it, I say at least two and a half million, that would be my guess for today. Yeah. Two. I, I think I probably, I think I said 2.3, you know, I, I, I think it's gonna be a lot higher. I've seen more tweets and information come out from this in the last couple weeks in terms of, you know, the, the visibility that doing the first down marker has gotten on local news and on national right now, we have, uh, chef feel talking about it. We have Colin coward talking about it. We have a wonderful plane flying over in the, in the flight path here, but, uh, there's been a lot of Fox synergy here leading up to this. Like I said, I'm scared for the games tomorrow, but I'll be curious to see how high the one is today. Uh, we have a comment here. Yeah. James we're we're hots spotting. I think we're good on the audio now. It might be cutting in little bit, but I think we'll be okay. Uh, James has a question. Are the cheerleaders going to be neutral for all the games? Are they specific? I saw cheerleaders walking around taking photos. I have to imagine they're just league Cheerleaders. I think so. I don't think there's any specific team affiliations. Not at least not that I've heard of. Yeah. You know, it is one of those things we're gonna be building on the end energy. Right. Hying the crowd out that way. I just can't imagine that there were individualizing eight, you know, eight teams, eight sets of cheerleaders that way mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Uh, just kind of like a general flavor for everyone. Right. Uh, but they have that camp for the cheerleaders. It was like two weeks ago. Right? Like it was actually very recent if I remember. So the fact that they got everyone come in and be able to do, uh, their jobs is actually impressive because that, I felt like that memo went out quite late compared to even just the players getting invited here. I course here, um, Garvey, Hey guys, first I'm us a event who will be some of the best players in the league in your opinion. Well, if you see, I have my gifted from friend of the show, Brian, Scott, Brian, Scott's gonna be playing them off for the stars, excited for Brian, excited for Matt, excited. A lot of the stars there that way. Do you have, who's your team of choice? Cause like I said, the stars I'm riding or deny with them. Yeah. So the bandits are a big one for me. And look, I, I know it's probably cliche to say this, but Jordan Tomo, at least compared to most of my friends, who've talked about him at somebody that I really look forward to seeing, especially in Todd Haley's offense. I think he's has a wonderful op opportunity to show why he was one of the best quarterbacks in the XFL and be able to just get more extensive playing time. And I think maybe even unleash some of his skillset, you have to remember. He's also still very young. He was, I think he was just 22 years old when he was in the XFL. So he's still developing as a player. He's someone that I really look forward to some players that tonight actually I look forward to, uh, another guy that I'm I'm, haven't seen in a while. His name is, um, Tony Brooks, James he's a running back that actually went to my school, very shifty, very fast, quick out on the angle. Uh, he gets to the sideline really quickly. He's someone that I really look forward to Mike Riley's offense is something that I look forward to being, um, ex executed Victor Bolden Jr. Is actually a player that used to be at Oregon state that's on his team. Uh, there's a lot of skill position players, to be honest for me, it's just a matter of who's getting the playtime, who's getting the snaps and who's getting the exposure. That part, we still figuring me out there's guys yesterday. I thought our TV is Lynn was gonna be part of the league. And he got sent to the practice squad yesterday. You know, I don't it's, it's sort of just trying to figure out, honestly, the, the most honest answer is we have to find out who's playing, but those are the guys that I think about first, uh, as far as who I think should make an impact. Yeah. It'll be exciting to see TAMU get his spotlight. You know, he was someone that really excelled in the XFL right. Has kind of been back and forth with a lot of the practice squads and things in the NFL. Right. He was with Alliance. He's been with the chiefs. Good to see him get the spotlight. I do think you're talking about the players being, you know, brought on and off. You know, I was talking with one of the coaches yesterday, they're staying at the hotel that we're at. And I mean, it's been a grind. It's been, you know, three weeks here of training camp, a lot of practice, you know, every day, not a lot of time off, we were talking with players last night. Uh, you know, not necessarily knowing their schedules until the day before, you know, a lot of, you know, stress that way. Not knowing they're really trying to pack in a lot here, getting ready for the kickoff. But you know, I don't know, they set that timeline. So I have a hard time, you know, with the league and, and when they try to like preface that, right. Say, well, you know, we're on the short timeline, they created timeline. I mean, they, they wanted to, you know, cost less money to keep players in training camp for three weeks. And it does, you know, month and a half. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, building that chemistry just doesn't happen at camp. It also happens on the field and when they actually get to be able to play the games, then maybe that's when coaches will actually be able to realize in the fullest form who is gonna be able to step up and actually make those plays. But you know, it's all just built on hype at the moment. Like guys, like for example, Kyle slaughter, um, for the new Orleans breakers. He's another guy that I hear a lot about. I I'm sure he'll do fine, but I'm not sure yet. Like again, I have to see it in action to really know, Uh, Jenna wants to know who do you think is the best mascot? Well, I'm a blob guy. I'm a Bob guy. I like Dave the wave. I like the breakers guy mascot that way too. Uh, I think they're good. I will say as much criticism as people have had about me with the us L what I wanted to say. I think that they've knocked it out in the park. I think all the mascots are funny. I think they look good. I think the names are good. Uh, what do you think, Andrew? Um, yeah, some of them look like characters, for example, like, uh, the one for the Pittsburgh mul, he looks like he's is from Bob, the builder, like he character straight out of that. So, uh, the, the Tampa bay bandits one, he he's cool. I do think there was a point made it made though that like he could with, because of his band and it looks like he possibly skill like PO scare little children possibly because he doesn't look the most friendliest of the, of the mascots and Dave, the wave, man, look, I, I don't know. I'm I'm having part of me, loves it. And part of me is just looking at him like he's toothpaste. Like he, like, he's a tooth toothpaste. I don't know. It's, that's, that's a strange one to me, but, um, yeah, I look, I, I, I appreciate you and your ability to stick with the blob because I'm not sure how many other people are in your corner. On that one. I tweeted out. I said, I tweeted out last night. If my tweet gets a thousand retweets, I'll get a blob tattoo. I stand by that. It's on the marque. Whether, uh, I will get a blob dance looking at me, shaking this head, but I, I will get a blob tattoo if they do that. We're getting negatives over here. Yeah, we already from, here's an interesting question. Dan Essex wants to know, do you think the NFL wants a UFL to succeed? We've seen some comments, right? DJ afterward, no NFL doesn't want any lead to succeed. NFL tweeted out today. Good luck on the us L kickoff. I mean, I, I feel like they very much want them to succeed. I think they absolutely do read. And here's the reason why look, no one's going to compete with the NFL as far as time slot, or as far as notoriety money, all that, that we, they have established themselves as the premier band. That being said, having these leagues around is important because it helps with player development. I mean, look, the fact that they have the SFL around, they have the XFL around, they have these other leagues that can bill old and developed players that creates more competition for when those players eventually do, try to make their jump to the NFL, cuz guess what? It's better for their product, cuz they are competing with those guys at the bottom of the roster. This means that the guys from, for example, like roster spots, 48 to 5,300 NFL roster are just more that higher quality because you have guys who have been grinding and competing and trying to get to those spots as opposed to maybe some kid from a college that may maybe talented, but maybe doesn't put it as much work or doesn't have quite the same skillset that some of these other guys have that who've been working on it for so long. So this is absolutely something that helps their product. It doesn't hurt it in any way, shape or form, Uh, Genesis, as long as they're winning, everyone will respect the Bible. Cause you was like the blob. It was Astro. Like you really need to lean in with that. If we're having the horrific looking mouse cut <laugh> uh, we had another question here, uh, scrolling back up, talking about moose Johnson and his, where are we going? Oh, here we go. Yeah. What do we think of moose Johnson's comments about the league on the herd yesterday, talking about the fact that a lot of these guys see NFL way. I totally agree. What was more interesting to me about the moose Johnson comments as of late are that the goal of the us fellow is to make it to a year or two mm-hmm <affirmative>. That is something that has come up, uh, recently that was not there in the, uh, the league messaging starting out, right? It was, we, Fox is guaranteed three years. We have 50 million a year. Now moose is coming out and saying that the league go goal is to make it to year two. What do you make on that, Andrew? Yeah, it's a bit of a step back. Isn't it? Yeah. I, I look if he's being realistic props to him, but that's also something that is definitely counteractive to what you mentioned. They said they seemed pretty certain that they were gonna get through three years of this, which I believe is kind of like the benchmark now for spring leagues now saying like, well we'll make, we'll get through three years of this and then see what happens. Well, we haven't had a league yet past year, one as of late. So the fact that moose is already kind of making those comments is a tad bit concerning, but also he might just be logistically looking at it in realizing that there's just a lot of work that goes into this. And there is, there's a lot of work to start up a league, even in a hub city like this, you still have to think about all the logistics that go into it. So I, I do think that's interesting that he mentioned that, but again, I don't, I don't imagine a lot of people caught those original comments because that was what months ago. And that only people that I think real on that were people who were hardcore looking into the us L at that time, like you and I, for example, so I don't know if it'll like, if anyone will remember that, but it is interesting. Yeah. We have a comment here. How's the weather tonight. I hope that's great. Uh, horrendous weather last night. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I has cleared up today. We didn't know if we were gonna be inside or out. We're outside here at the Southern kitchen and bar outside of protective stadium. Uh, we have Andrew on, I see our next guest is standing by here. So we might see if Dorothy can go over and help grab them. Uh, we are waiting for a zoom in for Mike Mitchell. I think Mike Mitchell might be, uh, getting prepared. So we're gonna bring in another one of our live on, uh, on air talent here, I guess, on location. And then we'll do a zoom later. Uh, so whenever van stops talking to him, we're gonna bring him in Andrew. We're gonna bring you back in a little bit. I think you should stick around here as we're seeing the zoom schedule and how that's going. Mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, but we're going to bring in Dustin from our retros here, coming up again. We are live for the us L kickoff, uh, taking comments from everybody. We're at the Southern kitchen restaurant bar. Why Don? We bring Dustin in Andrew. Thank you so, so much for your time. Uh, we'll bring him in here and, and we'll talk about Dustin. If you come on this side here, uh, we have everyone watching. We have Dustin, the man with Royal retros. I, I had my hat on, but Dorothy, oh, you don't need that right now. Uh, Dorothy said, I need to wear my Exel mark at, but Dustin's the man behind the Royal retro stuff. How are you doing today? I'm good. How it's fun to be out here. A lot of people are excited. So we have your rally towel that you made for the game. Yeah. Uh, talk about how did you get in, you know, you do a lot of the throwback leagues, right? XFL. We did the USFL. Uh, what, what got you involved in all this? Um, originally I was, I was in college. I was, uh, going to Ross and Marshalls and stuff, grabbing old jerseys and reselling them, um, just for extra money. And people started just asking for these old teams, um, can you get this? Can you find it? And, uh, I couldn't. So I started getting 'em made and it just kind of blew up from there. But is it, do you do it? I love for the love of the game as well. Right? For a love of these old Leagues. Yeah. I love, I love history, especially sports history. So Steve, I was a little before my time, but I'm a huge nines fan. So Steve young, you know, watching the old games, um, I I've watched most of LA express games. Most of the USFL games on YouTube. It's just bringing back names, um, players and teams that people kind of forgot over time and it's great to bring them back. Uh, so what do you, uh, what do you make of the atmosphere here? Right? I mean, we're seeing cars kind of fill in slowly, not a lot of foot traffic here. What do you make of this? I mean, there's been a lot of question marks surrounding the, the hub city, right. And the idea of doing it this way. Um, well, up in the parking lot, there are people tailgating. Um, there they're, they're having a good time, but it is gonna rain. So we'll see how that goes. Um, I think it is a good start for the first year. Um, I don't think it's really sustainable over like multiple seasons, especially with the XFL. Um, if they, I mean, depending on if they're gonna do a hub or not, but, um, I, I mean, I get the business model, so it doesn't end up, you know, like the AAF or something where they can't make it through this season. So this is a nice city downtowns, you know, it's really clean, really nice people are friendly. So I think this is a good spot. Uh, I, are you tracking any of the players yourself? Any, any guys that stand out either from the games today or just the league in general right now? Um, I did like Jordan. Uh, I'm not even sure you say Tom, Tom, Tom. Yeah. From the XFL. Um, and, uh, pro EZ too. I know he just joined the league, but I followed him too on the, uh, what it, the, he was out in Birmingham, he was on the, he Was with the iron iron and then he was with the New York guardians. Yeah. So those are some of the, some of the players I've been following, but, um, a lot of it it's, a lot of guys are just getting kind of their first chance coming outta the spring league and stuff. So I was excited to see, Do you enjoy, uh, bill has cause you're bill, the starting lineups, uh, us L tweeted out a little bit of that. I I'm waiting for. We have a lot of questions about that as well, regarding fantasy and, and lineups, and being able to set that, uh, something that the us L I think tweeted out, but maybe could do a better job emailing out. Do you, Justin, do you enjoy like all this banter with all the all football people on, on Twitter, on everything else or you do you, you think it's a little too much sometimes where I wanna know where you land on those? Um, I, I enjoy it because it's good to just being, bring any publicity to these leagues. I try to stay out of it because I have my business. So I don't wanna anger people jump on it on fixed size, but I think, I think it's good. At least just, you know, any, any publicity as good publicity as they say, <laugh>, uh, Wayne has a comment, the expected attendance. So we at the Southern kitchen here where we're going live across from protective, uh, they have on their calendar 10,000, uh, estimated plus I would imagine the, the, the kids, right. You get $10 ticket and then you're able to bring in the kids. Uh, they get a calendar here for a lot of the BJ see events that are going on. Mike EPS has a, a comedy tour tonight here, a show, uh, down the street. I think they had estimated, uh, 6,000 for that. So they're expecting a lot of people in the area, but, but from them now the manager here, uh, Matthew says, that's not always to, uh, you can believe that, right. That they kind of give them an estimated, just so they can figure out the, they need to have, but you know, we're two 30 here. Uh, it it's pretty slow right here. I mean, what do you, what do you think about what's going on? Um, I mean, it's definitely not an NFL game. Um, I'm thinking the weather might have something to do with just, you know, local people that, that could come to any game probably might not pick today. Um, but at least the people that are here seem excited, uh, really knowledgeable about football. I've been meeting a lot of people, uh, just walking up and down tailgates into the bars. So, um, it's probably gonna be a small crowd, but, you know, everybody's pretty excited about it. Uh, James, he believes that the angel teams Twitters have tweet, uh, tweeted out these starting lineups. So that's good to know, you know, it it's, again, we're, we're, we're Fox sports, right. We're partnering with NBC, but we're still kind of on a shoestring budget sometimes when it comes to like media relations and things like that. Uh, what has it been your as someone that was with the us L you know, doing the jerseys already, right. Find out they're coming and doing a revamp, right. A relaunch, whatever we wanna call it. Uh, what do you, what, what, what did you make of all this when you heard it was coming back? Um, I mean, originally I was really excited as, as I am now just for, to see these logos and teams back in action, cuz I, I didn't get to see 'em originally, I've only seen old, old film. Um, I really did want to be a part of the league, but, uh, fortunately, like you said, Fox is, uh, a little bit on a shoer budget. They're a little bit greedy, so we didn't come to an agreement, but that's okay. Yeah. So talk to me about that. So they were talking to you about potentially doing some of the merchandising, right? For cuz you obviously were doing the throwbacks in the other jerseys before Fox got involved in this. Uh, yeah. Uh, we, we negotiated for a month or so, and it really came down to, they wanted us to sell less merchandise so that they could sell more. Um, they wanted us to give 10% of everything we did sell to them and if not, they were threatening to Sue us. So that's where we're at. I said, go ahead and Sue me and we'll see what happens. So remains to be seen. Uh, it'll be curious. You know, we had obviously on Thursday came out that the real us L lawsuit, they were trying to go for the preliminary injunction right against the us L kicking off this weekend. The judge denied that. I, I imagine they'll settle at some point. Did you have any thoughts on any of that, about the Steve air Harding guys and company trying to kind of, uh, throw a wall at this party here? Um, no, I did talk to Steve and um, I mean that, that was really when I ended negotiations with foxes, they said you need to come on board with us and help us fight against the original league or we'll Sue you too. And I mean, I respect the original league more than anything. I, I want this to succeed. I want, you know, I, I love bring football, love football in general. I know these players need a shot, you know, another shot at the NFL, but um, I'm not gonna go against the original league because that's, that's our customers. That's the people that we're, you know, working to support the original league. So that was really the, the ending point for me was when they said that, Uh, you're staying through the weekend taking part in the game tomorrow. What do you making of the, of the match? Obviously we have the big story, right? The stallions versus the general tonight. Uh, even though it's not the original stallions in generals, what are you making, uh, of the, the, the triple header tomorrow having three games on Sunday? Uh, I, I would've preferred two today, two tomorrow, especially with tomorrow being Easter, but I do love football and it's not too often. You get to go to a football game in April. So I will probably be at all of 'em. Uh, I might not say through every single game, but, uh, I'll definitely be here all weekend. Uh, it's exciting Party hanging out. Uh, any other thoughts before we let you go? Uh, I appreciate you coming by anything else you want people to to know? Um, if you want, if you wanna see the original league go to Royal retros.com uh, anything, you know, custom made or original leagues, we got world football league, Nero leagues, uh, ABA, basketball, hockey. So, um, that's, that's what we do. Bring back old leagues. Any request, feel free to send them out. We'll bring back other teams. If you're missing out And dust this part of our giveaway, trying to hit 2000 subscribers, you can, uh, I've basically just emailed you in a photo of the dragons Jersey, the alt away Jersey. Uh, next thing I know it shows up in the mail. So that's part of our giveaway too, with all that stuff coming up, if you like and subscribe, we're trying to get to 2000 here. I'd like to do it today. I don't know if that's possible, but I would like as well. So dust and I appreciate you stopping by and, and luck handing everything out and, and taking part in the games. Appreciate it. And, uh, if you got time later, I got all kinds of merchandises in the car. If you can get some just stuff We'll, we'll hook it up. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Uh, so we're, we're I'm messaging with Mike, uh, Mitchell right now. We're getting him to zoom in and uh, so we're gonna have Andrew pop back in for a minute. We're gonna be answering some questions here. Uh, and I see Mike is messaging me. Mike wants me to email him the link and, uh, we, you go, Mark Perry is helping out Mark Perry for the win. Andrew's gonna pop back on here. Uh, we're gonna get Mike on. We're gonna tackle the USFL XFL, uh, any excitement going on here while you are off camera? What else is going on? Um, sort of just trying to take, take inventory of who's coming to the state. A obviously we have a bit of a view behind us. There are some people starting to show up and kind of mill around and starting to maybe look into the inner gates. So I'm just trying to gauge like what the atmosphere's going to be like. So it's still, still a little quiet at the moment, A little quiet Mike's Hovana Mike's messaging, he's getting on the thing. Uh, yeah. You know, Gregory, you know, Dustin works hard. Dustin works hard. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, there's a lot of the throwback stuff. It's been a lot of the back and forth here with a lot of this stuff. I appreciate Dustin coming by spending time with us. Um, the teams looking at the starting lineups. We had some questions about that. I see that the league has, has been tweeting them out. Maybe you could pull those up here while we VA a little bit. Um, absolutely. Yeah. Mike, we good Mike on, I appreciate, yeah, James, what we did the trademarks, you know, will you, we're moving that. And I think everybody's very happy that we can move on and focus on football here. Yeah. And, you know, just trying to get some sort of semblance of what's going on in the league, what's going on with the trademarks, the law lawsuit and all of that. Uh, I just wrote an article on, on L news hub.com actually about this, uh, about basically how they had the ruling a couple days ago with, uh, being allowed to use the trademarks and the logos. And as far as like, there won't be any injunction. There was, was supposed to be a preliminary injunction, I think, on, on Monday, on Monday. And, and they decided to rule on it early on, so that doesn't have that kind of hanging over the heads of everybody this weekend. You Know, I think that's good. I had a note here as well, talking about that. I mean, I don't wanna focus too much on the negativity today, but I am glad I think that the league needs this fresh start moving in. I'm glad that the judge, you, we have Michael Cohen on, I think he's is gonna join us again next week to kind of do a final recap of everything involved with that. But I'm glad that we were able to kind of move on the judge, uh, uncharacteristically, I think Michael had said normally takes time to kind of process all this stuff moved on from that. And, uh, you know, we're, we're marching forward with this today. Uh, you know, whether it is still holding up, uh, we're seeing some more P the parking lots are full. I just don't know. I, I imagine more people be on the sidewalk here walking by. Yeah, I would say I, I kind of imagine that too, although I'll be honest, like just getting to this venue was a bit of a, a Trek for me, cuz there is a bit of construction going on in certain different parts of the city. So the walking areas are not the most, um, available, I guess is what I like. There's not a lot of sidewalks that you can access in in terms of getting into this specific spot. So that might be also kind of a bit of a hurdle for some people as Well. Yeah. I appreciate Phil premier as a longtime listener, longtime listener Philip stopping it's his wife's birthday weekend. So time is limited. Well, I hope you are able to treat her to some USFL games this weekend. That's exciting. Uh, Philip longtime listener. He owns the treasured XFL mark cast, uh, crooked logo hat that came in, uh, when we were trying to get our merge back in the, that way. If you guys have any questions for Andrew, I know we're getting Mike going. We have Roy, uh, ES Johnson. It's gonna be stopping by here in the little bit. We also have Mark Perry coming on. Ron Frederick, former USS L stallions, uh, player is gonna come on as well. So lots more excitement today. Um, James, here's a, here's a good question. James has a good comment. I honestly don't understand why anybody wouldn't want these new leads to succeed. I don't care. Uh, the more about players gain exposure, the teams or whatever for I'm just happy for the guys. Totally agree. James James speaks for us a pro uh, blah podcast. Now we're a pro us L XFL, uh, thoughts on that. And then we're gonna bring in Mike Mitchell. I a hundred percent agree. And that's why I'm here in the first place. That's why we're here in the first place. We wanna see these guys perform, succeed, compete, be able to just have a, a, another chance, another chance to be able to kind of continue their careers and be able to do what they want to as opposed to having to go in a different field. You know, they don't have to say, oh, well, I guess I'll go sell insurance now because I'm not gonna be able to get on a roster, uh, even on a practice squad. So absolutely. And, and it's just, you know, we don't want the rug to be pulled out from underneath them. You know, we, we, we we've seen it. We've lived it. We've gone through this a couple different times. We just don't wanna see them suddenly lose their opportunities unannounced. Like that's just the last thing we want. All right, I'm gonna take your mic. Why don't you get your headphones on? We're gonna bring in Mike here. Mike Mitchell. I stressing me out with this dream. How are you doing Mike? Welcome to the show. Uh, thank you for having me on guys. You guys are doing a great job. I apologize for a little bit of the delay there, but uh, here we are Good. If people have questions for Mike while Mike is on, feel free to put him in the chat, I'll pop him up on here. Mike, what are you making of all of the shenanigans going on in Birmingham this weekend? Uh, I love it. I mean, to me, this is like football heaven right now. I mean, uh, you have the NFL draft upcoming, you got all the craziness with the XFL that's on board and then the us L is here, uh, spring pro football is back. So this is just amazing, you know, it's, uh, this is everything you want. And you know, it's pretty awesome that, you know, entities like Fox are actually making this type of commitment. You know, putting the resources in to try to make spring pro football work. You gotta tip your hat to them. Um, they're taking the approach where they want to get to year two. That's why they're doing a hub setting. So, um, I'm happy that these major entities are putting in the effort and the work to make these leagues possible. And it's just amazing for football players, coaches, fans, journalists, everybody. And it's so, uh, for someone like me who was a six year old kid who used to do mock drafts, 12 rounds back then, um, who was obsessed with college football and the players that get UN or undrafted or, you know, just don't make it into the NFL. This is a dream come true. And I'm an original us F L guy. So it's kind of strange, uh, that there's the us, L's back so many moons later. Uh, we have a comment here, James. Mike wants you to know not a question, but thank you, Mr. Mitchell, for your accurate we're reporting and great articles. You must have some great sources. Thank you. Uh, you know, it's hard, you know, because as a journalist and a fan, uh, you get a lot of information that sometimes is off the record and you so badly wanna share it. You want to tell somebody what you know, and then, and then sometimes when you do tell people what you do know, they, uh, they're like, oh, come on. Really Orlandos and Antonio, uh, you know, rod, Woodson's gonna coach in the XFL, come on. You know? So it's, uh, um, it's just funny how that all works out, but I appreciate it. Like, you know, I, I try very, I try very hard, even in my articles that I write. Um, sometimes when I can't reveal everything, I'll drop some Easter egg. So if you like, uh, look through my article, like my last article and the head coaches, there's a lot of stuff in there. That's kind of hidden in the wording there. So, so, uh, try not to get myself in trouble, but it's fun to cover these leagues. Read guys like you, Andy, Mark Perry, shout out to, you know, you, uh, contribute a lot of your time and money, uh, to travel all over the world. You were at the great cup read, and here you are in Birmingham, hopefully, uh, we'll see where you are when the XFL kicks off a week after the super bowl, maybe you'll be in Arlington. I don't know, hopefully St. Louis. So, um, they just, the tip of the hat to everyone who supports these leagues. The reason why we do is because of the players and coaches and we love football. So, Uh, I wanna talk and we'll get Andrew, give a question here too. Uh, seeing your boy Louis Perez, right? A former, you know, New York guardian, right. Played with the fleet. Uh, what do you make of him and all this craziness with the us L Well, he played with Birmingham, so it's kind of interesting that he's in Birmingham today. Um, it's awesome to see players like him getting a second and third and fourth life. Uh, you know, Louis Perez is a king of these leagues. So, um, I think pat, one of our guys there at XFL news put a out a tweet, very good one where he listed all the spring league leaders in touchdowns. And, uh, Perez is on that list obviously. And he's got a chance. We'll see what happens with the generals. It's gonna be fascinating today because you know, my indications covering the team for the longest time is that there's gonna be a rotation system at quarterback, regardless if a Perez starts or not. And at Deandre Johnson, because as he has four, three speed, the former last gen you guy, former backup for James Winston, way back when at FSU, he's gonna be a part of the offense, no matter what. So on a weekly basis, and you're gonna see him on the field. And, you know, with the two point conversions, three point conversions in the red zone, you want a guy like that out there. I'm certainly to get back to Louis. I'm rooting for him because you know, he's a great guy and he deserves is this opportunity. And he, you know, he wasn't perfect in the AAF, but I really thought, and I know a lot of people like take shots at him. I really thought he progressed in the XFL with the New York audience. And he was putting them into playoff contention was playing well, his best football. And that's the thing with these young quarterbacks. Like I never write off young quarterbacks because it's the one position where you can get better with age. Unlike of positions in, in pro football, where age takes its toll injuries takes its toll quarterback. The game starts to slow down for you. So a lot of these young guys, the more reps they get, uh, the more opportunities they get, the better they get. So Luis is getting another shot here. We'll see how Riley uses him. Perez has only had two weeks to get ready. That's not easy to, to, uh, trying to link up with your new teammates and, uh, and all that. So it, it's gonna be fun to watch him play. Uh, I'm gonna pop with this question. Will I answer your answers for you? Yeah. So it looks like we got a question from Ken. It looks like Ken. It says, Mike, uh, are you hearing anything about potential owners of the L franchise and is still the idea that L teams won't leave Birmingham for home markets without ownership? Uh, excellent question, Ken. Um, I have heard things, you know, uh, the big thing I've heard is the markets that they've chosen were chosen specifically with owners in mind. So they have owners set up potentially in new Orleans and obviously Birmingham, where you guys are at now and New Jersey Z and all that. So there's a re there's a method to the madness and they'll stay. They be in Fox. The us L will stay in Birmingham as long as it takes until they can sell off each franchise to individual ownership. So if we get to the point now, I'm hoping that the product is great and the stallions team is owned by an owner there locally. But if we might get to the point here where maybe there are five teams playing a hub next year and only three have been sold off, or maybe four, you know, that kind of deal. So we'll see how come. Maybe in one shot, this is kind of like an infomercial. This league's an infomercial for prospective owners, uh, for people to buy into the league. So, uh, this season, that's what it's really setting up to be. So I have heard some names. I think there was one out there in the ether, Alex Rodriguez for a while. I don't know how true that is. <laugh> but there are other names out there. And like I said, Eric shanks, the people at Fox, they're very smart. They know what they're doing. The reason why they're doing this is because they saw the viability of the XFL because they worked with the XFL. They loved the ratings, loved the product Fox thought, let's cut out the middle man, and let's run our own professional football league. And here we are. And they're trying to take the, they're trying to take the aspect of where they don't drown and die immediately. So what they're doing is they're running a hub setting and fingers crossed. I think this is a three year window for them. I think they'll, you know, I, I'm not sure. I, I believe the agreement is for three years in Birmingham. I'm not, I don't quote me on that, but I believe so. But I think that this is from everything I've heard, this is a three year plan for them. And so when they get, when they get to next season, because let's face it, you know, a hub is great. Thank God, goodness, we're having pro football. Thank God fans can come to the games, but to have a true, genuine, fully fledged pro football league, you need to have teams in their markets with their fans. It's hard for somebody in Philadelphia to go, yay. Uh, you know, the stars are getting it on in Birmingham, you know, it's, it's just kind of the way it goes. Uh, it's just, that's it. Uh, Mike, I got the question from Dan here. I'm gonna throw it up. Do you think they went with the us L league and team names rather than come up with completely new slate? Why do you think that? Do the old teams really have that much traction? Obviously we were talking with Dustin. We were just going back, you know, the, the real us L lawsuit, they were denied the injunction on Thursday leading into this right. Cleans the slate web that way. But what, what do you make of this? Why not just start the Fox football league? It's fascinating question. You know, it's like initially when they went with the us L brand, you're thinking that's very smart because there's built in history there, but Fox hasn't really embraced their, the past of the us L I mean, they're calling this an inaugural season. The inaugural season for the us L was in 1983. So, um, so that's just kind of the story. This really is a new league. The names are great. The logos are great. The history is there. It's a shame that they couldn't, you know, uh, form some type or maybe it'll happen form some type of partnership with a lot of the old us L people, because what you wanna do is embrace the history of these teams and all the great players that played in the initial us L. And when you look at it, the us F fell back in the eighties and the spring, they kind of set the template. And the example for all these leagues that have followed the reason why there is XFL and United football leagues and NFL Europe, even world league of American football, all these leagues that have come since the reason why is because they saw the viability of what the us L was in the spring many moons ago and are trying it. So it's kind of interesting that the us L is back to kind of reclaim their throne, so to speak in the spring, except for the fact that it's not embracing, um, you know, the us L of the eighties. You wonder why that is. And we've kind of seen a little bit of that play out in the, in the courts there, but, uh, it is kind of strange to not embrace it. They could have gone in a different direction and named their own teams. I'd love hearing the generals back and the stallions and the breakers and all that. It's fun. I think it's cool that they're back. I just wish they could have embraced it more. I think they could have. I know there are a lot of people that are watching the game tonight. They weren't alive. The us L was around initially, but I think you could have tapped into that crowd. That was really that loved those teams. You know, you, you look at pro football and Jacksonville and markets like that. Those became a thing because of the us L so people remember the Jacksonville bulls and all those, all those franchises that were very successful. Tampa bay bandits, there was a time where the bandits were more popular than the buckers were the laughing stock of all pro sports. And the bandits were a sexy, cool, fun team. And they, they, uh, uh, the Tampa market embraced them like crazy. So, uh, it's interesting how the, the nostalgia kind of linking up, but not quite the way it should have. Uh, Andrew, you got a question for Mike and then I'll tee one up here from the comment. Well, yeah, so, I mean, there's a whole bunch of questions, but the one that I, I to kind of piggyback off what you were just talking about, the cities, I, I find it interesting that there wasn't, I guess for the time being there, wasn't like a franchise in a non NFL city. I mean, the Jacksonville bowls were sort of a conduit to having the Jaguars be a franchise in 19 and started 1995 because the NFL saw the potential with that. And I'm, I'm curious, do you think the USFL and 80 point is gonna start doing that as far as like experimenting in some of these non NFL markets? Or do you think they're gonna try and keep it status quo and stay where there's already pre-established, uh, football Fans. That's a, yeah, that's a great question, Andrew. I think personally, from what I know, the, the markets that they chose, they chose for a specific reason, because if you and I, or maybe speak for myself, if I was running this league, I would because you're playing in a hub anyway, I would've chosen team names with St. Louis and San Antonio, because, Hey, you're playing in Birmingham anyway. And so what we don't have owners lined up in St. Louis in San Antonio yet, no one's shown interest yet. Uh, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Well, obviously Fox is not taking that approach. They're not doing the, we'll see what happens later. Maybe we can rope in an owner. They chose new Orleans and these markets for a specific reason because they feel that they have ownership groups that have interest in purchasing those teams and running those franchises in their markets. And the reason why that's important is Fox is not ready to bleed money and fully fund eight teams in eight separate markets and all that. So this is why we're having a hub now. So if they can get owners to pick up, let's put it, put it frankly, to get, pick up the paycheck, you know, in each market, you know, I have an owner come in, you pay all your players, you take care of the facilities. You take care of the venues, you take care of all that stuff. We'll just be the boss of the league. So, um, and charge franchise eyes fees and all that. So, yes, it would've been great if they had chosen more markets that are in hotspots that, you know, have kind of been ignored and that have shown their viability in previous spring leagues like St. Louis and San Antonio. But, uh, they chose the markets that they chose because they have specific ownership groups that they feel are interested in purchasing those teams. They, they think they're gonna sell Orleans to a Orleans bid, Louisiana bid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's fascinating, but they, like I said, method to their madness. Uh, Mike, I got a, I want a short answer for this one, cuz I have a more exciting question for you afterward. Uh, James wants to know you're supposed to be there and Ballas, but you have to be honest. Who is your team for this league? Uh, my I, my allegiance is to the New Jersey generals. Um, um, that's my team growing up, the new, new, full disclosure, the new jets and the New Jersey generals are my two favorite pro football teams when I was growing up. I'm sorry. Uh, her, her show will Walker her. I know, I know. It's just the way it goes. I still love my jets no matter what. Um, but Hersha, Walker's one of my favorite players of all times as is Doug flute. Uh, when I was a kid, I used to emulate Hersha Walker because he was, uh, famous for his, uh, dives over the, uh, the defensive line scoring in the red zone. So I used to simulate that when I was a kid, uh, on my bed. So I loved Hersha. Walker's one of the greatest football players I've ever seen. Um, uh, this seasons that he had mare London type seasons in the us. L if you go back and look at his stats early on, they like two, he broke the record, uh, over, I think it was 2,800 yards of offense in one season. I think that was 1985 when he was league MVP. So to, I know you wanted a quick answer on that, but the generals are my team. You know, they, they, uh, they have been since I was a kid and I'm happy to see them back. All right. I got a spicy question for you that man. I know we're USFL everything today. We're talking the XFL coaching announcements this week, right? The announcer had coaches, you predicted, I believe seven of eight of them, right. It, when you had your articles, you know, we call you Mike STR Damas, anyone that has any doubts, right? I mean, I I'm serious. Right. You know, you have the reports, people always have questions. I XFL it, it felt rushed. We had the coaches in their homes, filming things from their cell phones, right. Anthony Beck. I'm very excited to be a part of the league, whatever, I mean, is this, did that feel rushed to you? Did it feel like the XFL is trying to kind of like take a little steam off the USFL right now? Uh, you know, I don't know about the latter part take steam off the USFL. I mean, that's possible. I don't know that for sure, but I do have a few, I, I do know that they kind of jumped ahead of schedule in terms of naming their coaches because, you know, obviously they didn't release the team teams. They will be coaching. Um, I think because of the leaks, you know, already two of the coaches have been leaked out and then the rest were leaked out by some crazy guy who writes for XFL news hub. So, um, so I think they wanted to get out in front of it and they wanted to, uh, you know, make sure that they, they took and it was a nice way they presented it and all that. And an ideal world you'd have press con for S and all that, but maybe that's still to come in terms of the individual markets and all that. Um, we'll see what happens, whether or not the league play with a hub or not. I have a feeling that maybe the league is considering moving away from that. And that could be as a result of some of the backlash recently, because a lot of people don't wanna see the Exel in the hub. Uh, yeah, I, I will say, and, and they had, they were on get up. Right. I know Andrew was watching, we were all watching the get up the announcement. It felt, you know, we announced the coaches and they were still talking about why Danny and the rock bought the league. Like I, I tweeted, I'm so tired of hearing about why they the league and what they want the league to be and not what the league is going to be. All right. That's tough. You know, I know that they just did a rebrand too. You know, we have a lot of the 2020 XFL fans that maybe didn't feel like a rebrand was needed, but they wanna put their own spin on things. This is new ownership. They want to do things their own way. I know they have figures from the 2020 league. I, you know, one little scoop tidbit may have written this in my last article. Maybe I didn't, I don't know, but I know for a fact, the XFL had logistics meetings in Arlington with, uh, Rangers and, um, uh, rev entertainment so regularly. So, um, that's not to say that the hub is gonna be specifically in Arlington, but they have had contact with you of H and in Dallas there. So those are big things. So, but hopefully there, there isn't a hub. I agree with you read your original sentiment. Um, you know, we want more at this point. And so I understand they're trying to push the mantra and they're trying to do all that. And so, uh, you know, their next big announcements are gonna be the most important they group of coaches, they have are very impressive. I like the variety. Uh, it's not just a bunch of legacy veteran coaches that have been outta work for four or five years. You know, they can't get a job anywhere else. Um, it's a nice group of like young, fresh coaches, very like innovative, the Dion Sanders S kind of, uh, former players turn recent coaches, CEO figures. We just need to for find out where these teams are gonna be playing what the league structure's gonna be. And then ultimately the big news, uh, the broadcast deal, you know, I found it fascinating that moose, one of the big things, uh, moose Johnson, you know, he kind of threw some shade at the XFL saying that the XFL wouldn't be able to compete with their exposure package. It's hard to deny how great the us L's packages is reminisce and what the XFL had two years ago, because they're on Fox, they're on NBC peacock, et cetera, et cetera, Fs one, whatever. So, um, yeah, so the candy XFL pres, you know, make the deal or finalize the deal. That's gonna be comparable to what the USFL has. There's doubt towards that. Um, but we'll, we'll see what happens. Obviously, the, the three letter network that everybody figures they're gonna work with is ABC with ESPN. Um, uh, that's the wishful thinking and you would, you know, there's some, if you read the T leaves, there's some hints of that, but we'll see, we'll see how things pan out with that. But it's frustrating for XFL fans, but we did, we are getting a lot more than we got the last year or so at least we, we do have coaches, at least we do have, you know, the announcements we got June will be the start of summer showcases this whole summer. They're gonna run summer showcases. So the football stuff is coming, but the big stuff that everybody wants to know where they're playing, what teams are gonna be in the league and what channel or avenues streaming services of the XFL is gonna be on. That's what everybody needs to know. That's gonna be the game changer. That, that last part, Uh, I'm gonna let Andrew ask you a question. I got one more and then we'll kick you off. Cuz I see our backlog of in, uh, on location guests here piling up, but I, I can talk to you for, I can talk to you. No, you're good. We're going, we're gonna let Andrew asks. I got one follow up and then we'll get you outta here. Well, I, I'm just going to cut straight to it since we have your team playing tonight. Uh, how do you feel about tonight's match between the generals and the stallions? Is there anything you're looking forward to in tonight's matchup? You know, I, I, you know, I'm picking the stallions to win today, match up. It looks like you guys have been saved from potential rain. Although we'll see, they're saying 70% chance of scattered, uh, rain showers during the game that could affect the, uh, the game itself. The reason why I'm picking the Ty is besides them playing a genuine home game tonight. I mean, this is probably the toughest game to win for the generals all season, cuz every other game's a neutral site game. Um, I feel like stallions have a coaching advantage. I respect Mike Riley heavily, but he has two coordinators that don't have a lot of experience and they don't match up in terms of Chris Dishman as first time defensive coordinator, Steve Smith, who's done been a coordinator for a little bit with the dragons. And what have you offensive line coach as well. They're matching up against skip Holtz. Who's his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and John cha was one of the best all time. College defensive coordinators was extremely aggressive. So I, because Pez has only been in camp for two weeks, the Andre Johnson does not have a lot of experience. Generals have a lot of talent, but it's gonna be, this is a tough spot for them to, this is real. They're really on the road on this one. And so I, I feel like I was an initially thought it would be low scoring if the rain isn't a huge factor, we could see some more scoring, but um, I'd have to favor the stallions in this one, uh, to, to, to come out on top. They, I mean, it would be a heck of a job by the generals to spoil uh, um, the stallions debut in front of their home crowd. But um, we'll, we'll see if they could pull it off, but I, I favorite the stallions today. Uh, I got one follow XFL question I'm gonna round at USFL just because this is taking the place of our normal episode this week, right? Where we be talking USFL, XFL, uh, CFL and everything else a lot was made of the reduced timeline with the USFL. Right. Okay. We didn't know anything until about two months out, right. That we're getting all these things. We're getting training caps. A lot's been made. Meanwhile, the XFL has promised this year long ramp up we're gonna have behind the scenes access. We're gonna have all these things, right. Which United by football seems to be doing tonight for the USFL. I mean, Mike, it's April 16th, where are these TV shows we're getting from the XFL? That's a very good point. I know, I do know this. I do know that the XFL is gonna be doing their production in house. So they, they, uh, there's a lot of money and resources been spent on that. So, um, I have heard a lot of birdies have been chirping my ear about what they're gonna be doing with that. The question is when will they start that? Is that gonna be something that starts in June? Or is that gonna be something, uh, cause they're, you know, they're, they could start filming now if they haven't been already in terms of their meetings with the coaches they hired and everything else, the question is when do they launch their documentary show? I, I, it's not gonna be the type of show where it's one hour before the kickoff of the game. It actually gonna be something that's gonna be two or three months lead again. So you'll see the draft process, you'll see behind the scenes, uh, you know, the coaching hires, you'll see Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia being followed along here, uh, negotiations with markets, the showcases, everything else, the Scouts, I don't know how much they filmed with the Scouts. I don't know how much they can film, uh, the NFL combine and everything else. But the ex films, football lot seems to be been very busy. So it's just a question with that of when they started. But I do know they're doing in-house, uh, production. They have their own production team. They're gonna do in-house stuff. And they got, you know, one of the most, uh, successful producers. Uh, who's leading the broadcast. Who's the executive vice president for the XFL in that department. And that's Jay Rothman. So from, uh, one night football fame and all that, that, so, uh, ESPN fame and all that. So, uh, that's a pretty big thing. I think we'll get that eventually. I don't, I think it's gonna be more of a lead up to three months, four months in, rather than, uh, you know, an hour before a game starts or what have you, that kind of thing. I think it's gonna be more, more extensive. I I'm gonna get, I want your ratings prediction. We're gonna kick out Andrew. We're gonna bring on the, our next guest, Roy. Uh, so let's get your, uh, ratings predictions. Great Job, Andrew Tonight. Uh, yeah, very good. Uh, we're gonna move and Andrew will be back in a little bit. We're gonna get Roy as Johnson here. Mike, what are your TV ratings predictions, uh, for the game tonight? I love it. Smart move by Fox, you know, having its cast. It's cool that they can play off the fact that there hasn't been a gamey cast in ages. And now you can also use that to amp up the viewership totals, which I think is, uh, very smart. So as far as an actual prediction, I don't know if they'll top the 3.4 million that the, um, uh, that Tampa and New York did in the XFL week, one Sunday, a Sunday afternoon of Fox. That was the highest rated. Non-pro a non NFL pro football game since week six of the original XFL. Um, I, you know, I've been wavering on this initially. I thought it would be about two, 2.5 million. I think they're gonna hit 3 million because I think, you know, the fact that they have Fox and, uh, NBC together, I think they have a shot here. You'd have to look at the competition, but I think they have a shot here of having a pretty big audience. I mean, it, it would not shock me if they did 4 million viewer, I'll stick with 3 million for now, but I would not shock me if they did 4 million plus because of the fact that they have two networks going and I, that first week you get a nice sample audience. There's gonna be a lot of people check out the us L and then the question is whether or not they can maintain some of that audience moving forward. All right, Mike, I'm gonna kick you out. Thank you so much. We have our next studio guest here. Mike Mitchell. Thank you so much. Uh, XL CFO. You have OSA. Thanks again, man. Thank you, Reed. Appreciate it. Have fun. All right. We have Roy S. Johnson here at Roy, uh, with aal.com. Did you think when this weird kid messaged you about L stuff, we would be sitting here doing a live show today. How are you doing? I am doing wonderfully. Yeah. I mean that, that, when, when I got the call from that weird kid, I'm like, what is he talking about? I mean, never thought we would be here for this day. A lot of people have worked really hard to try to make it happen. Uh, the rain is held off so far. You're able to be outside showcase the beautiful new stadium behind you. So, yeah, it's been a long road, but here we are, Uh, a little scary with the weather last night. That's The south. Hey, we, you know, it comes and it goes, if you don't like the weather stick around, it'll change. But yeah, I mean, we are, uh, you know, very subject to some, some dangerous weather. So we pray that that doesn't happen. But, uh, yeah, so far so good. And we hope that it holds off and makes tonight a beautiful night. Uh, what do you make of all this? You know, we're, we're here at the stadium. You've been through everything. State of the art technology Fox, you know, spare, no expense with all this. For me, this journey really began several years ago when it, uh, was discussed about whether to build a new stadium, it was pretty controversial. Uh, and that took a lot of, uh, angst for people to get to the point where the city was able to commit. The county was able to commit to make it happen. The L would not be here if this stadium were not built. I mean, that's been very clear, uh, that has been stated by the L and by Fox. Uh, so that journey that began with that vote by the city council to approve the stadium, uh, by coming to fruition last year, having a season for UAB. Uh, but then people thought it would stay empty. Uh, so all year long, well, here we are, we've got concerts and now we have, uh, an amazing season by the L to fill it during the spring. So, uh, it's been a long journey, but you really looking back at it and thinking, wow, who would've thought this would happen, but it is. Yeah. I mean, kids, it's this weird complex. We have restaurants, we have the west end, we have concert. Mike, epsis playing that. I mean, for people that aren't here, it, it's a really unique atmosphere here with everything going on. I think people, when they think of Birmingham, Alabama, typically think of the Birmingham 50 years ago, they think of the history, the important history that happened here, uh, some of the ugly history that here, but we really haven't seen the narrative of the city been updated, uh, in decades. And so even this complex in which we're sitting, when it was built, uh, a few years ago, it was, uh, like a pioneer people were like when nobody was coming downtown, uh, why are they building this complex, uh, years later? Uh, it's, it's the front door for this amazing using sports complex. If you come to downtown Birmingham, now it's vibrant with restaurants, with bars, uh, with retail facilities, and now people are moving downtown. There's new condos, uh, new apartments being built. Uh, it was really complexes like this that helped revive downtown. And I think what's gonna happen through this us F L season through the broadcast, through the city and the counting, the state having, uh, two spots per game, as you're gonna see this narrative rewritten, you're gonna see people go, wow, okay. I didn't know that's, what's happening in Birmingham. I've been here eight years and it's flipped and evolved three or four times even since I've been here. Uh, and now this stadium is, is the showcase of that evolution. Uh, are you excited about the football? I mean, obviously we have the city impacts and the economy and all that, but, but having football played here for the next 10 weeks. So I'm excited about the opportunity that these young men have to showcase their skills, uh, and perhaps give them a better chance of making it the NFL. I mean, I, I'm a football fan. I grew up in Oklahoma. So, uh, anybody who grew up in Oklahoma's gonna be a football fan and be living in Alabama, if you're not a football fan, they kick you out. So you have to really, you be a fan to live here. Uh, but I'm excited just to say, have, see some football in the spring, but really happy for the young man given this opportunity to showcase their skills, uh, whether they've had a cup of coffee in the NFL already, whether they've been in college and feel that they just need, uh, to, to work on their game, whether it's with NFL coaches, uh, playing against higher caliber of talent and maybe they were at their, at the college level. Uh, so I just think it's a great opportunity for the young men to, uh, perhaps fulfill their dream, or they're already fulfilling the dream of playing, being a pro player, but fulfill their dream of playing in the NFL. Uh, what do you have going on today? Here? You have to be down at the stadium. What, what duties, you know, in terms of the importance of all of this, for the job that you do, Just really soaking it up and observing, uh, as a reporter, uh, you look around you, listen, you hear, uh, to see what people are saying. I've already spoken with three people who have traveled from out of town to get here. Uh, I ran into someone from the mayor's office earlier, who, who told me, and you may have already, uh, been told this, that tickets were bought in every state in, in the nation. That to me is amazing. I was stunned when I heard that. So I've already met someone from Seattle. I've met people from Georgia from new Orleans, uh, met someone from, uh, Indianapolis from Indiana. So, uh, it I'm amazed that people are coming in and excited about just seeing how this is, uh, really drawn people, not just football fans here, but fans of the L uh, you know, it's been obviously decades since the L was played, but man, the legacy of that this league is strong. Like, cuz you're seeing people with logos, from teams that haven't existed now for years, but you know, they're bringing their kids, someone are bringing their grandkids. The L did a great job, building a legacy, building a brand, uh, and now to revive that brand, uh, seems to be resonating with a lot of people. Yeah. I was really surprised with the 50 states having to a ticket sold too. That really surprised me. Uh, I still have not got numbers. Uh, I, I I've talked to the league every week. Maybe you're more important than I am. Maybe what are we expecting for estimated people tonight Just early predictions are at least 20,000 people. Now that's that's for this opening game and it's got the Birmingham stallions playing in the game, but uh, I'm hearing could be upwards of, of 20,000 and, and possibly even a sellout that would be stunning to me. That would be, you know, I hate to even, you know, put it out there. But uh, 20,000 people, I mean already walking around, there are tons of people walking around and we're still hours, uh, from the game. So, uh, I think it's gonna be a good crowd. It'll be a fun crowd. And uh, it'll be good to see the stay stadium vibrant and full on a spring day in Birmingham. Is this pretty standard for a number of people here? Are we expecting more people? I mean, I see people walking now, they're congregating here, but uh, in terms of what is the vibe like you're normally like with the university of, uh, Alabama Birmingham place? Well, it's different because it's not a local team. Uh, this, it is different because of just what we said. You have fans coming from different areas, you see jerseys, I've already seen jerseys of like three or four, uh, different teams. Usually if it's a UAB game, you see a lot of green, uh, or if it's a, if it's another college, you see their, their, their logos, uh, if it's a soccer game, you see a lot of Legion, uh, jerseys. But so you are really seeing, uh, a, an amalgam of a lot of fans from a lot of different places. Certainly you'll see a lot of stallions jerseys. Uh, but I, you know, this is a little bit atypical just because there's no one vibe it's really the vibe about the us L it's about football in this spring and people having an opportunity for $10 a ticket, uh, to just come see what you hope is some pretty good football players. Yeah. We have a question. Tailgate parties. I mean, I heard, uh, Dustin with RO retro who was on you before was saying there's some tailgates on the parking lot, uh, is that what this area usually becomes for college days? Because the stadium is so new, there's no usual yet. It's, it's still evolving. Uh, you know, I haven't come to too many UAB games, but certainly, you know, they have more, uh, parking sort of on the other side of the stadium, I saw a couple of tailgate, uh, events going on when I pulled up maybe an hour ago too. So, uh, yes, there's definitely tailgating going. It's probably not typical of a, of a stadium that is really surrounded by parking. This stadium is not surrounded by parking. So, uh, the tailgating is a little bit more difficult and it's something that the city and the, uh, the, uh, convention authority will have to figure out Us L being here, right. You've lived here, cover, you know, other people. I mean, does it really resonate with, with your readers? You know, the people that watch the videos that your station puts on my, I mean, is this how big of a deal is this? Uh, in terms of not just all football fans, but the city and what resignation does it have? Again, it's a little early to tell. I think the, the coverage that I had leading up to it resonated people were very curious about whether it was gonna happen, whether whether it wasn't gonna happen. Uh, and now leading up to it. I think where I noticed it was just being out and about, uh, at my gym, uh, out at a restaurant, people were coming up and say, you going to the L game, you're going to the L game. So there's been more buzz about that than there's been for almost any other, uh, entity that I've seen here. Uh, we've had the Birmingham squadron, which is a G league. There was a lot of buzz outside of Birmingham. When I say outside, if you have, if you haven't lived here, there's the Birmingham core. And then there's the city, but the city is surrounded by a bunch of municipalities as well. And so the buzz has been beyond Birmingham, but with football fans who don't necessarily, uh, you know, come downtown for too much, but they are coming downtown to, to watch this game. Uh, well, I, I'm gonna try to get the attention of our next guest here. Uh, get him coming on. And, uh, uh, we're, we're gonna let you go get back to work. I know you're a busy man. I appreci it. Uh, final thoughts from you. I, I just, this whole journey, getting everything, covering it, having Fox sports, basically take over the city of Birmingham. This is really an example of what can happen when people put down their egos, uh, when they decide that something collectively is worth more than, uh, perhaps some individual selfish needs, you had the city, you had the county, you had the state, uh, you had the mayor's office and you had skeptics early on. Uh, and I think for Fox sports, uh, they showed patience. They, uh, they showed some deference. They were, they honored the legacy of this city by committing to not just bringing football here and maybe dumping a bunch of money in, but by becoming part of the community by holding, uh, events for youth, uh, by playing games in Legion field, which a lot of people would ignore if they were coming here. So I think collectively, it's an example of what can happen when people put their egos aside. Uh, and think about the, the bigger picture, uh, hopefully all of that will manifest over the next 12 weeks. Uh, but I think it's the first real example in years of all the entities coming together and deciding, you know what, we're gonna try to make this happen. We're gonna overcome the skepticism. We're gonna be patient. We're gonna, uh, uh, overcome all the hurdles. We're gonna get past the potholes. Uh, and here are on day one, finally. Perfect. I will, Roy. I appreciate you stopping by absolutely sir. Best of luck with everything. We're gonna get our next guest ready to go here. Thank you so much. Uh, we're waiting, mark. Perry's gonna be zooming in here in a little bit with, uh, XL CFO, us L new sub, but in the meantime we have our location. Now, Roy don't break my livestream. When you unplug your phone there, just speak here. That's okay. We're gonna bring in Ron Frederick, former Birmingham stallion. I saw you driving earlier. We were getting ready for this. How are you doing sir? Doing well, Doing well, glad to Be here. Uh, so for people that, that maybe are a little young, right? A lot people watching the us L now, maybe we're around with you played, uh, give us the, the Evelyn barrier pitch of your history with the league. All right. Um, out of duke, uh, I had some interest from some of the NFL teams, uh, Tampa bay, mostly. Um, they ended up signing me. I wasn't drafted, but they signed me, uh, the day after the draft as a, uh, free agent, uh, played, uh, three or four weeks with, uh, Tampa bay, uh, in the NFL, during preseason in was the year of the first NFL strike in 1982. And, um, I, along with several other rookies and some of the lower round draft choices were, uh, was released and, um, came back to duke. I played college at duke. Steve Spurrier was my offensive coordinator. Um, and he was coaching there. Um, at the time as still as offensive coordinator, I was helping with the receivers, um, having a great time, uh, doing it. Um, we had some great receivers there. Chris castor, uh, went on to play for Seattle. And, um, I thought maybe that's what I was gonna do. And then I got a call from Raleigh do, who was the head coach, uh, here in Birmingham as, uh, I'm sure most, uh, people know. And, um, uh, he asked me to come down. He wanted to sign me and, um, we talked, went back and forth a little bit. I signed with Birmingham and, um, they had the rights to the Tampa bay players at that time. So, um, I signed with them, uh, showed up in, uh, January for, um, uh, preseason and thought there was gonna be about 12 wide receivers that I was gonna compete with. We had 35 and <laugh>, they were from everywhere. So I'm not right outta college. Some from the NFL, uh, a few from the Canadian league, but, um, they cut it down to 12. We went down, down to, uh, preseason camp in Florida. Um, had three weeks of camp there. They cut it down to six, four on the active roster and two practice squad players, uh, wide receivers, and, um, ended up playing wide receiver that, uh, first year in punt returner. And then second year, mostly punt returner. Um, had a great time here in Birmingham. We have a comment here, a nice hair game, your hair game is getting that's all. Uh, what does it mean? You know, having this all come back, you know, obviously everything went away, you know, get in all this stuff, why the league fit, you know, ended up, you know, not sticking around, but did, did you hear the USFL is coming back? I mean, what possibly goes through your mind? You know, I was actually thrilled and I, I know that there's, um, some back and forth legally with the connection with the old league and the new league, but, um, um, I, it, it was almost funny. I was, uh, joking with my two daughters and just, you know, saying, see, I told you it was a thing, it was a real thing, you know? And, um, but no, I'm just glad that it's back. Um, the original league back in 82, 83, um, and then 84 and 85, if they had really stuck to their game plan and, and not made some decisions kind of on the, on the go, um, going into 84 and 85, I think that league could have been successful. We had tremendous support here in Birmingham. Um, uh, and some other teams Tampa bay at one time was, um, uh, drawing more than the, uh, BCCA ears. Um, of course there was Memphis and some other teams Denver did real well. Um, so it's just some of the teams weren't, um, uh, having to kind of draw that they needed to support the salaries. And then the owners got a little bit, uh, past happy with their hockey books and started bringing in a lot of big, big name players, but they just, in some of those cities was not the support fan support to be able to justify those types of salaries. And then once they tried to move it to the fall, um, it was over. So I wanna know, you know, we cover all these leagues, we cover CFL, XFL, you know, all this stuff, you know, having these alternate, non NFL leagues to give players like yourself, others, you know, the hundreds of guys who are part of this, uh, to be able to, to play, you know, get tape, make money, get exposure, uh, talk about the importance of having that. You know, I, I think it's wonderful that they're doing it. And the reason for that people don't realize it. It's such a fine line, many times between players that are playing in the NFL and players that are playing in these other leagues. Um, other than the superstars, as a matter of fact, there are a lot of players that are either didn't make the NFL or that are playing in the, in the NFL that, um, um, maybe should have been in one of the lower leagues or, or the players in the lower leagues maybe should have been in the NFL. I always think of the, uh, the Tiki barber story with, uh, I think he was sixth string with the New York giants and had two or three players not been injured and a couple of other guys not perform well. We may, he may never have gotten the shot and, um, uh, to be the great player that he was as a running back. And so, um, but there are a lot of guys like that and sometimes coaches, miss, and this league and these leagues will give those players an opportunity to show in, in game situations that they can play at that, uh, high level, um, Being involved in all this last couple, I mean, six months now, you, you hear this, I mean, what has it been like for you being able to relive the nostalgia, right. Be able to kind of, I'm sure, like you said, your kids and, and friends and, uh, Hey, this thing really did, uh, you know, exist and matter. What has it been like For you? It's been fabulous. Um, I've connected with a few of my former teammates, um, uh, that I had not talked to in 35, 40 years. Um, uh, my wife was here in, in my second year in 84 and, uh, we talk about the wonderful time that we had, uh, in Birmingham. Um, um, and as I just mentioned earlier, it's really two of best years of my life. And I've had a wonderful life. Um, the people here are just so supportive of not just their football team, but the players, they, they do a great job of bringing or, or at least including the players in the community. Um, we had all kinds of events that players were involved in back then. And I would assume they're gonna do the same thing. That's what Birmingham does. Um, and it's such a beautiful city too. I hope people have been here talk days trip to Birmingham. Um, and, uh, it's just a beautiful area, nice, uh, people to live around. Yeah. Obviously, uh, hub this season, you know, moving the teams out from there. I mean, do you feel bullish on everything? Do you like this game plan? Does it feel like you said having lived through maybe the overzealous owners of the past and, and see maybe a little bit more sure they have approach Here? You know, I, I do like it and, um, the reason I know they're gonna add a lot in the production of the, uh, games, um, and I think that's needed to generate some excitement and some, um, while the teams were all located in one city, I mean, you've got these teams from, you know, Tampa bay and Houston and other cities. Um, uh, their games may not be as well attended obviously as the Birmingham stalling games. But if through this production that, um, we're gonna see tonight with, um, I think I read 57 cameras and, and, um, drones and, uh, the players are gonna be micd up. Um, uh, that's gonna make it interesting. And I hope building enough fan support in those cities so that when the league moves to those respective cities next year, um, they'll be, uh, a, a, a nice base of support to really build, um, they just need to not get out of the, you know, In the original league, it was a great plan and they deviated from the plan and that's what killed the league. If they'll just stick with their plan and, uh, um, not let it get outta hand. I think the league's got a good chance. Uh, well, Ron, I really appreciate you coming by. I hope you're able to enjoy the game tonight. It's good to finally, I've gotta tell you one thing. Okay. Tell me, I understand. You're and Edmonton. I am an Edmonton Elks. Yes, Huge Edmonton fan. My great friend teammate in high school and at east Carolina, the one year I played at east Carolina under pat dye, by the way, who went on to Auburn and won a national championship, um, is David Kele, his brother, Danny. Ketley one of the greatest Edmonton players ever played the game up. Think he won six, uh, great cuts. Yeah. Yeah. And was defensive player of the year, three years, maybe for Edmonton. So, um, anyway, but, uh, so I know Danny, but I knew, you know, I knew Edmonton and, uh, we're a big fan of the, at that time, what, or, or SMOs. Yeah. And, and now it's, I called him, it's your CFL team. Okay. Your C NFL team, the Edmonton Oak. Ron. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Uh, we're gonna bring Andrew back in. We're gonna get Mark Perry zooming in here. We have, Andrew's been, uh, bouncing the around. Uh, Dorothy's tried to tell me things off camera. I cannot hear right now. Uh, there's a lot of people really close to the livestream. If we can move people. I, I, it's becoming very nervous. We have a, uh, cell phone drop edges with, um, with the Celler. I would just hope if maybe if we move some people away a little bit, uh, we're gonna bring mark in here. Andrew, any other thoughts while we connect mark and, and feel, uh, what what's going on here? Uh, well, there's definitely starting to be people collecting outside of the stadium. We're starting to get some lines forming and, uh, trying to get more of a general idea of just exactly how many people are gonna be here. So keeping my eyes out on that. Yeah. I think as the more people are coming, the cell service will be dropping a little bit here. We're hot spots. So hopefully it's holding up. Okay. Marks on Mark Perry, uh, X, L C. How are you doing Good. How are you guys doing Good? What are you making of all this? You're monitoring the web big bat for us news, hub dot, uh, dot com. What, what is your sense of everything? So I'm looking at it right now. Uh, I mean the fantasy site was rocking and rolling last night. It's interesting that both the XFL and CFL site, I would say the CFL. I mean, the USFL site has actually been pretty consistent all day, but, um, the weird thing is, is the, the, the juice is the only way I could describe it behind this league versus the juice that came when the us XFL kicked off is completely different. Um, you know, we were getting, I mean, it was crazy. Like the server was crashing and I don't know, like, how are people starting to show up now for the game? I mean, what's the buzz in the CI city now? Uh, I mean the parking lots, Andrew, what, what do you think? I mean, I see the parking lot here, Andrews, from walking around a little bit more than I have. We couple have a couple hay marks in the chat. Uh, I mean, I just thought this street would be filled with people, but it's not, but I see the parking lots have tons of people off to the side. Yeah. I, I think it's, it was something that I was thinking about, uh, this past week be because of the buzz. So when the XFL came out with, and I wanna preface all this by saying, I don't care who wins, I have skid in all the games somebody's gonna win in the end. I'm just not sure who that is. Um, but it was interesting that, you know, there was more interest in the XFL coaches when that got released than the us L coaches and, and the us F L coaches was kind of more kind of drawn out. And the one thing that I thought of was, is it a hindrance? Well, you know, for certain, the XFL is watching it, seeing how this hub thing is gonna come, how this is gonna play out. That's everybody's watch I, including myself because I I'm on the fence about how this will work, but also because a televis entity like Fox owns just the USFL, how much are other partners out there? I mean, NBC has been tweeting about it today and that's basically it ESPN hasn't said anything about it. You know, CBS sports hasn't really said anything about it, cuz none of their competitors like, like, uh, you know, ESPN and ABC and whatever, do they have a real interest in promoting something that their competitor owns? And I never thought of it in terms of that way, understanding how this news business cycle kind of works out. That's could be a hindrance on television network being a hindrance, owning, uh, something like this could play out. You Fox does have all sorts of, you know, affiliate markets and all this other stuff, but some people don't watch Fox. So, you know, I think it's when it drops, when the, when the game drops that's gonna be, the key is when they kick off that ball, people are, I mean, there's nothing really going on today except for baseball. When people tune in, I think that's what USFL people are banking on. And I, and I think, uh, we'll see what happens. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I you're, you're dead on about that mark. Uh, the one thing I always take notice of is, uh, during super bowl coverage, for example, when you know which, um, which one is going to broadcast the game itself, if it's going to be, say Fox, or it's gonna be NBC, or it's gonna be CBS, of course their own network is gonna be pushing that. But the other two networks simultaneously are not doing that. They're not gonna say, Hey, go watch that other thing on the other person's channel at that specific time, they're not gonna do that. So you're Absolut dead on with that. So I haven't seen, and I've been keeping track on the whole thing this whole week. I mean, there's been obviously with the rock of Danny Garcia with the XFL, uh, the get up program, the sports center programming, there's been much more focus on that and mentioning of it. I have not seen one single thing about us F L this week since watching it. So you're dead on about that. And that's how, and that's how the, you know, these guys work. So it'll be interesting to see, and it's really, it boils down to business model who, whose business model works. And now you're having Mike Mitchell reporting back and I saw him on earlier, you know, that the XFL is interested in maybe doing the hub model. I just think that hub model just takes away some of, of the juice and excitement from the league in general. Like, you know, I mean, I'm a Tampa bay bandits fan, you know, I, I watch whatever cuz I'm, I mean, I was watching fan control football today. I was just excited to have it. And it was fun. The glacier boys lost I believe, but that was, it was fun, you know, uh, watching, you know, I was on my phone and I was checking out E NBC LX to, to watch the fan control football, uh, you know, in the new stadium and everything like that. And that was fun. Like, so there, the other interesting thing about this thing, a topic I wanted to bring up, it surprised me. So we lived through the XFL CFL talk and CFL fan being like, no, you're not welcome. You know, we don't want you here. And that was kind of a culture shock for us, but then there's also USFL fans and XFL fans, and they're not really meshing either. And I was really surprised by that too. It kills me this divide we have between the USFL and the XFL. It absolutely kills me it because I did, we lived through the same thing with the CFO that, oh, this won't be a big deal. It'll be American, all that stuff. And the, the vitriol between the leagues with the fans this way, it it's crazy too. I really don't get it. What do you make of that, mark? Where does that come from? I think it's, uh, I mean, I, uh, I don't know. I don't, I, I guess people can only chew gum. They can't walk in chew gum at the same time. I mean, you know, uh, I guess people can only have one front runner and I tell people all the time on my show, there's writers on our, in our group that don't want to cover the SFL. Now I've always said when the ball gets kicked, what's gonna happen. Uh, you know, in turn of, uh, this league and what's, it's on television, how people are gonna react, because I know when no one knew about the spring league and the spring league, all of a sudden appeared on television and our traffic just exploded. So I think Fox knows it and then, and we know it too. So it'll be, it's just gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out. Well, um, my question mark is, I guess, do you think it has to do with brand loyalty, cuz it seems like that way with these leagues, especially with these camps, I suppose of just people saying, well, I'm a CFO fan, I'm an end fan, I'm an XFL fan. I'm a USFL fan. I'm an FCF fan. Like it almost feels like people are sort of almost having to be undyingly loyal to one specific brand identity and they can't find any way, sense or form to like enjoy other versions of it. Do you feel that way? Yeah. I mean, when I, I think there's some tribal end to it. I mean, I remember when the X, I was like, I'm just doing with the XFL and I'm not gonna do anything with the AAF. And then I kind of like turned on a game in like week two and then I was like, huh, like maybe I should check out a little bit more and then, you know, like week seven and then it was over. So I think, I think, um, I think as time goes on, I think people will, will bring, will come in. But also, um, fans have been burned and this business model though, it makes sense to be half my brain says, yeah, this makes sense. You know, start small, build yourself up. Think of the long term, not, you know, everybody AAF the old us F L the XFL, they came out guns a Blaz in the beginning and then they were out. These guys are taking it more of a slow PR approach. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that works either. Somebody's gonna win this, this thing at the end. Who knows? Uh, we got a question from Dan, does this eventually end up with an XFL us L merger? I know you're high on that. Oh yeah. There's no way that the two of these leagues can coexist for 10 years. There's just no way. The interesting thing is with the X NFL's partnership with the NFL, I mean, so let's, let's take it this, and we'll ask, uh, fans in the chat room as well. Make sure you smash that like button and subscribe to the channel while you're out there. If you're a football player, where, what road would you rather travel? Would you rather be at the practice squad team nine of the NFL than get an XFL contract? Would you rather play in the USFL than hopefully get an NFL contract? Or would you rather play in the CFL? Well, you have to wait a whole season. You can't a training camp. You have to wait till the season's over to get a camp. So which, which road would you rather take? I think if, if my, if I was my choice, it would be the NFL team nine first, then the XFL, because they have that relationship and the coaches, you gotta remember too, look at all these players that are, uh, you know, even the, of first Exel iteration or even this iteration, how many players that got picked up, had relationships with these coaches before they wanna take guys that they can trust they, they can bring in. So that's a big part of this whole deal is the relationship between, I mean, Landry Jones, if, if it was somebody else playing, uh, you know, if it wasn't Bob stoops and it was, you know, Mike Mar I just watched that America underdog movie, which was fantastic. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, by the way, last night, if it was Mike Mar you think he would pick Landry Jones to be his number one quarterback? No, maybe you try get Trent green to come back or, you know, call up Kurt Warner, see if he wants to do it again, but you know what I mean? Um, so where all that plays out, you know, where are the best players gonna go? I think, I think they would take the XFL route first. I don't. And then where does it leave the CFO? Well, I was gonna say actually funny, you mentioned that that has been kind of a concern. That's come up a couple times Reed. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but it seems to be a sentiment amongst some of the, the people who cover the CFO that this new partnership with the NFL alumni community has now possibly impacted any sort of potential collaboration between the CFO and the fell in terms of player development. Because that was something that I, I always heard and heard it in the background of being a potential, like thing that could actually be established. And now the XFL has kind of barged down that door and has finally been able to fully establish that connection. So I guess I'm not sure where that leads the CFO in that regard, because I'm not sure if they can now go forward with that kind of connection. Yeah. I mean, this next year is gonna be completely, I mean, you heard, and I think you guys are talking about moose Johnson talking about how, you know, I don't, you know, we hope we can get the season too. I've heard him say that before. So it's, it's not new, it's not new. Um, I mean it, and it's, he's being completely honest. We're all kind of the same way too. I wonder if you can play a full season, have a great championship season. And then, then I think they're good to go. The question is, and what do you guys think is the Monday headlines going to look like after this is all said and done, is it gonna be like, well, this was trash, this was tear. They Fox did a good job, or everybody's gonna be poised on the ratings. And let me tell you this, the ratings, even for the NFL always are high in the beginning and drop off so rash and all these other Gioni out there that, that constantly complain, you know, oh, look, the ratings, the ratings are down. It happens in the NFL too. They, they peak, maybe they stay a couple days. Then they come down, people's fantasy football teams are over, then they bail and then, you know, they come back kind of the playoff. So, I mean, what do you think the vibe will be on the Monday morning quarterback? So to speak? I think this is, you know, obviously Fox is gonna make it through, this is gonna work. This is, is gonna be whatever I, people are filling in. Now, this did not strike me the last two days being here of a hotbed of football right now. I mean, it really hasn't, you know, and we've heard, okay, Birmingham during the week is, is really sleepy. I Dorothy and I walked around downtown Birmingham for two hours yesterday and saw about six people on the sidewalk. I mean, there's not a lot of people here. And I would think for this thing, that's been promoted as an alt football Mecca, everyone coming in this weekend, uh, we went to dinner last night with, uh, van here. One of our listeners that sitting here, I mean, we closed the place down at 10 o'clock. There was no one in there. It just didn't feel like, okay, this is the Friday night before, you know, when we went, like we were talking before, when we went to the XFL, you know, Walters and all that stuff was off the chain in DC before, before the, the game went. I don't, I can't figure it out. I, I think the ratings are gonna be incredible this weekend. Right. I think the ratings today, I think there's been enough stuff with the lasers and the football and the chips and all that stuff. But I think when you turn on, when you have 3.5 million or whatever people turn on the game, if there's 10,000 people here, I don't know. Yeah. I, it's gonna be an interesting thing. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Just, yeah, just that, just to kind of piggyback off of that. I, I, I think it really depends on what sort of, what, what does the league measure a success? Does it measure it in terms of ratings? Does it measure it in terms of, uh, being able to showcase all this new technology and all these innovative ideas? Is it the level and field of play on the actual field itself? Like what is the level of success? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I mean, you're talking about the guys who are in charge of this thing. I think it's all hundred percent ratings. Sure. That's, that's what it is. They expect, you know, the, the, the $10, you know, bring your kids for free. Clearly ticket sales is, is not a thing. Merch is not a thing. And this is a, uh, you know, a Reed. I think you've talked about it before. This is a television driven league to fill in for the spring. You know, while football is, is kind of on the wayside, so to speak, Uh, we have a comment. James travel is expensive these days. Maybe people just couldn't bake it to Birmingham. I don't know. I didn't set up the hub in Birmingham. That's not my problem. <laugh>, I'll tell you what. I looked. I looked at like tickets to fly into Birmingham and my wife and I had talked about, and we were gonna fly into, uh, Atlanta and then drive the four hours. It was like so much more cheaper than to just flying into Birmingham. And then we were like, well, we're in Atlanta. It's easier to get there. Just, you know, you gotta fan control football game, go check that out. I am it's Easter. We have a comment active my age. It's Easter weekend, Passover weekend. It's crazy week to start anything. I don't know. I didn't, I didn't pick this weekend to do the kickoff. I, I would've. I mean, they're really lucky that this thing wasn't shut down with a thunder. I mean, Andrew and I lived through this thunderstorm last night. I mean, there was a very real chance that they were gonna have to postpone this game Because of the weather you think. Well, Roy as Johnson, he kind of said like, ah, that's just the way things are out here. I mean, it was no, you Never know. You never know it. It seemed, it seemed pretty serious last night. And then based on the weather report, it said there was gonna be thunder lightning throughout the day, but that hasn't pulled true. You never know Mark. I wanna get your thoughts on this, cuz we haven't had you on sets. You know, obviously we're, we're making fun. I'm not trying to make fun. Oh wait, I have a guest. Uh, oh we have the dog comes the dog here. It comes. Benny there Go. I, there we go. We got the dog. Let's You got you think the game is you ready for the game today? You ready? He's ready to make your face. Yeah, You go. He he's that, uh, you know, we, I mean, I'm making fun. I'm not, not trying to make fun of the, the hub season here. Right. But actually fell the Arlington thing. Uh, what do you, I wanna get mark thoughts on that. So I, I think, I definitely think Mike Mitchell's reporting kind of waked some people up to that thing and I'll put this out there and there's something I'm gonna talk about on my show Monday. What do, is it more acceptable to if, if, if you're gonna do a hub city, would it be more acceptable for fans to do a, a Texas? I mean, clearly fans will be like, that's a disappointment. What if you did Texas and St. Louis would, if you had two hub cities, would that be, you know, agreeable to the XFL fan? I mean, and, and St Louis will sell out that stadium, every single game, you're gonna make money off of that easy. And then, you know, let the other, you know, DC defenders or whatever, train there and have their games there. That's doable. Now. I haven't heard them talk about it. But, um, you know, as Mike Mitchell has been reporting, the problem is, is that, you know, when you go to some of these places and you say, Hey, we want to do stuff. They're like, oh, well, rock Danny Garcia, rubber capital, you guys have money, but they also got burned in the past too. So I get it. It's just a, it's kind of a mess. I think the, the three teams in Texas this crazy time, I think three teams in Texas and, and not having New York, not having LA, I mean, it's just such a step back from what people were expecting. I mean, you know, we, I remember on this show a year ago, uh, we just, they're gonna turn the light switch on. They're gonna keep going. They've got all this stuff going. Now, if we got three teams in Texas, okay. We got Seattle LA I mean, Vegas, it just, it feels like you're hitting weird parts of the map. Just like the us fellows. Yeah. I think, I mean, as Mike Mitchell was reporting, it's the problem is making deals and we keep hearing kitty, whatever her name is from St. Louis. I'm like girl, you've said the same exact quote for the last two years. This is not news. So I, I don't, I don't know what their deal is. And clearly, I mean, they said in the press release, you know, using the term venues and it will take months. Now, now the rock originally had said, it would take two months to roll everything out now that's different. And I think it's because they're like, well, see if we can explore, do in the cities. Now, what we heard during the whole bankruptcy stuff was that, Hey, we're ready to flip on the switch. That's a quote, flip on the switch right now. And we can get going. Like, as soon as somebody buy this, we could flip on the switch in October and be ready to roll. And then even, uh, I remember Dana white had mentioned early on. We actually, I think he even did an article. He was like the UFC guy. He was like, they need to get on this now do not wait two or three years to relaunch this thing. And I mean, you know, the logo is nice. I mean, my kids think it looks cool. I get the idea that maybe you would, you know, I mean, if you were hanging out, if you had a choice between which hat you would wear in public, I mean, this one's kind of me and this one's kind of better, you know, and me and re the only two people that have this one I've been wearing my USFL hat. I like, this is like my favorite hat. This is like, I like this one. But, uh, you know, who knows what's going on with the, the XFL and who, you know, at the, the spring football wars is on and we'll find out who is gonna be on top. And today is, is the first day maybe it's fan control ball. Maybe they take over. Well, we had comments on that did to play yet, did to play in the parts of the draft you watched today, the parts of the stream. No, he's not. He's not on that team. Him and, uh, Johnny Manzel are on the zappers and I think they play tonight or tomorrow. I forget how their schedule goes. I think they play everything. Yeah. Everything on Saturday. So they'll have all, yeah, they're on later. It's insane that they're kicking out. Can we just say that it's insane that FCF and USFL are playing the same debt? Yeah, I don't, I don't know who, who I, I, I would assume FCF had this plan all along. Um, it's an interesting weekend. You know, somebody made a comment that, you know, you know, you're not gonna get thing because it's Easter weekend. I mean, we'll find out clearly Fox did all their research and we'll see, uh, what the ratings look like. And, um, where we go from here Is the site traffic. What you, I know we started the conversation with this is the site traffic, what you thought it would be today, given that it's the kickoff. And it's been six months to build up for this. I mean, the problem is we spun this up in two months. And so our Google has, you know, sometimes it takes up to two years for Google to think, to be friendly towards you. And Google is very friendly towards XFL news hub and quick Google has become friends with USFL news hub, but not quite yet. So, but I mean, you know, people are looking, I could look at the data now it's, uh, looking at the articles about the Philadelphia stars and the, the schedule really where I'm looking at things tonight is how much people are gonna be added to the YouTube channel. We have us news hub is the, and, and the phone app you can actually down. There is no us F L application on Android, except for the one that we created. So you can go to Android, you can download it, we're working on the performance aspect of it. And then to, you know, kind of see where, you know, news hub fantasy goes. I mean that it had crazy traffic last night, not too many bugs. And I will, I will throw this out there. I've had people message me and send me their lineups from a alternative other football application that they said to not work. So I will leave that at that. I'm glad mine works for The most part. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a league in the chat here. If you guys want to hop on, do any call here before we go. Uh, we'll, we'll kick mark off here in a minute. If anyone wants to do a call in here with the Andrew and I, we're gonna try to hop off here at four, like I said, we're getting a lot of people down here. I think it's gonna tax the, um, broadcast capabilities of, of what's going on, mark other comments. I mean, we're finally here. It doesn't feel as emotional to me as maybe I felt even as a fan back in, in February of, of 20, 20. Yeah. I was at the game. I took my friend, I mean, and that was a whole, I mean, we started actually L news hub in 2018 and I was with my friend and we went to Walters where I met you with the hat that I still have. And, uh, you know, with, uh, Conor folk and we were doing our kind of stream, like we did there and walking to the stadium, I was getting emotional. And I was like, oh, I can't believe it's finally here. Like, you know, going there, meeting pat Hamilton and, and being involved with the league and, and starting basically, we were at the third place XFL site to be, go to number one. And I was emotional and excited. And I've been looking forward to this day, uh, also, but definitely it's, it's, it's trepidation. It's not it's, it's like, I'm excited, but I don't wanna get burned if it, if it, you know, a year from now that this is shut down, but they have a, you know, I tell myself too, their partner with NBC NBC gave 'em some money. I'm sure they have some kind of language in there that says, if this goes wrong, whatever, like, well cancel. And they cancel shows all the time, but you know, this is, this is the beginning and just get ready, keep recording stuff. And we'll have another 30 for 30, uh, with the, the success or de demise of spring football, whatever happens will start today. It really does feel like Andrew, what do you think about that? It really does feel like peak alt football. Right now we have FCF playing. We have FL we have XFL and coaches being announced and it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I, I think there's the potential for this to be a golden era of spring football. I really do. If all things go correctly and according to plan, which obviously they haven't <laugh> in the last couple of years, but I would really love to just see the full fruition of this idea of the spring football concept, really being in full-fledged or people getting their opportunities, coaches, players, team, personnel, fans, being able to get involved with new franchises. I really want this to be a thing I absolutely do. And I think this, hopefully, as mark said, this is the beginning of something that will hopefully blossom for Years to come. And there's one other thing to think about too. So remember AAF came into the game and AAF paid to be on television. The XFL came and it was, we're not have to pay for, to be on here. You're gonna cover the cost, but you're gonna put us on television. The USFL comes and I can competitor gives them money to put their games on television, whatever the, what the XFL is gonna like. Clearly we're getting a buildup to like, yes, spring football is going to work because I mean, and my thing is, and I've said this on my, the CFL news hub thing, if the USFL thing, an XFL thing work, and clearly it's gonna be a negative impact on the player pool for this CFO. But this, this opens the door for the CFO to be like, listen, these guys are done. You can have us for a couple months, put us on ESPN or maybe ABC. And the only way to do it is let's expand and put two teams in the United States, went on the east coast, went on the west coast, and then you can have, uh, CFO games. I mean, if the, if the money is clearly there, I mean, compared to five or six years ago, it's changed so much. Well, and also it's such a lower threshold now for what is a successful TV product. I mean, here we have these shows, you know, peacock and paramount plus, and all these places have these shows that maybe only get a million viewers, right? I mean, look at apple TV and the billions are dumping into content. And it just kills me that they were worried about, oh, is, you know, what do the ratings need to be to be successful? What's going on? You know, it just, I think it's a lower bar to entry now that it was even with the XFL back in 2020, I mean, and I start, my, my whole game started on, uh, wrestling. I had a wrestling website and I was one of the first, I believe I was the first ever pro wrestling podcaster. That's how early on I've been kind of playing around with this stuff. And I remember the, the ratings war between the WWE and w C w and they were getting like two HES and twelves against each other on Monday night. And now it's like, if you get a three, it's like, wow, that's amazing. And the rating. So it's crazy how things have changed. Uh, we got pig St. Pumpkin ready to call in here. Mark, if you wouldn't mind just hanging out, just cuz God knows if anyone drops out here, but we're gonna bring in our collar here. If anyone else wants to call in, he here before we head out, like I said, we're, we're filling up here. We're at the Southern kitchen and bar. We're we're getting ready for the us L kickoff. We'll do a couple, uh call-ins if people want, before we get outta here, how are you doing, sir? Good. How's it going? What an exciting day. This is, I mean, come on. It's it's the beginning of a new league. It's I don't know. It's just so exciting. I am pumped. I am pumped, Anna. What makes you Go ahead? What makes you so excited? It's just, I'm a person that used to love the NFL, loved it to death. You can, you can actually talk to these players. You can reach out to these players. They will talk to you. There's no arrogance about them. It's just the love of football. And that's, what's exciting. The stories is what's exciting. Um, certain players on different, it's just exciting that they're getting opportunity to play again. Yes, that was something that the, the fan control football had their, their pro pre-game show. And I was checking that out and they were talking about how, what makes it unique is as how accessible the players are. And the players will start following fans because they're the player, you know, of ones that are fans are calling the plays and picking the roster. So they were reaching out to, and I think this TV show tonight, this United we stand is gonna be real interesting. Uh, you know, before the game, I'm excited to see how they, how that works with, you know, the, uh, NFL films, working with them, Big skid. Do you have a, a dog of choice in this fight? Are you just a fan of everything? X value, but DC Defenders. I see it on his hat, DC defenders. I went to the, the beer snake game. Oh, I was there too. Yes, I was there too brother. Great game. No, I I'm a, a Louis Perez fan. I, I IM interested see how, I don't know how much he's gonna play tonight, but I I'm just a fan of players in general. So I don't really care who wins, but I just wanna see a good game and some exciting, you know, I think the presentation is gonna be exciting. I think it's gonna be something similar to the XFL, but better. And whether it it's a big talk about the drones, but I think re you had brought up that you could hear the drones on the television prac the, the practice broadcast, is that right? Really like, well, I think Jeff Bette tweeted that he got hit by one of the drones. So I think, you know, I fan control football experimented with the drones too. We like that Madden look, I, I think it it's weird that fan control still goes for that. The, the top down very much like the Madden. I know traditional football fans, don't like that. I don't know. I Fox, if anyone can do it, they can. There's a ton of people here. There's a ton of people seeing our hotel that I know are working for the league. I mean, this is an all hands on deck Fox situation right now, but I, I, I think they're gonna pull out any bells and whistles. They can. I think they're looking at this and they're saying, why not? Let's, let's give it a shot. And I think the biggest thing that the, at least as far as the media buzz has gotten for this league has been the tech that they're using. I mean, our video that we did about the, the helmet cam was like huge amount of interest in that. I mean the thousands of views just cuz people were like, oh, that's kind of cool because they're they're NFL fans and want to see that kind of stuff. Now I think, I think re I'm with you as far as the helmet cam goes. I, I don't know, man, just that whole thing makes me wanna throw up, just looking at it, all the shaking around like, Hmm, Andrew, what do you make of that technology? Uh, in theory, it's very interesting in practice. It is a bit sloppy. Um, but I think that's something that they can sort of work around and see like which angles look the best, which ones come off the best or who knows. Maybe they're just going to take a sort of like anything approach and just use what they have. But I, I, I like the idea. I'm just not sure if it's quite there yet. As far as like not making you sees sick Big, what do you, what, uh, technology you're looking forward to tonight with us L kickoff and if anyone wants to drop it in the chat here, I guess the sounds, you know, they're gonna have players micd up and that sort of thing. I always like that sort of thing. I, um, I don't know how some of these angles, I mean, they did an add a full game. I think it was a Sunday night, several years ago where they had the broadcast at a different angle and it just looked weird. Um, I don't know. I think, I think it's gonna be an experiment as they're going to see what works and what doesn't. Yeah. I mean, they said this league is an incubator and they've used that, that execs have used it. And I think that's a little frustrating for fans cuz we wanna be like, just open it up and let's go and they're taking a slow methodical approach. And I think a lot of this stuff they're, they're like, Hey, this is an easy way for us to experiment and see if, if we can bring this to the NFL, I totally agree. This is any trick they've ever had in their playbook for the last 2, 3, 4 years that the NFL didn't wanna deal with is they're they're saying come on in now and give it a shot here. I totally, I mean, I think it's cool. I think it's better for the game. I mean, look at the XFL and the, the things that the NFL was able to take from that. But I, I, I, you might as well, right? You have nothing at this point except 50 million of your Fox. <laugh> yeah. That's it. Uh, anything else from you pig? Skip will kick you out. Uh, I know Dorothy's gonna hop onto the stream here before you get outta here. Anything else from you before I let you go? You're all doing a great job. Mark Perry also enjoy watching you guys. I'm not always vocal, but I'm here watching all all the time. So keep up the great work. All right. Thank you, sir. God bless. Thank you, sir. Have a good night. Uh, mark, mark. Anything else from you? Uh, we're gonna, the, the storm clouds are, are billow in here. I think van was trying to show me some off camera, weather updates while we've been on. Oh great. I just hope that uh, the weather is good. And also for any of you, um, us L fans, their NFT stuff has opened up. Like you can sign up. Uh, I was playing around with it last night. So if, if you're into that, they haven't mentioned anything. I was waiting for some kind of press release when it comes to that stuff. So that is billowing too. And I heard that they've got more new merch, uh, and I know my wife wants to buy some more. Uh, Yeah, yeah. We'll see what happens there. Um, I'm getting a, a, uh, off camera weather report from our good man band over here. He's uh, reiterating that there may be thunder lining storms for the next four hours and the clouds are not exactly small. So we might be getting some more tumultuous weather in this event. We'll see when it starts and when it happens. So yeah, I hope it clears up before, uh, the kickoff cuz thunderstorms and that that's a no go mm-hmm <affirmative> zap your, uh, Jer drones, right outta the sky. Yeah. Uh, mark, they, you so much for your time. Everything you do, I'm gonna let you go. We're gonna bring in Dorothy here. We'll say goodbye. We'll thank Andrew as well for, for sticking out here and hopping back and forth and everything else. I know people wanna, uh, let Dorothy say hi, mark. Any last notes from you? That's it guys enjoys the game. Thanks so much for, uh, doing everything that you guys do. I really, I got there. Sorry. I, I, I was giving you a compliment. No, <laugh>. I said congrat, you know, thank you for everything you guys do. You guys are awesome. And this was great show. I was watching all day long, so I really appreciate it. Have Fun. That should, yeah, my, my hand got a little too figure, happy on that, but I about two hours this as long as Reed, so lower can take here, mark. I Andrew, thank you so much for your time. We're gonna bring Dorothy on any other final comments from you before we let you go. I'm really looking forward to this. I really hope the weather doesn't get in the way and I it's about time. That's all I'm gonna say. It's about time Reed. So thank you so much for having me really. I do appreciate It. Yeah. This is Andrew with the XFL C us L news. I really appreciate rider die today, hopping in and out. Thank you so, so much. Absolutely appreciate it. We're gonna bring in the, the, the first lady of the Mark Cash here. Before we get out of here. We have Dorothy, my wonderful wife. I know people will want to hear Dorothy. You don't need to put those headphones on. You're good. Here is Dorothy. Uh, Dorothy, how are you, how has been this whole experience for you so far? Good. Hi. Yeah. Doing so fun. Um, we had a great Brun yesterday, um, at this historic Lincoln hotel, Thomas Jefferson tower. Well, okay. Yes, that sounds okay. I'm wrong. <laugh> whatever it was. And, um, it was beautiful. The bartender, the waiter guy was so friendly. He was like, well, did you know that this was built back in the day? That when they thought Zeppelins, you know, like the Hindenburg were gonna be a big thing. So they have a whole landing pad on the top of the hotel. And I was like, whoa, that's crazy. And they said, it's haunted too. So what do you make of the stadium? We've walked around it. We see a lot of people coming in now, car, you know, parking lots are filling up. What do you make of, of the excitement around here? Yeah. See, exciting people are getting geared up, you know? Um, I was just talking to van. I was like, I wonder if I should bring my, um, my, my cracking, uh, clear bag because I don't think I'm gonna bring, be able to bring my person, but yeah, it's happening, man. I think we're also gonna need to be packing some rain jackets here. It does feel like it certainly feels like the rain is getting ready to come in. If you can tell the camera's dark in the little, little bit during the stream, just because of, uh, you know, clouds moving in light, uh, dissipating a little bit. Uh, are you excited for the game? Are, are you excited? I mean, we watch the NFL. Are you excited? Uh, we don't see a lot of football games live. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's gonna be fun. Um, I'm excited, you know, I mean, I guess I'm doing, I'm saying go Birmingham because you know, we're here might as well be supporting the stallions. Um, plus Stanley, I was walking around getting like a mountain doer earlier and um, I saw a guy with a big Stanley, like horse head on <laugh>. So yeah, I'm Excited. The mascots are taking over. Uh, well, Dorothy, you know, everyone really appreciates you coming on. You know, obviously coming here with us, being able to do the show, uh, any other final comments from you? Exciting. We're just looking forward to this. I appreciate everyone being on the stream. Please make sure you like and subscribe. Uh, we'll have episode coming up next week. I, I got good guests lined up for both, uh, CFO, XFL and USFL stuff. We'll be doing recaps and everything might try to have another bonus thing coming this week. We'll we'll stay tuned, but at a minimum will be back next Friday. Anything else from you? No, I'm excited for the game. It's gonna to be good. Thank you guys all so much for, uh, checking out the stream today. I think we did the it best. I think everything held up about as good as we could with, uh, you know, cell service issues and everything else. I really appreciate that. Like I said, please make sure that I can subscribe, share the video a lot of work going in, you know, time, money coming out here at Dorothy. You know, we're spending time in Nashville coming down here. Uh, really appreciate again, this is the mark. Thanks to Andrew Murray. Roy S. Johnson, Mike Mitchell, Mark Perry, uh, Ron Dustin with Royal retros, everyone, a lot of work coming in today to, to hop on the show. Thank you guys all so much again, I'm going to play this stinger out and we'll see you soon.

