Various CFL, USFL and XFL Interview Trascriptions from Reid Johnson of The Markcast® podcast. 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.

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Third Down Gamble Interview - July 14, 2021

Welcome everyone to the podcast. And I've got a very special guests from the Markcast tonight, Reid Johnson co-host of the show and read glad to have you back on, Okay. Co-Host of the show. And you're actually talking to, and this is breaking news. As of today, you're talking to the latest Paul and I. Now we are official members of the grey cup fan base I bought in today. I I'm, this is a true story. You know, we're in the XFL podcast, we cover CFL and we've had a lot of, you know, people you're Americans, whether you know, about any of the CFL stuff and pawn today, put our money where our mouths are and we are now officially going to be on the gray cup that whatever that legacy trophy thing is we bought in. So yeah. Awesome. I am there too. Okay. Oh, there you Go. Is that we will be on there together, but I said I, I yeah, we were just getting into some Twitter discussion today and I said, we're going to do that. And so we did it as a rib, but yes, we will be a part of that that lineage now of the gray cups. So Speaking of which, how is Paul doing? That was crazy. What happened to him? W we're good. You know, we do a lot. Paul Paul got injured at work. I'm now I have braces today as of two days ago. I had a work injury as well, where I broke my friend too. So hopefully this is not a video podcast, but hopefully that my audio isn't too bad with it if I have a list for anything, but yes, we'll address that on our podcast as well. But yeah. Paul and I have both been podcasting injured for the last couple of months, but yeah, we're working through And in Paul's situation, I saw him on YouTube. He looked pretty beat up. Was it a blast or something like that that went wrong? Yeah, Paul Paul works for a new station down in LA and they were going through a 4th of July firework. Like I used to do it too, and I was in news and they would go through and look for like illegal fireworks or things that aren't maybe up to code. And then they detonate them ahead of time. They put them in like a box, like a big oven kind of thing and whatever it was. But Paul was, you know, probably 25, 30 feet away. I mean, I imagine across the street and the, when they detonated it, not only did it injure the police officers that were trying to safely detonate it, I actually gave him a concussion because of the blast. So you have to imagine how serious that blast had to have been right. To literally give somebody a concussion just from the force of it. I mean, I, I couldn't imagine how, how serious that blasts had to event. Yeah. That wave that comes out to ahead of everything. It's an amazing amount of force. I've experienced that once in my life, but I didn't get a concussion from it. Thank goodness. So, yeah, but no, we're, we're in through. It's exciting, but yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's one of those things where in like you, you know, we all podcast and tried to come out with content every week and you know, things happen. And like I said, you know, I felt I was going to lose my tooth. Paul's been in the hospital and, you know, it's fun though. I, this gives us obviously something to talk about and cover, you know, in the meantime. So Yes, if you'd have a slow week, I guess you can always injure yourself. I don't know if I'd recommend that as a way to create content with no, I just want the best for you too. I don't want to see anybody hurt. No. Okay. So, well, let's move on to the topic at hand. I guess if for a couple of weeks now, you've been aware that the CFL and XFL have parted ways at the meeting table. What's. What was your first reaction when you heard of it? You know, I, I really mixed emotions. I, and I think I said it on our podcast initially. It was kind of the same thing when Paul and I, when the news came out originally that the XFL was postponing and, you know, we cut fat. Maybe they were going to try to launch in 2021. And they had done that initial launch to 2022. And when you kind of read that news and you're like, you know, it kind of takes you a second to process and you're like, okay, well, like everything we've talked about for the last, however long, everything we're going to talk about for the next, however long, it is all affected by that. And that was the same thing. Obviously when the, when these merger partnership talks, you know, kind of came to a close and it was disappointing at first because like every cool thing that anyone has hypothesized about you know, from merging the leagues to change in the rules, to running the leagues, alongside each other, to inter you know, interlacing the schedules to, you know, anything to do, doing the championship game between the leagues, everything in the world that's been talked about like literally nothing's happening at all. Right. And so I think that was, that was the most disappointing. I mean, I think that we obviously gained a lot of listenership and I think that it was, it was bountiful for the CFL at a minimum, right. To get people to, to talk about something here right in the off season when they were getting ready to come on, but it was disappointing. And then it was also frustrating because I think the narrative immediately became you know, the CFL told the XFL to take a hike and I, I'm not a XFL mark in, in that, you know, I I'll criticize them for being quiet as much as, you know, the CFL for doing things. But I don't think that that narrative is accurate really in the, in the lease. And so I don't like to see that narrative being perpetuated either. So it's kind of the blame game as it were, who was at fault for all of this. And I guess people are looking to find something. Yeah. I, I know Terry Jones up there, he writes for Edmonton. I think he was the first tweet that came out and it was like, well, it's exit for the XFL. You know, the CFL is taken the, tell him the twice fail week to, you know, take a hike or kick the curve or whatever the phrasing was and, you know that that's part of it. Right. But, but if you're in a relationship or trying to be in a relationship, you know, you can, you can decide on your own, you know, both sides can part ways and have it be kind of a mutual thing as opposed to just being, oh, you know, the CFL, whatever. I mean, we have quotes and, and we just did an hour long podcast with our XFL kind of insider Mike Mitchell that, you know, he talks with all the people on the XFL side, just as much as a lot of the CFL guys talk with the, you know, the guys and girls on the CFL side. And that is definitely not the perception that Mike has, have had the situation, you know devolved. And that's definitely not the perception that I have having spent now two weeks or a week and a half. I mean, it really hasn't been that long. You know, trying to kind of process all of this. I know people are upset. What was this really a waste of time? Or do you think that because there was a lot of discussion that there is something that did come out for both leaks that they could use? I think it's, it's mixed. That's a really loaded question. It's really mixed. I know there's a lot of XFL fans right now that are very frustrated by all of this, right. There's a lot of exit bell fans that think we would have been launching in the F you know, in February this next year. We're a, not for these talks when we had Mike on our podcast this week Mike and I would obviously encourage anyone, you know, to check out our episode that the mark has.com, but you know, Mike talked in there and he goes, you know, it, wasn't just, the CFL talks that at some point between when the XFL announced the 20, 22 launch, they realized that their plans were too big and we're going to need 20, 23 anyway. Right. So the CFL talks were not the reason entirely that the XFL is, is delaying another year. Right. And I've been critical of that as well. Right. I mean, I, we, we, we ask questions no matter what, you know, league and I've questioned, you know, is the exit bell vision, is that too grand for what people want now? Right. If I'm a football fan, do I care about a year, year and a half of content building up to a launch of a league? Or do I want something like, maybe the USFL is doing where they're going to kick off potentially there, you know, talking about it and next, you know, February, you know, whatever winter time, and they're not going to do any of that. Right. But, so to get back to your question a lot of people do feel like the XFL wasted time. I think that they were probably, and we can get into this too. I think they were probably frustrated by it, the XFL for the CFL. I think the CFL got more out of it than anybody, because I do think that more people worked at the CFL on the last four months than would traditionally look at them. Especially in the last four months. I mean, if not, you know, many times of the year, but I can't imagine that, that the amount of traffic and, and talking and, you know, podcasts, listening and viewing for everybody, right. You meet every, you know, everybody that covers this, right. You know, it is Rob Vanstone or someone that's going to be on their podcast again, here, coming up next week. And it was he doing a podcast hits about the XFL stuff. We're this not, you know, probably not. Right. And, and, and we've had a lot of people on there that probably wouldn't have gotten to talk and get to promote things and do whatever we're not for that. So and then to finally round it out, I do think that the CFL, I w I would like to think they gain something from this, but it's, it's one of those conversations where you can know what you need to do. I think the CFL probably knew what they needed to do before these talks to grow their game and expand out. But you know, just talking to somebody smarter than you doesn't necessarily make you smarter. And not that I'm seeing that the XFL is, that's just a dumbed down way to say it. But, you know, talking with someone that has a lot more ideas than you doesn't necessarily give you those ideas, you don't know how to execute them. The CFL has survived with nine teams for the better part of 60 years. There have been a few people that said, well, now that they've missed this opportunity, they're done, they're cooked because of all their financial woes. Do you agree with that? Do, does that resonate with you? No. I mean, I think it's one of those things where the XFL wants something bigger. Right. And you know, I'm in the wedding industry, right? There's lots of different. And, and I have a separate podcast where I talk with wedding vendors of many kinds, you know, of different sizes and whatever. And there's some people that want to you know, it's just me and I make flowers and I, and I do one wedding a weekend and I want to do all that. And then there's other people that go, well, I want to have a team of 12 forests and we do 50 weddings a weekend. And we wanted to do all that. I think the CFL wants. And we said it in our interview with Mike Mitchell, they are at their core, a smaller market minded business. And that's not a bad thing, but they are not interested or, or seemingly able, I mean, Ambrozy has certainly tried this global initiative, you know, the last year and a half, two years. I mean, obviously it's been derailed now, but you know, they might not necessarily be interested in the ideas that the XFL hat, right. And, and one of the quotes that came out that I thought was really spoke most volumes about all of this. And we have XFL new sub was basically along the lines of the XFL. It was an anonymous source on the XFL side with all these discussions. And they said, we have so many ideas and they're so complex and they're so far ranging, and we're just afraid that we're never going to get a sign off of anybody. And to me, that sounds like we had a bunch of cool stuff. They weren't interested. And then we show them some more cool stuff and they weren't interested. And then we showed them the, of that behind the cool stuff, and they still were interested. And finally, we were like, I guess you're just not interested. And that's okay. I mean, there's totally okay to not want to expand in the way that I think that the extra fell them want to, and I don't know if they're going to be successful, but they certainly want something different than what the CFL is wanting to do. Is it possible that the CFL saw what was being proposed and said, we don't think that's even going to work and therefore, why do we want to agree to this? Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, I will be as critical of anybody that it might be too much, you know, I mean, now we're talking, the article came out this week, you know, th the XFL wants to do a team in Mexico, potentially. They want to do a team in Canada, right. Maybe come back with, with either eight teams, but have a couple of them relocated, or I guess 10 teams. And, and then have those two additional ones. That's a lot, right. That's a lot to do, and I'm not going to sit here as much as I've criticized, you know, Homer's at other leagues and whatever. I mean, I'm certainly not going to sit here and say they have all the answers or that's going to be the right way to do it. I think that they're as equipped and as prepare this, anybody since we've covered these leagues to do this right. And the hires, especially that they've made them the last couple of months, you know, bringing in Kevin LaForce that was involved with, you know, brokering the, the $10 billion, whatever NFL TV rights deal, and then bringing in Jay Roth, Rothman, I believe is his last name. You know, the executive producer for the last 25 years of money that football, I mean, they're not effing around. I mean, these are big, those are big hires, right? The guy that just brokered the largest television rights deal in NFL history, $10 billion is now working for Redbird. That's involved with the XFL. Now, I, you, you sort of quickly referenced that they may look at Canada and Toronto is probably the most likely destination. The Argonauts are there. I saw one story on the XFL news hub that maybe the Argos will jump ship and join the XFL. The question in my mind is with 50% ownership by bell who has the CFL television rights. I don't know how that could ever happen. I don't know, no either. I just know that in, in the same day on Friday when our interview came out with Mike talking about how the exit bell was still interested in potentially taking the CFL team, moving to Canada, whatever that, excuse me, whatever that looks like. Dan Ralph, with the Canadian press, who's going to be on our show this week also came out with an article talking about from his side where he, the Argonauts still are very much interested in pursuing the deal with the, with the XFL you know, and we've gotten a lot of, and I've talked with Dan offline and he goes, man, I've just been hammered by people about this article. Right. And I go, well, I'm very excited to get into all this, you know, on the podcast and talk, but let's remember when, when these talks broke initially back in March, it was Dan Ralph. They have the quotes from Danny Garcia from Jerry you know I feel like Cardi now Jerry you know, from these people, you know, quotes from Ambrozy and everybody else you know, with these quotes, right? And so when you're sitting there and you're going well, you know, who is, who is the Amber who I'm like, he apparently was close enough with all of these, the first time to come out, to be the first reporter out with these things. So if, if Mike is saying it on, on his side, and we know from the past where months and months and months ago, before any of the CFL stuff happened, June Jones, former coach roughnecks ride, Jean Jones history with the CFL, all these things, June Jones came out on the CBS radio show, like at seven in the morning, some random Friday saying how, oh yeah, you know, the XFL has been talking with me. They got TV rights figured out all this stuff that retraction and his statement was issued by June Jones, about 15 minutes later. Right. That's how quick the XFL said, like, this is not correct. This is not accurate. You needed to go. So if you have Mike Mitchell coming out there that talks with these people all the time and saying like, Hey, I think they're really talking about going to Canada. And I think they're really looking at this and that hasn't been retracted in the last week and a half very much tells me that that's very much a legitimate thing. And the fact, like we said that you have your own reporter talking about it up there. It is within the realm of possibility. I can't argue that, but it just, it seems odd to me that bell especially would go along with this because that's their television contract with the CFL that's going to be impacted. The other part of the equation is the XFL says, well, Argos, you're staying with the CFL. That's great for them. And we respect that. Do they try to put a team in Toronto in April of 23? Well, yeah. And it, sorry, it was your, it wasn't your car. That was Jeffrey. It was the Garcia to every blog that Dan Ralph had though, just because I hate being wrong. I mean, I'm very scared of them putting the team in Toronto. Like I'm very terrified whether it's the Argos or whether it's their own team or whether it's, I'm very terrified about that because the I've already seen people online. Like, do you think that, you know, you think they're going to be able to do all this? I mean, I think people are going to revolt just out of, just because of how vile this, all this stuff has been the last, you know, four months. Right. I mean, I think it's been perpetuated from the beginning when, when all these talks broke off, the immediate thing was like, oh, a sigh of relief. You know, we're so glad we don't have to deal with that. Even though nothing was ever even talked about it, they never even got to talks about football or rules or li you know, field sizes or anything. People were so happy that like, oh, we don't have to change anything at all. We can go right back to what we were doing. We're done with this distraction. People were so upset about that. And because of the lack of communication from the XFL, from the, from anybody everyone's imaginations went wild. And now there's still so much now that this Argo stuff came out. I mean, I think people are so really ticked off up there. And I don't think it's a good idea for them to do that. I mean, obviously they know a lot more than I do, but I mean, I see, I mean, at least the social media stuff, I mean, people aren't happy with the XFL when it comes to the CFL right now, Could it be, and this is just speculation on my part, but could it be sort of sour grapes that while we couldn't get a deal with you, so now we're going to either post or put a team in Toronto. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, the NFL is really interested in Canada, right? I mean, Toronto is really interested in the NFL. I think, you know, we had heard, and obviously with this MLSE and all this for months that you know, that, you know, the XFL I've been called the CFL originally, but I, but I had heard that, you know MLSE has reached out to the XFL pretty early on after all these talks that come out. So like they've been talking forever. Right. So, so I don't think it's, I don't think it's sour, grapes. I think it's like one or two teams maybe wanted to go, then they ended up bringing it to everybody. Obviously there's so many different, you know, nine teams and all the different ownerships and all the different things and the governors and all this up. So I think they'll get through this season. And then I wouldn't be surprised if they were just like, we're just going to go on our own then. And where does that leave them with, with all the TV rights and, you know, do you need nine teams to have a CFL TV contract? I mean, all those questions are crazy, but you know, I, if it was me, I would get eight teams on the field in the U S before I messed around with any of that. But obviously I'm not running the league, but I would just like, you know, again, sometimes visions are, are too big. And you know, my buddy that has, we, he, we were season ticket holders, you know, and obviously he's not involved with the podcast, but, you know, he listens and he says, you know, I don't think the XFL is ever coming back. And I said, well, I don't doubt that. I mean, this is like crazy time now, you know, we're pushing out from the other year. And when you're asking people it's July 14th, I mean, it's another 18 months. Like, I mean, that's a lifetime, that's a lifetime from now. Very true. I mean, it's more Than, okay, well, if it's, if it's April, you know, we're talking if it was February, but yeah. Now they're talking to April to June. I mean, so that's almost 20 months away. Exactly. And the XFL was only played a handful of games in the intervening period prior to their ownership. So it's not like it's on everybody's lips that they're playing today or tomorrow. No, you know, there's a reason why listenership went up when, when the CFL was involved, because it's very much easier to do podcasts and cover and talk about the league that is doing things and playing games that you know, are about to play games, you know, in the CFLs case, it is to I it's crazy time. And I guess that there's a lot of XFL people that are really, really mad right now. Now are our XFL people mad at the CFL as much as they're mad at the XFL itself. I think it's both, I think it's an equal, I think it's an equal maddening. You have a lot of different factors. So you have the fact that they're right after the rock and Danny bought the league Dwayne Johnson came out and endorsed Biden for a democratic candidate for president, right? So that was the first thing he gets the rock for ever was, was apolitical. You know, didn't, didn't endorse anything, didn't do anything. And obviously, you know, Canadian listeners will know that we had the very contentious election, right. And the very contentious last four years. And I mean, it still is contentious, but, you know, it's, it was a really, really, really hot election. And so immediately when the rock came out, endorsed Biden, that was the first step that was like, oh no, this guy is going to start putting all the things that the, all the NFL fans didn't like, you know the, the, the players, you know, voicing and kneeling and all these different things that, you know, the, the you know, the, the shut up and dribble, all the things, you know, that the people tell LeBron James, all these different things. A lot of people liked the XFL because Vince said like, we're not going to deal with any of that because Vince owned the original XFL, you know, Vinces you know, wasn't going to deal with any of that. So a lot of people like that. So w when the rock came in and Danny, and they go, we're going to build this league of culture. We're going to build this league of empowering players and listening to their voices. You know what I would imagine are, are good things to, to promote. That was the first step you had a lot of people really negative about that. Now you have the delay, you have these people that feel like they're entitled to another XFL season that they've been waiting for this, even though, like, we everyone's pointed out handful of games. I mean, I'm still baffled by, you know, the, the draw of all this. I mean, we're so involved in CFL and all this other stuff, but, you know, the XFL was still, so now, now you have the people mad about that, and then you have the people mad about the CFL thing. So it's, it's this compounding effect now. And I mean, I have screamed at, like I said, Mike Mitchell offline and said, like, could you please tell the people that you talk to? Like, I don't care, but there's a lot of people that really would like to hear some things. If you're wanting to retain whatever semblance of a fan base there is, I don't know what it's, it's really weird. It's a really weird, but it's compounded and it's very viral right now. So there's a lot of anxiety about the future. Not only the fact that one idea went away, but now is the league itself really about playing or what's going on because you talk about big ideas and big plans will, what does that supposed to mean? I know. And like I said, and we, I get, we get a lot of comments on the YouTube a lot. You know, we don't want any of this woke sports. We don't want any of that. Sports has to be about sports, even though, you know, I could go all day about that in a different, you know, discussion where I think that, you know, sports are representative of the world and that's the world we live in right now is all these things going on. And it's, it's I mean, you can't separate the two anymore. I mean, it's like politics and everything. You can't, we can't separate words. It's such a a crazy world, but so you have that. So you have, it's a surmounting number of issues now, and you get a lot of like, well, I don't know why the rock, and then I can't remember if we talked about this last time, you know be able to say, you know what, well, the rock bought the league and if they were going to do anything, why would they buy it? And I'm like, well, there was no other suitors. So, I mean, the rock was, you know, Danny Garcia, the rock and bread bird was the only bid. There was no other bids. It wasn't like there was 15 other bids that they beat out. So it was like either this or nothing. So you gotta be happy with whatever this is. I mean, did I think that this is be with, this was going to be, I mean, no, I bought into the XFL to be an eight week, 10 week, you know, 10 week, 18, you know, league the played in the time when I didn't work. And that was why I was interested in it. And now here we are talking Canadian politics and everything. I mean, it's crazy. You you've hit it on the head though, when there's an emotional involvement, it's very tough to disentangle. And whether that's the CFL and XFL parting ways, or the CFL not playing yet, it's very tough to get over that. Yeah. And it's interesting to me, we're going to talk a lot about it this week, too, where I I've seen a lot of people for and a lot of commentators for months say like, you know, the CFL, you know, not all as well, but they just want to keep saying like, we're going to play, you know, we're losing money. We dealing with all this stuff. We don't know what's going on, but we're still going to play. And now that the CFL XFL thing kind of went away and the Argonauts, you know, storylines coming out and there's a lot of you know, player injuries and retirements. And I know there was a COVID scare with, I believe the blue bombers yesterday I have in our show notes to talk about it seems like the CFL is again, sweeping things under the rug and just saying like, we're going to play, but now it seems like a lot of these commentators are saying like, Hey, it's training camps. Like let's just play. And I go, but you've been criticized in the CFL for the last four months or, you know, for years about, well, they just kind of just bull rush forward and sweep a lot of stuff under the rug. And now it's kind of like, they're saying the same thing. Like, well, they just got to, they got a plane now and it seems they, it seems like they never addressed the things that needed to be addressed. So, So the one comment that I hear often about the Canadian football league is that if the management of the league was run, as well as the game played on the field, there never be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. But, but again, and, and that goes back to the discussions with the XFL, right. That you know, I th the biggest example, and hopefully this works, I don't know if it does. I film a lot of events. I film a lot of motivational speakers. That's just something that I get hired a lot to go film. And I was fortunate enough to go film Tony Robbins. Who's a big, he's a big like American. He was in like, he's been in movies and stuff, and he's big clap the hands and come out and do all this stuff. And, you know, I would go film these events for him and people would come and wait like 12 hours to come see him. You know, they come like at eight in the morning and he literally wouldn't talk till like six at night. And they would sit there all day waiting and, you know, they would take their days off of work and, you know, put their kids up in, you know, babysitter. But, you know, we got to go see Cindy Robinson. And I go, like the fact that you're able to like, take the time off, sit here, do that. Like, that's not going to make you, like, just listening to this person that knows how to empower people and knows how to work hard and knows what to do. Like you don't get that by osmosis. Right. And it's the same thing, like, oh, did the CFL steel on the excellent, like again, I mean, I, I know a lot of other businesses that I talk with and podcasts with and whatever, and, and, you know, knowing what you have to do. I mean, the CFL has to know what they have to do. I mean, they have to know, like we have to grow the game. We have to get younger fans. We have to do all this stuff, you know? And I see that like the Elks are giving away like 17 and under can come in for free for one of the labor day weekend. And everyone's, oh my God, that's the best idea in the world. I'm like, yeah, that's our idea. Now you need 99 more other ideas. And then maybe we got something, but the Elk's giving away free tickets to 17 year olds or t-shirts for opening day. Yeah. Let's we got, let's keep going with that. Let's figure out a couple other things, but it seems like, you know, one idea and they're like, okay, well, like we, okay, like, let's try that now. And, and it just seems, now it seems like, you know, single game sports betting is kind of going to be the save all and not one person I've talked to. And I've interviewed a lot of people about this really has sold me on how good that this is supposedly going to be to this leak. Well, C two 18 is supposed to be a real sea change in terms of the landscape, what that means in terms of dollars for the CFL that has to be played out yet. But there, there is a lot of money that is bet on football bet on sport in Canada, that if it comes through to 18, that money could move towards CFL clubs, NHL clubs. Yeah. I mean, it could be, I mean, and I've, and I've, I can't remember if it was people I talked to her or listened to at this point, but, you know, everyone talks about, okay, the NFL makes all this money, okay. The NFL has 32 teams, you've got 16 games a weekend, right. So of those 16 games, maybe you go, five of those are no good five. More of those are. And then the other, the other I'm going to bet. And maybe I'll bet on two of those CFLs got four games a week. So you're telling me like, at Mo like, no, one's going to bet on four games. So at most you're betting on a game a week. That's not, that's not, it's not apples to apples of will they, you know, if the NFL makes to, I'm making it up, you know, 2 billion a year, and the CFL is 25% of the NFL, then the CFL is going to get to it. Like it's not, when they, when they only have four games, you're going to bet on a week. Like, it's not, you're not going to attract that. I mean, that was why we really thought that this XFL CFL thing was going to be, cause if you're doubling the league, then you have eight games or nine games, and then you potentially have two or three games. People would bet on, but, but four games a week. And if, and you know, we've been told all the time, okay. The, the later games in the CFL season, you get a lot of like two and 12 teams playing each other. Right. You get a lot of dog match-ups that? Aren't great people. Aren't going to bet on those. They're not going to bet on a, you know, if Calgary's two and 12 against the red blacks and they're playing for the fourth time because of the weird schedule, like, they're not going to bet on that. You know? I mean, no one, I guess I've talked to a lot of people smarter than me and no one, no one has sold me on that, but that's going to be that great. That's interesting because yeah, there are a lot of the talk out here is that two 18 is going to be, it's not going to be the savior, but it's certainly going to help. Well, and I, you know, I talk a lot with the people that run the CFL news account, you know, on Twitter and that, that we all are on that. And they go, eh, he goes [inaudible]. Cause I, I I'm convinced that one of the main reasons that the CFL blew all this off is because they think that single game is going to take care of it. And they don't, you know, that that's their, that's their money in the hole right now. And he goes, well, if the CFL isn't like, they would be really shortsighted to think that. And I'm like, yeah, I do think they're very sure it's. I do really think that everyone is thinking, well, if we can just get, I mean, it's like people to get into the wedding industry. And they're like, well, this is a $300 billion industry. And like, we just need, you know, if we could just get five, I'm like you just because you're part of this pie, doesn't get you a bigger slice of that pie just because you're at the dinner table. That's great. I just, I get, I get very fired up about this single game because no one has convinced me that this is going to be and I do think that there's a lot of, I mean, and I've taught, like we had Nick Skalski on, he's like the chief, a COO of points back Canada got hired the first employee up there. They're like move all this stuff around. And it's, it's all these kids, well, the CFL could do this and they could do that and they could do this. And they could do that. Like, yeah, but they could have done a lot of other things before that. And when all these XFL talks broke off, like John Hodge with three down goes, dang, goodness. The talks with the XFL are done. So now the CFL can get back to improving their own game. And I go, why didn't, what, what in the world was stopping from improving their game before they talked with the the XFL, nothing. They could have improved their game for the last 10 years. What did talking with the XFL for four months, prevent anybody from doing anything that could have been done before? I mean, that's just, that's the logic doesn't even make sense. Okay. Let's just get away from this for a while. Am I getting too heated for you? No, no, no. It's all good. Hey, passion is a good thing. That's what a sports needs, correct? Yeah, no, I'm, I'll I'll, I'll move it to this. I know you guys have been talking about going to the grey cup in Hamilton. Is that still on your list? Yeah. Oh yeah. No. So I we're planning. I got to figure out, I don't know if the tickets are open yet for the BC lions. We're going to go that October 16th, I have that pencil that the border and all that's open. We're going to be in BC. The Stan Peters are playing with my wedding schedule. Like I work most Saturdays and all the games are on Fridays or whatever. So there's a lot of scheduling issues that don't work with that. But I do plan on being at the BC game and then we will be at the grey cup as well. That's awesome. A great cup is a different experience for anyone that hasn't participated. I'll be honest. Why now I'm A, I'm a great club founding, whatever this I'm I'm, I'm part of the club now. So we're yeah. We're no, we'll, we'll be there for sure. I got the week I got the week booked off, So that's awesome. I guess it just let's play the theoretical game just for a moment. Is there ever a possibility that these two sides could come back again and say, maybe we were a little too hasty or maybe we misunderstood each other. Let's sit down again and let's see if we can figure something out. I don't, I don't rule it out. Right. So we have far Han Logix on our show, like literally as all this broke and just the timing worked out that we were just going to talk to him about the season anyway for Han thinks it's totally done. Right. He thinks there's everything that's been talked about is going to be done. Dave Naylor alternatively has said I think they could come back together, whatever. You know, I I've talked on our show and I think it was when I w the last time we had rod Peterson on and I was talking, and I said, you know, if, if, if the CFL fan base is indicative of all of the leadership that's involved in this and their unwillingness to change, I can imagine that kind of the brick wall that the XFL was met with in these discussions right. Or wrong. Right. Okay. Because that could be right. We're preserving, you know, I absolutely understand all that. Right. I mean, change just for the sake of change. Isn't, you know, it needs to be changed for growth or changed for whatever. But so, you know, I can imagine that brick wall that they were met with, because I know that brick wall, that, that, that we are met with a lot in talking with, you know, fans of this league and supporters of this league. So I'm like, you know, if the XFL plays a season and I've seen that, oh, well, let's let the XFL get through a season and prove their worth. And then the CFL and whatever, it's still going to be that same leadership. It's still going to be the same struggles, you know, where you have the nine owners and people are trying to agree. And the governors and Ambrose Ambrosio it's still, and unless that model changes, I just don't think you're ever going to get a lead coming in with, you know, this nine head snake. That's never going to be this never going to agree to anything. And, you know, frankly, that these team owners that, you know, why do they want to give up? You know, it's like they would rather own a hundred percent of a rowboat when it's like, w maybe you could own 10% of, of a yacht. If they gathered. I got like, I, this is, you know, w we want what we have versus, you know, I mean, Mike Mitchell, we had sat on the thing, you know, they're, they're accepting hundreds of dollars in and not potentially gaining thousands of dollars is kind of the mentality that he walked away with talking with a lot of the people on the XFL side that they're having, what they have now Can XFL fans and CFL fans find a way to play nice. Now that this is taking a hiatus. Right. I, I would like to think so I, again, many of the comments you know, and it's not just on Twitter, it's on our YouTube and stuff. A lot of the XFL fans are feel very much like they were open to everything and we were open to anything. And a lot of the fans are going to be watching the answer, but a lot of them have commented on the videos and they're like, screw it. Like, it's, you know, we're still going to listen to the show, but like, they're so mean, or they're. So like we call it gatekeeping a lot where it's like it's like, you're at the door of a club. And you're like, you know, you're, you're keeping people out. And, and we were this kind of sparked part of this whole gray cup thing today was we were these discussions we were having online. And I said, did I miss, did I miss the wall where they had the list of the membership requirements? So that, that, that it took for me to be able to talk about and watch this league and cover this league. Like, I miss that membership, whatever that was like, is there, is there a code somewhere? I mean, is there a, is there a pamphlet I gotta fill out? Because it seems like you know, like I wanted to be a fan of the Washington football team right now. You know, I live in Seattle. I wanted to be involved with Washington football team. There's a lot of the players I like on that team. And when I interact with people online with Washington football, there's no one saying like, well, you don't live, you don't live in Washington DC. Like you don't live on the east coast. Like you don't like how many, how many, how many Washington, you know, how many Redskins games have you gone to? They go, oh, no, this is great. You know, NHL adds a team in Seattle. Everyone, you know, goes back, right. Cause we're growing the game we're increasing. But yet, you know, constantly, it's this bombardment of, well, how many BC lion games have you gone to? Well, how many, I ha I've had my season ticket for 20 years. How many years have you had your season tickets? I go, th th th that's not the way to approach people that are excited about they're, they're genuinely excited about like, watching your game and learning about your game and covering your game. And it is very frustrating. So I think I mean, I will say, I do not feel like it is on the XFL fans. I feel like we have played nice and we do play nice. And we are, like I said, you know, the, the most listened to XFL podcast, I know our listener base, and I know a lot of people were, were turned off if nothing else by just the, the vitriol that they felt coming from the north. And I I've sat on, on our show. I know that it's not the CFL fans that listen to our show, but if you see something say something, and if you see someone, I just, I don't know of any other sport where it's like, you know, like we don't, we don't need, like, we don't want you to watch this. I've never, I've never encountered that with any other sport in the history of the world. And I'm someone that didn't watch the NFL till two years ago. And I'm very ingrained in all that. I watch a lot of, I mean, I'm, I'm, I would consider myself a pretty hardcore NFL fan right now. And not once in the last two years I ever have anyone say, well, how many, how many Seahawks games did you go to? It's very weird. Where can people find and follow? You Know, I can get dude heated today. Sorry. you can go to the markaz.com where the mark cast on a, on Facebook, Instagram, a Twitter, it's the underscore. Mark has the YouTube. If you, if you typed in the Mark House, we're on there you know, really good shows right now, I feel like we really kind of hit our stride, even though we're podcasting. Under, you know, I joked we were podcasting under duress with Paul and his concussion protocol on me and my broken tooth, but I think it's good. I mean, I think that all we've tried to do is, is, is obviously grow the listenership and grow our, our podcasts. But, you know, it is to bring in people that are smarter than us to, to educate us and other people. Right. And so that, that, that's why, you know, when people get on, you know, whatever, I'm like, I've talked to more smart people that covered the CFL. I mean, these are the brightest minds in the sport. They covered the CFL, right. So like, and they're talking to me and they're talking to us and they're talking to our listeners. And so like, you know, I, I think we're, we're trying to do a good thing here, but yeah, we do get you know, we do get well. Yeah. Do you even care about the CFL thing now I spend 40 hours a week just trying to build this podcast and I get paid no money for it. You know what I mean? That's really all, you know, I don't really care about the CFL at all, but it's interesting, but yeah, the Marc has.com. All right. Well, hope you and Paul are both on, well on the road to recovery because I know what you've been through. It's been pretty rough. So all the best to You. We're excited. Yeah. August 5th, we're there, we got, we're talking rough riders this week on the show and then obviously the Argo stuff, but we're really excited. I'm really excited to, to get into really this season. I mean, you know, we we've covered the spring league. We've covered fingernail football, you know, we've covered obviously the off season with the XFL and the CFL. I'm really excited to be able to cover, you know, a legitimate season with everything that's entitled, you know, entailed with that from reporters and players. And I mean, I'm just really excited to, to get you know, the idle hands makes terror sometimes when there's too much time on people's hands. I'm hoping now that this season comes back, that maybe people can just get it, get excited about all of that again. So thank you for having me.

