Transcript of The Future Sports Hierarchy (with Ethan Strauss) + Birthright Citizenship New

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Plötzlich fühle ich mich so entspannt. Hol dir dein Geld zurück, tiefenentspannt mit WISO Steuer. So Moses' walk through the biblical desert was only 40 years. That means that 1985 first overall pick Patrick Ewing's walk through the O'Brien-less desert lasted 1 year longer. So good for him getting a ring. Ewing, not Moses, I mean. Ewing and all the other '80s and '90s Knicks are like those radioactive green ghost soldiers in Lord of the Rings who needed to be a part of something good before their curse could be lifted. And now they're The green ghosts are able to live in eternal peace, specifically in the Washington Monument reflecting pool. That thing's green! Anywho, their collective shame is over. The bar was low, the bandwagon big. Let them all enjoy it. If they want to give Spike Lee and Moses rings, so be it. Not Moses Malone, Moses Moses. Either way, people want to be a part of something, and no one wants to feel left out, inessential. Let alone a drag on success. What I'm getting at is, as society's greatest empath, I feel bad for Knicks 2025 head coach Tom Thibodeau. Yeah, and Hoosiers' Dennis Hopper jumps around when Jimmy Chitwood makes the game-winning bucket at the end, but that's a movie, and he was a drunk.

In the real world, a team that hasn't won in 50 years is not the same as a team that's accustomed to being a factor in the postseason. I once asked national treasure Deshaun Watson if he was rooting against Clemson successor Trevor Lawrence to win a second straight national championship. Why, Watson asked. I told him, of course, because that would make Lawrence the unquestioned greatest QB in Clemson history. Now Watson didn't really respond in the moment, but like an hour later his publicist called to tell my boss that I was being mean. And I don't want to be mean again, but of course Mike Tomlin doesn't want the Steelers to go on a postseason run this season either. Surprised so many, especially Steelers fans, disagree with this. Oh, he's still friendly with people in the building?

Yeah.

Do you hope your pals have fun on the road trip you weren't invited on? Patrick Ewing was having fun. Happy because he was still caught up in a curse a quarter century after he retired. Tomlin just cleaned out his office a few days ago. This is a guy whose career has been devoted to organized competition but didn't win when it mattered most over the last decade. You think he now wants to see his team show that they were better off without him? I'm not saying the team's thrilled he's gone, but I do think there's a vibe change since he said this. And I thought it was a good time for the organization to be quite honest with you, um, We didn't have a lot of success in the playoffs in recent years, and there's just some veteran players there, man. Guys like Cam Hayward and TJ Watt and Boswell, man, that I thought just— that were worthy of the excitement and the optimism associated with new leadership. It's funny, it's like he's preemptively giving them permission to blame him to soften the blow when they inevitably blame him later on. Still though, it can't feel good hearing TJ Watt say he's now open to moving around on the defense.

And Watt says he's real happy with how the offseason's going. Cam Hayward says they're embracing change. He's talking about better communication, more interaction with the coaches, different ideas. Aaron Rodgers makes it sound like he came back because Mike McCarthy got hired and now they're soulmates again. I love, love. Basically, they're all agreeing with what I've been saying for 3 years. Tomlin was great, but outmoded for this era. And for Steelers fans, I hope brighter days are ahead come January and February. Just don't expect Tomlin to be there waving a terrible towel if they are.

I'm not expecting him to be there.

Let's start the show. Yes, hi and hello, my fellow football Americans. Welcome to Football America, presented as ever by our pals over at DraftKings Sports, now available in all 50 states. What a glorious time to be alive, and I'm not just talking about the football going on. Football America picks, not football America, but soccer picks in case, uh, you're a little obtuse there. Gino and Mike, Mike and Gino, Gino and Mike Fuentes, our soccer experts, will be giving you their picks in just a second. In the meantime, how are you fellas? It's episode number 69. Gino, let's take care of some hash right now, shall we? Who is the greatest football player or athlete in general to ever wear the jersey number 69?

We got some heavy hitters here, man. We got Jared Allen, David Bakhtiari, John Runyon. Is that nice? It's nice, actually. Who's the nicest athlete you've ever run into, Dave?

Uh, nicest athlete. Oh, so many nice fellas. I always talk about the people who go to visit pediatric wards and everything else in hospitals. That's about as nice a deed as you can commit as a human being, I suspect. Nice to me, though, I would go with Kirk Cousins. I once had an experience in our nation's capital where I went out to ask him. It was during the whole, like, "You like that thing?" And it got a little sideways, and the publicist was like, "I'm not letting Kirk talk to you anymore!" And I said, "Well, please let Kirk talk to me." I have to tell that full story at a later date, but long story short for now, at the end of this fraught interview, 15-20 minutes of Baudelais doing all this and a lot of crap going on around us, he said, 'Hey Dave, you did a really great job with that interview,' which the starting quarterback of an NFL team is rarely, if ever, going to say to me again. So that's why he's the nicest. How about you, Geno?