Episode 87 - The XFL’s New Makeover

Well today, we have Matt Lyons with XFL News Hub. I don't know how you time this Andrew Murray and I had to spin yarn for an hour on Wednesday with this big logo on Vail. Now we have coaches in cities and hubs and merchandise and everything else to talk about how are you doing today, Matt? I'm doing good. Glad we finally have got some, some news and some tangible, like. Things for fans to succinct their teeth and do. This is good. Yeah, this is, I think this is what people needed. I had of. We'll follow in the announcement, you know, whatever that we have on, on Wednesday, the big XFL logo, we're going to get mad sights on that. And then we're going to get into everything I want to get Matt's thoughts, a little a USFL at the end. So it's not just going to be XFL, but obviously, you know, this is XFL logo announcement week. So to recap, if you missed Andrew and I were alive on Wednesday, we had a couple of listener call-ins it was a fun show. We had the new XFL logo and baling. At the time, the, the merchandise store wasn't open. That's open now I've purchased a new hat that that's coming. All questionable looks across the board. And then there were rumors kind of coming out of the, about coaches and things like that. So we have a lot more substantial staff to come into and talk about now in terms of, you know, coaches and in cities and stuff. But before we move on, Matt, what did you make of the whole announcement on Wednesday? Well, I think. I like the announcement as a whole and like everything that was announced, but I think it could have been executed a little bit better. I do like the logo. I know some people are, aren't a huge fan of that and it's not the like, love it or, or anything, but it's not bad. It's a new logo. We kind of suspected that was coming. I also think that I think you had pointed it out. Actually the current team logos don't really fit this new style of the, of the XFL. So it would not surprise me at all. Honestly, I would be expecting new, new logos and jerseys. And stuff. Which can be very fun and exciting as well. And then. I do think it was a big miss not having the countdown, like link directly to the Mert shop. That was like one negative. I would say. Because people were kind of expecting something really big there, right. At the end of the countdown. And I mean, rebranding is big, but. These fans are wanting something. That they can interact with and like that's tangible to them, like giving them a new logo and another press release and hype video is great. But we've gotten a couple of those. And that's, that's not something the fans are excited about. Per se. I totally agree. I mean, and it was like, had we not have gotten that the initial, was it 2021 or I guess it was a 20, 22 launch video, then they rebranded it. It was basically the same video announcing the 20, 23 launch. And then now we have this, you know, I saw a lot of comments online. It rightfully so. You know, it's more words, it's more buzzwords. I was talking with Jamal and last night, who was on the show, I guess it was last week, you know, he said you can't use buzzwords to build like two, two. To generate authentic excitement, right? Like that's not. It doesn't go hand in hand. It feels weird. Like I said, the merge thing was weird. Even now, like the logos. I know we were going back and forth in the chat. Like they don't fit. Right. Even the, the XFL, his Twitter profile photo doesn't fit. Right. It's not cropped. Right. Like, it just feels sloppy for like, I don't know if they were trying to rush with the USFL, like. Yeah, these, these leagues claim right low. We don't worry about anyone else. Like I, I know USFL. I was very upset with some of the XFL is timing. I previously not this, but when the NFL, the timing, when the NFL partnership announcement came out, The feedback from the USFL was like, they are definitely trying to hop on our momentum at that time when that was going on. So when surprise me, if there was some animosity as well right now with the USFL, am I going to say, I just thought sloppy. Whatever you think of the logo. I think the unveiling, I was not pristine. Yeah. And I will say though, the. It was good that the shop did go live. Eventually that definitely changed some opinions and like the attitude that Twitter had towards everything. For sure. And I think that it's pretty huge that they have under armor stuff in there. I think we kind of suspected that that would be a thing just because of the rocks connections. But I don't think they ever. Officially announced that. So seeing that in there was really nice. And that hoodie is really nice. Yeah, I it's good. I like, I seen a lot, it looks like a sports brand Nadia support league. You know, obviously we've seen all the memes. The very minimal, right? It's the XFL, the, the ax, it looks like the ax logo. It lifts. Twitter account for X even got in on it. And that was, I thought was very interesting. My question is, and I was talking with listener Harris, heard about this, like, you know, are they an on the job? Like, are they happy with this? Are they not happy with this? I want to get your take. My feeling is sometimes when you are so secretive about everything. You don't get like that open world. Like, Hey, what do you guys think about this? Like, we share ideas like, oh, Hey, that kind of looks like a penis or whatever, if you're trying to make a logo or, oh, that might look like. Something not appropriate or, you know, that word means something in a different language or, you know, you kind of get these brainstorming ideas when you're trying to come up with stuff. And like, I think they're so secretive about it sometimes that I, maybe you miss out on that like survey group, maybe that would benefit from like, Hey, that kind of looks like a bunch of other stuff that already exists. Willing to add to that. I would assume that all the people that they're bouncing these ideas off of are people that they've handpicked for the team. So. In some form, their idea, their ideals are all lining up anyway. So. They'll have to realize that like, Not everyone is going to share the same ideals as them. And. I mean, they can do whatever they want in business, but they're going to have to like start appealing to some more people here. Especially with the next announcements. Like if this wasn't the beginning of the rollout and the next announcement, isn't something that makes a splash. Well, like. That was the last window without any other sports. And like the USL USFL we'll be rolling and all that stuff. So there's definitely going to be less eyes on them with the next announcement, no matter what it is. If it's not a splash, then. They're probably going to start losing some people's interests as much as I hate to say that. And I mean, this was the time you had the hype, you had the blackout, you had the 36 hours, you had all that kind of stuff. It is. It's the echo chamber mentality at [unknown]. So football is very guilty of it. I know they don't like when I say that to them, I've talked with Patrick DS, both online. Like publicly about it. And privately, I think USFL is very much in that same mentality of like, we are Fox sports. We know what we are doing. We don't need anybody's help with this. And I think Danny and the rocker that way. And. When you're, you know, I I've talked with Mike and even yesterday where. You know, we're all tired. They, they they're claiming, we want this transparency. We want to be able to engage with the fans, but then like everything, like it's this whole cat and mouse and we're dropping the Easter eggs and all this stuff. And then you. I don't want to curse, but like, you really bought the, the, the thing on, on Wednesday. And it's like, so what was the point of all of that? If you could have just said like had the rock come out and said, Hey guys, Big announcement. Come in Friday at noon. Whatever, I'm on my Instagram, I'm at the gym working out. We'll see you guys, they are really excited to share, but then said, you like do this whole mucky muck, whatever, and then you fail it anyway. And then you just kind of tick people off in the process. It just felt odd. We'll end for a league that has continuously said since they've released that first type video we're for the players and for the fans. Both of those groups seem pretty disgruntled right now. So. I don't really have much else to say about that, besides that, but. I mean, you can say all you want about what you're working for, but how people actually view you as what matters, not how you want people to view you. That being said also like they could have. At least given us an updated timeline with that release. Like I know a lot of people were wanting everything with like cities and teams and all that stuff, which would have been awesome, but I wasn't fully expecting that I wanted it to, but. Wasn't expecting it, but it would have been nice if they could have been like. Okay guys. Next two months, everything else is going to start rolling out here where this is really the beginning. Like for real this time. It's going. Yeah, for real, for real, for real. Out last talk on the logo and then we'll get into all the new stuff. Like you said, at the top. Rebrands of the teams, right? I, I do think, you know, some of the teams are stay right. If we change the names. I think those secondary logos we were talking last night, like the dragons had the ass, the battle Hawks won a lot of those more minimalistic fit, more cars. Cause I think, I can't remember if it was you or like Matt Nakashima in that, in our. You just have brought your shout. Like, yo we're worried. Okay. If we make new teams, do they fit in with the old XFL? Right? Like we have a new design from working on stuff now. So maybe they incorporate like the dragons that, the asset and that, whatever, that kind of stuff to keep it that same. Really minimalistic look. Final thoughts, black and white, keeping it very monochromatic that way. Do you like that? I think it's an interesting choice. I'm not like I don't like or dislike it. I just think it's an interesting choice. I know some, somebody had pointed out that like most major sports leagues are red, white, and blue. But that's not really true. Well, Well, most of them, yes, but you have like the NHL and. Man I'm blanking on the other ones, but it's the one, right? 10. And there was a couple of weeks. We were batting around it. Eh, well, you know, it feels non USFL, UFC. UFC was the opposite. Yeah. If they want to be non USFL, I think this is a good move, but I. I don't know the black and white photo shopping, the old photos now. So they're black and white. You want to be illegal culture? I always tell me. Dorothy this last night, I said, yeah, they want to be this diverse league of culture. We're bringing in all sorts of players and ethnicities and races and beliefs and all this, that, but then it's like we're black and white. That feels weird, you know, just window, like from the day one, it's like we're building this league of culture, but then it's very black and white. I guess I'm more just want to see what they do with it from here on, cause this is really just the beginning of it. Like. If it progresses into something cool, and they can still do redesigns and variations or whatever. But. Yeah. It's, it's not. It didn't, it was not super eye catching. It's not like it pops out at you and grabs your attention. But at the same time, I don't hate it. So we were talking. I'm glad Mike tweeted all this stuff out before we got into recording today. Yeah, we've been talking about head coaches and things. Potential cities and hubs. 'Cause I was talking with Mike and Mike. I wanted to make sure, like, I don't want to talk about staff that you don't want us to talk about. And so, you know, obviously we have all this. Blessings to talk about. So we knew Reggie Barlow. He was the one that was announced a couple of weeks ago, leaked. I mean, he's left his job now. He was with Virginia state university. He was a white, former wide receiver in the NFL. He, the rumor is, is going to be the San Antonio coach. Reggie Barlow. Then. Mike had mentioned in the chat, came out. Would be Wednesday night after the logo stuff. Terrell Buckley. This was also reported by Aaron Wilson, the pro football network. 50 Year old head coach. They said he is going to be part of the Orlando franchise, which will segue into our city's conversations here in the minute. What do you think about another head coach? Like this being leaked? I really liked that they're going to former players. I think I've always honestly thought. Even before we heard rumbling. Rumblings that that might be a thing. But a lot more former players should get opportunities at coaching. So I definitely like to see that I believe he was coaching in, in, yeah, he was coaching in college as well. Recently. So he does have coaching experience, but I like seeing these guys get a chance that Evan had a real professional chance before. It's cool to see if they can make it work. Yeah, we're getting into the point. You're going to get a lot of XFL people like, and I was already talking with people in the chat. Why not. June Jones, you know, why not? Whatever. We'll get it. Some of the other coaches. I don't know. I like getting young guys that, that aren't 70 years old that aren't, you know, Much respect you and Jones, Jerry Glanville, people like that. I like people that aren't white getting in there. You know, the guys are playing a new, newer style of football too, which is what people want to see. They, they want to see more stuff from the college game because the college game is. Like infiltrating the NFL game to a different level. So. Having college coaches and people that have creative minds, like young, creative minds, like that is not going to hurt you at all. I think that's a great point. I think that's it. Fans? Yeah. It's. It w USFL. I mean, we'll see, you know, we're going to be a, you know, in Birmingham next week, you know, what kind of game does that look like? You know, they've had two and a half weeks to get ready for it. I don't know. I think there's a base level of, of product that you can put together and plays and schemes and things like that, you know, in that amount of time. And you're working with, with some minds that have been around the game for a long time, and they're pretty stuck in that. A trial was also a 2002 super bowl champion with the Patriots, which is awesome. So th those are kinds of the two. Did you confirmed? As much as we can have in this day in life. Confirm head coaches. Mike is so the, the interesting stuff that we have been talking about, you know, with the San Antonio move. Right. Okay. We're losing one of the teams are releasing Houston or Dallas. We're not quite sure. Mike had been saying that we were potentially going to be losing the New York and Los Angeles franchises. None of this is, you know, confirmed from the XFL. These are things that Mike has been hearing, you know, talking with the people that he talks to. San Antonio, Orlando, and then Las Vegas are going to be replacing. Tampa, which would be the Orlando one LA, which would presumably right. And then a New York for that. So what do you think about San Antonio, Orlando and Las Vegas? I really like them. I think Vegas is a great spot right now, especially it's become a pretty awesome football market in recent years. Even if people aren't invested in the team, they'll buy tickets just to go party. Orlando I think is a good move because now you've got the Tampa bay bandits and the USFL. So you could not stay in Tampa. That just, there's no way that was going to work. And San Antonio with the success they've had. In the AAF. I believe it was yeah. With the Apollo. No Apollos was Orlando. I'm sorry. So it ends up, but San Antonio, San Antonio did have success though. I think that's a good move because I believe the renegades we're having some trouble with attendance in 2020. But then again, the roughnecks had that issue with their logo, with the NFL. So I could see either of those teams being the one to move to San Antonio. But see now, I mean, I'm an idiot too, cause I set this up. So we would be, if this is true, if my game, cause I read this and you're confused too. We there'd be the three teams in Texas. We. New York would be San Antonio. LA will. Yeah. Vegas. I mean, and I, because we had talked when the San Antonio stuff came out, I mean, this is why there's a confusion here. We had talked like, okay, one of those teams, they're not really going to have three teams in taxes, but now it kind of looks like it. If this is, if Mike's reporting is true. Yeah. So that, that isn't confusing. Cause I was the same with DMI. Well, they're going to, are they going to lose Houston? Are they going to lose Dallas? This is where it is. I know a lot of people have been looking forward to San Diego, potentially being in the city. I have not heard San Diego from anything. And Mike. It never said, except for kind of wishful thinking from the fans. But as interesting and the Vegas one. If you don't play in the toilet bowl there, I don't know where you play in Vegas. Yeah. That's a good point. University of LA right. University of Nevada. The one that's like right there by the strip, they have a nice outdoor facility, but it's going to be gonna be hot. But I guess definitely. Do you mind the three teams in Texas, and then we're going to get to this bubble bubble hub thing here, coming up. I don't love the three teams in Texas, but at the same time, Texas loves their football. I feel like. Rather than having three teams in Texas, you could have gone to one of the other. Like football, hungry markets like Ohio or San Diego or, or something like that. But. You know, I mean, Texas loves their football at all levels. So if they can sell tickets, then. Let's do it. It's hard. Yeah. I, I like the San Antonio, like you said, with the commanders there, Orlando had the Apollos. It's funny how all this comes full circle because the whole, you know, XFL 20, 20, didn't want to go into some of these markets because the AAF was there like San Antonio and the. Alando so now. They're kind of riding the wrongs in that way. But yeah, I think the three teams in Texas, Mike's also reporting, and this is where I think you're going to lose a lot of XFL people coming out. He had said this in the chat, and then this was in his article that he posted alongside the new article or that. New logo release. They're very much looking to do a hub system. All I USFL. In Dallas is, is what it sounds like. Here in 2023. What are your thoughts on having a hub? I really don't like that. I feel like part of what made the XFL in 2020 feels so legitimate was having everyone in their own cities. And I believe when we were talking to Mike, you mentioned that if they do a hub, it would be for some type of tax write off or something. For the first season, which would make sense. I get that, you know, save money. If it, if it will help the league in the long run, then I guess we'll deal with it. But. It would definitely feel it would start feeling like the USFL probably with better marketing, but USFL. Again, I really think it'd be advantageous for them to be in there. Their markets, especially since the USFL was in a hub. Now it would just. Give them immediately more legitimacy than the USFL. If they were in their cities. In the hub. Yeah. This is, I mean, to me, this is like ground zero, like break, emergency glass kind of situation. If this, if this comes through fruition, I get it. I've never been like opposed to the U S and felt like, say what you want about me and whatever I said about USMS. I think there's ever anything on tape where I've ever said, like, I'm opposed to that idea. You know, it saves save some money, right. In travel. I'm opposed to some of the cities they've chosen to potentially move into afterward. Right. Because. I would call you could call the cities, whatever you want right now, because they're not actually in those cities. Like I would actually play the more benefit and be like, well, we're going to be in Seattle or whatever, even though yo you could rebrand wherever you want to do. Never been opposed to that. But now you're running into this. Well, the USFL is going in. The bubble. XFL is working all this F work and all this out there. There are two years ahead. They've been working on this staff forever. That's what people are saying. Now, if USFL does year one in the bubble year two, if, if they get all the teams out, if they get half the teams out, well now, XFL is playing catch up to the USFL, right. I guess. And even if like they don't care, right? Like Danny and the rock don't care about public perception of like what we're, it's going to take us two years and we're losing, I, they don't care. But someone asked a podcast about these leagues. I'm like talk on Twitter, the fans very much care. And the mental players do too. We're going to be what makes it run. So if you're upsetting your, your players, then. I mean, they're going to go, the players are going to go to whatever the best opportunity is and if they think that's the USFL, because they're in their own cities. And at that point, hopefully having a little bit bigger roster sizes and, and stuff, then. Then they're going to pick that if it's the XFL and they're paying better and whatever, then they're going to pick that. But. People are going to pick the best opportunity. So. If you're public, if the public perception around your league is not good and you're already going to be starting behind. The USFL in some aspects then. Yeah, you'll have some work to do for sure. I don't and I don't realistically know. How likely the chances are of the USFL moving eight cities. I could see them doing half and half. That's a lot that. That's a huge job in a, that's a huge jump for the XFL, the us valley, anybody. To get eight, you know, eight stadiums and leases and teams and all that stuff. I wouldn't mind the two bubble system, like, you know, Brian had back with. It would be spring league. Well, you know, last summer where we had. Just going to mention if, if they can't get all of the teams into the cities, then I wouldn't be surprised if we see a two bubble system. Like last time. Or the last spring league. Well, and I don't know if he was you or someone in the news hub where the XFL, I had to go this route, do the two bubble and do St. Louis and then do whatever city you wanted in Texas, whether it's San Antonio, if you do the Alamodome or do somewhere, you know, Dallas has a million stadiums, but. Do it that way. Cause then at least you're kind of keeping that foot hold and being able to sell tickets in two different venues. I mean, that's a lot more work, but it's certainly less work than all my cameras. It's certainly less work than, you know, trying to do eight cities and we're doing two bubbles. I don't know. I just. I think you're going to lose a lot of XFL people. If you, if they go this route, I think you're going to see a lot of people be like, well, the USFL has already done that. You know, I I'm just, they they're moving ahead. They're further ahead. Down this course of trying to get going. You're probably also going to see people that well, if they go down that road, you're probably going to see people that aren't like super invested in the league to an end and be like, wait a minute. Why are they in a hub? They were in cities like a couple of years ago. What happened? So, yeah, it's just not a good move for a lot of reasons. And you also, I, you, I I've already gotten a lot of like, You know, cause the USFL w they were kind of jumping on, right. Taking advantage the XFL and the rules in south. I very much think you're going to get that. Well, now the XFL, they're trying to copy the business plan of the us Vel, even though it's all this, I mean, if no one owns his business plan, I mean, shoot, if anyone like they're all copying Brian Woods, right? But like, you're, you're writing into this like, well, who's copying who and like, you know, first to market. Matters a lot sometimes. Does it matter how good the product is or bad the product is or what. Like if we're the first people to do it, like that's all that matters and kind of history favors that side of it. And. Then taking a step back, especially when we had it. Like I was, I was at a, you know, the, the stadiums, not that long ago for the exit valid, be very sad to think that we had to come back and do this now. For real. So we had that. So a, any other thoughts on that? I want to get into the other coaches that were rumored. Any other thoughts about the bubble? Anything? I don't want to beat it to a dead horse, but I wanted to make sure we give this fair shake. No, that's, that's really all I got on the bubble. Wouldn't like to see it. If it happens, so be it, but would prefer not. Yeah. So the, so the, the final kind of tweets are the M**k. Mitchell had today. He said, The situation is fluid, but some of the names I've heard as potential head coaches in the XFL widow go along with Reggie Barlow and Trell. Buckley are Bob stoops. We know Bob stoops, Wade Philips, rod Woodson, Hines ward Anthony backed. John Kitna and mark Trestman are also candidates. I have a bias here from all of them. We can chat through that at first blush any takeaways from that. I think there's some really notable names for sure. Again, I liked seeing former players. I like, I, that's a really awesome trend that I personally really enjoy. Bob Stewart's coming back. I think his big, he's a pretty, probably one of the more well-known coaches from 2020. And on top of just a great coach. In general, Wade Phillips has been around the NFL for a long time. He recently was actually doing some stuff with the elf. As well, but he was with the Rams. I believe he won a super bowl with the Rams. Rod Woodson. Awesome. Former player, Hines ward. Awesome. Former player. I'm not super familiar with Anthony Beck, but I believe somebody in our chat was, was talking about them. And then John, Kitna another former player, I think. Seattle, not Seattle quarterback. I mean, that could be your, that could be your dragon. At coach right there when they, the second I saw that I'm like, well, that is, that's the new, that's a new, old Jim Zorn. I could see that. And then mark Trestman I feel like. I feel like Trestman coming back would be a fill-in if they can't get any of these other guys. Yeah, Trestman spine. I mean, he's been in the CFL. He's been, you know, a long time coach. Yeah. He was a little surly with some, I mean, he was someone married with a g*****n it with Clinton flowers and all that. I mean, he, you know, I, I don't know how I gave he is to go around this another, another. You know, another spin on the block. I think it's good to get Bob Stevens. I think you got to have someone from the first, you know, eight, right? If we're not going to have like pep, Hamilton's not going to be doing it. You're not going to have I I'm off the June thing. I think June wants to be retired and go live in Hawaii and not coach. Yeah. So I, I have. Bios here. Bob stoops. Right? We don't have university of Oklahoma, former renegades either with the XFL. Wade Philips, he's a football coach. He was the head coach of the Broncos bills in Cowboys. He also served as the interim head coach of the saints, Falcons and Texans. So. I hi, pedigree their lawn being considered to be one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL. In his long career, he served as a defensive coordinator. Eight separate stints. That's a big, I mean, that, to me, that that's a good resume that someone that you want included in that, right. Definitely. And. Like I said, he's super knowledgeable coach. And I believe what he was doing with the elf actually was coaching seminars over there where he was like, I think it was a two day event thing where he was just bringing in all of the coaches in Europe that wanted to learn and just talking them through. About like being an NFL organizations and stuff like that and how he operates and schemes and everything. So. He's definitely interested in alternate football and growing the game of football. I think he's a perfect fit for this league, honestly. That's a good point. Yeah. Because some of this is going to be traveling and taking part in elf and doing all that. Certainly someone that wants to grow the game and give back in that way. Right. I mean, That's the thing, like I think with the USFL sometimes. You get some of these guys? Oh yeah. That's that sounds spot. I'm going to go do that. Like it's way different being the head coach of like, you know, the. The LA wild cats and it is, you know, being with the Steelers or whatever music. Definitely. Level of like what you have around you and the tools and the expectations that a lot of different stuff going on with that more responsibilities. A lot more responsibilities. Sam Schwartz. He talks about that, where it's like, you know, these little leagues AI. Not little league, but they all leagues. You know, you gotta be the play caller and. You're doing the challenges and you're doing all this kind of stuff. Let's focus on coaching. Rob Woodson. He's professional player quarterback. 17 Seasons. He was with the Steelers for 10 years, key member of the Raven Superbowl championship team to beat the giants. He was also with the 49ers and the Raiders. So he would be, he is a defensive player of the year, back in 93. So that would be like another, we're bringing in a player here to help, you know, not, not a former coach in that way. Any thoughts on rod and then we have Heinz a Heinz ward, right? He's legendary stealer, university of Georgia. These are currently the wide receivers coach at the, at, for the Atlantic. And he was voted. MVP of, of Superbowl. Can't do the math on. Numerals right now. Any thoughts on those? We have two former players in rod and Hines ward. I really like both of those a lot. And. When I saw Heinz board's name, it didn't surprise me as much because he, I believe he was involved in the AAF as well. So he's another one who just with a history of being involved in alternate football, like, you know, these guys want to want to grow the game and just. Continue to be involved in football. So I think that those are both awesome, perhaps. And he answered the, this goes along too, and I know the NFL was doing this with a, the Houston Texans vacancy back. They, they ended up. They promoted Lovie Smith or whatever, but. They were trying to look after their whole debacle with Deshawn and all that. They were really trying to bring in a couple of former players to kind of interview there as well. Like I believe it was Josh McCown. That's right. I knew I didn't remember the name, but you know, trying to like, let's think outside the box here a little bit. I just, if the XFL does this and it's successful, I, you know, that's only going to move up, you know, potentially with the USFL guys as well, but. Bringing in some of these players to help. More than anything as a football coach, right? You're a leader of man and you need to be able to like, take the walk. I mean, you can, we can figure out offensive schemes and all that stuff. Like you need someone that can lead the men on the field and, and really kind of walk them through what they've gone through. I think that that's good. This Anthony back to what is interesting. He has followed all of us with news hub for. I mean forever now he is right. He's the former. American tide ad. He was with the New York jets. He was also with the San Diego fleet. I think he was a tight ends coach for them. That was someone that I think we all thought would potentially be like in a management position. Cause he had followed a bunch of us back. You know, pre. In the dark ages between when the rock kind of bought everything and then, you know, now, but that is some of the, he has seemed to be very involved in the XFL for a long time, at least just on social media with his followings. Yeah, I he's one of the guys I'm not too familiar with, honestly, so. I'll I'll take everyone's word for it. I'm excited to see them. Potentially. Is that. This one is good too. John Kitna former quarterback with the Seahawks, the bangles lions and Cowboys. He played at central Washington university. That's a good, I, I toured central at Matt, Matt, not UMAT, but I met the man that works for me, went to central. I very lots of CFL guys bounced around and stuff too. That's it. Weird. So weird. Some of these schools, central Washington, Eastern Washington, promoting a lot of these players up, I think you would not expect. I use a football coach at Burleson high school. But he was signed in 96 by the Seahawks. This is your Dragon's head coach. If this is true. Probably yeah. It would make sense for sure. And. Like the. With the Seattle fans, for sure. They want that type of variable. They'll definitely dig their teeth into that type of historic coaching higher. I like that Zoran was never, I don't know. Like I met Zuora and it was fine. He never really see it. He always seemed confused like, well, I'm here. I, we did a, they did an event across from century link. Like. Yeah, they were doing those meet and greets and it was him and it was one of the running backs away. Silver's wasn't there, but it was another one of the players. And I, he just had no clue that you could tell that they had given him just like five lines of like, well, you know, we're innovating sports and like we're going to advance. I get, you can just tell that they had given them like a cue card and he just kept going and rolling through it. Find the one. So if I'm doing my math here, this is six. Plus the two at Reggie Barlow and Tarell. So maybe transmit, like you said, would be the backup, right? If one of these, as it, cause this would be nine potential codes was here. Marc Trestman former Viper's head coach, right? And I was with the bears for a little bit as well. Although that didn't go very well. He's someone that like, if he came back, I wouldn't be upset about it, but at the same time, like, I think I would like to see some of these other guys. Ahead of him. Just because again, he's a little bit on the older side and while he does have success. In some levels, like you said, I believe he's had some success in the CFL and he started turning things around with the Vipers a little bit there at the end. I would like to see some more like creative offenses and just newer systems and stuff like that. And it seems like players are going to be more excited to buy into that stuff too. Not saying. Trestman couldn't adapt and do some fun things, but. I feel like bringing in people who have played the game will look at like creating plays a little bit differently. Like. Even when I was playing football back in high school, like you'd line up and the coach would have you run her out and you'd be like, man, I wish I could drop this play. Like I could do this. Any player wants to drop their own plays at times. So letting them do that, I think is going to be really fun. Especially with the double forward pass. If it comes back. The USFL slash. Yeah. It's interesting. Final thoughts on this, you know, mikes are the coal. Didn't seem well. So the article came out and then the tweets. Feedback I've gotten is people are concerned that Mike Mitchell is not. Like it is probably the most sour. Mike has sounded on everything thus far with the relaunch, with some of the. You know, the hires and non hires coming back, you know, with all this. W what do you, what do you make of this and kind of Roundup thoughts on this? Well, I think a lot of the things he points out in that article are good points and I definitely. I understand why. People in general, not just Mike would be kind of sour with a lot of these changes because I mean, Things worked in 2020, you had a successful product. So. Y. By everything, if you're just going to change it. And I think he even mentioned that in there, like if you have, if, if like you could have started your own league, But instead you bought these trademarks and logos and everything for $15 million. So if you're changing all that. Then, like, what did you buy? Yeah, no, that's a great point. But. Overall, I think that. I do, I do still have faith in the league. And I do think a lot of it is just that people in general don't like change and change can be scary, especially when the thing that we had before was so awesome. But I. I think we just got to keep faith in them. And I think what we end up with is going to be a cool product. It might not be exactly the same as it was, but I do think that it's going to be. An exciting and fun product, as much as we've kind of seemingly trashed, talked. On this, on this podcast, but no, I am really excited still. And I think that they've got a good vision for things. I think that them waiting till 2023 has looked better and better as time has gone on. But I definitely understand, not wanting to leave. What was awesome about the 2020 season in the past. I think people are looking for the negative XFL read. Have I been negative enough? I would say we probably both have. Okay, well, now I want to make sure. It's going to be fascinating to me. This is the story we need to watch now. USFL is good. I just, I'm thinking about this. If I had that and I said, I cut you off earlier. So USFL is dealing with all this trademark stuff, right? Like the old inward. The lawsuits, you know, they bought all this stuff, whatever. If this new XFL, if they're dealing with the same crap now, like right, the, you have the old XFL homers fighting all this stuff. It's going to be fascinating that both of these leagues, right. End up dealing with the same kind of thing of like, we inherited this. I, we thought we would profit off this past, but now we've inherited all of this. Don't you think that it's interesting that like the XFL could, if they do enough wholesale changes here could potentially run into as much issue as a USFL has with their step. Yeah, it's honestly kind of crazy that like how many parallels there are with how different their business models are. Like they're trying to go about things complete completely different ways. Yet. There are so many things that they're both encountering that are the same. It's going to be. Really interesting to see how they navigate. That stuff, if they are dealing with it, I hope they're not, but it does. It's definitely on the table. I just thought about that. I just thought like, is he again? People have given Danny and the rock, a lot of benefits a lot of time while we ever put like, And I don't, you know, I'm going to talk about it, no matter what, you know, we're a part of this now, but like, you know, you it's like you chip away and you chip away and you chip away and like fi there's this there's breaking points and you, you, you do these videos and I'm not saying this is or isn't and some people might be, I know, like, Our mutual friend online, Gemma was very upset with all this stuff that came out with the logos and, you know, with certain people leaking the logos and all that sound like. He, and I think part of that frustration is, you know, because of maybe not liking it right. Okay. Well, I'm not happy with how I heard this news because I don't like the news. But you just, you, you, you people have a breaking point there and there'll be curious to see kind of, as this continues, if you retain a lot of that, I put a poll out. It seems people aren't as negative as is. I presume they would be it's about 30, 30, 30 of like. Are you feeling good, neutral or bad about kind of all this stuff so far? Well, that's good at least. Cause it definitely seemed like people were pretty vocally upset, but I guess it was just the vocal minority vocal minority. Ah, I want to do a little bit of spray or a little, little spray. The USFL before we get out. Any other acts of Val thoughts, or we will, we'll put a pin in that for now. Just to finish up the XFL stuff. I know a lot of people were sort of underwhelmed with the news. On Wednesday, but. This really is the beginning. Like this is the beginning of the rollout and it's, it really does sound like things are going to all the stuff that peop that the fans and players want to start hearing about are going to be sprinkling out over April and may. So while it is still slow, this is really the beginning. Well, it's it's. Yeah, I mean, There's two year runway is just insanely long. I mean, people just don't, you don't understand how quickly the. World works in that way with social media. But like I said before, one week on social media is like a month. I mean, You need to, you gotta, gotta take that with a grain of salt. USFL staff your we're we're a week away as this airs, right? We'll be, I I'll be, as we talk now I'll be driving to Birmingham from Nashville next week. I think get ready for this. I have thoughts on USFL. There's things that I like. There's things that I don't like. I think that the Twitter accounts for all the teams stepping up the content with practices and all that stuff has been great. I still wish we would get a little bit more, but you know, As a football diehard, I'm probably always going to be one more. I I'm really, I'm honestly just really excited to see these teams at the field. I've been doing power rankings for XFL Newshub or USFL news hub. So I know. Or I've been, I've been looking at all of the teams and I'm definitely. Very interested in all of them at this point. There's been some things that I've got questions about, like why the gamblers haven't been making any moves. Because they don't look like a very strong team. But. The top half of the league looks really competitive and I'm really excited to see it. I think that the Philly stars in particular are going to surprise a lot of people, especially right out the gates. Just because of the players, a bunch of the players familiarity. With the coach's scheme already, when you only have like a month. So to ramp up, that's going to be huge. Yeah. I mean, we're, I think pre-season is starting today. As we record, you know, whatever that's going to look like. I just. It's a really short runway. Really should not run in terms of like announcing the league and all that, but getting these players up to speed. I mean, they've only been in training camps like two weeks through. I mean as really quick, I got hope. I think the stars and all of that with their familiarity there, but I just worry. Conditioning and injuries and rest and getting ready, all that stuff. I mean, this is a really. Condense. And we're just not seeing a lot out of that. Like, I didn't live through the XFL training camps, podcasting that every day. Right. Like we are now. But the feedback I've gotten is there was a lot more like videos coming out and training camp battles. These cubes are battling these things, these positions jockey, and then I'll mention a lot of it was open to like, to fans and stuff. It seems that well, who was, I was talking to someone on Twitter the other day, who is actually going to school in Birmingham and. There. How are their, their college's field is being used as the practice field for the breakers and gamblers. And they said that they're not even allowed to see most of the practices. I think they were, they had to have them open. But that's it. And if I remember correctly, he mentioned that the pre-season games weren't going to be open to people either. Which I kind of find odd because you know, you're just building your brand. Like, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad football at that point. Just let the. What the college kids come watch it. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what we're. I dunno what we're trying to hide here. I, Jason Gregor was on a couple of weeks ago. We were talking the same thing in the CFL with like, Them trying to promote and protect schemes. And back in the day and, you know, were you able to attend practices and stuff? And it's like, nobody cares. Like, you know what, they're going to run. Like, it's just depends when they're going to run it. You don't know that. I mean, We'll get the exit valve. They had the stupid headsets. You. They were worried about coaches listening into the headsets and like, I mean, you had a player in the middle of a game, stick his helmet up to a microphone so that they could hear the calls over the TV. It's not as big of a deal. You still have to execute. Like. I don't know. Th th there's not a lot of news this week with a string. I mean, I'm certainly glad that, that the excellent. I have this. They, the big news that we had, and this is nice. Mark, put me as the one that broke this story. I don't think I was the one who broke this story, but I certainly appreciate mark giving me credit on Twitter for this. We have Kurt magnifi and Joel Klatt are going to be the lead us develop, play by play. Friend of our show. Kevin Kugler is also going to be involved. We don't know who his sidekick is going to be for the games. So. Kurt and Joel were both with the XFL. They did play it. Yeah, they did call us for that. I say again, you know, time is a flat circle. We all, everything comes back. That was before. What do you think about Kurt and Joel, and then Kevin Kugler, who Kevin did a lot of the spring league games. We had Kevin on to talk about that back before. I like all those a lot. They're all great announcers. And I think it's really important that you have good voices for these games. Again, that's something that just adds a level of legitimacy to it. If. If people are hearing. The games they're watching commented by people that they already watched games by it's it's going to just feel normal to them. So. Yeah, I think, I think it's a great move. I'm excited to see if any more people get announced. I had a really, it was, I think it was the week before the mega bowl. We had Kevin on, I think it was in the preview show for that back in the summer. Really fascinating interview with him, just how much more work goes into them. You know, these announcers spin out, you know, it's not all they get paid to show up for, you know, there's hours and hours and hours that goes into. Prep and figuring out all the different players, but especially when you're doing these all spring league games. Air spring football, not spring lead, but spring football games. Like you, you really have to look up these player stories, right? Like can be hard to find stuff about some of these players you don't know, you know, it's like, okay, everyone knows who Tom Brady is. Okay. Everyone knows Patrick Muslims. Everyone knows that. Like when you're talking Brian Scott, or when you're talking, you know, Ben Holmes who got injured. Right. But like, Yeah, bad homes now. Is looking like there'll be at least press right. Taking on your leading the generals. But like, if that had been, been home, like you got to do a lot of work, I go, what's Ben story. What's going on with that? I mean, the Lewis' press, you still have to. Thoughts on that thoughts on Louise coming in and getting the, getting the spot for the generals. I liked that a lot. Honestly, I kind of was hoping he'd get an opportunity. During the draft. I was opening. He'd go to some team. It makes sense. That is Mike Riley's team. I thought that they were kind of weak in. Quarter in the quarterback room in general, although I'll be honest, I'm not super familiar with Ben Holmes. But, I mean, he was just, I mean, you want to talk about underrated quarterbacks. He's definitely one of them. He was in 2021 spring league championship. Although you didn't win a. And then I believe he's not only been on two XFL teams. He was in the AAF and has been on a handful of NFL rosters as well. So he's definitely someone good to have on the roster. I think he honestly moves them up. Like in terms of power rankings, he's. They'd have to be familiar up the board a little bit more now. Yeah, I think not that I think people are going to watch regardless. I think it's nice to have someone recognizable in that kickoff game. Really curious to see. And then we have Alex. The gal Magoo. Yeah. Really. I'll be. The Monday morning, getting the TV ratings for whatever this simulcast is Saturday. It's either going to shut up a lot of people or it's going to, you know, make a lot of it's going to be win or lose a lot with that. If this whole crazy strategy paid off. That's the stallions generals, right? Sally's genitals. You. Because th the three game Sunday, I don't care about as much I care about like what, because whatever they get Saturday, that is the biggest raw right there ever. Probably ever going to get right. At least this first season. Especially since it's on two networks. Have you given any thought to what you think that rating's going to be. Oh man. No, I haven't. I haven't thought about it at all. I mean, I'd expect it to be better than the spring leaks. That's for sure. But that wasn't, that's not really much of a benchmark. Yeah. I mean, I really haven't put much thought into ratings at all, to be honest. I I'll call my shot here before we go. And then you can, this can be a reason. He got me down. I think so spring league. At their best was getting about 450,000 on Fox on those, on those. Saturday games, right? The Fs one games and stuff were a lot less than that. I think so. You get half a million, that's just people breathing with the network on. Right? So you double that, right? So we got yellow 500,000 reach. I think we have to promotion everything. I think if you get one. W a mill mill one, a mill two per network. I think if they get a two for that is my call over, under, on that. Let me know in the comments, if you think over under 2.4 million for the simulcast. Am I smoking crack. I don't think so. I mean, I see where like logically how you got the number. I don't see why, why not the. The hunger for football is definitely there. We're in the middle of the off season of the NFL. We're not quite at the draft yet, so. All that news. Isn't quite out there. So, yeah, I think with the USFL kind of taken center stage here in the football world next week, that's a pretty realistic number. Yeah. I don't get me wrong. I get, they came out with 5 million. I'd be over the moon. That would reset. Like the higher, the rating is the better, like I've said, I want it to be like, I think that's a conservative number two for if they came out and got 5 million people that would reset the world and XFL will be able to get the biggest TV contract next week that they ever could. So like, we want the number to be as high as it possibly can be. Don't don't think I'm trying to like poopoo any of that stuff. I'm just saying realistically, they can triple those numbers on each network that they were getting. Just whipped, like not promoted, that's a tall order to get that because they had no promotion. That's 500,000. That's like a base level. So if you figure the ads and stuff they've been running. We'll see, maybe it's maybe it's 4 million, maybe it's I think a 2.4. So. I think that's fair. Any final thoughts on any of this stuff? I've kept you a long time. I knew we had a lot of stuff to go through. Anything else before we let you go. No, I think we've pretty much covered everything. It's going to be fun, getting to see the spring football wars and full fact here pretty soon. It's good. I, again, I, there's more similarities and differences between these leaks, especially with, like we talked about before with rock and Danny. Kind of, you know, we're, we're forging our own. I think the quote she had was like, I acknowledged the past, but I am building my own future. I was like, that's very like a Khaleesi, right? Very Gable. It's very like I am the dragon queen. All right, that's fine. But you know, there was a lot of scores to earth at the end of the, at the end of season seven. So we'll see what ends up, period. Yeah, that was good. That was good. Maybe that'll have to be like the new femini. I'm not, I have a great thumbnail this week. We'll be like at queen Danny and. V just. That even works out right. That's perfect. We nanny that they actually have out grade. Matt Lyons XFL. I'm very excited, very excited for this one. So. Well today we have, I think this is the longest pre-booked out. I've ever had a guest Longworth. It, we have Victor CUI at presidency of the Edmonton Elks. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. Well, I'm honored to have that Guinness world record of the longest. Output or whatever that would classify as. It's good. We've been working with this a long time coming. Very excited for this. We so. A little preface. So you are, you know, old to the CFL, new to your role, right? Come in. We are kind of like the Kristin Stewart of the CFL, right. So my heart is continually torn between the BC lions and the Edmonton Alex Wright, which I have myself on today. But, you know, shots fired you coming on is really Swain in the side of the Edmonton ALK to the, I have to say that you are like a Jacob coming in or Edward or however we want to do it. Well, let's leave that other discussion in the Batman discussion on a different thing, but. Do you don't do you have to choose a side? No, but it's, it's, you know, we, we, we do a lot of promotion. I have ideas here for Edmonton. I wanted to get to later as well. I have. Cause, you know, BC. You'll be the first person to share ideas with me. I'm excited. I also appreciate that you're a standing desk guy. This is exciting as well. Oh, thanks, man. Thank you. So how, how has your, I mean, you've been a couple of weeks on the job now, right? Like a month. How has it been kind of coming into everything? Fantastic. Why it is like day 60 for me. So two months, you know, if it counts, February is a short month. And it has been. I'd say there's more challenges than I thought. But also just a lot more joy than I was expecting. I knew that it was going to be. Privilege to take this role. That'd be very grateful for, but I was caught by surprise. Just. About happy the work is and how happy I'm enjoying, like people. I joked about it earlier. You've given me feedback, but people often ask me. You know, how do you deal with that every day? If people giving you criticism and feedback, but that's actually the conversations I really enjoy. And I just think that how lucky am I that we're part of an organization. Where people tell you what they want. Let people tell you what you need to change most businesses. You're just like inventing it because you have no idea what your customers want. And in this case, we have a product. People love it. They're like some think it's good. Something gets bad, something it's, you know, And I think all of that is, is an exciting conversation. Have. Yeah, I was curious. We just, you know, I think a lot of fans would say Edmonton needed some work, right. Coming into this off season, just with everything kind of going on. Was it. Did you get a lot of pushback or did you, was it really just a lot of excitement and a lot of welcoming, obviously someone with your skills and expertise coming in and sharing ideas. A little bit of both. I mean, I think that. We're also at a different stage in the world, you know, with the previous administration came off two years. Of unbelievable unforeseen challenges who in the world predicted two years of lockdown with COVID and having to deal with that. So they had. Their hands full with a bunch of stuff. And if anything. Those external factors amplified the inefficiencies in the entire league and particularly in our own team. So. That all happened. Now you come to today of where we are new leadership. A full season for the first time in two years. And there is just a sense of optimism. Tied of optimism in the, in the culture, in the city and the community that we get to ride on and, and a big part. Of a city's DNA of optimism is their professional teams. I mean, that's why you have a team because every new season it brings new hope. It brings new dreams and, and, you know, you're like, okay, that's done. That was horrible before let's. Now we can start fresh. And that is what a big part of the role of a professional football team is in the city is to inspire that whole verse four for the new year. A lot of our listeners, right. Are, are American based if they don't, if people aren't familiar right with Edmonton and you know, they, the history of the long history, you know, the Eskimos to the ALEKS and all that. How important is the city and the franchise to the city of Edmonton. That's very important. And if anything. I probably underestimated how important it was. I mean, I've always personally cared for it and loved it because being born and raised here in Edmonton. But. You know, We have a stadium of 56,000 seats. And even on our worst day, Well, maybe not a worst day, but on an average day, we are still one of the largest stadiums that an attendance in the entire league. And that's a lot of people. D to get butts the seats for a city. So there are a lot of people that are community leaders that really care about the team. There's a bunch of new people and demographics that we need to continue to reach out to and bring them on board as does every team in the league, as does every sport in the world has to figure out how do they reach all the new emerging demographics and younger audience. So that that's not a particularly unique to us, but to your question, With the city. There's hockey and there's football. And those have been the golden pillars of the community. And like in any city. So there's ebbs and flows of, of how people follow the fandom of each one of those teams. I was curious, you're talking about you're reaching your fans and obviously you've come in, you know, times of engagement, interacting with everybody doing that. I'm curious. You know, we have the Edmonton fan base disgruntled. Right? Okay. We get them back on board. Right. You know, we make change. We do all these things. But now how, how are you seeing. Reaching new fans, right? Fans that aren't on CFL, Twitter fans that aren't already, you know, in invested in it. Maybe they fell out, get them back their season tickets. How are we getting that next generation now? Well, that's, that's the multimillion dollar question right there. Right? Even if you look at tennis, The average age of the tennis fan is 63 years old. So, I mean, there. That's the average age. Okay. So every sport. Has found different ways to innovate it, innovate or reinvent itself. F1 pivoted very well with the partnership with Netflix brought a whole new general entertainment group of followers that don't know anything about cars, but are interested in the sport. And if you think about that show. Watch so amazing. It's not just because it features F1. It features. A season that is done and you already know the results. Of it. Like that's how good the show is. It's not about the sport when the results are already out and you still attract an audience to follow it. So when it comes to attracting a new audience and particularly in our city, The solution that we have to deliver is very different than the solution that Toronto has to deliver or Ottawa has to deliver. Because of our social economic demographics, our age demographics, and just the culture of the city is different too. So there's a, there's not a silver bullet to that. I'm not the silver bullet. I'm not even though I'm engaged on social. It isn't possible for me to do it on my own. This is how we have to bring on and engage the whole community even more. So, I mean, do you look at bat, like you see Ottawa doing more behind the scenes documentary stuff, do you think, like, do you want to borrow that and say, we want to do more of that than Edmonton or spin off something else? Maybe a little bit, we've got a bunch of, of initiatives that we're going to roll out through throughout the year. But to me, the overarching theme of all of it is. Three points, but I would say. One is that okay? First of all, everybody comes with a million new ideas. There's any, everybody's got ideas of what should change and what you do. That's fantastic because people have always believed that they could do marketing. And so it's great to get those, those inputs right. And, and often there are gems in those and sometimes there's not, but the overarching first theme is that, how do you re repair and strengthen the emotional bond between the team and the community? It's not about logic. It's not about ticket discounts. It's not about a two for one hot dogs or cheap beers. You know, all of those are great value added propositions. But it's about the emotional relationship between the team and an individual person. Why. Because football is an illogical. No sports is an illogical proposition. Right. You know, you, you have to defy logic. To decide to spend a thousand dollars on a season ticket or a single ticket. As opposed to putting a thousand dollars on your mortgage. Or your car lease or whatever it might be. So. If that. Emotional bond is frayed. Then, and you're trying to apply logic to it. It doesn't, it doesn't work. So the first part is how do you repair that? How do you strengthen it? And what are the ways to do that? Whether it's social, whether it's marketing, whether it's community engagement. Media, all these kinds of things. The next two things that you really got to look at is any initiative. Has to be first scalable. As in. How can you. Grow the scale from one to 1.5 million. You know, every Edmontonian in the city and then even the entire world. Because there's no point. And doing initiative, if it's not scalable, if it only reaches 50 people at its max, right. And you can get caught up in a lot of ideas that like, oh yeah, these people really want it, but you only talking to 50 people or a hundred people, and it's never scalable. And the third criteria to that is it has to be repeatable. I want to create solutions that not only can scale. But can repeat it. Be repeated either month after month or game after game or year after year, regardless if I'm in this position or not. If it's something that I initiate that is only repeatable and scalable only through me. That I'm doing a disservice to the organization. It's great. I mean, I'm talking too much. Sorry. No, you're great. I'm just, I'm like, this is great stuff. But so when you come in, right. You know, cause we lived through all this XFL ride and you have all these different owners and the way. You know, the teams are managed and ownership groups and all this stuff. So, I mean, whenever you come in, right, you're one person with Edmonton, right. I've already seen, oh, you know, Victor GRI, you know, commissioner, all these crazy, crazy stuff online, but like, How do you affect change week wide when you're just one of nine? Well, that actually is the good thing that you are only one of nine. Like, I mean, our league is nineteens. You can finish last and finished first. And then the next year. It gets, it's pretty amazing that way. The league is actually on a really great path. Of communication and interconnectivity that didn't exist before. And I think that that is partly attributable attributable to COVID. Amplifying everyone's weaknesses and realizing, Hey. Yes. When the whistle blows we're fierce competitors, we've got to go at each other at the hardest, and there's no mercy, but when that game is done, what are we doing together to grow the league? And then the rising tide and all those cliches and the league is on that point. We're on this. A revenue sharing we're on genius sports and all these new initiatives that allow the entire league and carry all the teams that are different stages of development. I think the, the Edmondson Elks does traditionally have a role. A leadership role in the league as the marquee team that people look at as a successful team and saying, what are you doing? What are you going? And so that continues to be there, but. I mean, we last week. What was it? The week before last week, I was in CFL meetings in Toronto. And the amount of brainpower in that room with those presidents, CEOs, and owners get together is unbelievable. So do you, I mean, you feel good about. You know this UI, we have you, and here we have you, Mr. [unknown]. And, you know, BC, you feel good about. Kind of a new wave of people coming in and smart thinkers and maybe a little more innovative than maybe some of the previous older ownership that was around. Yeah, I think so. And I think even the previous ownership is ready to be innovative now. And we look at Hamilton and you've got entrepreneurs like Bobby Young that are on the team and understand what it takes to, you know, to be a game changer or innovate. So. I just think that in the past, that level of cooperation and sort of sharing of best practices, Maybe wasn't done as much. And now they're realizing, Hey. Why don't we do that? There's been a lot of talk the last, you know, I guess a month now. Off-season right. You've finally, Ambrozy came out and it's kind of squashed the four down rumor. Right. But there's a lot of just other talk about, you know, working on the game and improving the game, fixing the game. You're a fan of the league ride and obviously someone in a power position now. Where do you lay on that? And then would you like to see anything improved? I think that when you're looking to make a change, it's very important to make sure you're putting forward the right problem that you're trying to solve. What are, because if you ask the wrong question, as in you asked the wrong problem to be solved, you get a bunch of answers that maybe are not in the area you're supposed to be looking at. Now the rule changes the speed of the game. The length of all of that stuff is really important. But that to me is business as usual. Like you should, every single year. That's not a one-off exploration. It's like every year you maniacally look at how do we make the product better? Across the board. Rule changes, whatever it is I'd have every year, you have to revisit three downs for four doubts. Then do it. If that makes you better and you, you come to a different conclusion. Fantastic. Right? I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that. What I think is important. Is to recognize what you touched on earlier. Which is how do we continue to make this game as relevant to as many people in the country as we possibly can. Now. We've been so fortunate as a league to have such a strong, loyal fan base that, that clouded our perspective of success. You know, we didn't really see that there was an attrition of this hardcore base. Until, you know, recently, and we are the ones who sort of talked about it, but now they're like, oh my gosh, we've got to plug the hole. We got to figure out what's going on. What about, so that was going to, that was actually going to be my next question is, you know, you have. I would say the best and worst thing about the CFL right. Is, is the fan base that is so diehard that loves it so much almost to a fault where it's like, we don't even want to hear anything about, you know, changes are going down. I mean, how do you balance those two have obviously you have, you know, you have to cater to your, you know, your bread and butter, right. Your loyal fan base, but then they're also the ones sometimes kind of holding back progress a little bit. It feels like. Well, You know, man. Respecting history. Is very, very important. 'Cause you can't just discard. The Eskimo name or the double E it's a part of the history. And there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You have to be proud of where you came from and those shoulders of the giants that you're standing on to go to where you are today. And I will always have patients to listen to somebody. That has been a season ticket holder for 25 years, 35 years. And what they have and what they want to say, because. You know what, like, I haven't done anything in my life for 35 years straight. Like nothing. You know what I mean? Like that. That's an amazing thing to learn from. And I look at it as these history gives you cheat codes. You know, That's why I love reading biographies because these people that experienced good and bad success and failures. They write it down and they're like, this is what I did now. Maybe can you avoid this? And if you are just willing to listen. It, it helps you get better. So. I think. I don't look at that. Traditional or the diehards is holding you back. They do have a perspective, maybe that doesn't move at the pace that you wanted to move. Right. But then. On that note in my experiences. Nobody moves at the pace that you move at in the world. Like you're looking at it this way, when you're on the highway. Why is it that you're the only car that's moving at? The perfect speed. Everybody that's moving too slow is like Clark. Crazy. Y you drive a slow so slow, you know? And whoever speeds by you. Look at them going that's frigging speed demon. Like they're out of control. Obviously, it's not true that you're the only person operating at the perfect speed. Right. But that's what life is like in business and personal and everything. You feel like you're the only person at that? At that speed. So your. Obligation. As an entrepreneur, as a leader is to move the world to your speed. Just like, you know, you want it, you want it to do this interview two months ago, right? And, and, or like, and try to force me to move on your schedule. You moving at a certain pace. And I got to say, Nope. We're moving. At at, at my pace and, and we do it and we reach a compromise in. And that's all goals, right? I like that. Who, what biography, who do you look up to? What biographies are you reading? What leaders are you inspired by? Well, I've only read biography since I was 18 years old. That's all we did. Winston Churchill is one of my early heroes. I really. For his strategic buying, but also just his. Insane level of bullheaded stubbornness. You know, to learn from that. Like, what is it like when you choose a position that an entire nation doesn't believe in you like, even if, even that at that time, in that context of world war two, where. Everybody, including his advisors are saying. Go to peace with Hitler, peace, peace, peace. Let's get a treaty. And he's like, no, we're going to war. Like. What kind of inner strength and belief do you have to have as a leader to take that kind of position? And I try and put myself in there and go, oh, she's, I don't know if I'd make that call. I look at our board of directors when they let go of the entire senior management a few months ago. And I think, wow, if I was on that board, I have had the guts to make that call because it's a difficult decision. And so, yeah, what's in church was one of them. I recently started getting into reading, like maybe not as recently as in a year, a couple of years ago already Tim Ferriss's books, because I like how he cuts up basically individual biographies. He takes his entire podcast, which would be a. You know, an hour, hour and a half conversation. And drills it down to two pages. So you get the coolest notes of every conversation and I think that's pretty cool. That's good. Before we let you go. I want to get your take on meth. I know. He can get ideas all the time that I've been working hard on this. Okay. Just keep that in mind. I've had a couple of months. So we have dabbed the, you know, the BC lions are America's CFL team. Cause we're a CFL podcast. Right? But I wanted to figure out a good fit for Edmonton. Right. And so I was thinking like, you know, the people's CFL team, right. That has connotations around it. Right. You know, with all that. But that's why I value my best. The CFL is big. We have like hourly, right? Our balls are bigger. Are all these things? I from an American sometimes that's, you know, you win our league and I certainly respect all that. What if the Edmonton Elks was the Evanston, Alex, your CFL team. Nice that has that emotional tie right there. But. Here's I like it. I like the emotional tie and connecting and bringing together community. Community is a big part of it. Maybe one of the challenges that. Let's change it and let's replace it with something else. Let's say we did a cap. A caption on it was your WWE. Your your, your NBA team. Does it resonate? Does it, does it still work? And the challenge why that sounds odd is nobody loves WWE. Like you love. A person. I play it. You know, the rock are you like you love a particular character. Or no one's going out and buying NBA jerseys. You're buying team jerseys. The challenge the league has CFL has, is. The brand of CFL. Needs developing. There's not a lot of people that. Are proud to wear. You know, unless they went to gray cop. To that. CFL on it. Right. And, and what that, what that means. So I think there is, but there are good examples that have succeeded with that. You take the PGA tour and PJ two and you. They're like PGA tour. These guys. Are great. I think was there their games or the title at one point or sometimes like, are they, or maybe the tagline was like, they are that good or something like that? You know what I mean? And do you remember? They had the series where they'd have a golfer in the parking lot and he pushes his shopping cart. And the shopping cart would like sort of snake. As if it was on a putting green and then go right into the lane of the other. Of the other shopping cards and they would be like, these guys are that good. Yeah. So there are some really good examples where the brand of the tour is really strong. And you can ride on that, on that wave. So about like, I'll think about it. I just with your blessing, I'm just getting, you know, yours. CFL team, the Edmonton Alex, I'm going to refer to it on my podcast. So there you go. As a preface or as a, as a. You know, when it was that preface or afterward, whatever it is. Victor, this has been great. I really appreciate it. I think. You know, overwhelming response. I don't think you ever get much positive, overwhelming with anything in life, certainly with the CFL. But I think you coming in has just breathed such a life of, you know, hope and everything in that. Yeah, the Edmonton and then hopefully the rest of the legal follow suit. So I really appreciate it. No. Well, thank you, man. I, I want to say. I really appreciate your support and your commitment to the league and keeping things fresh and exciting. And. This is more of the stuff that I want to do, you know, and, and, and find the right ties and connection with the community. And. It's important because at the end of the day, you know, I look. I look out my window and. I look at a one on one hand to think, wow, that's 56,000 seats. That's amazing. But on the other hand, It's really a reminder to me that. There is an individual human in each one of those seats. And. My role and our team's role is to make each one of those people care. And you have to connect with them. You have to, you have to figure out how that. What that journey is like. And you are a big part of that journey because we get to ride on your hard work and your listeners and your fan base, and continue to tell our story. So, so thank you. I appreciate it. That's good. And it looks like it has the snow melted. I've been following along on Twitter. So we got a little bit of stone. Q1. You want to see. We're still right at the edge there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think. If, if it all goes away, But it's not on the date that I've picked. I'm just going to throw a snow. An ice cube down there. I say, oh, Nope. It's not yet. It's still a little bit icy. Oh, this would be good. I'm excited. I'm excited to fall Edmonton this year. We've had a lot of your players on the podcast already. Well, this is going to be exciting. We have a jam show already. I'm so excited on launch week without you appointments, Canada, all this exciting stuff we have. Nikolsky I chief commercial officer coming on. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I'm alive. I'm breathing. And had a little bit of sleeping last night for the first time all week. No. That's exciting, man. You know, when a new woman, a new market opens a new country opens. There's there's a lot of exhilaration and, and we're, we're really, we're enjoying it, man. It's, it's going great so far and I'm really sending it to, to join you. Talk about. Talk about some football stuff. Yeah. So we had Nick on before talking with [unknown]. Pass and kind of talking sports betting and single game, you know, gambling kind of all that stuff with the CFL. We're going to continue that conversation today. Talk you a little genius sports ride in marketing for the us marketing and then Canada. So the big news this week, you guys have announced, right. A partnership with the red blacks. Yeah, we are. We, we, we're going to, we're going to be partners with the auto red blacks. We're going to be partners. Within their, their stadium, TV place. There's going to be the points bet sideline club directly in stadium. Points bad. We're going to have branding on, on their Jersey this year, which is really exciting. And we're, we're going to be working together to really engage the awesome fans of red nation. Introducing them to points. Ben introduced me to them to, to. To kind of the regulated market of the gambling. And we're over the moon. The folks said at Ottawa sports entertainment group, or just an incredible group of a group of people and is as Reed is, as you probably know, I mean, Ottawa has an incredible community of CFL fans. And you know, when people think about Ontario, typically they think of. Toronto or Southern Ontario, but Ontario is also our nation's Capitol. Right. So from a point sped, Canada perspective. Working toward her a relationship with the red blacks not only was so exciting for us because of their, their passionate CFL fan base, but we're trying to build it authentic Canadian brand. And when you're trying to do that and creating a relationship with a team of the nation's Capitol. I mean one plus one does equal two sometimes. Right? Well, it makes sense to me to cause the concern when all this came about was, you know, the teams, the CFL teams, nine teams trying to like, they all kind of had to figure out on their own, right? Like how are we going to approach. You know, single game sPower it's and all that stuff. It makes sense to me, Ottawa. Very forward-thinking they've done a lot of great stuff in the off season brand building the behind the are we, it has gotten critical success. I mean, it makes sense to me when this came out and you were telling me about like, yeah, it would be Ottawa would be a team that would be forward-thinking enough to kind of figure this out and work with you guys. And kind of that, that meshes in my mind makes sense. Without a doubt. I mean, it was obvious from the first conversations with the gang up there. How proactive they want it to be how creative they wanted to be. And, you know, We've done a bunch of really exciting partnerships so far in the, you know, the Canadian sports landscape. And, and. The one in Ottawa is no. It's really no different from what we look forward. We really look for partners who want to really lean in and really want to try new things and grow like our tagline in Canada is this is how we play sports. And really we emphasized that wheat because it's about community, right? It's not, you know, that we can, can that we can signify the Ottawa red blacks community the week, and also, you know, correlate to Canada. The, we can relate to our ambassadors, the trailer park boys in Canada, right? Like. So I think that from, from day one, it was obvious that that oztag like the ownership group of the red blacks was really looking at the market the right way. And. They were looking for a partner like pointing spec that we could really build this with. We're going to be partners for many years. So it's going to be a yeah. We're we're gonna hit the ground running. I'm really excited for, for opening day. It's going to be so exciting. So, yeah, this is right. The first step of many, you know, coming down the pike and the partnerships and all that kind of stuff. You know, for those, you know, hopping on this now. You know, miss our conversation before talking about, you know, sports Betty in the, in the CFL and, and try and write, even move into the us and, and involve people like that. Why do you believe that single game sports betting, you know, gambling on the CFL and sports in general is so paramount to the CFL's growth in future? Well, I mean, I wouldn't say it's paramount. Excuse me. But I think it can be. Massive. Stepping stone and building block. You know, let's face it. When you look at north American sports gambling, the NFL is king, right? But the question is, is the NFL king or his football? Right. That remains to be seen. Right? I love the NFL. You love the NFL. I, but I love football. Right? You love football. The CFL is the biggest league that we'll be playing during the summer. Of course, there are a bunch of upstart leagues and there's always things that are percolating. But the CFL has been around longer than any other professional football league in north America. So the question that I have is. As we start working alongside not only the red blacks, not only the CFL, but also the CFLs new partner genius sports. As we, as we collaborate on how to bring the CFL sport to the us fan base. How can we leverage the popularity of football gambling? To help grow that sport. Right. And it's not just, if you build it, they will come. Right. I mean, The fact is the CFL and how we need to, how I believe. I can't speak for the CFLR genius yet. I believe that there's some really incredible creative opportunities. To almost reintroduce the U S fan base to the CFL. And using gambling as an extra weight in, it almost becomes like a truck called the Trojan moose. Right. There's my, there's a little Canadian analogy for you to read, you know, you know how much I love that. Right. So, you know, we can use gambling and the American sports fans love of gambling on football. As a way to get them even more excited just to pay attention to the CFL because you and I both know. There is something unbelievably incredible about the last four minutes of a CFL game, right? Like it is. It is, it's almost undeniable. And now imagine, you know, when the clock stops, sorry. The last three minutes that the game. You know, Imagine the live betting opportunities. During the end of a CFL game and you all of your fans know clock stops on every play. But in the NFL, really, the clock only stops the two minute warning. And when there's time outs, when the ball goes out of bounds, but in the CFL, it's every single play. So I think that there are so many really intricate and exciting pieces to the CFL game that I think the U S fan base is going to love. But. We all have to do our job. Introducing reintroducing the CFL to that fan base. And as you know, At points. Bet. Obviously we want people to gamble on points. Bet. But we're also building a brand and we're taking big swings. And I think that there's going to be, we're going to have a lot of fun kind of with that us. CFL gambling, push. Yeah. I just, I've never got this. Lack of interest, you know, people want. The people that want year round football, you know, this all built into that, that web, right. You know, even if you want, even if you support the XFL or the USFL or [unknown] or whatever that, like you said, that summer football being able to, you know, and I think even Farhan laundry was talking this was months ago now, but you know, when they were doing all the crazy XFL talks, like starting the CFL season earlier to try to take more advantage of that window. Because people want football. They want to be able to gamble on it and to be able to have a summer league that, you know, Year-in and year-out right. Yeah, I think we've proven now is here to stay right. I mean, the world ended in the CFL. Prevailed. I, it just makes sense to me that you would want that. And especially in Canada and in America as well, kind of reaching out. Absolutely. And let's also not forget that. There's a massive amount of NCAA football players who go play in the CFL. There are a ton of Americans who play in this. There's more Americans in the CFL and the Arcadians like fun fact. Right. I, you know, and, and, and, you know, obviously we all know of a lot of the famous ex NFL players that transitioned into the NFL. But the CFL has incredible talent. Right. And in a lot of that talent is US-based. So I think that we can also do a better job. Shining a light on some of those NCAA stars and some of those NCAA players that don't get drafted into the NFL and come up and play in Canada. And a lot of them love it up here. I mean, that's the thing. There's something about watching football and there's also something that watching football. With a packed stadium of diehard fans. Right. I think that during COVID let's face and we, we kinda got used to watching sports without fans in the stands. It's better when there are fans there and there's something magnetic. About the Canadian football league fan base. And I think that the thing that's holding back. The. The CFL for really. Growing in the U S. It's not that the game, the games aren't exciting. It's not that you can't gamble on them because obviously now you can. And in the states where gambling is legal, I think it's just getting over the stigma of three downs and getting over the stigma of Canadian. Right. And that is going to be part of the fun, right? Because there's a lot of fun. In that, but it is. You know, getting over the three down question. You know, for some people is going to be a factor, but it's just education. Right. And especially let's face it. The NFL has become. Past first leak. Right? Well guess what the CFL is. Right. So there's something in there. There's a pretty logical switch that just has to go off in the, in the, in the mind of an American football, financial realize. Oh man. CFL is pretty cool. Right. So, and he can't spell. Cool without see, Hey, there's another one for you. All right. So, so with the circular back on the right backs, Yeah, the partnership and all that. So that's going to help. In-stadium right in person because the CFL right. You know, we have the TV and all that set, but we're trying to drive the in-person experience that way. So a paramount or a, a large part of, kind of your focus, right. Is working on that. I mean, besides obviously people are able to bet online, but being able to enhance that in-person experience for the people in Ottawa. Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, when people show up at TD place, they're going to see the points. Bet the sideline club. Right, right. Right. You know, right at the, I guess it's the 40 yard line. We're going to be working with the Ottawa. With the Ottawa red blacks game day team to provide something in game entertainment around half-time props, things like that. There's go, obviously we're going to be activating. Really trying to figure out, I mean, the reality is we're not going to fool ourselves into saying that we already understand what the Ottawa sports fan loves. I lived in Ottawa for a year, but a long time ago. I'm old. I'm way older than you read. And so I'm not going to pretend that I understand the Ottawa sports fan, the way that I may have used to. So it's this getting, this is why we wanted to do a long-term partnership because we want to learn. We want to. You know, get better. We want to test things and at the Ottawa red blacks, and I mean, Oh sag. I've gone to a sports entertainment group. They're fully committed to work. That's both from a digital marketing perspective and a social perspective and an in, in, in venue activation perspective. You know, to figure out what are some of the things that really resonates with the Ottawa red blacks and red nation fan base, because we want to, we, we, we, we, we, we really want to enhance. What it means to go to a game, right. Watching it home is great. These days let's face it with your phone. You can know God, I got a lot of messages. On on. With your phone, you can sit on your couch and you can gamble right in Ontario. And in and in just over a dozen states in the U S but the reality is when you're sitting there live watching a game and you have an opportunity to bet live. I was pretty fun too. Right. And so it's, it's not one way or the other. We're really trying to look at this. I've kind of on mass and say, okay, how do we make the experience to being a red blacks fan better? Can gambling. For those who want to gamble can be used to heighten the excitement around the game, the results of the game. Providing some extra prizing and incentives and merge and all kinds of stuff a hundred percent, but we want to figure out what it is that the red, black span and red nation loves. The most, and that's what we're going to lean into. It's this. I mean, I, I remember years ago now we went, it ended up kind of being my pseudo bachelor party, but we went down to Vegas and like the NBA finals was going on. And I don't watch basketball at all. Right. I. But, but we, you know, we were there, they had the live sports book, whatever at New York, New York. And we had put money down on the, whatever the final gave was wildly more. Wildly more connected watching the game, checking the score and stuff that night. And I think we had 20 bucks on it. Right. But that was the most exciting $20 bat that we'd ever put on anything. It's weird. Like it doesn't. And I poopoo at sometimes in my head and talking out of here, but. W when you have money invested in something like that and your interest, that way it does really help kind of carry that momentum and excitement along if you want it to. Yeah, 100% and let's face it. It's not, you know, when people think about gambling, there are certain people that will, that, that, that kind of think about. Hundreds. Thousands of dollars of gambling and all, no. No gambling is, is to your point. You put down 20 bucks on a game and it does make that game outcome a little bit more exciting. And you put 20 bucks down on your favorite player scoring the first touchdown. Right. It heightens the emotion. Of rooting for something even more. I mean, it's one of the reasons why fantasy football became so big because there's something about rooting. You know, rooting for certain players or certain things to happen because it heightens the joy of being a fan of that team. Right. So, yeah, of course I want all your listeners to. If they're in a state or a PR or. Or an Ontario that have gambling. To, to, to download the points bed app, we have an incredible product. Like I, and, and I'm not here to shill points bet, but of course that's my job. But I think that what's really exciting about gambling is it is. The amount of innovation that is occurring within gambling. It's not it doesn't. It's no longer, just about will the red blacks win the game. You know, red blacks are favored by four and a half over. You know, over the Ty cats? No it's is, is. Ms. Stoli gonna throw for 142 and a half yards in the second half. Right after you're watching the first half. Right. It's it seemed that thread blocks are out by six points with four minutes left. And you're going to bet that the red blacks are going to win by 12. Right. Like, there are so many, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there are, there are dozens and dozens of markets and what's exciting about points, bad and points back Canada is we have our own trading team. Based in Canada. So we're going to offer custom and creative CFL markets. That really heightened the enjoyment of being a CFL fan, more so than just your kind of standard Moneyline bats or, you know, your, your, your, you know, your over-under is and stuff like we're really gonna lean in and work creatively to think about who are some of the players? What are some of the prompts? What are some of the fun, like a Rouge bet that. Hey, that's kinda fun, right? Like, I mean, And that's kind of a no brainer, but that's, that's super fun, right? Like who cares about one point being scored and it came candidly. Well, you know, what, if you bet 10 bucks, so there's going to be a Rouge in the first half. That, that makes that one point a little bit more exciting. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're working with the email, working in Canada, working with Ottawa, all those things, talking about, you know, reaching the United States, right. Appealing to that new ideas. I mean, working with genius sports and all of that. I mean, where do you see that progressing? I mean, obviously you don't control the world, but in your mind, in. Yeah. If you had to lay out a, you know, some ideas or a vision for that, I mean, how do we further attract that? And like you said, kind of shake that stigma. That's a good, it's a good question. I will say that. Yeah. And, and, and I'll, I'll be candid. I mean, you know, We have some really strong ideas around what we could do either just as an, as, as points bet or in collaboration with genius in the CFL around how we would think about growing the sport in the U S. The one thing I'll say is. The folks at genius. I mean, it's. It'd be too easy to call them geniuses. That's lame and cheap, but I mean, there are some of the savviest, you know, Savvy is thinkers within the sports landscape. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm friendly. With a number of executives, the CFL who are also really aggressive. Really creative. And I think that. You know, I know I'm, I'm dodging the question because, you know, we're, we're S we're still in the kind of early days of conversations. But I think there's a there's, there's definitely synergy in. Being really creative. Around how to properly. Introduced. And I said this earlier, re-introduce CFL to the U S sports fan. Using gambling is one of the tools. To get them to pay closer attention. But ultimately I think what it's gonna boil down to is. Being willing to take some chances, right? I mean, it's sports is so noisy even though summertime north American sports, a little bit quieter than the rest of the year. That's a good thing because there's less noise to break through. Ultimately I'm, I've been a big risk taker. My entire career. And the folks at genius and the CFL are, are well aware of that. So I I'm, I'm hoping. We have an opportunity to, to, to test some big ideas because. There's no shortage of big ideas at points bed from myself or from my amazing colleagues in the U S. Or from my, my, my colleagues in Canada. Like we are a challenger brand. And there there's another seat for you, right. You know, there's cool. There's challenges. There's a lot of synergies between points bet in this TFL that I'm really excited to lean into. But I mean, let's face it. The CFL is a challenge of brand when it comes to football in the U S right. And being a challenge, a brand, you can't rest on your laurels, right. You need to be aggressive. So, which is ironic because Canadians are typically not known to be aggressive. So, you know, I know it might be a little bit of a challenge for some of your audience. To think about that, but I think that's what's needed, right? Like we gotta, we gotta, we gotta take big swings. Right. Are we going to take big kicks? Right. Oh, this is good. This is exciting. I appreciate, I know you had a busy week hopping on today with all your mini messages. Whenever I have anything else before we let you go, I very excited. And like I said, just, you know, I can't adopt too many CFL teams. Right. We have the lions and I have the Edmonton Alex, but if I could have a third in my heart, it probably would be the red blacks. Now with all of the wonderful off season moves, they're making both on and off the field. You know what I mean? Got good stuff on the field. And a lot of set behind the scenes. I like as well. Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm biased. But, you know, I just think there's, I think this is going to be a really exciting summer for the CFL. Both in Canada and in the us, you know, this is the first season with genius being a, you know, a partner. An official partner, like an owner of the league. So, you know, the, the, the motivation to grow the sport state side has never been. More. Oh, I can't, I can't comment on that cause I don't sit in the boardrooms, but I can only imagine that the motivation to grow the CFL in the U S right now. Is is, is, is more tangible than it, than it has been for the last number of years. Right. So, yeah, I think read, I think you, and. And you and your, and your, your, and your listeners and your fans, are you guys, you guys are probably going to have the most fun of any of any sports fan. You know, in north America this year, because you're going to get the bonus of, I think. A lot of CFL, excitement and momentum as the season begins, you. In the next couple of months. So let's go well, we have [unknown]. Here with [unknown]. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate you. What I appreciate more than anything is you reaching out. If, say I have something exciting to talk about means a lot. I, every day I'm Cordy people trying to get them on. I really appreciate that. And we're getting out of that way. It's nice to be corded every once in a while. So thank you very much for that. Great. Thanks for having me. I I'm, I'm a glutton man. I'll talk to, I'll talk to anybody. But to be able to talk about football in April. That's exciting. I love that. Like, don't get me wrong. I like the hockey playoffs. You know, basketball and baseball starts today, but I mean, Well, we are continuing our mantra, lox media blitz here. I really appreciate it. We have Jake Winn-Dixie here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. I appreciate you having me on I'm excited. This is good. We've had Vernon Adams on we've had Williams stand back on. Now we have, you know, the all star. Wide receiver. How, how is life going for you right now? Man, this is going good. It's going real good. It's been fun. Being back home. Spend time with my wife and my two kids. I got a, almost two year old and then a five month old daughter. So yeah, just been enjoying, enjoying time with them. Doing a little bit of substitute teaching and then just working out, getting ready for the season is coming up. So. Well, that's the stuff I love to hear about. I love to hear about the kids, what's it? Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your kids and what you guys are doing here in the meantime. Yeah. So a lot of times with my kids and my son, I don't know if I mentioned that to my almost two year old is my son and then my daughter. So, I mean, they're amazing. To someone's joined my son. It's fun. I mean, he's just, he's just run out around all over the place. Actually a VA has a son. Pretty much the same age. They're both born in may of 2020. So we're getting together with them next week and gonna have them together. So excited for that. And then, so, yeah, so my off season is filled with a lot of time with them. A lot of time working out and then I'd do some substitute teaching as well. At a high school. I got a physical education teaching degree. And as I like to, to go back and sub during the off season. Well, that's great. Hey, good, great way to get back. Yeah. I want to talk about Burton and all of that a year in Minnesota right now, getting ready in the off season. Coming off. I mean a really good year. Right? I mean really stand out. You know, we play a lot of fantasy here in the states, a lot of. You know, a lot of picky with you and stand back and everybody else, what was the season like for you? And it was fine. It was just, it was a lot of fun just to kind of just watch the team grow. And I mean, I think it was my second year in the CFL also my second year, kind of with the same office, the same. Coaches the same players, the same system. And it was just kind of fun to just grow in, to see how our office. Just seems to continue to improve. And I'm more just, we're just even more excited for this. And how we necessarily want it to, we know we left a lot on the table, but we could just feel like we just didn't even quite hit what we knew we were capable of throughout the year. And we're just excited to kind of hit the ground running now. And see what's going to happen in a 2022. I mean, that was the thing is it seemed like you guys had all this steam, you know, Vernon got hurt even with kind of all that adversity. I mean, you guys still make it to the final, you know, the, the semis, whoever, whichever, and all that. I mean, what I, what was it like kind of persevering through all of that kind of a. You know, in the midst of all that. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough. I mean, losing your starting quarterback and obviously VA, I mean, he's just such a, an amazing quarterback, such a special guy, especially the special leader. And an amazing special football player too. So. So it was definitely stuff losing him, but then, I mean, we had shown step up and he did such an amazing job. We had chevre Harris come in and he did amazing job and it was just so cool just to see how the team kind of got behind each person and also had a quarterbacks. Also had each other's backs, even when they weren't in, when they were. Coaching VA continued to be the leader and, and making sure everybody knew what they were doing, keeping us all accountable and making sure we all kept continuing to get better. So, I mean, it's just, it's a special group. It's a special locker room with a lot of amazing guys. And it's just fun. It's a play with them, but also just to grow with them as, as football players and as man. So. When you're having a, you know, a season like he did and, you know, you had the big highlights and these crazy catches and stuff. I mean, Do you, do you get on a roll then? I mean, do you feel that momentum in yourself, right? I mean, besides obviously the team and kind of rolling through with you, like, oh, I got this now I feel confident. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you start to gain confidence in. I think my goal in any, in any day of practice at any game, in any season and in this, even in my whole career in general, like I'm just trying to get better every single day. I'm trying to continue to improve. And I think, yeah, I think the more success you have or you see things that are work and just kind of. It was a little easier to stack them on and keep on improving off of those because you're like, okay, this works. I'm gonna try it and you can kind of mix it up and continue to just try to get better doing different things. So Moffitt. I felt like I was able to do that in 2021. And I'm just, I've had a fun off season and I'm just excited to, to get back to the season. Yeah. And that was the same I was talking with, you know, we'll stand back and he's just like, you could just see in his eyes, right. Like I just can't wait to get back. You know, you guys are having to train. You know, whatever, which way you're trying to, you know, he's talking about his buddy throwing him the football. So we have a chance to kind of run, run a little bit. I mean, what is it like trying to prepare. You know, I mean, it's not like the NFL where you got you, you're in this. I mean, you really have to go about it on your own right. Figure out how to do the best you can. What is it like preparing that way? Yeah. Yeah, it is different, but I also, I also like it and I enjoy it and I think it's, it's fun to actually have an amazing. A facility that I've been sharing that game face. Certainly I've been trained in this here in Minneapolis. I've been training there for man alive. For years over four years now, and just some amazing people in this amazing training. I know everyday when I go there. I'm going to get better and, and yeah, it's nice. We got, actually got like the old Vikings practice study. So we got a a hundred yard indoor field, which in Minnesota, you kind of need in the winter. Cause. It's tough to get outside unless you got to run in some snow. So it was awesome to have bad. And then we have quarterbacks in there actually got Todd bounding, the old NFL quarterback. And so he's always telling me Robinson and he still got it. So it's fun running routes with him. But then just have a bunch of other amazing athletes that I get to train with there. And then also, man. I didn't get to, to mix it up, get to play some basketball and different things. So I really enjoy even the flexibility at the off season has here in the CFL and excited to. Even go to this mini camp that. Putting all for us up there in Seattle. So definitely excited to see, to see the boys next week. Yes. I read that. So we're, you know, we're at time job. When this airs or whatever you might, you might be here in my backyard. But talk about that and being able to get together in the off season, right. Have Vernon kind of put this on, what are you looking forward to? Well, I mean, first of all, I just miss my dogs and I can't wait. I'm. I follow them all the time. I'll probably VA. And I'm just like that. I can't wait to get out there and just get it, get everybody together. Get our families together. As I mentioned before. Our kids, me and VA San, especially. My son and VA sound good to play together and to get the wives together and everything is going to be amazing. And just getting to see all the teammates, man, all the receivers. I can't wait to just watch them. Runaround and just continuing to just chop it up and then learn and grow. And then obviously just the on field work. I think it's just, we're going to be at much more ready when trying to camp pits. Running all those plays and just getting those reps. But I think more than anything, just, just. Just building those relationships and getting together. I was, this is always a blast being with those guys and they were going to get better too. So is going to be fine. I think that's cool that you got, you know, not only looking forward to the football side of it, but just the life and the practicality. Right. I mean, you spent so much time with your teammates, you know, away from your family. I mean, what is it like, you know, during the season, are you able to have your family come up and see you? I mean, I know it's kind of different for every player. Yeah, definitely. So my family, my family comes every years. And Elizabeth. So it's, it's nice, man. It'd be tough. I know some guys, especially when the Y's. Have jobs or the kids have school, sometimes it makes it tough, but my kids are young enough to not in school yet. And. And my wife sees it. She's still finishing up school. And so she's staying at home with the kids, just doing some schools, so she's able to, to come out to Montreal. And so it's nice to have them there and I'm just excited to. Have the whole family there every year and no one every day, every game. Whether it's an away game, hung. I have to get to come back and see my family. Do you a lot's been made, you know what we're talking about, you know? Changing the CFL game, improving the CFL game, you know, w what are we doing? Hash marks down. It's kind of all this kind of stuff. I mean, what do you, what do you make of all this? Why do you like, how everything is, would you like to see things improve where you stand. Yeah. Maybe I haven't been in a league log enough. What is like to me is it's like the rules that are rules. And so that's how we're playing, whatever, whatever it is, like, I'll go with it. And. And I, and I've talked, I've heard some different rumors about different things and heard. My teammates kind of weighing in, and it's cool to, to kind of hear that talk, but I think you asked for me, and this is my third year in the league. And then just whatever, whatever the rule is, I'm just going to play by it. So. And I, and I love the rules. I love to see a show. And I'm just, yeah. I'm just enjoying it. Well, it's someone that, you know, when you have a standout sees it, it's like, yeah, man, I keep. Let's keep doing it. I mean, do you feel, but I mean, you feel comfortable in it. I mean, it's something where. You know, you have to be adaptable in that way. And either you need to have someone explosive like you and we have three downs and it just places a lot more. We were talking with Stan back about that too, you know? Places the importance way more on you guys to deliver when it's like we got two shots or else, you know, we're moving on. Yeah. I mean, three days, I'm not talking about that. Whenever somebody asks about the CFL and I'm like, yeah, the biggest difference. I think it's probably the three downs and it's just like, just changes up a lot every down. So important, I'll be watching the NFL. I'm like, man, I got four downs. Like that's amazing. Like they got to get a first down every time. Right. And obviously that's not the case, but it's just a, yeah. Every, every dam is, is so much. So much more important. I think when you only have three and you got to like for stand back, like, and that's why it's so awesome having him. And it's just like, man, like he's needs to get like five or six to, to have an efficient first down. And I mean, he does. And more than that. So, It's awesome having him, but yeah, every, every place very important. You know, Coming off the. It was the off season. You know, it didn't have anything come back last year, slow start for a lot of teams right now. It felt like everyone was really hitting their strides towards the end. Right. Exciting, you know, playoffs, exciting gray cop. Carrying that over to this year. I mean, do you feel like there's a confidence in a lot of the guys you're talking to that, like we're back we're, we're moving forward. Yeah, definitely. Definitely a family, I think. Yeah. Going into the. 2021 Season. Where does I, man, like, I hope we have a season. I mean, we had to the season before it was canceled, so we're just kind of just like, okay, we've made it. We've got, got it. Had it pushed back a little bit. And then I think it was just great to, to, to have the season get going again. And yeah, I think teams. Started to kind of pick it up and get rolling. And now we know we're having a season and these have confidence in that. And I think it's just easier to, to prepare a know a little bit more what's to come. And we got a full season coming and yeah, it's just, it's exciting. Israeli, same being a part of the, you know, Al lats. What is it about that organization that you like? You feel at home there? I mean, is it the guys, is it the staff? Is it the city, whether you, what do you enjoy about it? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a mixture of all of those things. I mean, first of all, it's my first team that I've been on in the CFL. So it's just a it's home there. And then also, I mean, it's just amazing people throughout the whole organization throughout our front office, to the coaching staff and then through the players. I mean, it's just, it's a fun, special locker room, just the way that we just gel and get along and. And just the way we spend time together. Yeah. It's, it's hard to go home. And obviously I got my wife and kids at home, so I'm excited to go home to them, but sometimes I'm like, man, like, I'm just, I'm talking, I'm hanging out with the guys right now or we're watching film and I'm getting a lift in and it gets tough to, to get out of there at a good time sometimes because it's such an amazing locker room. So I mean, it, it really is a special place. And then beyond that, I mean the city, the community. The people there are amazing as well. Having, you know, Vernon put this together for you guys. What does that speak to, to the, you know, the leadership of him right here, him coming back, getting his big deal and. And kind of. Like we talked about before, we're trying to solidify, you know, the, this team moving into next year, but what does it mean if him as a leader to kind of be able to do all this. Yeah. I mean, he's just, he's just a special guy. I mean, I've, I've actually been, been known about him and watching him and following him since. Back in disease and Washington days, I went to South Dakota state and my registered here. I wasn't planning yet, but I remember watching when we played them at Eastern Washington. And like 2013, it would have been. And I was like, man, who is this though? And I remember watching him and I knew what he could do. For all those years as he was at Oregon. And. And then up here. So, so when he, when I came to mashallah, he was the name that I knew. It's like I knew what type of football player he was. And then from the moment I got there, I mean, he's just such an amazing man and leader. Role model. And obviously it just keeps getting better as a player too. So it was fun, fun to see that, but just like the, the man that he is in a locker room and it's the way that he leads. Like there's a couple of days, for example, When he, when he got hurt and he had like surgery or he, and he wa and he wasn't there, like, I think you've got the. Hospital one morning and appointment. So he was a little late for one of our meetings and he's the one in the locker room. When there's five minutes to go, he gets everybody to make sure that everybody's there on the, to the meeting on time. So when he wasn't there, but he's looking around like, What are we going to do? And like somebody else. That is that above, but it's just like, he's the one that gets everybody together. And he really is just kind of just did a heartbeat of that team. And I mean, from the quarterback position is amazing. To have that in and everybody loves him, respects him. I mean, he's easy to get along with. I mean, he says he's, he's so special. I could go on and on and, and, and talk about the man and leader. He is. And I mean, I love him so much and just so proud of him and just even the growth that I've seen in, in a couple of years with him. As a man, as a husband, as a father, and then as a quarterback and leader of our football team. I mean, I have so many amazing things. I could talk about him all day. But he, he truly is. He truly is amazing. Last question for me, I was going to ask you earlier, and then we got sidetracked. You talking about, you know, you said. The CTG, right. Given back and working. I talk about that. You know, here you are in the off season, right? You could be doing anything, you know, you want to, you know, teach and give back. You know, my wife's a teacher. She will be, want me to make sure I let you know that. But, I mean, Hey, talk about that. And spending the Aussies and doing that. Yeah, absolutely. What is your mic teach? She teaches first grade or no, she teaches fourth grade this year. Absolutely. I got a lot. I got a lot. Quick story about elementary school. So, so I I'd probably prefer high school. But so actually kind of how I got into it was a. In 2020 when our season got canceled. I ended up getting a teaching job at a school and I was the billing side. So I would go there and I would just sub whatever teacher was gone. And it was during, it was kind of during COVID. So th the high school that I was at. I'm going to have school for kids on Friday, they had distance learning. But elementary schools had school. So they would assign me to elementary schools for Fridays. And so I taught first grade. I taught fourth grade in the classroom. And man, that's a different ballgame. That's. That's tough. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of focus all day, sometimes with the high schoolers. They're they're pretty calm. They're pretty chill. But yeah, that was those elementary schools. Those will take it out to you. So she ever comes home tired, man. I just got her cut her some slack. I got a ladder respect ladders back for her. But I think, I think during that, that year that I got to teach really that whole year. Really kind of showed me that it's like, okay, this is something I want to do. I knew I'm in my whole life. My dad was a teacher. That was my degree. And then I think when I actually did it for myself and I did some coaching as well. Okay, this is something I could see myself doing. And we're, football's all done. I think I'd love to do that. And so now when I come back in the off season, I left, I actually go back to the, the school that I was at. And then my own high school that I went. So they're both in the same district. And in this level, I know all the kids. No. All the staff and everything. So, so it was fun just building relationships with those kids and then pouring into them and, and teaching. So it has been fine. Well, yeah. Yeah. Come back here. The big CFL, all star and I mean, it's. I mean, I think that that's cool. I would love if I was again at school to have someone, yeah. We teach him if his ad it's like, you know, you're an all star, you know, it's really exciting that way. Well, I'll tell you I, and I told Stan back then, if I don't get, if I don't get a little DM next, you know, when you guys are all hanging out, But I, I hope you have safe travels. You know, I I'm wishing you guys, you luck for the season. We've been building a lot of good relationships with the Montreal.

