Local Hour: Choose A Side
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz- 1,189 views
- 25 Aug 2020
The Le Batard crew discusses the Miami Heat's sweep of the Indiana Pacers (2:00), everyone has to choose a side against the Milwaukee Bucks (17:00), should fans be allowed to go to football games this fall (25:00) and much more.
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All right.
So here's what we have happening around here. Stuck out through a phlegmy voice is complaining about what he's calling the valley of death, the valley of death. He just came through the back there.
There were a pair of very tight small white shorts left unexplained on the floor. They're always interesting to find a shoe or panties or shorts and wonder what the story is behind how it is that that got left there. But in the middle of everything here, Greg Cody's not here. He's already begun his Tuesday. His weekly annoyance, of all things libertador show because he can't do anything right. He's a face for entitlement. The other day he couldn't be on our twitch stream watching the Heat game with us because he was too busy watching the Heat game without us.
He said he just he just sat down and said, I can't be bothered. I have to write this column in my underwear from watching the game. And now he's late. So, Chris, does he have the zoom length? What do we do? What do we know about the whereabouts of your father? Is he just going to spring in here and expect the show to revolve around him as soon as he gets here, whenever he gets here?
I texted him last night that we were starting at seven forty and he kind of gave me a do you need me for that response? And I was like, it's the local hour. So it's kind of like your your time to shine, I'd say so, you know. Yes. And he's just like, all right, I'll be there. So I got a vibe that he might be making an entrance here. So it's not surprising.
So the local hour, which features a Miami Heat sweep after the other Kody said, what a close series that was going to be. This is the rare thing about this particular series. It's not just that the Pacers got swept. Do you know how long it's been since the Heat have had one of these series where you're basically never trailing, you're just every single game, you're just leading the whole time. You never have to worry about anything except, oh, here the Pacers to within seven.
Everyone be careful. Look out here come the Pacers and then, you know TJ Warren or Oladipo would take a shot from far away and clank and then it would be eight and then it would be eleven. Then it would be over.
Not just that. How many sweeps did the Big Three have. I think they swept the bucks but they couldn't even sweep the Bobcats. This one was a laughter pretty much. And any time Indiana would try to threaten make it interesting. Two games ago it was they cut it to two, but they can never climb that mountain. Last night is every time they cut it to five, the Miami Heat had an answer. And what a possession with the four offensive rebounds.
And Tyler Hiero, the development right in front of your eyes that scoop layup with his right hand falling away from the back.
You're talking very fast. Here's how excited this Colmar is. Back heat Homer has. I told you guys that this would happen, that you guys would talk yourself into. We could be also told here we are.
I also told you that this will happen. And it's not sounding so ridiculous right now, is it, fellahs? I think we all think the Miami Heat are going to push the Milwaukee Bucks.
Why can't they beat the Bucks? Go ahead and explain to us why they can't beat the bucks. Because I think they can. I'm with Mike on this I.
S phlegmy, because when you have a guy like Yanase who I think is the first time in the history of the sport that someone has come out of the box twenty five, ten and five every game, he's going to get Bam in foul trouble like people think that. And it'll be interesting to watch for sure because Bam is uniquely qualified in terms of a skill set to bother Giannis and I know the Heat fan base hopes and wishes that he will bother Giannis.
And what I think's going to happen is that Giannis is going to get a whole lot of what he wants near the rim. He's going to frustrate Heat fans because he's going to be getting a whole lot of easy twos and the thing that you haven't had to deal with bam in foul trouble, then what do you do. I think you're going to have some of that because how can he not get into foul trouble? They're just going to give calls to Giannis just because he's going to the rim neck first.
Every time you've watched their games right you've watched their games and you've seen who's actually been in foul trouble. It's been Giannis and yeah Giannis is going to get his Tyus the same with Shaq Got his Tyus have all the twos. This is a matter of whether or not the Miami Heat can make their threes because if they make them at the same clip as they did against Indiana, which seems impossible because they generated so many wide open looks, they can beat the Milwaukee Bucks.
This is going to be a long series. This is not a fun series. And I guarantee you the bucks in their fans do not want this match up to Mike's point, the bucks, while they have like the best defense in the league.
Statistically, they're one weakness on defense is they give up a ton of threes.