Let's see, the nicest athlete I've ever talked to? I mean, the most personable one was Donovan McNabb. I mean, that guy was cool. He was one of the guys who was fun to talk to, always joking.

Donovan McNabb was fun, and I love Donovan, but just for the sake of saying someone different than Donovan, because Donovan was great, was O.J. McDuffie. O.J. McDuffie, when he did college football with us at our previous place of employment. Very nice guy. Invited us over— well, Adam, you weren't available, but he invited me over to his home. Barely knew me. He's like, hey, we're going to go to like one of these random bowl games, see USA versus God knows who. And he invited me over. We had drinks.

All right, I'll bring Geno and some of the other guys.

No, no, no.

No, no, no. Just you, Mike.

It was me and it was a couple other guys. Geno wasn't available, I don't think, but some of the other guys went. And then he invited me to his New Year's party. Me, my father, and my uncle. We all went to his New Year's Eve party at his house. That was fun.

The nicest O.J. in the history of football. Yeah, definitely me. Also, what was not nice were some of the comments I got for saying a week ago on this program that I thought Korn, spelled with a K, is the worst popular band of all time. You hurt my feelings.

Dave, you kneecapped some of the bands. You took out Nirvana. Seminal nothing. Seminal nothing. You took out Metallica.

Every single mean comment you got, you deserved. You deserved every single one. That was insane.

And now you were like Babe Ruth in the World Series in Wrigley, calling your shot, or calling my shot. You said, "You're gonna get beaten up for this one, Dave," and so I was. So be it! I don't care. Music is ultimately a personal thing. Enjoy whatever music you want to. I'm not— I could, if you want me to get heavy-handed with this, I will ban you from listening to Korn, but I'm not going to do that right now. Just mind your P's and Q's and drop us a line in the comments section on the YouTube page Football America. It's great if you want to do it there. Spotify, Apple, wherever you want to comment. A lot of the comments for that argument, uh, it seemed like showed up on Instagram pretty heavy there. But either way, man, people really— Mike Fuentes, how did you know people were going to be so upset? You think you're a man of the people? I think so too. Are you the personification of the football American who has us in their ears right now?

No, I do, yeah. I'm guessing a lot of this show is between the age of probably 35 and 45, and that was the nu metal era. That was the early 2000s rock scene.

And if you're into football, you're into some metal.

Exactly, you've heard a Limp Bizkit track before. You've heard a, "Are you ready?" It's like a big Madden song, I think. So I knew the second it came out of your mouth, I knew it was done. I was like, this is gonna be a social question.

It's funny because I like, I appreciate— what's funny, hip-hop rappers use their voices as percussion. That's not a traditional thing that you hear in rock music. I don't appreciate it in nu metal, even though it is basically doing the same thing. There's something just intrinsically too harsh on my ears, which isn't to say I'm a delicate flower. I am a delicate flower, but I don't mean in terms of the music I listen to. Rage Against the Machine, Metallica.

Yeah, the whole thing with nu metal is this rap influence.

Right, but right, but you know, I love punk music. The Ramones album, their first album remains one of my favorites, and talk about seminal, and talk about impacting the bands behind you. I get that, I take Korn to task because, and people say, well, they're not as bad as Limp Bizkit, and I get it, but Korn is responsible for all that dreck. And really Korn themselves are an offshoot of the more pristine Rage Against the Machine sound. How say you?

Well, I don't think you're taking into account just how influential the Korn sound was. I mean, they were the first band to start using 7-string guitars as a heavy instrument. They changed the sound of metal guitars going forward forever, pretty much. The whole, you know—

For the better? I do think, I always say, the Grateful Dead, you don't have to like them, you can hate them, but you know within 3 seconds that you're listening to Jerry Garcia play the guitar, and that should count for something. And same goes for The Doors. And yet I'm not giving the same benefit to Korn because as soon as I hear nu metal, I'm like, ugh, please turn it off. I don't care. By the way, again, delicate flower in terms of my listening habits.

Yeah, that's—

I'm a Led Zeppelin guy through and through. That might be my all-time favorite band. Built to Spill, Guitar Hero kind of sound and all of that. So it's not like I'm adverse to to hard sounds, right?

Well, it's like, so I don't think there's any art form that's more subjective than music, right? Like you can basically, like it's like me, I don't like country music, so the second I hear country music, I'm turned off, I don't wanna hear it, but I'm also willing—

But that's a different cop.