Third Down Gamble Interview - May 17, 2021

And tonight from The Markcast, Reid Johnson joins me and he's my special guest and re great to have you on the show. Yeah. Very Excited. Thank you so much. I I did throw out a couple of weeks ago cause there was some criticism with some of the other XFL podcasts, not ours, but the site that we're on, the XFL news hub and you know, we get a hard, you know, racket from some of the CFL fans and wanting to be, well, you guys need to learn about everything. And I said, there's not a lot of CFL and Canadian podcasts reaching south. You know, I feel like we're. And so I really do appreciate it. It means a lot. And I, I'm happy to have a dialogue with anybody about all this fun stuff. So thank you very much. Well, You're very welcome. Glad to have you here. How did you get into this podcasting universe in the first place? Yeah, it's interesting. So Paul Sanchez, my co-host and I big XFL fans were w WWE fans. First and foremost, we followed wrestling for years. Obviously, you know, follow the XFL back in oh one, you know, Vince and all that. I was pretty young at the time, but followed all that. And then when the XFL came back and you know, 2019, when we found out Paul lives in LA, I live in Seattle. And when we all found out that we were getting XFL teams in our cities, I mean, we just went bananas cause we all thought, okay, there's no way this thing's ever gonna last. It's totally going to be like a one and done, let's go, let's get some merchandise. Let's, you know, whatever, we'll go ride it out. So you know, all in, we, we got season tickets, 50 yard line saved CenturyLink field at the time. Now it's lumen field, you know, we could never afford that for the Seahawks. So we're like, you know, cause it's 50 bucks or whatever. We're like front row, 50 yard line. Paul and I fly to DC, watched the first ever the kickoff of the 2019 season or 2020 at that point season the defenders versus the Seattle dragons. And we were all in, I mean, we were all in, we flew, we went to the games, we were all in and got really invested. And so then when it went bankrupt and shuttered back in March, April of last year very upset. I was very a morning. And I really, it was very difficult to be, you know, living at home and stuck at home and stay at home orders and then losing all that. So when I woke up the day that they announced that the rock had bought the XFL, it was an August day. I remember it was, they were going to be doing the bankruptcy hearing all week and then the rock and Danny and Redbird came in that Monday morning and bought the thing right off the bat. And, and when I woke up and I went on Facebook because I was part of these like XFL groups and I saw the rock is Bobby XFL. I thought this is total just bananas. I mean, there's no way this mark is lying about this, whatever. And lo and behold that was it. And I had wanted to cover the XFL before and never thought that Paul and I were in a place to know enough, you know, to be knowledgeable enough about anything. And at the point that the rock came back, bought the league. Paul has his own podcast. I have my own podcast for the wedding. My wedding business idea. And I thought if not us then who, and you know, we, at that point thought that the XFL was going to kick off you know, this last February. So next thing you know, we're covering CFL, cross border politics and talking to you here today. And it's been an interesting journey. I can imagine. I has football always been big in your life or is it because the XFL maybe re rejuvenated it, Hey, now I'm all in. Yeah, you're gonna die. So I I'm really not. I was not a big NFL guy. I really was. I love the XFL because to me I'm kind of a completionist. And so if I want to follow something or cover something that I really want to know all about it and, you know, with the NFL and I'm from Seattle and we, of course we watch the Seahawks. I used to work in news. So I was at the Fox station when the Seahawks went to the super bowl. Like I was in the helicopter when we had the like the celebration parade, like I was in the, we have like a million people, whatever I was filming that right from the helicopter. So, I mean, I had been around football, but I really never liked covering it or doing it or having anything to do with it. I liked the XFL. It was eight teams. It was in my off season. I do weddings during the summer. So February to April league is really good for me. But yeah, the, the XFL really did get me back into the NFL. And now I watch good morning football every day, two hours every day, I watch all the NFL games. I'm watching the spring league right now, as we talk it's on my iPad, but very much the XFL got me into the NFL. If you can believe that, Hey, we all come to do at station from different directions. So it's not a problem. What, I know that the Mar cast focuses a lot on different football, whether it's Canadian, whether it's Mexican, whether it's European, what, what was the decision? What, what took you to that place? Yeah, so I, again, originally, so, you know, the, the premise was the rock was going to buy the league in August. We launched our podcast a couple of weeks later. We were the XFL mark cask, cause we were just going to cover the XFL and we figured, you know, the rocks going to buy this thing with Danny, you know, we're going to go August six months to February kickoff, and then we're going to be good to go. And you know, it was about a month in and they announced, Hey, you know, we're, we're not going to be kicking off in 2021 there. That was the first big announcement that they came out. And they said, you know, they changed the social media handle to XFL 20, 22. And they said, we're going to be kicking off 20, 22. And so Paula and I looked at each other and we were like, why, what are we going to do? I mean, we had just done all the work we had gotten onto the XFL new sub website. They were hosting our podcast. We were like, all these things were emotion. And we're like, well, we can't just cause a lot of the XFL podcasts went away. Like w when, when the thing shuttered back in April, they went away. Some of them came back when the rock and everything, and then they went away again and we're like, well, we can't go away. You know, we have to keep doing it. So we thought, well, you know, the spring league is going to kick off. That's going to have some XFL guys. They play the bubble season back in November then Farron control football got announced. We said, okay, we're going to talk about fingernail football, all these things, just trying to buy time for when the XFL was going to come back. Right. Cause we're in every one of our shows we would do like XFL and then kind of yada, yada other stuff. And so it really was with the CFL staff. We really had kind of a identity crisis where we thought, you know, we're getting so much pushback from these leagues. Like the spring league, like fan controlled football, they would go, we would do these interviews with their owners or with their team owners or with their players. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't promote them. Like at all, like we we've covered fan controlled football the whole way through, you know, we had interviews with like Greg Miller, their team owner with their players, with the co-founders with all these people. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't share them. Like we couldn't get any. And we're like, well, it must be, cause we're an XFL podcast. Right. And they're like a lot of these leagues. I mean, look at the CFL fans of the NFL. A lot of these leagues are a little adversarial towards each other and I don't really think they should be. And so we thought, you know what, let's just be the mark cast. That's why they always was supposed to be. And we're covering, you know, these leagues better than a lot of the other podcasts, you know, podcasts are doing like spring leagues. Like we are fan controlled and now I'm really proud of the CFL coverage we've done as well. So to answer your question, yeah, it really did allow us to round out more to what we were doing anyway, which was basically just covering alternative football Leagues. That's a lot on your plate. Well, it's relaxing. It's, you know, it's a lot to keep track of. I have a Google doc that I, I just have little sections in every week and I just go on Twitter and stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think we do a pretty good, we'll see about elf this summer, you know, the European league of football, I think, you know, it's hard enough getting good CFL resources. I mean being God there's podcasts like yours and like three down and stuff where we can get some news, but I am scared about that, that leap across the Atlantic and doing some good European football. Cause I don't want to do anything in the world, not going to be that we're not going to Excel at. Right. And I think that was a problem was I even hear it now, like other XFL podcasts. They're like, well, how many teams are in the CFL? Like what's going on? Okay. What is this? And I'm like, well, I don't want to do that. If we're going to be, we're going to cover this. I want to know what we're talking about. So when did you first learn of the CFL XFL discussions? Like when did that come across your table? I believe it was the day. It was the day it came out. I think it was the outlets president leaked that the, it was the letter to the, to the Alawites fan base. And that had come out early and I have many wonderful listeners that messaged me all the time with, you know, Hey, did you see this? Did you see this? And that came across one of our listeners, max, we talk about them a lot on the show. And he had said, Hey, this is like the, you know, CFL looks like they're talking whatever. We had screenshotted all that stuff and everything went away. Cause you know, I'm presumably the Vince McMahon ran the XFL very, very different than anything now. And I would love to get into that too at some point just how different these leagues are. But you know, that all got pulled down right away. And then the XFL came out with everything then about an hour later. And that was when it exploded. It was on CFL. It was on everything. Rod Peterson was talking about it. You know, we got him on the show, you know, the next week or the week after. And then, I mean, it really just did explode. It was something that we never, I mean, we were going to cover the CFL anyway, just cause we needed stuff to talk about. Right. So we had already like talked about it a little bit on the show and okay. Let's figure out teams and you know, whether we're going to do in terms of coverage. But I mean then it really was like head first and then we really had to pivot really quick At first blush. What were you thinking when you learned of this? You know, that, that's a really good question because on one hand people it's not the 108 years right. Of the CFL, right. I mean the XFL fan base is, is much younger. Right. But you know, in terms of like not younger by age, but you know, don't have as long as I've been a fan, but you know, it is no less passionate, right? I mean, that's the thing where, you know, I see these CFL fans, well, I've been a fan of the league for 50 years and it's like, we told it like absolutely a hundred percent. Like we get that I'm in message boards every day. They have people that are Wednesday said, I'll come back Wednesday and I'll come back Wednesday and smoke, you know? And you're like, shut up, like stop talking, you know, it gets really whatever. And I was torn because this isn't the eight team or potentially 10 team spring league that we were kind of promised. Right. That was kind of what the XFL was going to be. Was kickoff after super bowl have some weeks maybe we could be, you know, like we went to a lot of the events and stuff we were trying to get to be, you know, like I, the Seahawks they have, we have like big lo he's a big like super fan. He goes to all the games and he's like, he's like he's like a mascot, like a non-official basket. You don't want to go. Maybe we can be the, you know, the unofficial mascot to the dragons. Like we're just like small time he stuff. And then once it hit with the CFL, we're like, man, you know, here we are, we're talking to Jim, Molan the president of the football Canada. You know, we just had Jason Gregor on our show. We're like, who the hell are you? Why are we talking to these people? Right. Like we never, I mean, we were just going to the XFL games last year. So it's, it was, it was torn cause it's exciting. I mean we have much more our listenership is far better now right than it was when we were talking about episodes of the young rock and you know, tasting Zilla. But it's exciting cause it's I think we, I think Paul and I are well equipped to manage everything now as big as it is. We both have journalism backgrounds. Paul still works in news. I worked in news for a decade. I think that we're well equipped for talking to people, figuring out things, you know, doing interviews, asking questions where I think we have a unique spot in the XFL landscape right now in terms of media stuff that's going on. So what do you think the biggest hurdles face each side as they begin this negotiation or pass through this negotiation? Well, to me the most challenging thing is the CFL and their ownership. Right. And you have this mix of privately owned and then community owned teams. And I don't know how you get around that. Right. Cause I don't see to me and from talking with, you know, like rod and listening to like rod and Darren on their show people own CFL teams, cause you want to own a sports team, right? Like I'm a, I'm a billionaire and maybe we don't make a ton of money with our team, but I own a sports team. We're a part of this world. And so what would cause someone to want to do that is not something that we would want to cause them to, to sell it or be invested in from red bird and the XFL and things like that, where the XFL is a much more cleaner cut, you know, right now Danny and the rock on everything. Right. And you can ask, okay, well what is the XFL? What is that? Well, you know, there's teams and logos and banners and in some way the fan bases, we have some stadium leases and agreements, you know, there's some equipment locked up somewhere, but you know, ultimately the, the structure is still there. Right? I don't think it's that hard to like turn the lights back on if you want it to, but I just don't know how you get around that, that ownership. I mean, besides the rules and travel and international and all those things, like, I don't know how one league that's owned by, you know, two people or a team of people co-exists with the, this mish-mosh of CFL teams and their ownership and people that don't want to give up that, you know, that control and that, that privilege of owning the team. Now you've alluded to the battles that go on in social media. Do you think that in the negotiation room, are they impervious to this or is that filtering down to them? I would. I would like to think that they pay attention a little bit. I, I know that the week that we were going to have Jim Molan on that he was talking with it was when Jim had kind of come out with that smart season and maybe they could run the XFL CFL as like you would a soccer league and you could do kind of inner league and have them go co-exist and have like an inner league playoffs. And I did, you know, that week G the RA, you know, Jim had tweeted something and the rock actually tweeted back and corrected him. And it was like, well, no, that's not what I had said. You know, this is what we're trying to do. And I thought, well, it is nice to know potentially that we're not existing in this bubble because, you know, I spend a lot of time fielding a CFL, XFL, animosity, you know, and, and that's fine. I mean, it's part of the job, but I would like to think that at some point they would realize that there's a lot of, there's been a lot of animosity that has stirred up from this, and it's only continued to get worse. I think, with, with the silence that has happened. And how frustrating has it been given your podcast that the silence persists that there is literally nothing that seems to come out of any of these discussions? I'm I'm okay now because thankfully the, the CFL is covered by hundreds and hundreds of talented, educated people. Right? The hardest thing about running this XFL podcast was you, you have a lot of players that maybe people didn't want to hear from. Right. Or they were trying to do other things. Like they were like, they're not the biggest like, name, right? Like we're going to get the third starting wide receiver from the diet. That's not going to move needles on our podcast. Right. And then you had a lot of the management with the XFL. They didn't want to talk on any podcasts because they were hoping, well, if the XFL comes back, I don't want to say anything that gets me in trouble. Right. So like we, and I had corresponded with, with a lot of the presidents on Twitter, like our team presidents, you know, we had talked and we were close with Ryan Augustus, who is like the team president of the dragons. And he was the one that helped us get our tickets and all that. But, but these, these presidents, they wouldn't want to say anything, which I get, right. Because they're trying to like preserve their jobs. So we didn't have anybody to talk to at all. I, it was really hard to cover this league where people either weren't relevant anymore, or the people that were, didn't want to say anything, because they didn't want to jeopardize their future where the CFL, I mean, you could throw a rock anywhere in Canada and find someone that's intelligent covering the league. Right. You know, you have all the color commentators and all the analysts and all the team, people that riot, all the people that write for all the different websites and all the different newspapers. And so I like that because I'm, I can find people to talk to and we can bring smart people on. And we don't have to sit there as two American guys in and hypothesize all the time that we can bring on people and go, well, you've covered this lead for 30 years. What do you think? So that is running this course. I would like to get some news soon, but you know, with the news coming up this week with the CFL numbers and stuff, I don't, I don't feel good for a season this year. I really don't. And that's kind of scary. Yeah. Go ahead and take your drink if you need it. So what do you think is at stake with these negotiations? Well, It's tricky because, you know, if the CFL doesn't run this year, right. I mean, we're, we're in like danger zone territory. But we just had Jason Gregor on this week and he was, he had a really interesting comment. So we had had a couple of weeks ago, we had Dan Ralph and Rob Vanstone on, who were a couple of reporters. And we talked a lot about like, you know, if the CFL doesn't play next year, what does that look like? You know, what does the league look like? What does the, it's going to dismantle everything? And Jason, this week, he said, I think if the CFL plays this year, like if they play it, they already have this huge image perception perception problem, because of how they've handled everything this year. Like, even if they do play, I think it's a disaster. And I was like, wow. That's to me, that's really interesting take, because we're all sitting here, like, man, I did a play, it's the end of the road. And he's saying, I think they've already totally botched how they've handled all of this and the transparency. And I feel that way too. Cause I feel like I'm arguing with these fans or they're arguing with me. I'm not trying to argue with anybody, but I'm like, we care more about this. You and I, you and me right now talking about this, I feel like we care more about the CFL than a lot of the people that are managing things that are getting, you know, quote unquote paid the big bucks. Like I just don't, you know, and I'm new in this world, but I've talked with a lot of people when they seem, they don't say like, you're crazy when I say these things, but it does seem like the fans of these leagues sometimes are very much caring, a lot more about the leagues than the leagues. And that's very, very frustrating, especially from like the XFL that has a very you know, excited fan base. And I would say the CFL all, you know, also has a very excited fan base. So yeah, You mentioned this in passing just before, but I'd like to get back to it. The idea that the XFL is pretty easy, one owner nine or eight presidents and away you go CFL of course, nine owners and a lot of discourse. Is it, do you think a possibility that the XFL is looking at the CFL and saying maybe we could buy this? Is that even within the room, I know you mentioned about the, the, the three different structures of ownership in the CFL, but do you think that's even on the agenda at all? I mean, to me, I think the XFL takes you know Toronto and Montreal and maybe BC and then moves it into, you know, adds it on. And if the CFL wants to have that 16 plane league, whatever, and, you know, I don't know what the, the TV contracts and all that, because that's the thing is it's, from what I've heard, you know, it's kind of like an all or nothing with the TSN contracts, right? Like you got to have all the teams and all that stuff, but, you know like ag Jackie Beck was on rod Pearson show a couple of weeks ago. And he's talking about the value of some of these teams is like a dollar, right. And so you're sitting there and you're like, well, are all these teams valuable? Like, would the XFL even want like the Edmonton, you know, and I have an Edmonton hat on, but like, are they interested in that? I don't know. Or do they take, you know, Toronto and Montreal, whatever. And just absorb that in. I don't, I don't know if they buy the CFL, because like I said before, you have these owners where they're obviously invested in being team owners. And so then, I mean, that's, I would presume if you care enough to own the sports franchise, you wouldn't care enough to sell that or be bought out, you know, or what is that worth? Is it even worth is the prestige of owning that team worth more than maybe the $10 million or whatever you would get for the rights to the, for the names and everything? I don't know. The irony is, is that the Edmonton Calgary, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg are the teams that actually generate the most revenue for the league. So that's gotta be on that XFL radar that if we're going to get into, let's say it's a merger. You gotta be careful with how you treat them. I know. And it's, You know, and, and what does that look like? I know that one of Eros has big criticisms, you know, when he's come on, our podcast and others is, you know, does the, does the LA Wildcats, does their fan base care? If we're playing against the Ottawa red blocks, you know, do we care this ad? Does that move the needle at all? And I don't know. Right. Like I don't, we talk in a lot of our listeners and a lot of our fans talk about, oh, have this big inner, you know, the continental football league and keep it, the CFL, we'll call it the continental football league. And then you could have teams in Mexico and you could have teams. I'm like, yeah, but I don't, I don't know how that works with like, are we traveling to games? Are we going up there? How does that media, you know, how do you, how do you manage running the league across three continents and, and, or, you know, or three countries, you know what I mean? But like, it's, it's monumental at that point. I don't, I don't know. I think if there's any two people in the world that can figure it out, it's Danny and the rock, but I don't know how feasible that is. Or like you said, how interested the fan bases are. Do I care about that? I don't know. Other than field dimensions, do you see any other roadblocks to CFL rules sort of being imported into a new merged league? Yeah. and I will answer that one other thing I just had thought of too, about the, where we were talking to the, you know, traveling with the logistics of the cities, like the NFL just announced their lending games, right? Like Jacksonville is going to go play Atlanta, I think, and then the jets are playing or the jets are playing the Falcons and the Jaguars are playing and there's two, there's two, the NFL is doing two weekends, back-to-back over in London. And you know, some of our east coast teams are going like that doesn't move the needle for me at all. I mean, I understand that that's not, I'm not that like the target demo of that, but like, that's a huge to get like, okay, Jacksonville fans are gonna, they wanted to travel to London to go out. I mean, that's, that's just a huge, you know, to get your fan base to go. And so, yeah, you know, if I'm a Tampa bay Vipers fan and we're playing against BC and I'm like, okay, well, we are, we wrote whether we do in here. You know what I mean? The questions about, I think the field size obviously is huge. This, you know, the stadiums what's going to fit in that the XFL was in a lot of the smaller soccer stadiums. Is that going to fit? I've heard everyone say that you can't market three downs in, in the states. So I don't know. I, I think we're open to it, Paul and I have said many times that, you know, three downs, the movement, all those things, you know, the, the waggle and the Rouge and like, we're all fine with all of that. I want, I would like the XFL, CFL, whatever that is to be as on XFL or on NFL light, as it possibly can be right. Where you're like, okay, well, what is the what? Okay. We know what the NFL is, what is the XFL? Well, it's, it's like the NFL, but they play in the spring. It's like, you know, it's, it's minor leagues. You're like, okay, well, I would like it to be, what is the ex officio? Oh, well, you know, it's, it's a different football and they all these other, you differentiate a little bit more than just like, well, they play in the spring and their players aren't as big of names. If you had any hopes for these discussions, what would they be? I think we're too far along for nothing to come from all of this. And I was just listening. So we're on XFL news hub. That's our parents side that we're hosted on. And I know that you had mark on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, mark was talking tonight because I challenged him. He had said Mark's off the merger thing, mark, doesn't think it's a merger. And mark thinks it's you know, business help and, and whatever. And I challenged him. I said, mark, like what, what is that? I hear that a lot. Well, it's not a merger. It's going to be it's business advice. I go, what is that? So Mark's thing to acquaint acquainted down. It'd be like, if you bought a franchise and you have you bought a RBS and you opened, or what do you have, Tim? Horton's you buy a Tim Horton's, you'll be okay. You get, here's the rule book, here's your franchise guide book. And then you get, this is what you're going to do. I go mark, like Everyone knows what the CFL needs to do. Right? Like this isn't like you're living in Lala land. I mean, the CFO ownership has to know it's whether they're acknowledging that or not. So I don't think that we're doing all these talks, like to tell them, you need to grow your business digitally and online and get younger fans. And they know all these things. And so I don't think like Mo you know, getting Instagram analytic advice from the rock is going to help. I, they know the things that they need to work on, I would think, cause I know the things that the CFO needs to work on and I've covered the league for not that long. Right. I, you know, I would, I think it's too far down the road, we're where it is a merger or an acquisition, or they're taking some of the teams. I just think it's gone too long. I don't think the XFL would put next season on hold. You know, they were currently hiring positions when all this happened. Right. And I think to the point where people ask, okay, well the, the XFL doesn't have anything right now. Well, if Danny and the rock bought the league in August, and it's been reported that these talks have been going on since at least October, if not before, why would the XFL hire anybody right now if they're like, right. So, so it's basically like, they've just held this property for six months and I see XFL fans too, all the time they go screw the rock. He's, he's too busy and he's ruined the exit, but I'm like, they're doing all these other talks. There's no point even buying the, like, you need to look at like the calendar and all these other things. But yeah, I think it's gone way too far for it. Not to be something groundbreaking now for them to put everything on hold. When do they make an announcement? If there's one to be made? Well, that's, I mean, I think we're all waiting to hear what happens with the CFL season. I mean, you know, we've heard August 5th I think a lot of people for the first week, we're really excited about that. And then, I mean, I immediately, and I'm not like I'm the only one, but you know, you look at the fine print and you go, well, there's a lot of terms and conditions here that are saying that we're going to play. You know, I always thought it was BS that you're going to ship teams from one li one stadium to another stadium. I mean, I was just talking with of our listeners on Twitter last night. Like, well, how does that even work then? How do you guys don't do revenue sharing? Right. So how do you, like if you have a, if you have the BC lions go play in Ottawa and then you have like fans show up, well, how do you, are you writing the check for BC? Or are you, are they re I mean, how do you even manage that? Right. I mean, I, and I, I just said anybody. I go, well, to me, if that was in the states, and if, if, if LA was just like hotspot for pandemic stuff, well, where's this going to ship the teams to New York and play. You're like, that's not going to fly. Like you're not going to stand all these people across the country. Like, that's the whole point. So it always seemed hollow in that way. And now, you know, the numbers coming out, I mean Rosh article today with, you know, as we record this on May 17th was saying, it's not unanimous that the CFO owners wanting to play. Right. And so again, it goes back to that the fans wanting something more than the league is, and I think that's really disconcerting. I I hate to think that we are spending more time thinking about this than they are sometimes. Is there any risk to this for the relationship, if these discussions come to nothing? I mean, is there any risk? I don't, I mean, there might be a risk to our podcast because we, but no, I mean, I think we'll always cover the CFL. Like I said, I mean, that was, that was, you know, the plan anyway, but, you know, I mean, people cry foul about the expansion with the U S and the CFL and people go, well, that didn't hurt anything. And the CFL's continued for 30 years, you know, that failed or whatever. It didn't work out back in, excuse me, in the nineties. And that's continued, you know, CFL is still around. Right. I, I worry that, you know, I mean, just to speak, candidly, I worry that the CFL is too stubborn with a lot of things. Right. And we have even our, our listeners on our podcast and they write, you know, we get people on the YouTubes that write and stuff. And they're like, I was really excited about this and I don't even want it anymore because all the, like the CFL they're too stubborn or they're rude, or they're like, I don't even want it anymore. We were excited about this, but like, screw those guys. And I see that a lot more now than I did two months ago, because we've always been in and I've always justified it. And I get it. The XFL, we've got two years of fan base. We're not going to be as passionate. We're way more open. We're playing with house money. Right. The XFL you came in, oh, one went away, came back 19, went away. And then you know, when the rock bought it, we're in like house money. Now this is bonus time that no one ever thought. And so I get that, but I have not heard one, one negative thing ever from any of our listeners. And I will say we are the most viewed XFL podcasts on YouTube. Like I've not heard one person say no to anything about CFL where I've heard a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of CFL people that I posted. One of our chats with, I break out our interviews that we do from our podcast. I posted, I think it was Dan Ralphs. I posted last week. And the title I put was, you know, cause you have to like title the YouTube videos. It was what would we be willing to lose? What would we be willing to give up with a CFL game with the next merger, you know, posted on Facebook and everything. Every comment, non nothing, nothing non non I'm like, okay, well, I can't argue with the wall then. Right. And so, so that's, that is what we look at the XFL people. That's what we see all the time right now is screw you. We don't want you. And just to finish this long rambling thought because this answer has been long. I I give them these, these discussions with people and I go guys, the same things that you feel about being the NFL light is CFL fans. That is the exact same way. XFL fans feel we are all the same. And it's like, we're, it's like Spiderman. The Spider-Man gift where they're pointing at each other, the two spot, like we're all the same. Cause we all feel the same things about being the XFL light. We're all frustrated about it. So I don't like that arguing between people. Do you think the XFL is going to get back on the field in 2023? Does it have to rely on what happens with the CFL or can it go its own way? Well, so I mean the XFL is not in 2022 at all. I don't think people have not, a lot of our listeners have not given up hope about that, that they still post all the time on our Facebooks and everything about you know, is it going to continue? I would like to think that they come back in 20, 23. I'm terrified about that. I think it's too far. I think that I think 20, 22 is the way to go. And I think the longer they wait, I feel bad for XFL fans too. It's a long time to ask people to wait. And like I said, we already have fans on the Facebooks that are negative about the rock, like the world's most popular movie star. And they go look at this, he bought it. It's not going to do anything with it. He's not doing anything with it. You're like, well, I get that. They're working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes, but that's the sentiment now we're getting with XFL fans. Well, isn't it impart maybe to get away and I don't want to disperse, shouldn't speak, man. But to get away from that shadow, you Know, I, I wish they never were. They called it the XFL. I mean, to me that I don't think it's worth it. I debated with listeners when I've said, I don't think this yellow dragons and all these things are worth whatever the, you know, cause they pay like 15 million and then it was all the debt. So it was like 23, 24 million. Like, was it worth it for all that to buy it, to have all this negative baggage? I don't know if it came out, you know, if they came out instead, then the story was Danny and the rock are gonna launch their own football league. Maybe it would be better, you know, honestly. And then you wouldn't, you wouldn't have all this baggage. Cause there is a time. I mean people and I will say, I don't think that certain CFL media outlets are helping that situation right now, but it is a fact that when you think about the XFL, you think about Vince McMahon and it's very hard to get out from that shadow. Just a step sideways for a second. The spring league is on Fox. Does that play into anything in terms of plans for the future, for the XFL? There's Been a lot of talks about that. You know Brian Woods, he's been on our show CEO of the spring league. He has big plans for the spring league. I think he wants it to be a, a really be a developmental system for the NFL. I think that they think the NFL is going to come in, write them a check and they're going to be able to be like a feeder, like a AAA system, which is great. It's been a mixed bag this year. You know, here I, I said a couple of weeks ago, I hoped that the spring league would come out, would knock it out of the park with ratings and be a really good justification for the spring air for spring football. Right? like zero promotion at all. Like none at all. I mean, Brian Woods came on our show and I mean, that was about all of the publicity, the Sr for the spring league. And I mean, obviously we appreciate him coming on, but so then when the radians came out, th this last weekend, it got like 380,000 on, on Fox on, on the salary day. And so of course you had you know, wonderful media correspondents like John Hodge saying, well, this, you know, this proves that Americans don't care about spring football and it's hard because I said there was no promotion. So I would have really liked to see them kick it, you know, B S B come out and get a million viewers and go look, see people were just hungry for football. I mean, I think the fact that 400,000 people basically stumbled upon the spring league football and watched it on a Saturday is remarkable. But you know, I think th I think XFL is looking at NBC potentially. I mean, obviously you have the rock with, with Titan games and things there, you know, you have peacock now, WWE is on peacock. That's a good streaming platform for their live events. You know, I could see a mix of that, where if you're on like NBC and you know, peacock. But I think that Fox seems to be pretty in with the spring league right now. I mean, they're broadcasting all their games on Fox, which is pretty remarkable, not all on prime Fox, but still, where do people find and follow you? We are now the mark cast. You can go to the mark hass.com. We are the mark underscore or the underscore Mark House on Twitter and Facebook and all that. All the old XFL stuff still works, but we, yeah, we've rebranded. We're still working on graphics and stuff, but yeah, the mark cast anywhere that you want to find this, Thanks so much for coming on the show really appreciate it. She had asked A lot long-winded I appreciate it. We got it all out there. It's all good.