So that kind of leads to the idea that the heat are going to have the shots and to Mike's point, make or Miss League, maybe this is what I am telling you and this is the way to convince yourself of it, because I do also believe that they can push the bucks. But throughout the history of the sport, the one side wins this. Now, there are a lot of variables that change all of this, right? There's no home court.
All of a sudden, the thing that you're talking about, exchanging threes for twos, that is a kind of math that can keep any team that's good at threes in any series. How the magic ended up pushing the Bucs, making threes on the days they made the three.
But those are big things. Are they not like the no home or the no. Yes. And they're not. But they're not. All those things are big. They're not as big as their best players. A good deal better than your best player. They're not as big as Giannis is big. They're not that big like then. If you had Giannis you'd think you would think you'd be winning this series. You would think I'd be winning and you and you would think that you wouldn't be afraid of the heat at all.
I know what everyone is saying. Like I, I've heard all the analysis that the Bucs don't like this match up and going it out, taking it out further instead of just being heat homer that the Heat don't like the matchups against the Raptors and the Celtics either. You just don't like the way that those things line up. And I would say that the Miami Heat absolutely have earned the right for you to hope. But the idea that you've convinced yourself that this Bucks team isn't that good because they labored a little bit with Orlando and labored in the bubble is a dangerous assumption, I think, to be making.
Oh, man. I'm not saying the Bucs are no good. I'm saying that the Miami Heat all season long have looked like a team that is built to give this Milwaukee Bucks team problems. It's about matchups. I'm not saying that the Miami Heat are better season long than the Milwaukee Bucks. We have a season long worth a sample to tell us that the Bucs are much better than the Miami Heat. But head to head the Miami Heat do things that bother the Milwaukee Bucks, which leads to a very compelling series.
By the way, this book series still three one still going on at the end of the Heat game last night, Stan Van Gundy was breaking it down as if it was already a thing. And I know it is going to be a thing, but it was just crazy to the magic word not even mentioned when discussing the next series. And that series is still going on.
Stan was doing that last night when the heat got up eight.
He's like and now that the Heat have won this game in this series and it's rare for Stan to bypass the magic because I mean the magic, we're down twenty eight. And he was praising Steve Clifford. He loves Clifford so much.
This is soy. This is so rare for a Steve Clifford coach team is that is one of Stand's favorite expression who's arrived, ladies and gentlemen, in the Zouma. He is the expert on the Miami Heat. He's written so many columns while in his underwear, he could not be bothered to be a part of our Twitch Watch party because he was busy, very, very busy making observations that were exclusive to him behind a paywall at the Miami Herald. What do you what are you laughing about, Bill?
What are you laughing doing his job. You get paid to do so.
Here he is. He is Greg Cody of the Miami Herald. Give us all of your insights into the Miami Heat here in the local hour.
Well, first, I could not have been more impressed by by the way they handled Indiana. Now, I know the Pacers were not totally healthy and they had an advantage there. But everything is breaking right for the Heat. They faced a Pacers team that wasn't at full strength. Now they're going to face a Milwaukee team that not only they did very well against in the regular season, but in the bubble. There's really I don't care about the digital fans.
There's really no home court advantage. So all of a sudden, what the Bucks have worked for all season to earn, they really don't have. And and it seems weird to to think in terms of looking ahead, because Milwaukee is still going to be favored despite the Miami liking the matchup. But if they do get to the final and it's Toronto, I think they've fared pretty well against Toronto this season. I don't have the stats in front of me.
I think Boston's the one team that they don't want to.
All right. We're already there. We're already previewing the Eastern Conference finals after they just blow past Milwaukee. And one of the great upsets in the history of the sport.
And if everything was breaking right, Greg, the Bucs would lose to the Orlando Magic.
I mean, technically, if everything was breaking right. Well, that's true. But, you know, when Orlando won the opener of that series, you still would have been a thousand dollars that Milwaukee is going to win this year. I mean, did that change anybody's mind when the magic won the opener?
I do think it would be one of the great upsets in NBA postseason history, but not unlike the Warriors that upset the number one seed Dallas Mavericks of Dirk's MVP year. A lot of people are saying, hey, this is a mismatch problem and some people called that. But it's still historically remembered as a great upset. I think there's a case here. I think Milwaukee wins a. Difficult series, and I'll dust my hands off and say, hey, great season, great building foundation, I will say if I could draft anybody in the league to man Mark Giannis Antetokounmpo it's Bam out of bio.