Episode 86 - USaaFxfL Rules

So I'll introduce you. And then I have a little preface thing and we'll get into it that. Okay. Cool. I'm ready. We're going to be excited. This is going to be good. I'm excited to post later that you're coming on. Well, I could not be more thrilled for this today. Busy traveling last week. We have you this week. I think we will have a lot of ears out of this. We have Sam Schwartz Dean on creator of the XFL rule book. How are you doing? Great. Exciting now where we're going to get into this today. Sam and I. Yeah, trepidatious while there's, there's been a lot of stuff here. Yeah. XFL and stealing and USFL what's going on. I've I've heard podcasts all last week. Talking a lot about this. That is not what this is. We're going to look at the pros and cons of all of this stuff. Look at maybe some good ideas, a USFL hat. Maybe some things, why the XFL did things. Is that sound good? Sam, we're going to try to look at this from like an athletic and a. I don't. Yeah. Sam. I said we can't, I can't have any more heat on this. So we're going to talk about this. Go through everything. First all a Sam, what was your initial thoughts? When all this came out? Yeah, I think, you know, there's nothing to do with intellectual property. No one owns any of the football rules. We had a lot of same rules manifests. No one owns the rules. So I think a lot of the stuff that they have borrowed from other leagues, I think is. Been great. Right. We don't know what the current XFL rule book will be like. You know, we know what the 2020. Rule book was put together, but I think it's great to see that they're adding some stuff that makes the game exciting for fans and. That means our listening to fans in some capacity. I think there's some unique things that they did that I actually don't know how it's going to be. I can't really form an opinion based on how I approach rules is because I have to test and see. As well as, I don't know what data they use to make their decisions. I know what data we use to make our decisions. Some of it may be outdated based on what the game looked. Like four years ago when we started in 2018, but I don't, I can't really form an opinion. This is good or bad rule. I can only tell you why we looked at a rule or why we moved off. In a certain way. It's exciting. Yeah. Cause there was a lot and I saw a lot of chatter online. Like. Yeah, they're picking and choosing right. AAF staff. Like it was even some Vanguard, some football stuff in there. But then I also saw like, well, these rules worked or these were good ideas. These were innovations. Like why, why not? Right. If nothing else is on the table right now, why not have the USFL adopt some of these things? If like you said, we don't know what is happening next fall or next February, I guess we don't, we don't know. Right. Yeah, I think, you know, for me, it. I looked at it is everything's attached to each other. So you can't. The way we looked at it is if you have a certain type of player in your league, Your rules should adapt to what kind of players you have. I can't go into the specifics of that, but, you know, If you have a lot of. If every rule is tied together. And so you can look at a room and be like, this is a great idea, but if you don't have the players to execute or the coaches to execute it, Or it's going to screw up something to have unintended consequences down the road for other rules. That may change the way you look at the game. That's why some rules didn't make it into our thing. There's a lot of great ideas up there. I hear like a lot of great things that people can do. But if you don't account for how every rule ties together to make the overall game, you could have an issue. And that's why I prefer to test, test, test. I prefer to have as much data as possible in. My decisions. Because at the end of the day, you're still not going to know what's going to happen on game day. We'll get, so we're going to get into this. We're going to, I think we're just going to kind of go role by role, I think. And just like I said, W what are the pros of these? What are the cons, the decisions that went into it? So the extra point, right? If we had a lot of these announcements. Similar. I didn't want to tweet anything with similar feeling. Announcement videos to what we saw in the XFL 2020, right. Yeah, I hope pilot, our design firm got paid a little bit from that, but you know, if it worked for us might as well, try it again for them. So we have the extra points, right? We have the one point successful kick. You know, normal point after two points. Conversion from the two yard line and then three points from the 10 yard line. Yeah. And so what the data. A little bit different from ours. We had the two ports. And the three points from the 10. We want it to make it so that if you had a scoring opportunity, the points really, really mattered. That's why we moved from the two to the five and we had the one point play from the two. Your overall scoring will go down and that's something that we accounted for. So, Cause you're making it harder to score. The main thing though, was we didn't want to put, make the one point play too easy. Like it is. With the kick, right. So we really looked at where do we put a kick? And what percent chance of score do we want it? So we had the one point. The two it's a 50% chance to score. Much like third to fourth place. But for us, we wanted to get the kick out because fans cared more about the innovation and the strategy that come with extra point and they also think point should matter. It affects the game a little bit because of your touchdowns, not worth 6.9 points anymore. The NFL. Yeah, I guess maybe the USFL it's worth about 6.7 0.6 0.8 points. And so if more teams are successful from three points, that's how you can overcome. That issue and that's, that's what we wanted to do. It's to make sure that we had the 3.5, that's a main driver, as well as, as the announcement video says nine point. It's still a one score possession to the 18 point game. We're still at two points to. Possession game. The likelihood that you score your 10. You have 10 yard plays very low. So if you take a. 17% Chance type of 17% chance. You know, your percent chance to actually come back, including the two touchdowns. It's very well, but it's a great talking. It was my talking point as well. So I just, you know, we wanted to get the kick out because we don't get to call places a week. And so I don't know how they're going to approach their coaches and say, Hey, don't just kick the one point play every time. You know, why even have the two point. The teams are just going to go from at one point and we are now. Now from data, you should go for two more. From the two yard line. So now you're influencing a, the same type of play call, but you're not, you're not getting the. The excitement that fans can get up. What should you choose? You should pretty much always choose the one point plate. Or the two point play right now because there's so much easier to score them in the XFL. No. It is a great talking point. It's it? That this isn't like Kansas city Buffalo, right? I mean, And we got these teeth, you know, we're going to be in like week two or three of the season here. Like I, yeah. Th the chances of actually getting the three point, but it is a great talking point. It's a great with the XFL. It stands out when you're like, what's different about the league while you can go for one, two or three. Oh, cool. Okay. That's like something tangible I can hold on to. I don't [unknown]. And I don't know, we have friends with a lot of kickers, like. Removing the kicker from that, like you said, I mean, you talked to you a lot of the rationale, but did you ever have any trepidation about, I think I heard you on Alan and Bryant show talking about that years ago, like removing the kicker. Right. And taking away some of that. Yeah, I guess, you know, the fans. We, we did not remove the kicking game altogether. This is something we looked at. But fans want to see the, the, the offense and defense on the field. Right. And they like the, I don't know what's going to happen. Next moment. That comes post touchdown. That's what we had everyone. We polled. We asked fans about this and they've told us they don't like. The extra point kick, they called it a p**s break. Right. So it's a 94% chicken, the version. They went from a 99% chance and they moved to. To, to the 15 to 94% chance to. And so what also happens there is. Every. Because the only happened 6% of the time. Every miss. Is seen as a blender. Right. And like blenders are bad for your game. And. So if they have their first kicker go up and they miss a. 94% Conversion. You're going to, it's going to look, it's going to be deemed bad football. So for us, if you miss a play from the five yard line. That's not actually a blender. So that's just you just trying to go for it and trying to do something unique. And, and we picked our locations based on percent chance to score. As well as what kind of play calls we'll receive. 50 50 Run from the two at 70 30 pass from the, from a 10. Or from the five and then it's. 80 20 From the 10th. And so, and then we even pick the 15 at one point. But the. It'll look like real football. Let's take offense defense. And so it'll all this stuff. We tested a bunch of it, and that's why it's good that the U S. I just don't know. Based on the coach that they hired, how often they're going to do a two and a three point play. And so why even have it. If your coaches aren't going to do it. We even saw that a lot of teams that would go for three when they showed up or teams to work for one, even though one was at one point. It was super inefficient in our day. Compared to the two and the three. But so you don't know. So why have a rule if you likely may not use it because it's so easy to convert their 1.4. Well, it was like, I think Zoran, right? Was it like he went for three and then. He didn't even understand. What's going on. So the answer. I feel like we're going on extra points and all that. Yeah. Okay. Instant replay. I mean. It's a lot. Right? Mike Pereira is a Skyjack. Judge here. I mean, what, what's your takeaway from this? I mean, it feels like the NFL committee in New York, but just with only one challenge. Yeah. We looked at sending everything back to Stanford and having me your. Dean doing all the games. What we wanted to do is to make sure our game was as transparent as possible. Right. I wanted it to not be anyone employed directly by the XFL networks, doing the rules or doing the review. I cared more about integrity of the rules than being a hundred percent right. On what it is or having to be manipulation. We just wanted to get, get it as. Arm's distance away and that's why we've done all onsite review. It's more expensive. It's. Cause you have to hire more people. You have. I pay for Hawkeye and every single game. I don't know what review system they're using. But, you know, we want it to make sure that there's integrity and then we're showing every decision-making that goes. Right. And they don't have concurrent games. So. Mike. Can work. All of it. You know, I just think that for us, it made more sense to make it so that there was complete transparency over everything. So that wasn't me making the call on, on everything because I have my own KPIs aligned with the league and you'd never want to have a conflict of interest. As interesting. That's all, you know, when you got that triple headers on the Sundays, that's a long day for my prayer. You know, I mean, for everybody. I mean, I'd like to even just, I do, I don't do a lot of sports videography anymore, but I did sports in college and a lot of the Gonzaga games like that is a horrendous day to be doing like a triple header out at the same, the same field. And those guys love it though. Dean does it for Fox as well. I mean, that's, that's the. That's what they love to do. So I can say, I could see why they do it. That's on the one challenge flag. You know, we didn't have a challenge. There's no need for it, in my opinion. We did challenges as you can take a time out. If you were on defense, it was only needed because every play was reviewed in our league. We did the verse. I'm going to college. And so you actually don't need a challenge flag. If you're reviewing every play, the only time you need. The challenge is if you're on defense and the other team from our team on offered Scott a favorable spot and they need to, they want to go fast. The way we did is we did a timeout, which would guarantee a review in time. And if there was an overturn on that review, Then you got your time out back. Right. And we only did two timeouts. So yeah, you have to save your time outs. Don't just waste your time outs. You also have the best that we are, do a good job officiating. So, you know, there's drawbacks to what we do too, but. I think. You don't really need the challenge. Like it shouldn't be up to a head coach to decide whether or not the ruling on the field is, is good. That's not their job. Could you imagine that that. To be the face of a team, coach leaders of the players face to the media and coach, coach position, and then call plays and then do a challenge flag for. Let's let the integrity of the game, stand on the officiating side and make sure that we get it right versus focusing on adding another skillset to the coach. That's good. I like that. I like that. This is good. This is going to, people are going to be happy with all this stuff. Ah, kickoffs ponds. I sell a lobby mainly maybe the XFL inspired CAC. We say, it's not that. Yeah, I'm a little confused on their kickoff. It looks like. Just move the spot where you kick from back to the 25 and then add it up. Or got rid of the run-up. I don't know, what's it. What's it going to do? I, from my read, it's not similar to what we did the XFL, because there would be a lot more language associated to it. Was there, did they have a video of the kickoff? I always knew that any of the ones that honestly, and I think we talked about this when I had Andrew on last week, we kind of broke all this down from a USFL news hub. Like in any of the ones to have an animation for this, whether it be incredibly helpful to see, just because it is very hard. Cause I saw that like, oh, this is the exit foul, they're kicking back. And then I'm like, I don't, it feels like they're just trying to make it, they have to kick further, but then it does feel like you might end up with a little bit more. Steam coming in. I don't know. As anyone who's, who's kind of listened to me before. The last time I was on the show, like. You know, kickoff with our kickoff was a really, really hard thing to do. And so I could see why, if they haven't done any testing, I don't know if they've tested any rules or if. That they've played mock games. Right? Before training camp, we played. I want to do halves. We probably played. 30 Mock halves. You know, so, you know, 16 games about, and so. You know, We got to see what our game could look like. And we did change rules. Each time, but I don't know what this kickoff will do. If there's more returns, the game will go on by a little bit faster, which they have other rules that don't. That slowed the game down from a total of game time. I also don't know what their commercial load is going to be. So, you know, between that and they have partners in NBC, I don't know, Fox. Because they own the legal, they broadcast the different timelines that have different commercial load that NBC well, so. It should be interesting. I know the kickoff that if they have more returns, that's a lot what fans want, but I don't know what it'll do for player safety. Yeah, I think that we've been told the initial simulcasts. I think it's just going to be the same on both, which I would've thought, honestly, would've been a cool opportunity to like have different crews and be able to, or at least have different announcers. Right? Like when WrestleMania does that and you have like the Japanese booth and you ever like Amazon now, you know, they'll have like the female only, or like the international, but I do think it's. They haven't announced. I reached out to a couple of like the spring league guys. It called a lot of those games with Fox to see. And I just haven't heard back like, Hey, do we know who's calling a lot of these games, but it does feel like. I I've heard that, that they. The load and the commercials and how the XFL tried to kind of balance it out versus this. Yeah. That was one of our hardest, it was cause we had a hard cap. And put into the contract. You know, we had the three hour hard cap. It was up to the cruise and that included the four minutes that we did the lead up time. So we kicked off at oh four. Or 34. For all of our Dames. All except for week one, we kicked off at oh six. Right? So that was included in the overall game time of being under three hours. We were like a normal, we were like Seinfeld or show, like that's perfectly fit into the hour block based on the commercial load. So. I don't know how that works for Fox. And the USFL because Fox owns. But they do have NBC, so it'll be interesting. The one thing the next row here, I'm excited about this onside kick versus scrimmage play, right? This is like AAF inspired. I said, this is B fan controlled football flip the field. Do you just real. I've had this bag of. Football. Equate in your life at all in, in EDA, I love fan controlled football. I love the team. They have a lot of, I helped a lot of friends get hired there. They hired a lot of my good buddies to the XFL. They have amazing people working there. I really love the Verde brothers. That do a lot of the work with them. And I think that what they're doing is that true reimagination process. I think people have heard me say before. But instead he was going to reimagine the game. He hired all over. And I, and I kinda came in and said, let's just re-engineer. And that's why I use my tech background of how we could adapt to our rules. They're really re-imagining the rule book, right? They're doing. As many outlandish things you can do. While stolen, keeping the integrity of the game. And so. No, a few of the things that they did. I am. Pretty against the fourth down conversion as a, as a root. Use of the onside kick. I think it allows for, you know, we have the election to go forward and not go for it. I think that the a F had a rule you had to be done by two scores or something. At a certain time of the game. For when you could do the, the fourth and 12, right. If you have a really outmatch team. Teams up by two scores. And they're all in there really. Mt matched offensively. That team can then technically go for it and convert. More because now they're their main thing that they practice during the week. They can utilize it. So I didn't want to see the unintended consequence also as a former offensive lineman. You know, you're on the field for a 12 play drive. You then go for two to get back into the game you convert. And now you have to go forth and 12, what happens when you convert that fourth and 12th, you have to restart a drive. You never left the inside of the lines. And that to me is a big problem. Because it's a health and safety hazard at no point. Do you ever do 35 straight place? Right. And I could not imagine. And the AAF fortunate for us, the AAF actually tested. They had a game. And they had players do 35 straight plays or. We're not one of their games, one of their. Preseasons and the. I got to see firsthand. The old line was really struggling. On that, and it looked like a player safety issue, but everyone who's played a line knows that a field goal, extra point. I tried. We weren't going to have those. Is not the same type of play as you have on a regular plate, but then you add the fourth and 12. If you convert it. What are we doing here, man? If you're playing up tempo the whole time. You know, that's why I didn't like it. Cause I wanted the old line to be able to get off the field, get some water, get that breather before and then ended up having to go back out there and do it all. Oh, and also, yeah, there's not like you said, with the AAF, having I, that was kind of pre read. But, you know, Even in fingers or football, the first time they did this, it's like, you could do it whenever. And then it was one of those games. It was the game breaking. I can't remember who the two teams were, but they just, they kept going for it and they kept going for, and they kept going for it. And the other team never got the ball. And they finally had to say, well, you can only do it in like the second half when you're trailing. And they added some stipulations. And I said, well, I think in this league, right in the USFL, we have like professional coaches and play callers. Like, I don't think we're doing the scrimmage play every time, but when there's no limit to when you can do it, like you said, it does bring that player, you know, the conditioning and safety and all that. I'm very anti hard rules. Right. And so I really don't like. Like the board, unless you know, that unless was in our rule book 74 times, but none of it was. Original copy from our team. Right. You can do this, unless you can do this unless right. And that creates a stipulation rule, which really doesn't allow for creativity. Now, what we did do is at one point we had unlimited forward passes. All right. And then we had a team. Mississippi that was trying, that was doing. Razzle dazzle to run the clock out. We also had a completely running clock, so it was kind of a disaster it's okay. This is why we're only allow for one forward pass. Right. But we still allowed you to do it. And we didn't stipulate when in the game you can do it. We didn't put rules in. Like you could only, you could have had to go forward if you crossed the 50, because then there creates unintended consequences. I think the rules that have hard stipulations like that, about what you can do when. It makes the game less excited and less open for the coaches to kind of make their own interpretation of the rule. Right. And I, I just think it's, it's, it's hard to understand. I like onside kicks are. Gov come up because it's not a problem with safety. It's a problem with teach how they teach onside kick it's up to 13% conversion rates. You're on the NFL. You wanted her on 12%. That's why they chose fourth and 12th. There's another alternative. That you could do from a overall standpoint. That exactly really cool is you can do the shadow rule for post touchdowns. And the shower rule is. You it's a fourth and 15, fourth and 12, whatever you want to pick. And it's, you can either. Punt for the kickoff or you can contract convert that fourth and 12th. And so there's still that mystery of what's going on. It's something we toyed with, but we still liked the idea of a kickoff. We were able to test out something that was great, but if we did not, if we did not get something to work, we probably would have gone. That allows for you to do the fourth and 12th, but it still keeps the kickoff and it doesn't allow for a stipulation. Gotcha. A wall. I'll skip ahead here, because while you're talking double forward, pass, I mean, And then USFL having the double four pass. Yeah, I guess it's, I'm cool. I love the rule. There's more stuff you can do from it. Then we got to see we've done a lot. W what happens is the fly motion, not a shotgun where you do the shovel pass forward is where we expect it. A lot of it to come from. And why we like that as it's a way to manufacture depth. Pre-snap versus what you see Julian Edelman do. He looks like he's at seven yards depth. If you're. I don't know how they get rid of their double. With the double passes for the Patriots, but when you seven yard steps, The radio signals gotta go off something bunkies happen. It's like when they one, the wide receiver takes his glove off on the sideline. He comes back in. It's like, something's happening. Please have your eyes on this guy. And so we wanted to eliminate that. And also get rid of the risk. So you have risk involved when you do a double pass. Because it's a lateral so that you can lose possession. We wanted to make it. So, Hey, you don't have to lose possession anymore. It is a tighter confinement to get it. To get it taken care of because once you throw it. Now he's closer to the line of scrimmage and the defense is closer to him. So there is a positive to having deaths. But this way we made it. So that was very easy to execute if you wanted. Who, who knows how many games they're able to get a double forward pass in. We had probably a quarter of our games, but they led to big plays and they went to a two point converge with three point of perversion. I couldn't believe when they announce all these rules and I posted the Landry Jones double for passer. It got bad. It back in. I couldn't believe the engagement I got out of that stupid. I mean, people love. It's fun. And again, like you need elevator points like what's with us about, you can go for three. And you can double for a pass, like, okay. Okay. Like I get it. You. It's something that is tangible. I did spend a lot of time on these rules though. So it is great that they could just go and do them. Ah, yes. Speaking of the overtime here. So this is interesting because it's kind of like XFL meets CFL meets. Like what do you make of the, the best of three shootout? Yeah, they're over. Awesome. It's, you know, it's definitely what we had discussed. And Curt Menefee had brought up moving the ball up more. There it's where the, to put conversion is. So we wanted the. The number to be two point conversion. So from the spread. We were actually concerned. We weren't going to get enough scoring in our overtime from doing it from the five. And then I liked. I liked going for five rounds because I didn't want it to be over. Two rounds. Right. I, it could be too fast if, if. Team AA scores. The first two and TMB score doesn't score that it's over. Foreplay's. Right. And so. That, that to me seems a little bit off. That's why I wanted to guarantee six plays. Cause that's, you know, everyone talks about, you know, you get to drive with overtime and NFL and so at a college football. And so I was like, You know what let's just, let's do five rounds. Now, the problem is that it is guaranteed to go longer. We were able to get it down to a minute per round. We tested every single version of this thing. To make sure that we could get the right timing. We used to start the plate from the end of the previous plan. The other side of the field. But then for TV and it didn't like that. Officiating. Wasn't great that way, because we were doing half-life. Officials. So it's better to do it on a single side. It's probably better to do it from the two. I don't know what kind of plays are going to see. But you have a higher percent chance of scores predicted. 50% Chance to score. So I just like the open field that you get from the five. So the one thing that you have to adjust for, and I don't know how they're handling. Handling penalties. And a two point conversion shootout is to make it show that because it's a single plate possession. The defense doesn't cheat. Every play. You have to do some hardcore rules. So ours, our first offensive penalty was a replay the down every defensive penalty AF for that was a free score for the team that was trying to convert. Right. And so the problem is that you give one gimme call, like you're not going to screw you over a bad call, but now every call after that, whether it's a. If it's a controversial scar. It's a complete score, right? And there's no rule in sport or in football where you're guaranteed a score mixed on what the. What I started to happen. If a guy gets PI to the end zone, the ball moves to the one, right? It doesn't give the guy a free score. What do you do? That is if it's a clear path and the guy from like the sidebar and jumps onto the field or something like that, something agregious. But. You know, I, I. I just don't know if it's going to go too fast, but they are some positives. Being able to score more in overtime. The where. Because it's for two points. Is that a spread thing? Why it's not. Good point. Okay. So I talked to sports books all over. I talked to professional damn birders, and so. I guess this is, this is the long version. So this is the last rule. I was able to get approved by events. Right. Because we couldn't get a consensus. So, you know, how do you score overtime while you. Look, I hope everyone can kind of take from this is like the first thing you do when you're coming up with an idea. Is see what everyone else does. I don't think that it's, it comes from you sitting down on a notepad with a pencil and you stand up in the air. Like it's there's no ideas are coming up. You have to look at what other people do. So. I looked at all my favorite overtimes, the ones that were successful from a fairness standpoint for the hockey shootout. And. Soccer. Penalty kicks, which is the one I'm most familiar with. But it was. It's a mini game. It's not actually a football. It's one-on-one. And so I've said, okay, let's go a little to a little bit different route and let's try and see where we can have from. From 11 on 11, right? And then you have your own. Your NFL over time. The problem with college over time is. It's an unfair game because it seemed to go second. It has an advantage, but also. You have a crazy overs that are coming into a place. So sports books need to do they account for that when they're doing. Spreads and overs and total and totals for overtime. So when you have an overtime, And the teams are completely balanced. That's what it proves in a zero points. But then the team can win by eight or one by six. That's kind of messed up. Right. And so what we want to do is we want to keep the spreads consistent with what the most obvious sprints are, what the spreads from the NFL work, which is spreading an overtime spread. Yes. Technically could have a one. Or a two point spread, but it's really a one point. Three points and six points. Right. And so that's why we wanted two, four and six. So it kept at the same pace. Right, or just seven points that can also have. And so we want to keep it that same spread as well as not make it so scary from the totals we looked at. Hey, you just keep the score even, and then add like a w and L so whoever won or lost. So now the spreads not involved and the over's not involved, then you bet on the full night or get somebody else that's full. 60 Much like soccer overseas has been on the full 90, over like they overtime isn't included. And their sports betting markets. We thought about doing like hockey, hockey just adds a goal to the winning team. Right. We thought about what if we just added one point, a lot of my friends. That are, that are. Degenerate gamblers. That's what they wanted. Right. Keep it consistent. I also don't make my box for. Right. Don't add letters to my box for. And so I think that where we settled on, I think it was the right place because we. Two point conversion and. It's sold in the most spots because we didn't want to do the one point conversion from the two. Largely because I want to see where unique place. You know, let's see some action. Let's see. Some passing, let's see like what team's going to do and open it up. But yeah. That's my speech on. Again, I worked very hard on that and fell a lot on that. So the difference in you say, To recap that the difference from the. I'm so sorry, man. I. I just add. It's two seconds. All right. Is it just a recap, then you think that going from the five and overtime versus the two, you maybe get a little more open field. I think you'd get a little bit more open field. I think that you get a little bit more uni plays. It was where our two point conversion was. So that's why. We went from there and it fits the spread better. I think that there are positives of doing it from the two yard line in terms of increasing more scoring. What we didn't want to happen was. To go 10 rounds and only have three touchdown scores, which is statistically what you should expect. Right. Or 3, 2, 2, 1 conversion score. So that, that to me, Is a fear that you could have versus if they're 50 50, if they do six plays, they should have a winner after three rounds because that's, you know, three touchdowns. So they. If in six places, they can get the same amount of score and they can expect the same on. We haven't templates. So there is a positive to work they're doing. I just thought it was better to do it from the five. Because that's where our two point conversion was and it was more open. The, the punting. I don't, I, I need to have Matt mango back on. Anything stand out from the, the changes they made to the planting game. Nothing, nothing. That would, based on the comment on there, touchback still the same as with NFL is. They're still going to see the same amount of parts. I don't think it makes it any harder to punt, which is what our goal was to showcase them. The punters may not have liked the rules, but I would showcase. And the hardest of light. So if they perform well on our league, that can perform anywhere. That's my sales pitch, but I think it's just, you're, you'll see the same amount of punts. USFL. Is it the timing. It's similar. You know, it's, we've got this comeback period, but it's a clock stopping. For the first downs inside the two minutes of the second and fourth quarters. Yeah. I mean, there's positives to that. I liked our rule. It was a really confusing rule. But it was engineered from the purpose of. It fans care less about the rule and know that any team could come back. But the game ends up one minute left in the game. That's positive. So, you know, we had two timeouts because we wanted a lot of stoppages, like complete stoppages of the game. So that's why we had more stoppages in our two. Two minute warning. So for fans who don't know, we stopped the game clock for 12 seconds on every play that ended in the field of flight incompletions out of bounds or complete stoppages inside the two minute warning. And not the five minutes. Like. The NFL has five minutes where they changed the rules. Why we did this was to increase the opportunity for the teen Australian to come back and make it harder for the team. That's close to the game, as well as open up the entire playbook. Right. And so what Dallas Cowboys situation is past a year. Dak Prescott goes in slides, 14 yards down the field. Both our rule and the, and the USFL rule would have solved. This problem, because now the clock stops. Right. And so why do you do that now? Go back and watch that play. And you'll see guys like Fred Warner, Stan. The miners standing on the sideline with their back to the sideline facing it because you have, if you expect the only play to be a play to the sideline, based on how much time is left. So we wanted to make it so that the office could run every plan, the playbook, and it looked like real football. And we can solve these MDM stars. There's another rule you can do with CFL does, which is you have the CFL, they have this really fast game, and then they stop after every play. And two minutes or their three minute warning. And so it's unique because now it's always come back and they also have a play work or rule. Every you have to run a play at triple zero. So. You're guaranteed to get that second playlist. Like the, and so the NFL has these different rules or there's a lot of different ways you could solve the same game star. With three timeouts and this extra stop. At the end of the game. And if you have a good game, both teams are gonna utilize it. So if it's. If it's a one score Dame and the team that's trailing with two minutes of scores with one 30 left. Then the other team that gets the ball they're trailing. And if they go there, they're going to try and make the game last as long as possible. And so you can get into really, it's a great game, but it makes the game go watch. Much much longer in this situation. By not having to stop a chapter, every play it's not as stressful we did. I don't know what their play clock is. So I don't know what their deal down period is for people in Darren stand kneel down period. There's 42nd play clock at two minutes left of the game. When no timeouts. The game's over. Right? And so we did that. We had our 25 second play clock. We waited five seconds. We're off the clock. And seven seconds spot the ball. Neil down now is 20 seconds. So the Neal Dunn periods. One minute left. Right? We still wanted the deal down period, because. I think it's a good way to get out of games that are out of hand. But, you know, Cause then there's actually, cause it's like almost one minute of game time. There's three minutes of real time. So for all the people watching out there, now you can impress your friends. Hey, how much or your wife or girlfriend or boyfriend? How much time is left of the game. They ask you that just take what's left of the game. Time's up by three. Know that the last two minutes of each. The second half goes to the slowest and if it's a closed. In the last two minutes of the, of the four. Fourth quarter. We'll be the slowest. So now you get to look impressive for your friends. It's about, you're talking about the exit on come back. And I remember cause we were at. Is it dragons. Vipers is at their home opener. And I think they, I think the dragons arrive and the Vipers are driving and it was like an and. And there was a lot of alcohol that was involved. Is this game ever going to end like this smell? I'm kidding. But, but then the game ended when I think it was a miss pass in the end zone by the Viper is, and I'm like, that's why they did it is because the game was exciting to the very last second. You know, and it, every play mattered until the end. And it literally, I think ended like right at the buzzer with, you know, in my memory. And again at the start, I said, every rule is tied together. So you combine those comeback mechanics. With the three point play. That makes the game more exciting. Right. And so you, now you have two combat mechanics. You think of just one piece of the puzzle. We want of all of this, all the different pieces of the puzzle to be able to make sure that the rules tie together. There you go. Last thing on here. Cause we did all the other offenses to. So this penalty staff, right. And I'm sure you have not to say that we have the offensive and defensive pass interference. Yeah. Those were rules. I did not want to touch because I don't know what the unintended consequences are. Right. I think what we don't want is more subjectivity in officiating. I think everyone can agree on that. And people don't like that. There's the play where, you know, you throw it up. And it's a guy, it's a jump ball and it's automatically. Because what are you supposed to do? Well, I don't know if you get rid of the pie, how teams are going to play, why you do the intentional or why you do the PEI? As a spot foul is because after, after 15 yards on a route, The defense is now incentivized to commit a penalty. Right. 'Cause you're saying that the max that can get this. So now you add the subjectivity clause and let. My prayer, make every call based on what subject what's subjective. I don't know if we want to make, spend all this time doing more reviews on these or more of these calls. Not every place is going to be as dry as a group. Just as the one that we all point to of the saints, rants and actually championship game or the ranch player. No intention of getting the. So we saw that there was an unintended consequences with that. So we did in the last five minutes of the game. Where we allowed every play to be reviewed. And so, or, and so our, every penalty to be reviewed. So that you could account for that. When a team doesn't have a chance to make up for a bad call because. Overtime. You know, most teams will have all the same number of bad calls and good. It calls for them. Because we play a human game and this isn't chess rights and there's. It's not robots. So. You know, we're trying to, you know, I just don't know what Howard, demon's going to play. Going to see more press coverage because you're influencing for. Pass interference opportunities, right? To put it on the. The officiating staff. So I don't know what you're going to see. So I decided not to touch it. I think another defensive rule that they don't have is they don't have, from what I can tell blitz rules, which the AAF did have, and we didn't have, so a lot of start-up football coaches. We'll ask for what's rules. They have unintended consequences. I'm not going to go directly into why you do them or don't them. Let's people pay me for that now. So I don't think that it's it's it's, you know what. What your decisions are for those things, but I think it's important to figure out. If you change your role, how is this going to affect the second, third, fourth order effects that come with it? Yeah. It's a butterfly effect. Ashton Kutcher, Tata. Seven years ago. Ready years ago. So. Any of it. The spot foul. I get that, like you said, it you're, you're incentivizing. I think that's interesting and incentivizing, you know, post. 15 Yards. On the offensive pass interference. Basically they, if the play doesn't happen, right. We're not calling anything. I mean, is there any other weird stuff with that? Sorry, I didn't see that. What was that? For the offensive pass. It's like if the, if the past doesn't cross the line of scrimmage, there can be no pass interference or ineligible player down field penalties for OPI. So that's, that's the college rule. So we had the same rule. At the XFL is to influence screams. Right? And so there's no illegal man down field, if, and so if you watch a screen in the NFL, Everyone's running flat down the line and they have a T. And they have practice timing a lot to say, okay, flat down the line one Pacific. The city to Mr. Dan longer, slow screens. And then they're out versus college football is very big on the jailbreak screen. So where you can be out and about. Down the line of scrimmage, as long as the ball is caught behind. And alignment can be 12 yards down. From our downfield, right. It makes it very hard for the difference also to start a football, you want to influence the screen game to slow down defensive lineman because defensive lineman at the start of it, because pretty much your first three days are like training camp. Because you don't have that much time together. And the defense is always ahead of the offense at the start of a league or a startup. Or starting the season. So, you know, you're slowing down the defensive line by adding more opportunities to first screens. Well, there you go. Anything else on the rules, any other things that you had in the back of your mind that you had seen from any of this stuff? No, I think that is great. I don't think there should be any fan basis. You know, we don't know what the new XFL 20, 23 world Brooke's going to be. We don't know, or we don't know exactly how this is going to be. So I think conjecture on whether these are good rules or bad rules is, you know, that's, that's a. That's a waste of time. I think, you know, you can understand. You need to understand why you do certain roles or how they come up with rules. I think that's important. Like. Nothing. We, we didn't do everything perfect. In 2020. Me and my team. But I think that. We had a reasoning behind everything and there's data to support it. Right. It was always what's problem. We're trying to solve for it. What does success look like? Is it big enough to matter, but how do we get there? And then the problem solves fortunate for us is that we had 95% approval rating on our rules. Right. And like you said, the best metric for how you can judge it for game as excited as. How much spirit. And we sold that a beer and every one of our stadiums for every game. So, you know, I'm I'm I, we were, we were happy with our rule set, so it's only good for the game of football. If the rules that we utilized or that my team and I created are utilized by more people. Because we, we did help push the game forward. It's this weird. There was already a lot of like animosity. And I just saw a lot of that in the law. Cause when did it come out? Like last Wednesday, Thursday, like just a lot of like, well that this is theirs. There's a weird, in the end, I've seen this with a fan, gets a football with everything. It was just this weird, like ownership, like, you know, I think this are like for the fans right now. I mean, you guys own. And then the fans have this weird, like ownership. And I just, don't always, I'm like it's Fox sports or like it's Redbird, like Redbird doesn't need you defending like Redbirds got a billion dollars. They don't need you defending right. Go go talk with Frank Murtha with MLF. If you really want to like defend someone that maybe needs a little bit of a helping hand. Like, I just it's weird. So there was a lot, but yeah. I mean people, our age grew up on the console wars and now this is just our first. With the console wars where people like Nintendo and Xbox and PlayStation. You had your alignment over your $600 products, right? It's like, Why does this even matter? We should all just be like, why can't we just cross play with our friends? So that's like the same thing for this. I think, you know, I, I believe in a world where it would be great at Fox. XFL. Fan control, all worked with each other and guys can make way more money playing seasons back to back. We know that you can play 20 games in the season. Daniel Brunskill played 24 games in a calendar year. Playing the eight weeks in the AAF and then playing 16 weeks with the Niners. So it's not, you know, you can fund. Find a way to play more football in the year. And so if that two leaks worked together and the three leads work together, Let's work together. It's just more opportunities for players and more excitement for fans. I think. You know, don't be animosity to any one of them. There's no Highlander rule when it comes to start up football. You know, I think you have a sign back there about twice failed league, right? Behind you. So it's like, you know, you should all just be supporting each league and trying to get as much excitement for the fan bases. Not be. Pointing fingers at who does what I think that's done behind the scenes of people who, you know, Who are trying to con. Pete on contracts. Yeah. And also I think. I think it's okay to, you know, to, to critique and criticize. It is not the same as Haiti. I think it's okay to be like, Hey, I wish that they would do more. You know, USFL is in training camps right now. I wish we would see more footage that is a tangible. We are saying, that's not like, well, this thing sucks. I'm not watching it. Right. There's levels to this there's nuance. Yes. Yes, exactly. That's a hundred percent valid for people to ask. To want more, especially because, you know, we were the league that built ourselves as all of a sudden the league of yes. And the league of access. I don't know if they're going to get played calls over the air. I think that that was one of the cooler things that we did. One of the things I was super passionate about that I hope I see both these leaks. Make football fans better fans. All right. I don't think that people are watching. There, there were quite a few, but not a majority of our fans that watch this football. But a USFL is not gonna be the first football they watch or the XFL. Wasn't the first football to watch her new XFL. I think it's, you know, You're getting football fan. So how do we take it out? And almost like summer school make you a better football fan for the fall. And learn more about how coverages work or how play design works or how play calls sound. Or how players think about it during the game, right? I'm sure they're doing sideline interviews with. It's hit or miss. Especially with cursing, but. I think that I think that they're going to do some hopefully unique things that make football fans, better football fans. And that's. You know, what I wanted to do as well. Edutainment is what I, what I pitched to people. Clients is. How do we make our fans better at being our fans? We'll see him. This is so much time. So they. Delight, you're traveling. I appreciate you. I know that the listeners and fans really appreciate it. I mean, they, they, you know, they, I think they argue because they care and they care about, you know, the things that you and the team and everyone else, everyone that's been involved in all of this put together. All right. I got you. I got me. All right. Good. All right. Yeah, I. I had to cheat on you with Tim Bilek or whatever. He wasn't good though. Well, I thought you were like out of town or something. And I was like, well, you said your ear had. Really busy. So I'll hit. Got it. Okay. Say what. I hit the button. We're recording. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we have, we had to cheat on him a couple of weeks ago, but now we have that. Oh, gee, the godfather, the trademark, our friend Michael Cohen. You know, Beverly Hills trademark and I appeal that. You're I'm. Michael, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me back. How do you put up with me in all of this? And these emails. I really appreciate your time. It's all good. It's all fine. So we, you know, last we spoke, we kind of thought maybe real USFL had a case. The kind of the initial complaint. Yeah, it was filed. They, they updated all that stuff. So now we're back foxes, you know how to add a response and all that. What, where, where are you at in terms of where we're at in this timeline here? Okay. All right. So a couple of things have happened since last time we spoke. Last time, the initial complaint was filed. And there was a subsequent preliminary injunction. Okay. So preliminary injunction was filed by the plaintiffs. What that is. In addition to the complaint, the opening, the case up. It's another motion, which the plaintiff asked the court to give them everything they kind of want now, as opposed to later down the road at trial. Because. It's an it's necessary to do it right now because they're going to face irreparable harm. And it's an immediate thing that they need now, as opposed to waiting down the road. So that's what they filed. What happened more recently is that the defendants in the case, Fox. They filed their opposition to it. And in that opposition is a lot of details about their arguments in there. And their position. What's going to happen after that is that the plaintiffs will get a chance to respond to that called a reply. And assessed. That's kind of pretty much it in regards to the pleadings, like the writings. So the initial motion opposition reply. And then after that, the judge is going to hear it. And there's either going to be a hearing. With, with oral arguments. In which everyone has to show up and they'll have their chance to argue in front of the judge. Or the judge just may decide on, on the papers. Even though, cause they have the 18th, right. We have a preliminary hearing gate scheduled. Right. Which is the, the us Val kicks off the 16th and 17th in Birmingham. And then it would be that the next day, that Monday in LA, right. Yeah. So I don't know the exact date, but whatever. The date says on, on the, on the docket there. So that's the hearing date. You always have to have a hearing date. But sometimes the judge at their own discretion will say, You know what. You don't even need to show up. I've already decided, or I'm going to take it under submission and I'm going to write my own order. And I'll email it to all the parties when I'm ready. So that that could happen too, but yeah, preliminary injunctions are pretty heavy. And they're pretty important. Throw throw likely be. I mean, I can't predict what the judge is going to do, but they'll likely be at a hearing. Oh, what is your sentiment feeling? Having read through a lot of this very detailed response from Fox. I mean, it feels the general sentiment online is Fox is slapping around the rail USFL a little bit. It very detailed, like rebuttal to a lot of these things. You know, I mean, It's not all right. So we heard, we heard the plaintiff's initials, initial position. And the preliminary injunction kind of mimics the complaint a little bit. So now we're hearing really for the first time legally, what the arguments are from Fox. Yeah, of course, they're going to have a lot of heavy, detailed. Arguments and it's, it's all there. And these arguments are really the arguments that are going to set the roadmap. For the case of the future, this is the direction which they're going to go in. So we now know what their position is. And now they're just going to build the case up if the case progresses on. So if there's going to be the discovery phase where they start. The posing people and doing all of that. But the are all the arguments are set here. We know what type of questions that they're going to ask. And, and even that trial. You know what their arguments are going to beat me now, now. A lot of this where it's a, lot's been made of a Fox is kind of in the position of like, Hey, you guys are selling merchandise. We're trying to, we are starting and have started a football league, right? Like your damages. I see minimal compared to like shutting down a league. Right. Firing everybody. We've hired all these people. We have these leases in place. Yeah, so, all right. So, you know, preliminary injunction is a heavy standard. Because you're asking the court to give us our relief now. So in order to do that, You have to go through these factors that are required. And you have to establish that there's irreparable harm that you're going to suffer. So what Fox is doing is that they're going through all the factors and. And stating that look. The plaintiffs, they kind of waited long to file this motion. They waited nine months. And they don't have trademark rights. So they're, they're, they're not the presumption that they might. They can fight them on this is they have a good presumption of, of doing that. And the extent of anything that they soul in the past, it was minimal. They, they made reference to the apparel and it was just a couple thousand dollars here and there and things like that. And those are all good positions, but still the court is going to have to, you know, look at what the plaintiff's position is and you know, why did box even adopt this? If what they're saying is true, then what's the. The why, why did they adopt this trademark? If they're not trading off of the Goodwill? That's one thing the court is going to have to look at. And the biggest one is just whether or not there was abandonment. So at the heart of. What the defendants are arguing. Is that there at the plaintiff's real USFL. They don't have trademark rights because whatever rights they're claiming to have, those were abandoned a long time ago. So that's what is really going to have to be analyzed. And the judge does the. Have you ever have to make a decision? In regards to any of that stuff now. All he has to decide is whether or not. It's so. Clear cut. That he can make that adjudication now. And if there's these issues that you think that can be hashed out. Then he's not going to issue the preliminary injunction in the case. We'll move on. The one thing that was interesting. I hear that we've gone through because a lot of this is made, right. The real USFL is suing Fox. Fox made a point in here to point out that they're actually licensing the trademarks from the spring league, LLC. Right. They're included in the suit, right? It's the spring league LLC. It's box. And that the spring league was the one that acquired them. We decided that was interesting. Like spring league was the kind of Brian Woods is future, you know, former thing before they started the USFL. Spring league LLC also owes like 1.4 million in unpaid hotel damages that in Indianapolis, which is like unrelated, but it's this history right. Of like questionable things. So I think the idea is like Fox's licensing to the south, like God forbid. If they did have to pay whatever you could just say, Hey, this is the spring league thing, right? Like we're stepping away from that. Right. Why would the LLC would be incorporated in that way and utilize. In a trademark holding. Yeah. I mean, th there was a lot of things that the defendants. Kind of brought up and there was some reference to someone that had, you know, iffy background and criminal record. And, and what they were saying is that these are kind of red herring distractions. I'm nothing to do with the core issues, you know? So they, they still have to look at whether or not there was a true abandonment and that's going to be the core issue that needs to be look at. At least for purposes of now. So those, those kinds of things, those details. You know, that's going to be hashed out and maybe in a deposition. Or in a motion for summary judgment or in discovery, you know, whether or not any of that kind of stuff has any bearing. For a later at trial. But for right now. You know, there's a heavy burden. On the plaintiffs to establish that they're going to be irreparably harm and that, you know, that. The merits are in their favor, that there's a substantial likelihood that they can prove their case. And that there's these other factors you've got to look at, you know, whether the it's in the public interest. So there's all those kinds of things. So, so. So the place really got established those things for the judge to make this big decision. To stop the league, which is right now in motion. You know, so Fox, that's what they're arguing. They're saying. Yeah, they waited a long time. They could have done this nine months ago. And. You know, to the extent that there are damages. Th they're quantifiable. You know, so one of the factors is that it's, it's hard to quantify. The other, any other kind of relief, it would be hard. To assess. So what defendants are saying. Is that all right. Even if there is that they're quantifiable, we will owe them like a licensing fee, for example. And it could be settled through damages that way. So let the case move on. So the hurdle right now is just to get past the preliminary injunction. And so, you know, if the FedEx can do that, Then they can just continue the battle. How are, how are you feeling about this now versus how we feel when we talked a couple of weeks ago? You know, so, so we know more, obviously we know the defendant's position. They have. Tons of arguments. Whether or not they're valid, whether or not they're strong, those things need to be hashed out. You know, I don't know what theirs, if what they're saying is accurate or not, or what the planets are saying is accurate or not. So that's, that's where, you know, the discovery phase, where all those things, all those things can come back to haunt you, or you can find your. You're winning ticket of a smoking gun. Somewhere in a statement that someone makes an admission that can be later used at a summary judgment motion or a trial. I, you know, a lot's been made. Yeah. We don't have nothing to worry about. Right. There's no chance that any of this comes to pass the league is imperfect thing. I mean, I kind of feel that way. Right. But you have to look at it from kind of the way the law is. I mean, I don't want to be like hyperbolic here, but is there even a chance of any of this stuff coming to pass? Of course, there's always a chance. You know, I can't. You know, me or you, we can't predict the future. We can't predict what a judge or jury is going to do. And don't forget this. This is a trial jury, I believe, you know, so. You know, there's going to be a number of jurors who are going to decide. The fate of this, and then they're unpredictable. You know how juries are. They can decide in any particular way. So if the view Fox as this big Goliath and the USFL is the underdog. You know, the small David who got taken advantage of who knows how they might rule. So there's always the possibility. And, and let's say there's some interesting facts that really come out during discovery that, that really supports the plaintiff's position. You know, so. A lot of these cases, obviously don't go to trial. A lot of these cases settle. And maybe that's just the goal for USFL. There was some use, you know, We know that there was some abuse that was occurring. Whether or not, it was substantial and continuous. That's another story that needs to be figured out by the defendants. Would you be surprised to learn that Fox is very much looked at as a good guy here in terms of like online popular opinion. And that real USFL is very much looked at as like they have their chance in their kind of the wet blanket. Yeah, a little bit, you know, because it's a, it's a little odd. You know, because Fox is the mega conglomerate. You know, and it's huge and powerful and, but I guess memories are short. You know, so the USFL was awhile ago. And, you know, for those of us that can remember it. Maybe we're more partial to giving the plaintiffs. An opportunity to be heard. Whereas other people who are younger, they don't remember what this is. And they're just excited about this. You leaked to move on. And also in this sphere of public opinion. You know, all, all you're really hearing from is a Fox for the most part, in regards to promotion and talking about this. So a lot of people don't even know that the USFL was this preexisting thing. You know, I don't believe you're old enough to remember the, all the FFL. Oh yeah. Yeah. So why, why do you think of all this stuff? I mean, I don't, I didn't even know that. What do you think about this? I mean, yeah. I mean, I always, yeah, look. You're talking to a attorney who is a trademark attorney. So I'm always going to have an open mind and try not to be swayed by either, you know, a side until I see what the evidence is. That's how it should be for everybody. Right. But unfortunately it's not in this day and age. So, you know, people can be swayed by, you know, by what they commercials and TVs and, and podcasts like our own, you. You know, so, so, you know, to me, it's just a matter of how strong their argument is and what facts do they have to support the law? And you at the core is this. Abandonment is this abandonment issue, correct? Or not? We'll play this. Be able to show a lineage of continuous trademark used throughout the years. You know, up until present to clean that they still have these ongoing trademark rights. And if there is a gap and that gap is enough to constitute abandonment, then Fox's correct. That that, that you. The law does state that the trademark was abandoned. Then the subsequent user can come in and commercialize it. And, you know, I've had clients that have done that. Yeah. I've had clients that saw some interesting trademark from decades ago, that's just been sitting around totally deformed and they, they. They use it. And that's a possibility. I come with me. I liked that you referred to it as our podcast. That makes me feel good. Podcasts. But no. I mean, if someone that has purchased old. XFL domains and things from podcasts that have gone out of. Out of business, right? Like I, I get all of that. And the idea of it. I mean, this can be entirely legal, but also like kind of crappy for like the original guys for whatever their motivation is, whether it's district, whatever they say, preserve the league or make money on merchandise. The interesting thing now that came out is that they're claiming that they're unable to enter into your merchandising agreements because Fox is shutting that down. So that is kind of more of the harm that they're talking about now. Right? It's like, well, we can't even make money on this trademark anymore because Fox has taken over everything on this and like threatening to like shut down. Right? The other third parties that might've been making merchandise before. Yeah, and that might be one of their stronger arguments and not that Fox is conceding to that, but they made reference to that in the context of this preliminary injunction. As I mentioned before that, Hey, you know, in regards to apparel, even if they are selling, that's a quantifiable thing that can be compensated through damages, damages, money. So. W what are the remedies and in intellectual property law. The main one is injunction, which is to stop. Infringer from doing whatever they're doing and the other is damages. Monetary damages. You know, so there, there are two kind of separate things. So, you know, Now at the heart of it is this. Injunction. But they might be right. They may, at the end of this, this thing made. And up in a settlement. In which they work out, some kind of deal in regards to the apparel and maybe some other stuff. That that might be a strong argument. The plaintiffs may have. So just in. In conclusion here to set the timeline that we have this April 18th, the plaintiff rail USFL still has the opportunity to respond right to this ahead of time. If the judge where they make a decision with that two speed dropped before the 18th. Right. Without just be, I look at the pacer every day and whatever, I mean, for people that are kind of like keeping up to date on this. Well, whatever the hearing date is, I don't have the hearing date in front of me, but if it's the 18th. The judge is likely not going to. Just do something on the papers before that. So this is, there'll probably be a hearing date because this is a, a case that's in the public eye. And it's an important case. There's a lot of money riding on it. So he will probably, you know, be very cautious and, you know, I know. The judges, judge Walters, I believe. And it was very meticulous, judge. And so, you know, he will weigh everything carefully as he can, and probably give the parties an opportunity to be heard and do oral arguments. And then after that may not, may take some time. You know, sometimes they can rule on the day off. And sometimes they say, okay, I'm going to take it under submission. And it might take a couple of days or maybe even a week or more. You know, after that. Wait, so you, you know, the judge here. No, I don't know him personally, but I've had cases with him. Yeah. Yeah. I want some insights here. We have. I can't discuss, I can't discuss judges publicly, too much. You know, He's but you know, he has a reputation reputation of being a good judge. He's he's tough procedurally. It's put that way. Okay. I don't want it to get you this card or whatever. Hi, how are you? The court where this is taking place. Can we have onsite live correspondence on. I'm teasing. Yeah, I believe so. You know, unless there's a swing by. Yeah. There's, you know, for the most part they're open to the public and people can come in. Yeah. Well, Michael, I think. I don't know how busy your caseload is on the 18. Good. To be interesting to swing by and see what's going on. Yeah. Alright, I barged you in that for it today. Thank you at any final thoughts, anything on this? Now just to stay tune and let's see how the judge rules that that's going to be the interesting thing. If he, if he'll granted or not. And then if not, you know, just. Tighten your seatbelt, because it's going to be a longer ride that everyone has to go through in regards to, you know, the discovery and all that kind of stuff. Unless the case settles. Or I, I mean, if they don't get the injunction, do you see real USL? You real it, it's really hard to say real USFL BMI. We're done. Like dropping this. If they don't get the injunction. Who knows. You know, probably not. And a lot of it depends upon, you know, the order of the judge. So the order of the judge too, sometimes they're detailed other times, they're kind of very short and vague. And sometimes in the detailed ones, the judge gives a clue. CLU a glimpse as to how he's kind of ruling. You know, and it may give a, you know, a little insight as to what direction the judge may go into. So sometimes. That could be the starting point for negotiations, because if the judge says something. Unfavorable or he says something that, you know, there's really strong merit in regards to this or this, even though I'm not issuing the preliminary injunction. You know, this makes sense or that makes sense. The parties sometimes get scared by that and they can use that to their advantage, to help or as leverage in a settlement negotiation. All right. Well, Michael Cohen, I appreciate your time today, bugging you and taking the time out. We. Our listeners and listeners of our podcast really appreciated. Like I like literally went down there and they said that they had, they was like 6,500 bucks. I'm like, well, here you go. I got this out the card. They're back. So. It was, it was, and then we had COVID and then we were shut down. I couldn't drive it for a year. So that was. Well, there you go. Nowhere. All right. We'll do this. And I appreciate it. You got to get one of these, this new web cam. I got this great. Yeah. Yeah. Is this a gateau face cam cause you can control and it doesn't like see how it keeps the exposure and you can see. That's nice. I finally upgraded my situation so well, you're, you're very proud of your, of your ring light. I've noticed. So, yeah, I mean, I. And I'm stepping it up now that I have a lot of solo. Intros and things I need to do. I have to, I have the step of the video project. Oh, There's a there's speaking of lighting. There's one thing I've got to do. I can give you another flash. Fantastic. I have, I have sidelights here. Right? So, but I, but I have nothing straight on and then I've got. Home lighting here to. Take care of this, but I really need that. Yeah. I just got this ring light and it just clips on the back of my, I mean, I'm cruising now. I'm happy. Well, you know, considering we spent nearly a hundred thousand on a new set for TSN in 2019, like a retrofit. And then we went into COVID and now I do the entire TV show from here. It's like, if I only knew. Yeah, actors to save so much money. We're never going to the studio again. Yeah, I think so. No, no, no. We're. Like the shell gets done from here now. Yeah. I mean, it's a triple box, right? Like what, like what do we need? You. This is a, this is a, this is a nice little set up, actually. I think it looks good. Oh, I totally agree. I mean that's no, I, it was crazy. All right. Well, as the holder of the record for the highest single guest. Show interview we've ever had. Jim Allen, welcome back to the program. How are you? Good. Did you, did you have some time to fill? Like where am I in this, in this mark cast sandwich of my I'm not the bread. Right. Some sort of filler, am I the mayonnaise? Am I the butter. Am I the baloney? That that's, that's what I want to know. Yeah, you are. You are not the headline there today. We have. We have the, we have the creator of the XFL roadblock on dissecting the USFL robot, but I very thrilled, you know, sometimes like I booked things and then other things fall in my lap. So I never, you produce a show, you know how that goes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no. And I used to produce and radio for years too. So it's a. It's always a juggling act, but I always appreciate being on here because this is my favorite podcast for football period. Well, I was looking at, I was trying to figure out if I had to capitalize, I was writing the episode description. Did they have, I have to capitalize president and football candidate, quite an extensive Wikipedia page. You have to. So that's exciting. Well, you know, somebody has been keeping tabs on me, you know, it's that, it's the, it's the crown group at our nation show. You know, we've done now. And one of the things that, that I'm, I'm in the middle of working on. Is the corner stroke. We present that in the spring and then that's for the top Canadian and the NCAA and a week. We've got the ballot out to our, to our committee and should have the five finalists. But yeah, by next Tuesday and then the following week we'll present it. You know, Actually in terms of props, where was this? Is this is the keeper, not the actual trophy. The actual trophy itself is. Is that the, is that the Canadian football hall of fame? John mechie want. Last year, I'm not a. I don't think I'm giving anything away to say that that he's probably the favorite this year to. To repeat. And the one guy that is, is the only guy to repeat back to back is Nathan Rourke, the future starting quarterback of the BC lions. So. Mason Rourke's won the thing twice. Chuba Hubbard. Oklahoma state. Now with the Carolina Panthers. John met you last. Last year and I think. It'll come down to John matchy and chase brown. Running back at Illinois that had two fantastic. 200 Yard games, 253. Against Penn state in a win for Illinois at Penn state. A kid out of London, Ontario. You know, those are guys that. That you know, I don't think we'll we'll, we'll see them necessarily play in the CFL at first, if at all. I think they're they're Sunday guys. Yeah. So I want to talk some CFL today. I want to get your thoughts USFL as well. I guess just cause we're on the topic of Nathan Warren, what do you make of kind of this offer broke that BC is doing, you know, we, we have a rookie, right? We're getting him maybe for less than we would be paying here in a couple of years, let's surround him with everything in the world that we can. I think Nathan Rourke has. The the acumen. And then the work ethic and the skill set where he can be someone who's very special in the, in the Canadian game. I think it may have. On this show, I've said it on other shows that, you know, following him through his college career. At Ohio. And even before that, But actually, you know, giving them the, the eye test, seeing, going to see games in the Mac. Because he was a developing quarterback. The kid is as tough as nails. First of all, that's one thing that's highly underrated about who and what he is. But in terms of being able to use his legs to create opportunities. Being fearless, having throwing mechanics that were ready for the pro game. I think it really comes down to, you know, just the test of week-in week-out pro speed. Now for him. And if you judge by the feedback. Other players on the BC lions, they all feel that he's ready. The, the backup in this case is, is Michael O'Connor. And. I mentioned Penn state earlier. He was at Penn state red shirted there. Oh, there was a change in coach. The job to Christian Hackenberg and the rest is history. In that category. But he came up here. One of [unknown]. Wake up in his rookie year. I I've seen Canadian university football for three decades and there has never been a quarterback that can deliver a football. In my opinion, better than Michael O'Connor. He was head and shoulders above anything that I've seen at this level. And there are two different quarterbacks. You know, Nathan, as I just described him as a guy that. That that is a. Ready to, to, to use his legs and ready to create opportunities. Michael Connor is, is more upright in the pocket. A bigger guy dropped back guy. It's a good one to punch. And, you know, Let me take a look at the. When I take a look at the CFL draft coming up. I would have earlier said draft tray, board. Of a out of Waterloo. Now Trey Ford has. His coach at Waterloo has had a, according to Justin dunk, 24 inquiries from 24 different NFL teams. Because of his testing numbers at his pro day that he took down in Buffalo. The, the only thing that I worry about with Trey Ford, by the way, just going off on a little bit of a sidetrack is. That I hope he's developed as a quarterback. If he goes to the NFL that he just doesn't become an athlete. That is moved over. Two two. Like field side corner or something like that. I think he's got a lot of potential growth. As the quarterback, but. In terms of going all in with Canadians at that at. At that quarterback position. There have been those of us. You know, following the, the Canadian game now for. Entire lifetimes have been waiting for something like this. So I really hope for the benefit of the game in this country. That this experiment. Proves to be very successful. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of hot takes, so where it's like, this is going to be a disaster. This is going to be with, I mean, what do you. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's certainly a lot of pressure there. It's you know, you look at. It's like decisions, coaching, sass make. Right. And then if that doesn't work out, then maybe. That's not going to be the coaching staff next year. You know what I mean? This is one of those, like, we're really all in decisions. Well, I, I liken it to Doug Flutie his first year with the, with the BC lions and. As much as he established some, you know, fantastic numbers and, and football that on the scale of excitement, I don't think has ever been matched since, since he left this league. In his first year with, with the lions, he was hopelessly average. There was a learning curve there for, for even a guy like him. And I think there were going to be moments with Rourke, especially with some questions still at authentic of line. That's. He's going to have some challenges from gaming game. Th this, this is not going to be a, a smooth upward curve. I think there are going to be peaks and valleys. Based upon based upon his opponent based upon game prep based upon number of days based upon. Based upon injuries that, that he might absorb during the, during the course of the season. So, you know, I think it's worth going all in, on, on a talent like that, because whether or not. His passport is Canadian or American. He was a standout at Ohio and some people. We're saying that when, when he was playing NCAA football, he was the best quarterback that the Mac has seen since. Jim Rothenberg. So, so. I think, I think, I think that people need to be patient at times with work. But, but at the same time, I think this is a story that, that can certainly have an arc for a number of years. In the stone. Do you really buy in? So moving to my other kind of home team, we have Edmonton, right? A lot of, I think dog posted, you know, Edmonton trading Arbuckle, right? Thinking about doing that JT Barrett is that. Are we all in a JT Barrett? I mean, is that, is that going to be the new face of Edmonton? Well, I'm glad. I'm glad. How, how you, you have this fantastic ability to hop on and off and on and off that else. Bandwagon and man. I like, I'm glad your ankles are wrapped. That's all Victor. Isn't it. It's Victor. That's got you on. I'll tell you that president and CEO of the Edmonton Alex future queen will be on next week. So I, that. I'm just saying, you know, I, I have a lead are. Fellow co media compadres. Now that. These things matter. These things matter in the history of the mark cath and what team we support. Well, you know, we've seen quarterbacks like JT Barrett come up here with that sorta college resume before. And not necessarily a cheap. You know, Chris Jones should have a plan B and a, and a plan C in this case. It was funny. You know, when I came back from. From Mexico. A couple of weeks ago. Actually. You'll love this, actually, I. You know, you come home and you're in your, in your Mexico holiday gear and you come back to the Pacific Northwest. And you gotta be prepared to change to the, to the, to, to the temperatures in the rain. When, when you get back to the airport. So at, at I had some sweats prepared and I had a hoodie prepared. So my, my sweats were Edmonton elk sweats, and my hoodie was a BC lions hoodie. Just. No, no particular reason. And I go out to the park and fly a bus to get it, to pick up my car. Who do I run into? Roy Simon, because he's coming back from a. From one of the combines and who's standing beside your rice, I'm a Neil Mack boy from the lion. So it's like, Hey guys, I got both, both of you covered here. I basically got both your favorite teams and I'm wearing them as them, as I'm talking to both the assistant general managers. But, you know, talking to G Roy it's, it's really encouraging. Around the Elks camp, because, you know, Roy was on our board of directors with, with football, Canada. And, and the one thing that I, that I read from G Roy is a new level of energy and a new level of positivity in terms of what's being done there. And I know a lot of things have been said about Chris Jones. In the past, you know, I always a little material. How we. Now we. Works well with others and doesn't work well with, with, with some others. But you know, the read from G Roy on this is that it's, it's positive. It's focused, it's mature. There's a, there's a new energy around. That team and the players that they have on that. On that roster and the contacts that they've made or buying ends. So probably a wise move to go with Barrett. At this point and try to build something around them, but you need some layers behind that. In terms of your Mexico vacation, you probably missed a lot of that. Did you know, we are moving the four downs for like a week and then. It changed back again. Yeah, but, you know, we're kind of off that now, which is good. Right? I mean great. It feels like it felt to me, you know, this was like, how can we be relevant in the off-season? Right. Like, how can we talk. And like, okay, this is some controversy, right? We got, but I mean, something needs to happen, right. So obviously we're not doing that, but what a, what did you make of that? You already kind of said that you could maybe expand on that and then, and then it thoughts here moving forward, because that's not the answer. Yeah. I'm not sure if it was, if it was just thrown out there as a, as a concept I know were rash reported on it. Based on a source that he had. And I appreciate that the CFL needs to go through their process. To to examine everything. Put everything on the table. I think one of the things about the process and, and sometimes this happens in organizations. That don't have, don't have the full capacity or bandwidth to. To a, to, to process everything they'd like, Because, I mean, the point of comparison for the CFO was the NFL, right? Is that, you know, it would be nice if they, in this case, instead of just talked about it on Randy's road trip and left Brandy dangling on this thing. Just say, this is the process. This is who's put this forward. This is what we're talking about. And I think if there was that clarity and transparency. Going into reviewing rules and rules committee. This story wouldn't have bragged from town to town, to town. As I did with Randy and I. You know, I think it's one thing to. You know, have a discussion about this for a couple of days, the way that story dragged out. I don't think it really, it really helped the, the Canadian football league. In my opinion. I think there's, you know, other things that, that we, we could have been, could have been talking about. Rather than, you know, Quite frankly, I think the, the, the, the four down discussion devalues the product. It doesn't talk about your strengths. It talks about what you're not, and. And in that case, you're not selling your product then. I think some of the ideas that were brought up in terms of the ratio, guaranteeing at least three, start on each side, braid idea. I think the hash. Works. Great idea. As long as you can get coaches in a position where they're willing to make place election calls, that, that, that work with that. I think the one thing that we've seen. In the CFL over the last few years is an offense that kind of looks the same, no matter where you go. And play selection that is conservative and looks the same, no matter where you go. And I understand the coaches want to hold on to their jobs. And, and it becomes about risk management. But I'd rather see opportunity management than, than, than risk management. This level with, with what this game provides for the fans, for coaches and for athletes. So. It would have been, it would have been nice over this four down a discussion to be talking more about the opportunities that the game provides. Rather than about what you're not. But I think that's, that's, that's the way I put a bow on this and I'm glad we won't be talking about this. For at least another eight months. Well, no, I mean, he did. You know, and, and they ain't got, it's just hard, like. I, you know, and I've worked on both sides. Like. I've I've worked in news and I know you have MIT. The internet and the world just doesn't work at that pace anymore sometimes. And like, we deal with this with the USFL right now where it's like, we're Fox sports. Like we want to have this come out, you know exactly when like they announced this new hard knocks kind of TV s**t. Well, People have been talking about since last week and it's going on the thing and it's on everything. And then it's like, so finally yesterday they came out, okay, we're doing that. Like it's been a week. I mean, that's like a lifespan in a history of, you know, and look at Twitter. And not that, not that Twitter matters all to anything, but it does just feel like you could get your handle on a lot more of these things like Randy could have come out and thank God he finally did. I mean, And then God, I don't know how Tim Bain's got that, you know, goofy Tim got that. That you know, I mean, that was good. I was glad Tim got that right there. I need to have Tim on now that he ruined my, my. Well, you need to have Tim on. Because you just called them goofy, Tim. It's like, it's like, I could have had a month where the podcast here coming up. Yeah. That was like the day we had Jason Gregor on and we're talking all about the three downs for the ounce and then Naylor comes out and is like, this has never been under discussion. I messaged him. I'm like, you are a buzzkill. I mean, I love you. Come on. Well, I mean, You know, I'm always going to bring the amateur's perspective in from, from the football Canada point of view and. Your university ball and all of those sorts of things. And, and one amateur piece that maybe we can close the four down, playing out on is, you know, they run four down in CJ football, which is, you know, grade. Basically it's it's the American equivalent. Is Juco kind of. Kind of right. It's in that, you know, Grade 12, 13, 14 ish kinda kind of area. In terms of in terms of age. So they run Canadian ball. Four downs. Not a yard off the ball, 11 inches off the ball, but to ensure that there's a passing in the game, that at least once out of every three plays an offense has to run a run a. Passing play. Unfortunately, what that's created is some very conservative play calling and I'm not sure what, what degree the CFL. Did in terms of doing a research or due diligence in that particular area, if they were serious. About four downs, but they, they would have found that it was a dead end. On. On a field that's 65 yards wide. And with what the, what the Canadian football game. It's it's basically a non starter. What are your thoughts? Cause we haven't had you on sense gray cop and everything with this whole genius sports. Right. So if we're not doing four downs, right. But like [unknown]. More targeting analytics, right? We're more targeting Tik, TOK ads or whatever. I mean, what do you, what do you make of that as a way to, to help promote this? Well, they need data and it's a competitive, the. It's a competitive field right now. And in Canada when it comes to. Sports betting and they need to be fed with data. I think by the last count in Ontario, there are. How many private operators it's at least 16. And, you know, full disclosure. My, my TV show on TSN is. You know, the presenting sponsor is points about, so they got in there early and they want to play a role. In football, but you know, for, for people state side to understand it's. It's like states it's broken up all over the place. So, you know, for instance, in BC, you've. BCLC, which is a crown corporation run by the provincial government. That, that that is in that space in Alberta. There's, there's a, an openness to, so some of these private companies, it's, it's a patchwork, right, right. Across the country. So they need something that's centralized that. That that feeds to, to all of those potential partners. To get sports betting up and going. The one thing that, that is becoming clear though. Around sports betting. Is this. This windfall that the, the Canadian football league was expecting. They may have overvalued where they were at in regards to this. And I think there's going to be some. Settling and some reckoning as we go through this process over this next three years, about what players stay in the marketplace. What provinces decide to change their approach, whether or not they just want to go through crown corporation. So lottery corporations. Or bring in, bring in private partners. I think the, the, the, the, the final story hasn't been written on sports betting in Canada. I think it's a much more winding road. Than than a than individuals out there per day. When the bill was first passed. Oh, yeah. I got into it, you know, with. That's in the L Stan and Naylor a little bit with this online. Cause you know, Gaston's, you know, promoting now he won't, you know, we need more gamma. We. And Oregon. And I said, yeah, I was told it was going to be 2 million per team. And I know that it, like, it's going to take time and whatever, but I've, I've said that and I've got, you know, feedback as well, USFL, right. They're big on Fox and there we're going to use all this sports fan, like. I don't see a lot of people betting on a USFL. Like I don't, I mean, maybe it is, I was the one that said they weren't going to do a hard knock show and now they are, but. I just don't see. If you're going to bat at you bet on golf or you bet on baseball, like, why am I going to go in? Okay. The. And they got goofy rules, right? It's a little different, I mean, And we can segue into the USFL, but like it's the same with the CFL. I don't, if I'm not interested in to see if I'm not going to bet on it, just because I can bet on it. Like it's weird. I don't, I've never understood that mentality with the sports betting with the CFL. Well, the, the. And with betters that I've learned is that. You know, some of them think that they can be smarter than the system sometimes. So they'll, they'll break away from a mainstream thing like NFL betting or golf betting, like you mentioned. And try to find that pocket. Where they can apply some specialized expertise, but I agree with you in regards to the, to, to the CFL and the USFL, there's a couple of variables in there that, that could make people shy away. You know, the, the, the three point conversion thing. And the USFL in terms of points, spreads, and, and numbers. You know, As much as that that's trying to build something into the game from a betting perspective. I'm not sure if that's all that attractive. You know, The, you know, the PO. You know, possibility for that. So, The Rouge is something that, that, that can be off-putting. I think for, for, for sports betters, the intentional safety in the CFL could even be that. So, yeah. You know, if you want to, if you want to find people that want to specialize in. In a space, I think on one thing that that's incumbent on all of these leads. Is that they need a communications piece that goes out and, and informs the public. You know, Why this is compelling as, as for, for your, for your betting money, you know why there's some sort of inside edge, they need very specific communication on. And so, you know, a do. Do does a league like the USFL or even the CFL have the capacity. To to communicate that. I'm not sure, but if they want to develop, but for, for potential revenue down the road, they have to make that investment. But that's the thing is you're talking about. Yeah. W there is these specialized people that really like to do that. My cab. Okay. But that's not, you know, we're trying to win over hearts and minds here, you know, I mean, with the CFL and the. You know, To a lesser extent. I mean the USFL, I think they're bud, but I hate to interject here, but like the show that we're on is niche. Right. We were talking about. About media and the old media and the new media. And the one thing about algorithms is algorithms have created a million nations. Like if you can dig down deep enough into that niche and create that energy around that fandom. Then you can have something that, that sustainable, right. But like a Whitney from the show, let's just put the NFL on, on just an absolutely different plane with the, like with the premier ship and. And, and world cup soccer and, you know, even, even the NBA, let's, let's not even have those in the conversation. Let's. Let's drill down into, into how those relationships can be established within those niche cultures. And that's where you're going to get your payoff. It's going to be far more concentrated, but, but bar, it's not going to be as widespread. Well, let's, you know, we've got a geographic area in Canada. You know, a little pockets in the states, maybe some international stuff down the road. But that's, that's, that's what the CFL is at the end of the day. That's what spring football is at the end of the day. It's for the diehards. It's really it's for those people who are, who are really dug in. Who loved football regardless of the circumstance. And they are very dug in. Yeah. Very very much so. Yeah. I want to hear before I let you go. I want to hear your thoughts. Just more generally about USFL, right? I mean, Even if you're not tracking the minutiae of it, right. Like we have been on, on the podcast. I mean, certainly it's permeated, you know, your mindset at least a little bit here. You know, we have it. We have another spring alternative league, right? XFL, presumably coming back next year, we've been told, you know, Again, now we've been told, okay. April, maybe we're getting some news about that, but in the meantime we have. To me, what feels like we're waiting for the big cake later. Some people are claiming, okay. We really love the USFL, but I think a vast majority are like, we're watching this to get ready, whether that's right or wrong. What do you think of all this? All depends on how the USFL presents itself and what the look and the feel is as we get through through this per season with it. Is there, is there enough energy in the stands? Is there, is there innovation? And in terms of the way. That this is being presented on TV. Is the, is the level of football. You know. Okay. Have they, have they identified stories within, within broadcasts and the end? Kind of hard knocks thing that they're doing is going down that road, but have they identified stories that are, that are going to connect with people? Obviously there's there's viewership in the United States. For, for spring football on, on broadcast and, and, you know, we've. We know when the great fragmentation of broadcasting that if you can get on to a actual screen, especially a TV. Like you're, you're hanging on in some sort of way. That's why, that's why spring football still has currency. Right? I saw the numbers for TSN overall and, and sports net in, in this country in the past year off 8% period. And, and everybody's. Taking hits as, as, as things fragment and, and, and properties leak out in various directions. So what is the energy in the building? And I think the big mistake that the USO. Fell. Might make is. Moving forward. You've got all these brands from the past that have currency that has kind of skipped two generations. It kind of lands on like gen X guys like me and. Baby boomers. [unknown]. That are older. You know, w w when they made that announcement with Doug Flutie, talking about all those great names. They aren't in this. That's USFL. You know, you're not going to get three Heisman winners and in. And three years signing in this thing. Do not. You know, and maybe the court case has helped us. But do not connect. That culture of what? 1.0 was with 2.0. Other than the brands. The, the, the other thing that this new USFL might want to do. As. As they tracked through the season. Is use the season. To, to build what, what season two is. So, you know, we're, where are the Pittsburgh Maulers going to play? Right. You know, w where, where, where are these teams going to ploy? Like start making announcements and start leaking things in the media. But that that indicate that, oh, there's a future for this team here. And there's a future for this team here in Tampa bay. And there's a future. In all of these other places. That gets it out of this there's one venue and gets it into the communities and start and start building connections with those communities. As, as that season is rolling along, if they're just in this one facility playing football with guys. In stipend hotel rooms for a season and they don't reach out. Oh outside. Of of their, of their other single city. And the other single venue. Like, they're not building anything for the, for the following year. The XFL we'll we'll we'll have the curve on that because the XFL has a, has a very different model. That's invested. In, in specific communities. You know, the, the, the St. Louis examples, probably the best one. I will I use that whether the court case or we never, cause I retweeted that Doug Flutie video over the weekend just cause I had saved it on. Cause they haven't. Yeah. You haven't scrubbed it off everything. Right. It's still. It is the weirdest thing to me that like, we come out like Doug Flutie, like he said, you know, we're going to have Herschel Walker, all these guys. And then they get sued and then it's like, we're not doing that, but people only care about it because it is that, but it's not really that. And we're calling it the new us. Like I will never for the life of me understand. I want to put Brian Woods or someone that's drawing to serum and just like, talk to him about like, like walk me through this. And I would just want to know your mindset because it's where I've never, you know, we're, we're profiting off this, but we're not acknowledging it. Right. Like we are, we are. But the original didn't happen. Right. It's like the third slapshot movie. It's like blues brothers, 2000 it's you know, There's so that they're so separate from the, the original source. It's like you're, you're trading on a brand. But, but you. But you just don't have those elements like that are, that are built into that brand that made that culture around the brand. If that makes sense. And, and. You know, it's. They, they, they need in terms of managing who they are to not come off as inauthentic. Right. The one thing that I think appealed to, to, to XFL fans is that when they brought the temperature down around the hype and presented it as a football product, In 2.0. There was an authenticity to what they were doing that didn't exist in XFL 1.0. And I think with what, what the rock has talked about. In regard to an athlete centric culture, right. That there's an authenticity to, that does as much as possible in the entertainment industry. There's an authenticity to that. What, what, what they did with that launch with w. W with Doug. It's an authentic. Because, you know, they can't deliver on that. Yeah. And it like, it's, it's fine. I just, I think there's so much good that they're doing. And then so much like crap that is as God involved in all of this. And like you said, no one would care about this. If it wasn't, you know, if this was the Fox football league, Nobody would care, right? This was Brian Woods football experiment, 2.0 or whatever, like nobody would care. So we call it this. I don't know. I can't even verbalize sometimes before I let you go. Just with the rules of this and you've lived through, you know, a AF. And XFL and all that. What do you think about them kind of cherry picking things that have worked or been tested or not tested from these other leagues? Like you said, the three point. We have the overtime shootout. That's very similar to the XFL different. We're doing it, starting at a different it's like at the five, not the 10 or whatever, but what do you think of them kind of cherry picking these roles? Well, I think those things are always worth an attempt. And the reason for it is this, especially in terms of. Gathering people's attention and sustaining people's attention. Is that, you know, if there is a wrinkle that gives somebody a reason to. When, when they, when they see it on their own, on their TV or their screen or their device to hang around for a little bit longer to see what happens next. You know, attention is, is the new currency in, in, in the media business. You know, there's some major value for attention. I. I think at some point in time in the next decade. Content providers will be paying you to watch. To, to, to, to, to, to deliver, to deliver information and engaging content. So if you can, you know, find a way when a team is. Moving down the field and they're down by eight and they have an opportunity to win by nine. You start telling that story when they cross center field that keeps you around. You know, so, so the, the, the. Eh, but, but they also need to say what, you know, what the cause and effect is. Of of these new rural changes. And be very aware of what's going on in, in, in, in football culture to, to, to make it applicable to the hardcore fan. Well, it said they had, they had causing the fact, I think on that when they announced the rules and they said the overtime rule, the effect was to give both teams in equal chance of winning the game. I mean, you can't have, you can't ask for more than that. I mean, I'll just read the they're. I just thought that was interesting where they play like, well, we want to give the whole teams an equal chance to win. Right. Well, the, you know, the other thing is, you know, let's go way back to, to the Genesis of the USFL and even the, the Genesis of XF 1.0. And in some ways it was a reaction to the quote unquote, no fun league. Right. The the, the, the football that we've seen out of the national football league. Has been a whole lot of fun. Right. You can't make the. The the same statement in the same positioning in the marketplace that you're going to out fund the NFL these days. So, so the one. Like your position. Needs to be with your product about really talking to that. One in 10 NFL fans to say, Hey, if the NFL may be tried, something like this, this would lead to better football. It's a 180 degree, different positioning for spring football these days. Like, like there. There's gotta be not, not. Not outside of the box thing, both an orthodoxy that you apply to spring football, that, that wasn't in the first two iterations of the two big. Big spring leagues. And I think that's the big shift and, and, and those operators need to understand that. Well, there you go. Well, I appreciate it. I could talk to you a long time. I can't have this be a three hour episode today. I very much. I appreciate it. You sharing your time and knowledge and expertise. Thanks. Was I was I the bread th the, the Mayo or the bologna. Or was that combination of both. But it's assessing. I'm president for longhand. what do you think about going into the season? I mean, nothing too crazy. Does that all sound good? Absolutely. I love it. I love that. I love Walnut peg and yeah, I got plenty to say about that. So, All right. Well, it's been a long time coming for our busy schedules. I'm so glad we could finally connect. We have Greg peach here. How are you doing today? Hey, I'm doing great. Yeah. Appreciate you having me. I'm glad we could get our schedules linked up. Former Edmonton. Striking good chords. They're a former Winnipeg. Dorothy's going to be happy to have a former Winnipegger on I Hamilton as well. How, how are you doing now? What, what do you have to nowadays? So I own a sports training and development. Business out here in Spokane Washington. So we train kids of all ages, really starting at like eight years old. Just teaching them football fundamentals and. You know, as they get older. Helping them get to that the next level. And. As far as their training and recruiting and, and all that good stuff that, that comes with it. But. Yeah, it's me. And it's a team of other coaches, some former CFL guys that. People might remember from back in the day Darrio Romero is one of them. We've had JC share it. As one of our coaches. Not Nichols. Was a. Was with us. And so guys that kinda are around this area. They, they come out and coach the kids. You know, all, all the stuff they've learned from their journey through high school, college, and the pros. I realize you're on Spokane. Now I went to Gonzaga. We have not had the best week. Are you a zag span? So I, you know, I'm, I'm an Eastern Washington Eagle, so if they're not in the tournament, I could really care less. But living here, you're kind of an honorary zags fan. And. You watched the guys and there's some local guys, one of our coaches, Deon Watson, his little brother. Anton Watson's on the team. So I joined. You know, watch them and cheer him on at least. Yeah, I I've given up my heart the last couple of years, I, I lived through a lot of that. I lived, I was at college there during the Adam Morrison days. I have a very funny stories involving Adam Morrison. To myself actually that are not super PG, but yeah, it's fine to me, but it's a cool. I mean, it's Spokane his legacy. I felt town. And to me, when it comes to Gonzaga and might be, there's nothing else there for them to, to cheer. I mean, Professionally at all, you know? I mean, they, they, and now with the Spokane shock, right. They're going out to right. They got kicked out of the right. Yeah, the shocker out. Sam Adams. He tried to. Try to revitalize them around here. It's weird because yeah, you have a great fan base with, with the zags. And even at Eastern, they sell out every game. And, but yeah, some, some things just. They don't. You know, pick up traction and. With the zags. The, yeah, it's like a real small hometown feel like even out of Morrison, John Stockton, you'll see him. All over the place, just going to a basketball game. Kid's basketball game, there'll be in the stands and people that. That come here and our legends here, they don't leave. They stay. NBA champion. Adam Morrison rode the bench. Never forget, never forget. Let's talk CFL. I'm sure that's what people want to hear. Although we could reminisce about a lot of that stuff and. And I'm trying to think of the last time our friends got married at that, the clink and daggers underneath there by the waterfall there. How wonderful wedding there. All of this craziness going on the last couple of weeks, I think we're just. I don't know, trying to keep the CFL relevant right in the off season. Last year was XFL this year. It's like three down four down, but. I don't, you know, That's not happening, but what, whether we doing in terms of like, where is the CFL in your mind right now, in terms of like the. Public. Like, do we care about that kind of thing? Yeah. I mean, I like, obviously as a former player, I'm I keep up with it and I still have. You know, as old as I am a stub buddies that I played with that are now the 10-year veterans. And. And stuff like that, but, you know, Honestly going into COVID like there was a ton of momentum that. That, especially that 2019 season. And. Winnipeg winning it all. And there's a ton of press to even down here about it. Just even the parade. With with Winnipeg. And, and then those few of those guys getting NFL contracts after. And coven kind of put a stop to it for a little bit. And it's not, it's not like the NFL where it's like, yeah, we'll find a way. We've got plenty of money to do that. And yeah, I think there. They're kind of rebounded from that. And I was actually really excited to see the new ownership ownership in BC. I think. They're going to cause that's, you know, that's a market that needs to. Needs to improve, obviously not in Toronto, but. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to, I'm going to hit up a VC game this year. I always try and get, get to one out there, but. And just see what, you know, what kind of improvements they're making. But, yeah, I honestly, I think the CFLs on. Good enough putting to. You know, keep going and keep doing the things that they've done. Like the four down talk. All right. That was just, that was ridiculous. And I talked to a bunch of guys that I played with about it, a guy, Brian Turner, that I played with him, Winnipeg. We were actually just talking about it. We don't need any, we don't need gimmicks for. You know, don't prove the viewership or there's, there's other things we can do then change the game. The game's fine. As far as the rules go. But yeah, I think it's fine. And I think. I think there's some, some great leadership that's trying to make it. Fan friendly and fun to watch. Well, even it's even with weird talking to USFL staff and they had their rule book come out last week and we're talking about it again this week, but like that's what people like are the unique quirks and traits of the different leagues. And I just, I could never think of anything worse, especially. I mean, who cares about the USFL, especially the CFL, this. Been around for so long that like, That's w I dunno, I just never thought. You know, adapting yourself to if. It's like if a girl doesn't like you, that like changing yourself to get them to, you know, to date you. That's probably not the best situation. You know what I. Well, and the improved, honest, like in Canada. In general, the football is improving at the lower levels and that's going to affect, you know, the, how, how the games played in the CFL. I just ran into Keon, Raymond from Calgary he's he's running a big program over there in Calgary. Just on this last weekend at a tournament that we brought our team to, and he's building a, you know, a huge foundation over there. Same with. The guys over at, in Winnipeg, their names drawn a blank, but just these, these. You know, training facilities that like that I have here. Getting the kids into the game early. And. You know, that's going to the. Starting at that age, which is not normal in Canada. Is is going to improve the game. So yeah, there's, there's no, there's no reason. Like you said to the quick fix. You know what. It's going to be, we're going to always be a little bit behind the NFL. But it's getting there. Well, there's also, there's no like magic pill. I mean, it's, you know, as someone, I think we're just so whatever predetermined nowadays to like instant results, right? Like I'm going. You know, I'm going to watch this 32nd Tik TOK or whatever. Like, we're just so used to like, I mean, it's years and years and years of like trying to turn the slave anything and. I don't know. I just seems like every year, and I don't know if that's an Ambrozy thing or if that's just the way the world is now, but you know, it's like global initiative. Okay. That didn't work moving on. Okay. XFL moving out. Okay. And like you got a, well, even if the XFL, like you got to, you got to see something through as opposed to just, you know, skipping from one rock to the other, you know, Oh, yeah, totally. And even just bringing that up, like Tik TOK, it's like get being relevant with what kids are. Look like I have to do that. Even now, like to get kids interested in, in what we're doing, because you know, the boring stuff is usually the stuff that you have to do to, and you have to be good at. But you can still entice people. With that. I'm talking about as far as like training, but as far as the CFL. Like, they have to be a bigger presence, you know, with the, the kids and that's, that's how things are going right now. And I, I, that's one thing that I don't see enough of. 'Cause, you know, I'm on my phone and I should be seeing some content. You know, every week from the CFO, I follow all the, all the sources. And I definitely don't see enough NFL. Even college football just it's flooding my, my timeline. So that's definitely something they could make an improve on to help with viewership, especially down here too. People talk about the CFL, but it's kind of just like, oh yeah, yeah. I've seen that on TV before. But it's not, it's not something that people are invested in. Even like today I was talking, I was working and I, something came up about travel and I said, oh yeah. I went to Canada. Like I went to the grey cup, like that's the Canadian football league. Like that's their championship. It's a lot of like steps to get oh great cop or whatever, you know, it's not just like, okay, I know what that is. It's always a little bit of a step sometimes depending on who you're talking to. Yeah. And, and people don't really, unless they know somebody. Oh yeah. I know somebody that I think was up there. But, and, and yeah, it's so like, we're, we're kind of talking before we started here and just how it's. Easy to, it's easy to be a fan once you are like, there's so much out there for you to grab a hold of and they make it easy to do that. Like just even a, I remember practicing and there's people just at practice whenever they want. Come talk to you after, you know, get autographs. Anytime. It's so accessible to the fans and. Yeah. If they can, if they can just create a little bit of excitement down here and use the tools that they have, which there's a ton. It doesn't cost a lot of money to, to get, you know, highlights down here. You know, Even blooper films or, you know, highlights, whatever. But it's gotta be something that's, you know, present every single week. It's not that hard to do. It's funny. I've, I've seen a lot of chatter, you know, USFL here where like two and a half weeks from kickoff and cause it's on my Fox and Fox wants to be like, You know, we like don't look at our, like, we control. I have one of our episodes, one of the week, it was like Gollum with precious. Like, don't look at, you know, this is my league. And I see all these people. Like, I wish Fox was like more accessible if we could see more from the training camps. So we could see because they're in training camps and they're not showing anything. I'm like, I just kind of the CFL, like you said, go, come to the training camp, come to the practices, come to the. Like we're doing all these events. Like it is interesting, but then they're like, I don't want to watch the CFL. You're like, well, okay. But that's kind of what you want. Is that more accessible? I mean. I think the game is, is the CFL game is, is going to be just as strong, if not stronger than the USFL, the first couple of weeks out the gala. I can promise you that. Yeah, no. People always ask me that. Well, what about this new league? That's is that going to take anything away? So. No, absolutely not. There. And especially because it's. Like I love new leads. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great. I think there's a ton of players that are sitting at home that don't have a place to go because it is tough to get into a CFL roster as well. And it's, you know, 50 guys. So, yeah, I love that and that opportunity forum, but the CFL is, and people throw dollar signs around and stuff, but. It's established. And, you know, if I was a guy coming out of college and I'm looking at, okay, this league has been around for a hundred plus years. There's one just started. Yeah, maybe I'll make a little bit less, but I at least know that I'm going to be going to a facility every day. And, you know, there was, I think it was the UFL where it's just like, oh, Here's your stuff. You know, like that's, that's hard. It's heartbreaking to see, but. But yeah, and I, and I look at it too, just to kind of the accessibility. Part, you know, going back to zags, you can't get a, a seat at the arena to watch a Gonzaga basketball game. You have to know somebody who you know is not going to be at the game. So I always tell people, go, go down the street to Eastern they're division one basketball program. You can get to every game you want and you can go meet the players after, before. Like it's, it's there for you. The kids are going to have a great experience doing it. They don't care. You know, at that. At that age, like if they go meet a high school basketball player, they're ecstatic. So, yeah, it. It's kind of weird to me sometimes when people complain about that, but it's like, it's right there for you. It's the same. I get the comments every day. This major league football. That's like the other, other, other, other one that starting right now. And I'm like, If they're doing tree camps in may. Theoretically. I'm like. Discourse CFL, like, you know, that's happening. Like, I don't understand this like pipe dream of this, like, well, they've been around eight years, but like, this is a year they're really going to hit the field. I'm like, Okay. I don't know. I want to talk about your former, a couple of your former homes here, Edmonton. You know, I haven't, I have my hat on here. We have Victor queen coming on next week. I'm very excited. I've talked about that on the show a couple of weeks without, you know, president CEO. Ah, what are you making of all their, the resurgence and everything happening in Edmonton? It seems like a lot of excitement there. Yeah, no, I remember kind of the talk with, you know, Brock and. You know, making that transition and I, I wasn't there when he was there. But, I mean, I was there with, in the Tillman era, so right after muchacho, I've been through. Since, you know, talk and some changes there, but I'm excited. I'm always excited about getting some new blood in there and, and people that can maybe have a different idea and different perspective on it. Because it wasn't working. You know, whatever was happening, wasn't working and I'm not going to. Speculator. You know, that's, I don't know that much about it. I just, just from what I hear from Eddie steel. That's that's how I get my Edmonton news, but yeah, I I'm super pumped for it. Just, just like I am for the new ownership in BC, but it hits a little close to home because that was my first. The first team I played for and I love that place. I love. Love the Eskimos organization. Rich in tradition. I don't know if they've brought Dwayne Mandarin. Zack back, but the equipment manager. I mean that guy's the heartbeat of the team and I hope they do because I know. They let them go a couple of years ago, which was. That was pretty stupid in my opinion, but hopefully he's back in. Yeah. That's. That was kinda my biggest issue with it, to be honest. It's interesting. How quick, when things work out you're you really are able to make a change and flip things around, right. I don't know, I just felt like it was this doom and gloom. Like we're falling off the side of the world here and now everyone I talk to, I mean, Eddie has been on the shell. Like no one could be more excited about what's happening there. And it's been six months. I mean, it's really crazy how quick, like, If you're able to. You know, when you're someone like Victor and the team he's assembling, like if you have the means the same with the Mar don't mind, like if you have the means and the vision, right. Like, I think that's, what's cool about the CFL to write unique visions and invoices from the ownership groups. Like. You can make change if you want to. And it can be really tangible changes we've seen here in the last couple of months. Yeah. And. And the, you know, even a team like Edmonton, they waited a long time to get that. To make that change. I've been on teams when it's. It happens right away. I was in Winnipeg and, you know, I was with. The coaching staff, there was only there. And management that was there for, you know, two years and then make the change and, you know, boom, two time. You know, two great cups. So, yeah. Does that happen in Edmonton? I don't know, but I think their chances go up. For sure this year and the CFL, man, it doesn't matter if you were. Last place first place. That's what I love about it. Anybody can win. But the grey cup. Anybody. Well now I see speaking though. I mean, I saw, I think it was today dunk floated that Nick Arbuckle, they're talking about trading our buckle away. I'm like weather. What are we doing in Edmonton? Like, cause they're like my backup team, I mean, BC is that's America's CFL team, but yeah, Edmonton is very close to my heart and I'm like, I, I wasn't sure about Nick Arbuckle, but now we're, it's like we're talking JT Barrett. Like I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I'll be curious to see what the moves they make there. If we have all these rookie quarterbacks and Nathan Rourke and everybody flying around crazy pants, I don't know. Yeah, I did see that the Barrett news. Yeah. The thing with the, those rookie quarterbacks too, is those guys can light it up, like the first. Three or four games and then you get. You know, get some film on them. And it happens every fricking year man, every year. I I've been on the wrong side of that too many times when they throw in a quarterback week 12 never played and. God, we're going to just kill this guy. And then he goes for 400 and he's the newest thing. And then. Two weeks later, he's on the bench again. You can't throw a touchdown. So, yeah, it that's, that's another cool thing about it too, though, is like, you might. At any point in time, you might find the next star quarterback and you might not know who he, who he is, came from a D two or. FCS or. You know, look at the, the quarterbacks that have had success. The majority are from mid-major, you know, FCS schools. I really. You really don't see those big time program guys. Do that well, so. If I was a, you know, a GM I'd be looking at our Bunco over. Barrett, but. I don't know. A yellow. I mean, you got a lot to have on our buck on that. It's kind of, that's one of the things there where it's like, you know, it's like, I'm Daniel Jones with the giant, how you got here. We really like, we're really going. Like, we're really still, I. I get, I get very perplexing. Before I let you go. I wanted to touch on Winnipeg. You know, You're talking three peat, right. And all of that. I saw the power rankings came out, you know, cfl.ca Edmonton was in last, I think BC who was in second last, when it pagan first. W what did, what did you think of the whole miracle run here, you know, two time and then that, whether their chances here next year, coming back. Yeah, man, that defense was just insane. Lights out last year, the numbers are stupid. What they were putting up and, you know, Miko Shay is he's. That's my dude. That guy. Gave me, you know, Gave me a shot his first, his first year, when they were kind of cleaning house from that 2013 team. And, you know, he's a, he's a loyal guy. And he gets faulted for that sometimes, but as you see it, it, it works out and usually doing the right thing is it's kind of a slow burn and that's what happened. You know, from the start to, to where it is now. So, I mean, everything, all the success that Winnipeg has gotten, it's that management team and, and coaching staff. Are, I mean, they're phenomenal. And so they should be the favorites. You know, but. Like we said, I mean, Shoot BC can be in there. Evan thinking, you know, you never know. With this league, but Winnipeg most definitely should be the favor. I am I, we have on it. We've had the BC crew on the last. I probably haven't had one for a couple of weeks, but I am amazed with what they've been able to do with the salary cap there, with Nathan and everything, and just how they it's like we are going to hire everybody in the world, not high risk sign, everybody in the role that we can cause. You know, we're paying there. We got this cheapo rookie quarterback. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's crazy. It's either going to be spectacular. It's going to be horrendous. So, I mean, it's going to be one that. One of the two. Well, I remember in 2011, when Lula came in. And took that team over, you know, he was on his first contract. And they were, they started like Owen six or [unknown]. [Unknown] and ran the table. So yeah, it might be a little slow start for them just with, you know, With our quarterback situation. But. You know any, I mean, dude, When the gray cup after Owen seven. Start. That's why I love the sleek. You can, you can never count somebody out. It's fun. It's exciting. I get, I get tied to you for another half an hour. I think our episode this week is already going to be like two and a half hours with this. I have a lot of craziness planned, but. We'll have to bring you back on. I'm so glad that we can connect any final thoughts, words, comments, before I let you go. No, I just give a shout out. Tell him. Eastern. My Easter Eagles, my former CFL boys. But I appreciate you having me on and I love talking ball, especially CFL. It's you know, Very close to me and. You know, Did it change my life. So. Yeah, we had that. Vernon Adams was on the show a while ago. I mean, You guys didn't write the year before now. I had made before. I played with, I was roommates with Matt Nichols for four years, and then Bo Levi came right after and then burning came right after. And I'm looking for Eric barrier from Eastern Washington to. He might be the next big thing. Up there you'll be a rookie this year. If he gets passed up by the NFL teams, but he broke all those guys. His records just shattered them. So who knew Eastern, the arrived in our. Yeah. It's it's crazy. Eastern in Cine, Washington. And then we knew that that is that's the hotbed of, they say a great, I'm glad I haven't sent this out. All right, let me hit record here. And who's this little one. His name is Jared. He is a 15 months. And. He's a ball of energy. So he has me up and down in the off season. Perfect. We'll talk about it here. All right. Early it's like, well, if it wasn't 8:30 AM Pacific, I would probably be cracking up in the bud light seltzer to talk to our guest. Today is Sergio Castillo. How are you doing. First of all. I appreciate you having me here. Been doing pretty well. I'm in off-season mode right now. So training real early in the morning, and then daddy duties, you can see it throughout the day. So it's been fun. And then my girl right now, she's a. She's in the playoffs. She's a high school soccer coach. She's coaching the girls and the boys for Palo Duro high school. So that has us pretty busy right now. And that who's this level a monkey that's crawling around. Yeah, his name is Jared. [Unknown] he was born 15 months ago. And, you know, he definitely keeps him busy in the off seasons. Well, this is exciting, exciting times for you. I love chatting with the CFL players in the off season, seeing a little bit of their family life. Ah, now you're, you're going to Edmonton. I want to talk a little bit that wind and peg XFL, everything else. What's it been like here? Getting signed up with the Alex. First of all, just a grateful for the opportunity to be able to, you know, sign with a great organization, you know, and to be able to pair up with someone like G Roy and coach Jones. So, you know, I've known them for years in the past and just excited to, to be able to rebuild. You know, something that something special here and, you know, can't wait for the opportunities that come up. Do you sense? The excitement that seems to be kind of permeating out of Edmonton now with, you know, the new hires and coach and we have new management, everything else. 100%, you know, it is just, you know, now that I've been on social media and I, and I've been following a lot of Edmonton. Pages, you know, and, and you just, you just see the energy that's flowing around and I, and I'm receiving it as well from the moment I signed. And so I'm, I'm excited to do my part to, to bring the best of me. Mentally physically, spiritually, emotionally, and just to, you know, seize it to. To be able to do something great. So can't wait you to start this process it's already been started with, with the hires and with the staff and the players. And can't wait to, to. To bring some good football to Edmonton. The last season in Winnipeg, right? You had a huge, you know, grade. Champion huge. Ah, You know, Tyler game, my wife and I were there. We were up there covering that. What was it like that whole experience coming into Winnepeg? Getting really hot, you know? Accomplishing what you needed to, you know, and obviously, you know, it got you into this position now, but what was that like? Just very fortunate to find, being a situation where I could play a number one of the playoffs. Right. Cause in my whole professional career, I had never experienced. A playoff scenario. So that one that was fun. And, you know, came late into the season, but to be for the, for the, for the guys on the team to embrace me, From the very get-go that made me feel comfortable. And I was very appreciative of that. And that made me feel just right at home, you know, cause I was back in winter pack back in 2015 and 16. And I'm just very fortunate to be in a situation where I can do my part. And I feel like, you know, I got hot. You know, just at the right time, you know, we finished our last game against Calgary and then went straight into the playoffs. And I felt like that carried on pretty well. It's so hard, especially, you know, Ah, special teams and kicker is kind of have a special place for us. We have lots of friends in lots of different leagues that way. You know, all going from the XFL and, and going to the, the Jackson and go into the CFL and. I mean, what is it like mentally going through through all that? I can't imagine how challenging that must be. It is challenging just because I'm in, I've always, I mean, people wants stability, right? They want to know, Hey, I'm going next year. I'm going to this place. And I know. You know, what's it like, and you know, every year I've been somewhere different, right? At different teams, different leaks. But the way I take it as a man. I'm just very fortunate to be able to kick a ball and get paid for it. You know, I'm 31 years old, so not a lot of people get to play pass high school, not have people get to play past college and they do get to play pro though. The longevity is not the percentage. It's just not a high for, for athletes. So just very fortunate. I just take it as it goes, you know, every city that I've been in, it's when my family comes, it's a vacation for them. Cause it gets to experience a new city, a new culture. New food, you know, we're big on food. So that's the way I've been taking that. Right. And then just trying to build relationships with different people. You know, now it's just, I have friends from all over Mexico, us. Canada and you know, now different parts of the country because of the global draft. So that's been very cool that I'm able to develop and keep these relationships. Past football. If I haven't played with that team for a year. Or a couple of years. Also playing with BC. That's my team, you know, a couple of stints there, I lion's organization. What, what was it like taking part in that? You know, the funny thing is when I signed, I first thought we were going to train in Vancouver and I knew we were playing in Vancouver. We'll find out we're playing in Siri. Which in a way it was budgeted disguise because we're not in the city. Right. A big, big city. So you don't have that traffic. Just all clustered. Team. You know, embrace my role there, you know? Roy was there. He was scouting. And he spoke to my agent, Gil Scott and. You know, they gave me a chance. Especially as you Roy, you know, he took a chance on me because I told my ACO in 2017, I hadn't really, I had been on a couple teams, but they didn't plan out. And he gave me a, another opportunity to revive my career. Cause I thought I was done, you know, after I told my ACL. I hadn't recovered. As quickly as I thought I wanted to. And, but to be able to go there and I literally took it game by game day by day game by game because my knee was still in a lot of pain. But I found a way to get through it, you know, and I'm very appreciative of the athletic training staff there. BC. Strength staff with coach Boyko. They just helped me maintain my knee, you know, in terms of. You know, ways to activating the muscles. So the, the, the knee wouldn't get a lot of, you know, feel a lot of pressure, a lot of tension. So just very appreciative of the training staff there, because they took care of me very well in that if it wasn't for, for them in that aspect, I don't think my knee would have made it through a whole. 18 Games. So for. G roads. You give me a chance to, to go there and play. And then you just very appreciative of. Of the people that helped me out there. A lot of our listeners, you know, know you from the XFL, right from there. Ah, you know, chugging bud light seltzer, right? Lot of celebrations that way. What was your time like there? You know, I, a lot of people, I think. Felt connected to you. And a lot of the guys after that, I seen a lot of these, you know, player interactions and celebrations. It was very different. From the aspect. We didn't know what to expect from organizational, from organization standpoint, from a fan standpoint. First game. We thought, man, we'll get lucky. If we get 5,000 fans, man, we had 18,000 fans from the get-go. And I think that helped us was that year when the Houston, Texas lost to Kansas city, I think they blew like a, a big lead in the playoffs. So a lot of fans were heartbroken, disappointed, and they look towards the Houston roughnecks for, you know, maybe this could be a team we can go for. And, you know, we, we took advantage of opportunities that we had to play three home games. And, you know, we ended up five and O and I think if we would've kept playing the season, we could have packed that whole stadium out. So that was fun. And then just the fact that it was a new league, there were trying a lot of new stuff, you know, different rules. And in terms of the, the social media aspect, you know, when they asked me to Chuck a beer, the funny thing is I'm not a drinker. I hardly drink. And. Right after the game, they start giving us a license. Normally they give you Gatorades. Protein shakes water. They started giving us bud lights and on with a Colton and Austin, my snapper, my holder. And just for the heck of it. I chugged one with them. Austin. He doesn't drink either, but he, and he didn't drink one. So I chugged one with them. Boom. Right off the bat. Later our social media guy, Jake comes up to us. Hey. But light is sponsoring us. We need to do a video. Can you just chug a beer? I'm like, man, I just chugged one like two minutes ago and I feel like I'm, I'm about to be gone. Outside Chuck two beers within like five minutes ban. And I am just. Ah, I am so gone because I'm a one I'm not used to. It's almost super lightweight. I had an eat in about five, six hours. On top of that. But that thing blew up. And the funny thing is, like I mentioned earlier, my, my. My gross. She's a high school Spanish teacher and she's the head coach for. For soccer. That Monday, she goes to work and all her students were like, oh my God. Ms. Cabasa was replay friends drunk, this and that. And the point, like I said, I don't even drink. Because that's, it went. [Unknown], you know, I just took it around with it and it's been a thing ever since, you know, and the league folded unfortunate because of COVID and I think it. It was going really well. So I have those memories with me. Right. And I can, you know, share those with my family and, you know, That down the road. But what I think is cool is in, and I was talking with that. We had a, whether you're a former Edmonton, Greg peach is also going to be on the show this week. Eight years ago. Talking about the accessibility to the XFL had. Really similar to what the CFL and being able to, you know, have guys on and talk to them on social media and be able to interact. I think that, you know, all this NFL and everything else. That's what fans want is that connection and like this, you know, we could have you on talking to him about snap. Do you find that you enjoy that being in the CFL as well. And obviously having spent a lot of time there. A hundred percent. Because. Me as a young kid, I always wanted to know, ask questions to my idols growing up. You know, for me, it was, it was soccer. The baseball and a little bit of football as I started growing, growing older. But. You know, social media, wasn't a big thing. And. But now the CFL, the. You know, these new leagues, they've made it very easy for the fan player interaction. So now you do get, you'd only get to see them. On the field, but you get to know them as a person in their life as well. So if I can also use this platform to share my life, you know, not just the sports, but someone can relate to what I've been through and if I can help them out in their journey, it's a plus it's a win. What do you tell to someone to a player iPad? They. I mean, you've been in everything, seen everything had success had, you know, had heartbreak. I mean, what, what would you say to someone that, how do they keep going? Number one is create a vision board, you know, and a vision board is basically a poster board. You can get a wall and I could have pictures of your dreams. And put them on that board. And, you know, my, one of my friends at that first told me about that was in back in 20 13, 20 14, he told me I was going to be the first thing you need to see. And that's going to be the last thing you see before you go to bed is gonna remind you on bad days. Who you want to become because we're all going to have bad days. It's another inevitable, right? So you're going to need something to constantly remind you. Who you're going to be in the future. And you feel like that works for you? Oh, a hundred percent. I've had that vision board and ABI, and I've been able to conquer goals. You know, my biggest dream was having a family. I didn't grow up with a dad. My, my mom didn't grow up with a dad. So for me, it's like, I wanted to break that cycle. Right. So, and now, as you can see, I have a baby boy, right. And that's my biggest dream. And. So that was number one. Number two is to play professional football, right. Yeah, the NFL, the CFL, and you have these other leagues, but the constant ones is NFL and CFL. That's 41 41 jobs in the whole world. So I had that vision board right there and it's like, yes. There's 41 jobs. There's thousands of us. But there's some, some way I'm going to find a way to get there. Right. In that vision board kept me on track. Right. So far, I've been able to accomplish my two biggest dreams and I'm still living them right now. And for me it's been big because of the vision board has kept me accountable. Last question. You talked about, you know, family coming up, seeing everything right. Being able to experience, talk about having that support. Right. It can't be hard. Isn't. You know, going place to place and going with all these different teams, right? You. You know, you have your, your family. And I talk about that and having the support behind them. It's it's key. You know, and I, I sh there's a saying, show me your friends on. Show you your future, right? And my girl who's Santa. All the time and there's actually a video of her going viral right now that made it her on Tik TOK. Cause. She's actually coaching the boys. Soccer team. She's the interim head coach right now. And in that video, you see her just motivating. The boys as a, you know, we ended up going into double overtime when. Going to PKS. We want. But. A lot of people, that's the first time they're seeing. A lot of times. This is the first time a lot of people. No scene. My girl. Motivate. And coach. And a big platform like that. Right. And, but for me, it's like, I've been experiencing that. Since 2015 and I believe. In order of it. Doesn't if it's not sports in order, if you want to achieve any type of dream. You have to have a good circle of friends, accountability, or your partner. Because of the ones that you hang around with the most. Right. So you're going to be the average of that person. So. Energetic. They're motivating. They're going to rub that off on you. Vice versa. Well, I think we have exceeded our timeline here with the little one. I really appreciate you juggling everything. I know everyone's going to be happy. Make sure he waves goodbye there. Yes. I appreciate you y'all have a good one. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out on social media. I'm here to motivate, help out any way that I can. Appreciate it.