ArgosFancast Interview - May 6, 2021

All right, well, let's get it. Let's get into this. Joining us from the Markcast and XFL podcast is Reid Johnson. Welcome to the Argos fan cast.

Thank you. I'm a yes, very glad. Very recent recently rebranded now to the Markcast, we were the XFL Markcast and then we teased the CFL Markcast and yes, and now we're the, we're just going to be the Markcast. We cover spring league and fan controlled football and stuff too. So we, we were already running into challenges even before all this CFL stuff.

And one thing we always like to do with, for our listeners when we have new guests on is where can they find you online?

Absolutely. so we are www.themarkcast.com on Twitter. It's the_Markcast on Facebook, everything else, but it's the Markcast and that should be good anywhere. Like I said, we're we were the XFL Markcast forever. We were the XFL show forever, but we've just been running into so many issues just covering other leagues even before the spring even before CFL. So we just decided let's just keep it clean and we'll just, we'll just be the Markcast.

So, all right, now you did mention, you kind of covered the CFL. You've got your video up here. I know our, when we replay this, our, our listeners, aren't going to be able to see this, but you've got a CFL hat on your head. I do. Who, who do you have on your head right now?

I know, and I, I feel like I'm walking into enemy territory with the with the Toronto Argonauts now to be fair, Paul, my cohost is, has pledged his allegiance to the Argonauts for this season. We felt that it was cause we're all in on this, right? I mean, XFL CFL regardless, right? We are in on football. We covered fan controlled football all through the, the winter here in America. We've covered spring league back last fall. And now it's currently on right now as we record this kind of may season of that. So we're all in on everything. And so we really wanted to put our money where our mouths are. I, we did a wholesale event last week on the show I picked Edmonton as our team, the Edmonton you know, to be named I really liked that I'm a Washington football team.

People that know follow the NFL teams will know that Washington football also does not have a nickname right now because of the Redskins and all of that. So that really appealed to me. We had Dave Campbell on our show before color analyst for the Edmonton team. And there's a lot of XFL talent going to the CFL this year with Taylor Cornelius and Jamie Elizondo going to coach. And so I thought that that was it just made a lot of sense. So yes, I, I had an Edmonton today was the first day where the Edmund didn't have on the show when we recorded our podcast.

Well, none of us are perfect to be perfectly honest, but it's, but let's put it this way. We w we like you a lot better as if you picked Hamilton, then we would probably be hitting disconnect right now or followed by, well, not followed by, but pre-loaded or preceded by a whole lack of insult. So, so Edmonton is perfectly fine. They're just pretenders to our, to our great cup throne.

Yeah, no, and like I said, Paul, Paul's the Argonauts fan. He said that Paul was a Yankees fan. Paul grew up on the East coast and he feels like you guys are very similar to the Yankees with the prestige and the titles and everything. So, I mean, he's, believe me, we're a split company on that, but yes, you have very much support from the Marcus with the with the Toronto Argonauts.