Yeah he is the best possible defender for this Yanase said as much so game on. It's going to be great. This is going to feel like it hasn't felt since that Raptors Heat series.
It's going to be great. I am rooting for you to be right. I would say that while everything didn't go exactly as the heat wanted it to, the things, the cracks that you wanted to see in Milwaukee to convince yourself that you could beat Milwaukee have been shown by Orlando. Milwaukee needed an eighteen to two run in the fourth quarter yesterday to prevent that series from getting tired. So I understand why you're that kind of hopeful. It's not only that, it's in the bubble.
Milwaukee hasn't looked like they've looked all season. If Milwaukee looked like they've looked all season, I would not be giving the heat any chance whatsoever. But I am willing to go down the path of they will push the Milwaukee Bucks for all the reasons you mentioned, home court advantage matchups, three point shot against two point shot. I'm simply telling you that it's been a minute since you saw the argument play out better team court marks against better guy. You're right.
And you guys throughout history, you guys would always take the better guy against the better team. And this is where we are right now. You've got the better team. So you're convincing yourself the better team comes, right? You think that you have more players who can do more because Milwaukee is really not very good.
When Giannis isn't understanding, we have the result of what Kawhi actually put together. But he wasn't fully healthy and people were pointing to. The Raptors are saying not as good as Yenisei got the best player. They got the MVP in the sport. And what did Toronto do. They forced Giannis to take some outside shots. I mean I'm uncomfortable. They had a defender like Kawhi Leonard that made Greek freak uncomfortable and forced him to make those shots and he didn't.
Bam Adebayo can be that kind of defender. Jimmy Butler, if he's on a switch, can also kind of be that defender and Giannis is going to have to prove that he can make those outside shots will he or won't he.
Basically there's a lot of focus within this conversation that's on the box and not nearly as much on the heat because the Heat team we're seeing, Dan, is a better team than we saw when the regular season ended. At least it is through four games like we're seeing a more confident and a better Tyler Herra. We're seeing a Dragic in the starting lineup who's playing maybe the best basketball of his career. And so a lot of focus is on the box, so they're not as good not playing as well in the bubble, the heat playing as well as anyone in the bubble in that game yesterday they won it, but that was a slop fest.
It was not a very fun game.
They restored my faith. They play like that. They lose to Milwaukee. They called my faith that teams are taking this seriously. I needed a game at ninety nine, eighty seven to restore my faith that there are still capable of games being played under one hundred points.
Eleven felt good. Eleven hours after Dan said the days of playoff games being played in the eighties are done. We saw one. That's right.
I needed it though. And it was crud though.
Would you agree that was a fun game. I knew that that was, that was, that was a fun game. I mean, baskets when you needed it, I thought Indiana. It was good to see Oladipo looking a little bit more like Oladipo. That's actually I kind of like that Pacers team. I can't believe I'm saying this is refreshing actually like the Indiana Pacers and sweep them out. And how about you guys, but it feels like Dan's picking the bucks yet again, seeing the writing on the.
You heard him closely. He said that is, you know, the bubble is giving the heat more of a chance, which you guys missed, because what Dan wants to do here and he was trying to leave you there, you guys missed it. Dan wants to do percentages. All right. So let's do what you wanted. What percentage do you give the heat of winning the series in the bubble?
Hold on a second. I will answer that question. I will get to you. But the position that you guys put me in as perpetual holders of a hand to your ear, like the position, is there anyone else who's willing to come out here with me in this unpopular position?
I have solidified for 20 years on this radio show of just needing somebody, somebody to not be crazy Holmer guy so that we can stay tethered to something because I can't deal with the local columnist from the Miami Herald. I can't do it with Heat. Homer, Mike. I got just going to go wherever it is he needs to go to get the applause resent even though he's a Knicks fan.
Oh, Buck, you. So, you know, if you're going to call me a home where you got to, you know, honor the finger here, you know, you're lucky if my index finger I'm holding this.
All right. Well, we'll pick up right there. We went to break on Greg Coteries finger being up because he had thoughts. Greg, your thoughts?