Episode 85 - This Is a Pro-USFL Podcast

Well, I have not talked to our wonderful guests here since we were partying Hardy up in Hamilton. And you were on our big breakup live show. How are you doing? I am good. That was a funny show. I can't remember what bar we were in, but that was a good one. Actually, having you at the FRC FRC suite with your, your gal, that was a lot of fun as well. Yeah. So we have Farhan here today. Thank you so much for coming on. You know, we were originally going to have you on to talk USFL staff, which we're going to talk about. But now. You know, pure chaos, right in the Canadian football, Twitters and everything. What has been your take the last year, a week or two with kind of all of this talk about three downs and four downs and growing the game and everything else. Well, you know, it's part of a process. The league is going through right now called product review. Right. And, you know, ultimately I think when, when you have something like a lost season due to COVID and in some other sports, it might be a lockout, right? I mean, the NHL went through this and major league. Baseball has gone through this, that when you lose seasons or an epic period of time, You want to come out of it slightly different, right? To give fans something else to talk about besides what was lost and, you know, There's been a five-year downward trend in scoring in the CFL. And last year, the games just weren't entertaining relative to what we're used to seeing. And so I think the league wants to make sure that what can we do to tweak this now there's a number of reasons for it. If you're the football group, if you're the football ops guys, the coaches, and GM's generally, you're thinking, can you business guys, just go shut up, work in a corner, figure out the marketing and leave us alone. Don't mess with the game, right? Like you're not doing a good enough job on marketing, and now you're trying to change the game. And then, you know, the marketing guys and the business guys think. The football ops guys are the last people you want to ask you about growing the game, right? Because they've got a completely different agenda. So product review is a thing. And David, I talked about this at grey cup, that everything was on the table, including four downs. And that offended a lot of people. And now this particular week, we're going through meetings. And see if I'll call them binders this weekend. And because everybody's going to be in town, they use this week as an opportunity to have rules, committee meetings, board of governor meetings, owner meetings, all those types of things. So a lot of decisions get made this week and there's been a lot on the table for downs has been on the table. 11 Man football has been on the table. Somethings a lot smaller, like moving the hash marks in, maybe taking the field from 110 yards, bringing it down to a hundred yards. Adjusting the timing rules because the games are so long. There's, there's a number of different things they're looking at and, you know, whatever you put that out there. Canadian football, Twitter, and you know this, right? Like they don't want to hear that. Don't touch my precious game. You know, everybody's got a lot of emotion invested into it and a lot of nationalistic pride invested into it. I'm not one of those, right. To me. I want to look at every solution and every situation in and of itself, try to be pragmatic about it. Is there an issue in my opinion. Yeah, there is no, there's a number of reasons for it. Not all about the rules, but sometimes the rules could accelerate. Fixing it or improving it or whatever verb you want to use. So I think that it's a good thing. Just the process. I think the product review idea is a good thing. I think people should look at every rule and not say it's not Canadian or it's too much like the NFL. Might it work. Just think about it as a football person, if you're a fan and give it a chance. Yeah, it's, it's hard. And I know people like you, you know, coming on this show and other, you know, longer form podcasts, you guys do your great hits and stuff, but it's really being able to kind of flesh out stuff on here, riding longer than kind of a minute and a half two, and they take all be on TV. I mean, what do you, what do you think about three downs, four downs? I know we tied, I can't even remember that that grey cup weekend was such a haze, but I mean, where do you land on this? As someone that's covered the game? You know, I love the NFL and I love the NCAA, but I don't think four downs is the right thing for this game. Now, if you decide. To adopt all the rules. Okay. That's a separate, separate case altogether, but I don't think putting a fourth down. Into all the other Canadian rules makes a lot of sense. Right? So. The, you know, People up here who don't quite get the NFL. We'll show all that you're running league because you've got four downs, actually. It's not because of the small field size. You know, teams are realizing through analytics the most efficient and effective way to move the football was by throwing it. So how do we do that with this small field? Well, they try to create match-ups and they try to create space by shifting and motioning and doing different things. And they do all of that. To make it more of a past happy game up here with the big field and all the motion and the extra yard off the ball. I don't think that works up here. I think if you put a force down in coaches, by their nature are going to get conservative and they are, they've admitted this to me. Most of the coaches I've spoken to. We're going to run the football. Right. Because here's the, here's the thing, a coach's job is not to entertain. Coach's job is not to grow the game. And quite frankly, in most cases, a coach's job is not even to win. Coach's job is to stay employed. Right. So, if you ask a defensive coordinator, what would you prefer? 50 To 49 when or a 1716 loss. Most of them. If the camera's not on would tell you they'd prefer that loss because their defense played great. And it'd be the opposite for an offensive coordinator. The head coach is probably the one guy that has to rely on wins and losses. Right. So for the rest of the guys, They've got a completely different agenda, right? So if, if they think the percentages will dictate, they can go three and a half yards, three and a half yards, three yards, and get a first down. That's what they're going to do. And they're not going to risk the game by. Putting it up as much. So I think the wide field in that yard. Makes it so much more forgiving to run the ball. Relative to the NFL game. Right. So, yeah, Pete Carroll likes to run the ball and if you've got Derrick Henry in your backfield, you'd like to run the ball. I want to throw it. Right. But up here, if you change the rules to four downs, Teams will want to run it. And I don't like that. Will it eliminate as many punches? Sure. Great more first downs in some form of game flow. Sure. But in terms of that entertaining wide open passage style, we like not so much. I don't like it up here. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a myth now that the NFL is like this run happy league. I mean, it's really not. There's an old Canadians. They don't buy it. They still come up with those same antiquated arguments. Yeah, I mean, Right. Even even this week, they were, you know, getting ready. We were talking drafts. I watch a lot of NFL stuff too. And the other talking. Getting ready for the draft. And they're like, well, Ronnie back's like, who even needs those anymore. Right. I mean, you know, It's almost like, unless you. You want to see one taken to the first round? Right. Because it's the most disposable position in football. So, I mean, what do we do then? Because it, and even if you change to four downs, I mean, it's still the same marketing and lead structure and Steven Lee Olsen. What's your main, I mean, it's still all of the things that kind of like go with the CFL. I just don't, you know, Making it blue, not green or whatever. Isn't going to fix all these other issues. Well, yeah, you're right. So first and foremost, you. Th the business side of the game needs to improve. There's no doubt. They need to find different ways to engage fans and present the product. And I think the genius sports deal is going to do a lot to help in that area. Now that's not an immediate play, right. But talking to people around the league. I think when they look at the collectible officers at the nine teams and the league itself. Deals with on an annual basis. I think there's a real positive. Believe a lot of optimism that in the next two to three years, that big number will get eliminated based on some of the things. That genius sports. And single game sports betting. And the two of those together are going to be able to provide. And the one thing about genius that really matters to the CFL and why they were able to give them an equity share in CFL ventures, right, is because. Genius has the ability not only to provide the ideas. But to have the. Manpower to execute them because that's one thing the CFL head office doesn't have. Yes. The teams are going to have to do a certain amount, right. But genius is going to be able to execute and they're motivated to execute because of that equity Sharon, because I think they want to use the CFL as a bit of a model that they can then take to other businesses and other leagues and say, look, this is what we did here. We can do this for you. So. You know, so I'm encouraged that that's headed in the right direction. The CBA, you know, the two sides having spoken to both. They're in a really good place compared to other years. And I think that's going to also allow them to grow the game. But I do think that trying to tweak it matters because one of the things that's happening is we're not getting the level of quarterbacks. That we've had here before. Right. If you look at the quarterbacks in this league today versus the quarterbacks. And this league 10 years ago now. Yeah. These guys may get to that point, but right now the quarterback plays not good. Some will say it's because they had the year off. That's part of it, but it's also the type of quarterback. The CFL used to get. Those guys are not. Getting NFL opportunities, right? So, and now you've got the competitive leagues, like the USFL and the XFL that are going to come. They're going to take some of those guys as well. So you don't want to, you don't want this to be a third tier quarterback league, so that's part of it, but are there some things you can do? You know, can you tweak the hash marks a bit so that you can create more space in certain parts of the field? Can you shrink the field? Because one of the problems with the CFL is not the problems. One of the things with the CFL. It's really a field of position gate, right? Like if you start deep in your own end, even if you get three downs and pump the ball, you can flip the field and that's such a strategic element of the game. Well, I think that nuance is lost on a lot of new fans. So, if you shrink the field by 10 yards, maybe it becomes less of a field position game. Maybe teams, don't try to put the ball from midfield rather than something that long field goal, which could lead to that exciting return. They're going to try to pin you deep and force you to go a hundred yards shorter field. Maybe that doesn't happen as much, right? So are there little tweaks we can do to the game that don't. Fundamentally altered that could help. Improve the offensive product and maybe help accelerate quarterback development. Right? So there's a bunch of things or the salary cap. You could have a minimum quarterback salary. I'm all for it. I think there should be a maximum and a minimum quarterback salary, just so we can get some better ones in. And they have to look longer and not just look at the USFL in the XFL. So it's a multi-layered solution. And I think we got to look at every layer. It's hard to cause any of these things, right. It's going to take years to kind of like re I just, I worry. And I saw, you know, with commissioner bros, he was out in Calgary talking. I just wonder, like, okay, we can better target demographic ads or whatever. But is there just like a funk on the CFL now that people are like, well, I that's that's my grandpa's league or that's I just worry about. Yeah, I know that that's fair. Like that's what it's been to this point, but do you want to give in. Because if that's, if that's the problem and there's no solution, then let's give it. Right. Like you have to still keep pushing. So whether it's the international side of it, and I'm trying to do the global piece, right. Whether they're trying to, you know, look at some of these different ways to market and engage and present the product. I think you got to do that because, you know, What I look at, I use my son as an example all the time. Right? And I say that because I think he's a kid that could be had because he loves football. Right. And he doesn't love the NFL because it's the NFL. You know, he loves the NFL because he was introduced to the game on mat. Right. And he plays Madden. And so that's what he sees. And, you know, he'll see different posts on social media platforms because he's on Tik TOK and he's on Instagram and you know, he's on. Snapchat and some of these other things. So. He sees stuff. And this is how he consumes his world. Right. Because we go down to, he goes down to Seattle with me twice a week to do football training. We go to FSP. And he does training. We've got an hour 45 each way in the car. Right. If he, and I don't talk, like if I don't initiate the conversation, Cause he's 13. He could spend the entire drive in both directions, on a platform on something, consuming something. So how do we get the CFL into his consumables? Right. And so we've got to find ways to do that because that kid could be had. If you put something on where he's looking and he's just like, oh, that's cool. If you can do that, if you can make it cool for them. And that's the challenge that the league and genius and everybody has, but there's gotta be a wait because you know, e-sports has done it, right. U of C has done it. There's so many other entities that have come out of nowhere. You know, we talk about. Things like college football and how it's tradition and thinks you forever to build tradition. You guys have built it like this. Right. Like if the USFL or the XFL, all of a sudden can find something like that. And captured whether it's through the rock or through, you know, Pitt pick your, pick your idea. It's available, right? Like kids going to be fooled and. You know, we've got single game bedding, which is, and we've got fantasy and all these things. That's how 20 and 30 year olds consume the game. One of my buddies, Thomas drains, who I hosted another podcast with God, bless him. He's a hockey. Been right. Like he knows hockey all through the analytics side, like nobody's business, we're a games and he's managing his college basketball bets. This guy knew nothing about college basketball till he decided to start betting on college basketball. He doesn't get huge amounts, but he's engaged. Right. And this is an older guy that this, like, he's not older than me, but he's in his thirties. And the CFL could get him. If all of a sudden they made bedding. You know, sexier, they were able to reach him on that side of it. So I think there's a way. I'm not willing to give in. No. I agree with that. I. We got what we all doing here with it, you know? You know, we were just talking in our XFL news hub, whatever chat yesterday that, you know, the NFL. Ray's going to be off the roof this year, you know, with all the entry. You know, cause we talk about right. Okay. Sports and people don't like modern, you know, we're trying to like Nickelodeon the games down here, right. To make it more appealing to kids. But here the NFL, I mean, it's been the craziest last two, three weeks that's ever been in an off season. Yeah, no question. Yeah. It's funny because up here. We hate that, right? Like the sink, the one game or the one-year contract is a real issue in both the league. And the PA have said, we understand player continuity is a problem. How do we fix it? So, you know, I do think there's, there's a. There's a middle ground, right? Because you look at a guy like Tyree killer, who. He's been with Kansas city for a period of time. Russell Wilson was with Seattle for a period of time. So these guys went establish themselves as big time stars, and then they moved as opposed to here you get constant movement, which isn't good. But, you know, like I said to our guys that. Free agency is not a brutal thing because the level of engagement that Naylor and I, and others. You know, the three down guys that they got during the week leading up to it. And on the day of like, that's, that's good for the lead. Right. So how do we find a way to maybe cut that down by 50% where you could still have. You know, instead of 80% of the roster starting over, if we get up 40% and only, you know, instead of 50% of the big name is turning over, we could have 10% or something like that. There's probably a way to do it. To make it even bigger, not based on volume, but based on quality, but you're right. I mean, what the NFL has done, people are going to be all over and there'll be engaged at the start because they'll want to see what that guy looks like in that uniform. What kind of chemistry he has with that quarterback? How does it affect me from a betting perspective? Right. I'm going to do something at the beginning of the year because I got these odds, but after we'd won, those odds could change big time, right based on, oh, that didn't look good. Like. Got Tyree while you still can't play. And I liked you. I think you'll, you'll be able to able to play, but you might be bullish on the dolphins until week one. Right? So we, we've got to find ways to engage Canadians and even engage the current fans. Right. Because the current fans. Yeah, they come to games and they may or may not buy season tickets, but are they watching every game, right? Or are they only watching their home market, things like that? We could do more to engage even the hardcores than we currently do. It is weird that what is like applauded here with all these moves and everything, like you said, and when all that was happening. You know, a month ago and the CFL, I was like, ah, see this as a problem with the league. I mean, here, I mean, every day it was like eating popcorn. Okay. Who's moving here and what's moving. Right. It's weird that that it's celebrated in one and not in the other as much. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know if it's because the stars aren't as big because they don't get paid as much or because they don't stay as long. Right. So certainly Jeremiah solely where he was going to land was, was a big deal. Right? When you look at the receiver market and how did that spike and what was going to happen? You know? I'll be seeing Ottawa or sorry, BC and Edmund center, trying to pay. You know, up to $300,000 for a receiver and, you know, things like that. Right. So there was certainly a level of intrigue around selected guys. Right. So, you know, If we can do a better job at making stars. And some of that is again, don't have them in your market for two years. In your market for five. Before they move, but can we do more to put those stars on platforms that people see? And if we can do those things. And make the stars. Then when they do move. You know, because they priced themselves out of a situation. And it's a bigger deal, right? I decided that, what do you think of Edmonton having this receiving Corps for Nick Arbuckle? I'm like really spending, I mean, it feels like. You got the, you know, the sports car parked in the, maybe not the million dollar man. I don't know. What do you think about that? It's a fascinating there. Yeah, it is fascinating. And you know, they, they've got some good pieces in there spending a lot of money. But you better have a guy that can pull the trigger and find them right. And you know, their offensive line is, is, is good. Not elite. You know, they're serviceable as I see the group and, you know, in defensively they lost some pieces. Right. But I think they wanted to rebuild there because that was really important for free Chris Jones, because he runs a specific defense and you got to build it around him, but. This whole deal comes around the quarterback, right? And, you know, she even [unknown]. There's mixed reviews on him. Right? I certainly Chris Jones. Is a huge proponent of him as an offensive coordinator feels you got a lot out of Cody for Gerardo. What are you going to get out of Nick Arbuckle? What are you going to get about out of JT Barrett? What are you going to get out of, out of a tailor Cornelius? 'Cause I think they really like Barrett. Even though he's had no mileage. For a long period of time. I think they really like Barrett and he's going to get every opportunity. I think all three of them are going to go early and get an early opportunity to start. I think in Arbuckle's case, if he doesn't win the starting job. He probably gets cut because of his salary, but, you know, I, I do think he'll get an opportunity, but. You know, we'll see if one of these guys can figure it out and. You know, but otherwise you're going to have a lot of unhappy receivers begging for the football and there. You know, these are all one year contracts, essentially. Right? So, or at least non-guaranteed deals, you have a bad year, even if it's the quarterback's fault. No, one's going to pay you that the next year. No, no. I talking about that, you know, talking about the quarterbacks and stuff. Right. I want to get your thoughts on USFL. You know, a lot was made when they had the draft, right? Like we have the Shea Patterson command. Right. We have the packs in Lynch command. Right. People that maybe had been around the CFL. And I was curious like, okay, is that good or bad for the USFL ride to be having some of your premiere right. Teams and premiere quarterbacks, be guys that. Maybe we didn't want it in the CFL or didn't go, I mean, What do you make of the, of the USFL in general? And then I want to deep dive just a little bit. Well, you know, I like what they're doing from a business perspective, keeping it all in one place, eliminating the travel costs. This was supposed to be a TV product. There's not a fan product. It's being based on television and then eventually you could grow, you know, if it works, but, so, so it's an interesting business model from that perspective. And it's good. They've got a lot of credible coaches. But yeah. You know, it comes down to quarterback play and I don't think the XFL had great quarterback play the last time. Right. They had a couple guys that became serviceable. Right. And. John Wolford got an opportunity in Taylor Heinicke he got an opportunity, but like that a couple of guys, but by and large, I don't think the quarterback play in that league was, was very good. Right. And, and I think that, you know, that was evident if you watch the games. You know, it got a little bit better, but just a couple of guys got a little bit better. Right. So, you know, But I also understand what they're doing and try to get a few names that people might recognize, like Paxton Lynch. And when those guys come up here, You know, people talk about the single biggest thing the quarterbacks have to adjust to. And it's that extra defender. You know, the play clock is hard. The motion is hard. There's an adjustment to all of it. But if you ask any of them, You'll tell you it's that extra guy. And Paxton Lynch was no different, right. So he'll go down and Patterson will go down and they'll. You know, we'll see if they can figure it out because at least the game is what they look, what they're used to seeing. And if I'm a quarterback, I go to that league before I go to the Canadian football league. Right. And this is the thing the CFO will have to deal with. Is that. You know, Just being there, just being around and being talked about by ESPN or NBC or Fox, or whoever's got the TV deal and just being there in the mix. It does matter. Right. Like the league is not better. The quality of play is not better. It wasn't in the XFL. And I don't imagine it will be in the USFL, but. Just the fact that you're, there will matter. And for a quarterback, the fact that it's the same game matters, you don't have to learn a new game. You can stay here, you've got one year flexibility on your deal. And so that's a new CFO has got to deal with, right? Like, you know, they've got to do something, whether it's salary wise or what have you. But they've got to make this league more advantageous for quarterbacks to come here and not go to one of those second tier leagues there. It's hard cause it's that, you know, We were tied at the time, you know, the Canadian league, so proud of the rules, right. Everything, but that does. It's in such a harder learning curve to come in. Like you said, especially. So it's like, You know, generally, if you're generally, you're trying to entice someone to your thing, right. That maybe isn't as big as the NFL. Right? You do, you, maybe you adapt a little bit to the NFL, but the CFL is like, no, like this is our thing. Like you're going to come figure it out. Yeah. It's a, we, you know, it's an interesting play. Well, it's the way it's always been. Right. And people have always been proud of the rules of the league. Like to say. And there is a different style to it. And it's also given an opportunity for quarterbacks that didn't get previous opportunities in the NFL to come right and show their skill set because maybe they were a little more dynamic and they could run around a little more. And create space because there's so much space out there, but create space for themselves to use that space. And, you know, guys come in and. Number one, you've got to respect the league when you get here. Right? If you're one of those guys like Chad Kelly, You know, and, and Chad, and Kelly's got a lot of physical tools and he's impressed the people in Toronto. But he's come up here and like, I want to be the next Doug Flutie. And I'm going to you. The implication was you would be that right out of the gate. Well, you better respect the league. And the quality of the players that are in it. And if you do, when you come in, you start to simplify it for yourself and you just say, okay, look, I can't do all of this. But I can kind of function with this part of the game. I can. Throw these balls and not think about the entire field and think about this half for a little bit until I get more comfortable and then learn the game like you were when you were young. Right. Instead of come in and say, I'm paying all my dues. I was a big time. One guy and I can do it all here. You know, So if you do that, you have the opportunity to, to have some success. But. You know, there will be quarterbacks that just say, no, I don't want to do that. There's a simple alternative for me here. And I'd rather go there and it's hard to blame them. Right. So I don't know that you're going to get a wholesale changes just because of the quarterback. If there's a bigger business case to be made for, you know, at some point it may get to that, but, you know, can they make some tweaks to this game to make it easier for quarterbacks to adjust? We'll find out because that's what they're looking at right now. What do you hear? You know, lots of made aisle. You know, like three down, oh, we be able to talk and. The USFL is not even going to kick off or they're not even going to make lawyer. You know, I mean, I taught, you know, we had Darren Gill on the show. He talked through some of his players opted out of CFL contracts to go to the youth. What do you hear? What's the chatter that far on here is. Yeah. You know, I, I, there are players that choose to go do that. And the reason they do that is because of flexibility. Right. Because right now you can get out of a one-year deal. Here, you can do it, but not on your rookie deal. Right. So your, you know, your rookie deal you're bound for a little bit, but then everything else has a window that. That you can then go explore after every year. So, you know, they're going through a CVA process. If that changes that everybody gets the opportunity to do that, I think you'll see less. The one eyebrow raiser was a Liam Dobson. The Winnepeg offensive lineman who chose to take a USFL deal. And that surprised some people, because if other players that are Canadian. Choose to do that. Now you're going to get into trouble. Because the ratio is something that constantly gets debated up here. And one of the arguments that the football ops people have to shrink the ratio is all the NFL opportunities Canadians are now getting right. So all of a sudden, if they go to these alternative leagues, just so they can have one year freedom. I think that's going to, you know, that's going to put some people in a bit of a panic, right? So look, do I think the USFL is going to get off the ground? I do. As long as they get this lawsuit resolved. I think they'll get off the ground. Right. Will the XFL get off the ground. I think they will. And I don't think. I there's a lot of people up here that think these bleeds will never survive. I don't believe that. I do think at some 0.1 league is going to find a niche and is going to be able to capitalize enough on bedding. And create something unique and consistent enough that people will want to bet on it and invest. That I think it will survive. I'm not going to say it's going to compete with the NFL or, or anything like that. But I do believe that it's out there. I don't think you can just say never happened. Never will. I definitely don't think two leagues are going to be able to do that. Right. So the fact that the U S. We have a one-year headstart. It's a good thing. But I think when you've got the rock and you know, and Danny Garcia and Redbird behind the other entity, I think that's a better thing. And then. The interesting part is the NFL wants to help both, right? Like they're there working with them on rules and, and other, you know, other partnerships to potentially grow the game. And that's a good thing. And I, and I would love to see the CFL go back down that road because there used to be an arrangement between the two leagues. There isn't any more, there's a respect there for contracts and what both leagues do, but I'd love to see more of a working relationship between the two, because I mean, just here's a small example. The global initiative. Okay. The CFL, tried it. Guess what? The NFL jumped right in. Right. And so now the best, the best global players are gonna go play in the NFL. And you look at various pro days. You know, university of Florida and a number of others. They bring in internationals. Right. They've got the NFL pathways program, so rugby players can transition and all those players. If they've got the chance to do the NFL thing because of the money and the fame that's associated with it, right. The same doesn't resonate up here. However, not all those guys are gonna make it. So why can't the two leagues? Have some synergies. We both want globals. We both want the global market and make this an international game. Yeah. Okay. Well, rather than a sea of all running a combine in Europe, why don't they work with the NFL on that? If they're going to have international people coming to their pro days, why don't they work with the CFL on that and find some ways to create some synergies to grow together. Right. I, yeah, I, I think you, I I'll tell you, I think, I don't know if you would want it, but, you know, commissioner of all this. I think he would be. That's now young for that. Maybe the worst job in professional sports is CFL commissioner. I love Randy. And Rosie's a good guy. He means, well, he's making a good effort and he's trying to think outside the box, but working for that board of governors. You know, I've always said one of nine is a lot more powerful than one. I'm 32. So, you know, the Winnipeg governor or pick, you know, pick your team's owner or governor has more sway than Jerry Jones. And they want to walk around, like they run the league and. It is, it is tough. For any commissioner to try to really affect long-term change because everybody's behind you at the start. But they also think they can control you. And then they can't. And then a couple of guys don't like you anymore, and now you're on borrowed time. Like. It is a tough job working for that board. Well, I it's fascinating. I certainly appreciate your time today talking through all of this making time. And I know you're a busy guy. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm glad. They'll get a little CFL. And a little USFL in there, so I appreciate it. Yeah. No fur, it's always a lot of fun for me to come on your show. I liked that you're, you've got tons of enthusiasm for all games and all things, wood ball, and you know, you don't, you. You know, you don't. Create those stereotypes and prejudices that if you don't like this, you can't like this. And you don't know that if you're, you know, Like there's so many people up here, NFL fans, who, the fact that I respect and appreciate the CFL, they think I know nothing about the NFL, right? Like I've been covering the NFL forever. Right. Got it covered. Multiple Superbowls drafts, pickets. But because I respect the CFL. I don't know anything about the NFL, right. It's a funny country that way, because yeah. I don't know why I can't just love football. Like. You know, this is, yeah, I know I got in hot water this week with something. This is the title this week as this is a pro USFL podcast. I got in some cause I get, cause God forbid, I said, you know, why are, why are they tweeting more photos? Because training camps and everything. Oh, man. I got, I go. So what's my hot take. Oh, absolutely. No, this was great. I had. I had time today to put down a ton of notes. For everything. Yeah, no, I'm very excited. I will do this. All right. I wish that I could have my fan on. But I think it's going to be too loud. It gets, it gets so high in my office. Cause this sun goes in. Yeah. If you don't mind me asking whereabouts. In Washington. Are you, are you kind of on the outskirts of Seattle or we're in west Seattle? So we're down we're, I mean, we're kind of by the stadiums, like, you know, Like 15 minutes from Sodo. Okay, where are you at? I'm I'm based out of San Diego. North county San Diego. So that's like 30 minutes. It's not. It's San Diego, but not really. Gotcha. Yeah. I remember it's nice a year west coast cause far harmless west coast today, too. It was nice. Like normally I'm trying to get up at fricking whatever time to get people, you know? Cause they're always like way ahead of time. So. It worked. I'm glad to see you in a bright disposition. Cause I had no idea after the Farhana. I was like, well, we'll see how. These are in after that. So [unknown] is the negative one. Farhan is a good one. I'm mixing it up. That's right. Sorry. I was thinking of a rush. No. I'll Raj is why is my, my white man. That's that's. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I totally, I totally flubbed that. I was like, I think I misread it when you said that. A message the other day. That's why. No. I, I, I go back and forth. I've tried to get a rush back on and it's one of those things like it's so divisive. Like I just don't even know if it's like worth it. Like I actually like our Asha. A lot. And I've just dealt with a bunch of b******t this week, like USFL people. And I actually wrote him and I was like, dude, I kinda get the s**t you get right now. Cause like, You know, you're just trying to give your opinion. You. You know, if they just don't like it, it's really weird. It's a really weird this USFL thing. And I'll get into a, do this ride, the show here, but like, it's very. I don't know how the hell a Fox owned like spring league is like the underdog or like quit bullying them or quit. Like, it's a very weird. I don't understand it. I don't, I guess I'll put it that way, but what we'll say is it. I didn't think I'd be learning so much about alternatively politics. Two years ago, but here we are. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll rock into this year. Okay. All right. Well, I'm very thrilled today. We have off of his, I would say stellar performance on the USFL. What was it? The supplemental draft livestream. We have Andrew Murray. And Mark's going to kill me cause I've already prerecorded everything else. XFL CFL news hub. And then USFL Nita said, I kept forgetting that. Welcome, Andrew, how are you? Great. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited. So we have a lot of action items today. I called Andrew. I said, I need someone knowledgeable. We're going to go through all the USFL step. And I'm going to preface this. Andrew, this is a pro USFL podcast today. That is the name of the episode. We are a pro you is about to be a little tenuous on social media this week, you know, negativity. Involving your boy re. The way the us about. So we're going to try it. Can you, how are you feeling first and foremost about the USFL before we get into all of this here, now that we have, you know, training camps opening up and all that. You know, I think. Gradually I becoming more positive towards the experience overall I at first was very unsure about it as most of us were last, I think summer when it was announced that it was coming back. Having no previous experience with it. I was not alive. Last time the USFL was around. And so for me, I was a bit apprehensive as time has gone on and more things have been released. I've become more into the idea of it and more invested in it. Especially this week with the rules being released. That's a huge one for me. So I'm gradually being more invested. They've had to kind of slowly bowl the rope on me a little bit. Yeah. And I mean, that's where I'm at. I do feel good as well. I feel good about the rules. I, I always say like critiquing with like actionable stuff. Like this week, it was training camps. I had a lot of like, I wish we were seeing more. Right. I wish we were seeing more like, that's tangible things we can act on saying like, well, this sucks or I'm not going to watch. That's hating, that's criticizing for the sake of criticizing saying like, I think Fox sports could do more at showing and we've seen some photos. We've seen a little bit of like the classroom staff. I saw some players stretching on the field. Like, that's good, but I mean, you're owned by Fox. Like I would expect a bare minimum that, you know, it's always, what is the bare minimum that they can do to get by. And I just think people want more than that. And, you know, I guess we shouldn't say that sometimes, I guess. That's where I'm at. I got a lot of heat this week, first day. I'm like, I think we should see more. Well, I'll try to be a Saint on today's show, but no promises. So we have a lot of actionable stuff. A lot of us have old news. I hope you have your work pants on today. So we have the update for the real USFL burse USFL lawsuit. That's I have these kinds of an order here. We have the new Carolina Panthers, trademark opposition coming in. We had this bet responsibly we'll touch on the, the sports betting. Just we'll kind of update that. Obviously the rule books being released, the players coming into training camp. The, and then we have a little bit of MLSP I want to talk about with Terry Shea and then the FCF stuff at the end. So that's kind of where we're going to go with this. And, and we'll just kind of go through it in chronological order, I think is probably the easiest way to kind of break all this down. So I had Tim bill on the show. Last week, we broke down a lot more of the USFL. Real USFL vs. USFL, LLC, Fox sports. Thoughts on the lawsuit. And then we have a new update with court filings and dates and things like that to update the listeners on. Yeah. I just wanted to say actually a phenomenal job with Mr. Billick and also Michael Cola and the other IP lawyer that I brought on, it really gave me a lot of background knowledge. And in fact, My father is actually also worked at an IP lawyer. As an IP lawyer as well. So he's very versed in that. I haven't brought this specific case to him yet. I would love to see what his stakes on it are as you've done with these other copyright lawyers. But. Yeah, it's. It seems to be such a muddy picture. It seems to be so gray area where you have one camp. Saying. Basically that it's. This is the USFL property that we previously own. Steve Earhart and company basically say, this is what we had. This is what we've always had. You have absolutely no right to come in and swoop in and take an, all the glory, all the hard work and all of the effort that we put into this league. And just start repurposing it. Putting over another coat of paint and redistributing it without paying any homage to the previous league whatsoever. And then you've got the other side and box and. The national spring league and Ryan Woods or whatever entity. It keeps changing its name to be. Saying, well, actually, matter of fact, you have no. Dog. And despite in terms of the actual copyright usage, because you have been not using it for extended period of time or sparingly using it to the point where it doesn't actually seem to factor in terms of actual usage rate. I think the way that. Tim Milligan Michael Cohen Brock. Broke that down last. For the last month has been really interesting to just see how those fine lines are. And honestly, I mean, I hate to just sound like everyone else, but it sounds like it could break either way and I'm not exactly sure which one I'm going to lean towards Fox getting this done somehow, like somehow finding a way to settle. But. It really depends on the judge and the time of day, I guess. Yeah, I think it's, it's questionable. What's interesting too. And it goes along in this same idea, cause there's this, you know, Fox is reaping the benefits you could argue off of past work. Right. And then we'll get into the rule book here as well. But similar sentiment I've seen this week with XFL fan saying like, well, those were XFL rules, you know? The USFL is using them. I've seen a lot of debate about that, right? On Twitter and on Facebook and things like, well, there are good rules. Why should we let them go? And, you know, obviously we want to have the right. So it's interesting. You're coming into this a lot where it's like, Fox is. Benefiting from the time they're hitting right now being a year out, XFL, not being here. They're profiting off of the USFL, trademarks being abandoned. They're profiting off of the XFL rules being the BA I mean, it's a lot of opportunistic, right? And you can say that smart or that shady, however you want to come down on it. But I mean, that is the facts. I mean, you can. You can either agree with it or disagree with it. But the fact is that Fox is being very advantageous with the environment that they are in right now. A hundred percent. Absolutely. And I I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. It seems to be a lot of, again, repurposing and that's kind of what's going on, especially even with, like you said, the rules. There's a ton of XFL rules that have been incorporated into this rule book. You can see it clear as day, even some AAF rules, like for example, the, the fourth and 12 conversion, as opposed to the on-site kick. That was a rule that was a knee. Yeah. And then the XFL, obviously the three point conversion. Some of the other mechanics, such as sorry for one moment. I just want to double check my notes here. I don't want to step on any toes here. As far as this. Yeah, just basically in terms of like how it's structured, what, and I just, I wonder. I just, I wonder, like I obviously they're paying. Respect to Sam Schwartzstein and his incredible work and putting together the XFL rule book. But. Is there really acknowledgement of it. It doesn't seem to be the case. And I've seen that from USFL fans or people who seem to be more attached to the USFL that basically. Said, well, look at how it compares to the NFL. Look at this rule book versus the NFL rule book. And I would, I personally would like to see a little more acknowledgement of what was in there before. The USFL came around in terms of some of these innovations and some of these changes that were being done in other leagues and not just especially considering the XFL is still around and is finding them to be back at some point, I think. Just to. Acknowledging that would be something I would like to see more of. But as we, as I'm sure you have seen read, obviously all of these. Camps and the spring league circles seem to become divided and sort of huddled in their own areas. There's not really a lot of, not always a lot of crossover. As far as people who are interested in these leagues or want to support these leagues all the time. And it seems like. People kind of. Huddle into their own little corner and kind of proclaim why they're the best. It's weird. I mean, and that's I, when we started this podcast, I just, you know, it was the XFL mark Hass. We figured we talk about anything. Obviously got a lot of feedback from the CFL fans about that. I really, honestly, never once in a million years ever thought there would be a USFL V XFL, whatever I never did. I always thought, oh, it's a Canadian thing. And I respect that. And they're gambled like, The American they're not going to care. And, and it is, it's very divisive. I'll continue covering all of this stuff equally as we can. But, but it is it's this. With the Sam of it all. And I'm hoping I got some smoke from the fire on that one. You know, I'm just a big fan of like acknowledging where things came from. It's the same story with these trademarks. Bring in Steve Earhart, bring in those guys, if you're going to use it, whatever that costs, same thing with these rules, bring in Sam or acknowledge that or pay whatever that is pay. I mean, you're not like it doesn't like he owns the rules, right? I mean, Sam didn't like. Patent that patent the whatever, but like, I it's, again, it's profiting about these things, so we'll get into the rules, but the update. So the court case, so Tim Bella came on last week. We were trying to figure out the timeline. Tim said there, they're going to refile on the 17th. And they low my whole day did after we got off. So real USFL refiled their complaint, they updated a lot of things. There was a lot of typo errors in the original complaint. They had sued the wrong Fox sports. We don't need to talk about that. A lot of, a lot of errors, they added in a bunch of other information. It was really handy. The judge actually made them resubmit like a red lined. Complaint. So you could actually see everything that had been updated in the original complaint, which was incredibly helpful for me. Right? Cause it's like a 46 page thing to go through. So the hearing now is scheduled for April 18th at one 30. That is the Monday following the, the ex. The USFL kickoff. So, you know, Again, like no one ever thought like, okay, this is going to like halt the league right. At minimum they thought, okay, they, they might, we might have the [unknown]. As against the aviators or whatever, but USFL, unless they settled or anything moves forward. Earlier it is scheduled for April 18th in courtroom seven, a in Los Angeles, California, you know, Buy your plane tickets. If you want to go check that out, but that is the update with that. We're still kind of in a holding pattern. I've been waiting to hear back from the real USFL side about those things. I think that we could get some traction on that here in the next couple of weeks. So, I guess. They put a pin in that specific action item. Anything else on that lawsuit? April 18th. Yeah, and I, I, well, I wonder, like you said, in terms of like all the red lining in terms of putting all of the things after the fact, I think it didn't help the Earhart camp. That, that seemed to be a little bit. Discombobulated at the beginning. And sort of, as you said, like going after the wrong entity in the lawsuit, which is a bit of a red flag, I, I also wonder, I mean, in terms of also having all this time leading up to this, when they are well aware of what Fox's intentions were, but. That being said. I mean, could you imagine if say the first week it goes off without a hitch, they go through all these games. They have this big showcase on NBC and Fox simultaneously. And then suddenly an injection comes in and they have to stop using the logos. Like that would just be complete chaos. And I don't think that's going to happen for a variety of reasons. I don't think the judges. Either a going to rule that and B I get, I'm not a legal expert, so I don't know, but what do I know? But I don't think a judge is going to do that. And it'd be, I think Fox is going to find a way to sort of push it back and find a way to kind of get it at least until after the season. But that would be. That would be crazy if that Ashley was able to go through. A day after the first weekend. Where to transpire. I mean, that would, that would just be out of control. I've never heard of anything like that. Personally, I've heard of financial situations, like they S shutting down in the middle of the week because of financial problems, but for. A legal reason to come in, to shut down a league. Or to shut down the local usage. That's a first for me. Yeah, Mark Perry, always jokes in the, in the exit on news hub chat, like, you know, aliens was always predicted to stop the next XFL right now. It wouldn't, wouldn't be a court filing, but I, yeah, so. But, I mean, they're, they're looking at me, it says on here, you know, they are wanting final judgment. You know, they're not able to register your own cell traffic, use the name. I mean, this would be a full shutdown of it. You know, if real USFL with Steve Earhart and them, if they got their way, it would be the death of using those marks moving forward. So the second item that came out. So this earlier this week came, I think it was Monday. So the Carolina Panthers have filed the trademark opposition against the spring league, LLC. Which is interesting because. Th they, the USFL marks were kind of acquired by Brian through the spring league, transferred to the national spring football league, LLC, which then became the unit. The USFL, LLC. Very confusing. And if you're confused, following that you are not alone. But it came out that they are. I filed an opposition, not against USFL LLC, but against the spring league for the Carolina Panthers because of the Michigan Panthers. Mark. Were you surprised when this came out? I was a little surprised. I quite frankly. Yes. As opposed to the filings that were made against the roughnecks, for example, in the, in the XFL where there was like, Direct. Supposedly direct lineage to the Houston Oilers logo in the NFL and also the. The new England Patriots logo as well. This one, I was not expecting. I didn't. I. I'm assuming it's just based on name and nothing else as opposed to whatever else, but I've never specifically. I don't remember seeing that too often, as far as just the name, if it's a logo, that's one thing. If it's a, if it's a graphic design issue, I understand. But yeah, I was not really expecting that one. So it's just another, another thing. And including that and the, the hotel. Situation as well for just another thing on the, on the desk for Mr. Woods and others to figure out. So. Yeah. Let's another one at this point, I guess. Well, as I say, I say, you know, you're kicking Fox and all that. You're kicking them while they're down. They made another legal opposition. But this is interesting. I was talking with listener south about a lot of this stuff. I think the idea is that the Carolina Panthers actually have like Panthers, trademark, like that is, and it's odd. Right? You normally don't. Trademark something that generic, right. I have like best made videos trademarked, like for my company. And I think even when I was trying to trademark that, I think I ran into a little bit of issue. Cause they're like, that's kind of like a soft right. That doesn't like, okay. Like apple used to describe technology. That's like a very specific case study. Right. But like best made videos is appreciated. I think I have the one where if I just use it for long enough, like I get it, it's like grandfathered in or whatever, but I mean, there's other Panthers. Like there's the four of the Panthers and I know that's hockey, but there's. Other football there's college. Right? I. There's plenty of Panther football teams. Weird. Th that this came out. I mean, it's, again, it's March 21st. It's like three weeks to kick off. I mean, this is when you're in the spotlight, when you're getting a lot of action, you know, Yeah. So like, what does that mean for the Florida Panthers? And the NHL, right? Like I'm like, okay. So are they not allowed to use that either? I got, I don't know if that what crossover there is there and it's not, it's not exactly. Taco Tuesday. Being trying to be trademarked by LeBron James, do you remember that? A couple of years ago, he tried to actually trademark the, the, the tag taco Tuesday. Obviously he was denied. But I, yeah, I mean, it is such a. Wide umbrella. It's such a wide net cast here. I, I'm not sure where it's going to go. Exactly. And with what sort of. Expediency, it's going to be covered because as, as, as Tim mentioned last week, When you were talking to him, there's not always a. Like, there's always sort of a timeline with how these lawsuits are processed and. Where it's going along in terms of where the priority is, and also how many there are in front of them. So who knows when. The dates are going to be set for this one, if it's going to be after the, I, I would think again, maybe at this point, maybe it'll be near the end or that the end of the season, but. Yeah. I mean, that's just. Another strike. To deal with here for Fox. Yeah. So they, yeah. Opposite the complaint. As of us recording this Thursday yet to be responded to right at, you know, they have a. Window right to respond and all that. I'll keep an eye on this one. I'm trying to just monitor that way, but there's this Mandurah and the SA associates out of LA. I think they kind of like scour a lot of. Trademark, you know, when there's at, when certain things pop up in the court system and it's like, Ooh, okay, there's opposition here. So they credit to them for that. So we'll see. I would keep an eye on it. It's just interesting, you know? The NFL and, you know, they they've said they were going to work with the USFL. Right. They said they weren't going to not work with, but certainly not like get in the way of it. And this is something where that's certainly, you know, this is not following that same kind of logic here. So. Any other thoughts on that? We'll put a pin in the trademark and legal staff and talk about the USFL training camps and rules. Well, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that last point, you know, again, as you mentioned, there is a relationship previously with boxing, the NFL, again, with how much in terms of their relationship, their broadcast relationship. And I wonder maybe that was more with the league office than it was actually the individual teams and the owners who obviously there's two different sides of the NFL. There's the governing, well, supposedly governing body and the commissioner's office. And then the owners who are the ones that. Typically seem to have more of the power. So I guess it's a matter maybe if they thought that they had a relationship with the league office. But not so much the individual owners, maybe that's where some of this. Misunderstanding is or not, not previously thought to be cordial relationship. Absolutely. Yeah, because I mean, this is from my understanding. This is a Panthers route. Yeah. You're absolutely right in pointing that out. That just because the NFL might be, have a working relationship with your Eric shanks and Goodell or whatever, not necessarily the 32 team owners are going to feel. That's an excellent point. So this came out. Early this week. You know, we know the USFL is big on the sports betting, all that stuff. And Fox is big. And the Fox beds they're working with the American gaming association, right. Bet responsibly and all that. Obviously that's good. And keeping in our pro USFL podcast theme today. Are you big on, do you think people are actually going to bet on USFL games? Look, it is one of the most sought after sports. As far as bedding every single year. I have so many people in my life. Who are so ravenously. Engaged with sports betting specifically in football. And I think. And that goes for NCAA that goes for the NFL. And I think with the spring league and just how more ubiquitous it's become. And how many more partnerships have been formed? You know, seizure sports book, obviously starting to work with the NFL this past year, after years of them kind of pretending to want to get involved. And then they finally just pulled the. Finally pulled the trigger. Aye. You know, I think. It's going to be more like people. Like us or people who actually are really religiously involved with the league. I don't know about casual people. That's the only thing I'm not sure about. I don't know if there's going to be like a widespread, like casual viewership of this league or interest in this league, just based on the sports betting alone. I'm sure that's part of the reason of why they started it. Of course. Sure. That's part of bringing in that demographic. I just don't know. How well it's known or how. How effective that might be in year one, maybe year two, maybe with more marketing strategy and more investment and more. You know, trying to get the word out there because we've obviously. We've all talked about how, you know, again, at the top. About, well, why haven't they done this? Or where where's it been? The viewership? Why is it NBC promoted it during Superbowl week or during the super bowl itself? For example. So I don't know if it's really going to be as involved this year. I would wager if they get through your one. They probably have more success in year two with more of a buildup towards it, because I think about it read as well. You know, it's, it's newly it's new players. It's new rules. There's no predictability on here. Like people want to at least feel like they know enough about a sport or a team or a player, or have an inkling of something that they can guess. What's going to happen. And even with the XFL is involved in is as much as it pushed for the betting aspect so much. I'm sure there was still hesitancy for people thinking, well, I don't know this team. And what do you mean you can do a three point conversion and tie a game when you're down nine. I talked to someone who said that they were like, that's crazy. I would, I can't. But on point spreads knowing that's part of the factor, you know, it's changing football, of course. It's great. It's innovating, but it's also changing the mindset of the betters too. So I don't know if that necessarily is a factor, but it, it could be just based on the level of. Unknowness in this case. I totally agree. I mean, we did the supplemental draft, you and me and Evan and Vince, you know, like we are. Vince literally watches like, you know, European football, VOD. Like obviously we all, you know, you guys write for the news hub and you're like, well, I kind of know that guy, like, I don't know that guy. I think I might know that we're going through the list as they're being drafted. I'm like, If I'm Joe Schmoe. I don't know if I'm betting on that. I mean, I, in theory, and I think that's a great point that you brought that, but I honestly didn't even think about yet, like having these different rules in the point swings and that, you know, The onside kick thing. You go for it. Be able to go nine points as a one score game. It changes the spreads a lot. And I think that Vegas in them. You know, it's even with the CFL, it doesn't get as much traction because it's not that exact specific game that they know that they can bet on. There's a lot of nuances in that, that you really have to be dedicated to be able to take advantage of. Yeah. No. I absolutely agree. And, and, and I think, again, look, there's, like I said, there will be people there'll be. You know, Junkies who are going to be involved with this no matter what, but just from the standpoint of, you know, like a point being made of, oh, like I think in the video about the point, the extra points. They mentioned on the use of Bell's Twitter page. I think they mentioned about like, oh, if you're down at 18, it's only two scores. I mean regular football. That's a threescore lead. Like you think. Oh, we're safe. No worries. Like, whatever Moneyline I put down, I am totally fine. Now you really have to start thinking about that. And so now maybe again, if people get used to the rules, then they can start thinking about that. But upon first launch, It might deter some people. Totally agree. I totally agree. So speaking of the roadblocks, so they release this alongside all that the USFL players, you know, everyone's showing up in Birmingham, any. General thoughts any of that coverage before we, cause I do want to spend, we've been on this long already. I appreciate that. You want to spend the bulk of time actually talking about these rules. Any general thoughts of the players arriving, how that was handled, any excitement you saw or didn't see online? I just think it's it's. I think we had a really good back and forth on actually, I think it was on your Twitter about the, the hard knocks light. Some really good quotes made on there by. By sober your users. But yeah, I don't, I'm not really sure what their aim is there. I mean, like I said, it looked like a normal, regular, it looked like a university promo. Like it looked like something you would film for like your university, like, look, come tour our campus. Like, it looks really nice, but. It's doesn't seem like there's really gritty, hard quality. Or something there that's going to entice me as a viewer to necessarily engage with it. I am not quite sure. I think one of your, one of your panelists last week talked about F1 and how much more visible and much more excess. Accessible it's become for people just based on the way that it's been portrayed and marketed. And also with filming, that's gone into it as of late. And I. Can't say I'm really impressed by what has been put out there. Now. Maybe there's more footage to come down the pipeline and that's great if that's coming. You know, after week one or training camp or whatever. Great. But based on the initial promo I'm. Can't say it's really anything remarkable. Yeah. So th. Yeah. So the catchy, if you don't email and a lot of our viewers, right? Don't. You know, all the different social medias. So a lot of chatter had came out Monday night, whether the players was on a, another, I think it was a USFL network made you like live stream player interviews. And there was like an Instagram post. Hey come out. And they had said. There's going to be cameras filming the hard knocks style. I documented a documentary TV show during the USFL. And the problem, when you say that is people will get hard knocks. And that has a certain level of threshold, right? That they are expected where if I just stay, like I'm shooting behind the scenes stuff, or we're going to be shooting some photos, but for whatever reason, when you see we have a hard knocks or like a drive to survive, F1 that we were talking about, like you said, last week with Jason Gregor. This is a certain level of expectation. So that had all come out Tuesday, all the players were coming in and it was like I had went and got my gums looked at for my dumped teeth thing. And it was like three in the afternoon. So it was like five, it was five Birmingham time. Cause they had been there all day and I'm like the league. They hadn't posted anything. They had posted one meme early in the morning, like, oh, training camp is starting. And I just, I tweeted, I said, I have a hard time believing that a league that has not posted a single photo or video of anybody arriving today is somehow going to like whip up a hard knocks thing. I want to see that I want to be proven wrong. I don't. I don't not want anything to come, but like, I just don't see the same league that didn't stream their draft. Right. They had us and others doing yo draft coverage and, and, and he was all on Twitter and everything like. You're going to get a lot of that. I just don't like. I saw people like, oh, it's going to be on peacock. It's going to be on Fs one. I'm like the draft wasn't on anything. Why are they going to put this on anything? Like it's mine that it's not like, let's, I just. But that was what caused a lot of the drama. Well, like why go through the effort of, for instance, putting. The draft lottery. On speak for yourself mid day. You went through all that effort. Okay, fine. You put on not Kalin Colin coward and you decided to put it on speaker yourself and have a lottery and then not show the draft. Like I would imagine that the MBA did that. We're like, well, we're going to show you the lottery will not show you the actual draft coverage. You guys will read about that later on. I mean, it just, it kind of like almost takes out the actual purpose of drama of the whole situation. And again, these are brand new teams we're talking about. There's no lineage beyond, you know, the oldest of USFL, which again, it seems disassociated. And you don't have any history building up to it anyways. So I don't get, like, I don't get that strategy. That's that is very bizarre. And yeah, I'm glad you brought up about, you know, the level of quality that we expect in the hard knocks thing. You know, it's also a matter of like, what do we expect out of hard knocks? We expect, first of all, good quality footage. We expect storylines. We expect showcasing of what could be featured from the team that's being featured in the documentary itself, because this might be all eight teams as opposed to just one team. And really the biggest thing for me. And I really hope that Fox gets this is profiles, player profiles. Why are they there? What are they doing? Where are they been? Where are they trying to go to. Like the reason that things like, for example, last chance you. On Netflix is so compelling is because it's falling. These guys who have these really interesting backstories and someone that you really are convinced to root for. And so that they get another chance to be able to succeed. I, I think for me, that's one of the biggest things that anyone watches, string football. A lot of people like us. Are really invested in these people's stories. And I really hope that they get that as opposed to just being well. Here's how the football team works and here's their operation and this is what they're doing. Cool. That's great. I also want to know who are these people? Like, that's really what I want to know. Yeah. No. I mean, and do I not think I absolutely believe that they're filming behind the scenes? I absolutely. Yeah. It's like, of course. It's box like. You know, they have LA Cruz. Like Fox has crews that are doing, I just. I just like to set expectations because I, he just, they would just went crazy with that. Like I said, that, that, so at the end of the day they did post like a 22nd promo video and it was fine. I mean, I, I film w I. Avery every quarter, I go film these wedding network events. I do a 62nd Instagram real every time that's part of what I'm hired to do. I mean, that's what it is, blah. [Unknown] like that's 20 minutes to edit that, to do it, you know, a couple of time lapses. So I just, I just want to set expectations. I just thought it was interesting. I got a lot of flack for that. So, so players are, and we have the rule book. I guess. They released a couple of very XFL inspired social media videos. Did you notice that, that the videos that they use to like kind of show some of the things very reminiscent? If you look at the mark cast, if you look at our. Podcasts logo. That is from the XFL that's showing the devil. I don't know if anyone ever knows that that's showing the devil forward path. If you look at our podcast logo, As they will for a pass as a. Animated in the XFL, whatever. So these, so they came out with all this stuff. So we have the extra points. We have the instant replay. We have kickoffs, we have the on-site kick over time and then penalties. So. And we could spend an hour on this, but we're going to go. So I'll, I'll read this and then we'll get your thoughts on this. So for the extra points, so they're going to have three different options. So if you remember, the XFL had no kicking for extra points, it was like, you could go for one from the one, right. Two from the two and then three from the 10. Right? Is that, so now you, you can still kick for the one point from the 15 yard line that. You know, standard kind of whatever. If you do a two point conversion from the two yard line, you get that. And then the three points from the three. What do you think of them? Having the three point conversion. But then also keeping the option to do an extra point kick from one. Yeah. So actually I really liked this because for this reason, I think the XFL. Emphasis on almost trying to eliminate the kicker as a position in multiple ways was maybe in my opinion, just a little bit overkill. I think kickers still have a purpose. I know I'm not, no, I'm not flying a banner in the back of my house saying kickers or people to or anything like that. I'm not. I, you know, I'm, I'm not like so orderly, like running around. Proclaiming my affinity for special teams players, but I think there's a place for them. And I think there's a, there's still important factors. And they're part of the strategy. They're part of the strategy of the game. I think the reason that you see like in the NFL, for example, why teams are starting to go for two more often or why they're going for fourth down instead of on field goal range, just because either a they're kickers. Not quite up to stuff or they think they have personnel. That's good enough to get more points. Out of just kicking an extra point. Look, you know, take the Houston roughnecks for example, their game. I remember against the Tampa bay Vipers, they were down three, nothing. They score a long touchdown pass to capsules. And then they go for three. This is the first touchdown in the game. You don't need to go for three, you can score points, like no problem, but they are so confident going for three from the 10 that they said, we have PJ Walker, who's on fire right now. And we dare you to stop us. And they didn't, they got a three point conversion. So it's also about personnel. So I liked that they have this mix of okay. I trust my kicker. I have no problem with this. Let's go for an extra point or they'd be like, Hey, I really believe in my offensive skill positions. And I think we can go for more points right now. I like that you can experiment because of the XFL. The problem was too. I don't think they were ready. Not every team had the right skill position. Players have the right sets to deal with it. Like the one, two and three. Hey, I have to, like every time you had to go for two and I'm like, a lot of these teams are not ready for this. It's something that has to be ironed out. Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard. It's hard to like the one yard line play is very difficult. You know, it becomes very compressed right at the end of the night. That's why the CFL has that wider open end zone. It just allows for a lot more because if you're at the five, it's really like you're at the 25 or whether you just have a lot more like area to mess with. And so, yeah. It's honestly, it probably be easier to go for three from 10 than it is to, from two, just because of like the distance you're able to cover. I like this. I think it's good. I think you have to wait when they came out and they said like Brightwoods with the Roy as Johnson interview, a couple of, I guess it was in February, he said 98% of our rules are going to come from the NFL. I hope there was enough differentiation. There is here. I'm very glad about that. So, yeah. So there you go. 1.2 0.3 points. We have all that. Instant replay. W we had tied about this cause Mike Pereira had done an interview earlier on talking about, you know, Mike Pereira is kind of the head of officiating. It's a one man is overseeing there's no like council of anybody. The USFL replay command center at Fox sports will make all of the replay decisions. So the effect is one replay crew, because for all of these, they gave it like a pro and a con like why we did this. So I guess for the extra points, it was a fact teams trailing by nine points or last have an opportunity to close the gap. There you go. Reason Adelaide game excitement by preread chances we'll come back. Okay. I'll get used to this recently. Episode 85. So then the effect for the answer replay one replay clue will make all the decisions, reason achieve accuracy, consistent, faster ruins, and there's only one. Replay a lap per coach with, you know, typically in an NFL game, you would have to replay or to challenge flags per game thoughts on the instant replay. I'm curious. I don't think it mentioned anything about if they win the challenge that they get. Another one. Cause the NFL to. When to you get another one? I don't know if it mentioned that at all. Doesn't say on here, it says they replay has the authority to overrule and cry personal fouls. I would imagine you do if you use it and get it. Cause they. They basically the press release that they sent out was basically highlighting all the differences. So you didn't see like nowhere in here. Did it talk about like feet inbounds equating to a catch? And so I think the, you know, the thought is if it's not mentioned it's NFL rule. So I would imagine if you use the replaying, you get it, you will also be able to get another one. Yeah. As far as how the game is legislated. That's kind of more my question as far as like what that factors into the replay. And the other thing I'm wondering about is it doesn't seem like it's going to be as transparent as the XFL was in terms of like showing the guy with the controller and the video screen and going through on the little bit on the live mic, on the hot mic, basically saying what he was seeing and what angles he was using and what the factor, how did that factor into the decision? Like that was a really big aspect. Of that league. And I think that doesn't seem to be the case here. I think it's more just, oh, well we have this replace that et cetera. And they can do all these things. But you can't see it. Like it's going to be kind of behind the curtain still as, as it is in New York with the NFL. So that's my thing is like, this is basically what the NFL, right? I mean, they. You know, they always say like, let's go to New York and say that. I mean, it does. The one challenge. I liked, I dunno, I like challenges. I like, I like that, but you know, cutting down on that, that's fine. But it's like, yeah. So you're, you're putting up the wizard of Oz curtain for the replay, but then you're also limiting the number of challenges you have to one. So it does seem like it's. It's disadvantages on both sides where I have less challenges and also less transparency of what I'm seeing. I do not. I get, they're trying to speed up the game. I don't know. It's weird too, to highlight this in their rules, but it feels eerily similar to the NFL stands the, the replay or that the challenge flags. Yeah. And I think with Mike, for being involved, I think that's to be expected seeing is that he obviously has been ahead of officiating there and he's been very involved in the NFL rule book and. Stylings for a long time. So I, I'm not, I'm not surprised that there's not really a transparency. Any revolutions made here. Like there's no. It's not like the sky judge or anything of that nature that's being involved here, but you know, as long as they make. Accurate articulate calls and they're able to judge properly. That's fine. You just don't want that again. That's a factor that you don't want to get involved, especially with bedding. If you want to get more better as you need to make sure that your game is also fair and equal. A hundred percent. Okay, so that's for that. So the kickoffs, I saw a lot of like, oh, it's the XFL kickoff. It is not the XFL kickoff. I can say that. Assuredly from talking to someone very close to the XML roadblock this week that it is not the XFL kickoff. All kickoffs will be from the 25 yard line. No kicking teammate lineup. Any further back than the one you asked mine receiving two must have basically they're just moving. They, they kick her back right there. They're moving the carrier there. They're trying to prevent touch backs. The effect is create more yet safer. Kickoff returns increase big play potential with more return kickoffs rather than touch backs. My question though is April aligning further back. Are we, are we increasing the distance that we're then traversing to re to recover the cat? Right. I'm glad you brought that up. Read. Yes, exactly. I see it didn't mention anything. As far as it said that they would be able to start running start after it's kicked after a certain distance. But unlike the XFL, which had the players lined up five yards from each other on, I want to say the 30th, the 35 yard line. And then would initiate contact once the ball was touched. Which showed the statistics show that it was very safe. Sam Schwartz seen again, it has gone over this extensively about how much it cut down on all of the injury possibilities. This does not seem to be the case. In this league. And that is why I kind of raised an eyebrow at the safety angle, because it sounds to me, like you said, not only are they still running full speed, they have more of a headstart to run it into full speed. So I, I'm not quite sure where that thought comes in here. So I I'm. I understand getting rid of touch backs. I totally get it. You want it? You just want to see. Yeah, kickoff returns because it's become an obsolete art in NFL. You. We don't have Devin Hesters anymore. Like, because teams have just said, well, I don't have to do that anymore. So, I mean, I, I do like the CFL game for the kickoff returns a lot more. I mean, if you, if you are someone that likes special teams, I mean, the CFL is obviously the league for you in that way. Yeah. It's weird. The punts, they, they. I, some of this stuff is lost on me when I'm trying to like, read this. At ponds, gunners may not line up outside the numbers and they cannot be double-teamed blocked until the ball is kicked. Yeah, that part, the timing on that is really strange. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to play out because it's because obviously I think you don't, you're allowed to do so, regardless of whether the ball has been hunted or not. In the NFL, but in this case, I like trying to, I think, peripherally, I'm just trying to think how players are going to be able to sort of engage that while they're looking at the ball being kicked and also being engaged with the person that's in front of them. That part I'm not really quite sure. I mean, I'm sure they'll go over this and training camp, but that. That to me is a little odd too. I'm not, I, that part I'm really don't know how that's going to play out. You guys, I feel like it's going to be a little. Confusing. I feel like we're going to see some special team coverage, EHRs. At first, the first couple of weeks, at least. Yeah. It feels like, and I was kinda talking to Dorothy about this last night. My wife, it feels like. You know, we saw like we're picking and choosing and like we're, we're taking some AAF, we're taking some XFL, we're taking some, you know, spring league, whatever stuff with the clock or whatever else. But. You know, When Sam did all this for the XFL, it was a lot of testing. They use the Springleaf for testing and they have the training camps for testing. I mean, here we are. It's it's March 24th. Players are hitting the field, you know, tomorrow really. I mean, they're meeting and stretching and doing things with ever, like we have two and a half, three weeks here, the kind of get ready. I don't know. I think you're right. They were going to see some special teams errors here. Coming up. The on-site kick versus scrimmage play. So they're able to obviously do an on-site kick. I think we've murdered the kick, an onside kick in the NFL at me. It's not excited at all anymore. Yeah, but you're able to do, and this is funny cause the AAF did this. But then never forget this is fan controlled football. This is the flip that they've let the field play or whatever the hell that was, that that they've met, that the one team did like every time. And then they had to like, stop the game and be like, no, you guys can't do this anymore. He was just like, we're going to flip the field. We're gonna flip the field. We're gonna flip the field. So you're able to, as opposed to doing an on-site kick, you can do a fourth and 12 from the 33 yard line. And if you get a first down, you get possession and if you fail, the defense gets the ball. Yeah. Okay. So again, this is the good part of the rule book. When you have options, when you have options between what do I want to do? Based on the Atlanta Lytics, the statistics do I think I have a good enough special teams unit. Do I think I have a good shot at recovering? This ball is my kicker able to spin that thing and be able to have it ricochet off somebody's foot or arm or something and be able to recover it, or do I trust my offense enough to be able to convert a fourth and 12? From the 25 yard line is. Again, that's strategy. And I like that part of it. If you're able to give options, that's great. And some teams will be more quick for others than other things. Other points, you know, some special team units will be great. Other people will say, Hey, my offense is on fire right now. We just scored a touchdown. I want to get right back on the fields. I think also it helps having actual coaches and coordinators and things like working through this. I think that was a problem in fingertip football. This is like, well, let's just go for it again. Let's just go for it because you have this like modern mentality. Cause I watched that game and I was like, this is why I'm like, they're never going to get the ball back. They're never going to and. You know, so. I don't think you're going to run into that problem. I agree with you having options haven't used, like you just need a couple different, like what's different. You're talking to your buddy, what's different about the USFL? Like, well, you can go for three and they kinda got this interest in like, you know, Not what the hell is it? Not on-site kick, you know, different. Oh, okay. Like that's cool. Yeah. We just need a couple of things to like, You know, what is different about that? So they have the plants here. Anything else on that I want to get to the overtime. No again, it's, it's nice to see them give a nod to the cause. That's actually a rule change that I really. Liked and appreciated. I've seen it. I saw a couple teams try it near the end of game one that I think actually converted it. And it was like, oh my gosh, they're going to start going down the field. And then I think the drive stalled, but it was cool, but it was cool though. It was kind of like, oh, wow. Well, if you actually let somebody do this, so again, I hope that we're able to get a full sample size this time and be able to see this over the course of the season. See how it goes. Yeah. Th this is I'm reading the overtime when I'm smiling at this. So the effect of why they are doing this unique overtime. In fact. Both teams have an equal chance of winning. Oh good. I would hope that at a minimum, that is, that is the fact that we have with this overtime. So this is the like XFL meets CFL. Like we're mini gaming. Cause the CFL, they do the mini games. XFL had the shootout. It is a best of three. That's the three place shoot out each team's offense. We'll alternate plays between the opposing team's defense from the two yard line. So it's going to be like a two point conversion. Each successful scoring will receive two points. Why does it need to be two points? Why can't, why would it just be one point? But you get two points per successful. The team with the most points after three plays wins. If you, if you tie, then you become Sendak. The overtime period will extend until a winner is declared. Well, I get the penalty shootout aspect of it in terms of like being able to let other teams have a fair amount of chances. But again, what. My point earlier, as I was saying, not all teams are equipped to be able to run those kinds of plays from short yard situations. That's going to clearly disadvantage somethings more than others. And look, maybe you need to practice that. I understand that, but it's going to clearly like disadvantage. Certain teams over the others. And. I will say, at least it's not the college system, which I'm not sure. I know you're not a huge college football fan, but have you seen the recent overtime system for college football? I've heard that it just goes forever. It's like 60 to 65 or with. It just never ends. Well, it used to, but the thing is now, like there was a game last. October, I think it was, it was Illinois and Penn state. And I believe I have to double check this, but I believe it was nine overtimes. Can you guess what the final score was? Really high. It was like, no, it was like 18 to 16. It was nothing because they kept going for two and they kept missing. It's like either they're missing or sometimes they responding. It went on forever. It was crazy. I don't know if I ever want to see something like that again, personally, it was, it was, it was kind of a hard watch. So at least this kind of takes that out of it. But again, I, you know, It's interesting because we never saw this next film. No one played in overtime. The Vipers were also close doing it against the wild cats, that last game, and they couldn't convert the last drive. So, I mean, again, Where are the bouquets showing up on Sam Shorenstein front door for this? Because again, this is another innovation now. We're going to see it actually played out. But I would like to see some sort of acknowledgement again, of that rule being proposed before. So am I in. And the answer could very well be yes. Am I dance here? It says over time will be a best of three place shoe that so each team gets three plays, so it was the best of six. Well, no, it's well, it's the best of. What do you mean? Like six. Oh, you mean six total? Right. We each get three. Yeah. So it's not a best of three place shoe that it's the best of six place you got. I mean, it's basically whoever has the most of the end. So, no, but like they, I mean, I, I. This is originally, I'm like, oh, like they eat, they're going to go three times, but they're not because like, I'm going to go. You're going to go. I'm going to go. You're going to go. I'm going to go. You're going to go right. Best. If we each get three. I believe so I'm pretty sure, like it's like penalty kick out. It's like, it's like penalty kicks in soccer. Like you go, you can go until five or just whenever there's a point where the other team can respond. And again, match you match point for point at the end. Okay. So the best thing that I just used to like best at seven in the NBA, it's like seven games best at three to me is like, it's three, but you would need six to have. I mean, that's fine. Rican. We can just be dance. I'm just reading. Well, we'll see how much math has done on the field too. I wasn't aware that math was involved in this. A couple of last things on here, timing, the clock will stop for first downs inside two minutes of the second and fourth quarter sounds very much like the comeback period in the XFL. I did not cover the XFL, right? Like I am now, is that how the XFL is? Timing was. Yeah, essentially, I think, and I think it was within three minutes. If I'm not mistaken. It might've been, I have to double check that, but it, yeah, it was a similar fashion of like how shortened the play clock was and how much at first down the song. Stopping each way. That's the other thing I don't, haven't seen anything confirmed about the play clock situation, as far as how much time is left for the, if it's going to be a NFL rules, then it's going to be closer to that. Whereas the XFL was like 25 seconds or it was really quick. So, yeah, I actually like this. It's kind of. The NCAA, obviously it's it's every first down is Clark Sauvage and then the ball is spotted. So to have it within the last two minutes, I think makes a lot of sense. You know, The game will go quick enough, but then it gives an opportunity for the offense to respond and nimble to do something at the end of the game. So two, I, I pulled up the official XFL Roebuck. So the, the comeback period was occurs at the, after the two minute warning in each. Yeah. But no, I like being a football at year. One of them does cause the CFL does a three minute warning, which has CFL. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. I that to me. But yeah, occurs to me is so on the plays and in the field of play game, clock will be stopped until the ball is in spotted and then five second runoff. So then if it's out of bounds, Play clocks out. So, so the XFL one is actually more advantageous because the USFL is only stopping it for first downs where the XFL stopped it after every play and then did the runoff. So it is actually, I prefer the XFL one because it really did feel like that last two minutes lasted a lot longer. Like when the draft, I think when the dragons were trying to come back. Or maybe it was when we won the first one, we were stopping the roughnecks, but they were trying to come back and I'm like, isn't this game ending yet? Like, isn't this like, what is going on with that? So, but it's good if you're behind, this is good timing rules. I like this. Yeah. No, I think I remember that. And also I think between the renegades and the roughnecks. Same situation was kind of happening where they were trying to stop it every single time. Then when the, when Dallas was trying to come back and then it's, it's hard. It's. Also hard for you. You're trying to run the clock out. It's like very discouraging of that. It's safe. Well, no, we don't want you doing that. We, you have to earn it. So, which I, I, again, I understand that, you know, it's, it's, it keeps everyone involved up until the very end. Yeah. I'm going to jump to the two, four passes and we'll go back to the penalties. Cause it seems to me that this makes more sense this way. They are bringing and the double forward pass that I. When they announced the rules, I tweeted the video of Landry Jones and I, that got crazy. I was surprised how much engagement that got on Twitter. Cause everyone though, remember Landry Jones threw the ball. I got batted back to him. He caught the ball and he threw it again. Cause it was. I, you know, there was, I don't think there was an actual, a true double forward pass in the XFL. I think this was as close as we got to it. No, no, there was a double forward pass as well. That was so I think. I want to say the. The fenders ran one. I think they ran one with Tyler. Pokah I have to double check that, but I, I seem to recall there being one that was executed, not a lot of teams had strategized for it yet. I think just trying to figure out kind of what, what skill positions were involved. I have Coco is a hybrid quarterback, wide receiver. He played quarterback earlier in his career. So it's kind of, it made sense for him to be involved. But I don't know if you're going to have like a lot of Julian Edelman's running around in this league. So that's kind of where I'm curious as to how people are actually going to use it. I mean, there's plenty of people in the NFL who throw like, I mean, Jarvis Landry, for example. There was a beautiful ball for a left-hander. And. I think. Also some other players too are involved or maybe I'm thinking, yeah. Jarvis Landry. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't know. If teams are going to what exactly the strategy behind that, I guess. People are so programmed. Did cashier behind the line of scrimmage on a lateral and then throw it forward. I think this new innovation is still something. That offensive coordinator has got to figure out what they're going to do with. Yeah, I think it was. I do remember that. I remember Googling some of it. Cause I was, I was thinking of the Landry John's BI do you think there was a defenders? The thing to me with this. It sounds, gimme care and fun, more, more funner, more fun. Dorothy's like, it's not more fun, more fun than it really is because it's. It's the difference of like I'm in the lateral back and then you're going to throw it versus like, I'm going to kind of pitch it forward. What. Like it, the, the, the, the actual, like, fundamentals of it doesn't change that much to be able to like for, I guess, You're never going to be that deep in your right. And like your line of screaming, like you never going to be 20 yards back and they're like, well, I'm going to pass it. And then, I mean, it's really cutting down. I don't know. I always thought it sounded cooler than like actually. Turned out to be. Yeah, I agree. I think, I think it was just supposed to cut down on the. Illegal forward lateral penalty. I think it's really, maybe it's just trying to eliminate that and be like, oh, well actually you are not able to do that. So I think. I think it's just, maybe it's more eliminating that penalty more than anything else. As opposed to like innovating the game, but with the Landry, you don't sink. I mean, that was just funny. Cause it was like, oh look, he gets another chance. That's cool. Because otherwise, like, You see so many times like an offense alignment or somebody getting the ball and then they were starting to rumble within you're like, oh, this is a broken play. But for him to get it back and throw it again. Like cool. But how many times are you going to see that? Like in a game. Maybe once. And I saw that just that one time. The entire time and the XFL. So. Last couple on here, defensive the, they have the penalties defensive pass and offensive pass interference. So the, for defensive pass interference that the penalty well mirror, the NCAA rule with exceptions. Basically the awareness from there cause they have it and then they gotta be here for first aid defender, intentionally tackling a receiver beyond 15 yards will become a spot foul. Also the penalty will be a spot foul, a faded Curtis, 15 yards or less from the line of scrimmage or a 15 yard penalty from the line of scrimmage. If the spot of the foul is beyond the 15 yard line, can you make sense of this? Yeah, I mean, so. Essentially, it's just trying to eliminate the idea of it being the spot of the foul. And suppose it's just trying to give you a 15 yard penalty. If it's beyond 15 yards, that if it's before 15 yards, then. That's the spot. As opposed to. I'm just going to Chuck the ball as far as I can. And I'm going to have my receiver come back to it. That's something that I kept calling it with my friends last year, I kept calling it the DPI offense. And it's something that's sewing. Like your boy, Carson Wentz used a lot with the Colts. I saw him a number of times do that against players. It's it's funny, but until a certain point where I'm like, okay, this is just annoying. Like, this is if this is how you're getting your yardage, like that's just alienating. To everybody playing quarterback and to people watching the defense. So I think this is a good change and I'm glad that I I'd much rather have the college version of it where it's, it's just 15 yards, like low 15 yards. Okay. You made a mistake, but. It's not going to kill you. You know, we're not going to have an egregious amount of yards given to the offense because some, some receiver decided to run back into the cornerback. 50 Yards down the field. First off, watch your mouth with the Carson Weinstock. No, one's. Oh boy. I'm very terrified for that. I just think it's a strategy. It works. I'm just saying, but it's just, it's like, I, I'm not, it's not my favorite strategy, but it's a strategy. Yeah. No, but yeah. That's also the Derek Carr kind of game plan to Derek. Carl likes to hockey. I didn't like let's get, let's see if we can get a little people. The offensive passive areas. It may pass, does not cross the line of scrimmage to, there can be no pass interference or ineligible players to have help. I think that's just trying to like, right. We're cleaning up stuff for moving the quicker. Absolutely. Yeah. Just trying to legislate the game a little bit more efficiently. Okay. So we talked to hard knocks. Any other rules, several grades. FCF you've been on here for so long. Thank you so much. Well, knock out FCF here. Any other thoughts on the rules before we go on that? Again, I just think it's really fascinating that it's such a hard combination of NFL XFL and a little bit of a rules. They're trying to incorporate the best of all worlds. My only question is. What does that mean for the identity of your league? Is that going to really give you a finite identity of what your league is about? Because we know how different the XFL was. We know in some ways how different the AAF was trying to be, we know how way different the CFL is that FCF, they all have these very distinct characteristics to them based on the. Desire to make the game better and more efficient. And obviously the USFL is trying to do that. Fox is trying to do that in some way. But it just kind of feels like there's more buffet option style of like, wow, look at all these other things that we have that you seem to like from these other leagues, we have this too. And it's like, okay. I want to see if it's actually going to push the envelope forward and actually caught create change. Maybe it will. And maybe the NFL will take more notice and good. And that's great if they see some of these things, they want to change them. But. I just wanted to see if it's like a born identity. If it's an idea, it's one that they really understand that they're, they're forming. And taking O'Connell. These will change. I, yes, I agree. Will you like this? So we're going to do that. You like that? So we're going to do, I, I, I definitely agree with that. I don't think there's any like game breaking things where like, if we don't. Have the ability to test too much of this. I don't think they're going to kill anything game one, right? Like they're going to come out and be embarrassed with like, oh, Cause I'm a win-win Sam was on our show. He talked about, you know, when, when they had the first XFL kickoff, it was like, they were trying to coordinate it to like, make sure, okay, it's gonna go. And it's gonna like, he's going to catch it. You know? Cause the last thing you want is them to muck that first kickoff where it looks so different and it was really close. Like the guy kicked it to the opposite side of the field or whatever, and the receiver wasn't. Necessarily the quickest individual to get over. So there was worry, I think stands like heart skipped. That first game, because it's like, God, if this doesn't work, I mean, this is like, we're going down in flames where nothing with this, I think is going to feel like worst case. You have a bundled two point conversion that you're like, oh, darn. Okay. That wasn't. Yeah. They want you, I cheerleaders national Anthem singers. I saw that came out. If you, if you're interested in that, There there's tryouts. I interested in the USFL is going down the cheerleader route. Cause that was something that, you know, the XFL famously did not because of the first. XFL. Cheerleaders. Again, kind of late to the game again. Am I. We're missing here. Like, it seems a little odd that that's just kind of in the middle of the train camp announcement. I thought that would be something that would be announced or covered earlier. Maybe, maybe it wasn't, we, no one knew about it, but that just seems like an odd lead announcement. If you're. Listen to this today, you better get your acid for me having the mark. Cause this is mark. So it is Saturday. Three to six and oh. March 26, 3 to six, and then April 2nd, nine to 12. So you have a couple of chances, but you better get your butt to Birmingham. If you want to do that. Real quick, major league football announced we had. What the hell was that? Jerry Glanville here. Can. I have felt we had Jerry we'll have a, my, my memory is slipping and light Jerry's. We had Jerry Glanville and now we have Terry Shea. Also a spring league, you know, feels like the MLSP is going down the spring league route so far. We had the announcements, right? It was like Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, and then Virginia, I think for the, the teams that came out after I recorded last week, we had the, the rumored, right. They had the names. Thoughts on MLSP and I'm going to pull up their website. Cause I want to get the team names. So like, are they the new spring league? Because it sort of feels like it, are they going to hire like type control and how mommy and all those guys do? And I mean, Is it. Do you think they were? I don't know. It was just like, there were waiting for Brian Woods to kind of move on to another property and then go, ah, Now's our chance to be that leak. I, I don't. I'll like, I'll believe it. When I see it, when they actually start to form. A way to actually bring in all these teams, these players, the personality. You know, all the logistical factors, as opposed to just saying, Hey, we have all the equipment hanging out on a warehouse somewhere. Come play for us. Like I. I mean good for. For them for coming in. And I guess believing that there's going to be football at some point, I mean, I, I just, I wonder I'm not sure exactly what sort of hope there is that this is going to take off in any way, shape or form, but who knows? We've seen. We've seen a lot of things in this scene. Yeah. So we have the attack, which I believe is the Arkansas tack. They don't have all that. We have the attack, the force independence, and then our motto, which is interesting. Cause that was a wasn't that a F the Armada wasn't that, or that was the Washington football team was going to be the Armada. I think they had the Armada as part of one of their proposed ideas. Yes. I don't like your mother over commanders. So we have anyway, so Bitly, so those are the four teams they're going to be playing out of the one hub. Right? I think it's the plan. I believe it's the Arkansas tack. And then we have the forest, the independence, I imagine that's Texas, right. It looks, and then they are moderate. So pick and choose that way. I just, I've never, I said last week on here, when the, when the coach, when Jerry Glanville came up, I got just never gotten a fascination with this where like every week and we have like the Richard, oh, for reals of the world. I love you, Richard. Like what's going on with MLSP what's going on? Like. I go out CFL, man. Like they they're kicking off again. I mean the training camps start in March or in may, like I would get into involved with that and get a team like, you know, you're going to get at least get a season to play out of it then. God, it's it's March 24th. We have two head coaches, a for announced. I mean, that's the thing. Like we have so much grief. In general, maybe. Sometimes to start announcements, not coming down the pipeline for certain leagues and certain ways of, of what's being done. Again, not, not to be like overly negative or anything, just, you know, we want things to be better. We want things to be running away that will allow these leads to stay around. And. At the MLSP, I mean, by comparison just makes them all look like they've, they've been a well-oiled machine for years on end because I don't really know. Like, it's not, it's just, it's such a basement operation. And I mean, some people said that about the spring league with Brian Woods, but even then, like, he had a way of like security leasing agreements and being able to get the stadiums and get people involved and contact agents and. You had it a lot more together in that respect. So for that, for them to just kind of hire spring league, I don't know. Not to say, not retreads, but just people who've been involved in that league. And. Maybe take over the identity of it in some way. I mean. Have have a date. Something. Yeah, I think this is, yeah. Like if I'm Jerry Glanville, like sure. Like call me when you're going, you know? I mean they can announce anything. Right. And then you could say next week I called this. So, I mean, Sure. Yeah, I'm in this like announced me. That's fine. And then, you know, Announced Sarah. I keep on, say territory, Tara Shea. He was with the blues, right? I mean, these are fine. Like it's good. It's serviceable. I just, you know, you're looking at the talent. Drop-off right. Fangirl football has their training camps going now us about has their training camps. So, like there is a finite number of like, Actual people that are going to be able to play in this league. So. But, I mean, obviously there there's a million. You know, football players out there, if you're looking for an opportunity, but if I was a fan, I would really, I would just get into the CFL. I really like, I don't get this with stake, a flyer on this league, out of. I don't know, I don't get it. Yeah, no, absolutely agree. CFL, USFL, CF. There's so many more. Palatable options. Really. So last thing here on Mike. My new camera was clicking there. This is insane. So we have the fan controlled football. I want to say I got to try to get fingers on football, a fair shake this season. I am. I'm on the board apes football club. I have listened. Your van has sent me a Jersey. It's coming in the mail. It's the very off-putting color of brown. I'm very excited. Do you have a fan controlled football team? I do not yet. I do like the glacier boys, but I I'm really. I'm fascinated by this team. This should have been stars team that drew. He owns. And also because they are also partially owned by Austin Eckler who plays running back for my team to chargers. So I. Theoretically, I should be more involved with that team, but I haven't really chosen a team yet. I'm kind of waiting for things to shake out. I've. I'm curious. I want to see. Like get more player names and. And personalities and. No, what's more involved in that way. First. Yeah, it's weird. They they're in training camps. I mean, they're, they're, they're the same, they're mirroring the same schedule as USFL, you know? They're kicking off the same day, which I w I will never understand for the life of me, why they're kicking off the, the interesting thing with this should have been, and we never really talked about it on the show. Obviously they were with. The wild ACEs. That was kind of the team I was with last year, Greg Miller was on the show. That was a big coup for us at the time when he was on Greg and them really soured on the NFT stuff. And so he pulled them like, keep, they pulled all the kind of funny, and then the Dunkel, Barb Dunkelman or whatever, they all pulled their support. Kind of last minute, I got into a lot of it with the Patrick D's of the world on Twitter about that. And I'm like, this was your most vocal champion and all this stuff. And I think they felt like they got the short end of it that maybe Greg didn't give them a big enough heads up or whatever. So now they've like you said, they've rebranded. It was team acts. It was, should have been stars. They're coming out. They're one of the non NFTE teams. And then we have the four NFT fingers or football release, their schedules this week. It's a seven week schedule. They released their pricing. So they're, they're building their arena in Atlanta or in Georgia and outskirts of Atlanta. Right. Correct? Yeah. Pullman yards. Yeah. They're they're very bullish on that. So they, the pricing they have for this, and I thought this was interesting, you know, keep in mind, USFL $10 a ticket that you get your whole days where the games. $20 GA standing room only 49 is reserved seating bell. It was weird. They call it your assigned seats inside the studio audience. I thought that was interesting that a lot's been made of like USFL. But I mean, this is, this is fingers. I mean, this is their press release for 99 bucks. You can get VIP access to a celebrity owner pre and post game locker room access. I don't know about that with all this stuff going on in the world, but you can get in the locker room. And then playoff championship priority passes. That's 99 bucks. 1750, you can get a suite with premium food and beverage. You get all your same fan day passes. I believe that that's all the games. So you'll get you. You get including the 21 single seat. Session passes. Private tour pre post game. You get VIP parking. And then for $5,000. You get the bother's ultimate FCF. You get an official pregame party with all inclusive food and beverage live entertainment. Two hotel rooms, two nights. For all access passes, you get to lead the team on the field. You get to do the rock paper scissors. You get to do the locker room. You get merged and you get an autographed ball. Wow. Yeah. Certainly not a shortage of options for you to spend your money on the league. I'll say that. Look, I think it's fascinating just based on the concept that they've created here. And I think the fact that they, where it's born from, I think Mark Perry or colleague had, he had an interview with the commissioner not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, I think with Ray Austin. And you know, I think it finally with that interview, I got this sense of. Like kind of what the concept of the league was supposed to be, which is just you're sitting in the stands and you're calling plays because you don't trust what the coach is doing. And that's great. I, you know, I think as an idea of being inclusive in terms of like trying to actually be involved with the game, like it's real life Madden. That's really fascinating to me. And I think this is a really comprehensive thing that they have going on here. My only concern, I guess, is. In terms of where they're going with this whole NFP thing. I mean, that's obviously their brand, their style. That's just what they're, they're involving themselves in with. And this is what they're doing. But in terms of where they see themselves as a league and how they involve themselves with certain people, like, I don't know what. Like their demographic, obviously it's people who are involved with. With this side of football are more like way more fantasy aspects of it. And in the NFC market. But I don't know where that goes in terms of like, What they're doing. With. Like, I don't know. For example, we talked about sports betting earlier, right? So for, you know, with USFL having to have good rules, good players, you know, a safe environment and Pete, something that people feel comfortable betting on not getting to bed on this. What do you ever met on this? I mean, You know, look there. Like Ray was talking about how last year there was a game where they were talking about like the replay system or there was officiating staff where they came up with something or they rolled up something. And the fans didn't like it, and they literally changed the system in the middle of the game. That's bonkers. Like you can D I mean, that's fun and games on all that, but like, you can't have people betting on that. Are you kidding me? Then you start having people coming out with pitchforks for a democratic process. Involving real people. It's one thing to have an officiating crew and to have a league involved where, you know, they're trying and they're. Hopefully best practices, trying to actually create a cohesive product. In this case, it's like, That's something that would, I don't think people would ever consider doing. Just be based on the element of chaos. And again, the NFTs is where they're going fine. That's their, that's their motives and that's their style. But. I just, I think they have to understand too, like how niche their market is and how niche they are. Kind of portraying it to be and how these. They are going to make it. And seem comfortable doing too. I'm not sure about your feelings on the read, but it seems to me like they are okay with that, I guess, with kind of being in their little, their little box. I'm not sure if that's makes sense. Yeah. I mean, there is a marked decrease of interest this year. Versus this time last year I made a market difference of. I just, I just remember it was crazy last year. Cause we, and, and I don't know if that all equated to views on, on the actual product. I know they, they boasted a lot of like, oh, a million views and all that. I mean, a lot of that had to do with. Being on Twitch being on the homepage. You know, you're like, so I think I remember Jake Henry at some point had shown, you know, cause they did like, the games would be like a six hour block. Right. They'd have like both games. It was so long. And they'd be like, oh, we had, you know, 3 million views. Whatever it was. And like Jake was able to go on. Cause I believe Twitch provides some of the numbers and it was like, you know, the average view duration of that was like four seconds or something. You know, because it was people going on, people, you know, like we do a two hour show. Our average view time for an episode is not two hours. Right. You know, it's like 25%. I feel good about that because you get summer. You know, some are clicking off. Some are watching the whole time, you get a balance, right. But you having whatever, I just remember it was astoundingly low, like 10 seconds or whatever, a retention rating for a six hour program. I just, I don't see a lot of the excitement this year. We had these on last year. And then when they came out with training camps and stuff, it was crazy. I just think USFL is taking a lot of that interest. I don't get a lot of people tweeting at me about fan controlled football. I know that I have upset a lot of them there with, with our coverage over the time I felt. Like, I was always trying to be fair with everything about that, but we're this year and yeah, it's like a niche of a niche. We're okay with that, but we're also competing with. Like the XFL or whatever. It's a very weird mindset. Yeah. And again, I know you've pointed us this several times. I mean, they're kicking off the same day. The USFL is so. It's like. They see themselves as a competitive entity and that's great, but then they also, don't like, it's kind of as if they understand who their audience is. And they're kind of catering the other. Audience and that's again, if they know who they're going for. That's. That's fine, but then there's not really this growth pattern of being able to maybe. How do I put it except new applications. Like having other people come in and join, join the circle. It's kind of like, you have to be in the know and be involved from the outset or else. You're not feeling included. And that's, that to me is just bizarre because every other league we've ever covered has talked. What have they talked about the most. Getting to younger fans getting more exposure, getting their product out. You know, the CFL is going through that. The XFL has talked about that. USFL is obviously working on that right now. Every single league that comes out as tried to find some way to get creative exposure and be able to get people more involved. And I, I, the FCF it's, it's so bizarre and how like, Like narrow. It is in terms of like going through a straw almost in terms of trying to get an involves and. I mean, I it's on Twitch and it's on multiple platforms, but it's not the viewership part of it. It's just the inclusiveness and being able to like, Really be understanding of what's going on, right. That part I'm kind of lost on it and you've obviously covered it too. Extensive links. Yeah, I guess my last comment I'm this today. Cause we'll, we'll get out of here. You've had a marathon session. I really appreciate that. Like if anyone says like, well, they don't, they're not really competing. They're not really just this week they tweeted someone, got a finger to a football tattoo and I think it was Ray. And these both three tweeted at DS, especially did. And he was like, you know, ain't no one getting the USFL tattoo. And I'm like, so. I mean, so I don't want to hear this, like, well, they're not really, like, they're just doing their own thing. Like they're absolute, I mean, Absolutely convenient. So I, I, you know, I, I wish them luck. I really wish it was not the USFL weekends. I really would want to cover it more, but, you know, they have, like I said, there's seven weeks here. You're getting. So you're getting. To gain. So I just, before we go, cause this is too crazy. So you have a 1:00 PM session and the 7:00 PM. So you get the two games and then the other two games. Cause it's four games a weekend. Cause it's. You know, at least with USFL, we can split and we can do some on Saturday. Someone said, they mean it's all on Saturdays, right? One in seven. I mean, it's a marathon. It's a, it was a marathon last year to watch it when it was just the four teams. And it was two games. I mean, it was. For them trying to speed up the game and did like, it was so slow trying to watch. And if we're going to do four games at night, I mean, that is. God bless those production crews, because like, I haven't done a lot of sport. I do weddings and events. Like I don't do a lot of sports staff, even when I was at [unknown]. Like I wasn't the big sports guy, which is interesting. Now consider where we're about life is, did you know this? Is this a side note? I would like to get your take on this. When I started at Q 13 Seahawks, just big in town. Right. And they hire, they hired Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman at the same time. Right. And so Richard Sherman was doing a signing at the Dick's hamburger on queen Anne. And I went up and they're like, you need to go interview him and you need to say like, hi, say, hi, I'm Richard Sherman. You're watching, you know, queue it up sports or whatever it was. And I called them Russell. Because [unknown]. Anyway now Richard Sherman. I've he's with the glacier boys, right? Yeah. I believe so. Yes. I'm surprised he's not back on the bucket ears or something like sprayed. He's courting him again. But you know, Whatever, you know, whatever he wants to be involved with. Like, and again, if they want to get athletes involved in all this, like if they want to build their cloud, that's fine. But you know, I'm so glad you brought up the tattoo thing. I just it's like, okay. You know, I think it's cool to champion your own league. That's great. You know, I I'm immensely impressed by how the CFL people go about it. They are so insanely proud. Of their league, the community and the people that are involved with it. And they just want their game to be. Out there and I totally get that. And, you know, the SCF, I think has an opportunity to do that, but then it's just this like dark throwing at like other entities. And it's, you know, such as the USFL and it's like, I'm sorry, like I don't, I. What, what are we chasing here? And also what, how much. How much. Cloud, can you build on from one season on Twitch? I mean, let's be honest. I, I, I'm not trying to do great too much. They're trying to build towards something, but I also, I do not get the grand standing. Sometimes. So I will see how this season goes. I'm curious, but yeah. To your point about production. I read, I've worked. I used to work in an AB tech and I used to do back-to-back games of like different sports. So like maybe volleyball, basketball, football, basketball, et cetera, et cetera. It's crazy. Just doing back to backs. I mean, I cannot imagine the merit, like you said, the marathon they're about to go through with those production staffs. Are going to be. Pounding that coffee. Throughout the day. Yeah, I was. Just checking Twitter to make sure we didn't miss anything before we pop off here. Andrew. This has been a tremendous long time. I appreciate I'm going to have to timecode our interview so we can come around to the sections. But I appreciate it. I think we got everything. Anything else from you? We will check out your work on XFL CFL and the USFL. I told Mark Perry, cause that's that's right. The Twitter handle now. I said, you got to just say, oh, it's like, it's the Ohio state. We are the USFL Noosa. Onto it. I guess so, right. I think we should just go ahead and plant our flag. I'm trying to see what that feels like. You know, the excitement that. This is good stuff. Don't use all this. All the exam. Oh, I'll repeat it now. I repeat or get out. I want to get, cause I don't want to, I don't want to lose any of this stuff here. All right. Let's get rolling. We'll see if they knock off the sound here, but. Well,I am thrilled today as someone that's had many ACFL I fantasy weeklast year one, you know, one on your shoulders, right? Live captions provided by Rev.com. For 99% accurate post-meeting transcripts and captions, visit Rev.com.Did you do with it?We have William stand back here from the outlets. How are you doing today?I'm good. I'm feeling great, man. You know, can't ask for better.So you are we're off season right now. You came off work. What do you do when you're not training and getting ready to competefor the season?Well, usually I try to work with kids, you know, back at home. And him said, you know,a lot of the guys that went to my high school and a high school.And I'm, I try to just go there and talk to them, you know, tell them what rights and wrongs.You know, let them know that I was in their shoes, not too long ago.That whatever they want to do in life. Just keep doing what you're doing, grind and put your mind to it. This year, I actually got myself a little job. I'm working at a, like a sports I'm working at a place called academy. And it's, it has like all the sports gear and everything like that. They have a side where it's like camping, hunting. They sell guns. They. How you spell boats, kayaks, everything. So. I just been working there, doing the freight and receiving, you know, just to keep myself active. Cause I haven't really set up anything to work with any kids to see them this off season. So. I just tried to do that, to make some extra money. You said you're, it's a little restless right now, a little boring, getting ready for the season. Right? Talk me through that motivation. Well, I would say it's boring sometimes, like when I'm away from my kids, but you know, having my children with me every day, spending full time. Family time with them every single day of the week. You know, it's something that I wanted to catch up on because I didn't have them out in Montreal this past season. So being here. You know, having them with me every day is just. All I can ask for, you know, just. Raising them, teaching them, watching my daughter grow. My son is getting taller. You. You know, she starting to run around now. Man. It's just crazy and time flies. The birthday's on Tuesday. We just celebrated it yesterday on Sunday because you know, me and my wife will be working. So we won't be able to do anything for her tomorrow. So. Yeah. She'll be one years old. Come on the 22nd. So you have a one-year-old and then you said you have another child. Yeah, he's three, he'll be four in August. Well, congratulations. What is it like? Yeah. Having to be away from them during the season has to be hard. Oh, I suck. F**k man. I was depressed most of the time, especially when we lost games or whatever. I was coming back to my condo and just, I was alone, man. You know, I would have like some of the guys come out pretty much have like some of my teammates come over every single day. Because I didn't want to be by myself at home. FaceTime just wasn't enough, you know? And then. When I did get to go home on the bi-week that we had, I just felt like, you know, my daughter, cause she was a new one at the time. Like my daughter just, I felt like she didn't know who I was almost. Kind of, I felt like I was losing that connection. But, you know, she got to see my face every day. But like I say, being away from them, it just, it didn't cut it at all. You know? And sometimes I would go into like deep depression because when I left for training camp in July last year, she was just born. You know, she was only about three months old. So leaving her, you know, leaving my son to leave my wife, and then they're here. You know, just holding it down while I'm up there in Canada, grinding. I just can't wait for them to come up this year and they're going to be with me this year. So it was just a lot of complex. Things going on where I couldn't get a passport for my son. And everything. So this year will be, everything will be an order. Everything will be official. And they're going to be at the games with me, ruined me on. That's saying where somebody is in the same for you. Well right now, I'm living in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm from long island, New York. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's the hard thing that people, you know, we talk about the CFL players, right? And there's all the, you know, any narrative you want to have about the, you know, going up there and plan having to basically split your life and have, have a whole nother, you know, your friends and family and your kids and your, you. Husband wife, whatever back home. It's really hard. Do you think that that is something that, you know, you are not unique in that, right? Where you D you, do you feel like a lot of players feel that way as well, that you can kind of help commiserate with each other and help build each other up? Oh, yeah. You know, and a lot of guys in the same situation, believe it or not. When you tell your backstory to a teammate. You know, is something similar to. Same as something similar to what they're going through. So like, you know, hanging out with my guy, like, especially like guys, like, you know, Gino, Louis Vernon. Adam's you know, gesture and SWE. There was a guys. I was hanging out with every single day. And, you know, there was somebody I could lean on whenever I was feeling some type of way. You know, with the thought of like, dang, you know, it's going to be a few more weeks till I see my wife. I was going to be a few more months till I see my whole family, like, you know, And you know, them being with me and just continue to push me to be the best player, best person, best father. I can be. You know, I commend those guys cause they always been with me.

Episode 84 - The (Fake) “Real” USFL

Hey, everybody Reid here. Welcome to the markcast. Hope you all have a wonderful St Patty's day coming to you. Nice and early on the Friday morning and hope. The festivities didn't get to other hand last night. Thank you so much for joining today. Lots of work emails sent out this week. I joked on Twitter. I've probably sent out about 8,700 emails. Give or take trying to set up everything for you this week. I think we got a really good show. I hope you enjoy, please, like subscribe. If you appreciate the work that we're doing so close to 1900 subscribers, I want to hit 2000. By the time we go to Birmingham next month for the USFL kickoff. Remember, we have our Royal retros Jersey that we're given the way they'll custom, make whatever all football Jersey you want. Send it right to your door. I have a AAF Jersey as well. There were auction off as part of the raffle bunch of gray cups stuff, going to be a lot. So I can subscribe. If you appreciate the work, lots of emails, you know, phone calls in DMS this week, setting up the show. Tonight on the. Today on the program, loaded show, we're talking all the USFL lawsuit updates this week, all the declarations and everything coming out. You know, the did Fox slap around the, the real us about a little bit, we're going to bring in another expert. We have Tim billet coming on the show. Tim is a specializes in trademark and IP law. Tim went to university of Washington law school, which you know, is going to sit well with my wife, Dorothy. Tim is joining us via his. Tim. Tremendous show. Tremendous lineup on the show today, we are talking all the USFL lawsuit stuff, all the declarations and everything that were posted this week. You know, did, did Fox slap the real USFL around a little bit? It kind of feels that way. We are going to bring in the expert. We have a new trademark and IP lawyer, Tim Billick. He went to. Coming up on the show today, tremendous lineup. We have four guests. We're going to get you all covered with your us of foul CFL stuff. We have some MLF B major league football news coming out as well. We are at first and foremost, talking all about the USFL lawsuit stuff, you know, we're continuing down this road. There were declarations in court this week. They had the zoom meeting, the real USFL and the Fox owned USFL last week. Declaration. So the court this week, you know, whether they talk about, we are bringing in a new trademark and IP. Expert. Two, kalbas kind of Wade our way through all this. We have Tim Billick. Tim is a local, a lawyer. He is joining us remotely from his work vacation in Mexico. You know, never doubt the work and time that all of our guests are putting in to share their expertise on the podcast. Tim went to the university of Washington law school, which you know, is going to sit well with Dorothy. And this is all Tim Dustin. Specializes in your sports and entertainment, trademark, IP stuff. So Tim is a great guy to have on the show. Really excited to hear what Tim has to say again, you know, I set these up with the experts and then I'm curious to find out what they say along with you. You know, I don't try to find anyone that's like gonna side with me or side with whoever I bring in experts that can help us fill us in and kind of color. Give us more color, you know, information to kind of Wade through all this. Then, you know, News coming out with the CFL this week, it's been a little sleepy. You know, Randy, Ambrozy a commissioner of the league is making a road trip because that is what we do in the CFL. He's in Calgary right now. Talking a lot about genius sports. You know, the new data marketing analytics, that whole firm that's coming out, you know, to work with the CFL to try to grow and attract new viewers. Ross Madani, you know, not so friendly. The show was on rod Peterson show. This week was talking about how part of the talks with Randy and genius sports has centered around potentially moving to four downs. Remember we talked all about that back. Grey cup week and that when we had Dave Naylor and Farhan on the show, Far, Hahn's going to be on next week. Excited to catch up with Farhana as well. But they came out. They're talking about four downs. Again, they Randy's meeting with the team leaders and all that. So I'm really curious to get Jason Gregor's thoughts on that. Jason Gregor is going to be on the show. TSN 1260. Also talking with Jason and about, you know, growing the game in general, what does the CFL need to do? The drive the drive to survive, right? The F1. Show Randy Ambrozy has talked a lot about doing something similar for the CFL. EO. Is that a good idea? What is Jason think? I, Jason also gives a little thoughts about the USFL as well. I really excited to get Jason back on the show. Then we have from the USFL Philadelphia stars, Solomon wise. Solomon was drafted in the first part of the USFL draft. He is the defensive player. He's literally packing his bags, skinny, ready to go to Birmingham. Really excited. Do you check in with Solomon? And, you know, hear his story, right? All these guys are working and weighing their options. You do, we want to go the USFL? Do we want to hold out whether we want to do, you know, try to get them to like, you know, do a pro day and get into a practice squad. So really it was great catching up with Solomon. We're cheering on Philadelphia stars. I got my hat on backwards. That's my team. So really excited for that. And then we have Andrew Pearson, courtesy of the BC Alliance. Andrew hot takes coming in off of seeing the Batman was excited to hear. Andrew is going to the movies, bonding with his teammates in the off season, getting ready for the 2022 CFL season. I, Andrew talks a lot about I Henry brewers as well, getting signed on as kind of an offensive. Consultant for the BC lions. And then I Nathan work as well. I, he gives some thoughts about Nathan walk and all that. So tremendous show we have Tim Billick. We have Jason Gregor. We have Solomon DWIs, and then we have Andrew Pearson coming on, please. Like, and subscribe. I'm going to check in with a little MLF. The news and the little USFL we had the head coaches and all that stuff after some of the interviews. And I'll see you at the end of the show to let you know what's coming up next. Next. Welcome back guys. I want to thank Tim and Solomon for coming up. Hey guys. I want to thank Tim and Jason for coming on, sharing their time and knowledge and expertise today on the program. Really good to talk USFL. I like having the CFL [unknown] yeah, I liked the drama a little bit. I. You know, you get, you get a lot of these fans. Don't like, you know, the four downs changing the game, all that. I don't I've said that before. I don't think that's the answer either. You know, I think the drive to survive is a better route to go, right? Like the red, black should be doing behind the AR. You know, I think trying to change your game to fit. To like Jason said to hope that you're going to attract new viewers. At the risk of alienating, the ones you have, I think that's questionable, but it's interesting. Randy Ambrozy commissioner Ambrozy is an interesting guy, you know? One track mind comes to see, you know, we go from the global initiative, we're going to the XFL, we're going to this, but you know, I, it's going to be exciting. If nothing else gives us something to talk about it in the off season, which, you know, the CFL does. I always like to do, likes to disappear a little bit. So I really appreciate them. A couple other news tidbits before we get into our player interviews today. MLF be, you know, major league football, you know, rip Josh Davis. You know, Josh was friends with Frank Murtha, who's the CEO of the league. They're kind of making their resurgence. They had their first head coach announced this week and Jerry Glanville came out, you know, Jerry has been in the spring league and the NFL and see if, I mean, Jay Jerry's been all over the place. Jerry's like 90 years old. I don't know how old Jerry is. Jerry is going to be their first head coach. As you listen to this today, MLSP is supposed to have a site refresh and some new head coaches and information coming out. Apparently they're kicking off in may this year. You know, as little as we know, we knew about the USFL who, you know, they had their head coaches. They're coaching staffs. Come out. Today as we record this Thursday, we know even less about MLF B, but they have said that they're kicking off. I'm really curious to see kind of the level of coaching and staff and players. They get. You know, Jerry Glanville is a good hire, right? I mean, that's certainly someone that, that fans know has been in the system has done the whole spring league and has done kind of be all football thing. Curious to see what the other head coach is. You know, we're still waiting on cities. We're still waiting on your teams and all that stuff back. You know, time is of the essence, then moving forward, I know there's a lot of hesitation with the MLF be on online and then the message boards and stuff. I can certainly understand that. But, you know, I wish nothing but the best for that, but we keep your ears out. Check the website today, major league football and see what they have coming in store. You know, I I've been told there's streaming the games on there, on their website. Right. If you're not like looking at a TV deal. So just to kind of set your levels of expectations for kind of what you're hoping for from this. You know, I think USFL is ultimately going to be your better option if you want. Kind of maybe a more what you're accustomed to, but if you're someone like Vince, that's been on the show before all football scout, you know, Vince watches a lot of streams online, a lot of stuff overseas. If you're a little bit more used to that, a little more rugged, a football kind of. I got a log in to, you know, to the website or whatever that way I eat. Maybe, maybe MLSP will be your thing. But I think for the casual fan, I think USFL, and then, you know, hopefully we can get you guys watching CFL here. In the summer, but I think that's going to be your best bet. The USFL coaches also, I, they released all their coaching staff today. So I tweeted all that out. And the market USFL news hub is going to have a breakdown of kind of all that stuff. The only notes I had pepper Johnson is going to be involved. The pepper was back in the original XFL. These are a lot of names, you know, again, the casuals aren't going to know, right? Like the second assistant, you know, quarterbacks, whatever for the USFL. But good to see all that coming out. Players are reporting on Tuesday are for training camp. And then it starting later in the week. So, you know, they obviously wanted to get all of their, you know, coaching staff and all that stuff out. So that's exciting. And again, you can check my Twitter, you can check XML. You S valve non XFL. Mark. You can check. The USFL news hub on, on Twitter or the website to kind of get all that information. I'm going to segue to our interviews with Solomon wise of the previously imagined a USFL. And then Andrew Pearson, before we let you go to the next. Thanks again to Solomon and Andrew, and also Jason and Tim for taking the time out today. I really appreciate everyone hopping on your lots of emails and phone calls and coordinating with all these people. You know, we're all doing this for love and passions. I really appreciate all of them. For coming on and I certainly appreciate all of you for watching and checking out. The show. A big show. Next week, as I said, at the top of the program, far, hon is going to be coming back on for our home was going to be on a couple of weeks ago, had to go cover the combines, really curious, you know what I want to get far Hans thoughts on the CFL. Yeah. This whole genius sports and the four downs. But then also I had originally wanted to get far hung on to talk about the USFL. You know, I thought that was a good spot for Naylor. Right? When Dave Naylor was on a few weeks back, I really curious as he far Hans. Thoughts as well about that. So that would be good. I have some more interviews lined up as well. I have a good CFL interview that had to reschedule from this week to next week. So look forward to that again, we, you know, like, and subscribe, trying to hit 2000, we're closing in at, at 1900 mark. Before we go to Birmingham would love to hit that two K again, you know, we're going to be having our live show April 16th out there. So like, and subscribe, you know, all podcast feeds kind of all that stuff helped grow the momentum here. As we head into the USFL launch as always, really appreciate your time. If you ever have a voicemail, the mark has.com/voicemail. You can also leave us a review of the markaz.com/review. If you have any comments, you can always DM me. You can leave an email through the website, lots of different ways to get in touch. So really appreciate everyone's time and hope you all have a great weekend. Thanks and take care. Big show coming up this week on the mark Hass, we are out. Hey, everybody got a big show coming up this week on the mark hast, we have part D of our. One order meets the mark Hass meets all football. We are talking all the USFL trademark updates. We have a new copyright and IP trademark, lawyer. Hey guys, big show coming up this week on the mark cast, we have part D of our. Law and order meets all football version of the mark Hass. We are talking all the USFL declarations, Fox, you know, going toe to toe with the real USFL. What does that all mean? We have a new trademark and IP lawyer, Tim biller, joining the show to break all that down. Then, you know, the world is collapsing around the CFL fans are removing the four downs. I guess we're doing this narrative again, a lots of other questions about CFL marketing or a drive to survive. Is that the way we need to go in terms of building new fan bases for the CFL? We have a longtime friend of the show, Jason Gregor coming back on. And then we're rounding out your coverage with a couple of player interviews. We have Solomon wise of the USFL Philadelphia stars. And Andrew Pearson of America's CFL team, the BC lions stopping by the program. Bless, you know, Like major league football news this week, the USFL has announced all of their coaching staffs. Lots of fun things to talk about. Well, we have Tim Dillon here jumping into this crazy world of the USFL lawsuit. I appreciate you, Michael Cohen, our normal Beverly Hills IP lawyer. I don't, if he's off in The Bahamas or something, but you are vacationing in Mexico have come on today. Take team. And Tim, how are you doing? Doing doing great, doing great another day in paradise, and I'm super excited to talk about some entertainment, law issues and some, some trademark issues. I'm excited. So Tim's research the case. I want to get your thoughts and then I want to obviously update. You know, my, my dumb self trying to read through this stuff. I think I know what's going on, but I want to make sure it's. So first off I general thoughts just have this real USFL versus Fox USFL. Case. Yeah, so general thoughts. It's it's, it's kinda, it's kinda curious to see. How the plaintiff here is trying to set up, you know, what they consider to be a use of their marks mean it's black letter. Trademark law. 1 0, 1 That he only get your trademark rights. If you're actually using the dang mark. And so it's, I can sort of see, you know, Fox's position on this that they're like, well, what the heck? You know, I thought the USS bell was, has been dead for awhile. So. That was sorta my, my initial impression upon reading the complaint. I was whoa. Okay. All right. I guess this there, they're still around. And then on the flip side of things, you know, I'm a lawyer, we got to know all sides here. Right? So on the flip side of things, what's what was very, I guess, interesting was the fact that. The FA Fox was just. Unapologetic. About saying, yup. This used to be a thing and we're going to remake it a new thing. And we're not even going to try to gussy it up as something different or something new. Like they are. Unabashedly, you know, Hearkening back to the good old days of the USS album. So that was sort of my initial sort of push and pull on this case about reading the complaint. And, you know, Just as we're taping this today, there hasn't been an answer filed officially in court. So we don't really know. Fox's official. Position just yet. Yeah. And it seems like, you know, all this came out. It's so weird to me. We talked about this back in may when the whole thing came out. And we interviewed Steve Earhart, who is, you know, currently this still longstanding president of the original league. You know, he was blindsided. Everybody felt very blindsided by this. It's interesting that it's taken this long to kind of come to fruition. I mean, you can see the timing of this, right? Th the league is kicking off, you know, a month from yesterday, whatever we recorded this, you know, it's it's do you find the, in times when there is questions surrounding IP and trademarks, have you tried to go for a good timing, right? Like let's, let's factor this a month before and kind of maybe try to. Upset things a little bit. So timing is critical and there's obviously a lot of factors that go into it. Right. And so, you know, I have no idea when counsel for, for the plaintiff here. For real USFL. I have no idea when they were contacted to actually do this thing. Sometimes you've got a client freaking out last minute. And they say, oh my gosh, this thing is happening. And then you're the lawyer going? Oh, crap. Okay. I guess there goes my plants. So it could be, you know, they just found out about it. And then that's why boom. They're timing it. In February, the timing of the complaint for February filing. But, you know, The argument. Against someone who is trying to stop you from doing something. Is if I'm the defendant and I say, well, what the hell you guys waited too long at? This was such an emergency, you know? And if you knew about what was going on with the resurgence of the USFL by Fox. You know, why did it take you until February to actually seek relief from a court? So, but the, the timing on this particular case, isn't so outlandish to me, based on my experience. You know, at least according to the allegations in the complaint, it appears that there is some sort of back and forth correspondence. Both sets of lawyers and other side were basically pounding their chest back and forth at each other for a bit. Which is pretty typical. Before you go with the nuclear option of filing a complaint in federal court, you send letters back and forth and say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but at some point, you know, you, you have to pull the trigger. And you have to go to court if you're fairly confident that you're not going to get anywhere with the folks in the other side. So the timing of this, you know, I, I don't, I don't see this as. That outlandish. I see this. As okay. They tried to work things out. And then they couldn't and then boom, here we are. They filed this complaint. You know, just, just a couple of months before the scheduled launch date. So it'll be, it'll be interesting to see. You know, as the briefing schedule progresses, how quickly they'll actually be able to one get in front of the judge to actually look at their motion papers and to get a decision out of the judge. On this there's, there's all sorts of ways you can try to. You know, scream at the top of your lungs. At the judge metaphorically speaking. But, but you know, if, if the judge has got a docket too, and you've got to remember that a federal court they're hearing criminal matters. They're hearing stuff from all over the place. So it'll be interesting to see if we'll get any sort of movement on the case before the actual launch date. My, my gut tells me it's it's, it's unlikely. So my gut tells me that, you know, from this, from this. From what I see in this complaint so far. And what was listed as the correspondence back and forth. I would be very surprised based on my experience. If a Fox goes, oh, shucks. You're right. We should, we should put a stop to this entire machine that we've already put in motion. Unless, unless the court tells them to, you know, Yeah, they right. The injunction would be right. I mean, cause that's, I think what people are fearing and I want to get into the, the events of kind of this week, but that's what people are fearing would be the nuclear option would be a judge saying you got to wait, you got to change the names. You can't use these marks, right. Headed into the, the kickoff. Right. That that would, that would be, that would be extremely surprising because under the law. When you are seeking an injunction. And when you're seeking an injunction before the court. And civil matter. There's a number of factors that you have to prove up. And you have to, you know, show the judge. One of the factors is the plaintiff's likelihood of complaint of prevailing on the merits. And it's just a likelihood of prevailing. Like you don't have to. Prove prove your entire case right out of the gate. But you have to say, look, we think the evidence will show yada yada, yada. Second factor is a showing of irreparable injury. To the plaintiff. If, if the court doesn't do something. So here. I think, you know, They're going to, I think the plaintiff here is going to have a tough time. Demonstrating irreparable injury. And I can get into that. If you like, but the other, the other two factors that, that you look at. When you're seeking an injunction that you have to prove up to the court. Is the third factor is the, the threatened injury. To, to the plaintiff. Sort of outweighs the damage that would result to the defendant. The opposing party. So, and then the fourth factor is it's kind of a catchall, it's kind of a mushy amorphous balance of equities, or, you know, Just as the court deems just or whatever. So the court can look at a lot of different things. But when, when someone's moving for an injunction, High level. The court is going to look at all right. If I don't do something, how is the plaintiff's going to get going to get hurt? If I do do something. How is the defendant or the non-movement. I'm going to get hurt in this. So, you know, we can talk about how this might shake out. Given what we know about the case so far, but it's, you know, If I'm going to make a prediction. I'll just say that, you know, I would be very surprised if the court actually issues an injunction telling Fox to stock. What it's doing right now. Yeah. I have some followup questions for that too. So they, you know, w we filed everything. You know, they had set the dates. There was this weird, like order of events where the, like the court rulings weren't they, the judge hadn't declared whatever the rules of the court. So then they go back and. We do all this. So then it seemed like they had them. They had had a zoom meeting. They, the judge requested them to have another zoom meeting. Right. This was all to try to. Right. Not waste the court's time. Right? Like if you guys can figure this out, Are we reading that right? Yeah, that's, that's pretty, that's a pretty accurate summary. Yeah. And I, and I, I got a bit of a chuckle out of it. You know, reading, reading some of the orders and readings, just some of the, the, the timeline basically of the case. And especially, so this was filed in the central district of California. And every court, I mean, Every court has to follow, like the federal rules, right. And then every court is allowed to make sort of like their own particular practices, like their own particular rules. So this judge. And this court, they put a lot of stock and you know, what's called a meet and confer, which is basically, Hey, call up the other guy, chat about the motion before you, just like you said, like before you come run the court. You know, you guys got to demonstrate that you actually really attempted to resolve some of these issues. So, yeah, what happened was the plaintiff here was all hot to trot, really p****d off about the situation. You know, filed their motion for injunction. And yeah, the court was like, whoa, wait a minute. You guys got to go talk about this and try to play nice before you come, come into the court. And. I thought it was kind of funny. 'Cause like, you're the plaintiff and you're going, oh my gosh, the sky is falling. The sky is falling. Please. Court help me, help me, help me. And then you go to the court and they're like, no, you guys need to go talk it over a little bit more. So. So, and. I sort of feel for the plaintiff's frustration here, at least in that capacity. And then, so, so yeah, so they're ordered to, to have another chat. And this, this judge is taking this seriously. And the judge is saying, you know, you guys would try to come up with some resolution, even if you don't solve everything. I want you guys to try to agree to start to certain things. Just so we don't have a mountain of papers and a mountain of briefing that the court, you know, I mean, it looks. Let's be real. Most of the time, it's the clerks doing? A substantial part of the work for this. And so like, look guys, figure this out, streamline the issues, then come back. So that's kind of where the case. Sits at the moment is they filed. And this is pretty funny because like they filed their moving papers already. So we already have kind of. A general sense of, of, you know, what they're, what they're getting after what they're alleging. But, but again, the judge is like, yeah, I'm not even going to look at it yet. So go figure it out. So then a lot was made, you know, we were all anxiously waiting cause you know, they were supposed to meet Friday. And then I, the court seems like the court website was down. I was trying to refresh all this stuff. And I, Monday night, everything comes out and a lot was made. You know, Fox has like a 22 page response, right? Detailing, like all this stuff, like, wow. They said that it was gonna hurt them, but we have this whole league and we've hired all these people. We video. It really seems like Fox kind of just wipe the floor. Right? Am I can, they said this and it didn't matter. They said this. They brought up these cases and they didn't have anything to do with each other. And it seems like from the real USFL side. They have like a five page thing where it was like, yes, we talked and dah, dah, dah, that it. I mean, it really did seem my David versus Goliath there. Did you, are we reading that right? Kind of how, at least how it H how. It appears. I mean, it's. Maybe maybe a smaller Goliath versus a bigger Goliath. You know, So because USFL, you know, they're, they're not, you know, They're not pinching Vincent pennies together. You know, they, they they've got resources if, if they, you know, if, if, if the USFL is making as much royalties as. They are suggesting. And this then, you know, they're, they're doing okay, but I did, I. But I agree with you that, you know, foxes declaration, one of their attorney's declaration was like, they're exacting. Very just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And there's. And that's not by accident right in court. You, you want to come across to the judge as early and often as possible that look, judge, I got my s**t together. Right. And you want to come across that. Look, I'm doing my damnedest to comply with your local rules. These other yahoos only filed something that was five pages long, and it doesn't really comply with the rules. And so it's a little bit of posturing. Maybe a lot of, bit of posturing on. On the, on the, on the part of Fox, but it's, it's a proper tactic to use. It's I would. I would do the same thing. And it's it's showing and it's again, it's, it's demonstrating. To the court. As early and as clear as possible what your theory of the case is going to be. I mean, if nothing else, when, when you're, when you're in court and you're trying to, when you need to have a good story, The law and the facts are helpful, but God damn it. You better have a good feed. You better have a good story. And part of being a good storyteller is repetition. And, you know, if you can start to tell your story as early as you can, that's just gonna like help you down the road because the judge would be like, oh yeah, I remember reading about that, this, this sort of thing earlier on in the case. So. You know, I, I, you know, I, I thought I was a bit, you know, Kind of surprise and then pull up the declaration. I was like, oh gosh. Okay. But then I thought about mine. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I'm. Kind of, I would, you know, if I had a client that would pay for it, I would do the same thing. Well, and I mean that client ride this Fox and Fox sports and. Right, right. I mean, it's not a thing for them. You know, and I mean, I don't know. I think the real USFL is projecting. And I think in the declaration that the Fox, when they were talking like 500 a quarter, whatever row he is, or 5,000, I mean, it's not. You know, I think they're trying to really USFL is trying to pretend like there's a lot more money at stake here for them. Then maybe there actually is probably. Yeah. Where you talk about. You know, w w. Causing an injunction, right? Bringing that about is showing damages. Right. And Fox is saying. We have an entire league where we've hired people and rented a stadium and have staff and have all this stuff. And, you know, we're, we're, we're worried about their t-shirt sales, right? It's not, it's not the same thing. It's not going to be right. Yeah. Yeah. You, you get, you got right to right to the heart of the matter is, you know, PA. A big, big, you know, Theme of a briefing and injunction is, you know, what's going to bounce a car, right. And so yeah, you hit it right. And they'll add like on the plaintiff. You know, it's kinda tough to sell a sob story. Oh, woe is me. I'm going to lose out. Potentially on t-shirt sales. And we can get into the nitty-gritty about the facts around the t-shirt sales. Weird. Sort of allegation and made, but. You know, oh, woe is me. I'm going to lose out in t-shirt sales and my brand's going to be tarnished. Potentially versus Fox is like, look, these are abandoned marks you this public domain, my friend. And, you know, we've started this entire machine in place. And we've got players, leagues everything, and it would just be pretty ridiculous to shut down this whole thing. For the sake of this. You know, these, the holder of these. What we believe to be dead marks. So, yeah, that's why I'm like, eh, injunction. Going to be a bit of a stretch. But. What, what happens a lot of time in these trademark cases? Is, and I've been on both sides of, of this kind of issue. And trademark litigation. If you're the plaintiff. And you are saying, oh my gosh, these jerks are really harming me and harming my brand. You it's it. It behooves you to at least try to move for an injunction. Because later on in the case, When you're trying to prove up your damages as the plaintiff. The defendant on the other side is going to be like, What damages you guys didn't even try to move for an injunction. Like, how is this really harming you guys? You know? So I understand. The plaintiff's point of view and. The plaintiff's tactic on this, that like, okay. We have to move for an injunction just because if we don't it's it's going to look bad. So otherwise, if you don't move for an injunction, it kind of looks like you're a troll, you know? And you're just like just being a jerk and trying to extract a settlement. So. So while I'm not, I'm not terribly confident that they're going to prevail on this preliminary injunction. I absolutely understand whether it moves forward. So. It's interesting. And I wanted to get your, we'll talk, the shirts here, because a lot's been made. This is the, you know, cause they don't have that many arguments. Right? The real us about. I guess if box went back cause they've sent cease and desist to right, to like American apparel or whatever they were making the shirts. If Fox went back and like, okay, you can do that. We're not going to stop you. You. I mean, you could almost argue that Fox is helping the real USFL in terms of raising the brand like recognition. 100%, 100%. Yeah. That's and that, that is, that is a, an argument that, that wouldn't be made. And, and all this. And so, and that that's going to be extremely relevant for purposes. The injunction it's still relevant, but it's less important when you actually get towards, as you advanced in the case, when you're trying to prove up your damages. Because, you know, under the law, If you are a trademark holder, you still have the right to control how your brand is used. Right. It's and so if you're saying, look, we are helping you. You can say, yeah, you're helping me, but like I'm not the one getting paid on it. So I, I w what, what links sense out of this frankly, is, is a settlement. That that, that that's what makes economic sense, I guess. But, you know, again, Fox has unlimited resources. So I think. I think they're going to be. They will be hard pressed to settle. So, but, but yeah. For purposes of the injunction. If I'm Fox, I'm going to say. What happened? Like nobody cares. Nobody cared about the USFL. And so we started doing, doing this again. So, you know, you guys are kind of folded. But I mean, I, and I understand that that's the whole crux of everything though, is like, If it mattered enough to call it the U S valid do it. I mean, the past does matter enough for me. I get where they're coming from. I want to, so the t-shirt thing I want to hear about whatever you said, nitty gritty, you have thoughts about the t-shirts. I think I might know what, what you're talking about, but let me fill us in. Sure sure. So I'm the under the complaint. They're talking about the t-shirt sales. And let me just pull it up. So I'm not going from memory here. But so they, they, they, they talk about like, you know, the good old, good old days of. You know, nights of. When the league first started and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So. They basically say that. Beginning around. 2011, like late 2011, November, 2011 or so. They were, they were selling these shirts and I'm thinking, all right. That's all fine and good. But under the law, there is a presumption that you abandon your trademark. After a period of non-use. Of three years. So that's the presumption. You can overcome that. But you. Yeah. So. You know, here we are in 2022. If you had, if, as the plaintiff, if you had facts, That show recent use. Of of the marks. You put that in the complaint, you know, you would say, look, you know, we're still around. We're. So the only evidence that I was able to see. Of actual use of, of the, of the, of the mark recently was. Let's see, we had t-shirts sales in 2011 and he says that that Steve's that Steve Earhart or excuse me, the USFL Cara of Steve Earhart was collecting royalties. Every quarter since 2011. But they don't say that like the sale, the certs are still being listed for sale. Or. And then w w what I thought was kind of curious in the complaint was. Demand for the USFL apparel has remained steady. And American classics has made regularly. Regular regular quarterly payments. To the USFL, blah, blah, blah. Through the fourth quarter of 2021. So, but, but again, like, That doesn't, that doesn't completely string the theory of use together. Right. Royalty payments presumably are in connection with sales, but why didn't they just come right out and say, look, we've been selling these things since 2011. So, and the. The, some of the sites they use to show. Evidence of use. Go to the. They go to internet archive way back machine sites. So not, not a good look. You know, if you're trying to say that your mark is still relevant. Not a great look. And the, the, the, we, we do have somewhat more recent. Well, we haven't seen, you know, some other not more recent. We have other evidence of use. You know, talking about, you know, licensing the name for filmmakers and things like that. But again, this is all. The film stuff was 2008, 2009. I think the only thing that might be the most relevant. Is. This book licensing deal, that, that they talk about the complaint. And. But they, they, they say that look, they're just kind of in talks, they had the discussions over the book. And there was a written release for someone else. To write about the USFL. Now that that's a license, that's a license that the name. But is that going to be enough? To demonstrate trademark use. Now. We knew we'd have to get into the merits as to whether or not that would be sufficient to demonstrate you non-use and. An abandoned. And abandonment. But the point is, is if this is the best evidence that they have about showing a use of the mark. Then it's going to be, it's going to be a tough road to hoe for them. And, you know, if I'm Fox on the other side, you know, you know, my job as, as a Fox lawyer, Is to try to blow up all these instances of, you know, the, the sub suppose it instances, abuse. So. Yeah. And I guess the, the book, you know, ultimately published. In 2017 now. So, so again, we can get more into the merits as to whether or not, you know, someone allowing someone. To write about the league. And allowing someone to, you know, Putting your name on a shirt and allowing someone to talk about the film. Is that going to be sufficient to demonstrate trademark use? That's going to be sort of the salient question. In this case as it sort of moves forward. I thought it was interesting just to finalize the t-shirt thing. You know, a lots of may that, and we have, there's a world retros, too. That's another company that makes, and he does all sorts of shirts and stuff. And I know that they've had discussions ongoing to where they basically said like that selling the shirts is more just like the, or the mental, like low I. It's not necessarily using the trademarks even it's like, and I think it's odd that on the, the new USFL on their website, that new league. All the hats and stuff, or just the names of everything I get. It's not, it's weird how they use everything and use the logos and don't use the logos. And like even the new USFL hats, like don't have USFL on them. They just say like Houston gamblers or whatever. I mean, it's just weird how they're kind of going about it. And, and sometimes we're using that. Anyway. I mean, I think that's a deep dive for a different discussion, but. You know, it's interesting that, that. So if you demand of sales, right. That they were talking about it. I think it was 500 a quarter. I can't remember if it was 500 or 5,000, but like, it was a very low amount of money per quarter that we used as like demonstrating. You know, demand for this product when foxes. Yeah. Committee and $50 million a year, you know, to. I see doing this league in Birmingham, you know what I mean? It's a little different. So, I mean, As far as the volume of sales. The volume. The volume is just, you know, this. Setting aside how they're using it, the volume alone, you know, might be enough to kind of just get them over the hump because it's, it's still, you know, if we get past the step of, okay, this is genuine trademark use. The volume of it. Sure. Pales in comparison. But it's still, it's still could be ruled as enough to say look okay. Yeah. All right. These are genuine uses and yeah, that's enough use. It's not like. One here, one there or whatever, you know, again, even though it might pale in comparison, it's still, you know, More than zero, basically. So yeah, I had a case a while back where. There was a brand that was just barely kind of puttering along and for a while and someone else. Came by and scooped up the brand. And try to do basically a resurgence. And we were assuming a completely different company. Someone that didn't have rights in the marks that we were asserting. We'll get different company, but using a mark that was confusingly similar. And so they argued, whoa, you are a brand back from the eighties. Where the hell did you guys come from? We thought you were abandoned. And to, to get us to trial. We didn't, we, we didn't win on this argument because well, We ended up settling the case, but we ended up surviving. Towards trial. By arguing that look, there were some sales that were floating around. During this, this, you know, low period. That they are calling the abandonment period. Like, no, we weren't completely gone. We had some sales here and there, there was a couple of stores that still carried the product on its shelves, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't a ton, but it was enough to convince the judge and be like, you know what? I'm willing to hear. I'm willing to let these facts go to a jury and I'm willing to let a jury make the final call on this. So, again, this wasn't the final decision on the merits, but we were able to survive. To, to the trial stage based on an argument that we still kind of had sales floating around here. And for, and for the plaintiff here, that might be enough, you know, they might just be looking for, I mean, They're most likely looking for a paycheck out of this. It sounds eerily similar. Eerily similar to that. No. Yeah, I had this kit. Yeah, this was, yeah, this was a, when I think it was back in like 2015 or so this is fairly early on in my practice and yeah, we had a abandonment issue. That's. That caught a lot of attention in Seattle. Yeah. But you have to tell me how fair. Before I let you go. So next steps in this. So they have a, they were supposed to have the hearing on the 15th. Then they've they've, they've given them a two right. Two week extension, 14 days. So right. Presumably they'll, we'll hear stuff by the 29th. Is that, is that kind of the timeline we're on? So let's, let's just some not going from memory here. So I'm gonna, so they. Let's see, so what we have. So we have a stipulation. For the defendants. To, to file their answer. The stipulation, technically hasn't been granted yet, but I mean, I'd be surprised that the judge says no. I mean, cause it's stipulated. But so it looks like. If the judge approves a stipulation, the next step is going to for the case is going to be. For the defendants to file a response or an answer to the complaint. By March 23rd. So next week, basically. To where we'll know a little bit more about Fox's official position. Rather than just kind of what they say to the media or what they say, an attorney declaration. So that's separate, then this. The 22 page thing that we have already, this is an additional follow-up that they're going to file, correct? Correct. Yeah. So that's 22 page thing that was. That was Fox's attorney sort of kinda filibustering. And saying, you know what the case is, even though that was not. You know, It's not the correct place to make your case, but it's a way to make a niche, a place to make your case. And so like, again, like I said earlier, like if you have an opportunity to tell a story, like tell a story, So the 23rd. That's next steps. And then what was it about the two weeks from the day? It's an ex. There was like an expanded, they gave him more time. Some about 14 days. Let me, let me pull that up here. I'll do this. I'll edit this out here. We'll just, cause I just wanted to make sure I have. Cause everyone's always like for sure. Whether the days. Cause even yesterday, the error Tuesday, everybody's like, I thought they were doing a meeting today. I thought I might well know like. Yeah. So what I see so far, So, yeah, the, the, the court. Told them. That. You guys have to go back to another meeting confer. Yup. The court said that on March 8th. The court said, look, have another meeting confirmed by March 11th. And if you can't resolve. Those issues within. Three days. And in federal court calculations you're day, one starts the day after that trigger. So it's going to be March 12th. 13Th 14th. So, so we got on the 14th. If they couldn't resolve those issues. Both parties got to file a declaration. Talking about. You know, what was resolved and what wasn't. So, and if emotion remains necessary, it's shall not be filed until three days after a party files the direction required by this order. So then that's 15th. 16 16, 17. So, so on the 17th. We saw enough. Well today, I guess today's the 17th. So. We might. We might see a motion. On the 17th actually. And so let's see. I need to make sure I get that right. 'Cause I thought it said something about the 29th. It said. What do you see that? I had tweeted that the other day. It said. The parties agree that the extension would save judicial party resources. If motion is not required, the party. Response 14 days following the court's ruling on plaintiff's refiled motion for a preliminary injunction, therefore. What docket number is that? Oh, good. It's in the blue header on top should say DACA now. I had just screenshotted and tweeted that. Let me look here. It was. Oh, here we go. Okay. So it's on that document. 63. Got it. So, yeah, that's the stipulation. So we did see. All right, so let's piece this together. So we did see declarations from both sides. As to what happened on their meet and confer docket $56 and 57. Yeah, those the 22 page and the five period. And then. So the stipulation. And pull that up. Oh, okay. So this is interesting. It's a little convoluted. So can. The second year. That's fine. And let me know, cause I can edit that other part where we're talking about the more, I just want to make sure we have the final timeline at the end. Sure for sure. I'll just go back and displace that. Yeah. Okay. So. Let's see. I just want to make sure that these guys actually complied. With the court or. So the court may actually like tell them to go talk again. Again, they might, I mean, Let's sit here and be kind of funny. Wow. Yeah. Just gonna do whatever they want. So let's see. Okay. So what they asked for. Is. What they stipulated to. Well, they, they ask the court to allow defendants 14 days from the date, the court rules on the motion for preliminary injunction. So we won't see an answer until 14 days after the court makes a ruling on the motion for a PI. So that much we do now. What's let's see if they actually complied with the court or on the. Confer. Which was. Well, they, yeah, I mean, they did that zoom meeting, you know that right? I mean, that's where all that stuff came out. The. Was that Monday night, the. The 22 pages and all that. Correct. So, so yeah, so the next, the next steps actually. Is going to be, they're going to file. I can ask a question or whatever, once we get. Yeah, so. It is after. Okay. Got it. Okay. So 15. 15. 1617. All right. So what's next in the case is that pursuant to the court's order that we saw at the docket entry 44. What's next is okay to file the declaration. If all the decorations on March 14th. Three days from that is going to be today. The, the plaintiff has to refile. Their motion for preliminary injunction. Which it might look the same. It might look a little bit different after the meet and confer. We don't know yet. So as the. On the 17th. We should be getting a renewed motion for preliminary injunction. And from that. Let's see how much time they have to respond. But the point is, is that like, we're not going to get, we're not going to get a decision on the motion for preliminary injunction. Four. My guess is at least a couple of months. So because. What happens is plaintiff is going to file their motion today, March 17th and then. Defense is going to have some time to respond. And then the plaintiff is going to have a chance to reply. And then sort of up to the judge on how quick the ruling comes out. Okay. So, let, let me ask you, I'll ask you let's boil this down cause I just, yeah. Let's let's make sure I get the. The response date. Calculated correctly here based on that court's rules. But you wish. Just make this easier. But I guess that's why you guys get paid money. Yeah. Basically, if you like a lot of board games, if you like complicated board games, then litigation. 'Cause it's like, if this, then that, if this, then that, you know, Q this blah, blah. But unless this happens. Let's see. Because originally the thought was they were going to have a hearing here. I think originally was supposed to be this week, but then when they had the confer, whatever it got pushed back. So I think that's what everyone, and maybe the expectations were wrong on our end, but it seemed like that was. To do. So we don't know when that, when the let's see. So. So we don't know. When the opposition is going to be filed because when in. In this court. When. When you file. Your motion, you gotta get a hearing date first, and that is contingent on the court's availability. And the rule says 28 days. From the hearing date is when you file your response. And then the rules also say 28 days from the hearing date that plaintiff files, the what's called a reply, which you, you know, you reply to whatever the defense says in their response. So as far as getting a hearing on this, you know, we're looking at roughly at months, And then as far as. At earliest. And then as far as getting a decision on this. Could be a month, could be two months, could be six months. I can tell you plenty of horror stories of judges sitting on motions without actually ruling on. So, you know, my gut tells me that this is. Because this is a fairly high profile case. You got someone trying to move for a preliminary injunction. The court is going to try to get to sooner rather than later. But. You know, I'm not back in chambers. I don't know what's going on there. So. So, yeah. And yeah, happy to. We can distill this down and I can. I try to summarize all that. So I'll let me I'll X out. We're talking with March 23rd or whatever that we were doing the math before on that. So. So. So tell me about 20 minutes off camera, trying to do the math and figure this out because if not, it's not clear-cut. So for people watching for us common folk out there, we're trying to figure out, you know, April 16th is the USFL kickoff. I mean, when the heck is all this going to be figured out. So when the heck this is going to be figured out is largely going to be dependent upon the court. So what we're going to see today, March 17th. Is hopefully a, a renewed filing from the plaintiff for a preliminary injunction. Because it seems like these guys actually, you know, did the meet and confer that was required. So, so on March 17th, we should be getting some papers from the plaintiff on a Glenner injunction. And then when they, then when they sat in their papers, when they filed their papers, they have to get a hearing date. From the court. And then 28 days backwards from that hearing date. The defense Fox is going to file their response. And then 14 days backwards from that hearing date. We're going to get a reply from the plaintiff that goes against the response from, from Fox. So from there Rola will get a hearing from the court. Probably going to be like a month out or so. And then the court can't. We could decide right then and there, look, I've read all the briefing. I'd read everything. I'm going to rule this way. Or the court is going to say, I'm going to take this under advisement. And I'm going to take some more time before I issue a ruling. And so the short answer is it's at least going to be a month out. Before we get a decision. And it could be. Much longer than that. Before we actually get a ruling. From the court on the injunction issue. And again, this is like, Let's take a step back here. This is still really early on in the case. Right? So this case was just filed. So this is all, you know, it's a preliminary injunction. After we get a ruling from the court. 14 Days after that court ruling, whenever it happens. We will get an answer from the defendants addressing what was actually contained in that complaint. So this process is kind of long and arduous, but that's sort of the, the rough timeline that we're working that we're looking at as we sit here today. Yeah. We could have, we could be crowding. They a USFL champion by the time this all comes about or easily, easily. Yeah, without, without question. And like I said earlier, you know, The courts are busy and they've got a lot of stuff going on. And so when, whenever you go to court, you gotta be prepared for the real possibility that. The federal judge is going to be hearing other matters before they get around to yours. So that's just kind of how it shakes out. Well, Tim, I'm going to let you get busy back with your work vacation. I appreciate you so much taking the time today. We'll we'll keep you. You know here and they will figure it out in our Rolodex of smart people to talk to you about stuff. So I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. My pleasure. It was. ell, I'm so glad today we have Jason Gregor back on the show. It's been a long time. I think a lot in the world is happening and we have new football leagues. Now, since I think the last time we've had you on the CFL had a great guy. How are you doing today? I'm good man. Good to be back. How are you? I'm good. And I want to get into, you know, we ended up having a lot of CFL stuff this week. I want to talk a little USFL at the end as well, but. Yeah, the, the world exploded yesterday. We're talking CFL four downs again, and now I want to talk the genius sports as well, but. What is your take on, on that? And the CFL adopting the game potentially. Well, You know what I, I think the CFL, you know, Randy Ambrozy yeah. He can talk about it all. He wants the CFL needs to focus on what they do. Well, And what's exciting about their game. W the, the, the assumption that for down football is automatically more exciting is based on what, right. Like you show me what it's based on now. They're obviously in three downs, I get the math, right. There's more chance of punts. Okay. That's valid. Doesn't mean, it's always that way. So when I look at having four downs, it's going to mean you're, you're likely going to have longer drives and fewer possession changes. Right? That's what it's going to meet. Right. Does it, does it guarantee that you're going to have a way more points? I got to see it to believe it in the CFL. Right. It's it's a different game. Like if you're playing for down football now on the wider field. That's going to be even harder to defend. I don't think there's any question about that, right? So you can't just say, well, four downs, it's going to be the same in the CFL field, as it is on NFL field, the dimensions are significantly different. And you, I don't like the CFL has to be prideful in what they do. Well, I think CFL has a bigger marketing issue than they have about what's on the field at times. I also think to CFL. Could do a better job when it comes to, you know, the last year now, maybe that was due to coven, whatever, but the last season defense dominated and at any time when defense dominates your product, isn't as good, right in the regular season. Playoffs are totally different people in the playoffs. You're so emotionally charged the game could be one, nothing, and people be fired up. It doesn't matter, but I'm talking play, I'm talking regular season, which is the majority of your games. Yeah, I just don't get, I said before, when this came up, you know, this all came out gray cup week, like of course, Hey, you know, genius sports and all this movement. I just, you know, I think the CFL, the issues they have, it's not trying to be this imitation of the NFL. Right? I mean, I think that the whole idea is, you know, we live on this, we exist on this different plane. We exist in these different rule sets. You know, people like our game. And I see already on Twitter now, like. I'm not a football fan. I'm a CFL fan. This is what I want. And it's really weird that people look at it that way. Well, so you're always going to have different opinions, right? I think we always have to be cognizant that a Twitter opinion doesn't speak for, for the masses. Right? There's a small percentage of us who actually have Twitter. When you look at it in the grand scheme of things. And there, and you're going to find some people who love the CFL. Some people who hate the CFL, some people who love both the CFL and the NFL, and some who love the NFL. I really I'm kind of past the point of having a conversation with anyone. Who's like, oh, you know, the CFL is below me, or I only like the NFL, my great. I like the NFL. I'm not trying to change your opinion. I really don't care. Like, I think it's an ignorant opinion. My personal view on it. The games are different. The leagues are different. There's. There's different strengths to them. The CFL needs to focus on the CFL. That's what they need to do. They stop worrying about other football leagues. Like, oh, what about the, you who cares about the USFL? Have they been around for a hundred years? Like you could look and say, Hey, now what, what are the possible concerns of this, of the U S. The new foot, but the USFL, well, it might mean some, some American players maybe don't come to the CFL. After that. Does it have any bearing on your TV numbers in Canada? No. Is it going to have any real bearing on your TV numbers in the U S no. So really? How is it impacting your team? There's a potential of losing a few players, but there's not a shortage. Of football players. Now there's a shortage of quality quarterbacks, right? That's the one thing, but you know, when is, you know, I got to see a league last for five years. Before I would be very concerned about it and that's, and that's not a knock on any of the leagues, but if the league comes up and has a year and you focused all this energy on worrying about it at all, what are we going to do different? And then the league folds, well now you've just wasted a bunch of times. So to me at the end, the CFL needs to focus on what they need to do to get younger fans in the stance point blank. That's what you have to do. And I don't think you have to cater to necessarily just changing the rules. There's lots of ways that they need to engage better. Engage better with your younger fan base has to be the main priority. The CFL. I just don't get, you know, Randy came out the big press conference. Again, we are genius sports. Now we're going to, you know, and then now he's on his big media tour. We're going to use the analytics, right? The genius. Like we're going to be able to better target and market. Right. Like our message to people. And I just don't get like, I don't know. I think a lot of people that don't watch the CFL, like you said, they're people that think it's below them or isn't cool. Right. And that's whatever we can say about them, but I don't know. Knowing better the age to reach people at is going to help you. I mean, I don't get what genius is going to give them in terms of like the analytics that we can better focus our, I mean, they don't run Instagram ads, they don't run Twitter ads. They don't run Tik TOK ads, like, well, I don't know what they're going to use that for. I'm with you, man. I don't. Like I look at, at the new president in Evanston, Victor queen, Victor queen is going on. He's going basically on a grassroots. You're he's going to do different things. The number one thing he's probably going to do is he's going to make the tickets more affordable for now season ticket holders. They're the diehards. They want the best seats they're going to pay for their tickets. And they're not like as a season ticket holder in other sports. I don't care if I'm paying. 80 Bucks for my seat. And now somebody can go sit in the, in the, in the second deck and only pay 15. That doesn't impact my life at all. I'm not going to be like, well, I should pay less. No, I paid 80 because I want to sit in the lower bowl. I want to sit at the 40 yard line. I have no problem with it. But I'm probably, actually, if I'm a fan, I want to have more people in the building. It creates a better atmosphere. And so if that means younger people, when I was a teenager or if I was a young adult, I didn't have the same money I had in my forties. That's just a fact. So you know what I look back and when I was 20 man, if I could get a $15 ticket, boom, I'm going to the game. Great. That's awesome. Right? Like we had that growing up, he used to get Safeway, used to have Safeway tickets for 10 bucks. Right. And you sat in the Safeway section. Great. So to me, I think the Elks. You know, Victor queen. He said a lot of the right things. Now I need to see action right. Saying. Sane and doing they're very different. But I think looking at that one size fits all. There's nine different markets. They're very different. So, you know, Randy thinking, they're going to find one way to promote the league across the board that it's going to work. I think he's delusional. Every, every city is different and every fan base is different. So you know how you're going to have to talk to people in Edmonton is going to be different. How you talk to them and. In Ottawa or in Toronto. Well, and even like our, we have crack and season tickets, right. And our tickets down we're in the low, you know, we have good seats and they're a lot more expensive than the ones up above, you know, cause they're trying to fill and you know, it's new a Seattle. Okay. What is it? What is a hockey? I mean, you can sit way upstairs there for a lot less money than you can down in the bowl, you know? And that's, and that's normal, right? That's how it is at every arena, because you're closer to the action. It's like everybody would love to afford to, to sit lower. I think it's an experience that's very different. You see how much quicker the game is, regardless of the game you're watching. But to me in Edmonton, You know, they've had, like, I know that they even flirted with the idea of only selling lower bowl tickets. Right. They were just not going to sell anything. And then they, they, they got a real pushback from a lot of people. Who've had season tickets. You know, in the second deck, right at the 50 yard line. And they love that vantage point. So, you know, they're not doing it, but I think he's going to work really hard to get more people in the stadium, because if you get people in the stadium and then obviously your team's gotta be good. The Alex didn't win a home game last year. Like, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you mark it on Instagram or Tik TOK, if your team sucks and they never win, it's a lot harder to get people like, look at Vegas. Vegas came in as an expansion team. They went to the Stanley cup final. The first that's the most spoiled and lucky fan base in the history of sports. Right? Like. They're finally their fan base right now. For the first time in five years is experiencing the pain of being a fan, right? Where your team's losing. It's frustrating. Like, like they, they're probably gonna miss the playoffs. They're banged up. They got key injuries, right? Like, look at Seattle. And I know the fans are excited there, but they're an expansion team, right. They're not very good. They're kind of the norm of an expansion team and I'm sure there's some people, well, geez, we're not like Vegas. Well, you know, Vegas was Vegas was like the, the, the. Wayne Gretzky of, of a franchise. So different than everybody else that you just, if you try to compare yourself to them, You're you're going to end up being frustrated and disappointed because no team is coming in and going to have the same success ever again, as an expansion team. It's just weird. I was typing the description and stuff of the podcast here before getting on. And like, I feel like I did the same thing a couple of months ago. Right. CFL removing the four downs, like all this stuff you said before we got on, you know, commissioner Ambrose, he's kind of always looking for the next big thing. Right. I mean, it was like the global thing and then the XFL thing, and now it just really just feel like we're talking genius sports all the time. Like this is where a one. One track mind. Yeah. And I honestly don't know how serious for downs from the people I've talked to. I don't. You know what. That is a massive, massive change. And I, I think. If you're looking that might alienate your really diehard fan base, because I think there are some diehard fans. Who love the fact that the CFL is unique and different. And they've grown up on it. They'd been used to it for years to change it to four downs. Like you're, that's a massive change. And you're doing that almost to cater to the people who haven't supported you. Right. And that to me, It's when you're going to change in hopes of getting people who haven't supported you. I'm not sure I own businesses. That'd be the worst business plan I could think of is to alienate my loyal fans. Just for the potential. Of new fan. That's just bad business. Well, and it's not like something that the ratings are falling off a cliff. I mean, right. Like, you know, we'd like to see TV ratings improve, right. And gate numbers. It's not like there's nobody at the games. I mean, it's not like. You know, the game is dying. No. Like, there's definitely a concern with the age of the CFL. I think that's a valid and fair concern. So you have to look and say, okay, what can we do? But two, you're not going to change everything and just magically, oh, we changed the four down football. Now everybody under the age of 30 is going to rush to the gates and go see us play. That's not how it's going to work. Right. Like, that's like, that's delusional thinking. In my opinion and I, I would hope. That the commissioner isn't isn't seriously looking at that because I don't, I think there would be. There'd be some serious ramifications to that. You have to do a long study on that. You'd have to talk to a lot of people to see and then look and say, okay, why is this going to make people want to come to CFL football? If you have the same players, Right. If you have the same players in the league now, What's the difference going to be. Honestly, like it just has one extra down, right? Like you might have a more, you probably have more first downs in the game. Okay. Like I said, I think you'll have fewer punts. Okay. Is that automatically. Going to, to make your game better. Yeah, I think when you, when you look at it and not, you know, obviously NFL is king in the talent level, but when you look at that drop off, but then you don't have to compare it to the same game. I think when it is the same game, it's the same problem the XFL had, right? If you're playing for downs or IB USFL here is going to have an April, like you're compared more to the NFL and that game. When did the CFL, it's like, you're your own unicorn? Like, you don't need to worry about that. You can be a little bit, you know, different talent and Excel in that different game. Oh, it's there too. They're two very different games, right? Like you, you. You know, the, the time clock of the CFL is significantly different. Right? Your player and guys have talked about it. They come up, they're like, oh my goodness. Like you got to train differently because you're going 22nd clock. It's just think about it. Just recovery. It's basic, you know, it's a different cardio level, right? You don't have the same size of players on the offense and defensive lines as you do. Now you have the odd guy. Yes. But overall, no. So the games are just different. And I think the more, the CFL spends time talking about how they're going to change themselves rather than focus on what they do well, and Hey, you know what? For. Decades. You were able to attract people now overall in every sport. Young fans aren't as you know, the, the written two more quick hits right there. There, there. They're into more. Hey, you know what? I don't, I don't want to watch the whole game. I'll watch the highlights. Okay. So you can still attract the fans by having a bigger presence, you know, talk to them on Tik, talk, talk to them on Instagram. Don't talk to them by changing four downs, I'm not going to bring them to the game. That's not going to do anything. So you got to talk their level and understand what intrigues them and you know what they might be like, Hey, that's pretty funny. I'll watch the games now and watching the highlights, you know what? Maybe I'll come to one game a year. I don't think there's suddenly all gonna, you know, transform into being. Huge fans, but if you can get them in, and then the other thing is you got to make it a fun atmosphere at the games, right? That that's a fact you gotta make it. So it's like, Hey, I'm here now. I'm, you know, encourage them while they're there to send out their tick talks while they're at the game, right. Have a Instagram place. That's what you have to do. Right. You have to, you have to communicate with them how they communicate and they communicate different than the previous generation. It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. So that's what I think you have to look at and go to, because changing to, for. Downs. Doesn't magically change any of the other ways you're connecting with that fan base. Randy was talking about like, you know, this drive to whatever the F1 thing, the behind the scenes drive with. Survives. Great. It's fantastic show. So like, But, you know, like the red blacks are doing that. Right. They're doing the behind the R and all that. And I love that. Right. Like, I. And I've spoken on here into the death. Great. I don't know. I don't think there's 20,000 people watching that, that YouTube show. Right. I mean, you know, you're getting the, you know, you're getting, you know, a thousand views, whatever, and it's well produced and they're doing well, but like, I don't know if I don't care about the CFL, if like a drive to survive about the CFL. I don't know. I mean, there are people watching F1 because not they've never seen it before, but they were just like, oh, this is an incredible show. Oh, read. I can tell you a hundred percent in my own household. My wife is a diehard F1 fan. Now, mainly because of drive to survive because in the drive to survive, what they did is they allowed cars drive to survive. Didn't attract their car. You're a CFL fan. No offense. They don't need to have a show to get you to come. This is for people who aren't fans of the game, because a lot of sport like diehard fans, Fans like yourself and myself, a sports, we watch it cause we're diehard sports fans. My wife is not a huge sports fan, but she loves stories. Right? Like she was a big Lewis, Hamilton fan. She saw him on an interview talking about his life and everything and that intriguing. She's like, oh, wow. You know what I quite liked him. So then when she watched drive to survive and Hey, there's drama, it's a little bit like a soap opera. And so that intrigues people, right? It's like the bachelor, like, shoot me. If I have to watch the bachelor, you couldn't pay me, but other people love the drama of it. So what drive to survive has done is it gets people to understand the characters right now there's only 10 teams. Right. And they focus on different characters. There's 20 drivers, two per team, but then there's, you know, they focus on the total Wolf and the other. And so they create a little bit of animosity. So now F1 was pretty popular, but it made it popular. I think amongst sports fans who weren't F1 fans. Right. And then it made it popular to, to people like my wife and I trust me, I talk about it on my show now. And we have tons of people who are texting like, oh yeah, my wife watches. I can watch it together because it's about the human side of the sport. Not the sport. I don't need don't have anything. That's going to talk about X and O's right. Like there's some of the stuff and drive to survive. That's a little bit about the car and how they make the engine work. And so that's, that's interesting to some people, but most of it's just about personalities. Where do the drivers come from? Here's oh, this driver and that driver don't really like each other. Now we got some conflict. So when you look at the CFL and you have lots of different personalities, And like the CFL frankly, has done an awful job of promoting their own players. Most people have no connection. It's as simple as knowing, Hey, you know what? What, what was Mike Riley's favorites on? Did you know that Mike Riley? I had a karaoke contest when he first came down to the Mike Riley, who was a good guy, came up and he's saying on karaoke, here's the new quarterback of the LTC that a karaoke contest on. And he's singing baby got back and people are dying, laughing. Right? You video that. And you put it on there and people are like, oh my God, it's a funny guy. Right. That's what you need to do. Non diehard fans is what that would go after it. Wouldn't go after the read Johnson's and other diehard fans, because no offense, you've already got those fans. You'd still watch it. And you'd probably like part of it, but it's not going to bring you to the games because you're already going to the games. It's about bringing new people to the game. Do you think the CFL though is capable of producing something like that? I mean, I know in theory, right, this is great. Well, you know, The Ottawa. One's pretty good, right? Oh, Overall, I think it comes down to two things or a few things. Number one, if you're going to do it, you need a buy-in you need some personalities. You need players and co and everybody, because football is the worst sport. I've covered lots of sports. There is no sport that has coaches more fearful of somebody sitting in the crowd, watching their practice, stealing all their place. Like dude, it's loud. I used to do junior football and I was hilarious. They used to practice under the high level bridge in Edmonton. High level bridge. It's very high we're talking. I don't know how high up it is. And the coat we'd be watching. I'd be there at practice and all of a sudden there'd be like somebody walking across the bridge that would stop. Oh, that's. This is a stole from Saskatoon. We got to get that guy off the bridge. Like, I'd be like, well, are you on crack? What are you talking about? Right. Like, and the funny thing is, guess what? You guys all watch the tape. Everybody knows what you're doing. It's just a matter of, can you execute it better every now and then there's a trick play. Sure. So you would need the football guys to let down their guard a bit and show some personality mix and a little bit of Exynos for the diehard re Johnson's out there. But then you need to go to the personalities. And, and find out good stories about the players. And go into it and have players who are willing to talk about it. Somebody who's going to say something controversial and it's good. You know what? I don't like that guy and people are gonna be like, oh yeah, Well, yeah, so you don't like it. That doesn't mean you're a bad human. It doesn't mean they're a bad human, you need conflict for these shows to go. So as long as they don't try to make it all family friendly and you know, like, not that it has to be R rated by any stretch, but you can have a little bit of conflict and that's okay. Well, I mean, cause the CFL has so little of that now I remember it was like going into the playoffs last year. I'm like, I think it was like the Thai cat. Someone said something about like stomping in the end zone. I can't remember what it was. And like people went crazy for a week over it and it was just like some stupid comment. You know, I just you're, you're doing the player interviews and stuff. Anyway, I just. I dunno. I feel like it would be a good idea. I just don't know. I don't trust them, like finding someone or you're bringing in a group, but I guess, you know, they would have to reach the outside, you know, they would have to bring in a, you know, affirm or someone to kind of work. Yeah. You know, it's, it's gotta be the idea makes a lot of sense. I've I've said when I look at this at the success of, of a drive to survive, And that's really successful in north America where F1. [Unknown] races once in Canada year, you know, once or twice, maybe in the U S right, for the most part, the race and every while they race all over. Right. But so there are global products, so that's definitely there. Right? And it's, it's pretty Richie rich for sure. But people, they still find a way to take these. Ultra rich sport. And you can relate to the average fan to it. That's what the genius of it is. And how did they relate to it by human interest stories? And that's what the CFL has. The CFL, if anything, like you've got way more guys coming from different parts of it, but you've you've and you can't just do like the, the easy, oh, here's so-and-so he grew up in the south and you know what? He didn't come from money and now he's in the league. Yeah. Well, we've heard that story a hundred times, right? So there's gotta be more than just that one. Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt. I mean, I just, I saw the comment yesterday and Randy said like, well, now we know that we don't need to, you know, do newspaper ads or whatever as a way to like reach out. And I'm like, why? Because it told you that you needed to give me 10% of like the marketing arm of the CFL. Right. I mean, I just. Some of the, some of this stuff is there for them. I just don't know. I think you've known for a while. What the problem is. I don't know. I mean, maybe now we'll figure it out. Yeah. But even, even a statement like that, it's like to suggest that. You can advertise anywhere if it's done properly. Right. So, you know what, so if you say you're not in the newspaper, so does that mean now you're not on the digital side of the newspaper, like, you're just going to ignore it. They'll get there. You got to look at a lot of different things. I think. If you're in marketing and someone tells you never advertise here. I don't think that's a good marketing for, cause you don't know. You don't know where your fans are. Are you certain? There's lots that still read the paper right now. It might be an online paper. So how do you, how do you mix that in? How, how can you have a different. A different feel of marketing on who you're going to touch on. There's there's not one thing. That's, that's the thing. There's, here's the whole adage on marketing, right? 50% of your marketing works. You just don't know which 50% at any given time. Right. So two. To want to just rule out one. Now I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket. Right. But I think for the CFL. To me, they've got to market themselves better. That's that's at the end of the day. And I think that comes down to individual teams like Saskatchewan's in a much different boat than BC. Right there in a different boat, even though that Edmonton and Calgary, to be honest, like Edmonton, Edmonton, still because of the size of their stadium. And they're like, Emington. There Edmonton should be able to get 40,000 fans a game. If they do that, I don't care what the ticket price is. You're going to make more in, in food and beverage. You know, you're going to have a better atmosphere at the crowd. And to me, that should be their goal. And I know that like Victor CUI wants to have salads. Now that's a massive goal to get to, but like they needed a guy like Victor CUI who comes in these younger. Right. He, he, I think he understood and he's not afraid to be bold. And I find that the CFL has like their best marketing campaign ever was, our balls are bigger and then they gave up on it because somebody got offended by it. Like. Boo hoo. There was nothing offensive by it. It was a fact the football is bigger. End of story. But you can't find, you know, you can't have nine Victor queen. I mean that just doesn't. I mean, you know, Do you make him be commissioner then? I mean, he move him up and say, If he comes in and has success and what he's doing right now, I look at like, I look at Ottawa, Ottawa has done a pretty good job of there are, they got really strong ownership in Ottawa. Right. So I think that organizations in a good spot, I'm curious to see the new owner in BC now. Right? Like there's been a little bit of a turnover here recently. When, when you only have nine teams, you have a new ownership in, in BC. That's very, you know, he, he, I think is going to be bold as well. You have a new president in Edmonton. There's two of your nine teams, right? Saskatchewan and Winnipeg are on very solid ground right now. You know, I think Ottawa is in a good spot. Toronto is what Toronto is there. They're always still, you know, working. I think they. They can do better things overall in what they do, but, you know, Hey in the NHL, not every, market's great either in the, in the NFL Jacksonville, we can go through the list of D not one league has every franchise running on all cylinders. Right? So when you have a smaller league, if one or two aren't at the peak, there's too much focus on it. I think at times, because I'm like, we can find that in every, every league. You know, the, the difference of the NFL is they make so much money on TV that even the horribly run franchise is still make money. Yeah. I mean, you know, NHL and Arizona is moving to some right. Yeah. And that's, you know, what's like people, there's going to be a lot of frustration around that. Read no question. But at the same time, it's probably going to be the best atmosphere they've ever played. It. Right. It might have a little bit of a college feel. It's a 5,000 seat arena. It's like my goodness, it's going to be sold out for sure. Right. And they'll probably be able to charge more for tickets there overall than having 12,000 people when some of those, you know, like, and I know that Arizona comp tickets, like no other team. Right. So how much was that it was paid? I don't think there's going to be many comp tickets in the new arena. Right. And so I would be curious what the actual bottom line is. Arizona has never been close to making a ton of money in their gates. So, you know, there's different things that you can do. And in the CFL, I just go back to it. They have to focus on them rather than worrying about everybody else. I don't. I don't hear a lot of other companies. Focusing on other league, just say, Hey, this is what we do. Stop. We know what the NFL is. I don't hear the NHL. Talk about the NFL. Right. Different sport, but they're competing against each other to make no mistake. The NHL, the NBA, the NFL, they all compete against each other and the NFL dominates all of them. So why would the CFL even remotely. Talk about the NFL. It's. It's a waste of energy. They're not the NFL. They're never going to be the NFL. They just can't be. So don't worry about it. Well, that's good. I appreciate it. This has been good today. I'm glad that we had a little bit of, you know, a little spiciness here. It was a little slow this year, over the last couple of weeks. So this has definitely been a little bit. Jason Gregory. Thank you so much again for your time. It's always a delight. I could talk to you for hours. It's always going to come on, man. We're going to go on. Well, Well, I'm thrilled today. We have Solomon wise of my Philadelphia stars on the program. How are you doing today, sir? I'm doing good, man. Woke up with a smile on my face, you know? Well, it's an exciting time. We cover a lot of these leagues talk with a lot of the players. What's it been like the last couple of weeks since getting drafted and being involved in the USFL. It was a big switch because I wasn't expecting. Dumb to draft me. I'm not gonna lie to you. I was no. They sent me the email. I was okay. I filled that out. I was expecting, you know, just. Get late round or picked up somewhere, but this is actually a better opportunity. Cause. You know, better film. You know, Not only better film, but just. I get to showcase my stuff a little bit more against. Better talent instead of going to a practice squad. So, yeah. What did, what was it like for you finding out? I mean, what was it three weeks ago now? Right. You were taking in the first draft. So. What was it like? So. Yeah. I was an MGP. I was training. So I was getting ready for my pro day training. Came back from the ACU combine, like two weeks prior to, so I was kind of even like a steady pace, like, okay. You know, just doing football drills and whatnot. Then I get back to my phone. I get some guy walks in MGP. Congratulations man. What is like, Oh, I've got planned. He walks away. So then I'd go to my phone. I have all these notifications on my phone. I'm like, oh, shoot. Oh, wow. So then I figured out I got drafted. Yeah. These missed calls. So I called him back. It was, you know, in the being the DC and whatnot. And then yeah. So yeah. That was that. Kind of, you know, Talking about just, you know, it's so hard in these leagues. Hey, right. And you're playing and you're, you're hustling and kind of the not knowing, knowing now you kind of have a spot to go for the next extended period of time right now. And you have a home base. What is that like? It's comforting. But. I can't lose sight of. I can't lose sight of my goal. I want to dominate this lead. You know, I'm going to show myself to be. You know, who, who, who I'm supposed to be. You know what I mean? And, you know, Yeah. That's just what I'm that's my head is right now. Just dominate in this league first and everything else can wait, honestly. Yeah. We were talking last week, Sean Brown, whether you're also a fellow teammates with the stars. Yeah, excited. He said he's excited to be a part of history, right? Kind of the email. We don't, we don't call it a relaunch anymore, right. With the lawsuit, but we call. You know, the new USFL, right? Part of that. What is it, what does it mean to be part, you know, Fox, NBC, everything being on this premiere platform that you guys are going to be on. It means a lot because a lot of people don't have this opportunity is all about the opportunity that is presented in front of someone and how they see how they choose. To, to take it in. Somebody could say, oh, this is not enough. It's not that, but it's just like, He is going to Jackson state. They on prom time television. It's still playing in the stone, going to get picked up. It's all the same. It's all the same. It's all the same. You know, I have a chance to play. Really good football on primetime television while people are eating food, you know, in restaurants. Everywhere. On two different networks. So when I look at it like that, I'm fans just like my brothers playing prom time on Monday night football. It's the same thing. You know, it's same company, same networks. Holding us. So, like I said, all I got to do is dominate this best league in the world to see it. Thereby we'll see it. So, you know what I mean? So I it's great opportunity. I seen the various staff, right. Coaches involved. Right. You know, even a management, right. We've got moose, Johnston and everybody involved. Fox and all that, but. Yeah, especially the coaches that you're going to have, having that skill set around you, right. To help you grow, help you improve. Well, what does that mean? It's good to have experience around, especially at a certain level because. Place that you come from guys have experienced. But not depth inexperienced, you know, not like I used to be head coach while I used to play this, or I used to do that. So. I love. I love being a student of game. Like people that really know me. No, I love being a steward in the game, you know, kind of like Bruce Lee said kind of wherever you're at. You have to absorb. Your whole entire environment. You know, Someone is speaking. Kind of just like, okay. He has more experience than me. I can learn something, even though you may know more. You don't know at the time. Just find out Opie ears. Learn. From these coaches on the learn a lot. I really can't wait. I'm not. Yeah. I really can't wait. Yeah. You talk about dominating the game, right? You talk about standing out. What type of player do you view yourself as? Right? What do you try to leave on the field? I'm a finesser I'm a. A quick, fast player. I set up. I don't wanna say too much for the guys who's watching office alignment, but I set up, I set up myself for. For future. Moose stuff like that. So, I'm a big Vanessa, like you may think. I'm doing this, but I'm coming, I'm coming under. You know what I mean? And stuff like that. And I just had to see the defense that we're going to be in. I got to soak that in to that more talk to the DC. He said just. He said everything. It's going to be here when I get here too. Have a clear mind. And just be in football shape and play fast. It's gonna be a real fast game and I'm the perfect player for that. So, You know, I don't say we are very high on the stars. Right. I have lots of friends at the show. You have the program on the team, right? Your quarterback, Brian Scott, friend of the shell. Special teams, Matt mangle. I think you guys are really set up well with GoTo Andrus, you know, having been in the system before, right. Having done spring league, having done XFL. You know, talking with some of the players, talking with the guys, how are you feeling going into training camps and going into this season? Cause I think you guys have a really good crew with you. Yeah, we do, honestly. And I want to be surprised. I'm pretty sure we might go all the way. But. Well, we'll see. How I feel with these guys. I talked to Brian. We we've deemed my buddies, Jordan Moore. I talked to some of the D lineman. Have we got a chance to talk to everybody. Like I want it to, but. We're going to talk with me. Get there. And I know it's going to be a good atmosphere. Because everybody has, isn't the same Headspace and that's what you need for good team. You know, every good team. Everybody has to be on the same mission, same mindset. And when you move. We just, we synchronized, we move as one. The step on the field of knowing the goal, you know what I mean? So we stepped on the field flowing. The same kind of tenacity ambition. I know, I know my quarterback got that. So I know the office is in great hands. This guy is. He has fire. In his heart. And I already know that now I do too. So. Yeah. Having the opportunity for this, right. You know, having these alternate leagues like the USFL or, you know, we even have like major league football. Now they're talking about coming back in may. I didn't really know about that one, but having these leagues, giving players the opportunity to talk about the importance of that, right. To be able to work on everything film, you know, if you do want to get back to the NFL, whatever you want to do, Yeah. So you get guys that. Are capable of taking anybody's spot in the NFL NFL. Is a good league. And not to, not to down to players. The NFL. But a lot of things. Are overrated more than people expect. More than people think. And I believe that a lot of these guys are sitting at home. Or realize God's already smaller leaks could definitely play in the NFL. I've seen it happen. Multiple times I've seen. I've seen the Heinekens or the lead. You know, I seen. You know, My brother, Daniel Wise, you. He'd come out of nowhere. Play on the commanders and do his thing. And he's been doubted for three years in the NFL. He comes back and tears up. So the most hall. Somehow. Like the hall of Famer offers alignment. You know what I mean? I don't want to say names right now, but. Is this all about opportunity? It's about. Who's going to give the chance. One of the defense is fit for that person. Office is fit for that person to scheme. It's made for this type of player. So these leads like this. Is just another thing to wait to showcase that we belong and. It's all about seizing opportunity to take that guys. I have right there in their hands. They gotta, they gotta take it and grab it. He got to run with it. So it can play with opportunities like this. So these are, these are great opportunities to showcase guys that have potential to start any in NFL. Daniel Wise is your brother. Because he is Washington. This is the. It's my team too. Very excited. I don't know how I feel about our quarterback this year, but I am in Washington. Isn't. Yeah. Yeah. Who's the quarterback again? I don't know. Oh, well, We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see, that's all I gotta say. We'll see. I live here is my boy. Hi, Nikki's my boy. We followed him from the battle Hawks. You know, we did the whole Fitzpatrick experiment, but yeah, I don't know how I feel about Carson Wentz. That's phenomenon. So someone else like a Tom Washington football whip, that's very. All right. You know, getting ready. You guys are reporting next week, you know? You're traveling. Talking about that before I let you go. Just. You know, the excitement, what else you have going on before? You're getting to training camp. So before we get on the train to camp. What do we have going on? So I'm going to stop by. The my pro day. I'm just going to talk to a little bit more network and say, Hey, everybody kind of just show. My face. I don't know if I've been doing product, but I probably won't. But. A lot of people. They told me to come out from our coaches from other, you know, Scouts. It said, just show your face. We want to see how much you weigh and all that. And that's one 21st. And right after that. I'm driving to Birmingham. So I'm already locked in right now. So. I just need a playbook. That's all I need. Yeah, excited to set up shop. We're going to be there in April for the big kickoff. So, you know, we'll, we'll be doing our show there. Before. The last question. Just what does it mean to have this opportunity, right. To be selected? Like you said, you didn't, you didn't know if you were going to get drafted. You thought maybe you get picked up later. You know, what does it mean to you to have all this happened in the last couple of weeks? On death. I'm good things happen expected. And. I expect good things to happen when I know what's going to happen. So. I'm actually proud of this moment. This has been more for my family. You know, Three boys in the league or three boys. Playing professional sports. So. You know, that's just, I'm trying to create this. Donnish Pete trying to finish it off. Be the anchor, my family. So it just means a lot, you know, it means a lot. It means a lot that this organization and the league. Was looking at me. It's one of, you know, a linebacker too. So they can premiere. Stuff like that. Just it's very humbling. You know, cause. Sometimes. Sometimes you have, people are lost where they are. I'm not saying I was lost, but I had a sense of like, okay, I didn't have a sense of, okay. I knew things were gonna happen. I didn't know how they were going to play out. So. I know they're going to play on now. I control my own nerves. And so that's done. You know, Well, I'm excited. I think you're in a good spot. I think you have a good team leadership, Brad, you I'm wishing you the best. And I do think I feel good. Deep run at a minimum, but all the way, at least I think it's going to be. I'm cheering for you guys out there. Appreciate that, man. Thank you. Thank you for having. Thanks a lot, man. All right. I got my backup. Rolling. Okay. Well, I am thrilled today. We have Andrew Pearson of America CFL team, the BC lions on Andrew. How are you doing today? I'm good, man. I'm good. I'm happy to be on a, I'm a big fan and I appreciate what you're doing. Down south and the border support. And then stop. Happy to be on. Well, I appreciate you coming on today. I know you've been busy at the movies. I don't know spoilers, but what did you think of the Batman? Yeah. So it's funny. I got asked to do this. My teammates and I have been trying to go see a, trying to find a time that works. So today was that first day and I thought it was fantastic. I thought was really good. It wasn't when I was expecting. It was a little different than traditional kind of superhero movies. So I thought the acting, the casting was awesome. Yeah. It was pretty good. It's long it's three hours. So it's a grind there. Especially for us. I just finished up workouts. Right? So we're fully hydrated, everything I'm running back and forth from the bathroom. It was awesome. It was awesome movie. Yes. Spill the beans. Who's in the secret movie club with the BC lions. I want to know who is in this, in this little community. It's no secret. I mean, So, yeah, I was myself, Dave Neville, Isaiah, Matt stone, and Jacob Scarfone. So some of the guys, there's a lot of guys here working out. In the off season. A lot of the offensive lines here. And working with some of the scale guys. So. You know, we try to do some stuff on the outside. Locker. The training facility and. It's been fun. Why. And I like you, you know, the. The wrap with the old line is always, you know, No personality, right. You just kind of there working. You're very, you know, bombastic, I've seen, you know, running into zoom calls. Online and things like that. So I've made, is that, is that just who you are? Do you try to go out of your way to change that stereotype or walk me through kind of how you look at your, your role there in the media. You know, I will say, yeah, traditionally offers alignment have this. Stereotype where we have to be, you know, at least big Tufts. You know, Maybe mean. You know, depending on what your kind of. Predisposition of the position is, but you don't want at times. We can be pretty funny. And I know a lot of different guys I've played with and across college and university, and, and now the pros, you know, there's so many funniest guys on the team, so. You know, Just getting out there and showing some. The funnier sides of us and yeah, I enjoy it. It's it's kind of who I am. I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of like that. I like to, you know, Kind of get out there and have some fun. It was good. And it seems like, you know, lions. We didn't end the season, maybe how we wanted. Well, we like, we finally ended up the right way, but it was kinda like we. Even though we put the Corbus to bed, you know, We will be Edmonton. But I, you know, seems like a lot of excitement going into this year. Right. You know? New ownership, even the Henry Berger is coming on today, you know, kind of working with a. You're in training camps and everything. Nathan Rourke. A myriad of things I want to ask you about what excites you the most of heading into the 2022 season. You know, Just touching on last season, you know, you. In any time in sports, you kind of wish when you have this new coaching staff and. Some new pieces, new ownership, you kind of wish you can just slap it together. And it's a fairy tale. You know, but oftentimes that's not kinda what happens. You know, you need time to gel for pieces to get cohesive, especially in our position. The offensive line. It takes a little bit of working in how people play, knowing that this means that, and just, you know, maybe nones, maybe non-verbal things that you can just now know that that's this. This is the standard. You know, that was last year. We're working hard in this off season as a group together. I know the coaching staff is upstairs working hard to, so every we're doing all this stuff in the community to try to grow the game. So there's lots of good stuff, lots of positive momentum that you're mentioning going to the season. So I'm looking really forward to it. We have a lot of exciting pieces outside of our position. The offense. The kind of the exciting guys that, you know, make those flashy plays. So we brought some guys in a. I'm really excited about. And continuing with a lot of the momentum that we had last year with a lot of play makers that we had. You know, lucky Brian on the offensive side. You know, no telling what those guys going to do when they get the ball. So. We just got to give Nate a little bit of time and I think everyone's gonna be really surprised. He's capable of doing. Yeah, I'll we'll touch. I need. Does it help, you know, like even today, things right, working out with the guys, spending time outside, getting to know everybody doing that extra work here. You always hear that right. Oh, so, and so, you know, in the NFL so-and-so quarterback paid $10 million to fly in all these people are, well, you know, I mean, we're not doing. You know, in the CFL, but, but you know, we're going to, we're seeing the Batman, we're spending time together. We're working in the off season. I mean, I think that stuff is so paramount, right? Where it's it is. Trying to create the CFL is more of a year round lifestyle, right. That you guys are a part of. And just like we're turning this on and off and on and off season. Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, it comes down to it. You know, football is about building tracks. It's about building these relationships and trust is kind of that. Foundation that is built upon. The trust starts in a weight room with a lot of S and. And, you know, seeing that, you know, tenacity and that. Hard work, you know? So when we go on the field, I saw that guy go out there and, you know, push it all in the off season. And now I'm going to trade kept. I know that I can lean on him a little bit. He can. He can lean on me. So yeah, no for sure. I, you know, talking about Nathan, right. You know, your paramount, you know, to this offense and him and everything. Thoughts on him as a leader coming in, you know, big shoes to fill, right? Lots of, you know, this legacy of Michael Riley and everything. And Nathan was on the show. God like a month ago now. Very sure of himself, right? This quiet confidence. How do you read him? You know, You know how I read him? He's, he's an interesting guy in the sense that he doesn't really, he's not very bulky. He's not screaming, but what he is doing is leading by example that guy's in the gym every single day, he comes in early starts lift early, stays late to do stretches. And he's throwing all the time. I'm glad that people get to see some of this stuff he gets to do. Because he poses a little bit. You don't like that 10% of what he does. Just social media. So. When you see someone like that, that's working that hard. It makes you want to work a little better. Often contact finally. Let's start stretching a little bit more. Why don't we stretch with Nate and stuff like that. So, You know, Leading by example is a very powerful tool. Because oftentimes if you're, if you're just leading by like vocally and not following it up with those actions, That kind of give you that momentum. Then it's kind of just loose. It's just kind of like, you know, out there, it doesn't really, it hasn't had that backing, but Nate has that back in with the work that he's putting in, in the film room, in the weight room and on the field, practicing, throwing and stuff like that. So. I'm really looking forward to it. And I think. Like I said, I think it's going to be a, it's going to be a good season for him. The other thing that came out today and obviously, you know, before it was after, you know, we scheduled all this, but you know, Henry Burr's coming in, right. You had to work through training camp and stuff. I mean, more than anything that to me just speaks to like, you know, the, the lion staff kind of trying to think outside the box here, right? Like what are some unique things we can do? Whether there's some different things we can do. Thoughts on that and reactions to when you heard that. Yeah. No. I mean, we talked about today when we were warming up. On the field, doing our workouts. We were talking about. Nate was, it was so excited just because, you know, that's another, that's another piece of the puzzle that can help him grow and, and, you know, he's gonna, you know, he, he mentioned you. It is a young group. It's a young room. So having that, you know, vectoring kind of static someone that's been there, been to the dance. You know, diamond dancing. So, you know, having someone like that in the room, Trying to steer them the correct way and steer all of us. I mean, you know, when you have someone like that, It doesn't matter. It's not just positional. It's. It's across the whole team. So. I know. I know just today. Cause he just came out. I. Yeah. Today. So, you know, I haven't spoke to a lot of the guys outside of the field here. I know, just in our facility, it's exposing. Even with the lions couple of years now, right? What different feelings going into this year, right? Like, you know, you know, Amar don't mind. The middle of the season. That's kind of weird, right? Lots of changes with Mike Riley, everybody else. I mean, Hey, obviously this year. You know, every year I imagine going in feels different right there than the year before. But what does it feel like this year? What sense are you getting heading into this season? I think the kind of tone right now and this isn't, you know, outside of just myself has just met. Just me talking. You don't get the sense of buying in. You know, people are buying it, you know? From our standpoint, controlling what we can control in. And, and, and, and why I'm saying that as you see, we have pretty much the whole old line, at least speaking on our, on behalf of our position on group. Well, almost the whole, all wine here working every single day. And then doing extra stuff, going to yoga. And now we're, you know, doing some film work or. Or field work. You know, just stuff like that. So, you know, people are buying in on our team and I know, I know that's the tree. To the guys outside of, outside of the SAP as well. Back in their respective homes. I know. Just from talking to them, it's the same kind of thing. So we're excited. It's all right. You know, I think. They're going in. There's not too, too many surprises that could happen from. Externally. So we're, we're looking forward to playing some football. With a, with a passionate owner. And I'm an excited fan group. We're looking forward to. You know, fighting to bring the cup back to BC. Talk to you about this yoga. Well, I mean, you know, it's just something that, you know, it doesn't matter how big or, or anything like that, you know, tight hips and all this stuff is awesome. You know? Loosening up the tight hips is something that's very voluble for an offensive lineman. Cause you know, we're so big. So there's a lot of weight on there. Our lower body. So kind of taking that bed. To loosen up. It's also pretty good for, for the head to, to kind of take some time to focus just on your body. Not, not, you know, lifting weights or running fast, just focus on the little things. How your body's feeling, listening to it. What, you know, kind of reflecting on the day. So we just started that recently and. The good people over a new west. Or giving us a hand here. So, you know, it's hot yoga too. So we got a little sweat going. It's a, it's a good time. We're enjoining. It's definitely going to probably pay dividends. For a game. Yeah, I was, I was quite a Yogi back years ago. And then. Once you become self-employed it's hard to be like, Less than three hours. Yeah. You know, we've, we've had a lot of off season talk and you always hear people like, well, you can't judge anything on paper and it's on the field, all that stuff, but you seem like more of a straight shooter. So, you know, lions were feeling good about the lions, right? We're going, but you know, you're looking at other teams, you know, who, who do you think is looking good? I mean, you seem like someone that pays attention to everyone else. Who, who do you see as formidable foes here heading into the season? I mean, I hate to Greg. I really don't focus too much on how I try to track and pardon. You know, so much just of what I can control and that's kind of our group, I will say, you know, Winnipeg's always going to be there well at one machine. So, you know, the west is always good. I know a lot. A lot of dogs went over to the east. On the defensive sites and guys we're going to play. So in that sense, you know, preparing kind of. Watching film on some guys getting some tendencies and stuff like that, you know, in that sense. We're all preparing, just not myself. We're all preparing for things like that. Defects or France kind of tendencies and stuff like that. So, I think the east garner, those strangler was sending the defensive guys. They picked up and, but the west is always strong. Ah, we got to take care of business here in the west to start. And when those crucial games, when we do cross over. For you, you know, personally, You know, four years here. What are your goals for the season? What are you hoping to accomplish? How do you, how do you feel proud of yourself? Coming out of here, you know? That's a great question. And then somebody, you know, I definitely focus on is controlling. I've already said it a couple of times, you know, controlling when I can control. And that's just, you know, I always like to live by, you know, not trying to. Go outside my means. I just want to lit every single day that I'm. I'm able to play this sport. I want to hang my hat and dust my boots off and, you know, say that I gave it my all today. I don't want to feel like I know I left anything on the field cause that. The thing about the sport is it's, it's not forgiving. And you know, you have a couple of bad days or anything like that. You never know what could happen. So I want to leave every day, knowing that I gave him my bass control to, I control in all aspects, representing the BC lions, you know, in the community, anything like that. You know, I want to know that while I've had this opportunity, I want to fulfill everything I can do every single day. Anything else you want us to know about you before I let you go? I. I mean, besides being a movie aficionados. Right. I mean, I feel like we're crossing boundaries here, but you know, anything else I could say. You know, the only I never gets any credit. Right. You know, it's like 90% of everything is, goes through you guys. But, but I, you know, I like to get the personalities out there, especially the CFL guys that come on. What would you like people to know about you before we let you go? You know, The thing it's not really about me is more, it's just that. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of awesome guys in our league that, that do a lot outside of the game, you know, personality wise, they're, they're, you know, characters. But they're doing a lot of loss and stuff outside the field too. And their own respective fields kind of drew up growing that. Who they are away from the field. So I know personally, you know, I'm studying for the CFA, the chartered financial analyst, try to start to build my financial. You know, backing for when football's done here. So that's kind of what I do to stay busy. When I'm not playing football here is, you know, tryna. Try to study a little bit, got my level two at my level one last year during COVID. So, you know, there's a lot of great guys that are. And across the league that are doing a lot of finding staff outside the field and. And I know the lions here, we're working at exempt then pretty soon here to. You know, send out to the fans on. Getting a little bit more into a, you know, what's behind the football player. So I'm excited to see how that goes out. I won't give up too too much. I just teased a little bit, but we have a little bit going on that kind of shows the fans, you know, you know, who's Andrew, who's some of these players outside of the field and what their personalities are a little more like, rather than just hearing the kind of. Classic, you know, Football. Interviews. So I'll leave it at that. I don't want to give too too much away, but we're looking forward to that. So, Yeah. Well that, but you know that to me, that is what makes the CFL, you know, Non NFL, whatever, you know, we cover XFL. Well, not a certainty, but yeah. The approachability of the players, right. Getting to know them a on a level that you never will in, you know, I can reach out to Matt. You have you on the next day, you know, fans. Interact online, do things, but you know what I mean? But it is, it. It. It's sets up uniquely that way, where the people that listen and follow are so attached to the players. And that's why it's, it's so hard sometimes when players move and, you know, I don't want to get. Contracts and said, but you know, you get to cause these fans love you guys. And then, you know, you moved teams or whatever. So it's, it's good to have stability. I'm excited for, you know, BC. I hope that this whole, like, You know, Nathan Borg and Michael O'Connor. I hope all this works out this year. I'm getting there. I'm telling you, I will. I will. Aye. There is no man that works harder than Nate. And I know that speaks for Michael's while he just got here. But I've, I've been working with Nate now for a year or so. You see them work and you see 'em, he. Do you see them grind? And it's, if I know one thing, you know, You keep working hard and you're going to be rewarded. You know what I mean? So I'm looking forward to, and speaking on Nate, you know, a lot of the stuff that. Ah, some people that don't know he is huge in the community now, too. So I'm really proud of him. I want to say proud through the science. [Unknown] but he he's out there in the community doing so much great stuff to grow the game of football. And the various things, the lions habits, doing the community for different initiatives. I have through our sponsors. So we're, we're super happy that, you know, we get to work with a class act off the field, as well as like something like. Well, all eyes on BC this year. Yeah. Big excitement. Yo high risk, high reward. I like it. I'm a fan. I said. Yeah, it kind of seemed like when they were assigned them lucky and resigned and. Brian and everything. I was like, yeah, it really feels like BC is buying a gray cop. And then if America had a CFL team, we would buy a gray cup. So I, I. I am a component of that. Andrew. I appreciate your time. It's a delight, a good personality all around and they, you so much for taking the time. And I guess that would be getting a huge fan, appreciate what you're doing to grow the game and. And let's go lions. Appreciate you.