No, but I'm also willing to accept that there are sounds that other people may like, so if someone goes, hey, that country's good, I'm like, oh man, I'm sure it is, but I don't listen to it. You're like, oh, they're terrible, because right off rip, you don't like 'em. But that sound was probably then never meant for you, so therefore probably don't comment on it. You know, just like country.

I'm not gonna say anything.

I'm not gonna say anything, 'cause it's not for me. I don't drive a pickup truck. I don't rattle the cattle. Like, you know, I don't do any of that. I love the United States.

But that's apples and oranges. New metal is a sound that existed for, you know, a decade-ish.

But it's not for you. That's why.

If you automatically don't like it, it's not for you. No, no, no, I'm saying it's a very specific genre. It's a very specific sound that has not endured. Country music, when you bring it, like, well, I don't like country music, country. You're talking about 100+ years of sound, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. But it has a start— I have nothing at all to do with, uh, with, uh, what, uh, who's the fat guy, or the formerly fat guy who's now just getting divorced from his, his, uh, second wife?

A fat guy getting divorced, you really narrowed it down. No, but Dave, all because of—

No, no, no, Tatum, and what's his name, I can't think of his name, with the face tattoos.

Uh, Jelly Roll.

Oh, Jelly Roll, yeah.

Jelly Roll's face tattoos.

But all because the music started later, like, that's like people that are like, oh yeah, well, you know, the Miami Heat only has only have 3 titles, or that the Marlins only have 2 titles, the Yankees have 60. Yeah, sorry you weren't around before World War II. Like, what do you want me to tell you?

That has nothing to do with me! What is that? But it's not a reflection on my age. It's not like I'm taking a posture like, "It ends with the Rolling Stones." Like, that's it.

It starts and ends with the Stones. You mentioned the Grateful Dead. You put Korn with the Grateful Dead and the Doors. Jim Morrison died in like '77.

I'm trying to color in to make my point so that you follow what I'm saying.

I mean, if you don't like the stuff that goes into nu metal, I mean, are you a fan of hardcore rap?

Alright, you know what?

Are you a fan of funk? Like, these are the elements of the genre.

Yes.

Oh, that's my favorite charge, is, "Well, clearly you're not into funk music then." Like, do you know who James Brown is? Do you know Parliament? I do! I've seen 'em! I've got that— well, what are we talking about? I don't know about— you know what? I've had it.

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Der Fußballsommer ist da! Jetzt heißt es mitfiebern, mitjubeln und sogar mitspielen! Klick aufs Banner und werde mit REWE Bonus, dem Vorteilsprogramm der REWE App, selbst zum Matchwinner! Gewinne dein Elfmeterduell mit Bo, dem stärksten REWE-Torwart aller Zeiten, und sicher dir damit wöchentlich deinen Fan-Coupon sowie die Chance auf attraktive Sachpreise. Also los, schnapp dir jetzt deinen Fanbonus in der REWE App. Nur bis zum 18.07. Do drop us a line on YouTube or wherever you choose. We appreciate the comments and appreciate you following us. But right now I want to move along because serendipity. It occurred to me that, man, this World Cup feels a little bit different. People are all in in a way that they weren't just 4 years ago and certainly not in '94 when it was last in the US. Um, and I wanted to try to see if we could create some sort of a time capsule here in the summer of 2026 and see if we can figure out amongst ourselves where, which sports are in fact the most popular right now and where they will be in 5 or 10 years. Of course, 100 years ago, baseball, boxing, and horse racing were the most popular sports, and even in my lifetime Baseball was neck and neck with the NFL, but then Bird and Magic happened, and MJ came— was right on their heels, and NBA became a bigger factor.

And all of that added up to me scrolling through social media, and the day after I was thinking about this, one Ethan Strauss, House of Strauss, one of the great Substacks available for your eyeballs and heart, mentioned, in fact, the June 17th post.

Oh, yeah.

Of House of Strauss Substack is: the soccer evangelists were right, soccer has finally actually arrived. Ethan Strauss is back with us. Ethan Strauss, how are you, fella? What's new? You're a soccer head now, eh?

I love the pitch. I'm really into it. I actually, I'm already grabbing the reins of your show. I can't resist. But I do wonder, are we just gonna go full soccer or our sports talk shows are going to get inundated by this after the World Cup, and Stephen A. Smith is going to be shouting about how disappointed he is in Liverpool. Is that the trajectory we're on?

Or coming off of the conversation we were having before you joined, the Fuentes boys were making the case that Korn is some influential band that has endured, and there's no evidence in our reality that that's the case. Much like the World Cup or Korn, maybe they'll just fade away. You know, by August, you know? I don't know. Something to consider.