Hey, there we go. I'm hoping that we'll take

All right now getting into, you know, the, the reason we've brought you on here, you know, the XFL and the CFL announced that they're going to talk and that just kind of fueled all kinds of speculation and, you know, reading into this and that, is there going to be a merger is, you know, are they going to share players what's going on? Is the CFL going to trash? All the Canadian rules are, is the XFL gonna adapt all Canadian rules? What is the sense down in the States that you know, this CFL, XFL relationship is, is going to blossom.

Absolutely. And, you know, and I always preface this, you know, we are not insiders, right? I'm not, you know, Dave Naylor or somebody that, that knows, but, you know, we talk with you know, whatever the XFL media is as Iraj and Madonna, he came on our show and asked you, what are the XFL media? You know, what do they cover? You know, w we, we covered a season of the league, and then you have the pre-season of this what's going on with the purchase. I have always been told and my gut feeling from everything from, you know, all the people that we talked to, we have Mike Mitchell we're with XFL news hub, which is kind of, I would consider the, kind of the peak XFL news media. Like, we're not, we're just kind of with them. We're not we're hosted by them, right. So they do their own thing and we're hosted on their site. I have been, always told it's one league and one rule book. I don't know what that league looks like. And I don't know what that rule book looks like, but that is what I've been told from the beginning. And that is what I believe has not changed in the, you know, however many, two months now that we've been kind of doing this dance.

Now I have, now I have to mention this little quote unquote debate you had with the Rashma Danny, our dual, yeah. Your D your dual at 20 paces. He really came off as a smug bastard. And I mean, we all, I mean, we, we Argo fans really consider them persona non grata because he has had a gripe against us for what, 10 years, plus clay, something like that. Yeah, yeah. Ever, ever, ever since ever pretty much ever since the Rogers bought the Jays. Right. And he works, he works for Rogers and well, you can put two and two together with that, but, but I mean, he, but I mean, you really did hold your own against him, despite him throwing out every single, like I w I w kind of considered it kind of childish named calling kind of thing, calling, calling the XFL the twice failed league, considering that the reason why it failed twice is because of the man who was at the very front of it, Vince McMahon. So I that's, that's pretty much what I have. That's pretty much what I have to say about that. I thought you guys did guys did an incredible job there.

Well, I appreciate that. No. And, and you know, the funny thing about that is, and, and believe me, we still, we were going back for the people last night online about that, you know, just, just this week I don't have any money in anything, right. I mean, I'm, I'm a wedding videographer that has a podcast that covers the XFL and alternate football leagues. So, you know, when you asked me to come on and like defend the XFL, I can do that. But the I'm not, I don't have any say in that I don't have any skin in the game. Right. And it's clear that a Raj very much has skin in the game with Rogers and with the blue Jays. And, you know, maybe let's not have the CFL be so strong and let's maybe not push this narrative where, you know, you see like Dave Naylor, Farhan Farhan has been on our show a couple of weeks ago.

You know, the, the people that are employed by TSN very much want the, this, this merger or whatever is going to prop up the CFL where yes, it's definitely, like you said, in a Russia's interest to let's maybe cool those jets a little bit. And we knew some of that going into the debate or dual, and then believe me, you know, we've definitely had our ear full of insights afterward, but yeah, I don't feel like it's in, it's in my, I don't need to defend anything. Right. I mean, we came on and, and it's a joke, but yeah. You know, I would, if you had asked me, would I rather take the position of defending the CFL or the XFL? I would probably choose to CFL. Right. I feel like there's a lot more, you can defend, I mean, across the board, right. From the CFL than you could the XFL, I mean, I felt like, you know, you're, you're giving me a losing hand and then telling me, okay, go with this. And that's fine. You know, I'm happy to, to play along.

And one thing I think that it seems to be lost on, at least some of these reporters is this isn't necessarily about, you know, one Lee being better or taking over the other. It's, it's more about growing football. Right. You know, the, the XFL has a place, there are still tons of players that want to play this game. And same thing in the CFL, there's enough players to go around. And, you know, from, from the get-go, I'm not, I mean, you, you said the people you've talked to said one rule book, one, one leak. You know, I think that's a little ways out, but from the stuff that I heard, it just seemed like they were their visions lot visions for football globally aligned together. They, you know, the red bird and and the rock came out and said, they, they want to look at, you know, players globally or around the world, which the CFL is, you know, very, very predominantly doing. XFL is doing it very much on the down low, or there is certain that the NFL is doing it very much on the down low. But it just seems like the, the visions for football just align right now. And it just, it makes sense a hundred. And we had

A Derek Taylor today on with the rough riders, our episode, I don't, our episode goes tomorrow. So I'm sure this will, our episode will be live by the time this goes on. But you know, that's what we talked with Derek about is we said, you know, what are you guys saying? The CFL needs to do, you know, build in the ground roots, reach out to the fans, get people involved, the XFL, you know, get away with all the rock. And, you know, we can make fun of, you know, young rock getting 2.3, 6 million viewers and the ex the CFL draft getting 56,000 viewers. Right. And we can talk about the reach of the rock that doesn't matter. The XFL ultimately is the same as the CFL. It's a grassroots built. We had fan events. We had, you know, come see your season ticket, pick your seat, come in, be involved in this, you know Jim Zorn, our president, which was a Seahawk legend, you'll coming to the fan meet and greets things that the CFL is trying to do. Ultimately there's really, you know, you can strip away rock Danny Vince. I said today, you know, he hate me all these other things to get involved in this. The XFL is a grassroots football league that wants to grow community support the same way the CFL does. I mean, there really are aligned in that way.

Now, going back over to the the one rule book thing you know, there are a lot of the, we call them the old guard up here that are ver very upset that, you know, there's, there's talk about maybe changing some of the rules in that, you know, it's, it's, it's an evolution. The rules are always changing regardless of what you think happened 20 years ago, 40 years ago, whatever it's going to be different 20 years. Now, I want to know of the, the rules that the, the, the knowledge and, you know, what the CFL, the rules that you see here, what's what some of the rules that, that you would want to see kept in the game that are uniquely Canadian.

Absolutely. And this, and I'll speak as well for my co-host Paul. I mean, we, we are very much in solidarity in this. And honestly have been since the beginning, we've always said the CFL has the game and the lineage, the XFL has the rock and the money and the U S kind of entry with red bird and all these other things. I do ultimately think that it is going to be a four down game. I don't agree with that. We don't, I think you want to be as non NFL light as you can be. And I think embracing the uniqueness of the three downs with the CFL, with the motion, you know, I don't really love the field goals in the front, you know, but the extended end zones, things like that, making it as different as you can while still ultimately being football to me.

And Paul is I think, going to be your best success. I don't like the MFL light that'd be XFL was anyway. I mean, we were already dealing with this. Right. And, and that's, what's I guess, so frustrating for us as XFL fans is, is we get into these debates a lot with the CFL guys and am I get it right? You feel like, okay, America, everyone cares about the NFL. They don't care about the CFL, you know, screw you guys, you know, this is our game, whatever. That's a lot of what the XFL fans feel. And I know that we don't have the a hundred years behind whatever the field that way, but, but we very much are all kind of that feel like that red headed stepchild sometimes. Right. And, and so, yeah, I mean, at this point, I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I do think that, you know, one plus one is going to equal way more than two with both leagues coming together. But yeah, I w we would absolutely the Markcast would like to keep three downs, a hundred percent. And a lot of the other Canadian rules,

Well is as far as, from my perspective, the other three downs, as much as you will, I love it. It's, it's not the Hill that I'm going to die on. To me, one of the things that I see that I love is, is the motion, the motion, the waggle, the you know, it just, it's a lot of what the, the NFL went and, you know, picked out a lot of the, the ways that we were co you know, our coaches turned the change the game. And, you know, you see a lot of, you know, the CFL 20 years ago in the NFL right now, as far as style of play with their rules. But that motion is, is one of the things that I think is just, you cannot, that's a Hill that I will die on. If you cut the motion out, I mean, I'm not gonna it's football, I'm going to watch it. I'm, I'm just still going to be a fan. But that is something that I think is an absolute non-negotiable. You have to keep that motion in there.

Yeah. I think as many elements as we can incorporate in the CFL game, I do think it's going to lead to more success. I really do. I don't, I don't think it is. I don't, you know, the motion, things like that. I don't, I don't know. I think, I think three downs is tough to sell in America, but I would keep as many of the things as we can. I I'm afraid that it's not. And if they don't, I've told many people, I will be right there with you you know, lambasting or, you know, being, we, we tend to be very outspoken on the Markcast about things that we don't agree with with any league. Right. And, and I will be right there with you guys if they change too much in that way, that, you know, we don't have any allegiance to anything at all. Except, you know, the players and, and having the, a platform for them to, you know, find success.

Now, other thing that I thought of recently that I wanted to pose to you is, do you think there might be the, the opportunity to have something like what major league baseball has in, you know, the national league, you have, you know, a few rules that are just slightly different than the, than the AAL. And you have ballparks that are sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, little bit quirky things like, because we know the CFL field is not going to fit in most NFL stadiums. You could probably make it fit in a lot of them, but you'd lose your sidelines completely. And if the safety issue with players running full speed and all that, but could you ever see, you know, a venture where, you know, you kind of have, you know, slight differences between the, you know, if we go to emerge and we have the CFL and the XFL and, and the Mexican LFA threw their hat into the ring saying they're interested, you know, and having these, these little intricacies and you talk about, you know, maybe interleague play a little bit here and there, but you still predominantly within your own leagues, does that sound intriguing as far on your side?

Yeah. And honestly, what's so funny about that is from the second this came about, that's what everyone said, right? Like, well, can't, you just do, you know, it's like the DH, right? We have some times you have the, you know, the hitter and sometimes the pitcher, and we're part of the writers group for the XFL new soap, we're on like a, you know, a discord chat, whatever. And everyone on there is like, no, that would never work. The games are do different. Just last week on our show, we had a listener send in a very angry listener. In fact, on our YouTube, that was infuriated that we hadn't talked about it yet. The supposed exhibition games that happened in the fifties between the NFL and the CFL where they did American rules, the first half, and then CFL rules the second half. And I was like, has no one.

And I looked it up, it's on three down nation. And I said on the show, I go, have we been as this been staring at us in our face the entire time, the solution, and everyone said, no, you can never do it. And, you know, I understand there was an exhibition game or whatever. And my joke was, and I don't have the article up right now, but the joke that I said, and, and bear with me, but the NFL teams ended up winning eight to two, I guess, in like that series of exhibition games. And I said, maybe that's why the CFL doesn't want us to know about that is because we'll just go roll, we'll roll over. And, you know, we'll, we'll kill them. But no, I mean, that's what they did. I guess they did that back in the fifties. I don't have the, I can pull up the article or send it, but they did that and think it was the giants and the bombers or whatever, but there was a whole series of them and they did American rules, the first half Canadian rules the second half. And I had, I never heard of it. And Paul neither hadn't either. So

Well, I knew that I knew that they were do it, that they did like kind of crossover games like that. Cause I know Toronto was in most of them and unfortunately they got their clocks cleaned most of the time. And then, and then all of a sudden Hamilton decides, Oh, we'll we'll play one game. And then they ended up, they ended up beating, they ended up winning and that's like the only, when it's like, Oh, for God's sakes, really, you know why them couldn't couldn't have been anybody else. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. But

It just, it's funny that this was something that was very much poo-pooed on from like these football, you know, we're, we're the Markcast, right? We talk about young rock. We talk about, you know, Zola energy drinks. We thought we'd do a lot of stuff. We do football. But you know, here's these guys that have covered, you know, football for 30 years. Oh, this would never work. It's like, well, actually it kind of did. I mean, I'm not saying that that's the perfect solution, but that is a solution. And they did do it before.

How is the hello by the way? I'm curious.

It's good. It's good. I, we drink it every week on the podcast. It's it's it's like it tastes like monster energy. I used to drink a lot of monster energy in college. It's fine. You get it shipped. It's not the least expensive energy drink in the world, but that's okay there. I guess it's selling a boatload though. I just saw that there with cores Miller, I guess is you know, Miller light and all that in chorus line

There it's Molson Coors up here. Yeah.

So yeah, they're, they're distributing that and it's going to account, I, we have the article up you know, tons and tons of money from that very high salary. That's the thing. I mean, people, people question the rock and the XFL, you know, a young rock was just renewed for season two. You know, Danny Garcia just launched a female brand of clothing. This week they have the term on that. They have the Zillow. I mean, you know, these are people that they, they, they ask, okay, well, what is the rock down about running the football league? Nothing but the rock and hire people to know how to run the football league. Vince McMahon didn't know how to run the exit fell. And he hired all of her luck. And what did everybody say about XFL? You know, in 2019, 2020, all of her luck was the best thing to ever happen. What wasn't Vince running the league, you know, Vince just had the foresight to hire.

Yeah. It's not a lot, like the first time around that was, that was, that was the one gripe. That was the one gripe it's like, I actually enjoyed the, the XFL, the first go around. But what threw me off was when they had Jim Rawson, Jesse Ventura doing commentary. Yeah. Cause I'm like, okay, Jim Ross, I can see because back then, I didn't know this, but I didn't know that Jim Roth had like a huge background with, with the Oklahoma Sooners. Right. No idea back then, but even called some games for the Falcons at one point too, I thought there was Tony Shavani who did that? Well, we know Tony Shivani does the Georgia Bulldogs. Yeah. That's what he does. But anyway, but yeah, they're kind of, but yeah, I'm like so anyway, back to whole Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura thing, I'm like, I'm here to watch a football game. I wanted to watch a wrestling match at tuna tune in on Monday and watch raw. Got

A little too. Yeah. It got a little too gimmicky. So

Yeah. So that's what kind of threw me off in that, but yeah. But yeah,

And the, we have to thank the XFL, the first inquiry, because there was, there's a couple of players that came out of the XFL that ended up being pretty good in the CFL. John Avery for one of them was a, you're decent with the Argos and, you know, play played well in the, in Edmonton as well. And he, he came up pretty good. And, and we had a coach that took us to a great cup. Scott Milanovich who won the inaugural XFL championship with the LA extreme. So, you know, it's anybody saying it's, it's lesser. Like you can't discount what came out of that?

Well, you also have today, the original XFL for the sky cam that the NFL uses to this day, that, that, listen, that was the XFL. But I mean, everyone is just, you couldn't watch it in NFL game now and not expect that. And that was, that was part of the original XFL. So it's not all bad. We're not all bad.

We, you know, we only get SkyCam for playoffs and gray cop. We don't get it all

She passed. TSN well, read, want to thank you for joining us on the fan cast. And once again since first time on the show, you got to let everybody know once again where they can find you.

No, I really appreciate it. Like I said, I mean the biggest thing that if I could have anybody listening to this could take away today is the XFL. Our fans are very much open to anything and you can say that right or wrong. Cause I've had that criticized too. Right. Well, you don't have anything to stand for. Did that, you know, cause we're playing with house money in that. Right. You know, the XFL came back, you know, COVID all the staff, you know, went away, bankruptcy, whatever, you know, I remember to this day waking up when, with the news that the rock bought the league back in August, you know, it was like a Monday. I woke up at six in the morning and I see this guy post a, Hey, do you just hear the rock Bobby XFL? I'm like, Oh, this Mark, like, what is this guy talking about?

Right. You know, and it was all real. And so, you know, w we are very much playing with house money right now. And so we XFL fans. I speak for everybody because we are, you know, it's not a high bar. I would say we are the most listened to XFL podcast, right. In the States, it's a very low bar, the house, but we do have that bar and our fans very much embrace anything going on because of the house money. So the XFL fans are not the enemies in any of this right now, ultimately powers that be, make, you know, ask to change the rules, things like that. But, but we are just open the football that our listeners right now are watching the spring league are watching everything else. You know, we just want football. And so whatever that ends up being you have a lot of people in America that are very excited about your product, and they're going to be watching it this year for the first time ever, because of all of these talks. So if nothing else that is only going to be a positive for everybody, right. For the players and podcasters and broadcasters and, and everybody involved in this, right. It's only going to raise all those levels. And so I just, you know, the XFL is not the enemy. That was the podcast title we had a couple of weeks ago. And I really feel that, that we are not, you know, things that may come of this may not be good, but it is not ours.

I, I, I agree, you know, football is football and, you know, there's, I don't think any one of us on our show and, and, you know, we'll, who's the wait, it was a way today, but all of us, you know, were, are intrigued and, you know, kind of excited about, you know, what could come of this. And I, I, you know, yeah. Some things can, you can have some negatives, but I can only see the, the, the positives outweigh any of the negatives that are possible with that. So we're, we're, I'm glad that this is going on. I'm, I'm excited about this. And well now got somebody down, down there to to give us some, some insight and I want your fan just like us. So, yeah.