Well, you can't you can't call me a homer in this case. I'm the one who erroneously said I thought the first round series would be tough. I thought it was even though Miami was favored, I thought it would be a long series. So I'm going to be honest about it. You know, when you call me a homer. Yeah.
I hope all the local teams do well because I root for the people who listen to me and read me in South Florida to be happy. But in this case, there's reason to be hopeful that Miami is going to upset the Bucs. There just is. And it starts, like Michael alluded to, with with how Bama has performed directly against Giannis. And there's no reason to think that's not going to continue. And what I've seen out of the heat in the first round was hugely impressive because going in you remember they were only three and five in the eight game regular season build up to the playoffs.
Entering that series, I was totally unsure that that I would see what I saw. There's such a deep team.
Spoelstra is so good at maneuvering all his parts. You know, out of the blue, you know, you've got you've got Duncan all of a sudden scoring, you know, leading an eighteen three point game.
They can beat you in a lot of different ways. And and I'm just really impressed by Miami right now.
Speaking on Giannis for a second we saw blueprint of how to beat him. I thought Toronto did a great job last year and of course they've got somebody who's a singular better defender probably than anybody in the NBA with Kawhi Leonard.
But the way that they were able to just basically build a wall at a little bit below the free throw line and said, all right, you honestly want to beat us?
Jump, shoot. You know, you got to pick your spots. You got to shoot seventeen, eighteen footers. You've got to shoot threes again.
You don't have Ibaka, Gasol, Suhakam, all those guys in the back end, but that we've seen the group and that's it.
Well you guys help me out here because you two guys were just arguing how heat the heat have looked like a different team in the bubble. And Greg Cody just told us they were three and five in the bubble. So which is it between the two of you? Because I know they just beat up a depleted Pacers team, right? They swept the Pacers team and never trailed. And that's going like never really trailed. So that's always going to give a fan base, like, look, here we go.
We've got momentum and means next to nothing headed into the next round to play this next team.
Who's a good deal better than it should be noted, though, they punted on certain games to keep guys healthy. They didn't have their full arsenal. They weren't going for all of these games. Even in that box match up where the heat led by twenty. You were playing without some of your best players in that game.
Why am I. So you tell me, right. Because you've watched the most basketball. Is this the best, the best basketball they played as a team the entire season. Right now.
Right now. Yeah, right. Well, at the beginning of the season, I do think that there are parallels. The Miami Heat played very well at the start of the season, even without Jimmy Butler at times winning at Milwaukee Giannis fouled out in that game I believe Dan they play very well after long layups It's what Here we go he culture check drink. If you're playing the drinking game the off seasons where they get their conditioning you know best most conditioned, most disciplined best team in the league that all he culture thing.
I do think that they benefit more than most teams with a longer layoff and they have older guys like Goran Dragic who's played very well outside. I push back on the notion that the best basketball of his career, but he's playing quite well. So I think they're really well positioned right now and it's going to be a matter of, well, whether or not Giannis has made that leap year over year when someone forces him to not get the easy buckets when playoff games tighten up, can he make that leap to the great players have to make or is just yet another chapter in the pain and suffering of Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Let me ask you guys this question as you continue to further push me into the corner where somebody around here has to point out that the overwhelming historical one seed, the Milwaukee Bucks is a team that all year long has been better than the Miami Heat. If I were to go around the room and make it about your money and say you've got to bet this series on the money line, who's going to win this series? Oh, that's a no, no, hold on a second.
Not value. Not a value bet. Oh, but if I'm betting. No, not a value bet. You just need to beat but you need to beat me straight up. It's it's a thousand dollars. I got Milwaukee a thousand dollars. You got Miami. I think everyone on this call is picking Miami. Yeah. Once I push them to put their money on it.
Yeah. You take away the vig. Sure thing. I'll take that one overall seed. But that's not how it's done. All bets worked. And and if I'm just looking at this from an investment standpoint, I take Miami. I don't know what the series price is. I don't know if the advance lines are out there. But if you're going to take a flyer in an upset, in a bubble, in an impressive. And situation, this is as good a foundation as you could possibly hope for, agreed, I would just say to you that this stuff has rectified itself.