Episode 83 - Who Is the “Real” USFL?

Hey guys. Yeah. Coming up. Coming up this week on the mark cast will be real USFL. Please stand up. I did a Twitter poll. M and M wins a day. We are going with the real USFL. Coming up this week on the mark cast, will the real USFL please stand up this. This weird debate going on now, the old USFL is tried to maintain the history, you know, the legacy of the USFL, the new USFL and the new USFL fans want nothing to do with that. I think it's fascinating. I'm bringing on Paul Reese, USFL historian. You know, I mentioned in the, a USFL real USFL lawsuit onto the show to. I'm bringing Paul Reese USFL historian onto the show. He, Paul was actually mentioned in the USFL versus real USFL lawsuit, wanting to get Paul's thoughts on everything going on in this crazy world. Then I'm joined by Sean Brown of the USFL Philadelphia star. Sean was recently drafted to the USFL, really excited to catch up with Sean. And then we're continuing to make our way through the CFL. And then we are continuing to make our way through the CFL media landscape. We have your Shawnta Argonauts player. You knocked Mwamba coming on the show. Enoch was recently elected to the CFL PA. Board of directors, really excited to hear from Enoch. Knock about everything he looks forward to accomplished with the CFL. And then I'm joined by [unknown]. Not mulamba of the Toronto Argonauts and recently elected to the CFL PA board of directors. Really excited to sit down with Enoch. Talk with him about what he hopes to accomplish with the collective bargaining agreement coming up. And getting his thoughts on playing in Toronto and everything else. Hey everybody. And welcome to the mark cast. Read here. Just wanted to hop on is always kind of fill you in on what's coming up on the show today. Give you some talking points before we get into everything. Please like, and subscribe. We are really, really close to hitting that 2000 subscriber mark, wanting to see if we can do that before we have our big live show for the USFL kickoff in Birmingham. Big giveaway going on with that, we have the AAF Jersey we're giving away. We have a custom Royal retros that you can design yourself, Jersey. That you can have sent directly to you also some gray cup merge, if you're a CFL fan. So lots of stuff coming up with that. So please like, and subscribe. If you are looking for the USFL supplemental draft coverage, we are coming off our big live stream from last night. Lots of talk about the new USFL TV schedule and the match-ups, all that kinds of stuff as well. Did all that with bands on the pre-show draft for the supplemental USFL draft. So that will be on the YouTube channel already. And on our podcast, audio feed, everything should be ready to go on that. If you're looking for analysis of. The players that were drafted and the rounds and kind of all that stuff with the teams have all that coming to you already. But a new show today, a new interview focus show today we have three wonderful guests coming on. We have Paul Reese. Paul is the USFL historian that was actually mentioned in the big. A real USFL lawsuit, all that stuff. When Paul was talking with Steve Earhart about doing the book forward and all that stuff. So I wanted to get Paul back in the mix and kind of see his thoughts on this whole USFL. Lawsuit, you know, are we honoring the past? Are we taking advantage of the past? What does Paul think about all that? I'm sure that's going to be a good one. I also have Shawn brown coming on. Sean was drafted by the USFL Philadelphia stars. In the original USFL draft back a couple of weeks ago, really excited to talk with Sean, get his thoughts on the season. A lot of excitement, you know, trying to, even with this lawsuit pending and trying to have excitement headed into the season, you know, this big kickoff coming up in the middle of April. And then I have Enoch mulamba. Womba coming on. EasyKnock is with the Argonauts, spent a long time in the CFL on a bunch of different teams. And in the NFL EasyKnock has a lot of wonderful things to say about playing in Toronto. He was also recently. Elected to the CFL PA. Board of directors, second vice president. So, you know, they're getting ready for those collective bargaining agreement negotiations. So EasyKnock has a lot to say about what they're looking forward to, you know, what things they want for the players. And kind of talking points that they're going to be having headed into those negotiations. So Paul Reese, Sean Brown. EasyKnock Mwamba. I also have a little XFL news. We have the big new hires. I'll break that down. I'm coming up here after a couple of the interviews. And at the end of the show, I'll give an update on kind of the show format. Moving forward. Lots of questions about Paul and I, and what's going on with the show. So we will address all that at the end today. Thanks as always, please like, and subscribe and I'll be back soon. Next. Hey guys. Welcome back. I wanted to bank Paul and Sean, both for stopping by today. Talking some USFL really appreciate Paula. And Sean's time with that. We're going to be transitioning to a little bit of XFL and USFL talk and then going into the interview with EasyKnock here, coming up. I'm going to do my best. Mark Perry impression. Try to read through a little bit of the news here and give my thoughts before we get into the [unknown] interview. The other big story that came out this week with the USFL are, are the NFTs they're there. They're launching. Mark Berry has told me if you don't have anything good to say about NFTs, but maybe not talk about it. I certainly understand that the big difference with these NFTs in the fan engagement, going with the USFL, they, they announced that a major portion of the revenue is going to be going directly to the players that are involved in creating them. That's very different, I believe, than what the FCF does right now. I also know that there's been some disruption in the FCF. Discords some of the listeners have filled me in Harrison. I appreciate that. You know, I guess FCFs, aren't too happy that they're the only league now, not the only league that is dealing with the NFTs and all that. So that's always fun. So now we have, you know, fans arguing about FTEs and, you know, Well, the FCF, maybe doesn't pay their players for the NFTs, but the U S and foul, the players are going to benefit from that. So that's exciting. So they're, they're having seen this USFL MFT marketplace. You can go to usfl.fans. I think that's going to be kind of your center hub for all of the USFL NFTs coming out. It seems like it's just a lot of like game tokens and things. Maybe you can get some, you know, be able to pop on some merge early. They're talking about one of the first fans to claim the U S Val mint pass and unlock. NFT drops and special event access exclusive content for members, including behind the scenes. Look at the league. Merchandise through the Scouts, access to games live stream from the USFL studios. So that's kind of all exciting. I think the issue with the FCF NFTs advantage of football NFTs was like, Hey, I have to pay to be involved in these teams. And I think that having this right, if you want to pay for some other bonus content, I think that's certainly fine. You have the players and the coaches are going to be involved and they're going to be able to profit from that. That's just another benefit that the USFL has to, you know, try to incentivize players to come to their league. Right. We've talked in the past about the college tuition, you know, being able to go to college, you know, that free, right. While you're in the enrolled in the league, playing in the league. And so this is just kind of another benefit, so certainly seems good marks high on it. I'm sure. Mark will have lots of things to say on Mondays. USFL we can review show. I believe that's what Mark's calling that now on the USFL news hub. They say that they, the entity is, would go directly to the digital wallets of the players. I also was hearing that. Maybe that makes it easier. Right? So that Fox doesn't have to kind of manage all that stuff. [Unknown] you know, They're there creating the marketplace, but maybe they're not, you know, involved with all the transactions and things like that. So anyway, training cancer, beginning March 21st, they can interact. Oh, also there is the official discord server is now available for the USFL. I'm not a big discord guy, but if that is something that you're interested in, the USFL has launched their own official. This score that you can go on and check that out as well. A couple other tidbits. I didn't talk about this last week with all the USFL stuff going on. With the lawsuit. But the Vince, all of her luck lawsuit is coming up soon. That trial is set for July 11th. They have postponed that a couple of times, you know, the, the countersuit back and forth. I know there's always some confusion, like, well, why did we care about this? I think this is fascinating. I mean, I would like to see all of our luck, you know, get paid for the work that he put into the original league. I know that. The new XFL isn't necessarily interested in bringing back all over. But I think, you know, just let's, let's round out that part of history, right? Let's let's get all of her on his way. You know, Vince is such a ruthless businessman. Like I would just like to see this resolved. Really curious to see what goes up. You know, it could be like the new, you know, Vince was involved in the steroid trials back in the, in the eighties and, you know, I thought he was going to go to the prison and then he wasn't. And you know, this obviously is not as high as stakes is that, but. Certainly interested on checking. That out in July. A couple other. No it's XFL had some new hires. Today as I'm recording this yesterday, as you're listening to this. Paul, Y Anthony's Tacony are returning to the league following previous roles during the 2020 season. And then the Mandy GaN is joining from the NBA. Rest. Brandon has a quote here. We excited to have Paul and Anthony back with the league. Thrilled to have Amanda joined us. Paul. And Andy has previous experience in retail and marketing is a matched and they will both play a pivotal role in promoting our unique brand voice. Amanda has a wealth of expertise and we'll bring an innovative perspective to the league. I look forward to collaborating with them. Yada, yada, yada. Paul was involved in the XFL shop before. So if you are involved in our wager, I have online via Twitter. I think I've only posted it on there, but like when do we think the XFL shop is opening back up? Have to imagine Paul's working on that now. Probably. You know, it's one of those things. We always assume all this work is being done in the background. Like maybe they're just getting the XFL shop going now. Right. They're getting the teams together. They're figuring out the stadiums, all that stuff. Paul's going to be involved in that. Anthony is going to lead the brand and creative teams to drive the original brand strategy and develop. Development of marketing programs across the league and teams, you know, it's a lot of words, right. But Anthony. The creative branding, that's going to be exciting. He spent 15 years in various marketing and community relations with major organizations, such as the Brooklyn. That's in Madison square garden, across New York Knicks. And Rangers. He's appointed the Janet Dutch. She's involved with all of this as well. I think I pronounce her name, right, please. Don't at me. If I didn't. And then Amanda is joining from the MBA. She will oversee key financial accounting functions, cleaning financial systems. Financial reporting and analysis and monthly close and internal controls. She was with the MBA. She was the director of team and labor finance. So it seems like a little bit more of the number crunching there. That's exciting. Right? It's it's always exciting to see XFL hires. The other interesting I've thought this was funny. Mark brought up this week. XFL is getting a little bit more Twitter, happy. They were celebrating Danny Garcia as he co owner and chairwoman on international women's day. They were also tweeting about going to the NFL combine. Right. We're seeing a lot more of like CJ Cabos and everybody max is sending me all these. You know, mark, mark Marin is out. The, all these guys are out or Mark Ross, sorry. All these guys are out, you know, scouting we're we're at the XFL. You know, the XFL is at the NFL combines. Interesting to see them being a little bit more Twitter. Happy mark is speculating that perhaps the XFL is feeling a little threatened by the USFL, right? USFL. We were having the draft and the TV and the matchups and all these kinds of things. NFTs. Maybe the XFL is trying to get back in the mix that way. I just thought that was interesting. That that was Mark's takeaway was that maybe the XFL is like, Hey, we gotta get on this promoting a little bit. I don't know Twitter, it doesn't cost anything like let's, let's promote out. Let's let's get engaged and all this. But that was kind of the tidbits from mark and your XFL news for the day. So the three new XFL hires. The Alder aleck stuff with Vince getting moving ahead and then actually I'll get into the little happy on Twitter. So that's kind of your takeaways. And then the USFL NFTs. Yeah, it is. Something of interest to you. We are going to transition to the [unknown] interview. Now [unknown]. Mamba. With the Toronto Argonauts. And then I'll be back at the end of the show to kind of give you guys an update on what's going on in the future. Next. Welcome back. Everyone read here on the thank everyone for taking the time to come on today. Paul and Sean, and EasyKnock, you know, really exciting conversations involved with the CFL and the USFL moving forward. Really appreciate that. She does have another good show next week. Got some spokes in the fire. There was a lot of Twitter, a banter this week about some emails I had posted working on some things, working on some things, sometimes things work out, you know, with the recording schedule this week. Maybe there'll be next week. But we should have some more excitement coming soon. I promise you that. Moving forward. We've had a lot of questions, you know, what's going on with Paul? What's going on with the podcast. A couple of weeks ago, Paul. It is a really busy, Paul works a lot. Paul has a very stressful job. I was lucky enough to get out of that career profession years ago, Paul has, you know, Tremendous work ethic and has spent a lot of time kind of in the industry that Paul works. If you know. What Paul does or not. It's not really my Liberty to disclose all that. Paul spends a lot of time with that. He's always really worked hard, right? To be flexible enough to do the schedule. His schedule is not flexible. You know all the time when it comes to the podcast. And I know that that's something that Paul has worked on a lot, and I really appreciate that. Paul had, let me know a couple of weeks ago he wanted to take a break. Either work and everything. So I did a couple episodes, so low. Paul. And I connected after the episode last Friday, and that's kind of when we came to all this is that Paul's going to be stepping down. I will be continuing on in, in the format that we are currently, you know, I might have a guest co-host some weeks, but I think for the most part, it's going to kind of be this like 60 minutes, you know, we're we kind of feature this segment and then we feature that segment. All kinds of pop in and do the new stuff in between. Paul's gray. I'm sure he's still going to be online, you know, fighting with the Rashi and all of that. Paul and I have been friends for 10 plus years. Like there's no weird beef or drama. I know a lot of people had concerns about that. I just wanted to make sure I talked with Paul kind of offline and figured everything out before I, you know, tweeted anything or posted anything. Not everyone that listens to the show is on Twitter or on Facebook or on. Any of the various platforms. So I thought this would be the easiest way to do that. Ah, You know, I much. Respect and, you know, appreciation for Paul and all the work we would certainly never be at this point without Paul. You know, putting up with my nonsense and spending a lot of time on this. I'm blessed that we've gotten to a point where we have lots of friends of the podcast that can come on. You know, we're, we're a big enough profile now that we can yield invite on gas and get people to come on. Certainly none of that would be possible at all without Paul's hard work and dedication. So I never want to forget that. And you know, that Paul for all the work that he put in. But yeah, should be exciting. Moving forward. You know, I'm blessed to have a flexible schedule. You know, as like the USFL supplemental draft live stream. So I hope to have a little bit more of that going forward. Maybe some like CFL, you know, pre-show shows or like USFL post show stuff, maybe. I'll figure out the schedule moving forward, but again, you know, Paul's gray. Yeah. I'm sure you guys can, you know, tweet or whatever. I don't want to, I. Tell you guys what to do, but I certainly appreciate Paul's time. And the last, you know, year and a half that he's put into this, it's been a ton of work in the labor of love. And I really appreciate everyone sticking forward with this. Hopefully the show will still look and feel similar enough that it's something that you want to continue on our journey with, you know, me and kind of all the friends of the show. Really appreciate everyone's time, please. Like, and subscribe. We're getting ready for the big USFL pre-show kickoff, April 16th in Birmingham, all the details on that. Or on the YouTube channel and just look forward to more excitement coming up. Hope we have the big exit on these job. Hey guys. Feature feature right here coming to you late on a Thursday after the USFL supplemental draft three hour live stream. New information has just come out regarding the new potential XFL coach. I just mentioned. Reggie Barlow. Courtesy of Sean Robertson with CBS six. Reportedly being signed to the XFL, leaving Virginia state university. It sends come out. He tweeted late last night. Multiple sources have confirmed the borrower that he left. W. Hey guys, future future read here, coming to you late on a Thursday night, following our three hour USFL supplemental livestream draft. I just mentioned that Reggie Barlow potentially was heading to the XFL. As one of the new head coaches potential, you know, offensive coordinator. However you want to look at it. Sean Robertson has tweeted out late tonight that according to him, Barlow has left Virginia state university to become the head coach of the San Antonio franchise of the XFL. Needless to say, San Antonio is not a XML franchise that currently exists. We are still waiting to figure out confirmation. Is this a new franchise? You know, it's the same. Relocation or an expansion. Mike Mitchell was quick to point out in our XFL news hubs. Writers' group that red bird and the XFL. As of me recording, this has not come out and refuted. This. Sean is, you know, quoting multiple sources here that have confirmed that to him. So it leads, you know, we'll need to see here. We'll need to see what's going on. I remember when the rock was on me. Check tech check show on CNBC back before Christmas, he had mentioned new XFL teams and new XFL cities. I had prognosticated on the podcast before and talked with Mark Perry about, you know, are, are we going to have a Houston roughnecks team alongside the Houston gamblers? Mark Perry's belief has always been that the XFL is working, not alongside the USFL, but is at least maybe checking their homework with each other, like, okay, so you're going to be in Houston. Okay. We're going to go to the San Antonio. We know that San Antonio. I was ideally somewhere. They wanted to go back with the original XFL. You know, the AAF was in San Antonio. And so the XFL, you did Houston and Dallas, I, it remains to be seen. Do, do the roughnecks move to San Antonio. Do we have the San Antonio roughnecks? Is it a totally new. You know, team and franchise. I know, obviously that's not something that a lot of people want to hear. You know, the, the roughnecks were the premier team besides maybe the battle Hawks in the original XFL, obviously undefeated, you know, Jean Jones, PJ Walker, that whole thing. But this is a lot to be seen from this. You know, Sean is a, is a journalist. I'm checking my Twitter here and to make sure you know, nothing else has come out. But this would be, this would be a big breaking news. I felt the need to come on. Rerecord tonight. The kind of make sure that we got this going. Mike is also tweeting here from Aaron Wilson covers the NFL for pro football network. Former Jacksonville Jaguars radio receiver. Reggie Barlow is a new head coach of the San Antonio XFL franchise. According to a league source Barlow one ACI AA for life in 2017 going temper one was 34 of 16 overall 49 and 42 at Alabama state. I mean NFL. He had three career returns for a touchdown. So you have Aaron Wilson with pro football network. And then you also have Sean Robertson with CBS. A lot of smoke here. Obviously news is going to be coming out soon. We just had the XFL hires today. Talking about that, coming up here on the show. But th this is big. This would be a really interesting to see if they did shift in that regard. Please comment below. Is that something you want? I know lots of our listeners like fill up are not going to be happy to have the XFL, you know, depart Houston. That was such a good fan base there for them really rock solid part of the league. But. You know, time is time will tell, but I, All right. Yeah. I was like, I got up and I was sitting here at night and then I was like, well, okay. Maybe he meant 10. Maybe he meant 11. So. Well, we have USFL historian, Paul Reese, joining us again on the show. Paul, how are you doing? I am. Well, how about you? I'm good. The title and the thumbnail of our episode today is the. We'll be real USFL, please stand up. And it's slim, shady with us valid. Do you think that's funny? I like it. I like this. Yeah. Well, it's a weird, and I want to get into this conversation today and I really been excited that you were coming on and I'm really perplexed in this because we have. You know, this. The new USFL is people only like it because it's based on the old USFL stuff. But now that the old us and fellow suing them, A lot of the fan base is like, Well, no, this is like, we don't like that. This is a new, like this isn't connected and it's like, what? You're, you're watching this because it's the old, so that's kind of my thesis going into this. We'll see what anything else goes, but that's kind of where I'm at. You know, it is a strange mix that you have kind of this. The split in, in at least the old guys. Who followed the original USFL. And then some of them were like, Hey, you know, this is awesome. I'm going to see these familiar team names and pretty close renditions of the logos playing again. I'm in. And then you have other guys who are like, this is nothing like the original us Elvis and his. Developmental league for the most part. It's not a major league like the us about the original USFL was I, I hope these guys crash and burn really hard. So. I think that there's probably some positions that can be staked in between those two extremes. And that's, that's where you'll find me. Well, this is good. I mean, I've even seen comments like, you know, and when I called the old USFL, it's, you know, real USFL LLC, right. You know, Steve Earhart and all of them. I, you know, I've even see comments like, well, they're trying to, they're trying to take our league or they're trying to think of. Well, you know, they're trying to ruin our league and like, but it's kind of their league. It's funny because you know, and I, I am not a legal expert in, I have no idea where this will go and once it hits the courts, I imagine both sides feel that they have very good points. And they've been advised by lawyers who were being paid. Lots of money. That each of them. Has a slam dunk case against the other one. So far, be it from me to say, who's going to win that. But, you know, the. Fox use these names and these renditions of the logos. Because of the nostalgia surrounding the first USFL. I mean, there's, there's no doubt. Otherwise. Why do you do that? You know, they mentioned it in their original press releases. So, and yet they've kept. The old league and the people associated with the old league. With one exception. And that was the original video that had done. Ludy in it that they released. They've kept all the rest of the old league at arms length. And then was there even a mention of, you know, former Philadelphia and Baltimore star Sam mills, going into the pro football hall of fame. It's it's been bizarre that they have completely ignored. The old league. And I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention to, you know, people are like, well, you know, who are, who is this? Paul Reese here? You know, why are. You're mentioned in the, in the lawsuit, right. Because you had worked with Steve Earhart, right. Getting the forward to your book. So, I mean, You not involved in the lawsuit, but you have been involved in the USFL and the players involved in all of this very, very, very long time. And in a role where, you know, you were working with them and everything else, right. Right. Yeah. I started writing my book. Sometime prior to 2009 and in 2009 is when I, I contacted. Steve Earhart. And he was just a great resource. Hooking me up with other interviews. Just a timeline things. And maybe you couldn't find a guy who was any closer to the middle. The leak and that leak perspective, the first two years. And then. Became a part owner and the GM of the Memphis team. And was so intimately involved there and really got to see things from a team perspective. So, you know, that. I've talked with some of the guys, you know, At least since 2009. Yeah, it's, it's odd. And obviously you're not illegal, you know, we don't want to get into it, but. You know, I think the argument right. Fox, the, these trademarks were abandoned, but when you were working with Steve, right? I mean, he was like under the presumption that he was still the caretaker, either the lineage of all this right. Right in. You know, my. I guess my thought at the time. Absolutely was that, you know, not only caretaker of the lineage, but you know, definitely still, it's still connected with the IP. The intellectual property, the names and logos. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I. I was a little surprised that that somebody else would stake a claim to them. Yeah. What did you, I mean, we talked a little bit on the phone last week when, when all this came out the lawsuit, what, because, you know, we've talked with you in the past. What do we think if there's free launch, but what were your thoughts when you saw this lawsuit stuff? I think it was inevitable. I think, you know, I think. It really appears that Fox took the position that Nan Sue us. And so they did. I think. I don't think Fox was surprised. That doesn't mean that, you know, they have an airtight offense, but. You know, I think if you can get the stuff on the cheap, I think that's what they were going to try. Or you say just, and I think we talked about this before. It's just so weird. Like, and now they've even further distance from calling other relaunch, but you know, why even spend the money on all this stuff in the low, I mean, I've just had from the beginning, Call it, you know, the Brian Woods football league and in the, have the jealousies. And the, I mean, at this point where it's, they're not really the stars. I mean, they're not really the bandits. I mean, it's not. I don't know, it just feels, I don't, I'm so perplexed now on this and what their motivation is. And if they thought, you know, that w you know, a couple thousand dollars they had to spend to do all, this was worth all this headache. Now, I don't know. And, you know, And I guess we need to see what Fox's grand plan for the league is. There seems to be some indication that they do want to sell off teams or sell off pieces of the teams and then locate them. Eventually in the market that they're supposed to be represent. Did they think having a familiar name? From so long ago, would, would make it more palatable to a local owner who might have some emotional or, or have had a financial tie in with the original team. I, you know, I don't know. I think with. I think that what they've done is that they've introduced a measure of Delt. Before they're seasoned openers that otherwise could have been avoided. And obviously we don't know the conversations that were had behind the scenes, but, you know, Presumably they talked, right? Eh, A little bit, I mean, you had to imagine that some of this communication was had, I just. I don't know. I mean, Steve, at eight, Mr. Earhart, you know, Steve. I just felt so blindsided when we talked to him back in may and June that like. I just have to, I don't know. It just seems so blindsided and something that did any modicum of, of reaching out ahead of time. Probably whether it helps you with some of this over. I think so. And I. You know, and I. You look at the principles with the U S with the new USFL and you know, of course there's Fox. There's also Brian Woods and you look at the history there and the history of. With the FX. L playing in minor league baseball stadiums, some of which weren't entirely safe. Football. And then you pick the next step. Then you have this spring league and it's kind of a single site thing where players actually pay to be a part of it. And then you have kind of this. IP grab. And that's what he brings to the table for the new USFL. I, I do wonder if. And there are some people with the new USFL that, you know, of course it's hard not to respect the, the Fox folks know what they're doing generally. Daryl Johnston. I mean. Did a phenomenal job at San Antonio with the AAF team there. So, you know, there are good people involved. I just, I do wonder about how they've treated the intellectual property here. Because, yeah. And I've had off kind of private conversations with some of the parties involved too. And like, it is a passion project, right? It is something that's been conveyed to me that this is something that they care very deeply about. Right. Cause. You know, you got that vibe will foxes, they need programming and God knows what's happening with baseball and they're going to own the league and you can bet on it. And like, we just need to, you. We need something to put on TV, right? People like football. But then I talk with these, you know, these people and they're like, we really care. Yeah. This is a passion project. We want to prove everything wrong. We want to do all this stuff. You're like, but. And then I I'm lost somewhere here along the way then. Cause it doesn't feel that it hasn't been conveyed to the audience. Right. And now it's further not being conveyed. Right. Right. And you. If you talk to. The old USFL guys. And, you know, I'm thinking here, Steve Earhart in particular and just how proud they are of the effort that they've launched and how much they want to protect the legacy. And I think that this is what this is all about. Is that they are very protective. Of the legacy of the USFL and they don't want some. You know, a subpar effort that crashes and burns to be associated with the name. And I, I totally understand that he has, he was adamant about that. 10 10 Years to go more than 10 years ago. I mean, he always says as stated that. And some of the other guys, I mean, You saw the video from Larry Sancho, the former general manager of the USFL Jacksonville team. You know, Well-known football player himself. And you can still tell the passion that these guys have for, for the old league. And it's a shame that it's, it's kind of come down this way. I think that there was probably a better way to handle it. That's the interesting, the perspective that you bring up, having talked with Earhart. And Larry and everybody that, cause it. The sentiment that I get is, you know, will they just want. The sentiment I get from, from people seeing the situation is they feel very down on the old USFL. They think that they're trying to halt this new, exciting league they're trying to get paid. Right. They're trying to, whatever. Obviously you don't speak for the parties involved. Right. But your general sentiment is you believe they come from a place of, of care. Yeah, absolutely. And this is, this is. From conversations. Like I mentioned over the last decade, plus. Way before this effort. This new USFL effort was ever announced. That's where these guys are coming from. These guys. It's not about the money. It's interesting. I mean, that's a very, I think helpful thing cause I, I. People are very conflicted. I mean, this is a very polarizing thing and I don't know. It's weird that it is polarizing because like, I don't know. It's weird that it's polarizing. Eh, you know, and I get it, you know, we're, we're a month away. From kickoff. Right? And so people are, Hey, I'm going to have spring football this year. I'm looking forward to watching this, or I've already bought tickets or I'm planning my trip to Birmingham. You know, kind of around us to see some games. And so I get it. I get that people would be upset if all of a sudden they feel that that's done placed in jeopardy. But at the same time, I also don't think that. You know, the Fox, allowing this to come this far. Gives them the right to just steam roll, you know, over. You know, the, the original IP holders. Well, what would you see in your ideal world? I would see a settlement. You know, I would. Like I said, I don't hate this new league. You know, if they end up kicking off with. You know, The same team names and logos that there. Planning to, I, I just think that the old league. That the guys who have put so much blood, sweat, and tears. Into the effort not to mention money. Should be. Compensated and recognized for that effort and not just ignored and shoved to the curb. Have you talked with anyone involved in this sense? All the lawsuits going on. I haven't. I. I've kind of wanted to, to keep distance from it. And just kind of observe it from afar. It's a tough, it's a tough situation. And I don't know. It's hard for me to even verbalize, but like, I don't know if the original, like the real USFL. If I get, they anticipate I'm being looked at kind of like the bad guy here. I don't know. I guess it's weird to think that. A couple of months ago, there was a lot of like, well, you know, Fox and they're just trying to do all this stuff where now they're almost looked at as the good guys, right. It's almost like flipped. Do you know what I'm saying? And I think the timing. I think it's that timing, I think, oh, you know, it. This is not. You know, when this was filed, it's like a month and a half away. What took these guys so long. And I know that this was in the works for a while and you know, there certainly was a sentiment that. I would imagine that. Maybe this isn't even necessary at one point. Maybe cooler heads will prevail and we can come to some kind of agreement and it just, you know, at the end of the day, It didn't work out. So, you know, we find ourselves where we are, so, you know, I just, you know, For those who are very excited to see the new USFL. Kickoff. I would just say, you know, I get it. I understand that I'm looking forward to seeing spring football myself. But just listen to what the old owners and the old administrators are saying. I think that it makes a lot of sense. Obviously. Fox wanted to use these names and logos. There's a reason for that. And it's because of all the work. All the money that, you know, the. That prior group put in. Yeah. What are your thoughts on everything now? You know, we're, we're having this, the supplemental draft tonight, you know, as we. The record, whatever air we're going to do a live stream tonight, talking about all that. But I mean, thoughts on what you've seen here? Cause it was, it's been, I think like a month and a half or so since we had you on talking before, I can't remember how long ago it was. I mean, the one thing that I would like to see as a. You know, this is Fox. This is one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. You can't live stream your own draft or, you know, you can't, it's all gotta be tweaked and, and Facebook posts are you. Are you serious. If you want to be looked at as a major effort facts, you can do this. Come on. But I think that the fans of this new league. Deserve better than what they've been shown so far. That I think that the communications. Go on the website right now. Can you find 10 press releases? That they've issued since announcement. Are they asleep at the wheel on communications? Aye. You know, I know it's all Birmingham. You. I know, I know they're not worried about selling tickets in Pittsburgh or sponsorships or anything like that. But I do think the fans deserve better than what they'd been shown from the league so far. It's hard. Cause I think it's in an attempt to save costs. It's I think the U S Val has been put on the, on the plate of people that already had jobs, right? Like I think whoever is managing certain things, maybe this got added to their thing. Right. As opposed to. You know, Having. I. Ben Fisher on last week. And he was talking to the XFL, leading into stop, you know, had all these presidents and all these communication, but like it's heavy, right? Because you're paying all these salaries and you're paying all these people the whole time. And so I think, you know, obviously Fox is going in a different way, but like, It is really hard. I have, I can't tell you how many times I've asked how many tickets have been sold for the inaugural game. I've probably asked every week for five weeks. I got don't. We, I don't, I can't get an answer and I've asked a lot. Right, right. You know, I understand I'm playing some things, folks the best, especially if some of those numbers. You know, could be viewed as disappointing at this at this point. But even. Team wrap up per team on, on. Breath on, you know, Who who looks like they're going to stand out at the quarterback position or. You know, I would like to see a lot more of that coming from the league itself. Yeah. I, a couple of weeks ago, I grappled, I was trying to figure out the title I was going to use. And it was like, I just don't think Fox gets the fandom of spring football fans. I just don't think they get. You know, I, I think it's working right. Obviously they have followers, obviously that, you know, the teams are building momentum, but I think it's like, because they're doing the bare minimum, I think a lot more could have been. I don't. I think the accent foul and I hate to bring up like, you know, comparing all this stuff, but you know, their social media numbers and following. So it was like much higher. You know, a month out here. I mean, we're, you know, we're a month in a couple of days away and. You know, I think Fox looks at the numbers and I think that they feel like they think it's good, but I think it could be a lot better with, with even a little bit more. And I agree. I agree with that. You know, through, you know, one of my main sites or sports central, you know, I keep an eye on a lot of the minor leagues. And certainly every spring football league that's popped up. And. If minor league hockey. Is really kicking your butt in the, in the communications. That should tell you something your Fox. Stand up and get it done. It's. Minor league hockey, minor league baseball. All these other organizations are able to do it. It's not that expensive. I think you want to build some more hype coming into the season. There's no reason to limit yourself on that. You. Just being able to present what you want, the story that you want to the media and the end to talk regularly. All of that is important. And I. I've just been disappointed by the efforts so far. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're still doing, like, we're still showing the coach interview is like, we're still having the coaches draw the logos of the teams. Like, you know, we, I. Yeah, I reached out and I said, how do you guys want us to handle a player stuff? And they said, you know, do what you want. You. If you, if you can do it and I'm like, [Unknown] you guys aren't going to do player interviews, share the interviews, you know, not necessarily me, but other people are doing, I mean, there's other podcasts and other write-ups. I mean, at least like share that content and grow that content out. I just think they look at all of this same with the draft. Like we're not going to make any money on it. We don't need to do it. And it is it's that. What is the, the exact amount that we can put into this and get moving forward. Right. And maybe that's. Maybe what we are seeing is just a television show. That's being slowly unveiled. Hey, we're only going to show you so much before the premiere. Which is unfortunate. I think it's a bad way to look at it. I think you do want to capture that attention while it's there. Coming off the Superbowl when you had. Commercials on, on Fox, you know, in highly visible. Locations. Bill off that run with it. Jump right off your team name, announcements, and start putting out news. For the Philadelphia stars for the new Orleans breakers. Keep those people engaged. If you're looking for investors in the local markets. Why not start the moment that you announced those cities. And, and. Continue to try to gain attention. Rather than E than this. Okay. We've got a couple of big events. We've got a name reveals. Alright. And then nothing. Then some coaches trickle out. And then draft. And then supplemental drafts. And really the communication, even on those big events has been minimal. I've used them kind of as a driver for Colin coward. Yeah. I think it's got to be more than that. You know, if that's where you want to date you, the information. That's fine. But then follow up with a press release. There, it's a weird thing, you know, and they're, they're using a couple like that. Alcohol. I'll kick and whatever. It's all Fox on stuff. It's all like, well, what can we do to control? And that's kind of always been the emo even back to the spring league. It's like, we really want to control the message. Like we really, we're going to say it exactly how we want to say it, and we don't want anyone else to come out. And I just, that's not how spring football works. That's not how all football. The fans are too. There to diehard about all of this. No, you want to be on the NBC station in Birmingham. You want to be on the CBS and ABC stations in Birmingham. You want to be on other. Media controls. Radio, you want to be in the newspapers, whether they're owned by Fox. I mean. You, you really want to reach. The most people possible. So even in. You give Fox properties first dibs at that information. Fine. Okay. And, you know, I don't know, two, 10 hours later, it's your press release to everybody. I, yes, I go back and forth. I'm very excited. I have my Jersey ordered. Yeah, I want all of this. I just wrapped with Sean Brown who got drafted by the. The stars Sean's been in the AAF, the XFL, he was in the spring league team nine with the accident. I Sean's been on all this stuff and I'm like, I would do anything for this league or any lead to be around five years and give you guys something that, you know, you can look forward to. I mean, that is not. And I get a lot of that feedback online is like, well, we don't like the negativity, right? I'm like, It's because it needs to be better. And that's why I don't, if I didn't care about something, I just wouldn't watch it. Or I wouldn't talk about it. Like I talk about it because I care. And I think that that gets lost a lot. Like you're, you're just hating, like criticizing this, not hating constructively criticizing, and like you are giving, you know, Tangible examples of things that can be done is different than, than hating on something. That's absolutely right. You know? The. When this thing gets into training camps. When you have coaches, coach, and players. I do not want to deny anybody an opportunity. You know, coaches, players, administrators, those who can cut their teeth. Or show. You know, even what a market can do. I mean, Birmingham has a great opportunity here to really step up and be shown and maybe a little bit different light than they have in the past. It'd be nice if more markets, this. And knowing your season had that opportunity, but it's going to be single site. You know, we don't begrudge any of that on field. Action. Just the more opportunities these guys get to prove themselves more, will stand out and maybe be able to move on. But all the lead up to it, the business stuff. You know, there is a way to go about this and there's a way that looks kind of sloppy and, you know, Ill thought out. And you hate to see when they're squandering, maybe the maximum opportunity to that they could have. Yeah. Well, I think this is good. Any other thoughts on this? I mean, it's, we're, we're, you know, we're kind of waiting the, the court staff is going to be figured out here. You know, I know that they've they've. There was a order of events, right. Where the judge wasn't assigned before they filed stuff. So now we're, we're going on with that. It's going to be. March. Where is. Oh, let me, I'll edit this out here. I want to make sure that I. It's March 11. Oh, yeah. That's and then where's the sorry. I should've had this ready. I have it open. I just. I don't know, like 16 or 17. Well, it got pushed though. Sorry. USFL. I got Mark's. Got it on here. Sorry about this. Because they have to do. Here we go. His site live. Okay. All right. So I know that there is, you know, obviously a lot of. So any last thoughts, I know that there has, you know, we're, we're kind of in impending limbo with this lawsuit, right? They, they have the original date set for the 16th. There was an order of events, kind of error, where they, they submitted the staff before the judge like had, had assigned the rules of the case. They also, they did the real USFL and the Fox owned USFL. They had like a 30 minute zoom conference to try to like resolve stuff. Right. I think it was kind of like a mitigation be judge ruled that that wasn't sufficient. So he, by to, by tomorrow in this air, if they need to have had another, you know, I guess conference, right? Trying to resolve this stuff before going to court. I monitoring that as we go. Right. I might have an update later in the podcast about that, but. They have to have that by Friday, the new date is moved to the 28th, obviously moving closer here to this April 16th kickoff, but it's weird. It's a weird kind of limbo we have with all the court stuff right now. Yeah, and it's a lot, it's going to depend on it, you know, and. Few things that could happen. You know, the judge could say, yeah, the original USFL guys, you have. I absolutely. This is what I see this. This is theft essentially. I'm stopping it right now. You can not use these names and logos. He could say. And no, I absolutely see just the Oxford. Fox year. Well, within your rights, this is. That's your stuff. Go run with it. I'm dismissing this whole thing. Or, you know, more likely. Yeah. There's enough for us to look into here. I'm not sure that I'm going to do anything right now, but you know, we're going to go on, I think two of those three cases hurt Fox. A, if you get stopped from using the names and logos, then there's a big setback, less than three weeks away from your kickoff. However, if he says. And there's enough year for me to, I think we need to have a trial at this. Then, if you're Fox, you're looking at. Something that's more prolonged. You're looking at kicking off with all your IP in doubt. If you make this thing a roaring success, it's only going to end up costing you more money when you, if you have to pay this. Th this original group. Something. So if they. Either of those two events, realities. Kind of the pressure to settle. To get something out there. That's mutually agreeable. Increases. And I think that that's, that would be the best solution for everybody. Yeah, we'll. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I, you know, it's weird that they, that they did the one conference and now they're having to kind of go back and do that again. I mean, I have a feeling that it's, I'm recording this, assuming that nothing's going to change. Right. I imagine if, if they had conversations back in may and June and nothing was done, Ryan and they had the zoom conversation last week. If that didn't do anything, I have a feeling that this is going to continue in that way, but that's kind of the penny right now. Maybe we'll have some more stuff come out on Twitter or whatever, you know, Friday, we can update that. But. It's the last note on here is because they have to like do the conference and then wait. Be the earliest, a preliminary injunction is likely not until the week of the 11th to the 15th of April. So. They, they, they, they case is. And mark might have, I'm going to have to go back and look at the stuff on this because mark noted the 16th moved to the 28th. But then there, I remember there being another order of events, like they have to conversation. There may be both have three days to like submit whatever back and forth. Th this could get a little sticky, but it's certainly not going to be that clean cut March 16th that we kind of thought it was going to be originally. Right, right. Which. You know, if I'm Fox, I'm feeling a little bit of pressure on that. So we'll see, we'll see if it leads to any movement. Or Paul, I really appreciate your time. We'll we'll get you back on. Always fascinating to hear your thoughts on this. I appreciate it. All right, let me hit record here. Well, we have Sean Brown recently drafted to my team, the Philadelphia stars with us. Well, how are you doing today, Sean? I mean, I'm doing amazing, man. I'm doing amazing. Just excited about everything. Just. Just ready to go. Just been working my tail off for the last few months. I just cut about 20, 25 pounds. So I'm excited, man. What has it been like the last, I guess it's been two weeks now since he original drafts. What's the last two weeks been like for you? It's been, it's been a lot, like not in a bad way, more so in a. More like I could do. Haven't been doing so many interviews. This has been. Now I know how to train, you know, Just doing a lot of the meetings with my team, my teammates, like individual meetings, understanding. No calls and terminologies. It's actually been a little more busy than before the draft, but I'm happy. I'm happy. Well, I like you, you have a good, you know, you're like the spring football warrior, right. You know? Cause you a F. [Unknown] spring league with the generals, all that stuff. I mean, how you, how do you stay motivated and go through all that? Because it's a lot of like ups and downs and a lot of disappointment, right. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it's because of the consistency. I'm always getting better, but I've never, I haven't plateaued yet. I'm getting better, stronger, the fastest, smarter and more dominant. So, you know, that. That's just keeping me going. What was the draft day like for you? I, how did you find out you were being selected? How did all that go down? So I was actually training. I was in, you know, cause I got drafted the second day when the, the interior alignment we'll get a big. And I was at my training session and I'm sitting here working on every two seconds. And my phone seeing, looking, looking, no. Me and my trainer. So he didn't. That day, he didn't really kill me as much. Cause he's a, you. We're sitting there looking on the phone and then I got the texts, like, you know, your agenda, you're a star. So I would say, yeah, let's go. And then my quarterback, he definitely texted me. And after that, and he just. You know, after that. It was just history. My brother. Yeah, Brian, Scott. For a long time friend of our show back when he was with that. So that you were with the 20, 20 generals, right? Yup. And 2021. Yep. So you got a lot of familiarity with Brian. I can't remember who was, who is the Jew, who was the Journal's quarterback the second time round, because Brian sat out that. That's right. So, you know, a lot of familiarity with Brian Woods and everybody, I mean, What was it? What was it like, you know, thoughts on Brian and then you find out he's starting a new league with USFL and you want to get involved. How did all that go down? Well, when I, when I found out I was like, you know, shocked that they brought the USFL back, you know, my dad. He used to talk about USFL and stuff like that. You know how he was, he liked it and how a lot of creeps came out of there. And, you know, but to be honest with you, I and Brian. I can tell you, like when we was somebody USFL. I don't want to talk about it. Cause at the times I was in conversation with NFL teams and I was like, when we get to that point, we'll get to that point. You know, go after that. You know, Until we get to that point, let's talk about it. And then that's how it was like, so I was more focused on. The NFL, NFL, NFL. It didn't happen. So right around the time when I was like, okay, bro, let's, let's definitely talk about it. You know? Disgusting. Yeah, motivation to, to be in the USFL, right. To choose right. To be in the drought pool, all that stuff out. Thoughts. To make that be your next step. Well, What led to that? I mean, honestly, it was like after a few teams. You know, kind of pulled away and let's season God later and they didn't bring me in and stuff like that. So I was like, you know what, let us look. For somebody to, to be a part of history. And to play with people I really enjoy and play with. I would lie to you. If I say I did not want to play with. You know, close bar. And coach drags. You know, those are my guys. And of course having an opportunity to play with Brian again is amazing. So I was just excited about being a part of history. What's interesting to me is the stars really are the generals, right? I mean, they're bringing back a ton of guys from that. Do you think that having that familiarity is going to carry over to success? A hundred percent because at the end of the day, A lot of the times when this new coach. There's new leaves. And I noticed it's about being familiar. So a lot of these guys, when they go to camp, they going to, if they're not familiar with that coat, they have. To reevaluate them and do things extra, wherever us it's like. The reevaluate, you know, see if your teeth were in shape. We already know the system for the most part. So that's going to help us move faster. And get that connection and get that time back, even faster. But at the end of the day, the coach can't play for us. We got to strap it up. It was time to game. What is game time? We gotta just go. But a hundred percent, it plays a major role, just so you know, We are playing with guys and coaches and stuff like that, that you already know. My wife will be mad if I don't ask. What's the name of your dog there? He's a miniature soldier. Oh, that's good. Yeah. My wife was like, why didn't you ask him what the name of his dog was that. No, we got Kai on there. I guess, you know, I mean, you've gone through this, right? You've done the spring leagues. You know, quick, quick buildup, right. You know, not a long training camp. What is that like to go in. Cause, like you said, you have the familiarity at least. Right. You know, it's been a little while, but to maybe hit the ground running more, where's it like was such a short runway. To be honest with you. If you want to go back into time with the spring league. I was always against going me personally. Not that I didn't like it. It was just honestly at the time I'm like, I didn't, I just didn't feel it was right. And then it was just all about timing. And then. What happened with me was it was, I remember I was on a business trip in Miami and I got a call from Michael Woods and he was like, you know what? You need to come down here and play. We're going to be fine on Fox. You know, it's a good opportunity. Trust me, you know, That'd be great. And then, and then he told me like, yeah, I was like, I was like, you know, what's he going to go to? He was like, What Bart Angela said, oh, coach. So coast bar, I said, Bart was my coach and team nine when I was going to XFO before I went to LA. So I was, oh yeah, let's go. Like, you know, but. To answer your question. Honestly, you always just gotta be ready, man. Like. It's just, everything is just happens like this. So my agents, my. You know, my teammates, my friends, people I grew up with just always stay ready, man. Just always stay ready. Now, this is me who I am. Like I told myself yesterday, I'm in here. Let. I'd say yesterday was my day off with training and I'm in here. We're doing a core workouts and doing what's to hide that. Just to stay ready. And that's just me, man. Always, always trying to get better. It's such a hard journey that this, you know, The all football player, whatever you want to call it, because you kind of have to be ready for no matter what, right? I mean, you get this call and this opportunity comes up. And when you really, you just have to be ready to go talk about the mentality behind. How going into that and just always having to be ready to go. I mean. My, my mindset. And I've probably never really set us up. But it's like, Over the time and years, I just feel like I've been overlooked and every bride I've been I've showed why I'm the best at what I do. And. And anywhere they put me out. I've show why. I am the best. Because we live in a world where, you know, it's not just, you know, You know, you just talk about it and all like with me, it's like, I was grew up. You got to show people before you could tell them. So that's just who I am. So when I, when I stepped on the field, the first time. I'm with the generals. I made it personal that practice to show them that who I am. And then I could be a leader and I could really help this team win. And ever since then, it's, that's how it is everywhere. I've been, I've continuously show people like, you know, I'm the best. And it's like, all right. Why you guys don't want to pick me up. You know, On the big, big stage. So I'm just going to keep showing you. And in us, and that's what I'm gonna do. You talk about the value of having these alternate leagues, right. I mean, and it's just incredible how many you've been involved in, but having these other opportunities for players and talk about the importance of that. It's very important because you have guys who I know guys who, you know, at the time. They will come out of college. They didn't have anything. You know, and they just, you know, since it was NFL or nothing, And they didn't and they didn't get it. So they, they decided, you know, to work and it's nothing wrong with them that. I need to go get a really good job. And some of them regret it, but, you know, I tell them like, you. You made the registration fee it for you and your family. So that's what it's all comes down to is about. Decision-making about opportunity. If you have the time to do this and you have the money to put up, or you have the schedule to do this and do it. You know, but if you don't then, you know, do do. She need to do take care of yourself and your family. Yeah. Cause it is, it's a commitment. I mean, you, you, you're not able to pursue other things. Right. Cause you're having to stay in this mentality in this mindset. Right. Yeah, so many things. I, I I've sacrificed, like, you know, I love to hang out and go out. I love, but I've committed myself to, to not go out, like to just, you know, I go out with family, but I like to have fun. I've always been on the. Those kids. And now I just recommitted myself. I just, you know, I put all my time in, it's a training. I invest into myself by paying for trainers. The best trainers and understanding that, you know, if I want to be the best, I got to train with the best and do what I have to do. You talking about being a part of the history, right. Being a part of this, you know, it's. It's called the U S now relaunch, but now we have this lawsuit. So we don't that way. It's not really a real line. Bringing back, regardless of that. The this 20, 22 USFL. You guys talk about that, right? Like being on this big stage, what, I mean, what's the chatter with the other players, right? Like being on Fox, being on NBC. Honestly. We haven't spoke about it recently because we were just on Fox. So w I think. The question to answer your question. When we were in the spring league when Fox first came. Yes, we would definitely, you know, talking about excited about the exposure. And I met a lot of great people from Fox, like, like a lot of great people. And, you know, we actually sat down and even talked about. My career at the football. And just, you know, Good timing. It's just, it's just being on Fox. Just gives you another opportunity. You know, and that's why I look at it as well. But. To answer your question. We were very excited when we first heard the news about Fox sports. And if I'm not mistaken with. With the USFL. It's not just Fox sports. I believe it's a, what is it? Is it ABC? Ryan NBC. Yeah. It's a hole. Yeah. But think about this. This is the first time I think in 60, 70 years that. Fox. And what does the ABC NBC. NBC has, did. Had broadcast the same thing. And like over 50 to 60 years ever. So this, this is, this is really a part of history. This is major. And I'm happy to be a part of it. I'm pretty sure my team is happy to be a part of that as well. What kind of coach is coach Andrea say, I mean, you've been with mal. A lot in the past, what are you looking forward to and what should people know about hammering? Every down to earth, very respectful. You know, I've run into coaches, I'm all type of coaches respectful. Non-responsible their way or the highway. I mean, of course it is his waste, his offense, but you know, he has a very open ear about certain things and understanding about certain things. You know, and he's, you know, and he's a good coach, you know? And especially my coach, coach. Amazing. If you do your history, uncle's Jags go Jags. But I'll see an NFL coach Alanna. And NFL. Just, this is. Whole lot of knowledge. Hi coach at Boston college for years. So he's. I got some great coaches there, you know, Cray coders on defense. Socos Bayless. You know, I don't know if you know me played about 10, 12 years in NFL, one about three or four bull rings and he has the. The national record for college for most interceptions in college history. So we had a lot of, lot of, lot of knowledge on that. On our team and all that office. When they hired him, coach dangerous. I thought. Yeah. As someone they had been in team nine, been involved in the spring lake. I thought, God, this really makes sense that someone that could come in. He knows the system a little bit. Right? I mean, obviously you want to get some, you know, big, like skip Holtz, all that kind of stuff. You'll get the gamut. But I just thought, man, this is someone that's been through the system. And it's really, I mean, even before all my favorite players in the world are drafted by the stars. I mean, the stars were I team, I had my eye on just because I don't think you can, you can treat. Who's your favorite player? Well a year, a year on there yet the. The stars are my team. So we got you on there. I know bug Howard from spring league. I know Brian Scott, Matt mangle, friend of the show, your guys is, you know, Especially team. So, yeah, mango and I go way back. So I got it. I got that. Matt mangle. Gamer Jersey here. There's a lot of friends on the USFL stars. I mean, that. To make sure you console a game, man, instead of starting with definitely get you a ticket or something, man. Yeah, well, we have, we have our big live show coming up for the kickoff game. Of course we have to fly out the next day. We'll miss the, the. The triple Heather. Thoughts on a thoughts on the triple header and how maybe intoxicated some of the fans will be by the end of that. Yeah, it'll definitely be great, man. Well, I really appreciate your time. I, you know, next, moving on to training ride, getting ready to go. What are you, what are your next steps here before you head out to train and count? Well, I haven't bought a good another, another week of heart. Trending, not that a dollar down, just, you know, straight recovery, more stuff like that, but I just, obviously I've been doing nothing but functional movements. Ms against stronger and the movements that I have to play in. Very different, you know? Then just mention squad and stuff like that. So, I feel a lot more stronger, much more, have much more balanced for much more control of my body. So. You know, w we'll definitely see, you know, what, what the league brings. I know what I'm bringing this year and. I just much more consistency and just being a great leader. So I can't wait. Aye. Really, really looking forward to this being a longterm option for a lot of the players, right? I mean, whatever ends up happening with the XFL coming back or whatever, like having more, you know, consistent stable places for guys to work is paramount. Do you. I guess that would be my last question would be just talk through like, you know, God, hopefully one of these lasts, right? I mean, you went through the AAF and all this kind of stuff. Like. The importance of having, you know, 2, 3, 4 years of something where players can really earn money, know that they have these other safe, secure options to play on. I mean. I mean. Both of those was a disappointed disappointment, honestly, you know, just, just over and over a disappointment. And if this league does last. It'll change a lot of people's lives, like, especially with the benefits that we have and stuff like that, man. It'll definitely help out. People really poor day life and heart up for this. You know, I really does. I really do hope it lasts. Truly. And not just for me, but for guys, other guys too. That's coming in. Oh, I mean for a year, for years, They had the big NFT announcement today. So you're going to have to be working on some NFTs, figuring out that kind of stuff. I literally right before we got on. I was looking at that email and I was like, let me finish reading up on this. It started getting mad and start getting some revenue from that as well. I'm still learn about NFCS right now. So I'm trying to really, really, really learn about that. So I'm really been focused on that. My, my, my crypto guys, my NFC people about this man, and see if they can help me up. Yeah, it could be that you could be the next big phase of crypto. I really appreciate your time over here for you. Best of luck.