And then to answer your question, the www.themarkcast.com and at the Markcast on Twitter, I don't think I actually ended up plugging anything when you asked me to do that, but now we're all, have you had an awesome impassion speech? We weren't going to interrupt. It was, I was not cutting my promo, but no, I mean, we're always down to a child. I said with everybody online, I'm down at the top, same with a Raj, with anybody I'm down to having an ed. I talk with anybody that's informed and passionate about it. I just, the only thing I say no to is, you know crap talkers or, or, you know, naysayers that don't have a solution, right. When we post something and they go, I hate the XFL, whatever. I don't have anything to do with that. Right. If you have, if you have an educated take that you want to have a conversation with me, I welcome any of that at all. And I know that Paul does too.

Thank you very much for joining us Reid. We're glad to have in, we're definitely going to have you have you back on at some point. And you know, if not, you wear your, your co-host and we'll definitely be listening to your show as well.

I appreciate you. And thank you so much for reaching out. I really do appreciate it.

XFL Newshub CFL-XFL “Merger” Talks Roundtable - March 27, 2021

All right, everybody. We're here with the round table. This is a bunch of XFL news hub reporters. And of course, read from XFL, Mark CAS. This is like the crossover episode, like when the Simpsons and family guy got together, like now we're on the same show. So this is good. We've got Josh Davis. We've got read Matt lions. The only Matt, we want to point out the only Matt here, Mike Mitchell and Anthony Miller as well. So first off guys, I mean, this was a crazy week this past week when it comes to the XFL and CFL news to give everybody context, I was hearing something about the CFL and XFL potentially doing something maybe like a week or two before this whole thing started. And then Mike, I kind of reached out to you and was like, are you hearing anything about this? And like, what, what can you kind of tell us about what you had heard?

You know, since last October I've heard rumblings that the, the rock Danny Garcia and Redbird capital were interested in the X in the CFL and, uh, and working with them. And, but I heard initially that the CFO wasn't so receptive to it over some time has passed and as talks have progressed, um, both sides are kind of meeting together in the middle and there, you know, right now it's being characterized as the talks being in the early stages, but that's the public message, but the truth is they're, they're way further than that in their talks with one another. So at first it seemed like a pipe dream and crazy. I thought of it as just simply maybe these guys will shake hands and they'll agree to do things together, which is great. But, um, I think there's a lot more to it then, uh, then they're portraying at the moment.

So one of the things that you mentioned was that you had noticed that Danny Garcia was following the CFL a while ago.

Yeah. The rock too. I mean, you would expect that rock a football player, but right around that October timeframe where I heard about this, they follow them. Yeah. So, so, um, so then, you know, that's, that could mean very little and I still, at that point was thinking, you know, you know, okay, they're looking to be partners globally with other leaks. And, you know, they've gone on record saying that they want to be a compliment to the NFL, which is kind of like what the XFL in 2020 was saying, they don't want to be a challenger to it. So I just assumed that it's going to be something friendly, but over time you hear Redbird strong interest in diversifying and expanding their sports portfolio, and they're doing that worldwide. So, so, um, and Danny's a great, uh, business woman and she's got visions. They've got big visions.

They're not thinking about just cross-promotion and a little bit of player sharing, maybe some practices, their visions are huge. And so that's why, that's why everything's on pause at the moment. It's not on pause for some simple little working agreement. It's on pause because they have huge visions and the CFL is willing to listen because quite frankly, they're in a position right now where, because of financial losses and uncertainty and waning popularity, um, they're willing to listen to what the XFL has to offer. They have a lot to offer a red bird, Dwayne, the rock Johnson and Danny Garcia have a lot to offer. So it's going to be fascinating to see what happens in these talks, um, and the next coming days and weeks. Yeah.

Now read, you were talking about on your show. Why don't you go over, maybe if people didn't hear your show about how much money some of these teams have lost in the CFL, even when they are in a decent year.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting, you know, this is a, as someone that, you know, we started the podcast back when the other rock purchased it and it is nice to feel like we are podcasting about something relevant now, uh, where, you know, it was, it was quite a sell to Paul for months to say, you know, when this, cause, you know, our views this week have been astronomical compared to what we normally do, you know? So, uh, we're very happy about that, but yeah, I mean, our history with the CFL goes back to last year when we add shadow to Cinco on the podcast, and we were talking to him about the CFL. We were the ones that broke the news to him that the CFL went bankrupt, you know, last year when they, when they didn't get the loan from the government. So that was kind of a funny, full circle, but yeah, I mean, I really, you know, I don't have all the resources to Mike and all the, all the writers have, you know, everyone here, Anthony and Josh and Matt.

And so we really, um, Paula and I are mostly speculation. I mean, obviously we like to be grounded in reality and facts and stuff. Yeah. I did some reading and, uh, you know, I I've seen reports, you know, uh, 3 million a year loss to 10 to 20 million a year of loss per team, depending on, you know, Mike's saying, so, um, yeah, I mean, it's certainly no surprise that, uh, we had said on the podcast, uh, you know, why would the CFL answer the phone calls if they weren't in the situation? And that's kind of where we were at in terms of, you know, initial speculated about how, how dire their circumstances are.

So Josh, like you've covered a fan control football and now, so you're like, you know, we're all, like the only thing we're talking about right now is like fan control football and, and Josh Gordon and all that stuff. Um, when you heard the news, what was your reaction about this whole CFL XFL thing? I mean, at first I was like, what, what, what is, what, what, what am I reading here? I get it, they get the list, same last two letters, but there's so much different. Yeah. Playing the two games. Uh, so my first thing

Was, you know, like, are they, is one gonna own the other, like, how is it still be two independent leagues? You know, though. I mean, that's kinda, uh, after that initial thought and, and talking to some people that I know talking to people in a, um, business world and, and how this thing and, and getting opinions from different people, that's my thing on it. Uh, there's so much of a different game, uh, in Canada than there is here. Uh, I think there's a risk of losing fans, like hardcore fans from the CFL since they've been around for a hundred and some odd years, uh, trying to switch to the American game. And, uh, um, so my thing is, I, it sounds to me like we're going to hear an announcement that says a red bird and Redbird, Dwayne and Danny bought the CFL too. So that's, that's my opinion on anything.

Gotcha. Anthony, you did an article and you've had something in there interesting that, you know, they do pump this idea that, you know, it's, the CFL has been around for 108 years, but really they haven't, they were like a rugby league or something for like the first, like 50 or 60 years or something. Right.

Yeah. Basically the two like rugby football leagues, they had combined it together to really become the CFL in the mid fifties. So technically they've been around as a CFL name for, you know, 50, 60 plus years. But, um, you know, they've had the grey cups for over a hundred years. That's where the history comes in for them. And I think that's going to be the big thing with the CFL is that they don't want to lose the great cup. They don't want to lose all the rules they had with, you know, the three downs and how big the field is. So it's going to be interesting to see, you know, where are the two leaks going to come together and compromise and work together on that. So I'm really fascinated to see how this storyline goes for both leagues and how they work together. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Matt, what was your reaction when, as the representative Matt of this podcast, as you, so you speak for all mats involved in Jacksonville news hub, what was your reaction when you kind of heard this news about the XFL and CFL?

I thought it was crazy. I mean, it's, it was, I don't know if anybody really expected that that was out of the loop. Like, uh, and then I just started speculating. Like what could it possibly be? And like dove as deep as I could in that. And as many directions as I could. I think, I think like everyone was on the same page with that.

Yeah. It's been, it's definitely an interesting thing. And once you get over the initial shock of like, wow, this is actually happening, then comes in. Like what, what's the real listic expectation now, Mike, are you on the team of they're going to buy out the CFL or is it going to be this kind of like the XFL and CFL kind of work in tandem going forward?

My preference is, um, you know, I just recently wrote an article about an, a hybrid CFL XFL for XFL news hub. And that's my preference. The reality is however, that's probably more of a fantasy. Um, the way I look at it, I think if the XFL Redbird capital's going in there going all in. And so I think that they would bring the American style of football to Canada. And I don't think that would, we would have half and half. That's my opinion, you know, based on some of what I've heard already, but, um, I just, you know, the Canadian game, the CFL, you know, Anthony brought up a point of how long they've been around and they're not adverse, or they haven't, um, gone through periods of change in the past. In the early days of the CFL, they had a lot of change actually.

So the game is a lot different now than it was in the beginning. And they're having issues obviously financially at the box office. Um, they're waning in popularity in their own country. Um, they're having trouble attracting young viewers. Um, so I, I, it's not a league that's, it's not a healthy league. Let's face it. The pandemic killed the XFL and Redbird capitalize on that. I hate to put it that way, but they're able to purchase the expo for 15 million and the CFL is available for business because of the pandemic. And, you know, I wrote about this in my article, but a lot of the CFL teams actually lost more money when they had a season then when they didn't have a season last year. So that's a fact, so that tells you, and for eight straight years, the Canadian football league there's attendance has gone down for eight straight years.

So, um, they're not in a healthy position. The Canadian football league is not in a healthy position. They're in this position now where they're willing to talk to the XFL, uh, as an, as an adapt or die situation, it's a matter of survival. So it would be rough on a lot of diehard, CFL fans, and somebody like me, who's been a fan of the CFL for many decades now dating back to the Argos and Doug Flutie and all that. And I love the CFL game. It would be hard to make that adjustment, but, um, I think, you know, and even in Canada, people who grow up in Canada, play football in Canada, don't even watch the CFL. You know, so, I mean, that's a shame, but it's the truth. They watch the NFL, they watch a college game here in the States. Um, maybe 20 years from now, this will seem logical for them to go to four downs at the moment. It's seems like SAC religious, like it's, uh, but it's just, it's a tough situation all the way around, but I understand the position the XFL is in and I, the position

The CFL is in now, I heard that too. I heard number one. Is that more, um, Canadians watched the NFL than they watched the CFL? I've heard that.

Yeah. I also found the super bowl, uh, viewership numbers in Canada. Uh, this last year was 8.8 million average viewers in Canada for the super bowl. And the last grey cup was only like three and a half million of everywhere. Really?

Yeah. I mean, okay. And then that's their big, yeah. I heard that, you know, the, the NFL part and then talking about the younger viewers, I, I forgot I was listening to somebody on TSN. I haven't figured out everybody's name yet. And he was talking and he said that he would be talking with, uh, college football players from Canada that play in the United States and they never watched the CFL. These are young guys playing division one football, and they've never watched the CFL. So, I mean, read like, what's, what's your take on, um, potential keeping with the rules or what are we, what do you is going to happen?

Yeah, so we, you know, we've gotten obviously a lot of comments on our YouTube about, you know, the rule changes and everything this week. I mean, you know, w we're called the XFL Mark cast. We try, we try not to be XFL marks too much in that, you know, XFL rules are better than CFL or whatever, but, you know, we just reported it. You know, we all did, you know, the week or two ago, you know, the $750 million deal that Redbird made with Fenway. And by, in Yeoville the red Sox and Liverpool and NASCAR and all that stuff. And so, you know, it doesn't matter what rules are better. It matters where the money is and if Redbird has the money, uh, behind them. And it's so funny that, um, we're going to have this, we were going to have a rod Peterson on he's like a Canadian, um, daytime talk show.

He's very outlandish. I'm very excited to cool. You having him on your show. Yeah. So we're going to talk to him tomorrow about it. Cause he kinda through, um, the reason why is he kind of went viral this week, at least in my circle, because he was basically throwing the CFL fans under the bus and saying like, Hey, you know, you guys want this, you have the chance to put your money on the Greg cup. You know, where have you guys been? You know, this is a reason why this is failing. And so, uh, we're very excited to talk to him tomorrow. Uh, so that will be on our Friday episode. Um, you know, talking about the CFL from a Canadian, you know, sports standpoint. Uh, but just to answer your question. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't, I see a lot of these CFL fan saying like, you know, if it goes to fourth downs, I'm done watching well, if they don't get the money from Redbird, the chances of them surviving might not happen either. So it's like, do you want the league to continue or not? And that's kind of where we're at. At least it seems to me, I mean, I know Mike and everyone has more info, but you know, the option is like, you're going to hold on to these rules and watch the league die. I don't think that's a foreseeable, you know, good alternative either. So

Now Josh, you followed all of the legal happenings going on with the XFL. Uh, you are basically basically you're, you're the, the, uh, XFL news hub lawyer with all of the legal documents that you've checked out, where are we at with the whole legal stuff going on with the XFL? And we basically come and do a close, is that like officially closed or what?

Uh, not really, but the case for bankruptcy cases is you're not going to hear a whole lot, a whole lot more. That's going to just kind of dissipate and blow in the wind. Um, most of the big things have already happened. Uh, there was a recent canceled hearing, uh, but that was because there were no objections to any of the motions. So why have the, why had the hearing? So, um, you know, I know when you get the trademark stuff, you know, that's, uh, uh, that's, that's extended at least until the end of March. Uh, so we'll figure out where they're going. Most people around that industry when it comes to trademarks, especially in, uh, in, in sports, these things usually die out in a, in a settlement and it doesn't always end up involving money, sometimes just a phrasing, uh, uh, the trademark that references, uh, uh, I'm not going to go either way here, but, you know, uh, references, uh, a source of if you want to call it that. And then when you go, when it comes to luck and McMahon, that thing's been, they go to trial in October and I don't see it ending in a day sooner.

Yeah. So Matt, where you, as, as one of kind of our guys that kind of came on towards the end and we weren't hearing anything, was your opinion maybe like, what was your opinion about what was going on with the XFL? Did you even think that it was going to happen or do you think, and they were closing up shop or me? Cause it's been basically a dead zone ever since October. Yeah.

I mean, there was times where I definitely started questioning if it was going to come back or not, but like, I definitely didn't ever give up hope, especially with like everyone else in like our group chat, just like constantly chatting it up and stuff. Yeah. I, I kinda, I just, I never, yeah. I always had a feeling that something was going to come back. I didn't know exactly what it was, but something for sure

Now I have to be honest. Cause I was like, all right. I interviewed my dog on my podcast and I'm like, I'm really kind of like stretching here. And I'm like, maybe I don't want to waste people's time. So part of me, honestly, last week I was like, well, you know what, I'm just going to maybe just be like, Hey, I'm going to come out with a show. If there's news, if there's nothing like, then I'm just not going to do it. I mean, I was literally like, all right, maybe we'll, I'll just give it like one more week. And then now we're here now, Anthony you've covered a lot of the NFL stuff too. So what was your kind of take of, you know, you cover the, the NFL a lot, um, with going with stuff that's going on with the XFL and did you, it was coming back and, and what was your take on all this stuff?

It's an interesting situation because I almost have a negative view for how this news is coming out because to me it just feels like we haven't had really any news, like you said, since October, and now all of a sudden they're going to pause the season because they need to talk to the CFL. To me, I may be reading too much into it for, for me, that just sounds like we're not going to do 20, 22. Like I just don't feel like it season's going to happen at this time last year or two years ago, we knew Bob Suze was going to coach the Dallas team. We knew that all of her luck was the commissioner of the XFL. We knew that they were going to be summer showcases this year. We know nothing to me that just shows that if it's been focusing on the CFL stuff, which is fine, I'm not going to complain about it.

It's a, it's going to be a good business move. They end up coming together. But for me, I'm just feeling less optimistic about 20, 22. So I'm not going to hold my breath on a 20, 22 season more than likely even if talks fall apart, but the CFL and nothing happens. Are we really going to see a 20, 22 XFL season? I'm just not really seeing it. I think it's going to be rushed. So at this point, I almost just want them to forget about 2020 to try to hire some people in leadership roles and let's focus on 2023 and get this thing, right. Because it's, you know, the first time it didn't go well, the second time it went well, but there was a pandemic. Let's try to make this the third time. So lucky charm.

Yeah. I mean, that's, what's funny about some of the reaction in Canada when it comes to the XFL, like y'all, haven't played two seasons, you know, we've been around for 108 years now. Mike, what have you hearing, what's your kind of, what are you gauging about the 2022 season or a 2023 or,

Um, I think 20, 22 is definitely up in the air. I think it's up in the air right now, because if they're planning on running a 17 team or an 18 team league, that's going to take a lot of heavy lifting. If they were doing an 18 team league, you could kind of figure out a way for the league to start in April next year and kind of just beat the deadline. You can make it, you know, you might not do summer showcases and all that. And now you've got to remember, they didn't finish hiring their coaches last year or a lot of their, uh, pers office personnel until the summertime. The last coach hiring was in June. So theoretically you can make it to an April launch, but if you're inheriting nine Canadian teams and then you have to figure out the field dynamics and TV partners and all the reality programming, that's going to be attached to all of this.