And you saw after Charles Barkley was saying after game one that Portland was going to sweet, that the Lakers said, OK, never mind about that. They just won the next three. And the one they won last night was by 20 points, like, yes, we can make all these arguments on behalf of the bubble. But the Milwaukee Bucks, after losing game one, won the next three games. And we'll close out that series. And there will ultimately be very few surprises in this bubble.
In the first round.
In the first round, it's it's seen in that way. We'll see what happens with Dallas and the Clippers, because I think that surprising everyone right now, especially considering how hurt Dallas is. I do think on the surface, if you take away home court advantage, this isn't a logical leap. If I say you're going to have a neutral site, NBA playoffs, I think everybody going to their head in this game would say, OK, they're going to be some upsets because that is a distinct advantage for teams like Milwaukee.
So I'm really interested to see what happens. I'm not picking the Miami Heat. I'm picking the bucks. I think Giannis is one of those generational talents that figures it out. He's been he's going to be challenged to make improvements year over year. I think you can can figure it out, but I think the Miami Heat are going to be essential in getting him to the place that he needs to go.
The dirty secret of sports radio. We don't actually disagree and it has sounded for two segments I like. We disagree because we don't actually disagree. It's a a series that you hope is close if you're a Miami Heat fan.
I mean, I'm betting Miami to win the series. I think Milwaukee wins, but I'm betting Miami because that's a great price.
It is a great value price. What are you laughing about, Cody?
Well, I agree with you that essentially we all agree here. I think Milwaukee's going to be a clear favorite. They deserve to be a clear favorite. And if you're demanding that I make a straight up bet, my money's going on Milwaukee.
But what's happening here? I thought we were a hit show like a bunch of people that just like being right on here, they're playing both sides of the fence. There's oh, I know more than, oh, the numbers of bubbles, all the history, all of this, all of that. So that when the Bucs win there, like I told you, the Bucs are going to win and they won the heat and they're like, oh, see, I wanted the heat to win.
I know everybody right now pick a side enough of these games. No, I want the heat, but I know the bucks. Everybody pick a side right now. Yeah.
All right. Well, go round the table. I'm totally good with that. Just so you guys know, the heat are plus three forty. That's a that's a good bet. I mean, yes, it's good value. All right. So I predict Bucs in seven will go around the horn here. Greg, what is your prediction?
All right, lifer. I predict heat in seven, heat and seven. Wow. Chris Cody, you just said if we made you pick, you pick the bus. I love you. Oh, there's the home. I love you. Homer's making an appearance. He objected. He's like, I'm not a homer. Calumnies. I would not be somebody who would be a homer. And there he is. When he has to pick it up against the wall, he scored out a little.
Homer, I love the fact that Milwaukee is favored and should be, but I predict an upset. I'm predicting an upset. I'm not saying Miami is the better team. I'm predicting you predict an upset.
But you would beat Milwaukee and you said before, you bet a thousand dollars, which is bullshit because you would never beat a thousand dollars on anything because you're the cheapest human being. I know. What is the biggest bet Greg Cody has ever actually made?
I have bet in three figures. Wow.
You sweat that my did. Yeah. Yeah. So a hundred dollars on the nose. A hundred dollars.
Were you a dollar away from not getting the three figures. What were you a penny away from.
That guy would admit that shamelessly.
Chris, your prediction. He is six, I'm writing these down, but I got I got them, too, but I'm glad that we have a backup copy just in a while.
Let's hear from Roy on this. Roy, what are you predicting? Bucks and six bucks and say, wow.
Whoa, oh, you jerk. Will get you don't ever do that. Tony, what are you what do you say? You still look like shit, by the way.
I feel better.
Bucks and five oh will have to eat your face out of here, but every game is going on, right.
It's going to be a tight five. So what's your prediction? I'm taking the heat in five. There we go.
There we go, Ali. See, here's the thing, here we go, here we go, because the dance, he wanted to pick the bucks, but he remembered what he just said moments ago and how hypocritical it would all sound.
Now, the thing is, is that I came into this day in this segment kind of undecided. Right. And I was going to see who could sway me more. Right now, we're between the two forces of annoying those annoying Heat fan, Mike, who's just going to go off the rails with the heat, heat, heat, he culture this heat culture that he was more prepared than anyone else, even though I was five months off in between.
And then there's Dan, who was like, I know everything about sports, no emotion, no history of jazz.