Episode 82 - The USFL v. The USFL

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. Reid here. Just wanted to pop on and kind of fill you in on everything that's coming up today. Big show, big USFL. We're talking to lawsuits. We have. Our big one order meets all football. One of the fill you in. And then I have a little bit of a rant before we're going to get into the news and interviews and stuff tonight. Please like it. Subscribe. You're a USFL fan. If you're an XFL fan CFL fan, we have crossed 1800 subscribers. We are working towards our goal of 2000 subscribers before the USFL kick off in April. Big giveaway member. We have our Royal retros Jersey. We're giving the way we have the AAF commanders Jersey, a bunch of gray cup merchandise. I'll see whatever stuff I can put together, but big giveaway at 2000, please like it. Subscribe lots of work, interviews, research going into this, you know, diving into the trademarks of the USFL, kind of all that stuff. Coming up on the show today, we are talking to the experts, you know, we could pontificate. In message boards and on Twitter and on other things. But I want to bring in the experts to kind of figure out what is going on with this USFL debacle, the lawsuit, the, the real USFL comprise of the original USFL owners suing the new USFL with, you know, Brian Woods and Fox and kind of all of them involved. We're having to be talking with Ben Fisher of the sports business journal. I had been scheduled Farhana was going to come on this week to talk. You know, XFL, NFL, and USFL, kinda like Dave Naylor did last week. Far Hawn ended up having to go travel to the combine. So I thought, well, this would be a good opportunity to get Ben Fisher on. Maybe, you know, we could figure out some USFL stuff to talk about. Lo and behold, about five, six hours later. Ben broke the news of the USFL lawsuit. You know, the, the real against the, the, the new. So we talked with Ben, get Ben's thoughts on the USFL, kind of in general, what does he make of the lawsuit? Ben covers a lot of different sports business stuff, you know, various football leagues. So bands are really good person. Can I kind of get his perspective on that? Right. There's a lawsuit, you know, hold any merit, you know, is the season in danger of, you know, kicking off kind of all that stuff. Ben also has some thoughts on the XFL NFL partnership as well. Curious to get Ben. Thoughts as someone that's followed. You know, both the NFL and XFL and all that stuff. Then Michael Cohen, Beverly Hills IP and trademark lawyer is coming back on the show. Michael Cohen was on with Paul and I back earlier this summer when we had talked with Steve Earhart and we also talked with Kyle Smith at the USFL project all when the USFL relaunch, which. I guess it's not really a relaunch, but when, when that was all originally announced. So we, we talked with Michael, we kind of dove into the trademark stuff back then. You know, it seemed a little murky when we talked with Michael back then about the trademarks and all that stuff. So. I want you to bring on Michael today? I have not talked to Michael yet. I do not know Michael's opinion about the trademarks. That's going to lead to my rant here in the second. I want to know Michael's thoughts. Michael is an expert. I want to know. Does this case have any legs? What does he think? I have not spoken to Michael as recording this intro. So I'll be very curious as I'm sure you are to see what Michael has to say. I then we're going to be talking with Ben Holmes. Ben is the quarterback for the USFL generals that we're doing. We have Matt mangle on last week. I have another USFL player scheduled for next week. Ben's a quarterback of the generals. You know, big excitement. Ben was a spring league guy. I'm really excited to talk with Ben about, you know, him being involved in the USFL, why he chose to sign kind of that whole process and all that stuff. Finally, we're going to do a little CFL news. I have a little USFL news I want to talk about. And then we have Richie Leoni from the Ottawa red blacks coming on. Richie's gray. You know, good phase for the league, good. Someone that you know, to talk about the positivities involved with the CFL, playing in Ottawa, kind of their whole rebuild, really excited to talk with Richie as well. So we have Ben Fisher. Michael Cohen, Ben Holmes and then Richie Leoni coming on. I'll have all that stuff time coded. And that should be a really good show. I did want to, I had a little rant in my heart today, you know, working through everything, getting ready for the show. And I just kind of wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know where I'm coming out with all this USFL stuff. I've seen a lot of things being made about like, well, if you, if you buy into this USFL lawsuit, like you're a hater or you're not wanting to lead to succeed, or, you know, we're trying to cancel the USFL, whatever. In the time that I've done the podcast at 82 episodes. Now I have been called an XFL Hader. I had been called a CFL Haider. I have been called a USFL hater fan controlled football Haider. Kind of whatever you want to put. As a content creator that spends lots of time and money, you know, talking about these legs. I don't want any of them to fail. The the best thing for me and someone that podcasts about these things every week is to have the most successful leagues we possibly can. That gives me the most eyeballs that people that are interested in these leagues, we have more players and coaches and staff to talk about, you know, with these leaks. There's not an ounce of me in any way that wants the USFL to fail or that the XFL is going to succeed. I mean, I need content to talk about all year. If the USFL plan April, may, June. You know, XFL playing February, March, April, and the CFL and everything else. That's just a better world for read. I have spent thousands of dollars going to Canada, you know, dragging Dorothy wonderfully along with me to cover the gray cup. I'm paying hundreds of dollars and hijacking part of Dorothy's spring break trip to go to USFL or to go to the Birmingham to cover the USFL kickoff. I'm invested in all these leaks. So I just wanted to clarify that I I'm not bringing on Michael or anybody tonight to. You know, say yes, you. As the fail is failing or they're, they're not going the way I want to talk to the experts. I want to hear what they think, but kind of sweeping this stuff under the rug and being like, well, I, the USFL thing, like this is nonsense. We don't need to pay attention to that because that doesn't like fit the narrative of the platform you're on. I don't buy that either. I want to talk to experts. I want to keep you guys informed about what is going on. That is my goal here. And you know, obviously I have thoughts if the XFL is doing things better or the USFL, I mean, we're. We're all going to have personalities and opinions, but ultimately at the end of the day, More successful. Alternative football leagues is better for me. That's all I want. And I want success for everybody involved in it. Okay. All right. There we go. Okay. Well, we have Ben Fisher here with the sports business. I remember when we, when we kind of set this up this week. We thought, well, maybe we, maybe we lost him USFL. The talking about how are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks for having me. And you're right. The pace of news is picking up whether the USFL minutes who are not this week with that lawsuit, it's timely and it's. It's one of the key questions we've got for this league, for sure. I will rather be lucky than good sometimes. And it wasn't. I was very happy. I had to work on Monday. I was very happy to schedule your interview and then come out of my gig and see, oh, Ben has this big story about the U S smell lawsuit. So I certainly worked out timing before we get into all that. And obviously we're going to have Michael Cohen on as well. Doing the trademark stuff. General thoughts on USFL so far? What do you think about it? Well, I think what we know of, it seems like they're doing a lot of the thing, a lot of things, right. I mean, I say that as they're, you know, being hauled into court for the legitimacy of their very name and team brands. So maybe I shouldn't go too far down that path. But, you know, and seems like they really watched and learned from other people's mistakes and that they are going with sort of a minimum viable product. You know, I think one of the things that was so exciting about the XFL, when it launched at the Pittsburgh, 2020 Was that. You know, we had known the team names and some of the people who were in charge of the team for many, many months in advance, they had a lot of money in marketing and social media content. And. You know, they did a lot of things to look very professional upfront. I think that was exciting and sort of helped generate buzz. But. Those people cost a lot of money and it was a big payroll and it was a very heavy organization from the start. And I think the people behind the USFL at Fox know that. Cost minimization is maybe the single biggest challenge to spring leagues. You know, I mean, it's not so much. When are we going to be profitable, but it's, how can we limit our losses while putting a product out? And I think various things that Fox sports has done is really designed to get football games onto TV while spending as little money as possible, at least in the short term, which seems to make a lot of sense. Cause that's where we're prior iterations have failed in spring football. For sure. So they've got my attention. I'm watching them very closely in part because of that, but also it's Fox. It's not individual. It's not different. It's not entrepreneur. Who's got. Investors, he's got to pay back on a date. Certain. Box. Could conceivably lose money for a long time on this. If they like the ratings at. At the USFL is doing for them. So it's just, it's, you know, we've seen so many spring leagues come and go, but Fox doing it and sort of a different way, owning it entirely presents some new opportunities and wrinkles to the storyline that makes this not just one more certain to fail spring league. I think. But also, you know, I mean, Fox owning it. They could very much say like we're done with this, you know, we're, we're ready. C'mon I mean, just as easy where they don't have contracts in play, you know? Right. With, if you had a bunch of people you had brought together, right. Right. Right, exactly. And that's the upside and the downside of not being an entrepreneur, who's bet their life on this. You know, They don't have to make money. They also got 20 other things they could suddenly decide to get moving on one day, you know, Eric shanks, the head. Fox sports decided that this was something he wanted to put a priority on. Things change. His bosses might think differently. The. It's hard to say what might even change in the near future, but, you know, there's a certain amount, easy come easy, go there as much as I think they really are invested in this. Just as we saw, Vincent man was invested in the XFL until he decided that he just wasn't, it wasn't a good idea for him to continue 400 millions of dollars down the drain. So. That's the upside of the downside. It's interesting that you talk, you know, accent found very heavy leading that bright because there has been a lot of criticism. Right? Okay. The USFL. You know, we don't know a lot. Right. And then it really is true. Like after the super bowl, they thought, okay, now we're getting uniforms out. We're getting drafts. We're getting all this stuff. But now in a week, presumably where we would be getting, I don't know, maybe a TV schedule or other things. Now we have this lawsuit kind of taking the forefront. Right. I would imagine that box. And then USFL would be announcing other things this week where it not for that going on. Yeah, I don't know. I guess this possible. I shouldn't say it's not. I'm not aware of anything else that they were doing this week that they're not doing because of the lawsuit. I think they would like us to downplay the lawsuit. So maybe it's the exact opposite. Maybe they're trying to find something that they can talk about. That's not the lawsuit. Excuse me. But. It has been notable how little we've known about this, and it's all a little bit unusual to have football less than what, six or seven weeks away. And not even really know who the teams are or exactly. Who all who all these people are. There's still lots of unanswered questions. I can only assume that's a strategy by, by Fox and the USFL to kind of try to. You know, don't make too many promises. I mean, it's almost reminiscent of like me with deadlines and stories. Okay. I can't literally the surprise editors, but I try to give them an intact product rather than, rather than drip laid out week after week say, but this is what it's going to be. Cause then I've created expectations. So it's almost like Fox is guaranteeing themselves maximum flexibility. By not talking about it a lot, which is frustrating for people like me and you, because we're trying to ascertain the validity of this product. But we don't know much about it yet. So. It's weird. It's weird. I mean, that was what we had always heard the spring league last year. Right. Is they really wanted to just kind of. See what the league did on its own. Right. Didn't. We didn't want to put a lot of marketing behind it. They want to put the time and then use the, kind of as a proof of concept. Well, now you have this league, you have this big deal. And I mean, I guess we still don't know that the TV schedule here except for the kickoff game and then right. Okay. We're playing in Canton, you know, for that, for that, for the plat. Do you think that that's odd that March 2nd and now we still don't have a. I have a TV schedule. It's certainly not how traditional sports league marketing. Would would, would lay it out. You know, you want to give people time to buy tickets. You want to give your sales and promotional teams time to promote it. But, you know, I think it's an illustration of how Fox is really doing this so differently. I think they are going to sell tickets to the games as more of a community fun thing. And Brenda is $10 a ticket. Surely they could charge more, but that's not a priority for them. They'd rather get people there. Then necessarily squeeze every dollar they can out of the market for that. And, you know, I think their attitude toward television production is. Hey, it's American football, you know? It'll sell itself. As long as we tell people, at least a few days out, we can. With whole wheat. We can sort of hold back maximum flexibility while also kind of, you know, getting, having our cake and eat it too. I think it's a very unusual that they haven't told us more about these teams because traditionally the playbook would be to really push a pitch and get, build up a fever pitch. But I think they figure. People will watch certain amount of football, no matter what. And as long as it's a, you know, it looks decent on camera. That's all that really matters on the first, first games. I mean, obviously, you know, football, your beat, all these things, but MLB, you know, can't not talk about that now, especially this week. Right. Pushing things back. I mean, even if there wasn't a USFL, I mean, I think Fox and everyone else is like, what are we going to do? Right. To fill this time. Thoughts on that in the and baseball and how that affects the spring football league here. Ah, you know, I hadn't really thought about it. I'm I'm but of course, you're right. I mean, You're looking for time on the calendar at April 16th. It's after NCAA basketball. Tournament's. Hockey and basketball or pick it up, but yeah, normally baseball would be a major competitor for people's time. In mid April, and now it's looking like it might not be. Considering Fox's investment in major league baseball. I'm pretty sure Fox would prefer baseball happened. But for the handful of guys whose job is the USFL, this is a. Godsend for them because yeah, people like football and football is by far the most popular sport in the U S. But April is not traditionally a time for football. There's no baseball on that Saturday. Then surely more people will watch this then wallets. If there was baseball on. How did you come across the transitioning to the lawsuit here and everything that you, you know, you and others reported? How did, how did you come across that? And what were your initial thoughts? We've got a service that alerts us to certain keywords when lawsuits are filed in federal court. Fox sports and. NFL or things that come up there. So we saw that somebody was suing them. I can't say I'm surprised. We all know. We all knew that the, the individuals who filed the suit, the plaintiffs raised this very objection when the USFL was first launched last year. And so honestly I'm a little surprised it hasn't happened yet. Maybe it was intentionally held back to designed to cause maximum agita and strife by doing it so close to the season, starting. But they would have. To me that doesn't make that much sense. They're not enough sense because even though yeah, the timing here, isn't great for the USFL. These men. Had a very real cause of action. The moment the USFL put out that press release, announcing the return of the leak. So they would have perfect, been perfectly able to fight, not to have to wait for something else to happen. To file that lawsuit. So it's a little curious to me that it didn't file until now. But it's no surprise. The loss is basically the argument they made. The very beginning of all this. Where it goes from here. I don't know. I'm certain that. Fox sports executives and their lawyers. Are very competent that they will win this case, you know? Places like Fox dont, Greenlight, large new business initiatives without checking it in every different way from lawyers. But. You know, the law courts are inherently unpredictable. They might be a hundred percent sure they ultimately win, but. You know, it wouldn't take much to derail this, so we'll take it depending on who the judge they got. The judge could say. Yeah, maybe you will win this case, but we're going to talk about this and we're going to have a trial. It could, he might even say, you know, you can't use these marks until we go to the child. So it's, it's, it's a little bit like the NFL's lawsuit. They had to settle in St. Louis regarding the relocation or the LA Rams. When that lawsuit was filed, everyone involved in sports business and the NFL said, And they have got no case, you know, they can't Sue for this. There they, NFL is going to win. And honestly, to this day, the NFL was certain that at that case, it all gone all the way through. It would have wanted on appeal, but the downside of a trial was so significant that the NFL agreed to pay nearly $800 million to, to make that case go away. So that's a situation where they were certain, they were right. And those lawyers probably were right. That eventually they were going to win that case. I think Fox might be in a similar spot on this, where they're very confident they're going to win this case. Ultimately they wouldn't have done it if they didn't get that legal clearance. But that doesn't mean this lawsuit. Doesn't going to be a huge pain in their butts. So, you know, we'll see if we can get to, if the plaintiffs could get in front of a judge before April 16th. They can, I'm not going to say it's likely, but one outcome of that is that the judge says, Hey, while we work on this. Don't do anything with these marks, you know, he could issue an injunction and that would be a real problem for them. I don't think that's very likely to be clear. But as possible, you never know what these judges are gonna think. I think you're ruffling some that, sorry, I. By your microphone. I think you're typing on something they're just making. It was a lot of background. No. No. I just know I'm just playing with a little piece of paper. Okay. Oh s**t. I just little nervous tick. And I'm screwing up. You're good. So in your, in your estimation, you know, moving forward. And obviously we're going to, like I said, talk to the IP lawyer. Yeah, how quickly do these things progress? Right? I mean, the time will tell, but is this something where people we do actually need to worry about an April 16th? Like if something happening before then. I have not checked the docket in this case recently. Actually I can do that now. While we talk. Aye. Yeah. Short answer is. I would find it very surprising that something would happen before April 16th. To stop this from happening just because in court time, that's really fast. You filed a lawsuit at the end of March. You're probably like the USFL and Fox will probably get at least three weeks to file a response. And I guess if a judge is so inclined to think that this is a matter of utmost urgency or public policy, he could accelerate that. But. Now that I'm thinking about it. Under normal circumstances, they probably wouldn't actually have an opportunity to argue back and forth in front of a judge until mid to late April. Anyway, so. I guess. Actually stopping the start of the league, seems like a real outlier possibility just because of how fast it would have to happen for that. But I think you'd expect, you know, some initial appearances in court. Right around the start of the season. A lot has been made about the actual lawsuit itself. Right. Like misspelling Pittsburgh and the spelling, Jim Kelly, right? Legend of the USFL they use. I mean, you ran a lot of lawsuits done the last. Does that, is that normal? Does that make you weary? 'Cause I saw a lot of like, oh, well, see, this was just, Hey, asleep put together. Or they don't really, you know, they don't care. Yeah. I would say that. There have been very valid lawsuits filed by people that maybe didn't proofread well enough. That is not a dispositive. Argument. But it does tell us something about the credibility and the seriousness of these people. You know, as a reporter, the entities I write about the NFL is sued many times a day. You know, those alerts I talked about, they get a little tiresome, so we are always asking ourselves. How serious is this? Is this something we need to write about right now? So some of the initial thresholds we get, we ask, we look for is. Are these lawyers well-known have they done other things? Are these people that you know, are taken seriously and have a reputation within the sports business? Does the, does the complaint look well done and well prepared? And I can't say anything good or bad about these lawyers. I don't know. I don't need to express opinion on that. But. Yeah. I mean, to answer your question. Misspellings in a complaint does tell us something about. They're their work. It doesn't mean they don't have a completely valid case under the law, but this is Jess. Maybe there wasn't full thought put into this. The fact that this real USFL is actually a new entity. I think that's going to be a challenge and uphill battle that, you know, just to follow the facts of who exactly is the original USFL and how much have they been active in using these rights over time? It's a fairly convoluted story, you know, I mean, you read the lawsuit itself and. At his core, legally speaking, it's a very straightforward argument. We have the rights to use these names. They don't, but then you start looking too well. It hasn't really existed for 35 years, but they've done. They've used the rights in certain ways. But then this new entity comes in and tries to take it anyway. It just gets complicated. It's a. It doesn't, I'm not, not going to say they don't have a, they don't have a chance, but there are, there are some things that raise, raise your eyebrows about this complaint. I'll put it that way. Well, yeah, I mean, it just. Especially when you're using, you know, like, oh Jim Kelly legend of our league. Right. As you know, and we're missing out, I mean, that. And I was like the key point in the first. Yeah, the first page of the bank. I don't know. You know, I want to transition X out here before I let you go. I mean, any final thoughts on this? I mean, obviously time will tell and they hit the field, you know, we need to see viewership, right. We really need to see, I mean, I think that's the key here, right? I mean, what can Fox draw on a Saturday in April? I I, any other thoughts on that before we transition? Well, I think the USFL has my attention because of the things I have seen about them. Keeping costs down and doing it straight out of Fox, where they don't necessarily need to make a profit to pay back in the Bester. Their goal is to pay for some television that people will watch on Saturdays and Sundays is bring. So I would say that it's got a better shot that a lot of spring leagues, just because of Fox's backing. I think it all comes down to the quality of the players in the field. I think we know that basically the difference between good football, bad football is. And your quarterback consistently hit a receiver. Can the line, keep the guy I'll, you know, keep him upright for three seconds. So those are the things that no matter how deep into a business analysis I get, it's hard for me to say, I don't know the, the, the depth of the player pool well enough to really predict that, but I think they put themselves in a position to succeed from the business and sort of a structural standpoint. Oh, it comes down to how entertaining the games are or not. You're still playing with stuff. Sorry. Oh, geez. I really am. I'm sitting here. Do you want me to redo that? I mean, How bad is it? No, you're good. You're good. I got these nervous ticks. I'm not even thinking of that. You can hear that, but of course he can. You want me to, before I like any of the play, I mean, do you not know enough of the roster staff to be like, I mean, I mean, we, you know, we didn't have to use this. I don't, you know, I recognize probably. A handful of guys that were drafted from there, you know? That's just not what we do is to track that level of player that closely. So. I guess I'll ask you one question that you can touch on that. You know, from your estimation covering these spring leagues, right. Covering these, you know, non NFL. I obviously the, the rosters came out. Were there enough names? Th that you felt like to really like strike a cord, you. In kind of hit the general public, right. The casual viewer, like, oh, okay. I'm going to go check that out. Me personally, I don't always trust my judgment on this because I really am a business reporter, not a sports reporter, but I didn't recognize that many names. And I consider myself a fairly big football fan. And, you know, I recognized, I don't know, maybe half the quarterbacks rang a bell, but overall it was much less than 50%. By less than 10%. And I don't know if that's necessarily a problem you need well matched teams, not necessarily Marquis players to make a good football game. And I think that's part of what Fox sports is betting on here is that. What makes you break a startup isn't necessarily famous players. But evenly matched players and, you know, quarterbacks are good enough to keep the, keep the clock running. And I don't, I guess I don't know enough to say whether they've got that or not based on just the names in the mix. Yeah. Cause I mean, obviously like us, all football fans, you know? Oh yeah. I know that guy from D but you know, I mean just the general, like I'm a 40 year old man and going to go watch. I do they know, or, you know, mom or, I mean, who do they. People, you know, Yeah, I get the impression that it's going to be a pretty short list of people who are already known the USFL, which. You know, I guess different people can have reasonable opinion, reasonable different opinions on how important that is or not, but they're definitely not going to go old school USFL and throw hundreds of millions of dollars. At top draft picks, they don't think that's necessary actually to. To, to, to get people to watch. Fox has pretty sophisticated analytics on why people watch football and who they are, what motivates them. And they think if it's a good game and more completed, more passes are completed than not. And the line is, is able to allow the quarterback at running backs to develop a game plan. Then people will watch. Before I let you guys. Transitioning right. In all the big USFL staff uniforms. You know, drafts all this stuff in between all that on president's day. Right. You know, XFL comes out and announces. It's kind of a surprise, right? I don't know if anyone really expected that on the Monday. Right. Holiday Monday. Thoughts on this new NFL XFL partnership. Well, it's got my attention, but I don't think we know enough about it to say whether it means anything at all. I don't mean to say this as a criticism. The NFL is just a big operation. But it wouldn't be the first time some sort of announcement came out about the NFL and it turned out the press release was the primary iteration of the NFL initiative. I don't think there's much meat on the bone now, you know, ask him, is there a guaranteed work product that's going to come from this collaboration? Is there somebody at the NFL who is in charge of this? Either the XFL or the NFL. Committed a minimum amount of money toward this and the answer to all those is sorta no, look, this is a commitment to talk about things and to experiment and that's great, but it's not a lot of hard. Hard substance, you can take to the bank here. I think so I'm a little bit of a skeptic on how much actually comes to bear from this XFL, NFL collaboration, but it's certainly better to have that than not. Because I think it does possibly work to blunt some first mover advantage from the USFL. If there are guys for the USFL who are under contract for the USFL. But really, I mean, their goal ultimately is to play in the NFL. Right. So. All else being equal. It's better to play with a league that has a connection to the accident NFL than not. So it's important. It certainly caught my eye. But I guess. Let's wait to see what this NFL relationship actually means and does it before we try to assess its value to the XFL of the players. There. My initial. When I saw my mate that I guess it was last Monday now when I saw it, I, you know, cause we lived through all this CFL stuff and everything, and I'm sure you. And I just thought. Like we're more collaborative talking. I, that was really my first thing. If somebody got. I get all this and I get wanting to build, but could we please. With the ball on the field. I mean, could we play a snap before? It's like, oh, well now we're going to go tie through the NFL. I mean, I get wanting to, you know, have this two year long runway and like all these different things coming with it, but I really was taken aback by that. Like, okay. We're talking with another league now. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's actually a good point that it was reminiscent of the CFL thing. The CFL thing was a really intriguing headline. Ah, oh, what would it look like if we had like an international league and, you know, I could see that you'd take sort of the well-known brand names, the CFF. CFL with like the money and prestige of the rock and Redbird capital partners. Maybe there's something there, but the other hand you immediately say, well, which version of the game are we going to play? Are guys going to be expected to move back and forth between Canadian and American football? So like there were a lot of. Not red flags, but yellow flags, even in the best case scenario for that, the NFL thing, there's less of that, you know, it's a spring league in theory, it could become a developmental league for the NFL without too much changes to sort of the core framework on that. But again, the NFL isn't going to do that lightly. This is not exclusive. The NFL could enter into a similar arrangement with the USFL. So it may or may not mean much at this point. And I agree with you about just like putting the ball on the field and playing, you know, let's just. Go. And I think that's ultimately why the USFL is first mover advantage here is pretty substantial. I'm not saying both can't survive. It's a new world. Everyone needs content for streaming services and everyone likes more football to bet on. But if you think that only one is going to survive for a guy who's maybe a 28 year old running back and figures, he's got three good years left. He would've played now. And I think that's a huge advantage of the USFL now, compared to the XFL, no matter how well the XFL might be done, they're gonna be a year behind a competitor. It just felt weird. A lot had been made about Eric shank his relationship with Goodell. Right. Okay. The NFL is not going to get in the way of the USFL, you know, maybe they'll operate together and then they haven't come out and say, oh, well, the XFL now is going to be, I mean, it just felt weird cause I'm like, well, I thought that was, that felt like that was the UFO. USFL is going to be more friendly with the NFL than the XFL. That is a little surprising because of course, Fox and the NFL are tied together. Like, you know, like as close as anybody. Anyone in business. But, you know, the, you add the XFL is leadership has a lot of ties to the NFL to. And I think the NFL, you know, the NFL, his perspective on this is that. Any organized football. Is good because our football ops guys, our GM's, our coaches, our Scouts say that there's just not enough tape on everybody. So anybody out there who's putting more guys in uniform and running more plays is good for the NFL and they figure. As long as we're not being asked to commit any real money to it. We're happy with that, you know? So, I don't know. Maybe there's been. I'm purely speculating here. But maybe they've talked to shanks in the USFL and figured, Hey, we're not going to get in your way. There'll be some sort of quiet support here, but we don't need it on an official relationship just because it's understood that. If anybody gets real traction here will kind of comes to come and talking to them about some sort of developmental arrangement. It's it's really fascinating. I mean, all this. It compare the why we were asking about a year ago with like new Zilla flavors and stuff. This is certainly a more, more. Anything else before I let you go, man, this has been a wealth of knowledge. I don't think so. It's an exciting time to be into spring and alternative football. 'Cause, I don't know if either one of them is going to succeed, but there's a good case to make for both of them. I think everyone's learned a lot of hard lessons from other people's spectacular failures and trying to do this in a more thoughtful and. Lean cost efficient way. And like I said, you know, it's an uphill battle, but because between everyone's need for content. And people's love of betting on football. I think they stand a much better chance than they used to. So I, you know, I. I'm optimistic about these actual. I mean. Was, it was ESPN just paid 18 million, right. The tray command. Right. Football game. I mean like clearly the, the dry for content and football content, especially, I mean that, you know, it's insane, right? Right, right. It's just that. I mean, you know, A mediocre football game does better than almost every NBA game. And so I think they're figuring if you know, even bad football is football. I think that's where we are as a sports country right now. And particularly with a baseball lockout that may be extending those numbers could really pop. And then, you know, Yeah. I'm all good. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Well, this is exciting. We have my vote coming back on IP and trademark lawyer out of Beverly Hills. Michael was on with us back this summer when we talked with Steve Earhart and we had a lot of questions involving all this stuff. And now lo and behold, This is the world we live in. Michael, how are you doing? I'm really good. How are you? We're good. This is I, I, we have gotten a lot more clicks than on our video from back in may and June. Then I think we did the first time with all this stuff going on. But, you know, There was a lot of questions back then and the lineage or the trademarks and all this stuff. And basically your work, we did live on the podcast, kind of as all come to fruition. Yeah. No. It's the continuation of that for sure. So, what do you make of all this? Cause, you know, I was asked a lot. Oh, it is Michael agreeing with you? Like, does he think the league's in trouble or is it like. I don't care what you think, right. As long as it's educated, then you're the expert in this. Right. I have no stake in like, is the USFL going to close shop tomorrow? Where whatever. So, what do you, what do you make of all this? Well, th the league as a whole isn't in trouble. I don't think so. I think. It's something it's not going to end. Right. So is this a matter of, who's going to be in control of it? Not anything had happened, obviously. And the results of filing these lawsuits could blow the whole thing up, but. Right now it's a power struggle in regards to the true ownership of the trademark rights. Is it going to be. This, this entity in which they're calling the sales, the real U S F L or is it going to be the Fox Canada? Who is going to continue on and control. It's odd because. To me. And I think they kind of, the feelings we had back when all this came out was the original owner. Steve Earhart. Right? A lot of the group that's now has formed this real USFL LLC in the last week or two. Kind of fell asleep at the wheel. Right. And let these marks. Go away. Right. It kind of abandoned them. And then, you know, obviously they were picked up legally through other means. Is that your takeaway? I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that per se. So, you know, whether you abandon X there's like legal connotations to that word of the Bannon. So the actual trademarks, the, the, the federal filings, those registrations. Yeah, you're right. Those did lapse and they admit it in, in their court filings that. Yeah, we, we did let them go. But was there still some use that occurred throughout the period of time? Since the eighties to now. And that's what the whole lawsuit is about that. Yes, of course. They're claiming that we continue to do. Quite a few things, apparel license. There was a talk about a movie in which there was some kind of film that was out. So through those. Channels. They continued to keep the name and the trademark rights, the live. And, and by that kind. That's okay. And there was no damn. According to them. E a. I mean, is that traditionally how that works? I mean, I, so like I have my wedding company best made videos. I have that trademarked. Right. And I believe right. You have to update that every six years or 10 years, right. To kind of keep it maintained. Is that accurate? So there's one thing in regards to talking about. Let me just turn this off. There's one thing about having an actual federal registration and keeping that alive. Okay. So, so when you file for a trademark, you file with the United States patent trademark office. And that's the governmental agency that issues trademarks, right. But even if you don't have that, There's still this common law concept. Oh trademarks. So you can still have common law rights. To, to a trademark without having a federal registration. And those two levels of, of, of law. They sometimes compete with each other. Okay. So a senior. Common law user. Can contest a leader. Federal registrar. And that's kind of what the situation is here, that the real USFL is claiming that we're the common law. These were the original users, even in our federal rights lapsed. We still claim priority to the later trademarks that you guys later took over or were filed new ones. So th that's that's what the issue is. So yeah, it's always better to keep the trademark going and having the federal registration. It makes it cleaner and easier. But they did let those lapse, but they're still keeping up argument that they had trademark rights. We'll call the law standpoint. It's fascinating. I mean, and obviously, you know, it's just your one opinion here, right? I mean, it'll ultimately come down right to a judge to decide on this. But it is. Fascinating to think they, I guess the argument would be well, no. Fox came in. They paid, they acquire these legally, right? They did all this. That's their rights now. And these guys are sour grapes, trying to con you know, trying to contest it. Now it may be getting, get a big pay there something before, before this league kicks off. I mean, who knows, who knows? It's, I don't know if it's a matter of, you know, getting a payday or trying to. You know, extract some kind of settlement. But it really is to. You know, you can say about the legacy. You know, because all these original trademark rights folders. And by the way, so this is new. I try to look up this new entity. So the plaintiff in this is called the real USFL. It's a New York limited liability company. So before this interview, I looked them up, but it didn't pop up for some reason, the secretary of state. Maybe it's too new or maybe it's very new. Yeah, so I just couldn't find it. So I don't know how old it is or what, but from my understanding all the original rights holders. From back in the eighties. Gave their permission to put their IP into this new entity. So, you know, I guess the philosophical argument on their side is that we're protecting the legacy. We're the true. Rights holders. And these new guys in the block box. You're trying to trade off. The nostalgia. And the, the Goodwill that was created back then. And really there are two different leagues are two different things where they're just trying to capitalize on what was created back then. It's going to be interesting because when the USFL, when you came on and everything before. A lot was made. The USFL was back, right. They had Doug Flutie. That was, you know, former player. Hey USFL, we're coming back. You know, th the press release all this stuff. Say the reboot relaunch, re whatever you want to use it. And then slowly over the last few months. They've actually gone back and edited those press releases to get rid of all of that, right. Fox has and where it's just like the USFL, you know, is, is a new spring, alternative football league, whatever. What do you, what do you, what do you make of that? Well, that's interesting. I wasn't that keen or didn't know about these, those edits as much. So looking at the legal filings at the complaint. And I'm sure you're not going to talk about this. The new filing that happened yesterday. Looking through that. The plaintiffs are citing. Two statements that are still up. So I think there was some Twitter statements and, you know, statements here and there that they say, look, they haven't taken these statements down. And there to the effect of what you just said, that. We're back. That the USFL they're back. They they're coming back. It's. So it's like linking back. Tagging onto what was made in the past. And so there's still. They're still making that statement. It seems like, and they're not taking that down. Yeah, it's weird because it's this. We want to profit off the oil aid. This is what it feels like. You know, we want to profit off the legacy, right? We want to bring people back into it, but then we don't want to, you know, we're not actually using those marks, right. We're using our own, but we're profiting enough. You know what I mean? It's a weirdly hyperbolic. It kind of it's, two-sided there of how they're looking at it. Yeah, I think one of the arguments by the plaintiff. The real USFSM. Is, you know, why are you using the same names? You know, I don't know if they're a hundred percent using all the exact names, but I think there's what there's like 12 or 18 new leaks that they made. What they're utilizing pretty much the same names. And so why do, why not just make new names and there's value to those names? According to the plaintiffs. You know, if there was no value, why. You know, why wouldn't you. You know, or why are you. Using those same names, you can make new names. Does that weigh into, or will that weigh into a judge's decision? Yeah, that's one of the factors. So, you know, Are they trading off of the value? Of of the trademarks for the. From the past. You know, so if there was no value, The argument is there's no value. There's, it's just a coincidence or there's no damage. To us. You know, doing it. But if there's value associated with it. Then that's an argument that the plaintiffs are damaged by that. Aye. I've gone back and forth because I read enough thinking this isn't a big deal. And then I talked to you now and it feels like a big deal. Is this a big deal? Is it a big deal. So, you know, that's up to the judge or the jury to decide that. The parties are surely going to make it a big deal. Of course, there's a lot of. You can say it's a big deal with a lot of money at stake. So the fee of what's going to happen with this league is, is that state right now? I mean, think about it. There's a lawsuit that's been filed. That lawsuit goes all the way to trial. There's going to be adjudication at the end, unless there's a settlement. And yesterday's filing, which lets us talk about it now. So there was a preliminary injunction that was filed. You know, so. That's going to decide a lot. That's a massive ratification in regards to what's going to happen in the near term. Future. Right because you have a, the trial date, there was no trial dates. Even set in this case. Yes. With it, it will be. You know, sometime soon. And that's going to be way out in the future. Like a year from now. Yeah. So this preliminary injunction is going to decide within a few months or even less, maybe. What's going to happen. Yeah. So I theoretically, right. So March 16th is this injunction, right? April 16th. Is the kickoff. Is this something where a judge would say, you guys need to call it something else here in the meantime, or will they let them continue? You know, going forward with it. And then we'll, we'll decide this later on and maybe you'll pay damages back. Yeah, so. All of the above, so it can go either direction. One is, as a result is preliminary junction. If it is granted. Okay. Meaning that the plaintiff's filed this motion to get the judge to stop. The box from doing this. Now. But the case still moves on. And so they can prove everything at the end, but at least they get their temporary relief now. Okay. So judge could, yeah, just cause it read the. The pleadings and the papers, the motion as say, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I am going to. Stop their use from proceeding on. Okay. Or on March 16th, the judge can say, I need to think about it. A little bit more. And so there's no adjudication and he takes it under submission. And it might just kind of go on for a little bit. Or he won't grant it. And then the case just proceeds on to normal litigation. Where it goes onto the discovery phase. There's depositions and then ultimately a trial. Unless it settles before. Cause he would be in theory, if they just let everything continue, they said us about keep going. We're going to go. Then later on, they'd say you guys have X amount of damages, right? Like if, if let's say Fox kicked off this whole season, right. And then maybe next January, we decided, okay, you guys are at fault. Would that be the alternative? So in regards to you, so damages is like a different issue, right? So what this preliminary injunction is, is just injunctive relief to stop. To stop from the stop, the infringing app. The infringing act is box use. Using all these trademarks, right? So that's all that this is about for now. So in regards to assessing damages and all that kind of stuff, that is really the thing at trial typically. I mean, it can happen a little bit before that, but normally it's at trial. Or settlement. Where the parties that say, you know what. Let's just hash it out and come to an agreement. And maybe you will. You know, settle it some way in which will allow Fox to carry on, but we have to be part of it or you need to pay us or whatever the case may be. If you had to speculate and I mean, you know, all the suspect, if you had to, you know, this. We knew about this in may and June, right? It is the timing of this now because we're kicking off now. I. I mean, is that in your mind, is that gel? Like, why are we hearing about this, you know, February 28th, March 1st. Cause the leaks kicking off so soon. Well, who knows what happened behind the scenes? Right. So last time we spoke. You know, there was a procedural mechanism. In which the plaintiffs could have utilized through the U S PTO. To just to cancel the trademarks. Right. They didn't do that. So instead that they're just filing this lawsuit. So. From last summer to now who knows what they negotiated. There might've been communications back and forth. Maybe they came close to a settlement. Or maybe they didn't. I don't know what the case is. Maybe they thought Fox wouldn't actually go through with it. You know, so now it's coming to a head. And so it's either. You know, you move or you lose. So you got to the file. If you don't do it timely. You know, you're out. And that's what the preliminary injunction is. A preliminary injunction is. You need immediate relief now you can't sit around even. A month too late. A judge could say, no, it's a preliminary injunction. If you're too late on that. So. You have to move really quick. And things are moving quick. I mean there. We're going to do this. Let's round the corner. Yeah. I mean, they move, I mean, it feels really quick to be scheduling this in, in two weeks from now. Yeah. I just, I already see that, you know, the comments on this and people in Facebook and everything like, you know, Fox bought these trademarks. They did this. I mean, we've traced back. The world headquarters ownership of this back to 2011, right? Then they got passed and pat, like, you're really saying none of that matters as long as the original Steve Earhart and them theoretically continued use the whole time. Well, I'll say that now. I'm not saying that, you know, but that's the argument that the plaintiffs will make, that they have the priority of use. And, and, you know, In their emotion, the plaintiff's motion. They talk about who the dates. Yeah. So, so th so this, this whole lawsuit is really gonna come down to nailing down. Who had what priority and when. You know, and for what. You know, so maybe it's one thing to say yeah. Priority for trademark right priority. For clothing and apparel. What's another thing for, you know, the football league. You know, so maybe it might get divvied up like that who knows? But I saw in a one paragraph. That's the real USFL said. That's the defendant's rights only go back to 2000. And what was the 2019? That's like the earliest that they can show. So plaintiffs can easily beat that by many, many years. So that's what a lot of these disputes are, is, is. Who had it first and went what's the, who has the lineage of that? Who has the right to priority. Yeah. Yeah, I do see what you're saying, where it could be divvying up. You know, cause yeah, if I own something, I own the football league, man. I just kept shelling shirts for 30 years. And then does that entitle me then? I, no one else could ever, you know, I don't know. I don't know what that, you know, there's obviously you trademark, you know, clothing and trademark. I, even my podcast, I have to trademark for downloadable versus streaming. Right. I mean, there's various levels to that. Any indication where the law lands on, on this? I mean, obviously it's up to the judge, but where are you landing? We'll really, it's going to be up to a jury. You know, so there's, you know, the jury, the peers, in this case, they're going to decide. The jury pool. So. You know, you can make a distinction between you gave an example of your business. But, you know, compared to this. With a different set of facts, right? So it's not as black and white in regards to M I, even though I'm not using that one particular category that I filed for the trademark, I'm doing something else. So therefore I'm out. No. So, you know, the plaintiffs are claiming. A variety of things. So not just apparel. But, you know, movie rights. Okay books. And licensing. So. Th they're claiming that through the master licensed source to. The name. And that's a steady stream of revenue for them. And that's been continuing on and they have many vendors where at least. I am full of vendors that purchased their products. And so it's not just one of the products, but what they're going to argue. Is that is the entire good will. Of the name. You know, other USFL, you know, so you can't. You can't parse that out to a completely new entity that's coming. That's what they're going to argue. Okay. I don't want to sound like I'm still pro. USFL its own. You know, I, I, no dog in this fight either way, but, but that's for sure what they're arguing and I've read it so far. So the only thing I've read. Is was only out there, which is the complaint and the preliminary injunction. So the defendants they have yet to speak at least. In a court. So let's see what they're going to say. So they're going to do an opposition. Do the preliminary injunction pretty soon. And we're going to hear from them. I'm at the point. I think I want to make sure I'm just going to edit this. I want to make sure I have. I thought that I know they didn't say anything. Yeah, obviously in the court. So I just want to make sure, I thought they said. They said this was. So they David Bernstein of debit, voice and Plimpton, right? That's the council of the Fox. They put out just a statement. It says lawsuit filed is complete without merit, the new USFL registered reconcile. Okay. Yeah, I like the typical. Yeah. Do you have any comments on this? Yes, it's completely. Nautilus. Yeah. Okay. Let me just. In the record yet. Okay. Houston. I'll edit this here. So even though there's something in the record. We have a statement come out, you know, from the lawyer fright from David Bernstein, Fox counsel, you're saying that, you know, that pressed out that doesn't necessarily matter. You know, it needs to be in the core of the law in terms of what actual response. Yeah, of course. I mean, that's, that's just a matter of, you know, Public opinion type of statement. So like anything else, if there's a high profile. A newsworthy type of issue, whether it's something like this or, you know, a criminal act or something like that. The attorneys will come out of the representatives will come out, maybe do a brief. Press. A press statement. So, you know, that's, that's all that was so their legal statement. We'll come out relatively soon. It's going to be in the form of opposition. To the motion for preliminary injunction. And that opposition is going to be filed really soon. I think they have a few weeks or so for us going to be filed or even less than that. You have to imagine. And the argument, you know, Fox wouldn't have done this. If they did not feel good, right. In. You know, their track record in terms of IP acquisition of everything, right? I mean, you would have to, you know, this isn't like, I'm read, I'm starting the football league here. I mean, this is Fox sports, Fox broadcasting doing this. I mean, W would you argue that they have gone forward to this as far as they did, because they feel good about their case in terms of the legal ownership of everything. I mean, you had to, they had to anticipate this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, you know, it's a file a lawsuit. You always have to do your due diligence and you have to state, you know, as attorneys that you've reviewed everything and you're signing your, your, your name to the legal pleadings. And testing that everything is to the best of your knowledge. And accurate. And so, you know, they have. They have a merit. Sure. It seems like it, you know, In the complaint, they have a basis. And, you know, so. So now it's just a matter of. Dissecting it all. You know, And then dissecting the law as well in regards to, well, how strong is that? Prior claim. Is it strong enough to invalidate? And, you know, the planets are also asking for it. Invalidity of these later trademarks that were filed. By the defendants as well. You know, so. There's going to be a lot of defenses that the. At the defendants are going to have a, you know, one could be maybe latches, you know, What took you so long? Why are you doing this? Now? You could have, you've had these trademarks for a little while. And, you know, You're doing this now at the last minute, right before we launched. You're going to disrupt everything. You know, so you could have done this a year ago or so. So, you know, I think both sides have a, is this not going to be an easy one to parse through for the, for the court? You know, so it's definitely not a black and white issue. A couple last ones here. I don't know. Me. Life's been made that this LLC was recently formed, right? It was formed. In case they got like a slap or whatever right. Where it's like a right. A needless lawsuit, right. Maybe they owe court damages or right. Is that like, I would form an LLC maybe for a frivolous lawsuit in case. I mean, do you make anything of that, of them just filing this and forming this LLC recently? No, I wouldn't fault anyone for, for doing that. I mean, It could be looked at that way. But, you know, they needed one type of unified. Plaintiff right. So they, they did form this entity that really wasn't. As far as I can tell a unified existing entity. There was just a bunch of, or at least alleging a bunch of common law rights. I'm different. People or different entities. So they had a unifier. But yeah. You know, it is another strategy you form an LLC. And if there. In the events, if there is some kind of attorney's fees or backfires on them. Then, you know, That goes to the LLC, but there's these other theories that you can peer through it and things like that. I think it was just done more to make it cohesive and cleaner. I mean it just, where does your gut leave? I mean, obviously this is just one man's opinion, right. And I don't. You know, something can come out tomorrow and, you know, we get more statements for everybody. What is your gut say on this? Well, all right. That's what everyone wants in a lawyer response. Everyone hates it's like, you know, It depends. Right. I want Michael got any direction. Okay. But a lot of these things end up settling. And if I were to, you know, play some money on it. Then, you know, it'll probably end up in some kind of compromise. In which it Fox does carry on. And there's some kind of payment or arrangement with the plaintiff's. That's what I possibly think, but what I think doesn't really matter, you know? So let's, let's see how it plays out. And then we can comment a little further and it was really early on too. Okay. So let's, let's see what the opposition looks like, and let's see what comes out in depositions and what comes out in discovery. And if, if it even gets to that point, It may settle tomorrow who knows? Well, oh, if I just, yeah, let's get through this episode area and maybe they can settle on next week, but. Hopefully you'll have a recurring spot here. Right. And. And then in the, when we have the 30 for 30 and 20 years, and yet we'll make a. I can FX TV show. Michael. Anything else I should be asking you that I did before we let you go. No, no, I think, I think you, you hit it. I mean, it's really interesting saga. There's there's a lot of colorful players involved, you know, I'm not so sure about. Well, let me ask you a question what's going on with the ownership of, of wasn't there some rumors about the rock getting involved. And I heard some things about that. No. That's the XFL. So that's our whole other world that we have. So we have no debt. I see, this is the legal stuff. I mean. This is this whole morale. Menagerie of. Whatever. Yeah. So many, many different alternative farms right now, but yeah, no XFL is partner with the NFL and it's. This is why this is so exciting is because he, Fox is pushing this this year. Right? We have lack of baseball. We have lack of programming. We're trying to get ahead of XFL coming back next year. Right. And. Some would argue that maybe in the anticipation of trying to rush to market. Maybe some things, you know, could have been settled earlier with some of these things and maybe we wouldn't have gotten it. You. I think, I really think a phone call and earn this phone call to Steve Earhart before all this came out. Might've resolved a little bit more of this than this now, you know? Well, who's to say that there wasn't, that, you know, and there was a lot of pushing around too. It seems like. So if you look at their pleadings, they talk about how Fox was threatening vendors. You know, like the apparel vendors. And, you know, putting a lot of pressure on them. So they might've been just pushing the corner where they cut off their stream of revenue. So that's another reason why maybe it came, it came to blows at this point. You know, or it could be used as a strategic move to get better leverage to get more of a payout. You know, so all these things are possible. You know, we, we don't know what happened behind the scenes. These are all just hypothetical's, but either way on, you know, It's interesting. Well, I am thrilled today. We have ritually Ona. Ottawa. I really, you know, making strides, you know, on the field, off the field in the off season, I said, I wanted to get more red blacks representation on the podcast. I pulled our listeners and you were the number one name that they wanted to have. Come on. So thank you very much, Richie, for coming on the show. Yeah, I appreciate you have me. You guys got some good stuff you guys put out and I'm always happy to join any time. Yeah, this is good. So we're talking, so you are in Ottawa now, you spent your first winter in Canada. How is the off season going for you? It's been good. It's nice to get back to like a, kind of a normal swing of things. As far as you know, we had the 2019 season and we wanted to COVID didn't have a season, so it's nice to have a regular, a regular off season in terms of just getting back to getting ready to play in six months, or I guess now it's less, but at the end of the season, it was. You know, about six months and auto is great. My first winter in Canada. Learned a lot. I've been cold a lot. Pale a lot. So it's been a good experience so far, but, and I'm glad to stick around in the city. That's been kind of my home away from home. Yeah, what is it? What is it like, you know, playing in Ottawa, you know, I know there was. Yeah, it wasn't the best season last year. Right. But now it really feels like, you know, We got Sean Burke in there now, you know, we're doing the behind the, our right. We're getting all this excitement going. What is it like being part of the Autobot franchise? It's good. Yeah. We've had some good years. I've been here. That's some not so good years, but the whole setup that we have, and if you haven't been out there for a game it's, it's fantastic. The organization's first-class and obviously a lot of excitement going on as far as, you know, getting new guys in the building. You know, we've got a semi-nude coaching staff, it'll be year two, so everybody will get. A little more familiar with them. And a lot of excitement, you know, Going into a season, anytime a new season rolls around. Optimism is always high excitements, always on. Expectations are always high. So we'll see what we got once we roll, roll the dice, I guess first week in one, a bag, which would be a great opportunity for us to go slay the dragon per se. Yeah. And yeah, besides. Otherwise, I don't have an Ottawa hat. I have my BC lions. You were also part of America's franchise for a short time as well. I have spent a lot of time. In the CFL. Do you enjoy. You know, Playing in the league in that way. I mean, it's certainly different. Right? Have we. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I think coming into the league. And kind of where we're at now. It's changed a lot as far as I feel like when I came in in 2015, there was a lot of illegals, a lot different, you know, like I think like older players, you're kind of the guys that are, they're gone now thinking about it last night, like job is Lula. Even like guys like Mike Riley. Ricky Ray. Kind of like those old heads per se. Now it's kind of a younger generation and it's really exciting. And we've got some really, really good, exciting people to follow within the CFL. The CFL is great. It's a smaller league, but it's a lot of fun and I've been a part of it for a couple of years. And. Just every, every chance you get to go play in a city like Vancouver or Calgary or Winnipeg, SAS, they got through local flavor. It's fantastic. It's a good opportunity to greatly. Obviously with, you know, these competition leagues per se, coming up, it'll be a, I guess, a little bit more difficult to attract. You know guys to come up here, it might be. It's going to, it's going to be on the CFL to be able to hopefully usher in new young talent because that's, that's so important, right? Do you have thoughts on that? Do you have thoughts on these. These rogue upstart league, starting in the states. Well, I have a question for you actually. Let me ask you this in the scope of leagues. What's your number one. What's your number two. I mean, I see you have a lot of USFL XFL stuff, CFL. Where do they, where do they rank? What's your favorite? You know, I very much enjoy right. Covering the CFL, talking about the CFL. It doesn't move the numbers as much as I think people. Fans of the CFL would like to think that it does right. I mean, we were in the height of the CFL season this year, when there wasn't any XFL going on, there wasn't any USFL going on. And in listenership and viewership was really down. Right. And you would think, man, we're like week 6, 7, 8 CFL season. So I like it, right. Obviously we, we went to Hamilton, did the gray cop, did the whole, you know, that that show was a good viewership for us, but like, It just doesn't carry that like salaciousness of now, like the USFL assuming itself, or like what's going on with the ex, it just doesn't carry that same clicks on YouTube. But as a game, I mean, I, I think, you know, you can't go back against this legacy. I would rather cover anything. That's actually playing football then, you know, talking to the courtrooms or whatever. Yeah, there is something really special about the league. It was a special feel to it. And I think I consider myself to officially be like one of the older guys now, which is weird for me to say. Cause I've been around a little bit longer. And just like, like I was talking about earlier, that kind of like the nostalgia with the CFL is really, really high. You know, people talk about the glory days, this and that. I feel like I kind of came in at a, at a certain time and we're at like a completely different time now, but I'm glad to still be a part of it and get the opportunity to play. I mean, I've always held in high regard and just the opportunity that I got while he gave me an opportunity. And he taught me a lot about football on my life. The CFL's filled with a bunch of just really great people. As far as like coaches. You know, front office people, whatever, everybody from like the top down in different organizations, you have an opportunity to meet. Or I've always tried to, and a guy's like Wally coach dice. You know now Labo Rick Campbell guys like this. This is awesome coaches at you and, you know, even our GMs and, you know, Neil out. At west Ryan or maiden and, and Marcel and Sean, it's cool to kinda. See what everybody has to offer, bring to the table, how they like to run things. And, you know, as an old head, I want to. You know, bring, bring along the younger guys too. I you're, you're still younger than my brother. So I wouldn't say if you are an old ed here. Ah, no, you know, in the back of where it was this on our show a couple of weeks ago, you know, That was exciting. I it's weird. Like, and even when we went up, you know, the reporters, a lot of the staff, it's like the best staff in the world. Right. That's involved in the CFL. I mean that right. Like from the, you know, the people calling the games, right. And the people at TSN and you know, the people that write about the league riding cover it. A little bit of. Have a switch up on the TSN panel. I'm not going to call, I'm not going to say any names, but I think we could use some, some, some other people on there. I mean, I love them individually. Like Don again. Barker and a mill of course. K Burnett's. I mean, they're all great. I think we could add a little bit more. You know, I think they could utilize it more. I think it's odd to bring in that much talent to, for like two minutes and then we're back to the game. You know what I mean? Like they just, you know, I, I think the TSN window right, is so short for like what we're giving the CFL, you know, three hours exactly or whatever. And so they're like, Hey, let's talk at the panel. And they just. I think you have a lot of knowledge there that I don't think. I think he'd benefit from like extended pre and post show. We tried to do a little bit of that last year with like live. I'd like to do more of that this year with, you know, live call-in. And shows and stuff before the games. Cause I think that they would, I just think the window is too short in the broadcast there. Right? I mean, you get a little bit at halftime, but you don't get a lot of use out of that. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, so talk about, you know, Staying in Ottawa. Right. You know, Sean Bert coming in, all this excitement going, you know, coming off of last season. Right. And, and it was a little Rocky. How do you motivate and get excited for this season? Well, one thing is, is, you know, you got to. You always want to improve on. You know, the next year. One thing that I tried to, I brought to college even was each year you got to show improvement. So in my personal game, you know, there's some things you go back to the drawing board. What did I do? Well, what did I do? Not so well. And I'd say it had a pretty solid season last year, as far as numbers go. And, and all that. So. You kind of look inward first and then you start getting excited about the possibilities. And the expectations that, you know, when we come to training camp, what kind of team we're going to kind of mold into. And I certainly think like with our coaching staff, you know, we got. [Unknown] we got Benevidez on the defensive side. Coach, coach dice. Who. Me and Louis or kicker. LP Barasa and coach dies. We talk all off season. We have some good, good, good banter throughout the year. And we have high expectations as a group. And I'm the only thing we can really do is kind of worry about ourselves right now. And then come ready for camp. Yeah, we have, I think our show, we have a special kinship with special teams, right? For a lie. I think. Yeah. Even from the beginning, you know, we've talked with a lot of, you know, the special teams guys in the spring league and, and in, in the arena leagues, even right in. It's a weird thing where like, You know, it's you get slided sometimes, right? It's a little whatever, but they need ends up being. Yeah. I mean, how do you, you know, ride that our, I feel like special teams, you, you kind of see everything, right. You're really able to be there and so integral to it all, but it is interesting that that is who we get more often than not is, is the punters and kickers of the world. But what do you make of your slot in life? There? Yeah, it kind of comes with the territory. I'm a football fan in general, you know, you, you talked to people who've made, played pro football or involved in football. Maybe they don't like football. That much. Me, myself, like I love watching practice. Seeing guys can be seeing what guys. Talking to guys. See what makes them tick. What makes them want to be successful? So I'm a student of the game in a sense. So I, I really get excited about. Watching practice, if you will, and seeing how the team's going to come in together or whatever comes with that. So, It kind of comes to the territory. I can't practice all day and hit a hundred points a day. My leg would fall off. So what do you want me to do at practice? You know, people always say we don't do that much at practice. Well, You know, Kind of comes with the territory. What was it more confidence and just, you know, it's that like I'm steady emotional state, right? I mean, you just have to be able to go in there more than anything here, where you have just, you know, a couple of slots where you got to come in and make the difference. It's different than when you're playing, you know, 80 snaps or I don't know, whatever the numbers are. You know, it's a little different. And, you know, it's one of those things too, like you said, that mean, especially seems a little bit, it's a third of the game and it can have a significant impact in a game. Sometimes it can kind of go with hidden yardage, whether it be field position. Or, or coverage, things like that. And it takes a full unit, you know, I'm just a piece of the puzzle as far as like, you know, punting the ball to a location. And those guys that cover just as important. Just as important to have a good scheme for how they do Palm returns and, and all that. So it's cool to be a part of special teams. Also because. You know, offensive defense is so like black and white, right there. There, there are separate, we're a specialty. If you take guys from offense. And defense. And a specialist, a kicker, or a punter, and you put them out there for a common goal. One shot, one kill. It's exciting. I take a lot of pride in it. Well either mean, you know, to talk about the NFL here for a second. I mean that, you know, special teams. Was it different? So green bay could have been, you know, air riders could be a two times super bowl champion right now. Green bay knew how to play special teams right. Against San Francisco. So, I mean, it's one of those things where it doesn't get. All the, you know, the attention, but it is a third of the game and it's certainly paramount to being a successful franchise, you know? No doubt about it. Yeah. Playing in Ottawa, living in Ottawa, we've talked with a lot of guys from different teams here, Jake mayor Calgary, right. Really high on being a part of the city, right. Being in the bar or the community. That's why I chose to stay in Calgary. What do you make of living in Ottawa? Being a part of the team there? Yeah. It's only that I've wanted to do is stick around for the whole year. Like you said, being a part of a community guys who come up and be a part of the community on the team. We have an opportunity to now stay. You know, if you want to work, the CFL PA has done a thing where we can have an open work permit for a guy like me in America who wants to stay. I want to invest in the community. I want to stay here around. And certainly the first class that our ownership and GM and president bring to auto is a part of why guys want to stay there. I've been, I've been on the scene. This would be what my. Fourth year. Fifth year. I don't know. Whatever. So, yeah, I mean, even saying for the winter, I mean, that's not an easy task. It's also expensive. Which I found you got to get winter tires. You got to get a jacket. I didn't really have a real jacket. I bought ice skates. All the cold material. Yeah. So tie, it all adds up. It's expensive being Canadian. The ice gates, the ice gates. That's interesting. Yeah, but to go back to it. Yeah, it was tech does a lot in the community on. Sports entertainment. They do a lot in the community. I always try to say yes to anything. They have any opportunity to be able to give back, to get into the community, meet some people. And now that had been around for a couple of years and now stands for a winter. I hope it. I hope that makes me a little bit more of a friendly face. In the, in the community. Well, it's interesting. We had Dave Naylor on last week talking a lot about. You know, this new USFL ride and players and, oh my God, is it going to, we're going to stop players from going to Canada there. Right? Cause they're going to play in Birmingham or whatever. And Dave made an interesting point and it's, it's interesting talking with all the players we have in the CFL, like. People choose to go to the CFL and be a part of the teams like to build franchises, to build communities, right. To be a part of something where like, maybe I'm going to go, I just want to make some cash and get some tape. Like, I'll go to the USFL. Right. Or like, I want to play right now. But people that are choosing to go, it is being a part of something bigger. Right. And I do think that that's interesting that you get that buy-in in a good way from a lot of the players that go north. Yeah, that's a good point now. It depends on where you're at in your career to like, think about a guy who maybe got. You're an unsolved dry out was in training camp. You know, they're sitting at home. They're like this USFL thing comes up. It's it's appealing because of that. He gets some tape be done pretty soon, rather than like Canada is a longterm, a better play because you can make a great career up here. You can be a part of something. You know, there's, there's a lot of history and I love that part of it. The CFL. But, you know, guys think differently than I do. So it, it presents a struggle, maybe down the line that we might have some time to, to be able to finagle a way to continue to get those guys up here. I think the message of the CFL and what the CFL brings to people's lives like myself, for example. It needs to be shared more to guys that are coming out of college because not everybody's going to make it in the NFL their first time around. And then the Canadian football league offers a great opportunity for you to get film. It's a two year commitment. You get to grow as a person. Maybe you might stay. I think that's something that we got to figure out a way to, to, to still attract those young guys to come up here. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate you coming on. Like I said, we have building inroads in the Ottawa amongst any other teams. You know, plans for you getting ready for the, you know, The season here. What else are you doing in the off season besides, you know, practicing right. I mean, we have skates. I mean, what else is going on as you prepare for the season before I let you know. Goal number one is to stay out of trouble. Yeah, I've got a couple of trips coming up. I'm going to head down south to hang out with. Hanging out with some of the boys to, to my usual punting and kicking group. And Atlanta and Birmingham. You know, Ty. No. He played in BC. Also, these were the chargers. Now we went to the same high school. So we, we get together and punt before, before. For less using goes. And right now I can't really get on a football field. I could get into a dome, but hunting in a dome is. You know, it. Usually not high enough. So a get down there, maybe get tan. For a little bit. And yeah, just looking forward to a, to an exciting here. Well, this sounds good that you've been at the light. I really appreciate you taking the time today. And then I'm excited for the season. I feel like I like the off season.

Episode 81 - The NFXFL

Hey everybody. And welcome to the mark cast. Read here another solo outing this week, but I think that's okay. We have a tremendous guest list. I want to welcome everybody. That's hopped on in the last week. We've had a big growth. Through the USFL draft. We did our big USFL draft pre-show with a lot of the XFL news, our browsers, that was fun. Call Sheridan. And then I have a big USFL post draft, the live show recap as well. If you're interested in either of those of you miss those. Those are on our YouTube channel. You can go check those out at the markaz.com/youtube. Or if you're watching here, obviously on YouTube, easy enough to look back at previous episodes, a big show tonight before I plug everything, you know, please like, and subscribe. If you were interested in all of this nonsense. We are quickly now with the USFL news approaching 2000 subscribers. I think we're at about 1800. Big giveaway. When we hit 2000, I have our custom where I'll retros. You could either do like an, a F XFL, USFL, throwback Jersey. We're going to be giving away along with an old school, a AF commander's Jersey. I have a bunch of CFL, grey cup merchandise as well. It's a big giveaway when we hit 2000 subscribers to please like it, subscribe, you know, a lot of work goes into this, all the players, everybody for stepping up, you know, coming on the show, all the CFL media people for helping out. I really appreciate everyone. And so please like, and subscribe. Big show tonight. I have my cheat sheet here, so I don't miss out on anybody. We're breaking down all the USFL stuff with Dave Naylor. Dave is a CFL insider from TSN. Dave has lots and lots and lots of thoughts about the USFL. You don't want to miss. Dave's thoughts on this. We also talk about the big XFL NFL partnership with Dave. And where does he see that in the CFL landscape? Moving forward. Dave talks a lot about, you know, the CFL players, jumping ship to the USFL, some of which, you know, we're allowed to this week, we saw like Shay Patterson and Paxton Lynch. We also saw others like Derek Jones of Calgary, not being able to jump ship to the USFL because of his contract. I also have a brief chat with Derek as well. You want to check up, check out, coming up. Also we bring on, this is really exciting. Longtime friend of the show, Matt mangle, Matt just got drafted to the Philadelphia stars, which I think is officially my team. Now we have, you know, Brian Scott quarterback, our quarterback from the spring league, he was on the show back when they won the spring league championship with the generals. Brian's drafted there, Matt mangoes drafted there, and then we have, you know, bug Howard, a lot of guys from the spring league that I know and follow all drafted to the stars. I think that's going to be my team. I think I might do a, you know, pick up one of their replica jerseys here, coming up, but mats on the show, fresh off being drafted. Matt has, you know, lots of excitement. They're really happy for Matt's wife and his family and everybody else, he ambassador and a longtime supporter of us. So we have a great interview with Matt coming up. I, as I mentioned, I also talk with Derek Jones about the contract dispute going on with Calgary. Then we transition. We're going to be doing some XFL talk. The title of the episode is the MF XFL. We have the big news drop this week that the XFL was working together with the NFL. You know, to develop rules and coaching, perhaps international growth. Jay has been with us for a long time with the XFL news hub family. I get Jay's thoughts on all the XFL staff, Jay, you know, we, we kind of wait to bring Jay on and these key situations when we need the XFL insights kind of like Mike Mitchell. And so I'm glad that Jay can come on, could give his thoughts today. Jay also has some thoughts about the USFL as well. So it's good to get Jay on. And then we have some good CFL coverage. We have Kamar Jordan courtesy of the Calgary Stampeders really appreciate them working with us. I mean, that Calgary is one of the most responsive teams in terms of getting players for me to talk to you on the podcast. Kumar is great, great representative for the team and what they stand for and the city of Calgary. Are really excited for them and everyone from that organization heading into this year. So I really appreciate that. And then we have a longtime friend and he was one of the first guests back when we had kind of the XFL CFL murdery stuff. AGA Jackie Beck coming on Aja is the voice of the red blacks. I'm working on getting some red blacks representation in player form on the podcast coming up. But we have AAJ to talk about the week CFL news, what's going on with the red blacks, a lot of excitement going on in that organization. So. Please, like I said, liken subscribe. If you like any of this USFL, XFL, CFL content, hopefully I didn't ramble too much. And I got this out in a coherent matter here before we get into all the episodes. I'll just, thank you again for checking out the episode. Everything's time coded on the YouTube. So you can cherry pick content as you please. And that, like I said before, likened subscribe, please share the video. I'm doing this for the love, you know, for the love of football, as they say in the XFL. So please share the video out and like, and subscribe if you aren't already. Thanks for watching. One a day. I want to thank Derek Jones for coming on the show. Again, you'll kind of have a tricky situation. There are kinds of time sensitive, presuming that Calgary is still playing hardball. You know, Derek might still be under contract or not. I thought it was good to get Derek's opinion and perspective on the show today, but it could really be one of those things where. As you tune in, Derek's been released or been with the USFL. Definitely something to keep in mind. This isn't going to be the first player that wants to opt out of a contract one way or another. And one of the leagues. You know, to, to jump to the USFL or, you know, maybe to get back in the CFL later, depending on how things work out. So really want to appreciate Derek for that and continue on with the show banks. Coming up this week on the mark has big. Coming up this week on the Meyer. Coming up this week on the Marquez huge, huge guest list. Huge show we're coming off. Our big USFL draft high. Tons of content, tons of new subscribers really appreciate everyone coming on. We have CFL insider himself, longtime friend of the show, Dave nailer, breaking down with all the USFL CFL drama. Whether it's going on with player contracts is USFL gonna kill the CFL. All of that. Dave also gives his thoughts about the XFL NFL partnership that was recently announced. And speaking of that, we bring on longtime friend of the show, Jay Noax to give his opinions on the new XFL developments. I'm thrilled to also welcome. Truly, truly long-time dear friend, Matt mango recently drafted to the USFL Philadelphia stars. Number one draft pick when these special teams, Matt mango coming on the show, fresh off being drafted. And then we have Derek Jones. Derek is the player that was, you know, trying to get out of his CFL contract from Calgary to go to you. And then we have Derek Jones. Derek Jones is the player that was trying to get out of his contract with Calgary to go into the USFL with the new Orleans breakers we hear from him. And then finally, all of your CFL staff, we have Kamar Jordan coming on courtesy of the Calgary Stampeders. Really appreciate that. And then I know all of our red blacks listeners will be happy. We have red blacks representation this week from the CFL with AGA Jackie bag, voice of the red blacks. Lots of work going into the show this week, please like, and subscribe if you're into any of this USFL, CFL, XFL nonsense. bad. And then it was still like, there was, there was a lot of, he said, she said on that one, but I agree in the end they let them rot. Right. Rather than letting them go. So. All right. Well, we'll get going on this year. Because I don't want to keep you from, I mean, there's so much stuff. I mean, I don't even my pleasure. Well, I have talked to you near in Hamilton live. I've talked to you. Far in Hawaii. Now I back home in my, in my humble about here, Dave Naylor. How are you doing very well. Very well. Yeah. Enjoying the, the noise being made by alternative professional football in the middle of winter. Well, it is it. The theme. I just on Twitter today, we have three down coming out and saying that no one is concerned at all with the USFL and. Well, I don't disagree that there are people that probably, you know, I talked to Darren Gill last week, agent. He said, he talked to the people that there are send me there's people on both sides of this, whoever you. What are your thoughts? Slow the question on the USFL. Well, I think there's, there's sort of an immediate impact. And then there's sort of a, what could the longer impact. Term Amtac B impact B excuse me. The immediate impact, I think is very minimal, right? There's 55 players that were on CFL negotiation lists taken that's about 14%. Yeah, not every guy in a negotiation list gets signed. You know, so it's, you're really talking about a fairly small amount of players that might be in the CFL this year. That instead are not going to be because of the USFL. You know, I've certainly talked to a team the other day about. Quarterback that they signed and a quarterback that they weren't able to sign. One of the guys said I'd rather come to the CFL than the USFL. The other guy said, I'm going to take a run at the USFL and. You know, one guy, I think, I think a lot of it is just. There are people that want to play in a community, build a championship, be part of a fan base. That's the CFL there's people that want to get as much film and a short amount of time as they can to try to get into an NFL camp by August. That's the USFL. And I think a lot of times CFL teams have been really. From what I can tell, you know, fairly honest with players about what route they should go based on what their desire is, right? Like, Hey, this may not be for you, that other lead may be for you. So it hasn't been. You know, a complete cell job, but we must get you to the CFL. I think in some cases, teams have been pretty straight out. So it's not going to have a lot of impact right now that said it's not evenly distributed on teams. The bombers lost 11 guys and a first round draft pick. Right now. You know, they're waking up today. A quarter of their negligence is gone. Basic or useless for the next two years. And, and losing a third round pick. Oh, sorry. A third overall pick. I mean, that's, you know, Liam Dobson is a guy they saw as a longterm projected start. He now has gone to the USFL, which means if that lead survives, the earliest he can come back is 2024. He's going to be 26 when he would sign a CFL rookie deal that would pay him, you know, not that much money, like, you know, around 70, $75,000. If he wants to play the full three years of his rookie deal, he can re renegotiate with Winnipeg after two years. But if he wanted to go onto another team, he's got to play three years on a rookie deal. Which means, you know, first time he's going to get market value for services is age 29. Which is pretty late. You know, for a league that has such liberal free agency. And then, you know, you'd have to ask the question. Okay. If at 27 28, he's got to play for 75 grand. Willie, right. I mean, And there are ways around it. There's some loopholes where you can tear up a contract after seven weeks and redo. I mean, there's, there's loopholes all kinds of ways, but you'd have to have a lot of trust in the team and the team, but I'd be willing to do it. So. Anyway to answer your question more directly. I don't think you're going to see any difference in 2022 CFL product because of this, the question would be is if the U S. You ask, it's hard. It is hard. The USFL is around for five years, let's say, and we go through this five times, 14% of the neg list every year. Would you won't be because they're not gonna be drafting full rosters, but let's just say there's a. You know, if you have attrition on your negligence and players that you would like to sign that you can't and you start losing draft picks even two or three a year out of the top of the Canadian draft is significant because they're going to take the best guides, right? There's only a handful of players that come out of that Canadian draft that are ready to play us rookies as it is. So if you start pulling two or three of them out of that, that's really going to weaken the draft class. And it doesn't sound like a lot, two or three guys. But, you know, in a draft that doesn't produce that many regular household names and you're starting to take, we already lose. A lot of guys now. You know, we'll go do the NFL opportunity if they get so you're a lot of times those guys are coming in September or next year as it is. To your commitment to the USFL would make that even more deep. But I don't think. I don't think the overall impact of the USFL, even if it survives is going to be great attrition. I think the biggest thing might be delaying players coming to the lake a couple of years. Because I don't think the USFL, the way it's set up is, is. Where you spend your career in your thirties? I think it's a young person's league. You come in, you play a couple of years. You try to get the NFL. But I use an example of quarterbacks. If you get a quarterback who comes to Canada, 22 or 23. Say like Zach Claros did. Or bullied by Mitchell. Those guys were here like right out of college. I'm trying to think. I don't even think he even went to NFL camps. Both certainly didn't and I'm pretty sure Zach didn't either. You know, those guys are the best quarterbacks in the league right now because they got here at 22 and 23. And they learn the game as early as possible. It can be done coming later, but you know, on whole, if all of a sudden the best quarterbacks on the market start coming to the CFL at 26 and 27 instead of 22 or 23, that's going to have an effect. Both in terms of, you know, the. The willingness to develop guys at 27 or players to be developed at 27, as opposed to 2223, when they're fresh out of college. You know, again, the lower salary, if they're coming to the league or some, guy's just going to say, forget it. You know, I might've gone to Canada when I was 22, 23. But I've done the USFL thing for a few years down 27, 28. They want to pay me 75,000 bucks for gas, you know? So I think there are. Yeah, definitely. It's an annoyance. It's interfering with business a little bit. But I don't see, oh my goodness. The Canadian football league is going to be in trouble because of the USFL. And I don't even think we start to even approach that until they've been around for sort of multiple off season and, you know, reflective of. Some of the sentiments that three down nation has expressed. There are people in the CFL that don't think this lady's going to be around. And I think that's. Yeah, I looked at. I get a bit of a red flag. When I see playing all our games at one city, like, and we're going to move to the other cities next year. Like that sounds. A bit fanciful to me. To be honest. And, and I think. You know, even though we've got a lot more to learn about the XFL, just the fact that they're going to have an affiliation with the NFL. Even if that's not player development. Just the stamp of the NFL is going to help because one of the reasons that the CFL is still able to get players. You have to come to their league, as opposed to the XFL is players are looking at it and saying, okay, This leg has been around. Four. You know, 60 years and some of its teams have been around for 120. They've been around. They've survived a lot. They're probably going to get through the season. Right or next thing, you know what I'm going to be and start calf with the Canadian football league for better or worse. Is not. In danger of extinction. The USFL who knows, right? Like who knows? And I'm not this I don't, I know their director of player personnel, Jim pop very well. I've spoken to him. I'm not trying to throw shade at that league, but the history of alternative professional football leagues would tell you who knows. It's not a bad philosophy to go into. A lot of players don't want, who knows. They want to know that they're going to be playing in a league with teams that are going to survive. And that is a viable business. In the XFL comes along. They probably aren't going to have as big an issue with credibility. And sustainability, even though they've been twice, you know, a one and done league, you've heard it all. You know, what was the pandemic, but. But if they've got an affiliation with the NFL yes. That may temper some of that fear that players have. And I think that's people in the Leah CFL right now. Are a little more worried about that threat than they are the USFL. Well, I want to get, I do want to talk on that before. I think that was the record for the longest you've gone on. I mean, that was my opening question. I know. I've probably answered all five. Hey, Reese. Yeah. Let's get well, you know, I mean, cause like immediately we had the, you know, all these hot takes antidepressants. I'll come out and they go like, yeah, I think it, cause we're, you know, this is better for us all these easily surviving this. My, you know, my dumb self sitting here talking about and stuff, but yeah. You go like, well, we have Shay Patterson, we have Paxton lazy. We have guys that nobody wanted now are in the U S about like me, what do you make of that? I mean, Brian, Scott, I don't think has gotten a fair look or, you know, across, he did some spring league except before, but a lot of these guys that had USFL or CFL. Oh, experience coming in. I mean, what do you make of that criticism? But these are all just kind of has-beens leftovers. I mean, he was on BC. He was on that trail. Sure. Well, I mean, Brian, Scott, I believe as a team in Canada, wanted to sign. I believe he was one of the guys who chose the USFL over the CFL. So, you know, that's on that one. I believe that's the case. So, so not everybody that they've drafted is somebody who the CFL wasn't interested in. And, and I think, you know, in a, even in a situation like a Shea Patterson, right. Who was, you know, in uniform as the backup for Montreals playoff game. So, you know, he wasn't fifth on the depth chart. Even in a case like that. Or even Paxton Lynch. I think in some cases, it's not just that the teams. Don't aren't interested in them. I think they recognized that, you know, given the nature of football and the shortness of careers and all that, if you're planning to use a guy. As your number. Three. This year, which probably was where Shea Patterson was going to be in Montreal. Right. Like, you know, behind both Vernon Adams and Trevor Harris. And he's got an opportunity to be a number one somewhere else. You probably let them do it. That's that's what I think, you know, the philosophy would be, especially when you're not paying a guy. I can paint a guy, big money. You do what you expect them to do, whatever you ask them to do. But if you're paying a guy, an entry level salary in the CFL, and he's got an opportunity. To start somewhere else and you know, you're not starting. I think that's, I think that's part, I think not the teams would have waited on Shea Patterson. You know, I knew the word even when he got, let go. And BC, I know there were a lot of teams that looked at them, not just Montreal, right? There's certainly more than one that looked at. I started the sec and the big tab. And was he going to knock the lights out in the CFL? No, but guess what? In the CFL is a two or three-year development process for quarterbacks almost without exception. So if he's not, if he's telling you, I don't see myself in your world, You know, for the next two or three years, you might as well let him know. Right. Cause he's not doing that much. For you so. Like, I think. I think there's, there's a few things that go into it. There's that? There are guys certainly, and we saw this 25 years ago when there were CFL teams in the U S there are guys that will play. Professional football in the U S that won't play in camp. Yep. Like there just are. So, so there's another, a bunch of guys that the USFL can tap into guys that CFL teams have talked to and they say, Nope, don't wanna go to Canada. So that's so I don't, you know, I think that. You know, the there. They're focusing on guys that don't have the NFL out of their system. They're focusing on young guys and they're not as much focusing on. Necessarily the best players that are trying to attract the best players that are out available. Because I think a lot of those guys still see that, well, if you're in the CFL and you're on a second or third contract, you're not going to leave it to go get. 45. You know, in the USFL, especially if you're a quarterback because they, you know, the high, the ceiling for CFL quarterbacks, and guys get there fairly quick. ABCC. CCFL quarterbacks. You know, they go from 75,000 to 400 overnight all the time. So, you know, there's a, there's a decent ceiling there, so yeah, it's not a star-studded league. And I will be interesting to see how many players they can get into NFL camps. That may be, you know, the true indication is what does the guy. What are the opportunities guys get coming out of this lake? More so than, you know, what the resumes were going in, but I understand why people look at it and. And say, you know, there's not a ton of names here that make me want to yeah. Run to it. Do USFL game. That's kind of the nature of these leaves as it is, you kind of have to make your stars, right? I always say, you know, when Milt Steagall showed up in Winnipeg in 1995, he was just a guy who had been cut by the bangles. Now he's got a street named after. Right. You know, Mike pinball, Clemons. You know, it was cut in Kansas city. And came to the Toronto Argonauts in 1988 and 34 years later. There's not a more recognizable person who could walk the street twice. Right. So everybody came here anonymous. In this league. And I assume that the challenge for those leagues, I think is, I don't know how long they expect players to be in those lights. Right. It's you're not going to have guys playing five-year 10-year careers. I don't know. We'll see where it evolves. I still think of. You know, the USFL a little bit. It's kind of, you know, the spring league. Deluxe. I like that. Well, I mean, that's the thing and it's so funny. Cause now it's like, not only do we have CFL versus USFL, but now we have, you know, exit valve versus USFL. Right? Well, our quarterbacks were better, right? Well, like PJ Walker, wasn't really lighting the world app or like Taylor hiny key before, you know, and now you can look back and go, oh, we'll see, you know, we have. Or we had whoever you're like, well, it is all fresh started and it is making the names there. Yeah. I mean, you know, and it's happened before, right? Like, you know, Kurt Warner was a much, much bigger name in the NFL, then he wasn't NFL. For real football. Nobody flocked to see him there. So that's, that's the opportunity that, that, and that's, you know, guys are basically going. Plays when they come to CFL, rookie. 99% Of Americans have come to the CFL. I think they're going back to the NFL. Okay. They're not here for a CFL career. They're here to get in and out as quickly as possible. Get their film. And try to make real money and they're basically. If you look at the economics of a CFL rookie contract with the expenses of living in Canada and the, and. Version of the dollar, your bet. Your rookie contract is basically playing for an opportunity. You can pay for an opportunity. You know, you're not really making a living out of it and decent living out of it until you're on your second contract. And that's, I think that's what these leagues are, are basing on when you're paying a guy 45,000, even on saying only a 10 week season, you're basically saying, you know, we'll pay you while you're getting the opportunity. It's not. It's not a. You know, viable way to make a living. Long-term obviously on that kind of wage. Well, that's the hard thing. I mean, cause we had that when the numbers came out a couple of weeks ago, because I think people thought the, you know, knowing the spring league, the USFL was going to be even less than 40. And then the spring league guys were actually paying to play. Right. If they hadn't been in an NFL camp. Yeah. And I mean, you had a mix that of guys be, I think it was more like we're paying for the annoyance because we don't, we haven't been through it. Right. And we don't know kind of all that stuff, but, you know, and I think it was, I know Farhan, I think you were on that night with all that stuff. And I was talking with Jamala and he goes, well, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna lose any superstars, but like you said, it is that rookie. Well, if I got to go make an opportunity somewhere, I might as well do it in Birmingham. Versus when. And, and also, you know, where they don't have three quarterbacks on the depth chart. All right. I mean, that's one of the big illusions of even when a guy comes out of the NFL, right. And they say, well, I'm gonna go to Canada. They picture starting 18 games leading the league in passing and coming back to the NFL. You think Paxton Lynch pictured being number three in Saskatchewan when he went. Right. Like. But I mean, I don't know. How much research he did or what his agent told him, but I could have told them he was going to be number three or probably number three. And if it at the best number two, He sure wasn't going to be number one. Right. And, you know, you'd be looking at some of the comments that Chad Kelly's made of late. Right. I mean, you know, Talking about being the face of the league and throwing for 6,000 yards and stuff like that. Look, I think there's two ways you could look at that. One is the guy has great ambition. He's very excited to be here. And the other might be he's his expectations. Might need a dose of reality. Because that's not what happens in this lake. You know, you come up here. And I've seen guys go from being, you know, Number two in the NFL though, number three in this lake, right. We've seen that. That that happened. So the. You know, the. That's the, that's the thing that I think is. You know, when, when the next bully by Mitchell comes along and he's 22. And you want to get them to Canada as soon as possible. So you can get him under center. Get, he's not going to be your starter, your basic, you know, think of the pitch for 22 year old quarterback. Who's got maybe some, you know, pedigree. The CFL pitch. If they're straight with them is going to be come here. For an entry level salary. Back up, learn the game. You're going to be number three for a year. At least you're going to be number two for a year. At least we see you starting in 2024. As opposed to the USFL. That's going to say, we see you starting on April 16th. That's, you know, that's where I think the CFL. Can lose because they're just going to give, you know, the best quarterbacks are going to get the opportunity to probably play right away. Yeah, I think, and the CFL, it doesn't matter. No matter where you played, how big a college star you been. It takes some time to adjust to this game and, and you know, when quarterbacks come here, Realistically, they should be thinking of. I have a timeline to become a starter. At two to three years, you know, Let's look around the league right now. Vernon Adams, right. Two to three years, three teams Montreal, twice Cody for Gerardo. You know, 13. You know, Zach Clara's backed up. Ricky Ray. You know, before he got his shot. Trevor Harris backed up. Ricky Ray. Jeremiah Mazzoli. My God. You know, 2012 in Edmonton's practice, roster back up in Edmonton, right back up in. In Hamilton and go through the league. It's it's a, it's an unmistakable pattern of guys taking two to three years to get their opportunity. So that's going to be that's the way the CFLs can have to sell quarterbacks. Yeah. The upside of it is, Hey, if you take that two or three years and you are developed and you do make it as a starting quarterback, you can make $400,000 overnight. I mean, you look at McLeod baffle, Thompson. What was he making last year? A hundred and a bit. And this year he's a $400,000 guy off three quarters of a season as to start. Can happen fast once you, once you get there, but getting there takes time. I think they'll Nathan Rourke, his Canadian blood will innately make him. I think that's really good. They give you a whole podcast on what BC is doing in quarterback. Cause I got all kinds of thoughts about it, but that would be for another day. I quick on this and then I do want to hit the NFL XFL stuff. The Chad Kelly thing was weird. Cause it seemed like that is a really smart fit for the USFL. Right. You know, we have the nephew of Jim Kelly, all this stuff, but. But then with the stallions, it sells itself. He ends up going to Toronto, right. Going to be third string. Ooh, I'm not sure about that. Okay. Well, I mean, these are, I mean, I'll just leave it at this. I think, I think the Toronto Argonauts are very excited about checkout. And I don't, I don't think he's going to be the weak one starter. But could he compete and impress? You know, to be number two. I don't think that's out of the question again and here's why. Okay. Talent. First talent. Secondly. He has. And I know it's going to contradict kind of what I said earlier about a guy coming when you want him earlier, but he's 27 and has been in the NFL for four years. Okay. So he hasn't played and he's got like one kneel down right on his NFL stats sheet. But he's been in that environment. You know, I guess who's last played in. Tober 20, the NFL. So what was with Indianapolis? I think it was when he got released. We've been out about a year and a half. I, you know, he's, he's just somebody who I think his pedigree and his skill set is considered. You know, a lot of potential, what he could do with the Canadian game. So I think it is an interesting one because I, I don't know that the USFL wanted him, but I would guarantee you. No one's told me all, they went out. Like come on, right. So we get it. Of course they did. And I thought it was interesting that he, that he chose the CFL. You know, You know, I think Toronto was instrumental in his choice. I'm not sure he would have ever signed an Edmonton. You know, he's a guy from Western New York. That you're going to Toronto. If you're from Western New York is. You know, It's like, it's your backyard. Going to Edmonton, maybe a little different buddy. He's definitely a guy who I would say. Is going to have the most kind of intrigue or aura around him. Like I'm going to take Johnny Manzell out. What a minute, another category. K. Cause that was bonkers. Like that was a whole other thing. But I would say since Vernon Adams. Like where a guy could. Kind of get attention. I'm a bit of aura and a bit of buzz just by who he is, walking through the door. Chad Kelly will be the most of that type. I think since Vernon Adams. Well, there you go. I want to use it. You know, the USFL has been doing all their, you know, we've had the uniforms now we've had the draft kind of smack dab in the middle of it, you know, pooping. Already was this XFL stuff. You know, I don't even know what question to ask about, I mean, is, is, is Randy. I saw that tweet online. I think it was like, Randy, Ambrozy his greatest failure as commissioner will be that, you know, that the XFL ended up partner with the NFL and sad. I mean, what did you make of all of this big. I don't, I'm not as high on it as a lot of people's. I will preface that, but I mean, what do you think of the XF? I might call this episode, the MF XFL. Okay. So. Here's what I think it matters. When we were talking earlier about when players have a choice, they're going to chose the league with credibility and history and traditions and stability over the one. That's just the start-up. Having that little thumbs up from the NFL. Is going to give a lot of credibility to the XFL right out of the gate. And players are going to look at that now again, we don't know what the relationship is. We know some of it, but it certainly could evolve and they haven't played a game. Right. So. I can see if I'm a player saying, you know, I crazy going to the USFL. I'm not sure they're gonna be playing in six weeks, so I'm gonna go to the CFL, but if it's the access. And I've got the NFL standing next to it saying, yep. You know, we're partners with this thing. That's going to present. You know, sustainability and, and credibility to players. I think. So I think that's where it matters in terms of the. Yeah, I see what the NFL is getting out of it. Right? They don't have a minor league. College football is a different sport. You can't necessarily test rules at that level. So now they have a place, they can test worlds and they can test equipment. And we'll see if the exit bell is going to be maybe evolve into the international arm of the NFL. I don't know because it's, you know, this is the. As again. It was a bit odd, given the timing. You know, I'm the CFL. I think we're just about two weeks short of where they put out their press release last year saying, oh, by the way. And it was, you know, collaborating and growing the game of football, which was in the CFL's case. I think a euphemism for talking about making one leak. Okay. That's not what they're doing with the XFL. But in the NFL. But there is, there was a bit of kind of irony of seeing the words that they chose to describe the relationship, because it was very reflective. The CFL. So I think that's. I think that because especially it's been a twice failed league and a lot of people don't know any more than that. The fact that they have an affiliation with the NFL. I think is significant. Look, I'm, I'm not going to go down the road where the Randy and Brosy. You know, blew it, or I don't think it was his call. I think it was other teams. Look, I don't see in the future. I don't see a collaboration between these league two weeks come together. But. I think if they ever were going to. It's probably easier to do it while both leagues are in existence than when one league is. I mean, in fact, that was one of the issues that, that came together. Like. One leak had stuff. The other day. You know, and it was hard to put them together when one was purely theoretical. So look, I'm not predicting that the CFL is going to revisit the XFL. Path. And you know, that they did. But I would also stop short of saying that can't happen. Yeah. A lot was made that well, the CFL, because one of the things with this NFL XFL is the sharing officiating, you know, developing officials, right. Developing roles. And we will point to that. Well, the NFL and the CFL have had that right. For some time. I mean, this is yeah. Can you give context of that? And then this is obviously a bigger step, right? This. I think it is. And it's funny cause the CFL and the NFL have had kind of a weird relationship over time. Right? You know, you go back to the late 1990s and CFL was about to go under and the, and the NFL wrote them a check. You know, for 3 million us, which they had to pay back. And then that was how the original transfer window got created. That was part of a concession for the interest free loan that they got to get the league going. Sorry, you want our players allowed out of their contract. Sure. If we can keep running our league. Yeah. And then, you know, the least flip-flopped on that over the years. Big, but they don't have a formal relationship with the NFL. And the, and they, and they. That's, which is kind of something that's come up from time to time. You know, it got a little tense when the bills and Toronto thing happened and you know, that they're. They they've done some sharing on. You know, developing a real Fischels and things like that. Like, I think some, some NFL officials have officiated the CFL development officials from CFL, developmental officials official, I think preseason games in the NFL. You know, but, but there's, but you know, you have a whole. Business in Canada called NFL Canada that promotes the league and, and basically promotes the leagues, basically what they do. But they don't have a relationship really with the CFL. Which, right. They're not. I don't think they're running clinics together. And I stand corrected if I'm wrong, but I. But my point is just that the CFL in the NFL, mostly operators to solitude. Yeah, there's, there's not a ton of overlap. I don't think at the higher levels. And I think there's, I think there's cooperation. But not quite, you know, It relationship there, you know? Before, not a former relationship there in terms of, you know, how they do things. And you saw that a little bit, even when they, the latest go round of the NFL window, you know, it was like, The getting the CFL PA and the CFL league office and the NFL league office and the NFL PA to all sign off on something that seemed rather obvious and simple to do. W actually got bogged down for a while, right? And teams were having to release guys. It was a bit of a mass. A lot last time we were. I guess that was just pre pandemic. So. I mean. I think it's good. I don't know. I just worry about it feeling like, you know, the NFL is a little brother or, you know, like, well we're testing rules. Okay. Then like next year we testing rules. Right? We doing okay. Well this year it's this overtime. Yeah. And I think, I think you want your league to being basically. Not just doing the bidding for another lake. Right. This is why I am always. You know, I always just, I used to just grab Twitter and reply, worst idea ever, or something else. So CFL should become a farm system for the NFL, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just write worst idea. Right. And if I'm in a different mood, I'll explain why here's why it's the worst idea. One. It's not, it's not really going, ever going to be a feeder system for the NFL half the players are Canadian and probably aren't going to the NFL, but. Like a good chunk of the Americans are not ever going to the NFL. It's just not enough of a path. And then you've got a different game. You're recruiting, different types of players. Like. CFL. Yeah. Yeah. Th th they're never going to want the 340 pound no stack. Right? What's the NFL does well. That guy doesn't even have a spot on the roster in camp. Right. So there's, there's different players and things like that. So it's never going to be a feeder league in terms of numbers. And second is once you are a development league, and I think this is kind of where you're getting at with the XFL thing, not wanting to be the NFL's little brother is. Then what's the mission for the Hamilton tiger cats. This season. Is it to get back to the great cup and win the great cup that they lost in overtime last year. Or is it to develop these five players for the NFL? As soon as you can't answer that question, your league has changed. Yep. Developing players is a happy byproduct of trying to win in the Canadian football league. Developing players in college football is a happy byproduct of trying to win. Right. Like college football is not a development sport. Some people think it is. It's not, it's a wind now sport, right? That bite has the by-product of developing players. As soon as you are development league. And that's part of your mission. You know, And, and, and as soon as you're taking money, like I've always thought of this at the end of. I'm sitting here with you. Let's say the CFL had a relation with the NFL. Or the NFL was actually. You know, subsidizing the league or underwriting some of his costs and things like that. And the Toronto Argonauts have a rookie linebacker. Who's having a great year. And the Dallas Cowboys want him in October. How long until Jerry Jones says, sorry, how much money did we give to that league? You know, and we've got a guy who we can pay $700,000 to tomorrow. If you'll come and he's making 75,000 Canadian there, we'd like to have him come tomorrow. He wants to come. We want them there and we subsidized and underwrite this late. Why isn't this happening? Right. And then once you start plucking players out of the middle of your season or your development, It's just a total different mandate. I mean, the mandate for nine CFL teams this spring is to win the grey cup. Not to develop players for the national football league. And I understand why. People who are excited about alternative professional football. Like you would not want to see. You know, the actual mission of the league. Being set by somebody else. Yeah. Cause then, you know, you, and obviously, you know, Danny Garcia came out and said, well, you know, this is our on thing, but yeah, you know, you, you take the, whatever the hell they XFL champions. Yeah, the million dollar game, right. If PJ Walker wins a million dollar game and then. Shows up in, you know, in the Texans in August. I mean, it's not okay now we're back at it again. I mean, that's one reason why I can't get into college football at all. I says, I don't have a college. Gonzaga didn't have a college football. But it's really hard to watch a new team every year, every other year. I mean, CFL has similar, but not all. No, no, it does. Absolutely. It that's. And then since they moved away from four year players, you know, it's a more three-year players and sometimes two year players. That problem's gotten worse, but it's. I think I like if I was, if I was the XFL, I would, I think having the blessing of the NFL is a very good thing, you know? And. And I, again, But it can be a slippery slope to losing your independence and really the spirit of what your league supposed to be about. Well, we'll leave it at that. That was good. I appreciate you coming on a lot. I mean, we can, yeah, our, we. We'll do like a boat is patron only like our deep dive into the BC lions quarterback situation. So I really say almost stayed up all your clock on my first answer. So. Well, that's why I had to keep you longer. That's okay. I appreciate it. And thank you for your time today. Yeah, I want to hear the story. So I don't want. I have to tell it twice. Well, Yeah. Here we are. We have the newest, a USFL number one draft pick in the kicking category. [Unknown] how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. It's good day. It's a good day to be alive. This is so exciting. I mean, this, you know, we've tracked all you knuckleheads all the way back to the spring league. You know, Brian Scott, who I've been talking to is all new. I must say I, they USFL at Philadelphia stars have to be the official team of the mark Hass. Now, after all of the signings. I would say so, I mean, dude, The yard stacked with talent from the Strang league. From all over really. But it's gotta be right. I mean. You know, the most people on the team, I would say. So it's gotta be your team. So, I mean, since we last spoke, you've been to Canada and back, you've got verified on Twitter and now you are the. And the number one draft pick. How has your life going right now? It's good man. I got to my. My best friend, December 5th. So that was awesome. Since I've been home, just been training and I had received the offer from Montreal. He kind of sat on it for a little bit and. Then we were asked if we would want to be put into the draft pool in the USFL. So we did. And. We got in the draft ball and we really didn't think that a. Once we heard that there was like 5,000 people on a draft. It was kinda. We didn't know if it would happen or not. So, I mean, I wasn't really stressing because I knew I'd probably be returning to Montreal anyways. And. And then I get drafted. And I find out through Twitter. Yeah. So what you were telling me before I hit record, so I want to hear the story. How did you find out about getting drafted? I was in the bathroom. Refreshing Twitter, like crazy. I had set the phone down for a second. Was this, was this there? And. I got a text from Nick Novak and John Carney almost kind of simultaneously saying congrats. And I was like, dang, the one time I don't refresh Twitter, it gets announced. And I got announced it was a. I was the first pick and then it just went off. My phone went off. It was buzzing all day. I still have them responding to messages and texts and stuff for people just. Like spreading and loves man supporting me. People from Philly, like news, news agencies and stuff. It's. Crazy man. And as the day went on, it was a. Hasn't really hit me yet. I'm still, I'm pretty calm state. I'm still. Pretty humble. I mean, I'm sure it'll hit me when I get out there and I start practicing, but right now, man, I've just been. It's like, kind of at that point where everyone's like super high, like more than I am, because it still really hasn't hit yet. I mean, I'm in. Boston and busted and busted my butt. To get. To this point. You know, and, and questioning everything on why it wasn't working out or why it was working out, but in a different way than I thought it was. And then, then boom hits, man. And. As crazy. And then. And then I sent a screenshot. Coach Mora, Jim Mora, UCLA. Head football coach at the. Coached me at the time. He's a university of Connecticut now. Yukon. I sent him a screenshot and he hits me back right away. And he's a mat like. That's my all time. Favorite football team. One, his dad notes. The team when he was a kid and I had no idea, it's all like full circle stuff, man. It's crazy. And he was sending me pictures of him given like his dad, given George Bush, like handing George Bush, the Jersey, and all kinds of stuff. And. Just a wild, wild expanse man. It's B it comes more surreal. Like every day it kind of sets in more and more. It's just cool, man. Everything's kind of full circle. It's dope. Well, an exciting, you know, I mean, obviously you're, you're close with Brian Woods, right. You know, what's his title in that president of the league, right. President. I think he is a head of football operations. You. I haven't actually, I haven't really been able to talk to him in much. I mean, When you're building a football league. I'm sure. You have 1 million thousand things to do at during the day and you don't have enough time to do it, but I'd shot him a text here and there. And I called them this morning, but I know he's busy, but. I just thanked him, man, without that guy in my life, like. Without him pursuing to make the spring league and then actually presenting the spring league to Fox and then turning it into the USFL, like. I mean, he's really helped my career and a thousand ways. So. Just eternally grateful. Well, yeah, I mean, you talk about it. You talk about how everything's connected. I mean, it is remarkable to think that, you know, in a year and a half ago now, you know, we're covering this spring league bubble season. You know, Basically because everyone got back for the accident, Val, and they're like, well, we need something to talk about. Right. And it's just wild. The things. Eve at, you know, we have like, MOCAD. Bella Thompson is up in the CFL, you know, it's, it's exciting to see. All these guys. You know, find success in whatever format is right. And whatever league. And that's why we cover all these leagues is, is you just want to get your next step and your next opportunity. Being able to, you know, be in. With is really the premiere thing. Now that Fox has, right. I mean, you. All their marketing behind it. I. We've had criticisms people the last couple of weeks. Everything's been really turned on now. Right. You know? We're going full steam. How does it feel to be a part of that and to be a part of the inaugural ATM's. I think when Maura had told me all the history that he had with his family. With the team. And then me actually looking up through the Philly stars was. They're one of, they're probably the most rich in history of the entire USFL. They, they won. Did, I'm not sure if they won multiple championships, but they won the last championship. One was from the Philly stars. And Maura actually told me the punter that was on that team ended up going to the NFL. So I'm just like, I was just like, dude, what is going on? Like, this is crazy. But it's a. I thought I would be kind of. You know, I know, I know in myself that I have the town it's playing the NFL at either position. But just seeing how my, my, my journey went for the last five years and then finally getting a shot with the CFL. I always thought that it would just be the CFL and I was super okay with that. And then I came home and then this just hit and it's just like, I have people calling me that coached me a long time ago, telling me that that are in the NFL. Are telling me like, dude, like your average day. It would be a great day up here. And it's just all kind of hit me. Kind of hit me hard, but it kind of hasn't hit me yet. You know, like. It's just, it's really cool. It's an honor to be the first pick in this draft. You know, Spring leagues in general, kind of have a rough history so far. And I'm just. I'm really hoping that this is figured out the right way. And I know with Brian Woods. Kinda help guiding it. It's gonna. I mean it'll last. I feel like, you know, last for a bit. And for sure if not for a while, but just to be a part of something. That was brought back from the eighties. That was huge to now being a part of it now. Kind of at a loss for words. I mean, I'll, I'll probably understand the full aspect and gravity is how big this really is. Once I get out there and I start kicking and stuff, but. Right now it's just kinda. Stay humble and keep working kind of thing, you know? Where does that drive come from? Cause you know, and even when we, you know, message offline, you know, going to CFL and dealing with all, you know, having to go to the practice, squad, all these different things. Like I, you know, the, the self determination to kind of keep fighting through. Where does that come from? Over time, it kind of changed, you know? The first couple of years. The agency was all kind of an ego thing for me, really. Like I can do this on. I can be the best type of s**t. But then when it. When I kept going throughout my journey and I started seeing my daughter grow up like a kind of let a different fire of like, I mean, I've put a hell of time into this. Why would I quit and then shower? It's okay to quit, like on your dreams. So now it's kind of about. May pushing myself as much as possible and any realm of football. As hard as I can on and off the field. So when it's time for her to go down the path of her dreams, whatever it is can be art by LA. Social media, professional sports. WWE, who knows what my kids would've. But like, she sees that her dad did that and like, She will then follow. Like I, I know from coaching that kids mimic more than listen. So I just want her to see how hard I've worked and to know like that's what it's got to take. So then that's the type of pressure she applies every day. I feel like that is. Kinda my fire right now. Well, that's go. Well, Matt, this is very exciting. I know, you know, you're a fan favorite of a lot of the different listeners, a lot of the different riders, everybody else. Any follow words for me today. I mean, I know you're still in that hangover excitement of, of everything else, but you know, truly everyone's rooting for you and the rest of whatever team. I mean, obviously the stars are going to be number one, but with everything, any other thoughts before we let you go? No man, just grateful. Blessed. I'm glad I got the opportunity to just come on his show and talk a little bit, man. I appreciate it. The alternative spring news football source through you guys. And everybody is huge for people like me, man. Notice guys that go to the spring leg or exercise you guys hype. Up and you guys give us. Passion and make us realize that there are people out there that actually care. And want to see people succeed. So I do what the work you guys do. I'm really appreciative for. And just grateful, man. This is. I just. Eternally grateful, thankful for God, the universe and the coaches. I believe in the man. Yeah. You know, we still have your, you know, your Jersey here is. You know, hanging with RCFL credentialed there, but never forget. The podcast. Yes, sir. I love that. Thank you so much for all the support man. And that means. The world. Well, best of luck. I'm sure we'll be messaging offline, but truly the bass and congrats. And thanks for coming on to that. I want to be exclusive tomorrow when we go on. All right. Well, we have Derek Jones here. I woke up today, the quieter kerfluffle with, between the USFL and CFL and all this stuff. How are you doing today? First of all, Derek. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. Well, so I would say congrats are in order, you were drafted in the, a USFL draft this week. Was it round nine, right round nine, pick four to the new Orleans breakers. But now there are some issues arising. So what's going on. Oh, I'll have a little contract issue with CFAR between carriers down periods. Who am. I never played in four, but. Back a few. A few months ago, I got a message from a guy that. I want to say who the defense coordinator. For category. I talked to, I talked to him and we talked about. Let me sign into a future contract there. But I also let him know that I wanted to stay open. Just in case something in the USA. Come up. I like the eggs on the USF for you. But to my understanding. I guess. He went on and submitted the contract or whatever. And. When I email I'm in, when I messaged him about. Opted out of the contract. He never wrote me back. Which were. Months. Prior to the USFL jail. The idea that. I did my research on what the USF. There was. And what it was about. So once I reached out to him about, about the contract, like I said, No one ever contacted me back. Four. Private nine a month. Through the three weeks to a month. So I entered the USF air. I've taken the email, everything. I sent the message. Taking the everything, you know, he understood where I was coming from. [Unknown] or whatever, but. After that. After I was drafted by the. USF for you. You CFL sound guy tweeted out, did a. I was being removed from the. USL field. Because I would find with the CFU. So that's another confusion had came with me. And sorry. Have you been working with your agent or how did you go about submitting for the USFL draft and all of that? I just. I did the research on my own. I saw that. It was coming up and I read about it. And then I saw the, did they had a link. Then I could click. Enter into the us. So I did. Found the link. No red about Indiana. Enter myself into the jail. And so now have you been going back? I know you're probably waiting to hear back from Calgary about the contract things. Have they said anything. I know you had posted some missing messages and things on Twitter at anything else with that in terms of like what you're hearing from the Calgary side. No. My last time talking with him yesterday. I want to say he's the player director. Oh, the team. And he was supposed to get back with me, but he never did. He was saying, he was basically saying it out. Signed the contract. Now I'm trying to get out of it. But. What I was trying to explain to him, basically, you know, how I go in the organization. They want you to play for. Whatever they basically know, go with what they want to go with. But I was trying to explain to him that I would like to stay in America. Where I have kids. My family, like they can't, they don't have passports either. They can't come to Canada. Basically, he was just basically did like. What I said when I said every now first, and like, they weren't trying to understand my side of the athlete. Who I will coming from with the situation. Yeah, it's hard. I mean, So, you know, you, and it was back in right September. When did you sign? When did you submit the original contract to Calgary? One will say. I want to say, like October. This is what I have September, October. And so, you know, obviously like passion lane, shape house. I mean, there was a bunch of guys that right. They were able to move in and be a part of the CFL draft. I wishing that, what, what is it about the USFL that's wanting you to play there? Obviously? Yeah. Passport issues, right. Being able to stay in the states. Is that kind of the main thing? Is it money involved in that, you know, wanting to play, talk me through your thought process for wanting to be in the USFL. Yeah, thanks for me. When I did contact them the first time they never got back with me. About that. My parents put either. So like bus. The whole time. We just been poor communication. But. I like if it was, if it was the XFL, I still want to be in America. Over Canada anyway. I obviously ideal situation with this would be for them to release you from your contract. Right. So you committed now to the USFL. If they're allowed, if the Stampeders allow you to be committed, are you allowed? That's what would be your ideal situation? Correct. Okay, well, we'll just have to say. I interesting career here. Right? You played in BC, your dad, I'm reading about this too. Huge CFL player. I mean, you, you have family. [Unknown] I'm looking at the wrong thing here. Oh, my God. I popped that up. Oh, there we go. No. Yeah. Here we go. Anything else you want to pass along? Not really this year. I would like for organizations to just try to think from athletes. Standpoint. And. Thinking about the families that are involved. With the situation. Perfect. Well, Derek, I really appreciate your time. I hope everything gets resolved from this. Please keep me posted and we'll, we'll be following this closely. That's the wedding videographer and me. Cause then I, I, I sit there all day. Let's you and I are, you know, getting the, getting the hairs as over there. Well, this is certainly our longest layoff between guests, but certainly not because I don't like you it's because you know, we all. Are you. It's kind of like Mike Mitchell, we never had Mike on for a long time because we're waiting on this XFL news. We have J now. Alex back on XFL news hub. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, man. Can't complain. Glad to be on the mark has once again. It's good to be back on, man. I think you were on. I believe it was spring league, November 20, 20 week. One recap, I think is when, unless there's another one in there I'm forgetting, but you know, whether the world we are in now, the USFL is a thing, you know, We just had our big draft and everything else. How has your life going? Yeah, everything is great. You know, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to cover the XFL again. As everyone knows, you know, they've been dropping little nuggets here and there about different announcements and. This is a good time. This is a good time for football. Spring football is obviously a popular thing now with the USFL launching. I got my own thoughts on the USFL, but you know, I, I'm pretty excited about what what's in the future for spring football. It is, it really feels like it's been this, you know, and you guys have been, you know, we, I jumped on kind of late right. With, with that. AI missed the whole 2020 covering it. Right? I mean, you guys, all a mark and never wanted the new side. You know, I came in late. You know, going through this go round, but it feels like. We're Riley getting to the time where it's all going to come together, right. Where it's a lot of excitement. I mean, whether you're a USFL fan or in the XFL fan, I mean, you can't help, but feel really good right now with everything happening. 100%, 100%. If you are a spring football fan fanatic, if you have no bias or no. Allegiance is towards a specific league and you just want football in spring. This is the most amazing time in our time that you're going to get it. So, man, it's going to be exciting. I'm looking forward to it. So I wanted that we'll get into USFL Civ at the end, but I brought you on specifically. Cause you know, I want your expert XFL expertise. So, you know, The news came out this week, XFL partnering with the NFL. You know, we had gone through all the CFL stuff before. What struck you the most from all the announcements that came Monday? The biggest thing that struck me the most read was the fact that it's, it's not just a few things with NFL. Well, number one, I was shocked that it was the NFL number two. I would say that. I was more shocked by how much depth was behind the plan, in my opinion. Hold on one second, man. Somebody is calling me. All right. In my bed. This way. I'll clean it up. Cool. Cool. But in my opinion, it was just the depth. Of the overall. You know of the overall plan and it was like, they plan, well, they plan accordingly. They thought this thing. Out to where they can give or fishy officials opportunities at the next level players, coaches. Test out rules. Test out new equipment. Kind of like the next gen thing, you know, we may see what if the next gym may be in the NFL. In the XFL. You know, next gen stats where Amazon, Amazon, Brian, you know, these things, these small things. Are bigger than what they seem. I just think that they set up a grand landscape for them to capitalize off of once they actually launch. I mean, if you think about it, remember when the NFL actually promoted the Alliance of American football from time to time, how much would that do for the XFL at this juncture? So, you know, I think that is a huge thing. I mean, again, I think the NFL and the XFL partnering is just a, is a major deal and people need to take notice. It's weird. I like the acknowledgement, right? If nothing else. You know, we had like rap sheet talking about, you know, XFL, you know, on the pat McAfee show and all that stuff. I like, I don't like these leagues existing in bubbles. Right. I don't like SCF. Right. We, we don't talk about the XFL. Right. You know, USFL, they're really kind of trying to do their own thing. I like that. The XFL is of no competition or concern of the NFL. Right. And as someone that watches the NFL network every day, I can tell you very much the NFL and I'm sure their writers and reporters would benefit from acknowledging the exit bell. Right. Because. We get done with Superbowl. I mean, for the, for the week after the super bowl, it was Matthew staffers. No, look pass. Yeah. Seven times a day. Right? Could you imagine, you know, we're rolling into a new season now, right? We're still talking to NFL, we're still talking, you know, signings and Aaron Rogers and all that said, but we have a whole nother league. I mean, I think that's why calling coward on the USFL does seem a little more. Heavy on that. Right. And the Fox situation. But because God, give me something else to talk about here for the six months out of the year that we're not covering the NFL. Right. Right, right. I think it's going to, I mean, just expand the market, expand real estate. That's really what professional football is. How much real estate do you own in certain seasons? Like the NFL owns pretty much everything from July. Through February or at least the early part of February. So it's, it's very important that not only the XFL takes advantage of the real estate. That the real estate opportunity that they have in the spring competing against the USFL, but it's also important to expand it any way that you can. So, like you said, involving writers from nfl.com that just keeps your content going. So it's just, it's going to be a smart strategy here as to how they market to. To different areas and where these teams are going to be playing in these different cities. Again, I think it's a genius idea. And, you know, it's funny. Read. Literally a year ago, close to a year ago, we were talking about CFL discussions. And we were, we were destroying. You remember? You remember what we were doing on Twitter, we were doing the Lord's work and we were destroyed for, you know, thinking that the CFL and XFL. This discussing potential. Collaborations was a good thing. We were destroyed for that. So now full circle, the CFL is still what doing what. And the XFL is about to thrive in an area that I, that I think is going to be perfect for their marketability. Yeah, no, and I, it. I don't like to miss emergency of all too much. I enjoy very much our CFL coverage and we have a good slate today of CFL players and media reps on it is interesting though. I think it was shared on Monday kind of the same thing with this NFL thing. And I believe it was Winnipeg was promoting, you know, local, a read along, right? Like a couple of the players are going to a library, which is tremendous. Right. I mean, that's great. And, and the CFL and grassroots. But it is interesting. I mean, it's apples and oranges there where it's like, we're, you know, we're, we're announcing this mega deal. Whatever, you know, and I don't like hypotheticals, but, but on paper it seems good versus like, well, we're going to send a couple of Winnipeg blue bombers players out to read in the local library. I mean, it's just different. It's different. Same goal. Right? Same goal build and promote. It's just different. It's interesting to see kind of these two things working alongside. Yeah, 100%, 100%. I'm just, again, I just think that the, that the partnership that we're going to see between these two leagues is just going to be phenomenal and. And, you know, It may be didn't work the first time around with the CFL and no noxious Canadian football. I think football is football. I'm not a football. Not here. So no knock to the CFL, but I do think, you know, That this is a great thing to expand. The game internationally. And put it in some different markets. See if we can get, you know, football year around for other countries in the world. I think that would be great. So. Yeah. I thought, you know, a lot was made of that too. In some of their press releases that came out, talking about expanding that international international reach. Is that something where the XFL goes first? Right? I mean, we know that the NFL. You talked about, you know, expanding, you know, further into Europe, right? Maybe you place it in a team they're talking about Canada, Mexico. Is that something where we see the XFL little less risk, right? It's a little less risk to establish an XFL franchise and like Mexico city. Then you add a 33rd or 34th, whatever NFL team do you see? Something like that? In my opinion. I don't believe that that will be the best move. To go, you know, into another, into a different, like a foreign market or international market. I think it would be behooved the XFL. To reclaim the mark is that like most of the markets that they had the first go around. So I think that in order to expand internationally, you have to work inside out. So you have to work within the realms of once you have. So maybe the first season, you know, There, you know, they have an 18 market. And they do the same thing that they did in 2020. Okay. Cool. And then the next year, based off the numbers that they have and based off the demand that they have, they can maybe evaluate potentially adding teams. Internationally. I mean, that's just my opinion. I have no distance, not a report here. That's just my opinion. I just want to make sure I preface that, but in my opinion, I think it would be very smart of the XFL to start inside the USA and then work their way out just to make their expansion when it comes time, a lot more grander. Do you worry about, you know, the, and I know Danny came out, you know, talking about you, it's not a developmental league. Right. You know, we are going to play in the spring at the highest level, but just the idea of like, we're, we're the little brother, a little sister to the NFL. I mean, do you worry about that? Or is it just like high tides raises all ships? I I'm not worried about that at all. I don't see why people have that impressing as if the XFL was actually the little brother to, or the little sister to the NFL. I think that they're going to be two separate leagues. What they're doing is they're just using the XFL to test out new, innovative things, a different way to play football. I mean, if you go back to 2020. The XFL lot's probably the most effective. Kickoff. And football history to prevent injuries. I mean, that is something the NFL can immediately adopt and put that into their play and not even have to bat an eye. So I think that there are some big benefits here. To the XFL and the NFL partnering up together. I don't think that it's oh, we look down upon, you know, we're going to use you in order to groom a new system. For the next generation of football. So. Do you, they're alive through made, you know, frustrations, right? We kind of pass the one year off, you know, not a lot of acknowledgement right now. I know that the USFL is doing a lot of their things. Maybe the XFL is trying to kind of let them. Have a lot of that time. I mean, we had, it was weird, right. President's day to come out with, with this news on that Monday, but what do you make of kind of passing the February 18th without anything. Ah, I mean, I think that they're working on their own timeline. I think that based off the dates that were previously historic to the XFL beforehand, maybe that's not the dates that they want to hit. I mean. We talked about this before I said, Danny Garcia is like, The Kevin 5g in the Marvel cinematic universe. I mean just drops nuggets. Each place. Just everywhere. So, and here's, here's the thing. They pulled that off on Superbowl Sunday, like subtly tagged the XFL. In the NFL. On the rocks picture before he took the stage. So, I mean, it's not really about a timeline. What they're about is entertainment, entertainment purposes. How can we get our fans engaged with our product? And they're doing a great job of that regardless of, Hey, it's been, you know, a year. It's still something and also how they're doing it is very impressive. And that's what makes this entire ordeal. Super exciting. Yeah, it was a loss to me that I have lots of debates, you know, mark and Dave nail, everybody. I said, you know, the rock did this three years ago. He came out. He did, when they achieved Niners, he came out and sat them all. And they said, well, no, this is different, whatever. And then, you know, lo and behold, the XFL was taken. There is. It's infuriating. Right. But it's good. I mean, It's one of those, like, we, we want to know, but we certainly appreciate it. It's not like it's going unknown. I guess that would be what I would take away from it. Like. I do think it's intentional. I think it's frustrating. I think people want more, but I do think it's an intentional rollout. Same with the USFL had plenty of criticisms here. Now look, the last two weeks they're taking the world by storm. So. What are your thoughts on the USFL draft? I know you're not super high on everything, but I want to get your thoughts on that. I'm super happy for the players, man. I mean, I've connected with a few players that were drafted. And, you know, I I'm super happy that they're getting. An opportunity. You know, to show off what they can do at a professional level. So, I mean, Really it's just an exciting time. I think, I think it's the best thing. I mean, players need options here. Coaches need options here. I'm officiating crews need options here. They have to. Develop, we have to develop this system. Football year around, give people opportunities. In order to reach the next level. So I think the USFL, it is just that. They're giving players and coaches another opportunity to show what they can do and what they can do on a national stage. I mean, they're broadcasting on socks. In in, in their hub city of Alabama, or I forgot where it was in Alabama, but. Birmingham, Alabama. That's right. So, you know, I think it's a great thing. I think any type of football is a great thing. And congrats to the players, man. I'm super excited about. A few of them. Brian, Brian is Brian. Allen. Scott Scott brass. Yeah, that's mine. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm good with names. I just didn't have it right in front of me, but yeah, he, he was, he was really good in the spring week. I watched that, that guy. He can spin it. If you're going to watch the USFL, the Philadelphia stars as a team that you might want to put your money. I'm just saying. Well, you know, it's good. Yeah, I just got off with Naylor talking about this. I mean, giving players, you know, is it going to cripple the CFL this year? Absolutely not. Is it ever going to cripple the CFL? No. But the idea that you, that the players have places to leverage against, right. And this is ending with. You know, USFL continuing into year two. When the XFL comes, that is going to force them to be competitive in their pay as well. Right. The big criticism on the XFL. I remember even not covering it right. Was people wanted the XFL to pay more the original one. And Vince McMahon said the AAF isn't here anymore. Like, what am I competing against? Yeah, why do I need to pay these players anymore? We're having options where they can jump around thoughts on that. That's in the USFL pay and the XFL pack. I mean. Pay us pay. Really? If you think about it, if you think about it, the opportunity for these players. It's about having the opportunity to gather film and do it at a high level. So you can pass it on to these NFL teams are. I mean. Thankfully for FCS. You know, same thing for CFL. You know, there. Players are there not only to collect a check, but they're there to put something on film so that way they can see what type of opportunity they can get. So, I mean the pay to me. I see what the USFL has done, you know, about paying for school and that type of thing. But, you know, in my opinion, I just think that any player that walks onto the field. Monies and you're playing at this specific level. Money's not really the object. The opportunity is the object. So for paying him between the two leads, I'm not. I'm not too, I'm not leaning on either side. I think opportunity is opportunity. Last question from me. What are you looking forward to here? Coming up? I mean, A lot of excitement, you know, we're still, it's like that doomsday clock, you know, we're waiting when. It is right. Going to come out, you know, we're a hundred seconds to midnight or whatever they say. I mean, what are you looking forward to here? I mean a year from now, we're going to be heading into week two of XFL, presumably. Man I'm looking forward to, I mean, what everybody's waiting for is the announcement of teams. And markets. I mean, that's the biggest announcement that we're waiting on. And also we're waiting on the first coaching hiring. I'm ready to see. What they do with their coaching staff after seeing or hiring coaches after seeing what the USFL has done. What type of things are you going to bring in to attract people to watch. I mean, if you go back to 2020, they brought in Bob stoops. That was one of their first hires outside of Oliver luck. So I I'm looking forward to. The city and the team names being announced. And also I'm looking forward to. Who's the first, Hey coaching hires is going to be in the XFL. It's an exciting time. It's an exciting time. Yeah, I hope they get some off the wall. Right. Eh, good hires. Right? You know, all this and the NFL and the lack of diversity. And I just, I really wish that the XFL would make a statement here coming out, right. Hiring some young coaches hire into minority coaches. You know, God forbid gets them women involved in higher positions. I just. I want them to really utilize this, to make a statement. I watch every day right now, this talk, and I've gone through all the NFL coaching hire talks and everything on NFL network. And I just wish that the ad. Did he exit if I would really use that opportunity. Right? I mean, even the USFL has, has placed a lot of minority coaches in, you know, head role positions. I just wish we would see that. I think we will read. And the thing is the rock and Danny Garcia had been, or let me call him dope. Wayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson and Danny Garcia have been adamant ever since they first purchased the league. About hiring and giving, hiring minorities and giving opportunities. You know, I think they're going to do that. I think that they're going to answer a, they're going to answer the bill in that regard. Well, Jay, I really appreciate it. I think we're going to be talking more about, you know, no more with you when we get all this XFL stuff coming, but I really appreciate it. Doing the check-in. We kind of had our first little nugget this week. And so I always want to make sure we get your thoughts on that when we get it. Hey, man. I appreciate you read, tell Paul. I said, what's up. Love this show. Do you love this show? I watch all the time. I don't mind talking about that too. Because I've got, I've got opinions on that. Let's do it. We'll do it here. Well, we have one of our, it was one of the first gas I think we ever had with the XFL CFL staff. Now we're talking rev, rebel ax today. CFL, but now he is still, he also wants to talk XFL, NFL, but that's exciting. We have a proud. Ukrainian Canadian, AGA Jackie Beck on challenging times with everything, but I appreciate you making the time and it is sometimes we just need to like focus on other things. I appreciate you taking the time to that. Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, just got to show my. My appreciation and my love. I don't wear a lot of blue and gold that's. Those are bomber colors, but certainly. Ukraine kind of, yeah. It's kind of hard to think and talk about everything else right now, just given my family history, just given the amount of times I've been in Ukraine and, and just. Yeah. You know, twice in the last four years. And I've a lot of friends there and such a great place with so many great people and. You know, nevermind what the people outside Ukraine are saying. I can tell you what the people inside Ukraine tell you that it's not a hundred percent anywhere you go. It's not like. If you talk to a hundred percent. Canadians or Americans, you're going to get a lot of different opinions. Right. But the bottom line is people that are just want peace. People they're just want. T two. To be able to choose their own destiny without. Outside interference. And especially when it comes to big brother to the east. So it's a, it's a real sad situation there, but. There are brave people that are resilient people and keep them in your thoughts. Yeah, and it certainly aids. Yeah, lots of stuff going on. I, like I said, I think. You know, my world for a long time was news. And now it's, you know, we're, we're talking alternative football and CFL and salvage. I will do what I know best right now with that. But my, certainly my hearts and thoughts are with you and everybody. Yeah, last time we spoke, you know, Ottawa heading into the season. Didn't really end up being right. The ideal, I think season anybody. I wanted, but now, you know, we have a new GM, we have a new quarterback, we have a lot of new excitement. What is it like in, in Ottawa, in CFL world? Cause I do know also otherwise a lot of non, you know, Lots of chaos going on, but in terms of football stuff, ah, How is it going with the red blacks? Yeah, I think there's a lot of excitement. So. The last two years have been hard. It's been a strange kind of. Eight years of football here. When you look at the, the first. And it's eight years, but it's seven seasons because of course he had the Ms. COVID year in 2020. We went from a two wind team in 2014 when they came back. Two three Greg cup appearances and a great cup victory between 2015 and 2018. To a three and 15 team in 2019, then Rick Campbell leaves. Then three wins in 2021 and Marcel deja herding. And leave. So now it's kind of a. A clean slate where the architects. Of what was the greatest era of Ottawa football and it over 40 years. Or both gone. And now you've got Sean Burke as the new general manager and Paul appellees, who was the head coach. This past season. So. I think people are just excited. People are excited because. I think. They were hoping for a big splash and free agency and they got the big splash and free agency. Now that doesn't guarantee anything. I mean, nothing they've done guarantees anything that this team's going to be. Juggernaut or anything like that, but I think there's a belief that. With the talent that has been assembled that. This team has a chance. So we'll see, it's still up to Paul appellees and the coordinators, Bob dice and Mike Bennett EDIS. To a. T to get these guys on the same page and to play hard. I look at the east and I think it's, it's wide open one through four. I think you've got four. Teams that are all capable of. Of finishing first or at least. Representing the east and the gray cup. And that's an exciting time. So. Yeah, but from an Ottawa perspective, after a couple of lean seasons, Looks like just what the doctor ordered, but let, let's see how it looks. Once we see them on the field in the spring. Well, that's the thing that yell a lot was made in CFL free agency. Right? We talk all these one year player contracts and all that stuff, but you know, here seemingly in the blink of an eye, Ottawa was able to, you know, completely rebuild, right. Bring in Jeremiah, Mazzoli, refresh everything. So it's good and bad, right? I mean, obviously you want the players to be able to be where they want to be and in the bill cohesion and all that, but then you can just snap your fingers and have a turnaround. Do you think it is Jeremiah? Is that the answer for Ottawa? Yeah, I think he's a real good quarterback. Do I think he's the best quarterback in the league. Probably not, but I think he's a real solid quarterback and the best guy they've had. Since at least Trevor Harris. I mean, it's funny. If you go back CFL fans, remember the 2018 season. It was basically, who's going to win the mop out of the east. And it was Trevor Harris and Jeremiah Masoli. And there were a lot of spirited debates about who should have been the mop in the east that year. And I thought it should have been Trevor Harris to be honest, but certainly Jeremiah was always a guy that I've respected. Really admired for a long time. Going back to his college days, watching him. As an Oregon doc and then it'll miss, but you know, in the Canadian football league, he's, he's paid his dues. He's, you know, he's kinda been a guy that hasn't been the guy in Hamilton. The guy was axle ROS, and then he got hurt in 2015. And Masoli came in and mopped up and then Claros came back and then they went with, they brought in Johnny Manzell and that was supposed to be the next guy. And then, you know, Dana Evans is the guy who led them. You know, to the last two grade cups. So. For, for a lot of the time, he's kind of been the guy in Hamilton, but for a lot of the time, they've, they've also been seemingly searching for somebody else. And so the reality here in Ottawa is he's the guy. And I think that's gotta be exciting for him. And I think that this is a player that. You know, with, with the right tools around them. And I think they've got a pretty good receiving core. We'll see, on the offensive line. We'll see if they've approved that there's. If they've upgraded in a couple of areas, they've also lost a couple of good offensive lineman. And more accordion Nolan McMillan. So I guess that would be my biggest concern on offense going into the season, because I think they've. You know, solved a lot of their other issues, but. Yeah, I think. The bottom line is since Trevor Harris left. In 2018 and quarterback was never a problem. Those first five years with Henry birth, then they brought in Trevor Harris and, and, you know, it was a pretty seamless transition. But then Trevor Harris leaves and it was Dominic Davis and it was Jonathan, Janet. And it was will aren't and they brought in mad Nichols. And then that didn't work out. And when I went back to Dom Davis and so they just, haven't had a legitimate starting quarterback in the Canadian football league. And to me, the exciting thing is I. It's just the slotting. I liked your mind was solely. But I also liked what they have behind them. I like Caleb Evans. I think Caleb Evans, probably of all those quarterbacks I mentioned. Kayla Evans has probably given them as good, a chance to win football games as any quarterback they've had since Trevor Harris. And dark Hodges came in last year, as well as the guy with NFL experience started with a Pittsburgh Steelers. You know, he, he's a guy that came in mid season and was thrown into a tough spot, but he could see in terms of the skillset that, you know, there's, there's certainly a lot to like there as well. So I think. With just the depth that they have, because he can't just expect to win in the CFL with one guy. But with that depth now with the veteran, We're solely with admins, Hodges, even a guy like Karen Christian saw limited action before a suffering a long-term injury last year, I think. That position looks to be one that has finally been solved for the first time since Trevor Harris's departure. The sentiment in RCFL news hub writers was, you know, kind of like Edmonton, right? Ottawa. You're coming off a couple of rough seasons that they really had to basically just take a swing at. Whoever was, you know, there was a big name and free agency. They needed to go after it. They needed to prove right. That, Hey, we're trying to be competitive. Is that. I is that where you take it, do you think that Mazzoli is a really good fit there or just like, we need to get a big name. We need to share the fan base that we care. No, I don't think it was so like, they, they just needed, they needed to fix the orphans. Right. And the problems were everywhere on offense. They needed a. Just a more stabilizing presence. Like. I wouldn't have been. Devastated. If Caleb Evans. And dot collage is we're wanting to coming back. If they put good pieces around them, based on what I saw last year, but in a best case scenario, Let them learn another year, bring in a veteran guy and let's, let's see how this goes. So quarterback was one position, but they needed help everywhere. It started on the offensive line. W, you know, you look back at the best red Black's team of all time, which to me, isn't the 2016 gray cup team. It's. The team that proceeded them in 2050, and that went 12 and six. And ended up losing in a very spirited bottle to Edmonton, to the great cup that year. Th that that team had an offense of wine left or rights or Vincent Rogers, J Michael Dean, John God, Nolan, Macmillan, Colin Kelly that played every game. But there was there, there was not one injury. And we talked to John God about this recently, he just retired much like servants and Rodgers. They both signed one day contracts. And retired as red blocks. And John says, look there, there are games that. That we were banged up, but we were playing that's just the way it was. It was something that I was something that meant something. That street can. And so to have the same. Five guys starts all 18 regular season games. And the two in the playoffs. I mean, not that was a difference maker. You look at this last year. And they had a new guy starting every week. I believe it was 10 different guys. Made their CFL debut on the offensive line and not five. Like it's insane. So, I mean, they had new guys every week and no continuity and. You know, you don't throw out the baby with the bath water. I think you've got some good players. You've got some guys like. Jacob's dot and to tell assay and Andrew picket that, you know, we'll see. A year on. If there. Going to show that they can start for this team, but at the very least it can be depth players, but, you know, demo. You know, boy looked very good in the short. Period of time as a tackle. So you've got some decent pieces there, but you know, they, they needed a major overhaul there because the reality was. That was the biggest weakness of this team quarterbacks were running for their lives. You know, basically throughout the season. So hopefully that's going to be solved. And, and, and again, to me, that's still the biggest question, mark, but. They have some good receivers, but they just needed some, some more on the top end, losing Brad's monopoly to retirement before the season was a killer. Losing Jalen Saunders do an injury. As well as he was in a car accident. Before the season and, and he wasn't able to play. Like there was two starting receivers and they just didn't have. The guys to replace them. So, you know, you still have RJ Harris, you still have Ryan Davis. You still have Nate Bahar. Who's. You know, I think the fifth. Highest total in terms of Canadian, never receiving yards in the past seasons. So you've got some guys, but you brought in some depth. To compete alongside Bahar, Shaq Johnson and Levite Noelle, you brought in BJ Cunningham, you were hunting Jaylin Ackland. So you know, all these different players that. That had been brought in that. That that should be able to make a difference and Darvin Adams as well. So I think it's about slotting. And then, then the running back situation. I mean, that, wasn't a great. Position for Ottawa last year, either in with William Powell. You've brought in a guy that is a fan favorite. And, you know, along with some Canadians with Jackson, Bennett, Brendan, Galanders, you know, maybe that's a position where they, they rotate a little bit throughout the season. So all in all, I think. You know, when I look at this offense, I mean, it was a dreadful year. I think they had the. Fifth Lola's total of. Touchdowns per game on offense and a history of the Canadian football league under, I think it was 13 touchdowns at 14 games. So, and they're coming off a year where there. Historically bad offensively in 2019 as well. So that's a big thing. I mean, one of the things I hear from fans. It's like, we don't care about the wins or losses and then look, they do right. But we just want to see some excitement. We just want to see some touchdowns. And so if you're coming to the game, And you can't even string together first down. That's where it really becomes painful for the fan base. And that's, I think essentially what. What the fans were really hoping for is that. You know, big swing for the fences in terms of free agency. And they got now it's up to pull up police and the coaching staff and the players to get it. From paper where it looks good to the field where. You know, just because it looks good on paper, it doesn't mean it's going to look good once they get on the field. Now as a, as a Seattle cracking fan, I will tell you, as long as, as long as it's competitive, we can still lose. But yes, I definitely, you know, you got to score some goals there. You got to make it feel like we're in it. Even if we ultimately ended up losing, you know, Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Seattle tracking, man. Good for you. I love the fact, by the way. I've total aside here. I'm I'm an Admunson guy. Originally. So I spent a lot of time in the west. I lived in BC for four years and I spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest. So as someone that is, I I'm, I'm a Seattle Mariners and Washington Huskies. Fan and spend a lot of time in Seattle, spent a lot of time at Spokane. I am thrilled to death that Seattle has a team. And now I just want to see. To me, they just need a natural rival with Portland now. Like they add the Western hockey league for years with the teamers. And the Winterhawks. So that's all we need. Complete aside, but the fact that Seattle has. And you might. Instantly made a fan in my wife. You know, she she'll be saying go dogs. I went to Gonzaga, so we don't have any of the. But, you know, anyway, show me. And I have to say, like, I've never been to a Gonzaga game. I've actually been inside the kennel. And looked around there and one of my many trips to Spokane. But like, As someone that, you know, I'm mid forties. And so like I grew up in the 1980s with a 13 channel universe in Canada, where we turn on the TV and we had CBS, ABC, and NBC. This is a pre Fox days. From Spokane. And so I went when Gonzaga made their first run in 1999. But Matt, Santa Angelo and Dan Munson was the head coach. I was living in trail BC. I made my way to Seattle. They had already won their first round game and I saw them. Beat the tree and Stanford and attend to match up on route to eventually losing in the elite eight to the eventual national champions. And Yukon. So I do have a soft spot. In my heart for the zags and yeah, all things Pacific Northwest. I'm good with that. Yeah. If this is a different podcast, I would tell you about how I almost got in a fight with Adam Morrison during my freshman year of college. I'm moving into the dorms and how Adam Morrison. And then I have a long history. One more time about red flags. And I know you wanted to hit the NFL XFL stamp before we go. You know, the rebuild on the field is great. Right. But you know, we have this like behind the R all of this social media stuff going into it, you know, spearheaded by a note, you know, the videography team over there and everybody else. You know, more than anything to me, it just represents like trying new stuff. Right? Like, Engaging people creating content. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? And just seeing like, God, we could just, you know, anyone could do it's like I saw the one, they did the ad like that. They're sitting in the stands. Right? And it's like, what are you doing? Like a Wayne for June. Well, it's only February. And again, I know, but I said it'd be, I mean, it's like stupid stuff, right? Like that is a 22nd thing. Well, what do you think of all this? I love it. I think it's fantastic. I think we need more of that in all the sports. I think we need more of that. In particular in the Canadian football league and yeah, I'm a big fan of how they operate and look. Some people don't like to hear that because you know, if a team wins three games, You want blood? You want scape cahoots, right? And. I'm just a big fan of how they operate there. And look, they've made mistakes and we point them out when they make mistakes. But I think everything starts from the top. And I think just the vision of where things need to go for, for that franchise and for the league. In general, I think. Fantastic. Number one, you need buy and it starts with buy-in from the top. And, and that's mark Gowdy and Adrian Sierra. You need buy-in from your football people, football people can be notoriously paranoid. I don't think I need to tell anybody about that. Or we can't do this and show this because. Oh, my goodness. They might see a red circle somewhere, and then they're going to figure out what the red circle is. And yeah. And I get it right. I mean, Football people I think are paranoid for a reason. All you have to do is see, you don't build Bella checks by gate, all that kind of stuff. Right. So I understand that part of it. But to have buy-in from your football people, Shawn bird, someone that worked in community relations, he gets it, pull up. Police has worked in media, he gets it right. So. And then you've got someone like Josh O'Connor who's done tremendous work. You know, in, in a number of different sports MMA and, and, and to get him. As part of the staff and producing the type of content that he's producing. I think it's awesome. I haven't heard a bad word from anybody about it. So that's in this polarized world. I think that goes to show. Exactly what kind of job they're doing. And yeah, I would love to see more of this type of stuff. Around the CFL for sure. I, yeah, I agree with that. Like not a negative word, like literally at all. I mean, He thinks in this life. Universal praise. Right. And having any sort of like fun, unique, cool marketing span on the CFL. I, yeah, I think you can't lose with that. Before we go out. So we had the big, you know, XFL, NFL partnership this week, I saw the quote, right? Like Randy Ambrozy, his biggest legacy will be his failure to, you know, whatever with the XFL riot, because I mean, you know, you seen all these tags, I'm sure you've seen everything too. What do you think of all this stuff before I let you go? Yeah, I worry that they might've missed the boat. That's. That's my, I was one of the few that actually was. Okay. With what they're doing in terms of conversations and, and where things were headed. And. Look, I, I just want what's what's best for the Canadian football league. And if they can make this work with nine teams, For 50 years when I'm long gone and people are still watching football and. If people are still interested in the Canadian football league. In that format then. Great. Then I I'm thrilled with that. I just love football. I don't care if it's three down football or four down football. Or whatever. I love certain parts about the U S game, whether it's college or the NFL. And I love certain parts of both the Canadian game. I mean, there's certain things about the Canadian game, like the clock. You know, you know, especially the last three minutes of a game. The return rules, the motion. There's some, some amazing things. With the Canadian game that I would never want to see, go. And I, I don't want to see Canadian content go by the wayside either. I think we've got more quality Canadians. Than ever, but I don't think you need it to go down that road. Yeah, look, if, if it was best from a business standpoint and I'm not, it wasn't in those meetings. To to pull the plug because you were going to have to give up too much. Of your own game, you know, you're going to have to give up the great cop or you're going to have to give up. You know, maybe some of your markets, maybe they didn't want to be in Saskatchewan or. We're Ottawa, right? Maybe. Maybe, maybe there are certain things that were on the table that were just. A hill that they weren't going to die on and that's fair. Right. But, but part of me really thinks. That they may have missed out on a big, big opportunity here because. I just liked what I've seen and heard from the ride. I don't, I don't equate. Redbird capital and the rock and Danny Garcia with. Vince McMahon and the failed XFL. The past, I view this as a completely different entity. Just using the same name. I look at opportunities globally. And who'd be able to exploit those. And Randy and Rosie was the first to try and get on that. And now I kind of feel like that's probably something that's going to be. Used by the XFL two. To their benefits. I looked the Mexican market. I look at. San Diego and St. Louis and Oakland and San Antonio and all the great markets that I think. Can support professional football in the us. Not to mention Portland amongst others. Right. Speaking of the Pacific Northwest. So yeah, I mean, I I'm I'm I'm a little torn. I'm. I love my 19 CFL. I love my tradition. Love my three downs and Davante Deadman returning kicks for touchdowns. Just like when I grew up watching gizmo Williams, do the same thing at Edmondson. But, but I, I just want to ensure that. In 25 years and 50 years. That people in Edmonton and Ottawa and across the country still have the chance to talk, to watch high-level professional football. So. We'll see, they've got a lot of work to do to, to. Make some inroads because the numbers keep skewing more and more towards fans watching the NFL instead of the CFL. In this country. I watched both. I love boats. I just love football, but. Yeah, I am concerned about the future of the league. And certainly I'm fascinated to see where this partnership between the XFL and the NFL was going to go. One has to wonder. And I'm super, I am surprised that he, this is a good, that's a good take. I'm glad that we talked about this. I am. I will be. Really curious to know, and I I've already said this, like in 2030, I'm going to cause I'm a videographer I'm going to do that. Like 30 for 30 on the XFL CFL talks, like I'll crowd fund that we'll do that, like in 2030. Right. And you'll be part. You know, we'll all have, we'll get everybody back and we'll talk about. I am curious. Cause you know, NFL XFL. It's like, okay, the exit Palo can maintain their right, their autocracy or their independence or whatever. Right. Work with the NFL. Like, did they scale back from what they wanted to do with the CFL? Right. We don't know. Right. But did they come in there and want something that fell apart? So then they're like, well, maybe we'll work with the NFL with something scaled back or like, was that on the table with the CFL? I mean, Well, I never know, but I don't know like what came first in that equation, because this is a very different partnership than what the, I think partnership would have been with the CFL. Yeah. And I'm curious to see that as well, just to see. Where it goes. I'm curious to see what kind of markets they're going to be in. And then you've got the USFL. And what they're doing here. And I think that's probably going to be on a smaller scale, but yeah, there's going to be, and look, I'm, I'll say this. I'm not worried about. Competition for players because. I watched college football. I know how many good players are in college football. There's way more college football programs and NFL. And so there's a lot of good football players that. When they're done and they miss out on a chance to play in the NFL. I think there's more, more than enough players as someone that watches a lot of soccer, a lot of basketball, a lot of hockey. I follow the. The European leagues and basketball and hockey. I follow. I mean a million different leagues and soccer. There's a million different player. And guess what the caliber is great. If you're watching Euro league basketball or, you know, Swedish league hockey or whatever, Colombian soccer league. So there's not going to be a problem with talent. I have no issue with that, but I am. I'm just curious to see where this is going to go, because it fascinates me and obviously the amount of players. That it takes to fill a roster, I think is a big part of it, but it just fascinates me that. I mean, we've got. All these professional teams and all these different leagues around the world and here's football that is absolute king in the United States and very popular throughout north America. And, and somehow we've. We've only got 41 professional teams. Right. So it all was didn't make sense to me that we couldn't. Double that, or have some sort of bigger presence globally and within the United States. And maybe this is the time that it's finally going to happen. But it has to be done properly. What is properly? I don't know. That's, that's a tough balance. No, one's been able to find that right. Formula. I think the one thing that has to be a hard, no. And, and I'm encouraged by what the XFL has done. And this is just the fact that. You don't want to be. Like, I don't mind being a kind of a development league. But you don't want to lose players. Mid-season right. Like, like the one reason NCAA works in basketball and football is because. Like, it's not like in the middle of the big 10 tournament. Michigan state loses their starting point guard to go play for Cleveland. To, to end the regular season, right. That just doesn't happen. And so, and that's one thing that's sacred with the Canadian football league. That yeah. Guys get opportunities. Yeah. I'm excited to see Demante Deadman plans on Sundays and Brandon Dandridge and all the, the, the great Canadian football league players. To get that opportunity, but I don't want to see it happen in the middle of the season. Right. And, and that's where the fine line between development. League and. And look, if you're playing solely in the spring, like the, like the XFL is planning to do, then, then that's probably not a problem, but for the CFL, which. Starts in the spring and ends in the fall. And does go ahead to add a little bit with, with the NFL, that that's something that. To me is always going to be a bit of a non-starter. Otherwise, it really starts to have that stench of minor-league. Exactly. No, and I think there'll be, I, you know, I think they're set up. It's tough. Yeah. CFL schedule and trying to incorporate within. You know, it's, it's a lot of overlap on the other side. You're overlapping with XFL on one side NFL on the other. AIG. I'm glad that we could get you back on the show. It's been too long. I'm glad, you know, we have a height for Ottawa. We have height for everything else. I really want to appreciate your time today with everything going on. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on all was a pleasure. And. Slava Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you again, age. I really appreciate it. Appreciate that. Awesome. Thank you, sir. You bet. Yeah. Well, thanks again, everyone. I wanted to thank all of our guests, Dave Naylor, Matt mangle, Derek Jones. To remember Jay Noakes, Kamar, Jordan, and the AIG back. Really a hearts and prayers go out to the AIJ everybody in Ukraine, that whole situation. If you've made it this far, the show, remember liken subscribe, all the content that we have coming out. USFL, XFL, CFL content, and one final plug. We have the big Birmingham live show coming up, April 16th. We're going to be going live there so you can check out. You know, Twitter and Facebook and sat for more information on that, we'll be going live before the kickoff to the 4:00 PM local time from the Southern kitchen bar and grill if that's something you're interested in.