Um, it's a large undertaking. It would be extremely difficult for them to forget about as far as I'm concerned, forget about February of 20, 22 immediately. Yeah. It was already set in stone that the league was going to start later because the super bowl is being pushed back a week. So, you know, if you were doing a week after the super bowl, you're going to do February 19th, the weekend of February 19th, the weekend of February 20th. Um, yeah. We're w which is almost March because February is a shorter month to begin with. So your words, uh, I don't see, um, you know, Anthony brings up great points. 2022 is in doubt because if they're inheriting an entire league, um, that's a lot of work. So, um, so, you know, in terms of everything, so, uh, that's where we stand right now. We'll wait and see, wait and see in the next week or two, I will know a lot more about where the league is headed. 20, 22. Hasn't been ruled out completely. They could potentially launch in April or may, but, um, we'll see, but for now it's in doubt.

Yeah. So Josh talking about the third down is that's the big thing, three downs versus four downs. You cover fan controlled football. So you've seen kind of the, the gimmicky stuff. Are you, would you be, would you be, are you thinking that there's no way the American public is going to take three downs and basically y'all in Canada got to forget about this whole three down stuff up. Can't hear ya solid point. How about now? There we go. All right,

Stupid. Anyway, it's gotta be four downs. I mean, nobody's watching the CFL right now anyway. Yeah. You know, it's, uh, uh, I understand that it's, it's there. Uh, you know, it's just the way they've been playing their game the whole time, but obviously the, uh, our version of football with the four downs is, uh, is, is a much more popular game. And, uh, I don't, I don't see there's any other way to, to, to, for this, to happen for this to go is, you know, there may be a mixing of rules. They might be able to do stuff with motion. Uh, they may keep a wider field for some more action. Uh, but, uh, the three, four downs, uh, it's, it's going to go to four downs. And, and here's another thing too. You guys were just talking about another, if this stuff falls apart with the CFL and that these talks have pushed back the date of the XFL, I feel like that that's a nail in the coffin for the XFL. This has got to go, we got to go with 20, 22 or the CFL has to be the reason we're not, you know what I mean? Yeah. This has gotta be pretty big if they're gonna, uh, you know, going to say that we might need to hit a pause button here.

Yeah. I, I think I go with Mike. I think they've been talking for a while, cause this doesn't seem to make any sense, um, that they were just all of a sudden, uh, Oh, Hey, we just started talking yesterday. We figured we'd let you guys know. Uh, and then as far as the third down goes, yeah. Does anybody on this panel think a third down would work in the United States?

Why would I not? Why would it not? I mean, where we're in a we're in a time where passing is the most important thing and the most exciting play in the game. I think a lot of fans love the passing and that's what makes the CFL work is that you have to pass the ball on second down. You're almost forcing teams to throw the ball more than the running. So it could work. I don't know if it will catch on just because Americans are so useful for downs, but I don't think the XFL should necessarily just like, no, we're not going to do three downs. It's gotta be four downs. This is a league about innovation. That was the whole point of the XFL. I think they should look at the CFL rules and they should, if they're going to work together, they should compromise and maybe take some rules they have. And I think T CFL could take rules that the XFL has. So I want to knock on, uh, on three downs if the NFL wants to do that, I think it'd be pretty interesting.

Yeah. I mean, one of my fears about the CFL is I remember early on with Oliver luck and some of the rules guys that they had tried to do the halo rule for the punt, and they were testing it out in the spring league and the new, the United States players could not get it. Mike, do you remember that?

I do remember that. And Sam Schwartz, Thena talked about, uh, that heavily, uh, post bankruptcy period for the XFL there. He revealed a lot about the rules and the process, and he talked about how the halo rule just did not work. And that's the thing, you know, Anthony brings up a great point. Maybe the XFL should be a little bit more free thinking in terms of tweaking their game, but here in the States, the college game and the NFL game is four downs. The XFL has designs on being a North American pro football league. Once they journey into three downs or, and all that stuff, the players that will be coming into the league are not going to be adapting to the American style here. Then the XFL becomes a completely different league. Now, if they want to decide to become a Canadian style league and bring that element here, it's possible.

But if they have designs on appealing to players who play in college football here in the States in play pro football, they're going to stay a pro football league. The question is whether or not the CFL is going to become an American style pro league, that's where we're headed right now. So yeah, there are a lot of those rules in the CFL could work. The original XFL had the backwards forward motion and the forward motion, which I liked. Um, I wouldn't mind seeing that a wider field was mentioned by one of the guys earlier here. Um, that would be cool. I like that prospect to bed FCF looks like they're playing in the living room. You know, they could use some more space there, Josh Gordon running, crossing routes across my couch. But, um, you know, that's basically, basically there are some elements of the CFL game that you could see.

I would like to see incorporated in the XFL, but I would like to keep it as close as possible. Just a personal preference to the NFL game that we see in the college football game that we see here, my crazy hybrid league ideas, a pipe dream. It's probably not going to happen, but I wanted to see both leagues still exist with their rules, with some incorporating of both leagues. And then the, when worlds collide the two leagues meet, I want to see the battle Hawks play the Argonauts with CFL rules. I want to see the, the Alawites come over and play the renegades with the XFL rules in play. Maybe that's a little bit of my wrestling fan background, but, um, you know, I it's maybe a little gimmicky, maybe FCF doesn't mind gimmicks, but I think the XFL wants to be more of a traditional pro style league and the CFL might be headed that way. Yeah.

Yeah. That's just, [inaudible] having Washington covered. They're going to a football for the last going on six weeks here. This weekend, all I want to see is real football and not the fan because to football, hasn't been a fun experiment, but I think, you know, the XFL is not going to be the, be all end all for all these players anyway, wanting to transition to, you know, the NFL, it's the same thing with the spring league. And if you're going to have it be this thing where you can have a PJ Walker go up or whatever, come back down, these players, you know, players get, uh, you know, we had talked about Dwayne Haskins getting comfortable, Washington football, you know, is he going to the XLR if they're playing this gimmicky, whatever floozy doozy stuff. I mean, you just can't. I think there has to be some semblance of similarities enough that way. And I do think that with the CFL, uh, right now it's a little too drastic if the XFL wanted to maintain that.

And a lot of know, a lot of players will choose to pass on playing in the XFL. If they're playing a certain style that isn't, you know, natural to the NFL or the college, if, you know, God forbid they were playing, you know, no disrespect to the FCF. I think it's a fun product. And I think they're doing a very good job and it has a place for no question about it. I think it's an upgraded version of arena football. Um, you know, I feel like it's going to overtake the indoor football league if they do things properly. But I think in the end, I think in the XFL, the, you know, the, you know, you don't want to see a five down league and power ups and, and, uh, and all that other madness, sorry, I'm not trying to dissociate, but that's not what the XFL is about.

And players are not going to want to play in that type of, they're just, what kind of tape are you going to? Um, the XFL doesn't have plans on being a developmental league, mind you, but what kind of tape, where are you going to get in the expert? Why would you play in the XFL as a quarterback if it's, you know, six downs or, uh, some weird sideline rules or some, you know, the quadruple four passes? Nope. Nobody's going to play in, in that type of league. I'm not trying to crap on this, but it's a last resort for a lot of quarterbacks and a lot of American quarterbacks, frankly, can't play in the CFL. You can't see it on that level. That's a different game. It's what, you know, it's very hard to adjust to it. Guys have tried Johnny Manzell being one who quit almost immediately going up there and he saw how difficult it was to blame.

I mean, he's a poor example because he puts on everything. I think he shows up whenever he feels like, and in the FCF, depending on what he ate during the day or what, what else he had. So, um, so basically that's kind of the story there. So I think the XFL has this thing with a game that's similar to the, that an updated and evolved in a version of the NFL and college football, which is kind of like what the XFL in 2021 was, it's what they played a style of game that the NFL should play and they will time. They will over time. You know, you're going to see, you know, with the sky judge and officiating and, and over time, you'll see all the different features that the XFL had in the national football league. Uh, just like the original XFL in many ways, um, you know, from the cameras and the access and all that.

So, um, so I think it's important. It's vital that the XFL is an evolved version of the American style and not a watered down version of the CFL style. Um, you know, it's, it might work in the States. That's why I like my hybrid idea because you get to introduce that CFL style to the States at little by little, in little increments, and then, you know, over time and you still kind of pay homage and you respect the tradition of the CFL doing that. I just don't think that's going to happen. You know, as much as this is a fantasy in my head.

Right. So, Matt, do you think there is going to be a CFL season this year? Oh, man. That's a tough question. Uh, I mean, there's just so much up in the air. Uh, like I hope so. Uh, cause it'd be fun to cover, but man, yeah. There's just so much up in the air. Uh, it's going to be really tough to figure out if there's going to be one or not. Yeah. So Anthony, would you be, I mean, would you be excited about covering the CFL? Did you ever even think that you would be interested in covering the CFL?

No. It's something that I keep telling myself, Hey, I'm going to watch the CFL and this year I'm going to do it this year, but it's, it's, it's kind of difficult to watch in the U S because we just don't have, you know, the resources. I mean, you could watch on ESPN too. I know they have those like every Friday, but you're not able to watch all the teams unless you have like ESPN plus. But I definitely think with everything that's happened with the XFL and the CFL talking to each other, I think it's going to add more excitement to us to watch the CFL because the, it seems like the possibility is these teams, these, these leagues are going to work together one way or another. So I think a lot of us fans will be like, well, let's get to know the CFL.

What's learned these players. What's learned these coaches because there's a lot of good talent in the CFL. There's a lot of good coaches in the CFL. I mean, you look at, you know, teams like Calgary and Saskatchewan. I mean, they have a lot of talent there if you just watch on tape. So I think the U I think definitely the U S Americans are definitely gonna, especially XFL fans will definitely be watching the CFL a lot more. And I think I'll keep my eye on it because I think there's some potential there that if they work together, I mean, the possibilities are endless in terms of what talent goes between each league and all that. So I think it's time for XFL fans to start learning a little more about the CFL. Cause I, I think something's coming.

Yeah. Now we have basically, there's two options really that's on the table. Is, are they going to merge or is it going to be some hybrid stuff after the excitement of this whole thing? And you really started to put your head around it, read where you think you think we're going to get more. Are they just going to merge this thing together? Or do you think that there's going to be some type of hybrid system going because when you really break down those, so first of all, you have, you know, the Redbird capital owns all the XFL teams. There is no ownership, just them in the CFL. It's a mishmash of like publicly owned and some privately owned. That means that they would have to sell all their franchises to the XF. Now, granted, they might be not worth very much if they lose millions. So do you think, where do you think we're headed? Because that's what everybody's talking about is where do you think this is going to go

First off, I was going to jump, uh, we haven't, we have a full show this week of XFL content before all this, uh, CFL stuff dropped. I just want to, I know we had the dog interviews, we were going to taste Zoe energy drinks. We were going to do, we had a whole thing going, uh, but, uh, you know, as someone now that has gotten into the XFL CFL, Twitter stuff, uh, the, the fantasy scenarios I have had flooded my way in the last week about, and then we add another team over here and then they could play this division across this thing. And this, I mean, it all just kind of like washes over me, like just, I couldn't, I couldn't care less about Abby and Gideon and heavy nine teams in this division that playing crossover. I mean, honestly, I think they're going to buy it all and move it up.

I just don't, I don't know. I think it's the easiest thing. I think all this other stuff, you know, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think we're going to have 20, 22, you know, maybe CFL, you know, Lauren hopes that we have something to cover here in the next, um, you know, a couple of months, but I think it just gets too messy at that point. I don't know. I don't know what that, what that looks like in, in, in, you know, how you playing, you know, they played their own thing and we play and we start laying and then it feeds over to the other one. And, you know, I've read all the articles and stuff. I just see, it all seems messy to me when you're trying to Mark it, you know, it was hard enough for that when star Wars came out, when the new trilogy came out and they said, all right, here's the star Wars.

And then when they tried to have the rogue one or whatever, and they're like, okay, this is the new star Wars, but it's not the new star Wars. It's like a different one. And people lost their minds and they didn't understand what was going on. And it only made like a fraction of the money and beat the other one made. So if you're going to tell me that, it's like, okay, well, this is like the CFL, but they're going to play a half league. And I just think it gets way too. I think people are dumb. I think it's, it's really a hard sell. That's just

Me. What do you think, Anthony?

It brings up a really good point. Uh, I think Rita's kind of on point there it's I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is I know the key is going to be Redbird capital. I feel like in the end, they're going to probably buy some of the CFL teams because the CFL is in such financial trouble that I don't think they have a choice. I, I think they have to work with the XFL because from what I've been hearing, you know, I was what, you know, RateIt he's has, uh, rod Peterson on a show. I was listening to a show last week and one insider told them, as soon as the news came out, CFL is dead. It's done. So if the CFL does not do anything with the XFL, I don't think they're going to survive very long. Apparently this has been years in the making of really bad financial decisions by the league that now it's come to the point that the CFL has absolutely no choice, but to work with the XFL because the XFL has got the marketing because they have to win the rock Johnson. Everyone wants to work with Dwayne. Everyone wants to work with Danny Garcia. These are incredibly smart business people, and they want to work with Redbird capital because they're taken over to the sports world. So I think for the CFL, they want to survive. They have no choice, but to work with the XFL and, you know, use our resources.

Yeah. So there's two drop date. The dates there has supposed to have a CFL draft in April. And then I heard somebody had, I think it was on one rod Peterson's show, uh, that May 1st is the, is the done date. And if it's not May 1st, then that's it. So, so Mike, do you think we're going to get a CFL or how do you think this is going to play out merger hybrid? I know you got your fantasy thing on, uh, XFL news hub, but I mean, where are you thinking this is going to go?

I feel a merger coming on with really, yeah. I feel a merger coming on. I'm thinking the Redbirds plan is not to dip their toe in the water. Um, so I, I feel like they're looking to purchase interest or have economic power over the entire situation. And whether, if that land, if they land on that, we'll find out soon. But, um, as far as the CFL season, I, you know, I love football to death and, um, if there's no XFL, uh, you know, especially when we know already there's no XFL this year, I really want to see the CFL play. That could be a last harass season. One thing to keep in mind is that they signed a five-year deal with TSN, uh, for significant amount of money. So there's money at stake for them to get on the field and play. Um, and really hoping that

The CFO plays I'm looking forward to covering the league as the rest of you guys are and introducing a lot of Americans to that style of play. And hopefully it's not a last rod of that style of play, but, um, it's possible.

Yeah. So, Matt, what do you think hybrid or merge? What, where, where, where do you want to see this thing go?

I think we're headed towards a merge to, for, for basically everything that these guys just, just laid out for for everything. And I don't think, I think if we don't get to a merger, like immediately, they might end up trying to do that. I've seen people say a style, like how the XFL or, I mean, the, the AFL and NFL merged and do something like that with the CFL and XFL, I could see something like that at the beginning and then eventually end in emerge too. But I mean, then you also have to talk about adding another team potentially or more and all sorts of stuff. I mean, if you, if they're really wanting to dive in to like international stuff, like they seem to be trying to, you could even consider adding a team down to Mexico. Uh, NFL has had decent success with, uh, games in Mexico for a while now. I don't know exactly what the market's like, but something to look at.

Yeah. Josh merge or hybrid. Cause I I'm, I'm not part of the group on this one and I'll give my take in a second, but Josh, what do you think you're muted again?

Yeah. How about that? There you go. All right. All right. By that, uh, I think it's gotta be a merger. Um, the XFL has always been a lead that looks forward, not backward, everything that CFL is doing and it already has done. Uh, I think they come together. I would like to see what was mentioned before, you know, like the AFC and NFC is right now, whether you got the CFL and the XFL, same league, same rules they play. And at the end of the year, the, the XFL, which is one conference and then the other conference, dizzy is the CFL they play for the championship. So something like that.

All right, well, I am going to go against the grain and I'm saying hybrid. So I've think about this. I've I've pondered. This stuff stayed up at night, in the middle of the night, waking up at two o'clock in the morning being like, okay, well how, how would this real? You gotta be realistic about this. What, and I think it's, I think it's a part, a couple of things I D I think it's going to be a hybrid, and I think they're going to run the league separate, but together they'll have the same rule book. I think Redbird capital will buy just like they did Fenway, you know, 10%, 20% to give them the cash so that they could potentially play this season. This will be the last hurrah of, of what they are normally used to because now they're, I, I think the only reason why the XFL called the CFL was to strengthen their position for a TV contract in the United States, because it's one thing to come and say, Hey, I got eight teams and can we do something?