And then as you minter's you.
So I know it's almost like I wanted to pick a side, but they both pushed me away from their side.
All right, so you're going to go with the heat, you're going to get a big scumbag, big stunner back. Even more sweet.
Yeah, well that's what I'm going to pick for. I'm going more extreme than any of you because I just. I got in three. I got two. I got one.
I was supported by the math genius who got. Andy Slater, who's carved out a very interesting niche for himself during this pandemic, because he is my Woj when it comes to pandemic news.
How was he able to always be interviewing the mayor? Slater scoops. He is plugged in to the mayor's office the way Misha's plugged into the Marlins. Billy Weird.
He's always interviewing the mayor at half times. It's about updates on strip clubs are going to open what seems like a total waste of the mayor's time with what's going on right now.
But he had the Slater scoop. That hard rock stadium is going to welcome 13000 max capacity, 13000 fans when given the opportunity. And I believe the first opportunity will be September 10th against UAB. The Miami Hurricanes were still slated to take part in the football season. I believe they're going to announce a kickoff time for that game. It's either going to be seven or eight p.m. They're going head to head against the NFL. Interesting decision there, but 13000 fans.
Greg, you're a leading voice in the market. Your thoughts?
Well, I'm like I'm against allowing thirteen thousand fans at Dolphin and Hurricane Games. And I wrote that in a column that people can read online. It's just it's it's a risk, you know, right now, I follow this pretty closely. Right. You know, Miami-Dade County has the ninth most pandemic related deaths of any of the thousands of counties in the entire country. So in the middle of a hot spot in the middle of a county hit extra hard.
By this, we're allowing fans when other cities in the NFL or not, when baseball is not, when hockey and basketball or not, it just seems an unnecessary risk. In South Florida, the curve of new cases is finally going down. It's finally being controlled. And things like this allowing thirteen thousand fans, you know, is not going to help that curve. And what I wrote in my column is, look, Hardrock Stadium is taking every possible precaution in allowing these fans in the stadiums except the safest precaution, which is not to allow fans in the stadiums.
It's just it's an unnecessary risk no matter how small the risk. And I just think it's totally unwise of the Mayor, Giménez and and all these other team and stadium officials.
Can you explain this to me? Is it simply the money grab of having the ticket sales of 13000 people, or is it some sense of normalcy as people try and, you know, do shell game stuff with the politics of this? Like the main impetus behind we have to have a stadium at 20 percent capacity is what?
Well, nobody's going to admit it's greed or money, but obviously that's a factor, you know, and it is in all of these decisions being made. You know, we just heard Nick Saban say this isn't about the money, it's for the kids. OK, fine. That's a part of it. But and this is a part of it. You know, when you're allowing thirteen thousand is not a small number. You know, it's 20 percent of capacity, but it's still a lot of people.
And and when you're doing that, you're just putting them at risk. You can have socially distanced cluster's. You can take all these other precautions. You can do away with tailgating, but you're still allowing thousands and thousands of people in an enclosed area. And every you know, Donna Shalala, the former Health and Human Services director, said it's a risk. And you know what? I believe her. And I just think it's unwise. It surprised me, this decision.
It really did. And I don't think it's a smart way to go.
Well, the gate doesn't really matter to the dolphins, matters a little bit, covers some expenses, but it's season ticket holders. Yeah, well, that's I think that's all it's going to be available to, I guess all the season ticket. Yeah, it gets a surprisingly got a call from his inner Miami season ticket rep after the franchise's first victory. They told me their plan is to welcome fans and possibly in September. And season ticket holders will have the first crack at that.
And, yeah, they're going to take away tailgating because tailgating is fun. I actually think there's a longer play because I think this is all greasing the rails for the national championship game. And I don't know if you saw college football playoff announce. We're still a go with that. And it's interesting. I love who is the college football playoff? Who is you guys know the answer, right? No, we do not know the answer. I mean, that's convenient, isn't it?
The TV network, isn't it? ESPN? I love watching all the times that ESPN refers to the college football playoff did this, but who is the college football player?