Episode 80 - The USFL’s “Precious” Info

Hey guys. And welcome to the Markcast Reid here, Paul. I had a work emergency this week, so I am piloting the millennium Falcon alone, but I think that's going to be okay. Tremendous show. It's been a insane day on social media with all the USFL staff and the uniform announcements and the drafts and the, you know, the playoff kind of changes and all that stuff. So we, you know, we already had a big show, all this stuff came out. So that's why we kind of have a super overloaded show this week. So I really hope you appreciate it and kind of the work that we're doing, you know, please like, and subscribe if you do. If you're listening to this, there's a very real chance that, you know, Mark's hypothesis that the XFL news is dropping on February 18th has come true. If that is the case, I may be live on a separate YouTube channel. You know, Video talking through kind of that stuff. So keep an eye out for that. If, you know, if the doomsday clock hits midnight and we get the XFL news. You know, we'll air this show and kind of figure that out. As it goes. Just a little bit of housekeeping tonight before we get into everything. Cause I kind of talked through the news and everything with all the guests this week. We have pat Rafino coming on, pat writes for XFL Newshub and CFL Newshub pat does a ranking of the USFL, you know, uniforms and kind of the unveiling today and all that stuff. So we go through and we break all that down and we rank it. You know, people love all that kind of stuff. And talk through that, you know, the new helmets and the new uniforms and pants and kind of all that stuff. We also go through the USFL draft that's coming out next week. They kind of did a weird lottery thing today, where they talked about who, you know, the order of the draft and, and we should have some more information as you listen to this on Friday. About how the draft is going to work. And then we talk about the, you know, the USFL playoff changes, you know, they're moving locations for the final week and then the championship game. So we kind of dissect all of that. So, so a ton of USFL news off the top, or really appreciate Papper hopping on and doing that. Then we kind of have the regular show that I had planned ahead of time. Extra guests. We had some scheduling conflicts and everyone ended up being able to be on the show. So that's where we kind of have five guests this week, which is a little overwhelming. I think Paul would probably, his head would explode, but. We have Darren Gill. Darren is a CFL super agent. I wanted to get Darren's thoughts on you with this. He think about the USFL are people in the CFL, looking at the USFL as competition, whether it's he think of the contracts and you'll players jumping, you know, going north or not kind of that whole thing. Darren is a wealth of knowledge about that. And then we kind of segue into CFL. From there. We have Brandon Alexander, a special last minute guest. From the way, the people who bombers really appreciate them setting that up. Brandon is a two time grey cup champion with Winnipeg. Dorothy will be very happy that we have some Winnipeg representation on the podcast. Brandon's great. Brandon is a delight. I go through all the CFL news of the week with Daryl Davis, Daryl is a CFL hall of fame reporter. He was at our live show back in Hamilton. Darrell is great. I'm looking at my notes here. There's so much. Courtesy of the BC lions. We have Neil McAvoy coming on. Neil is the code general manager. And director of football operations for America to CFL team, the BC lions. So we kind of talk about that bill, you know, our BC is buying the gray cup. I've kind of settled on that. And then this is a delight. We have Jed Roberts, Jed had been with the Edmonton Eskimos, Alex, whoever you want to call it for 13 years, his dad played in the league. Jen. And I get into a, you know, a lot of like fixing the league, marketing the league. What is Edmonton doing? Right. A really, really great conversation with Jad. I really appreciate him taking the time to come on. So that's kind of what we have coming up today. I really hope you enjoy it. If you appreciate all the, you know, a lot of work to kind of schedule all this stuff and like pat hopping on all these people hopping on. Please like, and subscribe. We have our big 2000 subscriber giveaway coming up. I think we can hit that, you know, by the time we get to the USFL kickoff. I just got my world retros, all kind of away, dragons Jersey. I literally just sent them the photos and they said, here you go. It came in the mail. I want to do a giveaway as well as like we have our great gut merge. And then we have that AAF commander's Jersey that we're going to give away to all that's going to be at the 2000 subscriber giveaway. So please like, and subscribe. Share the video, you know, ton of work goes into this. I really appreciate it. And then speaking of the USFL kickoff, we officially announced this week, we will be going live from Birmingham at the Southern kitchen restaurant and bar it's literally right across the street from protective stadium. So a yo you check that out. You can watch it on YouTube. Like the one we did in Hamilton, you know, we had a bunch of guests. If you're in the area, obviously, you know, please stop by there. They have food and drinks and tables and that sort of thing. We're going to be outside there. I think so. If you're worried about, you know, safety and all that stuff, I think we should be okay. We really just want to have a good spot that people can come by and say hi, and, you know, check out the show up. They want to. That is enough of me rambling. I'm sure you're like Reed. You're going crazy right now, but I just a ton of stuff today. I really hope you enjoy and take care. Hey guys. I just wanted to pop on again. I wanna thank pat for taking time out of his busy day to come on. I also would be remissed. If I didn't ask, I forgot to ask during the interview. If you have your own uniform rankings, please leave them in the comments. You know, Kind of helped build that algorithm, help build the conversation, but I think that'd be fun. I'll go on. And I think that's a good conversation starter. So. If you have you, what do you think of the, the USFL uniforms? You know, you're a top, a bottom, a however you want it. I do it as a, but please go on and do that. I enjoy the rest of the show. I'm going to leave it to the interviews now, and then we'll see you back next week. Thanks for hopping on man. No man. I'm all about it. Well, Paul. Paul, my co-host had to take the week off. So I'm like we got to get in on this tomorrow and get there, you know, cause everyone's going to want to talk about it. So. All right, let me do this. Well, now this is a crazy day. I'm like catching my breath here. As we got, as we. We had pat Ruffino coming on from XFL Nissan and see your phone. These hub.com. Pad's written articles for the Mark House as well. Pat, how has your day been with all this crazy XFL stuff or USFL stuff? Not even XFL stuff. I mean, it's obviously been a little bit of a whirlwind. As many of people know, we don't do this as a full-time job. So having the. Balance. You know, full-time job. Full-time. You know, real-world. Responsibilities with obviously. USFL stuff is a little bit hard, but you know, we got it done today. You know, champions and that's what we do. Yeah. As soon as we get done with this, I'm going to go load into the Seattle wedding show. This weekend, we have our wedding conference. I'll be driving down, down here, but I wanted to get pat on. So we have kind of the big breaking news. We have the USFL uniforms. Pat has this article. That's going to be on as you listen to this on XML news, have you can check out and then I want to hit on the playoff staff and then the draft order, right? Those are kind of the three major USFL talking points today. But pat has gone through and ranked, which is really good. Cause I was getting a lot of hate on like my comments. It's on Twitter about this. So I think it's better that we have pat maybe as like be impartial. So if you don't like Pat's ranking, then you can go tweet at pat, but pat, we're going to start. Eh, well, we'll break down all these uniforms that we'll do everything else. How did you like the we're going to do one on Twitter and Facebook every hour, starting at 5:00 AM Pacific, which was insane. So for me, it made. If I wasn't working a full-time job. I, I wouldn't like it, but because you know, It was in between meetings and everything like that. It made my life a little bit more convenient. So obviously that's the USFL had a may in mind when they were doing this because why not? But it definitely was kind of funny cause you know, you're going back and forth and then people are arguing and then all of a sudden the next one comes out and you're like, oh wow. Okay. It's like, okay, we'll get back to the. Ronald McDonald house uniform, but now we have this uniform to argue about. So it was a. It definitely kept social media. Buzzing for a little bit, which I think was the whole point. It was good. It was weird. I mean, you know, they just came out last night, said it was coming at me. It felt. It felt Cory needed today. When the law came into, it did feel a little rushed last night and we're like, Hey, guess what? Like this is coming tomorrow. Yeah. Cause I got out, my wife gets up, we get up at six something that she's a teacher and I'm like, God, I've already missed like part of these. I mean, it was just insane. I go, you know, USFL, I would, I would base it on Eastern. I got Pacific time started eight, started eight 11. That's fine. So let's start with number eight, right? The worst one we should start with or shoot yet, and then we'll start and then we'll go to the best of who I have. All the images here. I'm going to load them up. Who is the number eight, a uniform that you have. Oh, the stars. It's terrible. And I think a. I, it looks kind of like a Ronald McDonald house a little bit. Even a form to me and I, and I wrote it verbatim in my article was if the Superbowl had McDonald's come in and do a commercial of like buy our food. And they had Ronald McDonald come out, you know, You know, football uniform. I don't like the color scheme. I think it's too much. It's a little bit belligerent. But, you know, It's. And also you would think would because you know, the history behind Philadelphia in general. They'd maybe make it a little bit more red, white, and blue. A little bit more. Historical patriotic, but. You know, they went the other way. And also when I think of stars, I don't think of ketchup and mustard. Never, never really a taste for me, but. Yeah. There's someone else has an opinion on it, please, please. Please feel free to share. Cause I, I. I'm not a fan of it whatsoever. Yeah, I have the image here. It's you might see the yellow blasting off my face. You might see the reflection, last name. It's very loud. They did a couple of things with these callers. A couple of the callers have the two tones, which I really don't like fan controlled football, did a little bit of that with the wild ACEs one. And it looks like I got peddlers. Tunic kind of thing. I don't love that. It is a really odd read. I saw the, the gas station things, right. People were posting a lot of the. I don't know. It was an ExxonMobil. I have the same one. It is very Ronald McDonald. The Stripe on the helmet looks really super imposed on here. I don't know if that. That's I don't think on the helmet. I mean, it's, it's her, it's a sticker on there that doesn't really fit in. I would, I would have done like a, take the stars and run it across. If you would've done that Stripe and run that, those diagonal kind of star logos on there. Yeah, really bright yellow pants. Is this kind of the consensus worst one. I think based off the Twitter. The Twitter universe and Instagram universe from what I've seen. I know in the, our little writer's group, a lot of people. We're kind of shocked by it, but. Especially when a lot of these uniforms kind of look pretty. I want to say bland, but you know, pretty neutral colors and everything like that. They definitely swung for the fences on this. And. I feel like they missed, but who knows? They'll probably win the championship. Well forget about it because that's how those things work. This two tone on the side too, which I didn't, they, this one has the side image. I don't think all of them have the same wonderful assets they provided us. And then Rodney really cool production value with all the announcements that all the announcements are good, but. This like tire track. It's like skid marks down the side. And they continues to the pants. Very odd. Very odd. I don't get the stripes. I guess it's the stars. It should be stars. If they put stars going back on the helmet, I think that would have been like, With a better color tone maybe, or maybe more neutral colors. That would have put my they're raking up for me. But sometimes watches more. And, you know, like some of these uniforms, I felt like they did bless and. They knocked it out of the park. You know, like mine. Not to go into the future a little bit, but seven through four are all pretty interchangeable for me. Yeah, I just, I think this is probably the most audacious of all of them. I mean, I think we probably spend the most time on. This was just cause it is, but yeah, I don't get the, I don't get the, the skid marks with that, so. Okay. So that's, that is the Philadelphia stars as number eight was number seven. Birmingham stallions. I'm old disappointed. I thought they do more with, I'm kind of like how the breakers did some stuff. And they're a little bit higher on my list, obviously, but I wouldn't have liked with Birmingham being kind of the front and center of the USFL with all these games and how much good this is going to do for the city of Alabama. I would have thought that. Hey, they want to do something with a horse, maybe. On on the actual Jersey or B, they would add it, maybe like. Like maybe a horsepower, like something with speed or something like that. Or maybe just like a. Attribute to Alabama in general, because this is a professional football team in Alabama. People in Alabama loves football and. You know, this is out, Birmingham's going to be front and center. Of the, of the league. So what people know, you know, Your Mike's rubbing just a little bit on your. It's it's. Yeah. The helmet's good. I think we had seen this helmet. Yes. Came out. It was one of the ones that came out with the press whenever they did that big press conference thing that, that was there. I mean, it's always still just stickers on and it's really weird to me that people. Got up in arms about the helmets. But yeah, I mean, w was this one that you said felt very 49ers? Yes. Yes, I did. It kind of felt like a late. Fair alternative. A little bit, which, which I'm kind of talking to now, both sides of my mouth. Would it cause sometimes. You know, and one of the jerseys further down the west as a Kansas city chiefs five that I really enjoyed. But I just felt like this should have been more personalized because it is Birmingham and it is. Kind of the baby of the league, if that makes sense. I really like the, the font for the number. I really liked the eight. Yeah, really squared off. I don't, I mean, Honestly, it looks good. Cause it's an eight. Maybe you. I got a nine, 18 or 19. Maybe they could do that. Similar squared off. I liked that the pants is a classic. Look with that. I feel good. It feels safe though. Like you said, if you're going to have. The premiere it's in the kickoff game. Stripe again, we got the big Stripe going down the Mohawk. I'm not, I'm not opposed to the Mohawk, the problem. I may be a little bit biased cause the stallions. One of my favorite, like logos, I feel like it's a safe. A safe logo. Anytime you go, stallion, Mustang, cold, something like that. And I have no like allegiance to it, but I definitely. I feel like it's a great BOGO and. They could have did maybe one or two, like tweaks here and there. And then they're in the top floor, in my opinion. All right, so that's number seven. So number six. I went with the Michigan Panthers. What I like about this one the most is because that light blue. Reminds me of the Seahawks. That's how the, they kind of use that teal every once in a while. So I actually really liked. Seeing the, the light blue, just kind of shaded in there. And I feel like it wasn't overdone too much because they got the, the main colors, the maroon, that goldish color and the. And the light blue. I do like the helmets the most because it kind of encapsulates the whole. Actual helmet with their logo. And that's kind of a big thing for me, kind of like how Oregon. Will you do. With the ducks kind of those, those ducklings. On the helmets. So I'm definitely a fan of. The Panthers. Jersey really doesn't wow. Me too much. And. I'm not really big into the gold pants. I would like to see just normal silver or white pants personally. The helmet, this mark, I think reported this Margaret, you know, with new sub-debt at two of the helmets need custom painting. And this has to be one of them, right? The pant. With this, with the inlay going in with. And all of that. I think that they, that I would have liked that. That Panther knows to match up a little bit better with the cutout of the helmet there, as it goes around with the, I mean, that's just me being an animal OCD, but. I like the Jersey color. I have a John seen the Jersey that says exact color from when he low is it must've been like Massachusetts or wherever. I can't remember Johnson. I got a terrible photography job here with the white pads being seen. Through the burgundy. That's a little rough. I would say the, the photographer on this one, it was probably a fail with it. With that. You can, you can really see the reflection of the white through the mesh. It seems a little more meshy than the other. One's a little more transparent. Yeah, I definitely know sadness. Photography as well. I went more on the helmet. The helmet is kind of what did it for me. Just because they're a little bit bolder. And, you know, they're only. Yeah, they're only number six, so it's not like I went all in, but. You know, it was between the helmet and the. In that light, that light blue, that kind of. I get it for me. So. It's it's weird how the stripes attached to on the shoulder. It's like not really in a wrap around it kind of stops. Yeah. It's like two sections. And then that you can see that's like a, you know, that's that burgundy in between. That's a weird, it's a weird design on the, I don't know if that would be final if they are gonna mock that up better. The wagers do, he definitely sells it a lot more for me than the. Jersey. And I think part of it is the mesh of the Jersey as well. So we'll see, we'll see. You know, You know, we got a couple more months. Oh, And we'll figure it out. Yeah, and these are, they only provided the high rise of the home one. So obviously there's white ones. I think these will get much more of the play. Normally these are the ones that are for sale. All right. Number five. I want with Tampa bay damage. I kind of liked how they want the opposite of the way to Tampa bay. You know, a little bit more conservative. And whatnot. What I really found fascinating was kind of reminded me of the UFL. Las Vegas locomotives. There are ways jerseys, especially are not the U S excuse me. The UFL. Las Vegas. Locomotives. And that's kind of where I want with it. Just acquaint book. And it's, it's one of the first teams on our latest stab the logos on the shoulder, which is what, you know, it's a little bit different. And that's what I liked. Yeah, the Tampa bay logo is definitely the best. This. It has a lot of Buccaneer vibes, kind of these pewter pants rises that kind of the color of that. Yeah. And so we've got the Stripe to the Stripe going all the way. I don't like, it's never going to match, even in the, you guys have the photo here, like it's never going to match up. This is the press photo in this, the Stripe doesn't match up. You know what I mean? Like it's never going to look good and this is the best it's ever going to look. So I think that that is odd. Yeah, the red, the red. I don't, I'm not like crazy on the red, but it's definitely. Yeah, it's definitely not the worst one. Obviously, you know? It really is middle of the pack in our, in our countdown. So, you know, I like this, the logo on the shoulder. You know, I like the throwback a little bit unintentionally. To a UFL team. So yeah. You know, it's better than the other three that we mentioned and. Middle of the past. Yeah. Yeah. Bugging your vibes. I, I, you know, it's good. I like the logo. I can't be. Tampa bay fan, but I like to look okay. Number four. Oh, this is a complete bias. We talked about this earlier. I only picked this one because a. Of the mean machine and the Miami sharks, the Houston gamblers, number four. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is, this is, this is straight out of, you know, nostalgia for me. You can never go back the bag with all black. Also those throwbacks. And I mentioned really making hilarious, but you know, nothing too crazy. And for the helmet and the logo. Adding, you know, the G. But the state of Texas. But the star for Houston is a. Is awesome. Like design-wise, but everything else is pretty simple. So once again, a middle of the factory. But it is hilarious how it does copy to Miami sharks and the main machine from. From the longest yard. Yeah. If you guys have seen that. Yeah. Longshore and then on any given Sunday, right? The Albertina, the team on that again with these drivers, I never, I guess I didn't really pay attention. I was mostly looking to the jerseys today. I was too. And then when I started writing the article, I started looking at the helmets and I was like, and that's what, like, You know, I wasn't gonna put the Panthers number seven, but then because I saw the work with the. With the, a Jersey or the helmet. I was like, okay, you guys can be at number six. Yeah. You know, you got the two tone, right? You got the gray going into the black, the reverse. I think this will probably be one of the easier jerseys to wear. Right. Wearing it on the street. I don't think I'm going to get mugged like. You know, like some of the jerseys I wear, like my. I guess that's your point? That it's a good day that I got my Royal retros, XFL dragons, a wager as he accustomed the day that all this stuff came out. But no. Yeah, this is very middle of the road. Very safe. I I'm like, I think I'm technically a gambler Stan, because that's who he picked on the podcast, but I don't, I don't love this. Jersey. This looks like the old Jersey. I was going to buy one of these from world retros, but it just seems a little. Yeah, give me a number three. So number three is the Maulers. And I like the Maulers because of their outrageous color, a color scheme, but they didn't go over the top. Like. Like the stars did. So they have just enough of, yes, we have bright colors. Yes. We have this going on. They have the logo on the shoulder, which is a big deal for me because. Changes it up. You know, it makes it look like this, the jerseys weren't made in. And the AA team builder, but it also isn't like, look at my purple pants. Look at my orange pants. All the pants are pretty conservative and you know, I think it flows really well together. Yeah. The pants definitely tone it down. This is a really loud Jersey. There's a lot going on the, you know, you had this two tone color, right. Then you're getting that the shoulder pads in underneath. But then you have the white trim on the, on the Jersey color. It's just a lot. It's a lot of colors. I like the number. It looks like I've heard a lot of, it looks like the Apollos from the AAF. I kind of noticed that I wasn't an you can again see the colors radiated off of my face or I don't, I wasn't, you know, I didn't live through the AAF. I was more of the XFL guy, but. Yeah. The two tone on there, the purple. This is really the visit. This is either top of people's lists or models of people's lists. Yeah. If this would have been my number seven, if they changed the pants, but because, you know, I feel like they any away Jersey looks good as well that I think they kind of saved themselves in my mind. And. You know, it's nothing too over the top and then just enough color to show off the logos. And, you know, like I said, I'm big on the shoulder logos. At this point, so. It definitely is a fan. I'm definitely a fan of this Jersey colors are a little bit weird for the city of Pittsburgh. You. No, I would have did. Maybe ultra pronated the black and yellow, but you know, they did a good job. Not. Looking too crazy with their colors. So yeah, I saw this mocked up with like a Steelers colors and it looked a lot better. I mean. Like. There's you know, the Steelers, the pirates. The penguins. I feel like everyone would have been okay if the Maulers went to black and yellow. Yeah. All right. And then we'll do the breakers. This one's a really easy, smooth, like Jersey for me, like, oh, the way Jersey is beautiful. It goes down real smooth. In my article, I use the term. Calm before the storm. And it's got very common effect, aesthetically. I think it's one of the more appeasing. Jerseys to look at. I love the wave. On the shoulder, once again, logo and children. Flows really nicely. And that's pretty much it. I liked the number scheme and, you know, I just think it looks real. Real calm, calming. You know, It's a very like, Chilled out Jersey, nothing too crazy. And sometimes, like I said, simple is better, but the way it flows, especially with that wave coming in on the sleeve to me was a. Top like a top four Jersey immediately. Yeah, this is the other one that ride that must have the custom paint work going in. I liked that. Aye. I think it's. We're a pro league. I mean, I think high school, we can put a sticker on the helmet. I think I'm there. I mean, even like the dragons ones and the XFL. I mean, that was a stigma that. I always felt more part of the uniform, right. That. Felt more part of that. I like that the stripes are only in the pants. And does it go all the way up that you have the nice sleeve? I think that fits well. And I did not like this one when I saw earlier looking at it now, the way I think that the. Way fits really nicely in the shoulder. And then they continue down the Stripe. Like you said, down the down the pants, I think is nice. And the pants looked like a light blue, silver. So it's not that white. They're not it. W white to me. So I think that's what makes it a little bit different as well, because they could have took the easy route and went white. They kind of looks like. It's that light blue, silver, which, which is a lot more appeasing to me when I look at it, especially in that home Jersey, when they're wearing their blue jerseys. Yeah. Oh, there we go. All right. So then the number one must be the. No, not the gambler's the most speedy. Yes. Yeah. So extreme bias. I'm an east coast guy from New York originally, but you know, I, that got them into my top floor. But when I actually looked at the Jersey, Something I missed was the stars on top of the shoulder pads. And then the numbers. On on, on the shoulders. So for that for me. I loved it. I love the red color. I love. The number, then the way the numbers look right away, jerseys, and I love the all white. It reminds you of the Kansas city chiefs. Like I alluded to earlier when they chief stew, they're all white. So there's definitely. Definitely a, a fan on that. Generals logo, very simple, a throw back to obviously their old logo and. The sprinkling logos on very clean with the helmets. A lot to like here kind of, kind of gives me those Georgia vibes with the red socks red. Red and white. And I'm kind of glad they didn't go all red pants as well. I thought that could have been an easy cop-out, but they, you know, they just go with the red tops and to me, that's, that's a very nice clean look. Everything looks crisp on these shirts. Good Lord. It was hard to find the wagers easier while you were talking, but I found it cause I. I just wanted to pop up here before that. God, this is really good. I really like the, the pants. I really like it. It's it's clean, but has personality. I thought. B I thought originally where the live. Well those year ago, I thought originally it had the, I guess the replica has the logo on the sleeves. This has the numbers. The replica is don't match entirely. The shoulders. On top. The logo. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Okay. Yeah. That's that? That's what sold it for me. Like, as soon as I saw that, I'm like, you're going, number one, because no one else has that. You know, I had to double check. But it really doesn't show well on any of these phones. I had to, I went on the Twitter, like the Twitter videos. They show it off real nice. When they entered. When they introduce the uniforms because yeah, a couple of the day press photos, they have them like, you know, doing more of a stance. And I think for this. Yeah, you can see it on here on the one where he's doing the highest men or whatever. Yeah. I just, I still get the Trump connotation with the generals. I get the that's totally like a separate thing. And this is. It's been years ago. But I just, I have a feeling that like, anytime we see any, I moderate a rather than Facebook groups. Any time the generals are brought up, like everyone's talking about Trump and it's just like, you know, good, bad indifferent. But yeah. It is hard that you have such a legacy of one of these brands tied in for good or bad. Like, I mean, whatever you want to think and deal with. It is. It's polarizing in the way they, I don't think football should be. Yeah, and I definitely, I definitely do think about that. Like, In general when it, especially with the USL USFL brand. Overall, but. You know, if we could forgive people for other things, we can forgive. Football not, I'm not like advocating for or against, but it's football get over it. We're going to be okay. You know, like. Either like the Jersey or you're not. Those two things. Aren't synonymous. So. I don't know if you think I would like to believe that people. Aren't picking their jerseys. Do you. A political figure, but if you are. You know, Whether you're for or against, just know that this is the best Jersey, regardless of your politics. I wanted to get the other one note about the jerseys here, and then we'll get you off here really quick. We'll talk about the playoff stuff. I UFL. I use L news on Twitter. And then mark had the story later to talking about. The. Repin athletic of Berlin, Berlin, Wisconsin is going to make it and then re Reidel is going to make the helmets because I was looking, you can see the Oakley logo and the, is it Ridell or right. L. Yes. Yes. The. Yes. I used to work with a ride Dallas that throws me off. I think it's Ridell, but I anyway, so, you know, locally manufactured. That's good. That's good. You know, there's no like under Armour branding on the logo or on the uniforms or anything, it seems like it's their, it's their thing. Either way, you know, they look pretty good. The leagues that either there's two ways, this is going to go, the league is going to get better and they're going to adapt or their. Going to go into the land of misfit football leagues. So, you know, Either way we are blessed for 2022, we will have at least a spring football. League and whether it lasts for one year or 100 years. I'm excited for it. So. A couple of last things here. We'll, we'll get off. So we had the draft lottery. So more details are coming Friday. As you listen to this, I assume like, If they are going to stream it, they've said they've told me they aren't or there weren't plans that might have changed. Now. It seems like they're coming around a little bit about like listening to the fans, maybe a little bit, which is good, but they announced the draft lottery today was on the speak for yourself. They yeah. I never know how to pronounce their host names way better than Colin coward. Right. Did you watch any. So where you working? So I was watching a, I actually watched the skit when I did get off work. Marcellus Wiley and Emmanuel Ocho. Co-hosted part of the battler. When Chris Harrison got. And that's how I got not voting about if he got expelled off there. Cause he had. I know, I know him from that more than I do actually football. It's just like, So. I'm just curious to see how they, how they do this. I really liked the way the AAF did their little draft party. I. I thought it was, I'd always cool with the QBs and everything like that. As far as he was going to be the number one kick. Of of it. Statistically, I'm just going to go off Josh, Josh Johnson, because why not? You know, you know, why, why wouldn't he not get drafted into another football league statistically? Yeah. He has to hit this. Yeah, so they did this thing. They, they drew balls. It was very odd. More compelling than cower. They seemed a lot more invested in calling data. So the, it was like the lottery ball. So they went eight to one, I assume this is a snake draft. Right. And we'll go, they're going to announce all this, but that is a presumption. You can't just do a set. One to eight every time, but breakers are number eight, Mahler seven stallions. Gamblers or number five generals, four stars, bandits, and the Michigan Panthers, which kind of by the way, is one of the more popular teams online right now. It seems like a good that they get that first draft pick. I think Jeff Fisher has to do with that. I think he is the most notable person. In the coaching. In the coaching carousel or would a. Excuse me in a coaching roster. But regardless, you know, Michigan kind of that factory of sadness now that you know, Cleveland's got a couple of championships and. So hopefully you don't, the people of Michigan can get a championship. You know, some good ticks. And figure it out, you know? Yeah. Especially with Stafford winning a super bowl. Like last week. And then watching the photographer fall off of. It's doable platform. That was insane. That was. I mean, that is not a good look for his dad for them all. And other things like that is they're paying the hospital the best right now. That is a horrendous look. I've watched that video about 20 times and he's just like, yeah. It turns around and walks away and you'd see that girl drop. Yeah. So this is happening Tuesday. Like I I'm still being asked today. Like, do you think it's going to be on peacock on Jake, Henry, whatever. It is such a production to put something on TV of any kind. I mean, if they do a zoom, I don't think they're going to do a zoom. You know, it'd be on YouTube or whatever, but like to put anything on peacock or any sort of like streaming platform with all of it's not YouTube. It's such a, it's such a feat. I just don't. I mean, you got like a TD and a director and a producer on like graphics. Like you're not, I mean, the XFL one was a zoom cam for like eight hours. I just think it's going to be too long. I don't think they think it's. You compelling enough? I think that they feel like today. I think they're going to look at today and go, we gained 5,000 followers tweeting these uniform things, Fox sports retweeted, that NBC retweeted that like, why on earth do we need to stream our draft? We're just going to do the same thing. I mean, I would like, and this is, and I don't know how legal any of this is, but I would like for them to tell the first eight players that got drafted. Tell them, Hey, you're getting drafted by the USFL. Have like them be on a zoom or something like that. And then from there, like, You know, Josh Johnson, Jordan TAMU. They don't know where they're getting drafted. But. You know that, that way. And like record that, then you can post that. The stream of a, you can have that as a great little clip. I agree. Look. That's a good little, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, If the USFL sees us and they want to throw me. You know, a couple of dollars. I'll water. My bank accounts that you guys, but I think that's the most like the fairest thing to do without. Kind of going all out, like the AAF da. Cause it's like, Hey man, maybe if you didn't do that, we would've had an extra week or two a football that you could've financed you though. Like. I don't think Matt Sims really wanted to go to. You know, Carolina and. You know, wait around for all those hours. Find out he wasn't getting drafted by the legends or whatever team members on. Draft pick in the us. I think it was Dan Marino. I just fell into football like last year. I did not know that at all. Yeah. Last thing we're going to get out here. So then they have the big shake up the other day. They came out, they announced. USFL, we're playing all the games in Birmingham, except we're only playing the regular season in Birmingham. We're not doing the playoffs. We're not doing the championship game. We were just odd. So this had been reported. I. I just read this in the articles that Roy S. Johnson and everyone else had posted that there. They had thought that maybe there will be some conflicts with the world games getting set up in time to kick off right after. I think that they had thought maybe originally they could do some of the games that Legion field I was talking with. Roy offline, Roy thinks is just way too big of a stadium. It holds like 70,000. And try to show a championship game there, maybe with that many people. Right. Maybe not. Wouldn't look the best. So they are doing it in Canton, at Tom Benson state. Hall of fame stadium, where they do that, you know, the hall of fame game. I don't know how the logistics are going to work with them, shipping players up there. That seems like a pain in the middle of, you know, You get finished the regular season and then you got to kind of ship up. Move in the middle of the week and practices, you know, it's not like here. Yeah. Maybe like in the regular season, right. You're used to like going out of town for the weekend, but here you've been living in Birmingham for a month or two months, and then you're moving out. What do you think about them playing at Canton at the Tom Benson hall of fame stadium? So I do like it because it does bring me. And that fell into it. A little bit and any time you have big brother helping you out, it's never a bad booth. As far as logistically with the hotels. Yes, it will be a hassle, but on the bright side, I'm assuming it's going to be four teams that make the playoffs most likely, I'm hoping they're not doing a 16 and then a two week by two team by. But regardless, they'll make a Fort teams will make the playoffs. And then, you know, it's really only two weeks. You know, you'll do your sampling. Your semi and then your, and then your playoff game. And if you do it right, you're honestly. We need to house these players in Ohio for eight days. If they practice all day in Birmingham, show up. The Ohio. Play the game. And then there. Playing a game seven days later. So. Yeah, it says who? Yeah. You're you're correct. The final they'll begin on June 25th at the top two teams, if we division. Yeah. I would've thought they would've done a two week playoffs. That's I guess a little disappointed. So you have the semi-finals and then the, and then the finals, they haven't announced the championship game title yet, which I wished that they would, I, I I've been asked if the mega bowl lineage of the spring league. I don't, I don't think so. I mean with, you know, Mr. Woods, obviously having ties, you never know it's whatever. It's his world. We're all just living in it. But yeah. I mean, and even. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm a fan either way. Like I said, I'm excited. We're blessed. We really are the, have another league of football coming up and, you know, spring lake, you can say all you want about it, but in the end, They, they gave us football during COVID they've given us showcases. They had, they were on TV last year. You know, my man, Ryan will, you know, Is. On an NFL team right now and was on. And this whole roster and active roster. So they're producing good talent. From, you know, The unknown. So. You can say all you want about the spring league, all that goofy stuff, but. In my mind, they are pretty successful. So. I think it's okay. I'm coming around. I was a little more bland on the jerseys today. I got a, like I said, I got a lot of flack online, but now that I'm looking at them, and then again, if you don't like the ranking, the yellow pat, Pat's on Twitter. QB. Yeah. You'd be NFL seven. What is it? NFL QB talk, NFL, QB talk. We got. Pat good for showing today. I appreciate the article. Check it out. So we'll be good. I appreciate it. Coming out as well. Perfect. All right, let me hit record here. All right. Well, my wife will be thrilled for one today, along with a lot of our listeners, we have one Winnipeg's on, on the show. Brandon Alexander, how are you doing? I'm doing wonderful. How are you doing? We're good. This is good. We're working our way through the teams that, you know, we're, we're close with BC. Cause you know, that's, that's kinda my, my team, but my wife's team is Winnipeg. We were in Hamilton for you guys to, you know, to Pete this year for the grey cup. What's it been like the last couple months since, since your big victory up there. Is is this. Down a little bit now. You know, Basically, you know, starting to get ready for the new upcoming season and everything, but for the past, you know, couple of months since that day, it's just been, it's been love. Like it's just, you know, you could feel that atmosphere, you could feel. You know, the city is just. Happy, you know, everything is, is, is going well. So, you know, since that day has been spent, pretty good. It's been pretty good going in. You know, seeing guys and people who still. You know, I want to pay being able to hang around those guys and things. So, yeah. You it's, you're interesting because you really only know success in the CFL, right? When you come in, you. Winnipeg when the, when again, Any fear or trepidations going into this year? Like, I mean, it's like a threepeater bus, right? Well, every year it has their own challenges. You. You know, we came in, well, I came in in 2017. And we've been building since their 2017 got bounced out of the first. Plea offers is Edmonton. You know, and then the next year we go actually into the second round of the playoffs and ended up getting bounced out by Calgary. You know, and then in 2019, we actually went all the way through 2021. We're all the way through. So to be honest with you, you know, this year, You know, any, any backtrack is, you know, I got to go all the way through every year's going all the way through, but this year definitely presents a lot of new challenges, you know, and I don't ever look at it as like a. To Pete or three-peat or things like that, because in order for that to happen, You have to have like the same gene. You know, and especially in football, That's a rare case. You know, there are guys on here that, that have to PD or wants to go for three P, but as far as the collective groups, a new group, new team, a new goal, new atmosphere, same goals. Give me same goal. New atmosphere and new motives. Getting all the got. Yeah. Getting as many of the, you know, returning players back again. Right. You know, people want to play a Winnipeg, right. I mean, not only because you win, but because you know, we've heard so much about the culture, right. That's there, you know, From the top down, right from the ownership down. What is it like, you know, being a part of that club and that atmosphere with those guys. I feel fortunate. You know, I feel fortunate to be a part of this, you know? I'm thankful. I'm blessed to be a part of it because I mean, it starts from the top. You know, it starts from the GM's to the owner, everything like that. And then they have to. You know, allow our coach to be our coaches. You know, and with them doing that. Especially with cultural Shea. And he allows the locker room to be the locker room. You know, we have a lot of good vets. That come in and, you know, basically you just kind of mandate the team, you know, and, you know, move from there. So when you have good best are able to mandate a team and things and. Things that have been set and built what they built. As is on the ground, you know, it's the layout, this is the foundation. Everything on top is just added pieces over the years, but that, that layout that's. That's something that's been here before I got here. So just building on top of that, you know, everybody plays his game to win championships, but in order to do that, you know, each and every year is going to be. You know, something difficult that you got to overcome. So I'm excited for this year. It's just crazy how windy pig has created itself. It's sessions, destination that players want to be in. Right. I mean, even players, you know, take less money to go back just because they know, you know, you're going to be taken care of. Right. You're going to make a long run. You'll hopefully win, but it just speaks to, I just can't say enough about everyone involved with that and how hard they've worked to kind of create that over the last couple of years. Well, we're going to be honest here. You. You know, like compared to a lot of other teams, you know, Winnipeg is not really a big market. You know, You know, and especially like city-wise, if you just thinking about just the city wise, you would think about like places like BC, Montreal, Toronto, things like that. You know, a big market, be money coming in and be able to. You know, all those things, but with Winnipeg, one thing about it. You know, it might not be that, but I'll take the friends over anything. You know, I'll take the support over anything. You know, this, this, these guys, especially before 19 has been down with Winnipeg forever. No. It was 29 years before they even seen another gray cup. You know, you can't replace that. You know, you can't replace that with new revenue. You can't replace that with a better city. You can't replace that with anything else. So, you know, besides that, like this. That's the main thing just to this. The city itself with the people that belong here. Being able to push that in. Yeah. No, I it's something I think that gets lost sometimes. Right? I mean, there's a lot of talk about, you know, players getting signed, they move in and all these things, you know, We had Jake Mayer on Calgary a couple of weeks ago. And he says like, yeah, I just, I like living in Calgary. I, I know the city, the people, you know, I I'm comfortable here. And I think that that just gets taken for granted sometimes. Right? Like we like the fan base. I like, I know where everything is here. I'm able to get to the safe. It's something you know, is underwritten sometimes how important that is. No, this is very important. You know, you want to be in a place where you feel comfortable, you feel wanted, you feel like you're around family. You know, a lot of us are coming from. You know, the states and, and coming up here and something, this is a very new environment. You know, you gotta be around people who actually care. And that's kind of what I was alluding to here in Winnipeg here in Winnipeg. You know, again, city-wise, if you're trying to match, you know, things to do or whatever the case may be, it might not match up to Vancouver. It might not match up toward Toronto. It might not match up to those, but once again, the fans are just on like, On worldly, different, you know, The feeling the, the atmosphere, you know, when you go to the games, is it just different, you know, and this. Is, this is bigger than just having a good city is bigger than all those things is. It has everything to do with how much respect, how much time that they see we put in, in each and every year. And they're they're right along with us. I'm always curious when it comes to like free agency ride and teams making moves, obviously, you know, You're back with the Winnipeg. And then like when you see someone come in or all, Hey, we got, you know, this guy sounded bad. I mean, You got to get excited, right? You gotta be texting people and like, oh, hell yeah. I mean, w what is that like living through that as a player, you know, being happy where you're at and seeing everyone else come back to your team. I mean, it is, it says a lot. It says a lot about the organizations. There's a lot about the coaches, but it also says a lot about the players in that locker room as well. And what I mean is that, you know, since my time in football, I've been blessed from high school all the way until my professional years, I've been blessed with a lot of good vets in our locker room. You know, and the vet set the tone of how the team is going to be. You know, and as I seen it since I've been here 2017, A lot of people want to come back, you know? It's one of the coldest places in the world here, you know, it's. Again, You know, city-wise like looking at other places. It might not be much to do here. Things like that. Why do people want to come back is because of those vessels, because of the organizations, because of what was built and how was going right now. And when they get in his locker room, they feel the love. And it's not just from us. It's just from the city. They feel like they are wanted, they feel like they want to be here. You know, and the, the organization wants to keep them. That's so important. You know, and I believe that's, that's the reason why it's just the best here is just. They're great. Is there a doubt in anyone's mind in that locker room right now that you guys are going back and you'll be in Saskatchewan here in November. Was it November 20th? Well, no. It's no doubt that we will. Plea how we play every single day. You know, I don't want to look too far ahead and November, but what I will say is, again, each and every year has their own challenges. When, when you first walk in its account. You know, We have our, our season back this year. So we'll start earlier and may instead of July. You know, so. When you step in, you know, Like the feeling like this could be it or this, this is going to be some rough bumps. And either side, you're going to have those road bumps, but you can tell if you can build off of something the very first day, you know, and. Yeah, we're, we're definitely going to be ready at the end of the day. We still got a lot of core pieces, a lot of core guys here, and we still have, you know, guys who been there before. You know, and everybody is ready to go. So as far as the November thing, I will say this. Each and every week, we're going to make sure that we are on our toes, on our PS and QS to make sure that we're able to at least give us a chance to make that play off. Right. 'Cause that's the thing, you know, I mean, winning, he, you don't want to get complacent. You got to keep building and keep being, you know, it's hard to stay hungry when you're, when you're the top dog, you know? I'm fascinated to see what the other team is doing this year to kind of counteract the Winnipeg of it. Just because it's been such a thing for the last two seasons, you know, Well, if you want to take 1919, there was a little bit different story. You know, we had a lot of rough patches in between. We caught fire towards the mid season and ended up, you know, carried in on it to the playoffs. And then you see 2021. Pretty much, we were, you know, Day in and day out, week in, week out was just, you know, winning games and things. So those are two totally, completely different seasons, you know, and one doesn't have any bearings on the other. You know, so this year coming up, it's going to be the same thing. You know, it's going to have those last two seasons. It has no bearings on what happens this year. You know, I think the only thing that it does have is it's even more of a target on our back now. You know, and again, I don't look at it as a three P or anything like that, but everybody knows what happened the season before, and they're ready to ramp it up. So. We're going to have to be ready to wrap it up. Before I let you go. I want to talk about, you know, what you do, not on the field, right? We were talking about your EAP before you came on, but I want to hear. Cause right. The fans love you guys, right? CFL fans love the players. They want, you know, they want to know all that stuff. And so talk to me about the music thing and then kind of what you're doing now, before, you know, February here, before we get into the season. Well music. Jot my album August. Of last year. Excuse me, not my elbow, my AP. And it was six hours on it and it was my first time. Putting out. Anything, you know, and. I was finally able to get that. It's kind of, it had been weighing on me for a while because, you know, I was kinda nervous about putting things on and stuff, but when I put it out, it was kind of like a relief. You know, and I started actually. Like diving into it in 2019, you know? And. I actually have another. Excuse me, EPE coming out. Coming soon, the next couple of weeks, you know, and this will be my second one. So I came out with a EAP called two-sided. And it's on. Modify apple music, YouTube, anywhere you want to go check it out. And yeah, man, I'm just, I was excited about it and, you know, Is going, you know, A way for me to express myself. You know how I w how I want to, and, you know, go from there. So, you know, and then in February, I've been, I've been here for, I still been here and I haven't been back home yet. And. The weather is a different, it's actually warmer. You know now than it has been, you know, in the past couple of weeks. So, you know, I've been. It's kind of crazy that I'm saying, man, I'm from Florida. Yeah. I was going to say it's a little bit different weather than within Orlando. I was going to say, I mean, You know, you get some of these guys in, okay. I'm. Whatever, you know, I'm from Seattle. I go to BC. But, I mean, you know, it's quite the difference. I'm literally. Coming from extreme eat. To extreme cold. It just don't even make it is this, but I, I enjoyed in it to be honest with you anywhere I go, it allows me to be a little bit more creative. You know, I think I've made a lot more songs up here as well. You. You know, just seeing a different atmosphere. I actually love the snow and it looks like, like, you can feel that as winter, you could feel that it's Christmas, you could feel that it's new. Year's you know, so I'm just. I'm I'm happy, man. I'm happy. I'm excited. To be, to be around the guys. I'm excited to have this season come up. I'm excited for my new EAP coming out. I'm excited for a lot of different things and yeah. Well, your excitement, I mean, radiates through, right? I mean, it really does. And, and I think that this is such an exciting time for the CFL and all the free agency signings. You know, everyone. It seems like people are getting paid and teams are building it. You know, the whole, everything last year was such a crazy, you know, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how. I'm saying it was last year, but it just seems like a time of excitement. You're, you know, I'm glad we could get some Winnipeg people on here and we'll be tracking you guys throughout the season. So. Oh, that's good. Sounds good. I appreciate you having me in again, though. Go check out that EAP. And. Like I said, I got a lot more common. I should be. I'm going to have a lot of projects come out, especially this year, you know? And I'm just going to let it go. You know, I've have over 60, 70 songs that are not released, you know, so yeah. I'm pretty excited. I'm pretty excited about that. And I'm pretty, pretty excited to see our guys again, we were like, If I'm not mistaken, I did a radio show. And what were 96, 95 days away now from, from camp. If you think about that, it's really not that far off. So, you know, I'm, I'm so excited, man, and yeah, I appreciate you having me. Awesome. Well, yeah. Like I say, anytime, I think players. Being able to express themselves like. Ah, you know, not on the field or I'd be having creative projects, anything else? That's how I always ask about it. Cause it's like, you got to have that release and you gotta have that way to be creative and kind of show your personality to the fan. So I think it's okay. Yeah, there's a couple of guys up here that, that, that does do that. You know, I'm. I'm a fan of a Don Jackson. You know, the running back for Hamilton, you know, I'm a fan of the hammer, nada. Remember when he's playing for Calgary and he was coming out with. His songs. He got two albums out now. You know, I believe in. You know, I think he's a very, very, very talented artists, you know? So I like to see him and doing his thing as well. While he's up here, you know, and I know Darren Carter was touching a little bit of that. You know, a while ago. And also toggle toggle. Also, there's a lot of wrapping as well. So, you know, I'm. I get my, you know, my wheel and things like when I see everybody else. You know, starting to do that as well. And then it gets me motivated to do what I do. And I got a lot of friends back home who do play or used to play ball, but now they do wrapping things and they're doing the same thing. So, Well, I like, I had built my whole day around this and then when it canceled yesterday, I was like, I was like, damn it. I got it. I'm a wedding videographer. So I got to load into our convention this afternoon for, we have a big show this weekend. And so I had like scheduled everything around. It's nice that you guys are able to do that. We're not allowed to. Do weddings and stuff up here. Yes. Our. Our Vancouver Amos. Yeah, it's, it's weird. Like I was at a wedding thing on Tuesday and there's like 150 people in the room. I'm like, this is. We are. We're not even God. We were up to, yeah, we're just starting, I think starting Saturday, we're allowed to have you. Stuff like that. Start again. So, oh yeah. Which is, is confusing to people who are getting married because the Canucks. The lions. Can have fun. This is your half capacity yet. A wedding. Can't even start off, which, you know, Yeah. Y. Yeah, I think they're dropping our mask mandate for a lot of stuff here coming up soon. Yeah. Well, I am. Well, I'm tremendously excited today. We have Neo McEvoy coming on the code general manager and director of football operations for America's team, with the BC lions. How are you doing today? Well, yeah, thanks for having me on this is exciting. I'm glad that we can finally connect. It's good that we can connect on the podcast. I mean, this one I asked, has there ever been a more exciting time to be involved with the BC lions and kind of the last. You know, Omar Delmon coming in it all the big moves everything this year. It feels exciting. Yeah. Do you know what. It is exciting. It's exciting to be having. Stabilization with that, the ownership level, but, you know, To that. It's exciting. In professional football. Because there's all these new leads coming up. There's obviously the Canadian football league has been around for a long time, the national football league, but I'm excited as you know, a person who has worked in professional football since the. Mid nineties, that opportunities for a lot of other players and, and staff members to, to, to join in and. You know, Greek this great game. And then. Give more. You know, excitement for the fans across north America. It's good. And you have been with the lions, I mean, for a long time, right? I mean, I was reading through, I mean, What is it been like spending it? I. I mean a good portion of your professional career, right involved in this organization and this league. Yeah. I've been with the Alliance since basically 1996. So a man I've worked in all sorts of different capacities from tickets to management, to where I'm at today. So. Hey, professional football is, is a rollercoaster and a. It always has been a rollercoaster up in Canada and probably always will be, but you know, we're just going to put our feet to the ground and do the best we can to keep on producing a good. Good football teams, winning football and exciting football. It seems, you know, from an outside fan here, watching this and podcasting about it, it seems like a command came down from on high this year. Right? Like we want to make some big moves. Right? Michael Riley, you know, retiring. We have Nathan Rourke here at. Kind of a sweetheart, right? Rookie deal. We're going to make some moves. What was the thought process like for kind of assembling and going into a CFL free agency and, and the resigning before that? Yeah, good question. We had last year, we had a young football team and at the beginning of the year, we really liked where we were at. And then we sort of just hit a wall halfway through the year. And I think that's what happens when you have young guys that aren't used to playing the full 14 games. Usually it's 18 games. So this year we just felt when we started talking more free to, so we've got to compliment the group that we already have. We like the group we have. We like the young guys we have now we're going to have to compliment those guys. And I think. Through free agency. We were able to do that. With Michael retiring. One of the things that we, we had confidence in is that. Nathan being here for the year. Michael giving us the. The go head saying, Hey, Nathan's the guy he's, he's, he's making this decision easier for him because Nathan was so. Professional throughout the 2021 season. Prepared like you was going to be the starter and that takes a, a certain athlete and a certain mindset to be able to do that. And so at the end of the day, when Michael felt that leaving this team in good hands with Nathan. Would, you know, we'd be best for him and best for the club. We were all confident and happy to, to move forward and. Free agency. I think we, we. We liked a lot of what we liked. All the guys we brought in, they're really going to help where we were at. We, we brought in the players that we needed that were, we felt we were deficient 10. So I'm excited about 20, 22 in kicking off. So to see exactly what we have. It's something about Nathan, you, he was on the show last week, just a confidence, right? You know, young guy, lot of confidence, a lot of skill. I mean, Are there intangibles there, right? That you can't, you know, obviously you can't teach. It just seems like he really has the whole package here coming in at such a young age. Yeah, to be quite honest. This was the first time ever that not only all that, he's a great young man. He's he throws like, if you're an outsider coming in, if you came to our, our training camp last year and you saw the quarterback from Ohio, everyone says always a Canadian. You wouldn't have known he's Canadian. You would just know, Hey, he's real. It looks like a really good quarterback that played at the university of Iowa. That's it? And so those intangibles and the fact that he was able to throughout the year work well with Michael. And work well within the organization as the number two guy, that's not an easy position to be in. And this is the first time I've been with the team. Since, like I said, the 1996 season that we've had a quarterback that actually lives here. Not only is he Canadian, he lives in the Vancouver market. He is. Working with. You know, our community relations group, all the things that you want. In a leader. He is. And so I'm just excited about the future with him because he ticks all the boxes and, you know, At the end of the day, professional football is about wins and losses and going on the field and playing, and we understand all that, but so far those intangibles that he has the should, should. You know, include winning because he has all the tools to do it. Confidence as well, bringing them Michael O'Connor right. I mean, it's cool that we have another Canadian, you know, it's the first time. You know, Jim Mullen is. Happy to point out. Yeah. This is like the first time in a million years. That there's been a two, but I talk about that in the complimenting, in the quarterback room with Michael as well. Yeah. And again, we had Michael O'Connor as a view sport player at our training camp for three years in a row. And. If you came to our training camp. At those times you would have said, Hey, look at that quarterback. There he's looks like a really good player. Regardless of his background, the girls, where we said we could have studies from Penn state. Would that change? The mindset of people outside that, that, you know, he's. You know, just because he went to a UBC, which is a good football school and itself. Michael's going to bring some experience that Nathan might have. Nathan's going to help Mike load. And having two Canadian quarterbacks. If, if one of them goes down fits the bill with the not changing your ratio, as you know what the Canadian football league, the ratio is a big thing. So. When someone goes down, you don't want to change too many pieces in. Having those guys on and it's going to be a competition. We're going to bring more quarterbacks in. We're saying Nathan's the guy where we like Michael as number two, but Hey, the, the, the two other guys or three other guys we bring in, if they're better and they're gonna help us win football games, guess what? Those would be. The guys that are that'll lead us into the future. Excited as well, obviously, you know, fan favorite lucky. The Whitehead returnee lucky was on our show right after he got signed. Brian Brendan was to let me really. Giving, you know, whoever the quarterback is incredible. You know, weapons and tools to work with on the field. I mean, thoughts behind keeping either the receiving core. Yeah. And not only that, the core of the football team, like a lucky Whitehead and we brought him in last year was a first year guy for us. And he was just such a dynamic personality on and off the field. And obviously his, his on-field place speaks for itself, but off the field, just a great young man in the community, working well with a lot of people. And so keeping all that core group for a young quarterback, we felt was going to be a key for him and a key for our football team. And so I'm excited about those guys and I'm also excited about, you know, The Jovanka toys. The. We're also going to bring in. A bunch of young guys that are going to compete for those spots as well. So we have a good group of receivers, Dominic Grimes, a great receiver that, you know, we'll, we'll just add to the depth that we already have. So at the end of the day, unfortunately there's only one football. Now Nathan's going to have to decide who gets it. Yeah. I mean, it really is like this wealth of riches, right. Right. You know, going in here now. You know, obviously you're sitting. You know, CFL free agency, everything. If you had to take off the orange hat. Just look across other teams making moves. Anyone else you were kind of surprised with or curious about teams making moves across the country? Yeah, I'm not really. I mean, I, at the end of the day, I can only concentrate on what our team's doing. I don't. You know, other teams, I don't know what they're doing until. So we played them to be quite honest. Obviously I see the transactions, but. Yeah. I mean, it's tough to evaluate what other teams do because you're not in the room. You don't know exactly what their needs are. You know, Football teams like life, where we have personalities, we have stuff going on within our organization that people outside the organization just don't know about. And every organization is like that. So they have to make moves. That's going to best. Compliment the team going forward. Were you surprised with, I guess, the competitiveness with getting some of the receivers, right? Like I know that it was reported. The ABC was trying to get Kenny Lawler, you know, a lot of these big contracts, like. I had just how I guess player friendly, maybe the free agency was this year. At the end of the day, good players get paid and that's, you know, guys like Kenny and guys like lucky and then Jovanka toys and, and all those guys, you know, they, they demand, you know, a good negotiation process. And so we. We started the free agency week talking to a bunch of those guys, and we felt that. We should get our core group of, of receivers. Back together. And then if we're able to compliment them with some high fries, Price for agencies. We. We could, but we were happy with the group we had before anyone else was brought in. And it just turns out that. When we missed out on a couple of guys, we were able to put that money elsewhere to help us in other direct and other positions. So we're, we're excited and happy. And how free agency worked out for us. You talked about, you know, kind of hitting the wall. Yay. Some of the young guys, middle of last season. Yeah, for the fan base out there, that's excited to meet. What would you say for them kind of looking forward into this year? The optimism. Yeah, I think, you know, our group is just a year older. As I tell my staff all the time. Don't, don't, don't look at what the player did last year, because I was his first year. He's going to come to training camp a much better player. So all those young guys we had last year. Are going to come to training camp, knowing what's going on. All we had, we had guys who've never been to Canada before. Never, never been to a professional stadium before. And, you know, you roll into. Saskatchewan and 37,000 screaming football fans hating you guess what? That's a, that's a, that's an issue for a lot of these guys. And so it took us a little bit of time to gel and then we did gel. And then, like I said, I think we hit the wall. Plain Saskatchewan again at home. We lost the game was zero seconds on the clock when they scored in. If we would have won that football game, who knows what would have happened. So. You know, all the guys that we had last year, coming back are going to be in their second year. And those guys are just going to be that much better. And I'm expecting this team to be just that much better because of the positions we added. Yeah, he really didn't seem like that was attorney appointed. At the season, I can remember going home and watching that game. And it was like just absolutely heartbreaking. And then there was like the loss of Calgary in there. I mean, we didn't need to recount all that, but there was, it kind of got a little achy there it's worth. Yeah. Like it, football is such a, you know, an energy level game. And if you lose the energy was much like, you know, a boxing match or an MMA fight. If you lose the energy it's over and we. You lost the energy for a second, they took the momentum and then we were never able to get the momentum back the rest of the year. And that's unfortunately the way pro football is. And that's why. It's one of the best sports there is. Obviously last year off season had a lot of other things going on. And I mean, obviously we're still in the pandemic, but you know, XFL related talks and delayed stars and stuff. How nice is it to be able to just as normal as we can in these times. Right. Kind of go about business as normal and, and finding and practicing. Yeah. Not only, yeah, exactly. Even trading cab. I'm just looking over the training camp schedule this morning and seeing all the stuff that we had to go through last year with protocols and, and COVID, and. You know, it is amazing that we actually got the season going and then was able to finish when we did. Because then, you know, early December it looks like things. Got a little tough for all those other leagues as well. So it's exciting to get back to just regular football and not having to do with all the, hopefully not having to do with all the pandemic stuff that we've had to dealt with the last year or so. I'm excited about. You know, to kick off and get going here. Last question for me, is there a. Directive kind of motto theme we're working with this year. I mean, what is, what is your word to the players and staff? And everybody mean whether we really trying to go towards this year. Well, as our organization, we need to take the next step. And the next step is to win more football games. And, you know, we, we believe we have the crew to do it. We have a, a great group of guys. They gel well together. And so that's the first step into building a football team and having them gel. But at the end of the day, we got to win games that you know, that we have to win, you know, When you, when you play a BC place, In the mid, you know, late, late, early, early two thousands, mid two thousands, you came to BC plays, you weren't winning. And we have to get that mentality back. And so the last few years we've been a better road team. And I think if we just continue being a good road team and protect our house and be a good team at home. Then things will play out and we'll be a better football team for. Well, Neil, I really appreciate your time. And coming on and chatting a little BC lions, always excited. You know, it seems like every couple of weeks here we get BC people on. So I really appreciate that. And I mean, obviously best of luck moving forward. I. We have all of America. I told Nathan last week you have America's hopes and dreams on your Did I make any noises there with my score? I'm not getting that. I'm not going to beat you up, but okay. They always do that. I don't know why they put it or like it needs to be on the outside. Cause it's on my things. Yeah, maybe I should switch it around here. But over my year. Maybe that would help. Now it's going to be. So worse, better. Cause now you're further away from the mic. Oh, am I okay? Now now it's. And go put on a sweatshirt or a Jersey. I don't own any rider jerseys. I don't cheer for them. I'll do the best I can. And I'll try not to sway. Yeah, that's good. My clerical collar is getting in our way. That's what it is. Sorry, there might be a way Kentucky. It here. Oh, that's good. Remember, I'm a print guy, right? I'm not. Well, who is it? I had on that Simon to leak us or whatever. And he was like, so blown out and you can, you're like, well, Well, you can certainly tell the radio guys versus the video. Yep. We're a different breed. Well, we have my good friend now, better friend after hanging out at the grey cup. Darryl Davis, Canadian football hall of fame reporter on the show. How are you doing, sir? Great Reed. Good to see you. And yeah, it's been a few months. Hasn't it. Since we closed down a couple of hospitality suites, a great cop in Hamilton. Causing now, and you know, and it's good now I felt like this is a good catch. All kind of the CFL news week. What's going on. I guess, well, we just, we were talking off camera, but the big news, Derek Taylor stepping down, I mean, any, any recorded thoughts on that? I mean, obviously that if you were to go move over to Winnipeg or whatever else, any, any thoughts on that? That seems to be the scuttle butt a little bit. I haven't talked to DT since he left that Derek's been here three years. I believe working as a, the play-by-play guy for the rough riders, which is a prestigious job. When you think about it, there's only nine in Canada. So. It's quite a top flight job. And he had set things up pretty well with his family. They were both working together at different stations in Regina, different media outlets. And Derek did a good job. Why he's leaving. Hasn't been revealed, but as we said, the scuttlebutt coming out of Winnipeg is hall of fame broadcaster. Bob Irving is what? 47, 48 years of being the. The Winnipeg blue bombers play by play guy might be pretty neat jobs or somebody like Derek Taylor, who has worked in Winnipeg before. Obviously you. You know, he's pretty well known across the country. My, my P moved there. I, I, I'm going to ask them that as soon as I can, as soon as I get a chance to, but that would be a good gig for Derek because he would only have to do play by play and maybe once, once a week or so do an open line show. He does a lot of open line shows at the, his gig and Regina and see. [Unknown] but he's in charge of the open line show every every day. That cuts into his time. And we both know what a stats fanatic he is. So not being able to do those statistics probably gets into them and. You know, when it takes a bigger market to Regina is the smallest market in the Gideon and football league. So if you start here and move your way up, you're making more money everywhere you go. That's exciting. I was also kind of looking down here. Exciting of. Ah, the tiny Walter hiring in, in BC, right. Getting the female coach involved with that and the, any, any thoughts on that and kind of, you know, Continuing to kind of grow that whole aspect of the cane football league. It's about time, right? You. The NFL is set that set that bar a little bit before the CFL and quite often the CFL sets bars first, but good for the CFL for trying to catch up. There are women's football leagues across the country. And a lot of these good players are, are coaching they're coaching high school teams. A lot of them across the country. Helping out Amanda ruler from Regina is helping coach. Strength and conditioning coach, I think of McMaster. So they, you know, they're getting on board a little bit. It's going to take awhile because football hasn't traditionally been a, a sport where a lot of women have played, but because there are more opportunities they're learning the game. Physically there are. You know, We gotta be fair on that one. It there, they're going to have trouble keeping up physically with man at the moment. You know, there, there are some female kickers who have tried pros in college, the college route, but physically they're probably not capable of playing maybe, maybe someday, but right now, not capable of playing in the Canadian football league. And, but they certainly are capable of learning the game and coaching it. And. Passing on their knowledge to football players across the country. In lots of different levels from high school, right up to a college. And now the pros good for the BC lions to get that start. Yeah, I. I mean, anytime you going to do that and you know, it's good for BC. I mean, we're BBC fans. All right. I forgot. Yeah, like the America's team, right. Yeah. Hey, I wait a minute. And I also saw you listened to Saskatchewan Roughriders as your least favorite team. So, so I just, maybe I should blast this a little bit out on Twitter so I can get you to. To try to redeem yourselves among the rider fans. For me, it doesn't matter. I don't see. Or for anybody, I don't cheer against anybody, but I know that you'll cause quite an uproar around this province. I read, I lost. I did actually. It's a couple of followers about that. Cause I, it wasn't my least favorite. It was teams that are closest to my heart. Okay. And so, you know, like BC, we work together a lot, right? Like, Not baker on this very show. You're going to be on the Omak. The boys on this show. Signings. You know, Alex we've worked, you know, we've had the odd, we have James Walden Jr. On, you know, that was helpful. There. So we just kind of going down the way we've never had anyone on a Cody for Gerardo, the li. The quarterback or this Saskatchewan Roughriders has blocked us on Twitter. I know that. But, I mean, there's, you know, there's many factors that go into it. Who is my least favorite team. Okay. You better be able to explain that? Cause I'm sure you're going to get a cost with it by people who are jumping on and participating with you on social media. They don't let things like that go lightly and Saskatchewan, you know that pretty well already. Don't yet. I do I do well. I will have guns blazing when we come up in November. We got the last Airbnb. That was a V I'm going to try to get into the reporter's suite, but then I have, we have. You know, who knows the world. I got the last Airbnb in Regina that weekend. It's not a real big place. So I think there are only two. Yeah. And by the way, we'll set aside a spot for you. We still have hotels set aside for the football reporters at Canada. We're going to charge you your membership fees of $40, and then you'll be able to get a reservation and a luxurious downtown Regina hotel. That would be great too. We would take that we, yeah, we need to have a space. So I, I like to plan ahead and we can refund it, but if we can get into that suite, that would be, that would be ideal. You got it. And free beer too. That goes with the territory, right? It doesn't hurt. I want to know your thoughts on, you know, the Victor queen of at all right, coming into Edmonton, where, you know, making Edmonton you rebuilding that, but this, this double header with the Alberta golden bears, right. Kind of doing this partnership, it seems like a big deal. Right. Kind of getting some free publicity that way. Thoughts on that. Well, the university of Alberta golden bears. I don't think they've played a Commonwealth stadium for like 30 years, 1994, I think was the last time they were there. It's this beautiful, big. Stadium that, you know, in Alberta, the university team has its own. Stadium on the other side of town. So cross-marketing is a great idea. You know, we talk about the CFL and how it's important for it to support grassroots football, the secret to Canadian. The best CFL teams are the ones with the best Canadian. So you have to have Canadian players on it. How do you do that while you make sure that you promote Canadian football, university football, high school football, and most of these teams do, but they do. There is obviously a separation quite often. You know, if this discussion Roughriders are at home on a Sunday, Then they try not to have the university of Regina Rams playing at the same time. But why not just generate. And cross-pollinate a little bit. The football fan. So you get to see things. If I, if I'm going to a. A Ram game on a Saturday. I might not be so thrilled about going to a rider game on a Sunday, but if they're back to back, then I might say, you know why I'm here anyway. Let's just stay and enjoy it. And I think that that's. This is a great plan by, by. The Evanston Alex there. They're going to be on the marketing, cutting edge for the CFL in the next little while. I'm loving the new president with. The little videos with his mother. Yes. Some great things. Twitter that he's trying new things, making you feel like you're attached to the Dean and that's important in the CFL. So why D why don't the Rams do it? Rob Dan stolen my former colleague at the regional leader posted, well, why not have the junior teams? Like there's a junior team in Saskatoon. The city about 150 miles from Regina and, and the Saskatoon hilltops, legendary when the national championship almost year after year, not last year, but frequently winning it. And the per the. The Prairie thunder and Regina junior team. So why not have them play like an early afternoon game and then have the university of Saskatchewan Huskies play the university of Regina Rams. And the mid-afternoon game and then have the unit. Regina. Or this Saskatchewan Roughriders play somebody like the Winnipeg blue bombers afterwards, a triple header. You never used to be able to do that on real grass fields. Read. 'Cause it'd be all torn up. But now with the turf, the way it is, you can do that and you can empty people out or you can let them join up for a full day of football. You know, one price, stay there all day. Take a cab home afterwards. But I think it's a great idea to get something like that started. We've talked about it before. And I think it would work with every market to at least give it one shot and go to the Elks for given the first tribe. We're patting everybody on the back today, the lions, the Elks. Good for them. Well, I, it almost feels like the Alps are going to leave everyone else in the dust. Now with a lot of them are ideas. I mean, It almost seems like you're bringing in the supercharger. You know, like a mega genius, right. And it were. I mean, this is just day one. I mean, he's been in office for what a week and I mean, I mean, if this is, I just, I'll be curious to see here, you know, come back and talk to me next year at this time and we'll see. I mean, maybe they've left everyone else in the dust. Yeah, they might have, but in all it's all leagues or copycat league. So if something works by somebody, they're going to try it. The Oxford trying something new. It's a, the mom and pop stuff. And that's what. You know, when the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Maybe they didn't sell as many tickets, but they always looked at it as this mom and pop organization, right. Their community, all the evidence. It helps their community. They want to pay blue bombers or community dealing. So sometimes you feel that you're a part owner, which the teams like to make you think that way. Not realizing that there's millions and millions of profits being made, but if you feel like you own it, or you're a part of the team, what's the Alto doing now and their new, president's doing a wonderful job of that. I think that generates a Goodwill feeling right. And they've been bad on the, on the field the last little while they. They cut their longtime equipment management, Duane man Jersey. Juicy before last year, they just didn't have a real connection to the community. That's what they're trying to get back. I don't know if the rough riders have ever really lost that and I'm pretty sure the Winnipeg blue bombers have never really lost that. So it's a good way to do it. But not just for the community on teams, you know, the Toronto Argonauts, having pinball Clemons there gives them that community feel too. So Hamilton tiger cats are pretty good at that, even though they're privately all. Bob young, the owner calls himself the caretaker, because he's just looking after the team for the people who really own it. Who are the fans? And I think that's a great thing. You. Maybe it's not big marketing. It's not like Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, but it is that I'm a part of this. Community a part of this football community. And there's that big bond you found that I'm sure you've noticed that a great cup. Everybody feels like a big family. And when you start doing that, I think they're more willing to come out, buy tickets, buy the concessions, buy the merchandise and really be a part of it. And it's a great way to reconnect with the community. No, absolutely. I want to take your Saskatchewan too, or Cisco. To schedule when I would say. Yeah. This Andrew Harris, right? I reading that he was talking about, you know, that he was never going to Saskatchewan right now. He's he's in. Tronto I mean, seems like. I was talking with the Toronto people yesterday about trying to get some people on the show. And I'm like, kind of everyone I want to talk to is like a mega star. Right. I mean, it really is like the LA Rams here, you know, where we have you and your hair. Randy Banks and all this stuff. I mean thoughts on the Andrew Harris? And the whole DeMarco. Not too well. It was looking last year. Remember he was hurt last year and they kept them off the I kind of bad Muslim because they were playing around with the salary cap. Everybody in Winnipeg says, no, he was hurt. He was really hurt. And they kept him off the roster for how long. And then he was fresh and powerful and dominating in the playoffs for an older guy. That's the way you do it. You know, you see that happening in hockey, right? With the Vegas golden Knights are doing it with Mark Stone. Now they're hiding him on the long-term injury replacement list so that they don't have to pay a salary during the regular season and Nikita they did with [unknown]. The Tampa bay lightening a few years ago to you staff these guys, and you don't have to pay them during the regular season. And I think that's really robbing the fans. The fans are going to should start saying, okay, I'm not going to buy season tickets, but I'll buy playoff tickets because that's all that's important. So they tried that and it worked because Andrew Harris great player. You know, and spurts, but can he play an 18 game season? Probably not as you're prying back. So a lot of teams, including the Winnipeg blue bombers realized he can't do it all the way through a season. They saw that last year, but he can do it for fits and starts and he does have big name potential. And when you look at all the guys who the Toronto Argonauts are getting, they have this big name, big play. Potential big name recognition. Great. Toronto needs that. If you're in Toronto, you can't, you can't be playing second fiddle to anybody. The only. You know, they had Doug Flutie, the best player of all time in the Canadian football league, playing for them. It got marginally bigger crowds, but you really have to be a, get your name up on the, in the line lights. And that's what they're trying to do in Toronto. Good for them. I approve. They probably got some money. They need to do that, to get people out. Does Andrew Harris have enough? It's to, to carry them along now. But he can be part of a big puzzle. And I think that that's what they're doing is they're piecing together an offense and a defense. With, with Brandon Banks to write, he can do it a little bit, but he's not the same great player he used to be. They probably got them for a little bit less than he wanted. As I'm sure Andrew Harris got a little bit less than he wanted to, but it looks like when you get talking to pinball, Clemens, The president of the team. You think, boy, he wants me. That's how pinball is and, and he's talked them into going there and it's quite a collection. Did Winnipeg burn bridges with Andrew Harris? Well, maybe a little bit, but. How many football marriages and happily not very many. Right. There's very few guys who just turn and say walkway said, You guys have been wonderful. My whole career. I got to spend here. I appreciate it. I'm going to retire and walk away and both sides are happy. It doesn't happen very often. Everybody thinks they got one year left. Andrew Harris might have one year left, but he's not going to be the same player. He was. It's good for the league that he moves somewhere else. He. He remember he started in BC cause he's from Vancouver island. So it's not bad to move him there. He gives that team some recognition. Maybe builds a little bit of rivalry with the Winnipeg blue bombers too. And I don't think anybody should be really upset. We do. We always say it's a wonderful game, but a bad business, a tough business, right? Well, I mean, like I said to me, it makes sense, right? You have Toronto and it's like, God, anything they could do to get any sort of like, I mean, I know the diehards, but to get any sort of thing and got. Well, if we're going to kind of assemble this like mega team of all stars here, I mean, I don't think that's a terrible, not that they obviously are drafting a team to. For that. But I think that that certainly is a good by-product of that is, oh, actually we might have some big stars here that people want to come see. Right. When rocket Ismail played the CFL, they went to Toronto. Right? So the only place that they could probably hide him or afford him. So it's worth a try once in a while. Sometimes it doesn't work. Thanks. Free agent signings. You know, we just got, went through the free agent market here. Big free agent signings, rarely. Change the flow of what's going on in the Canadian football league. I know. How do I add it? A bunch of players. Maybe adding that bunch of players will bring the Ottawa. Red Black's back to being competitive, but it doesn't necessarily win you a championship by going out and spending a whole bunch of money on a, on a really talented free agent. You have to win by by your draft choices and making sure you have a quarterback who knows what he's doing. So what Toronto is doing. I agree with you read that's good for the league. I liked the fact that there, that there's some attention that people in Toronto are paying, maybe paying a little bit more attention. And, and it is, it is a center of the universe. So why shouldn't we all be paying attention to the center of the universe? That's the old joke, you know, you've heard that one, right? TSN. John was sports networks. So, you know, that's the way we always joke at it. If we don't live in Toronto, we always say that. I am scared to ask you your thoughts on the combo. Thompson is elite quarterback in Toronto. I I'm not sure. I said that last year. You know, they're going back and forth. Who's their starter. I don't, he's not elite. But, you know what? Look across the league. And are there any elite quarterbacks? Mike Riley was the best. He's retired. Bullied by Mitchell, maybe still a leak, but fading big time. Right. As it got a couple of years left, maybe he can ring another good year out of it. Jeremiah Mazzoli and free agent. They let them go. Dan Evans, is he a superstar? Not really. Zack Collaros. Two good years. And Winnipeg is winning. But is he one of the best quarterbacks I've ever seen? No. Cody vagina don't know a lot of these guys, 10 or 12 years ago. None of, I don't think any of these guys write it. Even Mike Riley last year at the status at the ability they showed last year, 12 years ago, none of them would have started in the Canadian football league. There were better quarterbacks at, on every team than there were last year. Across the board in the Canadian football league. So it was McLeod, Bethel Thompson, an elite quarterback? No, he's in the middle of the pack. I have a bunch of middle of the pack quarterbacks. The hot take. Why was that? That's what I've been saying, that Steve Simmons and I talked about that quite a bit, a great cop. And he's looking at the same way when you. You know, 15, 20 years ago, there were these superstar quarterbacks. They're all in the hall of fame. And, and 10 years ago, 12 years ago, there were still good ones. Henry Burris. At the world. Who's a hall of Famer too, but now. You know, Mike Riley going, Michael Riley will go into the hall of fame. I would think I'm a hall of fame voter. So I'm, I'm thinking that I'm not supposed to talk about how I vote. That's one of the things, but I would think he has the credentials. I would think at the moment, boldly by Mitchell has the credentials. And I think Zach Claros. I was after back-to-back Ray cop. Is building com self credentials to be. Hall of Famer, but really is he a superstar quarterback? I don't think so. He's done the right thing and Winnipeg he's he's played really well. He fit right in and done exactly what they asked him, but he hasn't had the skills that those guys had a dozen, 12, 15 years ago, which is really funny because every other week, The players you say are getting better and stronger, but not in the Canadian football league. The quarterbacking is getting weaker. Way weaker than it was in past decades. And that's not me just being a throwback guy. I realize in the other positions, these guys are better. Your offense alignment are better. The running backs are better. The receivers are better. The DBS are better. The quarterbacks are not better here. We once had an episode that was had a where having all the ex. Exciting and CFL games gone. Maybe we should have one where of all the good CFL quarterback, Scott, that would be. We've had that discussion quite a bit. And maybe I, I thought you might've been in on this one wrong on one of the, we solve all the problems in this, in the football report is the Canada hospitality suite. Right. And we had that discussion where have they all gone? You know, and it seems like the quarterbacks that used to come up to the CFL, the guys who could run and throw they're now playing in the NFL because they don't just need the drop back quarterbacks anymore. They've opened up their old senses to need and rely and thrive on quarterbacks who played with the CFL game, the running and throwing, you know, the, the running shoot, all senses and. And that's why the good ones are all going down to the United, to the U S to play in the NFL now because they're needed. And the best ones. So the best ones are there, obviously. Why wouldn't you be for millions of millions a year? We're not here. You know, if you make 500,000 Canadian dollars a year, that's a great salary. But. You get more being a backup or even a third stringer in the NFL. So I think that's where the good quarterbacks have gone. And it's unfortunate. So maybe the NF, the CFL is going to have to, we don't know the solution for it. That's if you're going to ask me, how did they fix it? I don't know it yet. We're going to think of something though, maybe next grade, couple of figure it out. Well, I just remember, I vividly when, back in 2020, when they were announcing the XFL teams and whatever, and there, you know, the quarterbacks and they said, you know, there's not 32. Good. Quarterbacks. I mean like elite, whatever. I mean the NFL struggles to find elite quarterback. So then you, you know, that's going to derail down to the CFL or the XFL or the USFL or whatever else. I mean, they, we still struggle with that in the NS. Yeah. Oh yeah. There aren't as many. You know, there are great college quarterbacks, but remember those great college running, throwing college quarterbacks, they, they turn them into defensive backs quite often. Right. In the NFL, some of them came up to Canada. And so that they could play quarterback in the, in the Canadian football league, you know, Kerry, Joseph was a defensive back. So the Seattle Seahawks ended up winning a gray cup for the Saskatchewan fighters as their quarterback, because he wanted to play quarterback. So he came back to the CFL. But now those types of quarterbacks. Yeah. Isn't that what Patrick in the homes is isn't that you see all with what all these guys are like now. Right? So. And all the Tom Bradys of the world, those drop back guys. I think the game is changing. There's not as great as he was. Is there a demand for his type of quarterback? Well, if you're as good as he was, yes. But that type of quarterback, they're not looking for that type anymore. I could tie to you for hours here. I may. I obviously we gotta, you know, keep it. I guess my last question for you today, and this is just to hit this in the news piece. What the hell happened with will Ferrell wearing the BC lions Jersey at the super bowl? And like what? I don't understand that. I just saw, I, I was tagged in it a bunch because it's, you know, they're like, go read this. How come, I don't get that notoriety. When I wear my. How many, how many million dollar movies have you been in? I mean, what was that like? He's Canadian. He's born in Canada. Yeah. And, and so it was Ryan Reynolds. Okay. Right. And. God will Ferrell's is Canadian. I know Ryan Reynolds is. Yeah. Well, certainly I believe he is. I see. I've never checked out, but I thought he was. You know, no, you know who I've taken up. He was born in California. Sorry. I'm wrong about that one. Why is he wearing. Canadian. Yeah. Ryan Reynolds is Canadian. Well, we had Tom Hanks at the great cup and Regina and 2000. And when was the last year of 2013? Who is his buddy Martin Short's Canadian. And he brought him along. So, so, you know, there's always that [unknown] about having the CFL. You know, it's always been this little, little click that you think it's special to be a CFL fan. And I apologize for thinking welfare. I've got it mixed up with another. I've got it mixed up with another high-profile kidney. Comedian who, I can't remember who it is, who is born in Canada. You'd be amazed when you start looking after the stars list, right? The. The Hollywood AA list, how many people were born in Canada. And I apologize for making a mistake on the welfare one, but that's just, it. You know, somebody says, Hey. My buddy is Ryan Reynolds. I'm going to show him that I know who the BC lions on. And the, yeah. They're obviously America's team. I mean. I don't think there's ever been a hotter time for. Exactly and that. Burnt orange. How many teams. The teams have the burnt orange. I'll tell you they are releasing the USFL jerseys as we record, right. They've been released. I've been watching. Oh, God, we captivated. A lot of red, not a lot of burnt orange. Nope. I mean, there's one blue. There's like a purple orange. The Maulers one is, is, is like a bowling shirt, but all the other ones, it's a lot of reds. So, yeah, and very few teams go green, right? Because didn't, they prove that a few years ago, the green is a docile color so that they don't want to have green in a lot of the sports uniforms. Well, don't tell that to the, see, this is like the best of both worlds. Cause this is almost like I just realized this is almost like my BC lions, Elks Jersey is a dragons. I got the orange and the green. So there you go. Sure. Add some wild colors to them, right. I just noticed I. I was supposed to watching the San Jose sharks and the night they have a little bit of yellow or gold on. And they're striping. So it gives you, when you add that extra color, it gives you so many options in terms of merchandising, I guess. So. The rough riders have been green and white forever, and they sell more merchandise than all the other teams in the Canadian football league. So I guess. Who needs an extra color, right. Thank you so much for making the time today. We'll get you back on, did you more CFL staff, but yeah, I mean, clearly we'll see each other next year, hopefully, but we'll see each other before then, you know, virtually. Yeah, I'll save you a spot and you better book your flight into Regina. We only have like one or two a week coming in here. Oh, my God. Okay. Well, we're going on. Step one down and then, but yeah, I w well, let's talk offline. We'll go well, I'll hit record here. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit. It's going to be fun. It shouldn't be, we. We got all this USFL stuff dropping today to all their new jerseys and stuff. So there's a lot of. Dive in with the new jerseys. Well, we have Jed Roberts here, former Edmonton for many years. Father also played in the CFL jet. I'm thrilled to have you on today. How are you doing. I'm doing great. Thanks for having. Well, so, you know, it's good to have former Edmonton, you know, royalty on here now because I famously was an Edmonton Alex fan Edmonton football team. We went through all that stuff. Have switched allegiances to the BC lions, but there is a lot of things. It seemed to be driving me back to Edmonton. What are, what are you up to now? How's your life going? Oh, it's going good. You. I work as a child and youth care worker for an organization called maple tree consulting. And it's a labor of love. I worked with at risk youth. It's something that I've been doing off and on for 30 years, I get to whistle while I work, which is awesome. You know, I went to university to become an English teacher. It's not really where I ended up. Ended up doing, you know, I sort of migrated toward what I'm doing right now while I was playing. I was doing this as an off season job too, at the end of my career. And then I was just fortunate enough to find something that. As passionate about as I was playing football. So it's, it's pretty cool. You know, never, never adult day. I'll tell you that. What was, you know, going through last season, right. With the CFL heading into this year, what was it like? You know, Edmonton had some struggles, right? It seems really now, like there's a lot of Goodwill and excitement with everything going on. What was it like last year for you? Well, that was difficult. You know, like I think we here in Edmonton. Took a lot of things for granted. You know, starting with the playoffs, you know, something as fundamental as that, like my entire career from 1990 to 2002, I never, never missed the playoffs once. Now granted at 99, we beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders pre times only have six wins, but that was enough for us to get in the playoff that year. So it wasn't without our close shaves, but. That's something here in Edmonton that we, I think, you know, kind of going back. Into the seventies and eighties, you know, we were winning by breakups in a row and that's just something that people around here it's just an expectation. No. And last season was very difficult, but when you look back and you take a step back and you're looking at it at a macro level, Every team in this league has gone through dry spells like that. We just don't do that around here. So, I mean, I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't, you know, if I, if I was okay with it, I wasn't, I was, I was even pretty vocal there toward the end before. The last incarnation of the executive. You know, front office. You know, at the, the team there, when they were shown the door there and then, you know, Victor quake has come in and just, just electrified people in just the short time that you've been on. I mean, it's, it's been kind of like the difference between. You know, looking at black and white and seeing things in 3d you. No watching. Through an Oculus lens. You know, this guy just brings a, it brings us right into the 21st century approach to marketing. Is a fan centric approach to a. You know, just connecting and being more of a community. Like we are a community owned team, but it just seemed like over the last 15 years, we've just kind of gotten away from that and tried to be. More like the Oilers, which is owned by one guy. You know, and he he's calling all the shots, but it's difficult to, to have that approach when you've got a board of directors and shareholders to report you. I think that with a guy like Victor, who has an understanding, I mean, you, you have to also understand this guy used to run a billion dollar company. You know, and, and I have no idea what, I mean, I know I use here. I mean his family. Oriented and he's got his dad is he's looking after and stuff, but we're just really, really lucky to have. I'm just thinking, you know, we're just grateful. And from my, from a former player perspective and just a community member, I'm just enjoying the ride, you know? And I I'm, I'm just hoping they'll stick around for a while. I think we have them for a little bit, but. I think we're going to see some really cool things coming. And just the last day or two, you announced the partnership with the U of a. To have a game there and you know, that's just the type of thing. And it's so simple. It's not a. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel and you know what I mean? We're just trying to create a buzz around the team. And when you have a guy who does engagement like that, talking to people, bantering back and forth on Twitter. That's the 21st century. And that's how you market a team. You look at the teams in the NBA and the teams in the NFL and, you know, even, I'm not even like the upper level. Even the teams that are hip on, on social media, like the minor league teams and stuff like the Savannah bananas. You know, like marketing, you know, like the baseball, minor league baseball, those teams all do one thing really well. And that's engaged engagement. And just creating a buzz and that's, that's the type of excitement and, and. Fan awareness that a guy like Victor brings to the table. So I'm really excited. I mean, it was, it was tough for a while there, but I'm not a guy that tends to dwell on the past. I'm more of a less enjoy what we have right here in the moment. And that's, that's what we got right now. And a guy like Victor, we're putting, I think we're poised to do some pretty cool things over the next little while. Well, it's cool because you know, In life we're so used to disappointment, right. Or things not working out here. You know, BC now is in good hands with Mr. Dolman coming in, right. Victor is coming in. It feels like we are getting smart, talented. You know, passionate people, right in positions where they can make a difference. And that's just exciting where not that. You know, people maybe before we're passionate or when everybody's just nice to see. It feels like things are going into a good puzzle place. You have a puzzle piece the way it's supposed to be. It's fitting a lot better now. It feels like. Yeah, I agree. I think that if you're. A fun office guide, looking to break in with the professional sports franchise. Or even a guy that's a social media person or someone who's looking to get. You know, get into that type of. Arena. The CFL's a great place to start it. And you've got the ability to bring a. An established order, if you will. ELEAGUE. Bring them basically into the present. And then there's sometimes some teams that do it better than others and, and. And I think that that's kind of the last sort of. A lot of these teams are operating with that. You know, But the mandate that it's putting people in there in the stands, because they don't have the big television deal on it. And I don't see any reason why we can't have big television deal. I know we're locked in for a little bit, but. I think that outside. The box thinking is what's required. You. You know, and I don't, I think that people like to talk about the negatives. All the league is too small. It's got two teams with the same name for so long and that's Bush league, blah, blah, blah. I think that is Canadian. Sometimes we don't, we, we don't tend to realize how good we have it up here. You know what I mean? Something as fundamental as healthcare, all the way up to the mountains that we have right on our bunch step here in Alberta, you know, this is a beautiful place to be and a great, great league. Tradition that people would kill for, I mean, I know the XFL and. You know, I was playing when the XFL first came up. You know, we had, he hate me here in training camp. In 2002, I think it was in 2001. You know, it's exciting to be in the ground floor or something like that. But I think it really helps when you have that type of tradition. I mean, this league been around in some form and shape, shape, or form for. You know, a long time we're. It was 75 years, you know? So, but my math has never been my strong suit, but don't quote me on that. But I think that. You know, We're going to see some exciting changes here in a little bit, like, like you talked about BC and you know, they've all got really nice first-class facilities. You know, the only team in the league, that's got one, I mean, Are. Our stadium here is the Susan Surandon venues. Like it's beautiful, but it's getting up there. Right? So Calgary is, you know, they could use an upgrade, but there's some warm rumblings about them trying to tie on with the. The hockey team they have down there and they can't seem to agree on a deal with the new arena, but, you know, we've got a lot of good, good things happening right now. New arenas and Winnipeg. You know, Ottawa's beautiful. If you ever had a chance to go to a game there that's. I mean, they built the entire thing with the abandoned man in mind. No, you go, there's a movie theater. There's a condo there. It's just exciting, man. You know, we had, there's no reason why we can't do that here in Edmonton. And I think that we're our first couple of steps here. Pretty encouraging with. With the hiring and Victor and bringing Chris Jones back. Yeah. I mean, that's the best thing about the CFL and its lineage and its legacy is also sometimes the hardest thing to combat against. Right? Because you go, well, we've done this for so long, right? Yeah. And, and it's with any business. I mean, I do that. I am a wedding videographer when I'm not, you know, right. Talking with CFL grades and like, it's really easy to get complacent when you've been doing something in a long time and it's working. And so, you know, if. The pandemic and the XFL of it all, and everything kind of just shook everyone in the CFL a little bit and said, oh wow, okay. We really kind of need to figure this out. I mean, That's the best thing for, cause you can keep that legacy, keep the lineage and then now bring in some people and figure out some ways to grow and improve. I think it's a. It's a balance, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's great to honor the tradition and the people that came before, but you also have to understand that. It's a different demographic. You. I didn't grow up with the internet. You know, I didn't grow up with everything I did being collected for data dissemination at a later date. Right. We were out. Climbing trees, you know, and. And hiding. You know, stuff under rocks out there in the woods, you know, it wasn't like that. You know, here, my kids, I've got two boys at home right now that are nine and 12 and those kids. I tell you what man, they're, they're pretty savvy in it. It's a competitive market. Like you've got to bring something to the table when you're running a franchise, like the elk. You've got to bring somebody in there that knows about fan engagement, how to get clicks, how to get people. You know, eyes looking at your product. And you can't run this week. The way they ran it back when I play it, or even when my dad played, you know, what I understand is the gate driven league, but you can't run it like a Gateless gate driven lead. You gotta be creative, gotta bring people in. You've got to get some curiosity, generate some buzz and. And I think, you know, like I said, I keep bringing this up and I don't want to sound like a fan boy, but I really appreciate the fact that we've got the type of expertise in victory Quaid. To be able to do things as fundamentally simple as combined the resources of the university of Alberta and the, and the Edmonton Elks. To generate like. Some buzz around, you know, let's bring some people in, let's get some, I mean, think about the recruiting boost to the U of a, you know, like, think about like what. Could you see the rough riders doing that? You know, Regina are you going to be having Saskatoon come down or, you know, there there's so many different possibilities. That we've got such a great brand of football up here. You know, it's three downs, it's wide open, wider field, longer field, more passing, a lot more lead changes. So at the end of the year, if you look at the NFL now, Or we'd be near the NCAA. They're doing stuff that we were doing in the nineties. You know, like gov Flutie came up here and just pour it up. It was for 6,000 yards, you know? That's unheard of. But, I mean, it was like, take two steps up the field and look back as a defensive lineman. It was just, and it was exciting. Right. And the only time the offense stopped was if somebody dropped the ball. So a lot of that, those innovations, like. The five receivers sets on that. You know, the one back sets and stuff like that. We were doing that in 19 92 91. You know, so it's exciting football. And I don't understand why we can't solve this league. If you take the proper poach, we can't sell it by, you know, the old approach of like, you know, putting ads in newspapers and stuff like that. Time passed 35 years ago. Like this is the internet. This is the age of. Of instinct clicks, instant gratification, and we've got to keep up. Otherwise we're gonna lose our, you know, All that valuable history will disappear. And I want my kids to enjoy it. Like I did when I was little kid. So. We did write for, you know, each year for three years. Right? All these deals in NBC and all that. And we're, you know, we're going back and forth, online, complaining the same things you are about the CFL, which, you know, does not have right. A major sports network owning it and dumping all this money where it's like, These are things they could be doing that maybe it's not making money. Right. But it, but it's generating interest. It's generating content, it's getting people involved. And I think that's the hardest thing. When you run a business, this is like, well, am I going to make money on this? Well, not today, but maybe you will in a month or two months, you know, and it's getting, but it's funny that you have two leagues, like the CFL and the USFL, a totally different economically right. Situated, still having the same issues of trying to, you know, get things going. Well, hockey is king here. You know, so you really competing with that. You. I think right now. The way this league operates and I'm not sure. I mean, you're probably familiar with that. Having watched the CFL, but, you know, right around labor day is when the regular season sort of peaks. And then that coincides with a, you know, the advent of the NFL and the NHL starts to kicks in their training camps. So right after that, it's just sort of taken, it's just a given that. I started to wander. Away. And so you get a bit of a drop in viewership. But I, I, you know, that was under the old way. And I think that now, You know, you look at a league like the NBA, you. They were in pretty rough shape there in the eighties, you know? And then, you know, you could argue that Michael Jordan came in. And sorta rescued the delete there. And we took the mantle from bird and magic and Isaiah, but I I'd argue that, you know, they just figured out a way to market. Those guys and market to a younger audience, you know, and. I think that, yeah, if you look at our demographics, it's, it's an older demographic, particularly here in this city. Wow. That's awesome. That's great. But we need to figure out a way to engage the younger fans, because if you lose that demographic, It doesn't bode well with the league. So, and I really liked the fact that you mentioned that. It was a uniform drop today. You know, that's a way, you know, kids look at that stuff and go, oh man, that's a cool logo. That's a great looking mascot. You. That's the way that they kind of get people engaged and talking and you know, you throw that stuff out there online and you just say, Hey man, what do you think? That's kind of how you get started. Back when I was playing in the nineties, we used to go into the community schools and do what was called a stay in school initiative. And I don't know what the incarnation would be now for the players now, but that's one way to get people involved. And you can do that stuff online though. You can reach out to a classroom habits. Zoom meeting. Those are just fundamental. It's so simple. You know what I mean? The way we have this technology, it just seems like. You know, the leaks that are forming right now. The ones that make it are the ones who embrace that tech. That technology and figure out a way to bridge the gap between them and their ticket holders or their. Prospective audience. Well, even like at the Superbowl this year, right. They had the girl flag football players come out and I think they were, I can't remember if it was a quick. Yeah. We were, we had just walked into my mom's house. So we're kind of trying to get all the food in and, and watch the game. You know, [Unknown] here. We're trying to bring in. Females are trying to bring in younger. Right. We're trying to bring in maybe parents that were are okay. We're concerned, right. With some of the issues going on with football, we'll hear something on the biggest stage in the world. We're in the spotlight, these slave. Football females like football players and get them involved and kind of be part of the festivities. Well, yeah, you know, you can do that with basketball. So you've got three on three. You know, it doesn't have to be one. Dies. It's all. It can be lots of different things for lots of different people. I, I love that idea of having the flag football event. You know, and bringing people in and including, I know. This is how old I am, but the punt pass and kick competitions they used to have back in the seventies. You know, I think Andy Reed came in as a 12 year old kid. He looked like he was, you know, 38. And he was, he won that competition. I think I remember watching that day. You know, holy, holy cow, that was a long time ago, but that type of thing, you know, that started as an idea in some boardroom somewhere, you know, You know, when you're bringing the more people that are included, because it used to be just sort of like a, a niche thing where only certain people could do it. And there was a sort of a horror. And mystique to that, but that was from that time, right? Like this is a different time. This is a different age. More people can do more things and. And I think we should be embracing that, you know, and I think that. Again, like I've been saying the leagues that do well, tend to have that approach as opposed to, you know, I think that's one thing that hockey in particular has struggled with. You know, making it more accessible. The equipment so expensive and so on and so forth. I don't know football. You know, they do a lot of fundraising at the minor. Football level to try to make things, make it more accessible for kids. But gosh, man, hockey's really expensive. I think my wife was telling me that a pair of skates can go for like two or $3,000. If that's. Wow. So, I mean, but people pay it because they want to play it. And why is that? Right? So you need to look at that. I think that sometimes, and that guy, like Victor, You know, I, I can, I think Victor wouldn't mind me sharing this, but before he even took the job, he reached out to me. And this is a guy that runs a billion dollar company. Private messaging me say, what do you think is going on in Edmonton? And I'm like, dude, why does this guy want my opinion? You know, well, he said to me, he goes, why you played there? And I remember when I was going up and you know, I wish to watch you guys play games. And I just wanted to know what the disconnect was. And I gave him my opinion and he said, you know what? And we didn't always, we. We share messages. And he, he gave me his take and I gave him my take, but that's what engagement means, you know? And, and it can seem overwhelming. I think. At times for a person trying to undertake that running a franchise like that, but it really is a fundamental and not everybody can do it. Like, I don't know if I'd have the energy to be able to reach out. To the, every man and, and have those conversations is that choir's a tremendous amount of energy. Vast reserves with patients. I'm sure because you probably get some negative feedback along the way in particular. You know, with respect to how things went down here in the city for the last two years with the name change, rebranding and go a bit. And you know, it's been really, really tough, but. This is the all that for a really long time. This was the flagship franchise. CFO. And in my mind, it continues to be. You know, we have a legacy here that's unmatched and we have. The community. He still cares because we're still being, we're still being talked about out there in the street. If they weren't talking about us, then you'd know we'd have a problem, but people are talking. They're not necessarily coming to the games. But they're still talking about it. And I think that if you know, Victor continues with his fan centric approach, I think we'll be in pretty good shape. He just. I just can't tell you how fortunate we are right now, because we have a person that's willing to think outside the box. To do things that I think there was a lot of resistance to in the past, because all we've never done it that way. I think you mentioned that at the beginning, but we've always done it this way. That. That approach doesn't work, you know, because things change and people change and circumstances change as well. If you told me three years ago that. We'd be in a worldwide pandemic and we'd all be wearing masks everywhere we went. I would've thought you were crazy. But the teams have done well, and I have to give it to the CFO for figuring out a way to have a season last year, because I think that if they wouldn't have had that season, they probably would have bolded. So there are a lot of really good things that the league is doing right now. But I do think there's tons of room to improve. Yeah, the example I given, I can't remember if it was last week or the week before on the podcast. I was sitting late at night, one night on Twitter and I was checking my phone. And I had saw Victor IDI. Comment on someone's profile comment on someone's tweet and say like, Hey, I really like. Your Twitter, banner, whatever, you know, That's all that too. Yeah. Like where, you know, like, did you make that like, and the guy's like, oh, you know why, whatever, it's all these like, well, I'm going to make some more. And then like, this is something where yeah. You know, like this isn't for anything, right? This is just someone that cares that is asking. You know, this is all I'm making a statement about whatever I'm coming out, we're doing this or that to make a big grand gesture. This is someone that genuinely cares. And it's curious about it. He understands the benefit of the viral marketing component. You know, like back in the day, it was worried about, you know, like, A successful business, did something. Tell your friends about us. Where did you hear about us? Why did you find out. We have a tool at our disposal right now, where you can have those conversations and at the fraction of the time and a fraction of the effort that is required to do that, like you don't even have to see the person face to face. Think about how many people face. They see that exchange online. I saw that I was watching that go down in real time. Think about the people though, those have looked at that be at the level of engagement. I mean, it's just it's genius. Like, and I can't believe like we've, we've. We've we've had this tool right in front of us. The entire time and nobody's thought to actually, I know that Nick [unknown]. At the Alex has done a wonderful job of attempting to bring the franchise into that and met with varying degrees of engagement from that front office. But I really think that, you know, we have a real cool opportunity ahead of us with the person who was a bit of a visionary. With that. You know, with respect to how they approach. You know, bring an NX. It's just so simple, you know, like that's, that's something like if you show interest that basically tells the people of the community that you care and. You're actually you are, because we haven't had people do that here before it's been, you know, they may make mention of the fact that they're online in an interview, but you never actually see anybody from that front office. No. And bantering with people online. It's either they have to create the account and they treat it like, ah, I really don't want to go on mine because braid. Making somebody mad or. You know, because it's, it's a tough, it's a mine field in some ways. But I think that if you've been in that. Like Victor has been in that sphere and an Asia, and there's a lot more of that going on. And he's got a lot of experience and reaching out to people by a private message or internet or whatever. And having the understanding that you have to be accountable for everything that you say and do online. And that's something that I was working, doing some work for Telus and talking to kids about that. And that's something. I think that if, if, and I think that they'll do that, if the Elks can go in. Create some type of partnership with Telus and go into the schools that do them by assume if not, if they're not are actually already doing that, there's a lot of benefit to that because you can have those intimate conversations and it doesn't require that much energy. You know, you just have to turn on your computer, go from one meeting to the next and you know, Bob's your uncle. Last question for you today. I could talk to you a long time about all this stuff. Darryl, one of our writers, I will be remiss if I didn't know. There was some story about you being locked out of a car in the, in the frozen. Yeah, right. He said when you have jet on, you have to ask him about that. So that'll be my last question today, but I promise to bring you back on again in the future. If, if you'll have us and we'll talk some more. Yeah, I, I was up. North of slave lake, probably about an hour and a half way up in the sticks. And I'm talking. One tow truck driver for maybe 300 kilometers. And I'm not talking like I'm talking to square miles. We're at kilometers, whatever. Right. I'm still American a little bit. That's why I say miles. And I, I can't remember. I locked myself out. And this was kind of in the. You know, cell phones, weren't that great. So there wasn't a lot of reception out there. I don't even know really how that happened, but. Yeah. So Darryl ended up, I was up there to do a school talk for the Edmonton football club. And I had to be at their school at a certain time. And yeah, I got rescued. I'm not exactly sure how that even happened, but yeah. You know, Smart me. I locked myself out of my vehicle out there in the middle of nowhere. And I. And I'm talking way up north. In this province anyway, I'm not, you know, I've been all the way up to tuck the up duck, which is even further, but when you get locked out of your car and that area, you know, It humbles you pretty quick, but thankfully Darryl was on. He rescued me and he still makes fun of me whenever I see. And he tells that story. He's like, man, you're lucky I was there. And I'm like, yeah, no kidding. Thank you so much again for your time today and sharing some thoughts about Edmonton.