And then it's like, Hey, I got eight teams. Plus we can package in the CFL two as part of this kind of thing. I think the two leagues run at the same time, but you know, this television contract is together, but the two leaks run separate because Redbird capital owns all of the XFL and you've got all these other, you have the CFL players association, you have to deal with. And you know, there there's a lot more, you know, you're dealing with the localities. They're like, I just can't see, uh, outright buy out Redbird capital. Cause it's, I think it's too complicated, what they can talk about. And I'm going to assume that they have been talking about is, you know, how do rules play, play together? Because here's the thing with the CFL has been. And, and, uh, Randy M and Brosy has been working on trying to partner with other football leagues as well.

So if you have the XFL as its own league, then you have the CFL as its only, but you, you, if you're going to play games together, they have to count for something. There's no question about it. And then you could potentially bring in a German league into the mix and the German league follows the same rules and regulations and player movement. And however you, you know, they want to do it. And I mean, then you could add more to it. So I think just based on the business side of things, I think it's, I think it's a hybrid where the two leagues play, at least for the first, maybe three or four years. I've I'm the CFL. Yeah. I might be in dire straits financially and I, and Hey, rock loved you in the WWE. I love your movies. Danny Garcia is a very smart lady and Redbirds got big money pockets, but y'all actually haven't done any, you haven't finished the season yet. You haven't even played two seasons yet. Would I throw all my eggs in the basket for that? Now I would, if red bird was gonna give me 20, you know, take 20% of the league and give us $20 million to finish the season, that's where I could see that kind of happen. I mean, what do you, what do you guys think?

I will say that Danny and the rock have given us this hat. I don't want it to be lost on anyone on there that, uh, we have our wonderful black Friday hats that from daddy and the rock, that's the only thing they've done since August. Uh, you know, we talked about this on the podcast on Friday that, you know, it's one of those things where yeah, obviously this wasn't the original plan, right. You know, Danny and the rock. And it's one of those things, you know, this, this felt, you know, COVID and everything, and this fell in their laps and they were able to pick it up for pennies on the dollar to get this for 15 million. And now, you know, maybe they called CFL to say, Hey, what's going on with whatever. And maybe the CFL was like, Oh my gosh, we totally need, you know, they guide your calling.

I mean, you know, to put it in perspective, you know, the $30 million loan that the CFL needed last year to get through, to do their bubble season or whatever, compared to the 750 million that repor just spent two weeks ago, it's like, true, true. It's like pocket change. Right. I mean, and so, you know, I, I like the idea of, uh, now that you say it, Mark, I'm doing that. I mean, like you have, uh, you have the European league and then you have the Canadian league and you have, and that way then they could, the CFL could keep doing their own thing up there. If people want to watch it, they could watch it. If people don't want to watch it. I mean, I'm not really looking to cover a 27 team league, whatever, you know, it's hard enough for me to keep up with NFL stuff and what's going on in Jacksonville or whatever. So, you know, if you could have them all going independently, kind of like you do soccer, right. You got the, you know, the MLS and then you got whatever going on over there. I mean, that's, that's something right that that's gone on with that. The other question, does anyone know, um, didn't Brian Woods, a friend of the show with a spring league, didn't he talk to CFL a couple of years ago about doing the buyout or a partnership or something like that? Am I crazy? Someone messaged me this week about that?

Ah, I don't remember. No, there were, there were reports, there were reports that, uh, woods was interested not too long ago, actually that woods was interested in doing something with the CFL, but the CFL kind of a, for lack of a better term hung up the phone on it. Yeah. So in, in the past, they've had CFL Scouts come to the spring league and they've done that, but I think woods was looking to do something a little bit more elaborate with maybe a CFL, uh, putting in some of their financial finances into it and see if I wasn't interested in that because you know, woods has had his struggles in the past with finances and finding a way to get funding and all that. So he was looking for a little bit of a help and CFL is now in a position where they're, you know, looking to, you know, just give them, throw money away, so to speak. So yeah, there was, that did happen that I want to say, not too long ago, right. Maybe probably before the TSL season started where they were trying to get the CFL, rope them in, so to speak and get them on board.

We're going to have Brian on here in a couple of weeks, we're trying to get scheduled for this, the Fox deal and all that. And so, and he said, he, he told me, he said, uh, you listened to our podcast and he enjoys it. I don't know if I believe that, uh, cause we have been calling for, uh, for things from Brian for a long time, namely a spring league Birch that he has promised this live on the broadcast. But I anyway, apparently he listens to the show, but he's going to come on and talk about the new spring leaks. I will ask him at that point about any CFL stuff.

You know, the TSL might CSL might be our saving grace here in the States for pro-style football. If the XFL is not around for a while, there's a lot of potential there for them to do things the right way and have a great league. And they have great players who played in their league. So, so I'm rooting for woods and hopefully, you know, he does a great job with Fox and I want to see TSL do really well. And who knows, we might be covering them full fledged if we don't have anything going on CFL or XFL wise. Yeah. Hopefully we can get some, uh, and I agree with Anthony, I mean was looking last

Night to try to find CFL stuff. And it was like ESPN plus had like some gray cup stuff for whatever, but speaking of TV deals, where are we thinking that this would land? June Jones was recently on the radio and he was saying, he thought, now Jew, have you covered you and Jones, you get in trouble. Cause he says stuff. And you're like, ah, but NBC was something that he threw out there and potentially CBS, you know, time Warner kind of deal there, Fox. I mean it is out there. I mean, w where do you guys think? I mean, Danny and the rock, you know, with, you know, the success of young rock and I think Titans games was on NBC. Um, or one of those, I don't know what you know. Um, but he was also on HBO too with ballers. So where do you guys think we would see the XFL with this mega TV deal? Because that was what was worrying me about not hearing anything, because I was under the impression that without a big TV deal, they were not going to do it Vince and Oliver reluctant. Right? So, I mean like Mike, where's your thoughts on TV deal.

If you put two and two together, you have to assume NBC is a potential partner because of their relationship between Johnson at any Garcia. You have to assume that HBO, you have to think of streaming partners as well. If you're looking to maximize finances or media rights deals, you can't rule out any of the streaming partners that are out there that are looking for content right now. That's HBO, max, that's Netflix, that's Hulu, that's everybody, Amazon there's one sprouting up every other day. So, um, those are all in play and I wouldn't rule out the foxes and the ESPNs and the ABCs and all that because you know, it's an 18 team league is a little bit, um, easier to sell. And one of the drawbacks or the negatives to having a smaller league is you're only selling your league in eight markets. You only have eight or nine markets watching.

And that's why a lot of times these leagues have trouble, uh, sustaining TV ratings because, you know, an NFL game has 32 markets watching it and more, you know, obviously you have the fantasy element, you have gambling element, but, um, in the XFL you have those eight specific cities and then you have some great cities like, uh, you know, or States like Ohio and others that tune in and watch the games. But for the most part, you you're, you know, you're not broadening your reach and you can do that if you have more teams. So this is a way of like cheating and adding, adding on nine expansion teams immediately. And then, um, you know, so it's kind of way of doing that. So that's a possibility, but I think the, you know, in the mornings you have the more tickets you can sell and the better your property looks when you're selling it to networks and streaming partners.

And so on. If you've got a global reach too, you gotta remember, you know, part of the draw in this as the XFL, having the same kind of, uh, reach that the NBA has with the Toronto Raptors, um, yeah. NFL hasn't explored that Toronto market yet. The XFL could be the first, uh, to do that in, uh, North America, you know, in America. So, so yeah, so I think NBC naturally, uh, HBO and even HBO, max, I could see games if you're, if you're doing an 18 team league, you're going to have to have multiple partners, uh, in your games. So, um, I could see some games on streaming, some games on networks, um, and they're looking for media rights deals, you know, uh, the, you know, the pay money. They're not looking to do what the AAF did and pay for airtime, the decent deal, where the networks actually covered all the production costs and paid all the Steve Levy's and the Diana Rossini's and all them. So, um, so there Redbird, you got to remember with them, they're looking to maximize profit, nothing. They, uh, everything they do is with the intent of bringing the most possible in return. Um, so, so th that's, that's why sometimes there's a little bit of a, a methodical approach to their TV deals and all that. Um, they're not just going to dive in for the sake of it they're they they're looking at the bottom line. Yeah.

Uh, I was, uh, uh, peacock, right. NBC's, you know, digital, I mean, they literally just bought the WWE network, like the whole, like all like everything about. And so, I mean, and, and I've got, my brother is in, um, he's a film studies and he, you know, we talk about this stuff all the time, but the amount of money that these streaming sites are spending right now is just astronomical. That th that there has to be some cap at some point, you know, they're paying, you know, um, uh, whenever the, uh, Martin Scorsese, you know, 200 million, Hey, just go make them, you know, Irish man, just go make a movie, like whatever you want. Right. And so at some point there is going to be a limit, but, you know, we just reported the, uh, you know, two weeks ago, you know, Disney, you know, they wrapped everyone to re up this year for NFL stuff, you know, a hundred percent, you know, year over year, except for Disney and ESPN.

And so, you know, football's commanding a lot and, and we talked a lot on there too, about, uh, the one good thing that fangirl football has done is, um, really utilize that streaming in a good way with Twitch where all their stuff's on Twitch and they can go live whenever they want. There's no costs of, we got to reserve this airtime. We can go live for five hours. If the games go late, we can do. I mean, that's the one really good thing they've done. And we've been very critical about a lot of this stuff that they haven't done, but, uh, is that, is that the streaming of, like, we can just go on whenever we want, you just pop it on and, and it's been a really good fit, I think, for football and sports in that way on Twitch or any street.

Yeah. Now one of the things we were talking about was expansion and the XFL nerds love talking expansion. Now the other one of the other mats is working on an article for me, but we'll get to the map that's here about. Um, so if the CFL has nine teams and the XFL has eight teams, and you want to balance it out, where would you add that XFL team if you were to, especially if you're going to wait until 20, 23. Yeah. Plenty of time to add another team. So Matt, where would you go if you wanted to land a new, uh, and then you're going to make some friends and enemies based on your answer. So,

Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll start with what I said before, because I do really like the idea of putting a team in Mexico at some point, just because the NFL has thought about it and like the market. I mean, if the NFL is bringing games down there, that it has to, there has to be some type of market for it. Um, besides that, I mean, like, I know Birmingham has been a huge talk. Their fans were crazy and they F I, I could totally see that being a success. Another one, like up in the Ohio area, you could do something with that, but they also have a pretty big market of football already, like with, between college teams and NFL teams. So, um, yeah, I mean, there's so many possibilities

That Anthony, your Texas guy, you think we'll throw it to another team in San Antonio.

I, yeah, it's hard not to argue against San Antonio, just because of how well they did in the Alliance of American football. They were averaging 25, 30,000 fans, a game, which crushed every other team in that league and attendance. So it makes absolute sense to do it. I don't know if they would have three Texas teams that seems to, that seems to be overkill, but I mean, Texas is a huge state and it's all about football here. So definitely San Antonio. And then I would even add San Diego, you've got to get San Diego and softball team eventually. I mean, the San Diego fleet did well too in the minds of American football. And I know they miss their charters, so I wouldn't forget team. Exactly. Yeah. I would definitely put San Diego on that list. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, there is certainly a lot of things that are going to transpire over the next, uh, who knows next couple of days could be next couple of weeks, months who knows? So final thoughts. So first we'll hit, Mike, what are your final thoughts? What do you give me? Like a prediction? Sure. To go wrong. How about that? But go out way out there. What do you think CFOs

It's gonna happen?

That's that's your prediction? Sure. To go wrong.

Yeah, because there's a lot of elements right now in play that could throw that off. So, um, uh, we'll see, you know, we were just them dealing with the pandemic business-wise it could be delayed their season, even if they get to play, um, pending what happens with red bird and the XFL who knows? So, um, I want to be right on, so I'll say the, uh, the, the, uh, CFL season will happen. All right. I want to be right on this. I'll say it. So it could go wrong, but I'll say the CFL season will happen right now. I don't think it's a lock, you know, so, um, you know, I think it's still in doubt. Gotcha. So that's, that's basically it, so I'm probably gonna end up, it's not going to age well, if I say the CFL season will happen and it doesn't do days from now, but, um, but, um, you know, wishful thinking, I think.

Gotcha. All right. Read what's what's your final thoughts and, and a prediction sure. To go wrong?

Uh, well, I just, I didn't want to plug in our show Friday, just a long line here on the wall. I'm on the I'm on the flagship. Um, we have a very exciting show this week. We have, uh, Ernesto Lukoil is going to be co-hosting with me. He's a former XFL dragons, uh, kicker. Uh, Paul is getting an emergency dental surgery this week. Uh, that is going to take him out of

Like Johnny Manzell right

Out of the bubble. Uh, we, uh, we did an interview yesterday with Robert Turbin, uh, after his, uh, fan controlled football. I debut with the BS, uh, former Seahawk player, super bowl winner. He was great. He was all cut out from the game. So we did, uh, an interview with him that, uh, of course the league decided not to share, but that's for another story. And then, you know, we are going to have, like I said, we're going to have rod Peterson the on, uh, tomorrow, we're going to record with him, uh, for the episode on Friday talking all about this stuff. So, uh, XFL show.com or a XFL Mark on Twitter and all that other stuff. And I really appreciate Mark having this on. Um, I don't, um, I do, I said this on the podcast Friday, I feel really bad about having a, a season this year, uh, for XFL, uh, of any kind, um, you know, we had said, obviously we're still speculating and you know, it could be it's a scale, right.

And, and anything that's on the scale of anything truly exciting, whether it be a merger and acquisition rule changes, any of that stuff is going to take way, way long time. And I know I got, uh, guys and girls that messaged me a lot that are really excited about the 20, 22 season. And I hate to be like that kill joy, but I don't, I don't see, I just don't see it happening this year. I think the CFO search that that was still going on in February was terrifying. And I just think that, I think there's too much. I mean, I think, you know, it's one thing for the rocking Danny, to be able to launch a TV show or launch an energy drink, or do whatever, um, you know, kind of snap a finger, and you got all this stuff, you know, maybe they, they bought this league and they thought, man, this is a lot more work. It's going to take us a lot more time. And so, uh, I I'm terrified for the podcast. I think there's going to be a lot more, um, energy drink tastings and other things to, to fill the time. But I really don't feel good about the season this year. Um, so yeah,

There you go. All right, Matt, what about you? What's your, what's your take? Well, final thoughts and a prediction share to go wrong that I read took it like right out of my mouth. I was gonna, I was gonna say almost the same thing, but like they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have announced that

They were pausing the season. If there wasn't a chance that it could get delayed or at least push back like a couple of months, even. So my prediction share to go wrong is that the season will happen exactly on time. Yeah. All right, Anthony, what about you?

Uh, my final thoughts are the big purse. The big, the key to this happening with the CFL and the XFL is going to be bred bird capitals. They're ready to cough up some money that I think we're definitely going to see a merger. So my prediction that's going to go wrong is going to be in 2023, the CFL and the XFL are going to merge together. And I'm going to take this from rod Peterson because he called, he called this Lake. It's going to be called the continental football league. The CFL is going to play for the great cup. The XFL is gonna play for the McMahon cup. And then, and then the championship game is going to be a Mexico city between the winner of the XFL and the winner of the seals.

Oh, there you go. All right.

The continental football league is, is a thousand percent that thing. And I think having, you know, CFL news hub and all the, all the domains we have CFL, we got CFL show on lockdown, love Randy, and don't worry about it. But I do think that that has tremendous possibilities is the CFL continental football league.

Yeah. If one name was going to stick, I think it would be the CFL. Now my prediction is I think that they, I think the CFL will get money from Redbird capital and be able to play this season. They're going to finish out the season while they're talking behind the scenes to figure out the rules and whatever. In 2022, there will be no XFL season. There will be no CFL season because that's when they start to play through this thing together. And what we're going to have instead of a season, starting in April, may of next year, we're going to have a huge redraft where you could get Jordan, Tom, who playing for the BC lions and, you know, kind of redrafting the league based on these rules that they've talked about for the last year. And then, uh, then you'll get a, you basically you'll get that during the summer.

And these teams are practicing. So we'll have stuff to talk about. And then you'll have a draft in, uh, October with college players to fill the league up and then we'll get a kickoff and then we'll play. And, um, April not, I think because it's going to be too cold in Canada. So the play April may and during the summertime, and then my prediction to go wrong is they're going to set all this stuff up and then space aliens are going to come down and the season's going to get canceled. And that's, that's that's and that's what's going to happen. So, uh, we'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that with space aliens ruining. So for Matt Reed, Mike, Josh was on, he had to hop off and Anthony, thank you for our first round table. Hopefully in the next we'll get a TV contract or some other big news, and we'll get together and do this again.