That is one of the dirty secrets that I don't feel like people understand at the height of the injustice, at the height of it is us at the height of the rules are the same as they were before the television dollars. The television dollars changed everything. And now everyone across professional sports is going as fast as they can toward the television dollars. Except in pro sports, at least those television dollars are shared among everybody in college sports. The television dollars are only shared among the very top end of what your administrators, what your executives, what your television television executives are making that I feel like that's the dirty, faceless secret of all of this, that that we at ESPN are at least in part, responsible for getting basketball up and running for you because Walt Disney was available.
Right.
But we needed it also. I mean, we wanted it. Right. I know. But I'm saying at the center of anyone criticizing on our network college football coming back is criticism that would be directed at our network.
Right now, the college football playoff rights are subject to bidding, and ESPN owns the rights through twenty twenty five. And then you'll realize that there is some level of independence. But ESPN was highly influential in creating this whole thing. And if the TV partner, if you don't have a buy in from the TV partner on actually having a playoff, you don't have a playoff. So it's actually convenient to have this entity that no one really knows how it came together.
It's a conglomerate like who do you announce? And you hold it up as a meat shield when you yourself are making the shots. And it goes back to this decision by the county and its mayor. They want a full crowd for their national championship game. Yeah, we want it'll be fine at thirteen thousand people at Hardrock Stadium, we want to have trial runs to make sure we can actually get the big money. And the big money is getting that national title game here with all the people traveling.
Yeah, but look, TV revenue comes in and games are televised with or without fans. We're seeing that in every other sport. College football playoff goes on in empty stadiums. They're not going to cancel the college football playoff. If they're having a season, they can do it without crowds at dolphin games are going to be televised whether the stadium is empty or full or 20 percent capacity. So I don't think it's a question of the hinge. Isn't TV revenue.
They're going to get that if they're playing.
Yeah, but it means billions to actually have an event that people travel to. You have the all the production crews come down here and that takes up your hotel and you have all the fans that come down that just want to be a part of the atmosphere. It's billions and billions of dollars for Miami if they actually get to host a proper national title.
All right. And I wonder about this, because I have seen on our abandoned beaches out here, I can tell now by eyesight, there is the person who decided to capitalize on one of those 29 dollar one way fares the beach and the beach.
I'm telling you, it feels a little bit like Mad Max right now. And you can just see from looking at people's eyes, hey, wait a minute. You got here for twenty nine dollars, didn't you? And I can't trust you to wear a mask, I. Can't trust you to not give me the coronavirus, why? Because you spent fifty eight dollars round trip to get to South Florida from Lake International.
It's a good time to travel, though. I got to be honest.
I think rich people get sick at the same rate as poor people, right? Like poor people get sick just like rich. No, no.
I believe your math is wrong, that it's disproportionately affecting the poor.
This particular virus I'm saying, though, like if you're rich and you don't wear a mask and you're poor and you don't wear a mask, you can still get sick. So, yeah, but rich people don't need to travel.
The rich people don't travel for twenty nine dollars. The rich people see. Hey, wait a minute. That doesn't sound right to me. I can't get first class at twenty nine dollars. I'm not doing that.
I don't really see like a mega billionaire going what's what's this. Frontier. Frontier what. Wait a minute. JetBlue is giving me twenty dollars in the Fort Lauderdale. Get me on. They're calling their butler. Somebody over there call JetBlue and get me down there for twenty dollars.
Ultimately if this wasn't a winning position for the politicians in power, they wouldn't be doing it, whether you're red or blue. The overall popular position in South Florida is to get back to some some semblance of normal and live attendance at sporting events such that it is is part of that.
Billy, I'm curious, getting back to something else that we were doing, because I'm certain in this local hour that everyone will most have enjoyed you coming after Mike for being a specific kind of annoying and mean for being a specific kind of annoying. But while you were out on vacation, we were talking about the difficulties of leading this show and how whoever it is that's leading the show gets to be the bleep hole. When you choose the the position between me and Mike, do you know that you're choosing a totally winning position that both Mike and I are the special kind of annoying that you need on the extremes of the sports radio argument so that you actually have an argument even during the first two segments when we weren't actually arguing about I mean.
And I don't think I was actually annoyed. I mean, but you're making it sound like we're splitting atoms over here. I mean, she's I think all of you, it's right in the middle.
For years, I've been pretty reasonable about the Miami Heat this season, too. This is my. Oh, shut the hell up. My reputation precedes me.