Episode 79 - CFL Free Agency ≥ USFL Free Agency

Good morning. Good morning. The mark cast. Welcome to the show. Hey, what's up, man. Happy Friday, Paul. Happy Friday. Today's episode CFL free agency is better than USFL for agencies. That will what I'm seeing here. It's the, I would say CFL free agency is greater than or equal to at least us. We've had a lot of discussions. I'm lying about, you know, Google sheets with USFL players who might be eligible. We've had a whole week of CFL free agency, I think is at least as good or greater than I think it needs more respect. I agree. And, and let's, let's be honest, better players are going to the CFL than they are the USFL. And, you know, in the CFL, you don't have to pay for your own hotel rooms. So there's that. We'll talk about that here in a second. Right? Bali Ali. Alright. On the show today, Mike Mitchell is going to be talking about those player contracts that we just mentioned right there. Nathan work, the starting quarterback for reads BC lions. Can we join the show and Rob Vanstone friend of the show. Frequent guest. From the Regina leader post. We talked about CFL free agency. So very cool show today. I was going to say. Mike is great. Mike is on location somewhere out in the boondocks might call them. Mike. Mike is the only time I've ever allowed anyone to do a phone, their interview. That's true. You let you let Sheena do one once. Well, I am out of that Brian Woods. Let's be fair all around, but Mike Mitchell is an elite company. Great interview with Mike 40 minutes of USFL tidbits coming up. Cool stuff. So, and we also, you know, lichens. Subscribe to the podcast. We'd like those, you know, we got to get those. Those subscribes up so we can get that giveaway going on a, what we're doing at a 2000, right. Yeah, so we have our gray cup merge and then I just got today, a original old new stock AAF San Antonio's commander, Jersey. Number one. So I tell you, I posted that today. We've got about four of these subscribers right away. So I think people are. But yeah, when we hit 2000, we'll go through all that BS. We have the, all the gray cup staff, and then we have the AAF commanders, Jersey giveaway. Cool stuff. So would that being said, we're going to, we're going to start off with USFL news, even though the title of the episode is. I'm the total hypocrite. Yeah, we have a lot of USFL staff and then we'll get to Rob and everything CFL after. Awesome stuff. Starting off with this. The USFL draft will not be streamed or broadcast that's per read. And the sources from the USA. You get working with sources. I'm so. I'm impressed. Of course the exhale had a zoom and a street light. Like they had a stream draft. You know, the FCF had a draft that was played on the. She goes every draft they ever do. I'm telling you there. This is one. One moment where the FCF actually has something to brag on the USFL, you would think that they would, do you think they'd call you and maybe like, can you do something for this? And I know you'd be willing to do it. I know you'd be willing to do it. It's weird. It's, it's one of those things that, you know, 10% extra work, right. You're not going to make any money on stream in the USFL draft, but you're engaging the hardcores and that's the people I think the USFL needs to work on. So if you gave the hardcores basically. You just set up a phone and just go live. Like you could do, you could easily do that. They're all going to be on zoom. Just turn on the zoom link. Yeah. We would've thought the day went, but I confirm that. This is a massive mistake and you're completely right when you asked that question, this is a mistake. It's great stuff for your, your YouTube channels is great stuff for your social medias. I don't know what, what, what Brian is thinking, but. The big thing right now is they're having the USFL head coaches draw their logos from memory. On my. That's their content. That's there. That's their Twitter on. That's the sarcastic round of applause. It's not real. Again, I. It's not real. I'm Lynn just drew it like a G with a star. He couldn't do it because he's drunk. Mike Mitchell obtained. Claire contracts and a handbook. And he has more details that coming up, I assume in your interview with Mike. We have more of that, but then we're going to go through some of this. Now we're going to go through the nuts and bolts. And obviously Mike has the big, you know, w we kind of flush it out. The league has no comments on any of this, but I wanted to get your thoughts and feedback, because I think you're going to have comments on a lot of these little tidbits and Mike pulled up. Okay. So here's the, here's the little notes that I've got here right here. It's like $42,000 for the regular $45,000 for regular season. That's 10 games. If you're on the regular season, non-active rice roster. It's. 1500 Per week. Regular season roster. If you're on, if you're playing $4,500 a week, if you're active on game day, you'd get 800. It's an 8 58 50 per win for players on the act of a proud SWAT on game day. And your championship game bonus is $10,000 each player. Your maximum possible salary is $75,750. But again, you have to pay for your own room and board. Yeah. So we, we had that base salary last time, the wind bonuses in new, right. The. That's kind of the new staff that max possible salary. Cause we didn't know the wind bonus is that a, that came out with part of the Mike's report. And then all of a sudden use USFL on Twitter had that. The other interesting things is the, the contact act contract length. Of the players, the only three times. So where they're kind of doing is it's kind of this two year, it's a de facto two year contract. So once you're drafted. And if you're not selected in the draft, obviously your contract's done. If you're cut, your contract is done, but then otherwise your contract goes to December 31st, 2022. When you sign a USFL contract, you must option into a second year. Okay. So the USFL we'll let you know in April, if they are continuing your contract or not, that does not guarantee con employment into the next year, because again, they can cut you on December 31st and they would just have to pay you that healthcare from the end of the season through December, and then they could cut you. So what you're saying is basically the contract benefits, the USFL and not the player. Yeah. And like, I get it right. Everyone goes, well, the USFL should do that. They should get players like, absolutely. Like in terms of business, I just want people, a lot was made when the AAF came out and they were trying to sign players with three-year contracts. This is a two year contract, just not being called that way. So here's my question. What kind of status do these players have? Are they independent contractors like WWE or. Are they actually employees of the USFL. So. It talks a lot about, I would assume that their employees they're under health care here. Right? So the one benefit of them playing in the bubble in Birmingham is they only have to go through like Birmingham health care. Right. L workers' comp and all that stuff. So there's some benefits to that. I would imagine you're an employee of the USFL. I mean, if you get worker's comp insurance, you're not, you don't necessarily need to be an employee though. I see. Actually I could ask Mike Little bit. I always figured that delineation did the WIB does. Yes. Are you in the independent contractor? You're an employee. I should ask the league that. I mean, even the independent contractors WWE have are covered. Like if they get injured in the ring, the worker's comp covers them because it's workers' comp tech. You have to cover them legally. And this, and this brings me to my point is that the non-compete clause that says once a player is signed and plays, the use fell, they're locked in for the full season, through the USFL championship game. After the season ends in the summer, they can sign it. With a team in the NFL only provided they notify the USFL and provide a copy of the contract. This is [unknown]. This is why I bring up the independent. Independent contractor status is because if they are independent contractors, This might be a legal issue for, let's say, let's say some player in the Roosevelt wants to go play in the XFL. That's what we're, that's kind of what I'm hinting at here. Yeah. And with that being said, like that could test the legal limits of that contract. Well, I mean again. W we'll we'll have to blast. I love to do more and do some more digging into this. The idea is that the coaches are also going to be under similar clauses and all of this. But yeah, it's specifically, it's like no CFL, no XFL, no fan controlled football, no, anything like that? Only the NFL. And the weird thing with that is like, They would have to release you from your contract and then you would go saw or, you know, you go try out, but then like, what if you get cut from the NFL team? Like maybe they don't need to. Then the U S about would need to bring you back. They could just spec while we cut you. I mean, that might be a way to get out of your USFL contract is if you, if you get an NFL contract, it gets you out of it. Like that might be the loophole like, Hey, look, don't sign me. Do regular contract, assigned me to play. To, to a practice squad contract. That would fall into the qualification. I would assume and assign me new Patrick practice squad contract. So that would break my contract. USFL then I can go play in the XFL or the CFL. Yeah. I use this thinking point to me is like I said, this, this continuing the healthcare thing through December, and then let's say you were cut and not brought back. You would never get into an exit call camp at that point. The American Alliance football AAF had a similar preemptive, like. Thing to lock people into like a three-year deal, but, you know, We saw how far that went. Again, that was re I was hitting on this earlier that the players will need to find their own means of housing throughout the season. They have a housing hotels. Does anybody that has felt well, they'll be made available at the rate of $150 per night. And this is, this is this. When I heard about this, this. This started off that like, Thing that whole. Seeing things from like past, like past experiences in terms of, you know, the spring league, even though it is a different entity being sued by the. The group. Where they Indianapolis last, last year. Indianapolis, they didn't pay for a hotel room. So now. USFL is putting the onus of housing on the players. Because. Maybe that that was a lesson learned. Yeah, it's taken care of through mini camp training camp. Yeah. When we recorded last week, remember we assumed that they were being taken care of, but all of this, the whole season, because they were on the bubble. And then this came out after we recorded last week that Mike I'm the covered this. So Mike says that many of the players in agencies are. You know, cause they can change this. Right? The USFL get opted changes. It'd be about 3.2, 4 million. I just, for the rooms, not alone, including the incidentals. If you count one 50 times like 360 players, time, 60 nights, times on your 50, whatever. So it's a substantial amount of money, but. Eno. The question is they're being paid 45,000 minus remove board. Do you just say, Hey, you're actually getting paid 35,000 and then we're just going to include everything. But that doesn't sound as good. No. And they still tax you on, like, if you get, if you get that room and they pay it and they take it out of your paycheck, you're still getting taxed. Cause that's, Tech's technically taxable income. Yeah, you're taxed on 45, not 35. But, I mean, so I'm saying like, if, if. In the, in the mini camp, right. In the, in the preseason camp. If they're covering your room and board. That's taxable income. That is taxable income. Yeah. You're getting something. Oh, so. Call your accountants. You have accounts. I would hope you have accountants. For this, I would definitely. The education plan. This is a question that I had. If you leave the USFL, apparently if you stay enrolled. Continuously in each corner, they're going to continue to cover your education. That's a, that's an added benefit. That's awesome. So let's say that if you got cut from the USFL and you wanted to finish your degree, as long as you're. Simon continuously enrolled and never take a break. They will continue to pay for your education. And I'm sure that they don't pay much. I'm sure it's kind of like a deal. They've worked out with a university to where it gives you a, they give you a very discounted rate on that education. But it's cool. Nonetheless, to know the, like, if it didn't work out the O'Fallon that got you. If you want to get your degree, it's going to be free of charge to stick with it. They'll stick with it. Yeah, I couldn't imagine getting caught. And then they're like, oh, actually now you. You know, you're kicked out of school too. So. You see this eight? Everyone's like, no, it's not. I didn't know what this means. Every player assigned to the U S Val. Is that, does that give it to the USFL then your name, image, and license while you're in the league. They don't even let you do that in the NCAA. Now, like NCAA is allowing you to do whatever you want with your name, image, and likeness, and the USFL wants you to like, sign over your name, Angela. Is that what I'm reading? That's what I'm reading that this is copied from the article. So this is misprinted, but every player signed to the USAA, Val, his individual name, image, and likeness rights for merchandising, endorphins for emotions and practice event, gain footage. So if you're thinking, if you're in the NCAA, if you're in college football and you're thinking I should go play pro and make $45,000 a year, that'll. There'll be taxed out the ass from why don't I just stay in college and I can control my name. And it was like, now that becomes a debate that like a 20 year old kid has and like, Hmm. Do I stay in college and profit off my NISL or do I take the us fell and let them profit off it for me? Oh, that's very interesting. Yeah. It's very much like a WB mentality also here. Everybody has obligated the standard, the national Anthem. Bringing that back. We're the hot button topic on that is that there used to be a pulling time where players would stay in the locker room in the NFL games. While the national Anthem was playing. Why not bring that completely back so that no one focuses on that. It's just a, it's just a concern. The conservative talking point. I wouldn't get involved with that, but I'm just surprised that that was specifically noted in here. Mike has another notes on ownership. And we have a couple of quotes coming up here from Brian Woods and stuff. They feel that Birmingham, which obviously makes sense with, you know, being in Birmingham, but then Houston and New Jersey are maybe some of the first teams that are going to have a secure ownership group. This is from Mike and then Brian talks about Pittsburgh coming up. Remember New Jersey, they were kind of talking to Alex Rodriguez thing. Right? I think. That is still a stretch, but obviously there's tons of New York and New Jersey celebrities. Houston has been in line for a long time. They've been talking about ownership and then obviously Birmingham that they have. That would be like the first one you would sell off. I would think. Easily. Lochlan Murdoch son of Ruby. Rupert Murdoch is talking USFL and help for the NFL on the earnings call this week. He said the NFL has helped Fox think through structure and rules of play for the USFL, but they control the digital rights. You also says outside investors in league have efficient, effectively underwritten league for the next two or three years. The company is ambitious with discipline in its. Investment in the USFL, getting NFL has helped Fox think through structure really sounds like they're working like the Eric shanks is calling up like NFL and being like, Hey, what do you guys think we should do with this? I mean, it's smart for the NFL. Cause they're basically there's. There's all these players that like, I mean, especially if that contract allows a player to be like, look, I signed an NFL contract. It's kind of like a developmental league. Like that's, that's always the way these spring links should work as kind of like a developmental for the NFL. Like you get you tune and stuff like that. And I know. Rush crabs on Taylor. I'm going to keep it look. Nope. What we're talking about here. Moving forward. The USFL EVP at Hartman talks, XFL, and why Fox was interested in spring football. And more do you think it's weird? And I said that that the USFL is doing Superbowl media row this year. Nary a word of XFL. I don't think it's weird because the XFL is not, you know, There's another year before the expo kicks off. I mean six months ago. I would've been shocked if he would've said that the accident. Ellison doing Meteora. I'm patience is patience is what we're, what we're playing with here. And we're just trying to be patient so that. We want the best possible XFL, right? That's what we all want. So for patient with it, then. Then, like these, this lack of news, it's trickling out. Maybe they're just getting it right. Maybe they're just trying to get this right, because the USFL seems a little rushed. If I'm, it still feels rushed to me, it still feels rushed. The three days, I think when this airs. I still feel as rushed. Yeah, I actually watched this. I watched this live mark mark sent this over Mark Berry ed was on the slogan misconception don't you know, don't tell a rochus it's a misconception and the XFL was a failure. Last time around the ratings. I did think this is her, the radius and the three weeks that were around before covet. At it was around for five weeks. It was for five weeks and not three weeks. Before COVID outright exceptional. It was outraging the MBA for this three weeks. It was five weeks based on that. And based on the other research, we're very confident. There's a strong demand. Research. Okay. It was five weeks. I think the lesson we learned from previous leagues is that you need to keep your costs in check, and that's why they're doing the bubble. This is kind of a standard play with ever if you have any thoughts on this, but then the next part, I think you're going to have thoughts about. The question was asked how the USFL plans on connecting fans from the eight locations to a team playing with Birmingham. He says, we think we've got a big tailwind. Give the us, Val has so much equity in. Equity value in it. Tyna on top of that, obviously Fox's owned an off-road television station and affiliates in many markets they still do. And so using those local television stations to help activate local fans is going to be one weapon we use on top of the USFL intellectual property. It's something we're super focused on. We think the combination of those two things and other tactics will make it possible to build out the local following. Despite the fact that teams are playing in one market, at least for the first year. Okay. Okay. Like we both were. And I'd put this on Twitter. We have both worked out local Fox, like mark. So like why? Okay. We've worked at them. What would, what, how would we be used in. I was acute 13. How acute 13 be used if there was his Seattle USA. Have a franchise. To grow the fan base in Seattle. Like promos. I guess like, With Q 13, would they send a Seattle reporter like to Birmingham to like cover the thing? No. Right. Like, are they ready? Here's what it would be. It would be one reporter in Birmingham. Doing all of the villi and hits for all the little. That's what it would be. But like, you know, they're not doing like Houston gamblers highlights on the Houston. They might, but it's, it's something that like, maybe that, that there's a bureau where we're one reporter covers all the different teams for all the different affiliates. I don't know. I don't know. I think, I think it's very lofty. It's very ambitious to assume the local affiliates are going to run this content. I think it's, it's presumptuous. I also think it's odd that like, Anybody that you're trying to attract with the new USFL is not watching like local news. No. Or like watching local Fox TV. Either watching their streaming stuff. Maybe, I mean, Th the thing with Fox is the interesting. Business plan with foxes. Outside of one market. Fox O and O's. Are all over the NFC team. So there's like 16 NFC teams, right. And 16 AFC teams. Fox. Oh, and oh, owns 15 of the 16 NFC teams, local affiliates. The only one they don't own is Charlotte. They gave that up when they wanted to get Seattle. So. Maybe they're betting on that. Is, this is weird. Like I think they think the sports betting is going to carry a lot of that. I just don't, I don't know who you're attracting demographically age wise through Oakland news. Harrison rights. I'm like, do you watch local news? He's like, no, I don't want it all. I'm like, So, how is this going to attract anything to you? I don't know. Good question. A lot of, a lot of stuff from Hartman here, he also talks about how sports betting. Fits this league. It's kind of another part of our thesis to building this out. If you look at the initial teams, we picked out all, all the U S it's still flipped in a fluke that over half of those teams are in legal, or they have names that are based. In legal bedding states. Yeah, we're going to have that. I also dies merchants come and see it in Woodside throughout this. Do they say merge has come in? I think right after the draft or when they get to merge over, we're going to get some uniforms stuff. Woods was on K D K a and Pittsburgh. Talking about the actually Pittsburgh could be. One of the first teams that could be moving out, but then they still need to figure out the home location, something the league has not started the process yet. That is odd to me. Why wouldn't you process it now? I wouldn't be processing that before. You even talk about the USFL, right? Brian, why wouldn't you read now? They need to look into local ambassadors, right? I mean, I get all that, but like this jump from one to two is going to be hard. I think it's gonna be a lot harder than people think. I think it's going to be, it's going to be two years. I think in that Birmingham situation. Yeah. Moving forward. Let's see here, Mike Mulvihill talking us fell on [unknown]. 360 Great kick. I'm glad that we're we're, we're covering out kick. He says that we put some care into the decision of when to launch the league. What's what's the right part of the calendar, the launch league XFL and AAF. They chose to launch immediately after the super bowl. We decided not to do that. We're going to kick off on April 16th. The same weekend that the FCF kicks off. As a busy, you know, the avoiding the Olympics March madness, masters, right. He thinks they can go up against the premier league major league soccer, PGA, and the NHL. You need to go against for Relic. Nope. I don't think you can. Yeah. There's a lot of American soccer fans that watched the premier league religiously. Like there's a lot of people that are Chelsea, man. You. Ah, man city, not so many Tottenham fans, which makes me sad, but there's a lot of, a lot of Americans watch British soccer. Cause the hot it's the top league. It's like, it's like the NFL to us where all these other leagues, no disrespect. Don't garner the attention and the athletes, the NFL does. The same thing goes for British soccer. The premier league. That's why a lot of people in America still watch premier league soccer. So. Good luck going against them. I just have one more thought on this and then we can toss a break. I am really torn on this XFL February start or the USFL April start that. That. They would, they're getting the benefits, right? Avoiding some of these. He calls them temple events. I think coming right after the Superbowl, you can play those ads every week. I can imagine right now, though, the ads are playing like every week, every week, every week. And then, okay, next week it started, right? Like it's, you know, they're kicking out the weekend home. There's no LOL. I liked that a lot better than like, okay, we're going to see you in two months. You're completely right. Like I get them avoiding the things I understand. That's I'm really torn on it. I'm not saying one is right at the other bag. Do you think there's two month window where like, oh yeah, I remember that ally saw back in December. I think what they're doing is I think what they're doing is they're trying to avoid football burnout, but Americans love football. So why wouldn't you jump right on that? Yeah. Especially. Especially knowing what you know about FCF launching the same flipping weekend that you are. Right. Anyway. Yeah. Let's let's take it over to our guests this week. Of course, Mike Mitchell, Nathan work, and Rob Vanstone, we're going to play, we're going to do some commercial ads real quick, and then we're going to toss to them. And we'll come back. We'll talk some CFL news. Welcome back. Want to thank all of our guests, Mike, Nathan, and Rob. Thank you again for joining us, especially Rob. Who's been on the show up two or three times now. Yeah, I think three times three. Three times. I think you might be our first three time guests. It's getting up there. Am I think he and Mike. It's a co Hopkins, apparently competition. So real quick. So these CFL stories, there's 10 million stories this week, right? Rob and I talked about the buzzer. This is just a handful, right? I mean, I just did like this. So I just don't no one get mad at me. Like I did. I just pick some highlights along the way, but there was like 87 stories. We could talk to them and listen to the whole thing. They know you've been talking about this with Rob. I just want to make sure that like, and this is just some interesting divots talking to Paula back here after we get that. So awesome. My Argo's signing out. Chad Kelly, of course, who is the nephew of hall of Famer, Jim Kelly, one of the best quarterbacks to never win a title. Jim Kelly, you like, it's like Dan Marino one, Jim Kelly to. They, he went to old miss and he has ties to USAA fell potentially. Is that what I'm seeing? Don't you think that USFL share? Are they gone out of their way then maybe get the nephew of Jim Kelly. You would think like Argos are not. I'm surprised FCF. Isn't tweeting at him right now. Hey, come sign a contract with us. I'm surprised. That's such a solid tweet. Disrespectful. Andrew Harris explained split from bombers after last ditch effort out of nowhere. Apparently he said on his last second contract extension, it definitely was a big insult it's one that wouldn't have made me the highest paid running back in the league. Someone's who's done so much for the team and yes, I understand and looking for the future, but the past, but the past, and what I would bring to the future is still a ho a hell of a lot or a lot. Do you think about Toronto? Pick it up. Hang on your Harris. This is a big pickup for you guys. I love it. That I think, I think Toronto knows they're close to winning. I think they know they're close to possibly winning and getting over that hump. So why not bolster things? Why not spend a little money MLSE and bring a ship to Toronto, bring a ship to the sixth, make me happy. Make 30 to 35 year old writing back. Let's see, let's see it. I mean, what, like how old was Sean Alexander when he broke how's lead LaDainian Tomlinson. When he broke Sean Alexander's record. I dunno, I just, eh, This is interesting, Mike. Rob Vanson explained to you that Harris was acting as his own agent. I go, oh, this explains a lot more of the bitterness. That came from these contract negotiations. How Richard Sherman acted when he negotiate his deal with the Niners, he was acting a little bit similar to this when he was mad. The Hawks for not of course. Because sending them. Bombers. Our coveting experience back on. That's it. That's the, the Canadian pro quarterback. Nope. Sean Maguire retired. So the blonde bombers or without a veteran backup. Yeah. And we decided this interesting Shamgar. Yeah, he was always kind of the steady hand behind is that Clara is that Clara sat. Sat out a couple of games this year, you know, cause of injury and Sean. Struggled a little bit, but he's moving on to be a career in federal law enforcement. Other veteran quarterbacks, making, making things happen. Montreal what's resigning. Trevor Harris for the 2022 season. He now in. Now on the same team with a Vernon admins and Dominic Davis. To see who's going to start there, but of course, The way they've things go in the CFL, all three of them will start at some point, I guarantee it. Well, the interesting thing with Trevor is he remembered, he got picked out from Edmonton last year. He was due a big end of year bonus, and then they cut him in December. And then they resigned them now. Business. I didn't get that bonus. I tweeted that bar high and I'm like, Hey, right. He doesn't get that far. And it's like, no, he doesn't get that. And now he signed the lower money. It's terrible. I think Trevor Harris got the worst deal of the free agency. Probably. Vernon Adams he's motivated by the Alawites resigning. Resigning Trevor Harris. He says, don't try and call me now. He tweeted out, they say, be UVA. I bet 2019 vibes back to work. Don't try to call me now. Snake. Snake. He's calling them snakes too spicy. Is that like snakes at Trevor or the team? The team. Guarantee a team, because he said, don't try to call me now to the team. Like, I don't think, I don't think Vernon would ever like. And that saying, like, I'm going to be Vernon as spokesperson, but I don't think a fellow player would call another player. A snake. At the end of the day, the players. Pretty much United against ownership. And I think he's calling the ownership of the Alawites snakes. Wow. Burden for any of the show. Aloe at sunny future hall of fame, defensive tackle. I'll Mondo, Sewell to a contract extension throughout the 2023 season. He got. Five sacks and 14 games in 19 tackles. His first season in Montreal was 2021. And in 153 gain Afinitor 53 key career games in the CFL. The 35 year old has recorded three 101 defensive tackles and 65 seconds. He's a beast. Did the beef, this is a good, this is good pickup for, for outlets. Reads BC lion saying my whole Connor, the second Kennedy and quarterback with Nathan, Nathan Rourke, as well as former Roughriders, American quarterback, Isaac Harker. So, you know, there you go. Three quarterbacks on that team. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I don't think, I think Harker I'll be at practice, you know? Training camp. But according to Jim Mullen, this is the first like one to Canadian duo since like the 1940s. Jim's like, you'd have to go back. Like pre-merger. I mean, this is huge because Nathan, you never get starting Canadian quarterbacks and you certainly don't get to. BC always also signing a loose Chezz perf. Yep. We'll choose from a Saskatchewan and kicker Shawn white. Yep. Sean's back. He was with them and he's 36 back with them after signing. No seven. CFL all-star receiver. Kenny Lawler has made a commitment to sign with Edmonton, Alex, according to native Dave Naylor. He will earn. It's $300,000 in 2022. And he's back. Non-paid quarterback in the league. Wow. And. With Nick Arbuckle. Which is like, That's like buying your kid a Ferrari. Yeah. I don't want to disparage Nick Arbuckle, but that's like, buy-in. You know what I mean? Yes, it's gonna be a hundred thousand dollars. You have the highest paid receiver in the league. Nick, Nick better make some pat. But Nick better, like target him like 75% of the time. If he's. Just making $3,000 a Canadian for the community. As paid non quarterback. That's insane. Five times, 1000 yard receiver, Greg Ellingson, who probably should get that kind of money. It has signed with Winnipeg blue bombers to a one-year contract for the season, your places, Kenny Lawler. He is 33 years old. He's average, he's got five consecutive, 1000 yard seasons. And during the short and 2021 season, he had 47 receptions for 687 yards. In 10 games while earning 135,000. Yeah. Last story, your boy, your. Just like the BC lions. Aren't the American CFL team. He's not my boy. Auto red blacks, of course, signing a Jeremiah Jeremiah solely to a two year contract worth $400,000. Or is it thousand per year? Per year. Yeah. I'm going to Jeremiah, get your money right now because Lord knows you won't get in the NFL because you're not good. That's a huge, that's a big contract for him. I Rob on our, I see about group chat. He rod, he was saying that like, Otto and needed to make moves or else they were going to get murdered by the fan base. Like this is like to appease. I was out. It was really bad last year. Yeah. Yeah, they okay. We have some what we have to go sign them. This is weird though. Jeremiah. Yeah. W Redbox or Megan, big moose. I dunno if I liked this missile was tiny, but they're making big moves. We'll see what happens next season with Masoli. Hopefully he guides them to a couple more wins. Hopefully not cause I don't like Jeremiah Masoli who do I? Who do I don't like more? Who do you think? I don't like more but solely or Kevin rumbling. I mean, someone. I you don't like Kevin, someone farmer. Not done until you've done a 15 minute ran on chairman Mazzoli. I don't think you're hot. No. I don't think it's close. Identify minute random of solely, maybe a 15 minute rounds on Kevin rumbling. You need to Google the Houston when you get off this. You need to Google the Houston gamblers. He needed to see Kevin, someone drying Houston. So I can watch it a bit and lots of drunk, man drawing a logo grape. Thanks again for listening. Watching again, like it, subscribe, share this podcast with your friends. This week, no voicemails. Leave a voicemail. We'll play it here on the show. Also, when we get to that. That subscriber limit, we're going to do some mad giveaways. So again, 2000 Subscribers as a mark. If you want to get in on the giveaway, tell your friends to like, and subscribe to the podcast so we can get to that giveaway even sooner. Then we would, you know, Doing this, the organic way, just to help us out a little bit. Just to help us out. Thanks again for listening and we'll see here next week. Ma'am. All right. Hang on. All right. This week on the mark cast, a USFL contract. Breakdowns is that what I'm hearing contract breakdowns for the USFL will have all the information. Who do we got talking about that? Yeah. I mean, we wanted them this week and we got him he's radioing. And from the boons, we have Mike Mitchell phoning into the show so important that we get the updated USFL player, contract information, and break down through you. So when, when you say phoning in, you're not saying it in a bad way, you're just saying like you use the phone to call in. You know, sometimes people say you're falling to get in, but this time it's a good thing. Cause Mike Mitchell. Always on top of these things. We love having him on the show also on the show. Reads news, starting quarterback for his BC lions, not America's, but his BC lions. Nathan mark. Nathan is just the pH. Nathan is very happy to be the, you know, carrying the weight, the hopes and dreams of America on his shoulders. Nathan's doing the Lord's work. And then we're also, we're breaking down all the CFL free agency, which is just as important as the us about free agency with friend of the show, longtime friend, Rob Vanstone. I always love having Rob on. He's a frequent guest on our show. We love to talk to him and he's great. He's sharp. He's on the ball. We love speaking to them. And also we're gonna be discussing slightly some stuff happening with USFL. I guess the coaches were drawing the logos. Kevin, someone probably drove his drunk. You know how the tile goes with Kevin, someone. So that's all happening this week. Anything else we got to talk about this week, going on the market, what the people want to stay tuned for big giveaway. We got our AAF commander's Jersey giveaway getting up to 2000 players. Well, this, now I will tell you, this is a rare, this is rare. I don't normally let people call into the show, but when you're someone that's important, this Mike Mitchell, you have as much important information. As Mike mentioned as we'll let you do a phone there. Mike, how are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thanks for you for having me on and thanks for making the accommodation and breaking your rules. Well, no, I mean, this is, but I mean, this, you, I. Because he said, I'm out of town, I'm working and I'm on the road. I said, the information that you have is valuable enough that just your spoken word is, is good enough for me tonight. Thanks. I'll try and live up to that billing. Thank you. So Paul and I w we're going to go through all the, you. The details that you posted, right. That came out the USFL player contracts. We're going to break all that stuff down. So I don't want to kind of rehash, you know, what you've written. I want to rehash kind of what you think about what you've written. Takeaways from your article, having gone through the USFL player, handbook and contract with all the salary and everything else. You know, Them accounting, USFL accounting for the presence of the XFL is fascinating to me. You know, there's still a lot of people that doubt the XFL. Doubt what type of league is going to be because let's face it. They have a lot to live up to because the league in 2020 was very good. And so they had rockstars in that league that were running it. So. But the fact that the amount of respect shown towards the XFL in terms of a non-compete clause and the salaries are respectable. You know, the USFL is competing against itself in a sense, because there's no other football league out there pro football league out there during the spring at the moment. That were. You know, I, a lot of people in the industry, a lot of people, I talked to agents players. They didn't really expect the, the salaries to be in that range. I'm not saying, you know, 45 K is a hundred K, but for those of us who followed the spring league, We, you know, The expectation level was pretty low in terms of the range of salary. So I would say the wind bonus structure is a positive, it's something I've loved since the original XFL back in 2001 and something that was implemented in 2020. So I'm glad that USFL has that their salaries are respectable, but as people who've read my article at XFL news, hub.com. No. There are certain little. A little provisions and a little things there that are a little bit questionable. Yeah, and I want to get into that. Yeah. And it's interesting. The, the players stuff, cause it's hard. It's a good number for what we were expecting. I know like listener van, right? I'm sure he's talked to you too. Like. Generally, these players all need to get paid more just because, you know, you are working the whole year, even though you're only playing for two months, you're working, you know, you're, you're still preparing yourself and doing all that. So like, I want to say that like van and people like that, like I hear you, right? Yes. They should all be paid more. Compared to what the spring league was or what I think people fear that this was going to be, it is better than that. Correct. It is. And because there are two layers to it. Number one. Do they have a respectable enough salary where people won't just bypass their league and say, well, that's just too low. And can they lock in players and draw in players to their league? So that they can prevent them from going to the XFL. I think USFL with their option year has structured in a way where they might have players that come into the league that are unknowns, that turn out to be stars. And they don't mind risking losing them to the NFL, but they don't want to see somebody be a star for the Houston gamblers. And then just jump ship to the rough next door. Whatever their team name is going to be. So I'm in Houston. There should they, if the XFL is in fact in Houston, That's for another time fans are, but the max. Max is furiously typing. He's in roughnecks confirmed. Now we're here. But, but you can kind of see the strategy behind it. It's a sound business decision. Too, because you, they. And you sense with the numbers that they understand the presence. The potential presence. So the XFL. Cause they could have very easily. I'm not saying this is a good thing. But they could have very easily offered a salary that was more in the 20 K range. And a lot of, and the sad reality is that a lot of these players. Especially the ones that you'll see a lot of the guys in the draft pool. That are former spring league guys. And a lot of these guys don't have any other options and they will take it because let's face it in the spring league last spring. Players played in that league for nothing. Or there were some cases where guys actually paid fees. So. This is a massive improvement from that. So there are a lot of players because there are no opportunities out there in the states that will take. Whatever you give them. The fact that the, which is a shame, but it is what it is, but the fact that they're offering. A good standard contract for first year Lee. Tells me that they're anticipating another league on the horizon and with all due respect, I don't think they're. You know, thinking about FCF watcher. Mike. And I like Alyssa. I, you know, And I like what I've seen. Does. You know, there's some tweaks I would do personally if I was running it, but they have a pretty fascinating and an interesting business model that could actually work. And I think they're doing some fun, interesting things. For what it is, indoor football with gimmicks and all that. That's fine. But I don't think the USFL, what it's doing is. You know, protecting against FCF. And I don't think what they're doing is with all due respect. To Martha and that ownership group we'll see what happens to major league football. I don't think they're. Really concerned, major league football. I think the concern here. Is the unknown. Because we don't know what what's going to happen and what it's going to be like, but the unknown is Redbird capital. The rock. Danny Garcia. And the oncoming XFL. The the money they're offering. Is that, do you believe that soundly enough to, to really draw in big name players? I know we've had some leaked names right? In like Google sheets and things, you know, these players have, you know, publicly said they're in the drop-off. There's really been nothing that has blown me away yet, right. Of anyone. And that's no disrespect, but you know, you gotta have some names to market around. We've heard there's going to be a name of some markets around is 45,000. And I want to get into the room and board in a minute, but 45,000 minus all that is that, do you believe that's enough to draw big names? You know, I mean, you see, you might be able to draw some players. I think, and I think the USFL, his aim is to target the young, inexperienced pro players or college players. We'll see how that goes. Like transfer portal players. So I think if they were targeting, say targeting, say, I mean, I don't think they're going to be targeting anyone like Colin Kaepernick. For an example. Or anybody like that, you're not going to lower those types of veteran players who are accustomed to making six figures or more. You know, the, into the league for 40 K. So you you're going to, so I, I think. The type of player they're targeting is a lot different than some other leagues in the past that. You know, I have presented like the XFL presented a six-figure salaries to veteran players, like Josh Johnson and get them to come in and play for their league and agree to a contract where they weren't allowed to go. So the NFL was like the Detroit lions. A few years back when Josh Johnson agreed with the XFL. So. Eh, I think that they'll have a hard time. Enticing. The veteran name recognition players that mainstream football fans know. And I don't know if that's their target. I do think they're going to need to, and they might be able to track some players of this variety. We're going to need to sign on. Players who have name recognition. Who the mainstream football fan would know. Whether that would be, you know, well now he signed with its rhino arguments, but someone like a Chad Kelly, someone who has name recognition was a star in college is young. And hasn't quite received the opportunity to play in the national football league. We're going to need to get players like that, that kind of move the needle. I, I seen the list of the players. I'm aware of a lot of the players that are in the current database, which is supposed to be whittled down about 500. So those players, I know them a lot of good players, a lot of players that played in the AAF XFL spring league, all that. But, you know, with all due respect, a lot of those guys don't have the cache that some other players would add. It's one of those things where, like you said, you know, And different alternate football league. You know, like the XFL, I hate you. I don't like always easiest the easiest one to kind of use as an example, but you know, the AAF too, like. Well, we're going to pay up for a couple of people, right? We're going to pay up, we're going to make exceptions and, you know, We go back and forth. You and I, and everyone. With the, with the Brian Woods and a lot of the people involved in this. Dealings with them, you know, online, offline, everything in between. Nothing about that strikes me as them being any sort of organization that is like, yeah, we're going to make an exception for these five players, even though I really, really think they should. Like a Chad Kelly or like, you know, Some of the other names. Excuse me, what you seen, pull it around. Like, I think that that is something they should consider doing. I do not see them doing that at all. Knowing what I know so far. And I agree. And you know, and there's an argument too for targeting younger players that maybe not everybody knows when you will look back to the XFL. Jordan Payam will and PJ. PJ Walker. That's somewhat of a name. Both of them in college were very good. And PJ really was good at temple. And these guys, some people knew them, but they weren't like a known veteran player. Like Matt McGloin. And, but. At the end of the day. PJ Walker and Jordan Tamil does. Those are success stories. And those are young guys that didn't really get a chance. And Matt McGloin was a veteran. He had some name recognition. But unfortunately he didn't perform very well. So there's an argument to be had that. Let's go for the younger guys with untapped potential versus the guys that we kind of know. And, you know, our standard functional players, but they really don't have any upside to be superstars. Mammo going to be fair. He performed off the field. Well, With the, with the right, with the interview. It wasn't on the field. He needed to have it both ways. Good guy. And he had a nice background and, and, and in college, and he was a decent backup in the national football league. And he actually got recommended by Andy Reed. To the New York guardians coaching staff, because they had ties to the chiefs. And so, you know, McGloin was a decent backup NFL veteran. Quarterback and that kind of guy to get him in your league, you have to pay him six figures. So it kinda made sense to look for. A veteran that can be stable, that knows how to run an NFL offense or a pro offense and all that has experienced. But I think it's better to shoot for. The PG Walker types, the Taylor, hi Nikki types guys who were stars in college, but for whatever reason, Height weight. Whatever the case may be. They didn't really get an opportunity in the national football league to. I get on the field and play, and then I liked that strategy better. So. From a salary aspect. Like, I don't know. I'll just throw in a random NFL player. Sure you could go after maybe you'll Mike Glenn. If he's a free agent. But. I pay him six figures, a lot of my Glen and guy. I wouldn't, I'm not suggesting that. People know who he is, right. But I would much rather, you know, they us about go after a Jamie Newman or, or some young quarterback. Out there, you know? CFLs making some smart moves, the JT Barrett signing, but the quarterback in that kind of. Realm. Who hasn't really got an opportunity in the national football league, but has a lot of talent and that people know. You know, You and I who are diehard football fans. And I find that people who are fans of the XFL or supporters or folk who follow these leads are the purest football fans, because. You know, I'm the kind of person I can speak for myself that when I was seven years old, used to sit down and do mock drafts and write down 12 rounds and on the football video game guy. And that's the reason why. I'm such a fan and an advocate of leagues, like, like this, but the mainstream casual football fan. They don't. You know, they, they know the name players, they don't from the big schools from the sec, from all that. In the NFL. And not necessarily wrapped up. And so it's kind of an interesting dichotomy of trying to attract. You and I are going to be watching you as a film, no matter what. Cause we're diehard pure football fans, but to attract the mainstream football audience. You're going to need some players that have cache whether or not the use of. The cell can pull those people in. I know that Fox is thinking we'll present a great TV football product. And the concept is what we're selling more so than the players. I don't know if that strategy is going to work out because you do need some players that people know and care about. Yeah. Two things. The JT Barrett thing is concerning that signing with the CFL, because that is someone that was in the spring lake system, right. They you're like, well, if anyone is gonna, you. Move over to the USFL, right? It would be someone like him. Fox is in the, like we're selling pizza model. Like people like football, they're going to eat it. And if it's not the best. You know, and just. I do think they're banging a little bit more, too much on that. And just like, well, people like football, of course, they're going to watch, of course they're going to bed. It's like, well, yeah, but. And we don't know any of these guys, like. I mean, you also need to present a league differently than the NFL. You want to have a lot of the core elements that people love about the NFL. The NFL is the greatest. It's a tremendous product. But you also want to, do you want to try to attempt to anyway? Do things better than the NFL does it, like if you go to a diehard, NFL, Shannon, what are some things you wish the NFL would do with their game? What their rules were, etc. And whatever those answers are, that's the type of pro league you should try to run. And that's what I, one of the aspects that we're many. But one of the aspects that I loved about the XFL. Transparency, social media. The way they embrace the game. All the care and effort that went into all the rules and everything they did. It was a, it was a cool and fun and engaging product. And it wasn't gimmicky and, or any of that stuff. So I think that USFL needs a few hooks. And I have to be a gimmicky league. Which you can't just have a standard blahzay. Football league that's not fresh or innovative or cool. And so. But I haven't seen that yet. I liked the last two commercials. The league, the league has done there. They're nice. They're fine. Right. But your TV executives, like those should be good commercials like that. I mean, like ever. That doesn't mean that I, and I'm not saying it's not going to be a good leak, but Fox TV executives putting together two 32nd funny, compelling commercials. Does not a football league make like that is the bare minimum that they should be able to do. That is why, I mean, you are advertising people, you know? Yeah. I totally agree with you. I, I, I feel like the we'll see now. I mean, there's still time for them, but I it's a real people and you gotta be, you have to, you have to be innovative, fresh, and new and fun. And if they're just a standard football product. You know, I don't think they're going to. I don't think it's going to be an effective strategy. As far as I'm concerned, if you're just presenting us straight, bland. Product with no soul. And, you know, so even, you know, people criticize a lot of these leads that failed in the past, but they all had something about them. You know, even the crazy XFL back in 2001 had the revolutionary spider cam that's in every sporting event. Now that was a cool new way to watch games. And now it exists for every. Football game that you watch, they had sideline access and audio access and all this stuff. So there were aspects of it that were fun and new and original and unique that have stood the test of time. And the USFL has to try like the recent XFL version. To engage with their fan base, not just the diehard football fan, but the sports fan as well. And they did such a great job. The XFL did such a phenomenal job with social media too. And USFL is in the early stages. You're getting closer to the starting point. But they haven't really embraced the diehard football fan or embrace the fan base. You know, going beyond. Coaches drawing on pads or wearing polo shirts. So we'll see how, if that progresses in the. In the coming weeks and months, but at the moment, Kind of bare bones, like a lot of aspects of the league. Mike can you took. Out of my flipping out. I was. You know, talking about social media, I watch skipped Kirby drama. The dead stallions logo today. I don't know what you're talking about. They don't have, I don't know who is in the draft. They're not streaming the draft. My, my tweet about them not streaming. The draft got more play than anything I've tweeted in the last two months. If you want to talk about, you know, except for the rock saying that the XFL was going to have more, the, you know, the new cities, new teams, whatever, like my tweet about the USFL, not airing the. You know, not streaming their area in the drought got more impressions than anything I've tweeted since that. And that wants to give it like anybody listening, like any idea of like, well, nobody really cares. 130, 4,000 people watch the XFL draft. Okay. It was eight hours and it was news. It was ever, but like, At the end of the day. I am kind of tired of this, like, well, we don't need to cater to the hardcore football fans because we have them, right. Like we're trying to get the casuals. As someone that's watched wrestling for my whole life. Like who do you think gets new people to watch wrestling? It's a hardcore people that are like, Hey, Jim, come over and watch this match. It's the people right with the XFL like, oh, Hey, what's going on? I had my dragons hat on it. They cracking game last night. People like, oh yeah. Like I remember that like, is that coming back? Oh yeah, it's coming back. [unknown]. You know, We don't know. I had so many. I've had so many people that were anti XFL leading into like six months before. The XFL debuted in 2020 that were. And tie and I mean, people were huge sports, sports fans, and little by little. They became curious and more curious, and they liked what they heard and saw leading in. And then when the product they do, they were. Pleasantly surprised and happy. With the product that they saw and they enjoyed the league. And, and that was the early stages of a first year league. So there was, there was going to be some peaks and valleys and they're going to build up, but the XFL just did a great job of like, not only embracing. The diehard football fans, but also, you know, Loring people in and sh and then the people who were Lord in saw that this is a fun and cool product. And Hey, they got some good football players in this league, too. I mean to this day, two years later. W the XFL only played five weeks and they've got 30 players playing in the national football league. So, and they only play five weeks. They didn't have like a full season or two seasons to get more tape and more film and get better as younger players. So. That tells you something about the quality of that. And they have rock stars in that leak. Like. No disrespect to who's involved with the USFL right now, but they don't have anybody like a Sam Schwartz. Dean or an Eric Alto. Those two guys rockstar. Do you see what Gallico just did with the east-west shrine bowl? And St Shorenstein and his entire team that was phenomenal. The XFL. So we'll see what Donald Johnson and Brian Woods and. They all do, but if you're going to run a vanilla football, Product bare bones so far. The expectation of them being a bare bones type of league, that's holding up. And it takes a lot more to just being on Fox and NBC, the plenty of products and programs that on Fox and NBC that don't get any player interest. Oh, from anyone. So just being on those networks, doesn't play. Infomercials on Saturday afternoons on Fox and nobody is watching. So you're going to need to be more than that. It struck me this week. In talking, you know, cause obviously a fangirl football is kicking off the exact same day. I will never understand like how in the world that that is happening. But it's like, you have the fingers on football guys are like the crypto NFT, right? Like Patrick DS is like, 40, right. I mean, he's younger than me, right? Patrick's like 30. They're all like. They're like, okay, we're going to NFTs. And like they're in their echo chamber of right. Of like, you know, we gotta make this video game, like we'll need to listen to anybody else. Like we know what we're doing. They're all in their same echo chamber. Like, yeah. Yeah. That's good. Like ballers. Yeah. Let's get all this stuff. And then on the other side, you have the USFL guys. And it's, you know, a bunch of older. You know, men primarily, right. And, and like their TV executives and they know like about that world, like I said, we're going to build this. Where you kind of put together a great TV, commercial, all that. And they're in their world too, of like, we don't need, like, we know how to make a TV show. Like we don't need to worry about like league building. We don't need to worry about like, The. Like, what do people care about? You know, drafts uniforms, like all the things that people care about. Like, well, we don't, you know, we're just going to like show one of them in the commercial and like, maybe that's a uniform. Maybe it's not like we don't even care. Cause we're just making a TV, commercial. And it's, it's literally like the same kind of mentality. On both sides. Like, they're just. Yeah, it's just really weird to me that they're like my frustrations with the FCF were very much my frustrations with the USFL. Like I think you would do well to listen to outside perspectives. I then be like five 50 five-year-old, you know, rich TV executives that you have, like kind of running the things that are going on. Sorry. You know that you don't know it's a good rant. You know, I've been fortunate enough to talk to people within the industry that look at both of those entities that you mentioned, FCF and USFL, and who have positive opinions about the financial structure of both. But like what you just mentioned would fan controlled football. A lot of people I've talked to, they, they think those guys are going to hit on something there with the NFTs and all that. And the lane they're in, they're going to do pretty well. And I don't doubt that. Patrick D's and that crew's going to do a good job with that. They've there's serving a niche. The USFL believes with their financial model that, and I get, and I feel like this is probably the case too. I know a lot of people doubt these things. And we'll see what kind of product do. He used to feel puts out there because there's a lot of stuff about their football aspect, their limited roster. Limited amount of time to get ready. All that. And then I feel that might hinder the quality of the football that we see in weeks 1, 2, 3, and beyond. But. I do believe with USFL that they're going to be around. They're not going to go down after one season because their financial model is set up as such where they're not. They're not going to be in the red bleeding to death. Like most of these leads usually are so. Whether longterm, they're able to present a product that lores people in and keeps people, it keeps interest. That remains to be seen. They're going to need to do it. They haven't done it from the football aspect yet. You know, polo shirts and coach drawings aside. I haven't done it from the football aspect yet. But from a TV aspect, they're going to need a present. They're going to need to present a football game different, different than we've ever seen it before for them to entice people, to continue to watch. If they're not going to put in the effort in terms of Loring the football crowd. And when they do get the mainstream and the casual people to sample their product. You have to turn on their telecast on Fox and NBC and go, wow. I've never seen. Football presented in this fashion. What an innovation, I don't know if they're going to have any, you know, tricks up their sleeves, so to speak, to say. These, this is stuff we want to do with the NFL, but now we can do it with our only, so perhaps. They can introduce some new cameras, some new audio work, some new new innovations. In terms of the production that can revolutionize the industry. Maybe I'm. A little bit too much credit, but. They're going to need a lot more than that. But perhaps that's what they have in store. I do think. And a lot of people think those ridiculous. This will probably not age. Well, I do think the USFL is going to be around for a few seasons because. I believe that they have the financial model to withstand because they're not going to take a lot of hits financially. So I think, I think they'll survive whether or not they could thrive. That's another story. Should the going to the money, financial aspects of it should the USFL have said it was a $35,000 base salary. I just included player, room and board. And then I waited and avoided all of this. Like. Yeah, all the, all the, like all the negativity that's surrounding the fact that there. Yeah. Unless they change it unless there are certain aspects of their player handbook and their rules that are, can be changed at the sole discretion of the league. I would suggest to them that they do cover their players. So they don't want to have any of those issues, but. I I, like I mentioned in my article, I don't know. I know it's been reported by a lot of great reporters and writers out there, like Roy Johnson and other people, people that are in Alabama, that they're specific deals in place. And promises and guarantees. I don't know the specifics behind those, but I don't know if the reason for them not covering housing for players has anything to do. With any promises that they've made. So the local hotels or any businesses, any companies that are doing business with over there, but. Yeah, I suppose I could have done that. I mean, I'd have to sit down and be honest with you and I have to sit down and do the math of what that would cost the league. 360 Players. Over whatever it may be a three months span covering hotels and meals and incidentals and all that. There's also travel. That's going to be involved, which I'm sure. You know, and that's a bore people to death with this stuff, but I'm sure the USFL can set up. Deals with local Uber's or travel agencies or whatever the case may be busing and all that to accommodate players and coaches and whoever needs, whoever else needs to get the facilities and stadiums. So. But. Yeah, there are a lot of like aspects that. That. Well, you know, when I, when I was able to get access to the contracts and look at. Some of the different things that are in play. And weren't so favorable. At 3.2, 4 million for 360 players, 60 nights at 150 a night. Plus whatever. So you mean it's not a, it's not a non-zero I just, when, when you came out with, cause you know, we had just. They come out last week and the plate, you know, we had got the leagues from, you know, USFL news on Twitter. I kind of put together that you. The preliminary numbers, right? I mean, you were getting everything the next day. And I was floored that they weren't, I, we just, I never once gave any thought that the room and board wasn't included because they hadn't negotiated those deals with the city that I'm like, They owe the city 40,000 room nights, whatever that financial number is, but that's. I just never, never even made sense to me that they're like, well, of course they're paying for that. Like they're in a bubble. They're vaped. They've negotiated these hotel rooms. I just, that was a shock to me when that came out. I just couldn't believe that they were like, are you going to have 360 players with credit cards on file? Right? Like, Yeah, you know, And I've had a lot of this information for two weeks now. And I had to wait a lot of times when information that I get. I have to wait sometimes before I can go public with it. From there. There's several different hurdles that are involved sometimes. And I do my own legwork, even when I get information. Do my own digging. It's a confirm, confirm, confirm. So I was surprised as you've mentioned. As well when I saw that. But. Considering that. You know, we've known for a long time now. Li the use of automated, official, recent. We know for a long time that they're going to Birmingham, I've been talking about the hub thing. With the entire USFL since last summer. Even before that, before they started the TSL season last spring. But we've known about Birmingham, but they, there were some hurdles for them in finalizing their deal. That's why they didn't announce it. When they did. And in all the articles that you've read, people have read. About the USFL is dealing with Birmingham. There were some, there was some trepidation, there was some last second. Dotting the I's and crossing the T's and all those and all those other cliches. So. When you see things like. You know, hotel deals and designated hotels and everything. And there's still details that need to come out. About, you know, the housing in particular in terms of whether or not players can share rooms and designated hotels. Or not. Yeah, so. I don't know that for sure. So. And so the league has gotten in touch with me. People closer to league have gotten in touch with me about certain aspects. And so the education program and everything else. And that's some things that I've updated and. In the article itself. So yeah, it's. What we don't know for sure. There's a lot of details out. There is a specific deals that have been made between Fox and Birmingham. A lot of assurances and guarantees had to be made. In order for. This leak to happen. The. I was going to ask you the, the USFL response, but I want to save that to the end, the O the. It's not lost in it. And I'm sure Paul is already ranted about this in, in the section that we're recording, you know, before this interview. But. I mean, the second I sent all this DePaul. It's like, it's not lost on us. That. You know, the spring league. Is still owes money for these hotel rooms, Indian the app in Indianapolis in the sum of 1.4 million. It's just weird now that, and I know it's not all the same and I know, but you know, It's just one. One way. Yeah, one way to avoid, I'll say it for you, I guess, but. Okay. One way, one way, one way to avoid. Having issues, paying hotel fees. And bills is to. They'll pay it and a. You know, another way to ensure hotels business. Is to not cover those costs for 360 of your players. So. I mean, I know their work arounds. I still don't all the details around their workarounds for players. Players will find a way. You know, live, live together. Airbnb's a local housing in Birmingham, little connections here, there, maybe you have some players that. Went to school in Alabama that can have some hookups. So their, their work, their workarounds is there. I was fearing the worst that I was going to hear that the USFL was going to mandate that people stay. Yeah. At their hotels. I didn't hear any of that. But that would be awful. But your point is valid or Paul's or whomever, you know, as far as what transpired with the spring league in Indianapolis. So, like I said, theoretically, one way to avoid. Yeah. Obviously you could talk forever about all this, but last question tonight, it's late for you. It's getting late for me. Obviously there was reaction, right. This, all this information coming out. Right. Which is weird that maybe they didn't anticipate at all, this would come out right at the league and they didn't right. Think that the player, I mean, if you knew the second, the player, like the second that they, the first player was like, sign my contract. I mean, all that, my private DMS that like, we got to get a hold of this thing. I mean, so we knew it was coming up, but. I league reaction to your article. Last question for me. Yeah. So I have a lot of conversations with people that are close to the, to these leagues and that are inside these leagues. And I was expecting some blow back. And. Surprisingly. Favorable. Good. Because, because quite frankly, Everything I wrote was factual. So there's nothing really to, I expanded upon the education portion, which players can, as long as they stay enrolled in each quarter. With the universities that are giving them the debt-free. Education. Players don't necessarily have to be with the USFL or if they leave USFL, they can continue on their free program education, which is, which was a little something that I was concerned about. And I reached out to the leak to find that out. For sure. I didn't want to hear that. You know, play a Liza, you as a felon, all of a sudden he doesn't, he no longer has that benefit. Yes. You get caught. You can't fit it. Now, all of a sudden you can't finish your associates degree that was promised and all that. So, so I wanted to make sure that aspect for players. So that's good to hear. Yeah, I it's been, you know, I've written some and I've done this in the past, you know? Full disclosure. I've written articles about the XFL in the past, where people in the XFL reached out to me and maybe felt that I was a little too harsh in my criticisms or what I wrote. And what have you. And so it's great that people in these leagues are reading these articles and that they're paying attention to what's being put out there and said, and written. So. The interactions sometimes are interesting, obviously from inside a company, there's there, there's a little bit of they're on the defensive. And so. They will question your motivations when you're writing about. When you're writing about things. So, yeah, it's a fascinating process going through all this. And, you know, I operate in the shadows and sometimes when I step out of those shadows with my little, with my hands filled with information, Sometimes people have their doubts or have their criticisms. And I certainly, when I came out with the contract details at XFL, So back home, I got quite a few people who said, are you sure Mike, this doesn't seem right. So. So, yeah, so, you know, It is. So. You know, so that's just the way it goes, but yeah, it's it. You. And I, you know, we, we cover these leaks very closely and in depth and, and it's a fascinating process. Well, behind the scenes and behind the curtain, Yeah. Well, I, and it's, you know, we, we talked to some of the same people. I'm sure you talk to more people than I talk to you, but at least some of the people I talked to. Yeah. As long as it's. Factually accurate to the deeds, if they're okay with it. Right. I have a Vive of 11. It has to be a hundred percent accurate, but they're like, okay, like, well I'll let that go. So. You know, You know, I'll admit it sometimes that the tone might not be as favorable sometimes. There could be issues with what can be perceived as conjecture from time to time. But the facts are the most important. Always. Well, I'm glad that they reach out to you. Because I have lots of thoughts every week. Both on their cell and, and I never hear from daily squats. I'm glad that someone is, is reaching out. But, but I do know, I know that people, the USFL had favorable things to say about one of our past interviews. So hopefully there'll be listening to this as well. So. Anyway, Mike, you're doing the Lord's work a late night east coast on the road phone calling in. I can, I'm imagining where you are because I'm staring at this year, a stock photo. I'm imagining like you're, you're behind a Bush somewhere out in the wilderness. I'm outside of coach's house right now. So I'd be remissed. If I didn't say this before we wrap this up, I just want to say this to everyone out there. I wish. Josh Davis was around for this stuff. I miss him. And I'm not to end on a somber note, but I think about him a lot. And so, and when I'm thinking about the USFL kicking off, whenever it happens with the XFL, we'll wait and see. Which could be coming soon. But I know everybody's waiting on that, but I, during this period with all this craziness going on and Josh had close ties to, you know, FCF and major league football and people involved in the USFL. And I miss him and I hope he's watching this process. I love you brother. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Yeah. With. You know, It's all coming together here. I, I, I tweeted this week. I said, if you had told me six months ago that the USFL would be doing a radio row at the super bowl and not in the XFL. You knocked me over with a feather. So this is the way the world turns. And I wish that Josh had been involved in all of this along the way. It's been very good. Yeah. And then there's so many players reach out. To me, it's still at. You know, Talking about Josh to asking about him. And all that stuff. Ask him about his family. Close, loved ones, all that. And it's, you know, They really appreciate it. More. More of a secretive behind this, behind the scenes kind of guy. And he was out in the open and very friendly with everybody. So I, yeah, I wish he was part of this whole run, but he's watching from somewhere. So this is going to be fascinating the next few months. I appreciate you having me on read. It's good. Yeah. To see Justin, when you came on in December, they go. Either have Mike on every month, I'm like, well, I bet. We can't speak for Mike to do that, but I do think a little bit more. But these, these targeted I'm a fan of the targeted like article let's talk to my, you know, I think this is good. This is a good spot. Yeah. I should have something coming out soon about the XFL. So. That should be. And that should be an interesting piece too. We'll see the wool back on that. As long as it is not tomorrow. When this episode airs. You have my blessing through. Lisa whenever you want. And I, by the way, I'm loving CFO free agency. It, this is your coverage of the CFLs. Terrific. And maybe you can have Chad Kelly on, in the future. I think he's such a great story. And it's going to be fun to watch him progress in the Canadian football league. So it's great to be a football fan for sure. It's good. Yeah. At CFL free agency matters too. There's a lot of talk about the U S department. That was the title of the episode. This week. I said, CFL free agency is either, is greater than or equal to you. Ethanol free agency. There's a lot of chatter right now. Yeah. It's definitely grow. I'm sorry. It's definitely greater. No it is equal Theo, but no, it is definitely greater than or equal the window. Like Kenny Lawler signing, you know, 300,000. You know, jumping ship and all this interesting stuff. Mike. Ottawa by the way, the red blacks. I'd be remiss. If I didn't say this. Red blacks are doing a phenomenal job, not just with their free agent signings, but engaging with their fan base. Like take notes, people. Engaging with their fan base and presenting an interesting, you know, Hey. I'm on the Toronto side of the coin, but I got to admire what they're doing. It doesn't cost you a penny. When you have a staff videographer, it is. The best thing that they've done in the off season, except for obviously bringing in three new GM and acquiree and all that great talent is, is that. Like he's already there. Like you guys are already doing this stuff. Just like put it out. USFL air air your draft. You're already doing it, but if it's all one in the corner, Mike get out of here. We're going to go and we'll see you next time. Well, I am thrilled today. We have Nathan Rourke of the BC lions, you know, new starting quarterback. Nathan, how are you doing today? I'm doing well read. Thanks for having me. It's been a whirlwind, like two days in the CFL, you know, whirlwind kind of two weeks for you, right. With everything going on. How, how, how has it been last two weeks for you? Yeah, it's been good. Not too much has changed. It has gotten a lot more people who want to talk to me. So that's all the real. That was the only real adjustment for it. But. I mean it's, it's, it's exciting news with free agency. You know, you're starting to kind of see the pieces falling into place and. Guys are getting excited and, you know, texting list, some of the guys and, and, and they're getting excited as well. So really for us ma making it come soon enough, and we're looking forward to getting. Getting started. Yeah. Yeah, to be fair with Matt baker, we had, you know, we had talked about getting you on, even before all this stuff was announced that you would have started. I, we had Jake Mayer on last week from Calgary. I'm trying to hitch our wagon right. To all of you, like really good upcoming. Right? You. Quarterbacks. You know, I don't care, but the boat Levi's of the world, right. I want the young guys that I can ride with for the next five years, six years. I just want to, I just want to make sure that that's understood. No, I appreciate, I appreciate that. Someone's gotta look out for us, right. I mean, what was it like, you know, getting. You know, talking to coach and finding out. And how did that all come about being named the starter? Yeah, yeah. Coach Campbell. One of the great things about him is that he's, he tries to be super authentic and transparent, and he was that way last year, you know, throughout the. The kind of the weeks of the uncertainty of Mike's injury and not knowing whether he would start not, he was as transparent as he could be. And I really appreciate that about him and this, this was no. No different, you can call me on the weekend, said that Mike was looking at making a decision sometime in the next week to keep me posted. And then on Monday. Had a conversation and let me know what he was thinking and how they're moving forward. So that's really how I found out. And I mean, reactions to that. I mean, you know, it's, it's not every day, right. You find out someone that's been in the league forever, right. Is retiring. You're taking their shoes. Right. You know, or not. But at least filling that position, that role where, I mean, what was that like for you? Yeah. It was, I mean, it's still super surreal. Like I, I honestly wasn't expecting it. I, you know, I was talking about my family members and whatnot, and we kind of try to understand what. You know, where, where Mike was going to go and what was he going to do? And hadn't had any real communication. So I really had no idea that everyone that I talked to in the organization really didn't think that they had any kind of clue. And so. Wasn't really sure what the, what, the thing of it and was in even more surprised that coach Campbell made a decision that they were going to name me to start it right then and there. But, I mean, obviously from that moment on, it was like, all right, well, this is what we got to do. And this is how it is. And. And, and, and that was it. So kind of hit the ground running with that. You know, I'm super excited. I'm, this is what I've wanted since I've gotten here. Obviously you want to be the guy. As soon as you step on, on the field. Or with a new organization and, and, and, and I, I love the team here. I love the organization, the coaching staff, the players, and it's been really fun to have like a full off season. And knowing going into the campus early, knowing that, that this is the confidence that the organization has in me. And I'm looking forward to hitting the field and getting after it and showing that I made. Made the right decision. Because it's interesting. Right. You know, a lot has been made. You know, limited, right. You know, played last year, you know, limited tape. Sometimes you don't need, right. Sometimes you can just look at the player and know, right. I mean, I would almost say, is it. And I don't want to ever throw any other quarterbacks under the bus right. In the CFL, but there's some guys floating around. Like we see in a lot of, and you're kind of hoping like, well, if they get in this good position, maybe this'll work out or they run the wrong team before, but someone like you. Maybe they just didn't need a lot to really feel confident in going forward with you. Yeah. Well, I think that one of the things that fans might forget is that Mike didn't practice until our first bi-week like he didn't practice during the week. Which, you know, hats off to him. The fact that he was. It's unbelievable to me how good he is to not need practice and then play as well as they didn't in the beginning half of that season when he wasn't. And he was just. It was unbelievable. When you practice all week and then still know the game plan and go out and show out. So, but that opened up a tremendous opportunity for me to go in there and take reps against a CFL team. Take reps with. Lucky Whitehead and Brian Burnham and who really make you elevate, you know, whoever they're playing with. And, you know, the rest of the guys that we had on that, on that offense. And so I had tremendous reps and that started. Day three of training camp. So I had a lot of reps in front of the coaches. I had a lot of reps where they were got to see how I operated in the huddle and, and how I, you know, Played and performed with the ones and as. You might not have seen it out in the field, but. You know, Mike was playing great. You know, at that point and he still ended up playing amazingly side. If she's, I don't want to make that sound like yeah. Give explaining them or anything, but. You know, I was behind closed doors. I was, I was getting opportunities to prove myself and, and I'm not sure how much that went into the decision. I can't speak for them, but it was a little bit more than you might've seen on game day. A lot of excitement's been had right. About, you know, you being a Canadian, right. Taking the starting position, including, you know, friend of our show and your friend, Jim Molan right. Very excited. Right. To have. And now obviously with Michael O'Connor coming in, right. Having a one too. I don't think has been done since the forties, Jim was telling me in messages, right. Of having a CFL team. You know, obviously we just want to play good football or you wanted to succeed, but, but knowing right, that you're kind of taking that Baton and showcasing, right. Hey, Canadians can start and be, you know, the, the main guy in the CFL. What does that mean to you? Yeah, I think I'm obviously very proud of that. You know, I've, you know, all the time that I spent down in the states. Playing football. I was always, that's always, what kind of separated me from the next guy was being Canadian. And I always I'm embraced that. That was, I've always been very proud to have come from, take the path that I've I've taken and. And, you know, coming up to the CFO understood that it was going to be a big deal in that. You know, media types like yourself, we're going to bring it up every interview and stuff like that. And that's just kind of, part of it. But I, you know, I'm proud of it. I don't see any reason why. You know, quarterbacks in the past, I haven't gotten the same opportunities. But, you know, this is what it is. And the goal was never to come up here and to. Blaze, any kind of trail it's to help the BC lions win football games. And that's still the mentality, but if we can make some. Headway in, in, in some other. Aspect of the game and then that's cool with me as well. And I'll be proud to be a part of that. Now not to add more pressure to this, but you have. A few lions are America's CFL team. Right? We have, this has been, this is known, right? Cause you know, we are America. See if a bogus. So knowing that you have the hopes and dreams of America ride in their team and the CFLs, while does that add any extra pressure at all to your plate heading into this season? I mean, you know, I, you know, I just don't want to disappoint you guys. Right. So I, I don't, I think, I think absolutely tremendous weight has now been put on my shoulders. I think, no, I mean, it's cool. It's cool. To be able to. To have, you know, I mean, because I'd been on a lot of stops and in, in my football career. And there's a lot of places in the United States where now for some reason they're playing, they're watching some CFL games. I'm sure. And so I, I, I do appreciate all the support of all the people that have. I've had the chance to connect with throughout the years and throughout the football journey. And then. It's cool to have it come full circle a little bit. For people that don't know, right. The tremendous success you had in colleges while right. Getting the corn, this trophy twice, right in 17 and 18. Talk about that. I've just seen importance of that or being acknowledged or what that meant to you. And obviously I've gone back and forth to Jamal on about this as well, but just what that means is someone you're playing in the league. Yeah, I think it, well, it's a tremendous honor. I think it's such a cool idea to recognize Canadians in the NCAA. Again, it's, it's not one of those things where I went into division one and I was like, you know, this is what I want to do, but. Eh, there's so much talent in the NCAA that our kit for, you know, they're from Canada. There, there was in. You know, There was less at the time that I was entering. College in the 2016 class. There was less talent as there is now, which I'm extremely proud of that. The fact that now there's, there seems to be a healthy crop of Canadians going down to the NCAA every year. You know, I'm proud of the fact that my, my younger brother Curtis. Got to go. Do you get a division one scholarship right out of Canada, which I didn't get the opportunity to do, but he did. And, and I'm hoping that more kids are able to get the same opportunity to have to go down to down to a prep school. And then yeah, at the NCAA we have, you know, You know, athletes like, you know, I don't know is the first name, but mechie down in Alabama. Who's having tremendous success. You don't, you know, talking about him being from Canada is kind of an afterthought because she's such a good player. And that kind of stuff is happening more and more in. And I'm so I'm super proud to be able to, to represent. Just. Continually improving crop of Canadian football players in the NCAA. We're continuing to make their mark. And I'm happy that. That, that that seems to improve and just be a larger group every single year. That's really cool. And that's really special to me. You have to be excited seeing, right. Some of the signings to BC's making, you know, lucky white heads. We had him on a couple of weeks ago, right. Brian Burnham, you know, these talented, offensive weapons, right. That you're going to get to be able to go out there and, you know, hopefully. Compete for grey cup, right? You. I mean, what is it just, you know, you. I assume you are a fan, right? As well as a player. And just knowing that you're going to be able to go out there and work with all these guys. What does that mean? Yeah, it's great. I think that the core of our offense is back and that's huge. Just going back into the same offense for a second year, having a little bit of, of, of familiarity. Is is very, very important. Obviously having, you know, burn and, and, and lucky back is, is absolutely huge, not just for on the field stuff, but for our locker room there, tremendous locker room influences. So, so hard. Workers those two and. And so that that's, that's huge. And just, I think that the more, the more people that we can have in the locker room, That are just true pros and are, and are bought into what we're trying to build here. The better. And I really get that sense that. That coach Rick and, and Neil McEvoy are making decisions that are not just best for what we're doing on the field, trying to accomplish on the field, but what the vision is of the type of men that they're trying to bring in and character and. And all the great teams that I've been a part of have been extreme, made up of a lot of high character people. Not just very, very talented people. I've been on some very talented teams that haven't done as well. And so it's exciting to kind of see these guys come in and go, okay. This is good for more than one reason, and they're making us a better football team on and off the field. That's that's. It's important to us and that's why the guys are so fired up. We're excited and we can't wait to kind of see what we all look like on from the field. Come may. You know, as a quarterback, right? You're in that leadership role in one way or another. Right. You know, there's some guys that are more boisterous, some guys that are quite competent to me. How do you look at yourself in that role? In, in, you know, especially as a younger player, right. Coming in, you know, filling big shoes, how do you, how do you embrace that? Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think that obviously you got to bring your own, your own spin to it. I'm not going to be leading in the same way that Mike Riley was doing it last year. He's a very different person than I am. And a different personality and, and, you know, I learned a lot from him in terms of value, interacts with people. But, you know, that's just not my personality. It's just different. And it's difficult, you know, coming in last year, I didn't feel like I had as much of a voice. Cause it wasn't, you. It was Michael's team. And I didn't want to overstep, or I didn't want to say something to a vet. And them not listening to me and stuff like that. So, you know, what I did instead was just, you know, I, I just put in the work, I treat people with respect and, and, you know, set an example with my actions. And then, and then, you know, people following after that are listening a little bit, you know, that came. And so I feel like that doesn't really need to change. You know, that's the type of person I am. I'm, I'm more than willing to say something if. If something's to be said, but I'm a guy that's going to be able to put in the work. There's a quote. When it comes to leadership. That I rely on. In the last dance maker during was talking about, he was saying that he never asked his teammates to do something that he isn't, he wouldn't do, or he hasn't done. And that's the way that I kind of look at it. I'm never going to ask somebody to do something that I haven't done already, or I haven't, I haven't. I'm not willing to do. And so that, that's the way that I look at it. I think it's difficult. Obviously, these guys are a lot older than I am, but if we can have the belief in what I knew when the other, when he shot. In each other that we're, you know, going after the right. The right things and we're going after the same things and that our hearts in the right place. I think that, I think that that will come. At least for, you know, me looking from the outside, you know, a lot of people, you know, in my Twitter spheres and, you know, groups. It seems to be a lot of excitement, NBC, right. Growing into, you know, we're making big moves, we're signing players, we're being aggressive. Right. You know, Zia Bumphrey agencies excite. Do you sense that same excitement in the locker room? Right. When you're talking with the team leaders. Yeah, I think so. I think we have a lot of belief in first, I think in, in, in the organization first and foremost, I think that when Mr. Domin. Bought the team. There was a lot of excitement about his passion and his excitement and his commitment to the team. We just really hadn't had an identity. Before I got there. It's tough when you don't really have an owner. Who was involved like he like Mr. Domino's and Mr. Noman is making some really. Big. Powerful. Statements. Not only, not only with his actions with his. With things that he's doing, and the guys love that they they're real big fans phase. You know, and then with, with Neil and with coach Rick. You know, There's a lot of belief in what they're doing as well. And I think that the excitement building. Around the free agency is, is justified. And, and like I said, they're bringing in the right guys. On and off the field. And we're excited about that. And, and they have a lot of belief in the players that they have here too. And that's important as well. So, yeah, we're, we're very, very excited and, and, and we can't, we can't wait to get, go to get going. Last question for me, you know, obviously right. You know, gray, copper bus, whatever. I mean, that's what everyone. But I mean, realistically coming in, right. Second season being thrust into this vision. What would you look at? The end of the year said this was a successful run. Right? I feel like I had a successful season. What goals would you have to, to be able to say that. Well, I think that team wise absolutely for going for anything less than a great cup, I think we're in it for the wrong reasons. But, you know, personally, I would love to see, I just want to be able to look at myself on the first preseason game and our last game, which is hopefully in Saskatchewan. In the great cup. I, I would love to see a better player at the end of it. I would love to see. Mia better. Leader better quarterback. I just like to see some kind of improvement. And going into the off season. That's that's my biggest goal. Every single, every single day, every single outing is just to be a little bit better in. I owe that to the organization, to my teammates and to the fans that I hold myself to that. But this team yet, we're bringing in the guys that we think we're going to win with. Right. And that's why the character port. Portion is so important is because we need people who are bought in and then coach Rick and Neil are doing that. And, and again, that's why we're so excited guys. Aren't coming here to. To have another non playoff season. Right. We were in here to go all the way and why not? Why not us? Right. Well, we have our Airbnb or just. Rented already in Saskatchewan. So, you know, I'd like to see you there. You. You know, some of the sound. Orange, you know, representation there in the Greg up, but this is great. I'm really excited. We can get you on. Like I said, Well, we have good friend, longtime friend of the show, Rob van. So, and coming back onto the AI, how are you doing, sir? Not too bad. How are you doing? It is so. This is really the first CFL free agency, right? The world living through, I mean, obviously last year and kind of, there was overshadowed by a lot of other things going on, right. With the XFL and all that is this. Normally it's been very compelling for me to watch and follow and read along with all this effort. Is it always this compelling? It used to be better actually. Before they introduced the sort of the negotiating window. Prior to free agency day. The free agency day. They would just be the blurry for the first hour or two, but now you've got about a week beforehand where. A lot of the deals are made. And a lot of, a lot of them are announced by the players. So once in this case, February gets here. A lot of the big stuff has happened already. There were still some notable moves, of course, but you stop all of them at first day. A lot of those things were negotiated kind of. Quietly leading up to the deadline. Teams knew who they had. I'm sure. Coming in many cases, but, but then to me, this year's free agency day was more of an anticlimax. And I think they've gone without window for the last two years now. Before it had all sorts of logistical problems. Cause you're just trying to negotiate on as soon as the clock strikes 11 or whatever. And so he's a little kid. I was a little less chaotic this year, but I think it was a little more fun when everybody hit the open market at once. And it was just craziness for two or three hours or two or three. Two or three days. Cause it would take a while to Wade through all the premier free agents. In the case of Saskatchewan, for example, they signed. AC Leonard. Literally see. On sacks last year, he was through to become a free agent. They sign up to a two year, two year contract before the free agency window, and then late, late in the free agency window. The riders announced that duke Williams was coming back here. And so those were their two big ones and they were signed before a. Before February, which was my dog snowballs, 50th birthday. He's not a marble snowball passed away in 1984. We would have been 50 on February. And I think gravel in terms of, you know, waiting through. And obviously, like you said, the big moves kind of before and the duke of Williams and all of that. You know, Andrew Harrison, the Argos, right? Trevor Harris finding his way back to the Alawites. I mean, what were some of the ones that really, if you had to pick three or four of like, you know, namesakes y'all remember come the end of the season, like, oh, remember that off season? Yeah. Maybe that free agency pickup. What. Where, where would you put, w who are you thinking? Well, Jeremiah Mazzoli daughter was really interesting. I mean, everybody don't want to walk. The way, the way it's deemed the players seem to. Migrating there. Ottawa was the most reminiscent of the old style free agency world just so much happened. And there were so many things, so many players going to one team at once. I think that's massive just getting their quarterbacking situ situation solidified. You know, I think I am really interested as you alluded to Andrew Harrison, Toronto, especially when they play. That will be beautiful. To see. You know, Kelly Lawler to the Edmonton Eskimos for $300,000. I will never get this right. Chile about Kenny Lawler to the evidence for $300,000, which is on. Unprecedented. Price tag for a receiver. And I think the price tags for receivers overall. We're really elevated. In the, in the past few months, if you're looking at duke Williams, getting recorded $260,000 in lucky Whitehead. Getting over 200, et cetera. I think. I think Greg Ellenson to Winnipeg is really going to be. An underrated yet. Significant assigning may. There's so much as made over about Kenny Lawler, leaving Winnipeg, but them getting Greg, Alex and. I think it's pretty. That's pretty massive as well. I'm sure I'm missing a few. Calgary, but he didn't do anything. John Hoff Nagel was joking that by the time you'd, they re they resigned all the people they wanted to resign. Didn't have enough left to go to McDonald's. So. That aside, a lot of the teams were, or most of the teams were very active. You know, leading up to free agency and then. Basically for the first hour and a half afterwards, there's still some players. You know yet the sign, but most of them are second or third tier players. There's only so much money to spend. So you got to get that money when you can. And that means early. Yeah, it was it's weird. Like the Kenny Lawler thing. You know here, lucky. I had, was it three weeks ago, you know, signs this, you know, highest receiver or whatever. And now here, you know, It's a hundred. I mean, it's, it's more than, you know, 50% more. Right. And they go from two to three. I mean, And then for I in not that Nick Arbuckle, is it like the IDD? The a, it seems weird to me that you would spend $300,000 on the receiver for Nick Arbuckle. I'm stuck on that. Is that weird? You know, Yeah. I think if you're going to go get Nick. Pardon me if you're able to get Kenny Lawler. Wouldn't you want to have a quarterback situation that is more stable and. You know, I'm kind of surprised that that Edmonton wasn't perhaps in while they were in the market, but Jeremiah Mazzoli and they didn't ultimately get him, but they were interested in Mazzoli. I'm a little surprised that Trevor Harris didn't end up back in Edmonton. It ends up signing in Montreal and they already have Brendan Adams Jr. And Montreal. So I thought Trevor Harris might be a really nice fit going, going back to Edmonton. Given the seeming paucity of options. And the S almost did it again. The Elks. Seeming determination to find someone other than Nick Arbuckle to play quarterback. And given that they swung and missed there. How do you now sell Nick? Our buckle on, Hey Nick, you're our guy. There's going to be some interesting. Massaging going on in the Alberta Capitol. It's kinda like him. It's kind of like in the NFL when Miami was at Courtney and Deshaun Watson all year, and then I think. I was like, oh no. The whole thing with. The quarterbacks and oh, Trevor Harris. I think Trevor Harris is the biggest loser of this whole thing because here he was going to get this big bonus in December. Gets cut. You know, I confirmed with BARR hon today. He re he will. A lot of money. Got cut. Then get signed back for less money in the same team that caught him when he didn't get the bonus. And he might just be an absolutely great bargain. But to get a quarterback of that caliber, I think for a report at $120,000. I mean, Cody for Gerardo got more than that in assigning bonus. When we redid his contract. A few weeks ago. So. You never really know with Vernon Adams Jr. And Montreal. Well, I mean, you can have great games and you can have poor games. And I know judging by his Twitter account. He's not exactly. Enamored with the fact that the, the. The lox and brought in. Trevor Harris were brought doc Trevor Harris. So maybe, maybe, you know, that shakes free. It's interesting because suppose that Vernon Adams Jr. Doesn't. It doesn't become V guy in Montreal remained the guy in Montreal. And Trevor Harris emerges there. It was Chris Jones who had brought. Brendan Adams Jr. To a Saskatchewan in 2017. So they have a history. So maybe. Berlin Adams Jr. Ends up in Edmonton. If Trevor Harris ends up. Being the number one quarterback in Montreal. Yeah, what D I did see that I saw, you know, and Verna was on our show a couple of weeks ago. Bernie was a really nice guy, but he doesn't, he's a nice guy, but, but he was, he was, there was a little salt there, there was a little salt, like, well, I guess I got. It wasn't I guess I gotta be the man again there. I mean, you know, and I'm not trying to disparage whoever. It would certainly upset me as well. If I was signed in and then you bring back the guy that, you know, it it's complicated. Right. But what do you make of that? Yeah, that's that one really surprised me. When I looked at places that Trevor Harris was going to go. I just didn't think that Montreal was going to be that. Great. And auction for him. And I didn't think he was going to be that enticing and option for the lox, because I think we're coming out. The juniors should be clearly the, the guy there, but obviously there's, there's some uneasy. It was a burden downs junior, by the way, was Eastern Washington's quarterback Cooper. Cup's first two years there. And if you look at Cooper cups, For your, your. By your totals that he said, Washington. He caught the most touchdown passes. It is a four year college career as a freshmen. 21 With Vernon Adams Jr. As a quarterback. So how many guys have better numbers as a freshmen than they do as a senior? That tells you something about how good Vernon. Adam's Jr was so there's my Superbowl aside for the day. But yeah, I, I think Burnett junior and that's a really, that one just doesn't add up for me. I. But if he doesn't work out in Montreal, I'm sure there's a lot of, a lot of teams would be very happy to, to have him. Yeah, it is weird. It seems almost like. You know, cause a lot of you like Jeremiah Missoula is a very different quarterback right than Trevor Harris, a very different. I mean, it just seems like sometimes with the CFL, it's like, we just got to get someone here at this point. We just got to find someone like even Vernon, like Vernon and Trevor and not. At the same quarterback at all. It's really weird. It is weird. I mean, just totally different system. I just don't get the Mazzoli thing. I really don't. He came into the great cup and played well, but. And he has done in, in, in certain spurts when he was with Hamilton, but I don't know. I would be, there's a lot of starting quarterbacks in this league, but I would be more excited about having on my team. And Jeremiah is only in Trevor. Harrison's one of them. And grim it out into junior is another. This is the. More head scratching high, spend Jeremiah. Mazzoli or McLeod in Toronto. That one. I don't get that at all. I. I mean, I watched the playoff game and the Argos playoff game and I thought, well, I think we, our goal is going to be shopping for a quarterback. And no. They had. I just, I don't get that. I really don't. It's. That one really puzzled me. They must be seeing something that I don't, and, you know, they're in a much better position to critique it than. The knees sitting here on a, on a bed and Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, talking into a phone. So, but just on the surface, I just, I don't get them McCloud. Bethel Thompson. Yes. He led the league in touchdown passes in 2019 with 26. But a lot of the on body bullied by Mitchell was hurt for part of that year, et cetera. I think there was some circumstances there that allowed. McCloud Bethel Thompson to just kind of sneak up the middle and do that. And then some of those. Touchdown passes were in garbage time that wasn't a very good Argo team. And then last year, give him his due. I mean, he did. He did help the Argos just have a pretty good year, but in the playoffs, it just. There were opportunities there in which they couldn't cash in. And. I just thought that playoff loss didn't leave me with a really strong feeling that the Argonauts have a, have a solid base of quarterbacking there. So, you know why he as a prepper Harrison, And in Toronto on a Trevor Harris and Nick, maybe, maybe. One of those guys will play for a lot of these by the time he's done. But I, I like him a lot more than a lot of teams starting quarterbacks. And so the cloud is fascinating cause we had Christina, you know, Casa Milan last week. Right. And CFL, you know, right. Dot CA. And like, you know, they, she loves McLeod and people love McLeod. And is it, it's just interesting how, like, it really, you could go person to person and it's like, Polar opposites. Oh, well he had this stretch of this many place and this, and he's had this many planes, you know, without intercept. Yeah. I mean, you look around the league. And, you know, there's a bit of a changing of the guard or the changing of. Quarterback, I guess. I mean BC you're you're talking about. Nathan work and Michael UDAG Michael O'Connell. Nathan's a great get for you by the way, for this podcast. Calgary, even though bullied, bullied by Mitchell's been entrenched there. You start to you start to wonder where the year that. But he is coming off of with an abnormally high interception, total Nick mayor there, maybe there's something. Edmonton. They're obviously not sold on, on, on Nick Arbuckle, Cody for Jordall. There are some people here legally. Maybe someone, the fan base that aren't sold on him because he didn't have as good a year as he did in 2019. Winnipeg. They're fine. Zach Claros most astounding player. Although he's been off concussed and there's nothing behind him. And then you go to the east and I just not sure that anybody from the, from the east really. Just leaves my head spinning thinking of them as a quarterback. There's a lot of six out of tens and that's that's about where it stops. This is interesting. I like this. I'm glad these are good takes. I'm glad it different than what I've been living through the last couple of days. But that's okay. I think I like having to send you the opinions on this. BC, you mentioned that, you know, Nathan Rourke and Michael O'Connell, right. You know, combined 67 pass completions, I believe, right. That I think Dave Naylor quoted. Great move or the greatest move in terms of the quarterback room this year. I love that. I mean, I'm good. I mean. It clears all sorts of salary, cap room for them. It's a bit of an interesting. Dynamic and the quarterback will be one of the lowers pillows. Those paid paid players on the offense and BC, which you don't see very often. So. And that I think fueled a bit of the receiver. Expenditures too, because suddenly knowing that they're not going to be paying top dollar for a quarterback, They've got $200,000 to pay. Lucky. Wipe it. That raises the bar for all receivers. And there are better receivers and lucky, white that. So then. Willing. William's cashes in and then Kenny Lawler as well. But. I just think it's intriguing to see what might be happening. And in, in BC, it's B it's been since Russ Jackson in 1969, that there's been a long term Canadian quarterback in 1980 jury to Teleo with Montreal was named the most sustaining player in the east. What was in the Eastern conference, he was a Canadian quarterback, and then they were so crazy about him and that they brought in Vince Ferragamo from the Los Angeles Rams. So in 81, so there's been little spurts of Canadians playing quarterback, but I don't think. For a long time that the team has demonstrated this amount of degree of commitment to, to one Canadian quarterback. Let alone two. And that's really going to be intriguing. It really opens the door for some interesting discussions. The BC lions can make it work when Leif and Nathan Rourke. Well, I it's like the Tom Brady thing. Right? Take less spread it out. Right. Don't. Not obviously. You know, CFL salary, a way different and all that, but you know, don't take this Michael Riley, $750,000. Right. At least in the you're able to pay it. I mean, certainly not to the extent of, cause I think Nathan's on like 80,000. I mean, it's essentially low. I mean, when people are poo-pooing Trevor Harris has contract, I mean, Nathan Varrick right. But I think the, the, the idea with him and the same with like Jake Mayer is, well, you got that big contract coming, you know? Let's let's ride this year out. Right. And you see a bit of that in the NFL to where you want to get some quarterbacks. And play, pay them and play them. Well, they've still got their stolen, their rookie contract. And then, you know, by the time they start earning $40 million out encumbers, you. Elsewhere. It's not, it's not to say that you can't win a super bowl with a $40 million quarterback, but boy, does that liberate you financially? If you've got a quarterback on a rookie contract. For for that period of time. And so maybe we're seeing. Not necessarily an equivalent of that, but a variation of that in the Canadian football league. It's okay. If you don't. Do you have any thoughts on Chad Kelly, nephew of Jim Kelly signing with the Argonauts? I don't know. A ton of, I believe he was with Denver one point. If my fading memory. Isn't eluding me here, but I mean, Great opportunity for him or anybody in Toronto. Given what was referenced earlier with McLeod Bethel Thompson, it's just. Especially when you look at that market too, like they really need somebody who's going to get. Got tongues wagging and. Toronto. But the cloud gets hard to beating with this dreamy eyes. Come on cloud is the phase of that franchise. You know, but, but what, you know, drama was like a virtue. That's the Buffalo bills town. And I remember when I was at the great top in 89 in Toronto. And I had a cab driver asked me a, you know, what are you in town for? And I said, great company. He goes, oh, that's here this weekend. And the big, the big thing in his mind was that the Buffalo bills would play the Cincinnati Bengals that weekend. There's a, she has a huge Buffalo bill. Bill's following in Toronto. Of course. So maybe getting Jim Kelly's nephew in Toronto. Might raise the antennae of a few people may maybe entice them to go to Argos games. Should he play. Well, they. It's interesting too, about that. And, and aside from this interview, we're going to talk about it tonight. You know, I, he had been rumored for the USFL up, sorry, this is happening in April. And it's very interesting that a quarterback would choose to go to Toronto as a backup versus, you know, stay in and play in Birmingham for 12 weeks for. Probably roughly about the same. Money, you know what I mean? I probably make a little less in the USFL, but you're also in the states. So it's just curious that way. Aye. I'm I'm a little surprised that maybe some players aren't holding off, maybe that's a. The declaration of somewhat the lack of confidence in the USFL. I'm not totally familiar with what the salary structure. Is there maybe there's more money to be had in Canada then? Then in the USFL, I don't think there's any Donald Trump's in the USFL willing to pay. What, what Donald Trump paid for? Who's Herschel Walker or. Doug fluid it'll use any Steve young and contracts. Coming out of there. So maybe players are just thinking, let's just get the money while we can. And the opportunity while we can get it. The CFL has proven to be a pretty good pipeline to the national football league, to. So it's not like you're disqualifying yourself from going to the NFL. One of the impediments once upon a time was when you signed with the CFL. All is still there. I mean, if you first, your first year contract. Is a year is at least a year in an auction. So you're locking yourself in. For more than one year of your veteran player, you can sign a one-year contract and then go. So there's a, when there's more, more builders at decent affordable ability, there's the audio. You know, players can. Can take a look at the NFL options. You saw that with Devante Deadman and in Ottawa. So I think you can, there's still that pipeline to the national football league. You know, NFL people. They're looking for talent. Wherever they can find that they're going to mine it, and it's, it's so competitive down there. So you're not out of sight out of mind if you're playing in the clean football league. And it also tests your ability as an athlete, because you've got a bigger field to maneuver around, to. What do you make of this? The divorce between I, and I know we talked a little bit about the Andrew Harris, but him being. There's this feeling of, I guess, respect. Right. And they lost faith in me. Maybe they thought at 35 year old running back wasn't worth right. The contract, which is understandable as well. And him going to Toronto, I mean, is that, is that even the good fit and what do you think of just ending Matt? The way it did. You know, it just doesn't always happen the way you want it to happen. In a perfect world, paid Manning would have ended his career in Indianapolis. Joe Nemeth would have been a jet. John United would have finished off in Baltimore. Joe Montana would have finished off in San Francisco, et cetera. G Roy's. Simon would have finished with the BC lions. It's Willie plus with them. There's so many, so many ways of looking at that. So this is just symptomatic of what happens in a salary cap league. When a player starts to creep into his thirties or in the case of Andrew, Harry Harris has mid thirties. I don't think it's a matter of disrespect. It's you look at the Winnipeg blue bombers. Depth chart. And they've got two Canadian running backs who are younger and who they think can. At least come close to two. To the production that Andrew Harris gave them. When you have to factor in. Is there going to be a decline? It sure didn't look like the playoffs when he was in Saskatchewan. Pardon me what he was up against the Scottrade and the west final, just running like crazy. But, you know, That's a really parallel parallel. So. H for a. Not just the running back, but any professional football player, perhaps with the exception of quarterbacks. So I don't think it's a matter of being disrespectful or disrespected. I just think if you're the one that paid blue bomb or somebody you've got to pay everybody, like they're a champion. And that, that is really a problem. When it, when teams have won two great cups in a row, everybody. And these players have all contributed to it and they've kept that core together. Everybody expects to be paid. That kind of wage and their, their marketability goes up because they're, they've got that two time champion label. And that makes it exceedingly tough. And a lot of bombers players too took. Probably less than market value to stay there last year. A few have done that this year, but there's still Philly feeling the squeeze. And, you know, In the case of Adam big help. For example, I think he's making up some of that money that he relinquished last year. So that's going to come from somewhere. And if you're looking at where to cut, it's the older player, it's no different than I think in Saskatchewan, if you look at some of the players who. We're allowed to leave here or decided to leave. By and large they're they're in their thirties or late twenties. It's a Jeremy O'Day one to keep these younger players. And if he's going to air, he's going to air maybe giving up on a veteran player a year early, as opposed to. A year too late. A year ago around here, a lot of the talk was how could the riders. Not keep Charleston Hughes. He's 37 by the time last season was over, it looked like it was 57. So validated the rider's decision and a. You know, in the case of Andrew Harris, severe. If he can come back and play like he did when he was a young youngster, 32, it's a great move for the Argos, but I don't think it's necessarily an ill-advised move for, for. For Winnipeg because they just got a. Just look at the. What. The likelihood that a 35 year old player is going to be somewhat in decline. And they've also got that depth behind them. And they've got a salary cap squeeze by virtue of having been so successful the last two years. That means you've got really good players and you've got to pay them as such. Yeah, it's just hard. I just, you know, some of the time, my dad's like, I mean, I know. I know you're having quotes for the media and stuff, but you gotta be like realistic, you know, a little bit, if you're the, you know, if you're Andrew Harris, you gotta be a little bit like understanding of that versus like, well, I feel. And this came out of nowhere and they, I dunno, it just seems like let's, let's be cognizant of the situation here a little bit. Until he was. It's not easy to be your own agent and that Andrew Harris representing him represented himself in discussions. That's so easy to take that. Personally. If you've got an agent in the talks. The general managers talking to the agent and, and. I think this less likely to create a situation where. Were there. There's bitterness, but in the case of the bombers, you. You've got Kyle Walter saying to. Andrew Harris. I don't know. I don't know what the nature of the conversation was, but at some point you would have made it very clear that they didn't think Andrew Harris was worth what Andrew Harris thought he was worth. And there's no intermediary in the form of an agent. So when you're hearing it right from the GM, I think it's going to sting a little more. You don't have an agent to, to play middleman. That's interesting. I didn't realize that that's that's that. That. Changes a lot. Emily adds more color to that. A couple of questions. I want to hold you too long on here. Oh, my. I got all night. I'm just sitting here with a dog. Well, I appreciate your time. I want to talk about. Our mutual friend, rod Peterson this week has been incensed, right? Like these one year contracts and it's terrible. And the people, you know, it's, yes, it's exciting to see all this free agency, but then I'm going to turn on the TV right in June and oh, that guy's on this team now. I didn't even realize that. Right. Where do you come down on that about, you know, the excitement and having players be able to get the money that they want. Right. Get paid, do all that, but then also continuity. And for the fans. You know, involvement with the teams. Yeah. I'm more, I'm more. Good closely aligned with rod. And now when I just think the one year contract makes it difficult. It's almost like you're picking a different fantasy football team every year. And maybe it's kind of a partial keeper league. Keep four or five players, and then everything else goes into the pot and that doesn't do much for player identity. Viability doesn't do much for marketing. It's tough to have not just kind of transiency. It's tough to build a team. Now you can rebuild a team in no time. If you spend your money. Wisely. But it's, I just, I don't like it and I don't, I'm not sure. Does the players any good either once upon a time early in the. In the early years of the major league baseball players. Players' association and. Marvin Miller was in charge of one of the things he tried to resist. Was an absolute ton of free agents because the fewer free agents there. Are the more, there's a bidding war and it's supply and demand comes into. And to affect them one and one on what's fun time. The owners. You know, propose the more of a Miller. Let's just sign everybody to one of your contacts. Everybody comes to free agent and Marvin Miller was absolutely viscerally opposed to that. That's the last thing he wants. But there's just, there's just, the market is flooded. So. I that I just, you know, you look at the receivers this year and it's exciting to see all these great receivers out there, but it's not like everybody can zero in on duke Williams that if you don't get duke Williams, you've lost the free agent receiver because Hey, there's also Kenny Lawler. Hey, you know, lucky Whitehead could have tested free agency. There's that kind of magic figure. So, you know, there's Greg Allinson. They're just been, not one terrific receiver out there then, then I think that's. That makes up clear more. Desirable and more and more I can help with that can help with her. You can't help, but assist the pocketbook and the fountain, the pocketbook. So I just go back to the Marvin Miller thing. I mean, that's the smarter labor negotiators whoever has. And that was someone who was an advocate for the players. And a fierce. Opponent of absolute free for free for all free agency. Yeah. It certainly does speak though. I think to the quality of the athlete in the Canadian football league, right. That there are this many good players right now moving around and that many fans that are excited like you hear, and we've heard. You know, there's all foreign to. I fell like. These are all like big signings in exciting signings and. I mean, I like that. And being like, oh, I know these guys, like that's going to be a good fit for them, but that's not, or we don't know about this, but it is, it speaks that. I think, and if handled better by the CFL itself, right. Free agency could be a lot more exciting to, you know, broadcast or do things like that. Last question. Winner of so far team winner. Free agency and loser of the free agency. That's an interesting one. I would lose her just because they really didn't have a choice to be the calorie stamp Peters. Cause they just, they, but that, that also speaks to how well they did reassign the players. They wanted to bring back, but comes free agency time. There was really nothing for them to do cause they. It's Dr. Team. So I'm not sure if they were a loser as much as they just abstained. And let everybody recuse themselves. Let everybody go. I think Ottawa. I mean, they really needed to make some changes there and they've signed a pile of players. I'm still not sure. Jeremiah Mazzoli is the answer there, but I'm absolutely convinced at the quarterbacks they had were not the answer for. If you look at what the Ottawa. But blacks did. I think they, they really helped themselves. The loser. You know, Edmonton not getting a quarterback. I think that. That works against a lot of the gains they made. Chris Jones showed in Saskatchewan that without an [unknown]. Tier one quarterback, you can, you can do reasonably well. They had Kevin Glenn and Brandon bridge in 2017. They won 10 games and the next year they had Zack Collaros who wasn't the Zack. Claros for singing when I'm back now. And they won 12 games. But when Chris Jones won a grey cup, he had Michael Riley in 2015. And you had. I think you need that type of player. And that was the number one item, I think on as much as they expect for Kenny Lawler. The number one thing, the Ahmanson Elks. Yes, I got it right. I have to have to deal with was get a quarterback. And they didn't. Ah, I think that's ultimately to their detriment. Well, that'd be interesting to see whether we have in a CF on these. Have we have. I Nick Arbuckle fans. And we'll see, they're certainly people that there might not be a lot, but there are some people that are Nick Arbuckle stands. Thank you so much for coming on and, you know, fitting us all, man. And we working around schedules and I appreciate your insights. And I knew that you'd be the right person to talk to this week to kind of get. Yeah, the macro and the micro of kind of everything that's going on. So. Oh, pleasure. Reading. And if I haven't proven to be the right person, I hope you find that person. What I've said is very easily refuted. And counter. So. And we have a candy Sadie. That's good. There's candy or isn't you sweet. Oh, here she goes. She's mobbing me.