Yeah, maybe soccer is a freak on a leash and it shall be constrained.

See, look, see, Dave, look, he's already showing that he's influenced by Korn. So he just made—

I could quote Korn.

Yeah, oh yeah.

That's not even music.

Yeah, we're talking sports here.

Yeah, this sound doesn't matter. You know, Jim Morrison died in 1979 or whatever.

Wait, now I'm a caveman? What does Jim Morrison have to do with any of this? Ethan, you ever heard of Jerry Garcia?

Yeah, you know when he's playing the guitar.

What, did I have a stroke at some point? That's your impression of me?

Uh, the Strokes were a great band from back in the day.

The Strokes were great, yes. Now that's a good band that I, that I liked. All right, listen, you're being rude to me and my guests. You're embarrassing me in front of you.

How dare you.

Um, all right, so the pitch as I sent it to Ethan, and I'll share with the group, is I think the best approach—

Pitch is an essential part of rock music, Dave.

That's— well, let's see. Yeah, a little pitchy. The— not just, hey, let's look up the television ratings and move on. That's one way to evaluate these things. But I think the better approach here is, even if it's a paradox to say it this way, it's like objective vibes, whether you're into the sport or not, around the world around you, what does it feel like has the heat right now?

Yes.

What I think maybe more importantly, the more I think about it, is what storylines as they exist in the NBA, as a, for instance, with Wemby and where he goes from here and all of that, what sets up to have the most compelling storylines between now and let's say the next 5 years, maybe the next 10 years. And from there we will create a time capsule, much like if somebody did this in 1978, they would go like, Oh, Well, baseball's most popular, the Yankees just beat the Dodgers, but the NFL, that Yankee— I mean, that Steelers and Cowboys rivalry is pretty good stuff, and everything would fall behind that. That would be very different. Now let's do it right here and now. Ethan Strauss, take it away. What do you want to do? The only question is, do we go with the number one sport, let's say right now, 5 years from now, and beyond? Or do we do bottom up? Bottom up.

Bottom up is hard because I don't know where to start the bottom. I don't know because people throw these things out. I have these strange debates where they go, soccer is 7th for me. I think I actually said that. It's weird. I have such a capacity to love sports that I can say soccer's maybe 7th for me. And that doesn't mean I hate soccer. It just means that it's 7th. Right. So building from the bottom is difficult because I don't know how far we excavate, but from the top, even if you're undermining the drama of revealing whichever one is the top, I find that to be easier.

Ah, whatever.

Start at the top.

Okay. Start at the top. And it's domestic, right? We're not talking world. We're talking about the United States of America here, right?

Well, I mean, I hate to get in the way right out of the gate here, but that is the thing that makes soccer the orange to the American sports apple, right? I mean, we, you know, our leagues all include the world over. And really the NHL deserves credit, or I guess maybe MLB does for within our hemisphere, but then the NHL in the '80s and '90s sort of reached out and started bringing in Russian guys and Euros and all of that. And then the NBA on the back end of that. But soccer is not the MLS. We're not representing the MLS here. I don't, you kind of—

It's soccer.

Right, I think you kind of have to do that, and then Fuentes boys, right? You have to then include Premier League, and you kind of have to count MLS too, right?

Well, when I was—

Yeah, I think—

Yeah, when we worked at other networks, it was a fragmented audience. We had people who hated the Premier League, we had people that always watched the Premier League, uh, MLS was not really even considered most of the times when we were talking about it, it's just— and it's also the most pirated sport in the world. So it's like, I don't know how much you can go by like ratings, you know, in terms when it comes to measuring soccer and then in that way, I mean, the NFL, it's primed for an American market, the Major League Baseball, it's for American market, the NBA. So of course you get those ratings. I don't necessarily think you can apply the same metrics to the soccer audience.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to split hairs with football. We're talking college football versus pro football. Let's just say it's all part of the same bulliabase with these. It's just the sport. We're doing that. I think I do have an update in my rankings though, my forward-looking rankings, my confusing rankings.

You haven't even given any, they're updated already?

They're already updated. The mind is firing because these strange 5 years from now rankings that we're doing in the current moment as a time capsule, there's a lot going on. I believe that MLB or baseball —had a fair argument even a few weeks ago that it had jumped ahead of the NBA and basketball writ large.

Hmm.

And there was a numerical argument to be made for it. They had better ratings for the past World Series versus NBA Finals. Well, media people tend to prefer the NBA, but given the totality that we've witnessed in New York City, and what the Knicks championship meant and how I don't think Major League Baseball has one of those left. They don't— I mean, I guess the Indians, but that's not going to be the same thing as the Knicks finally doing it. I think that you just have to, as an objective analyst, if we're going 5 years forward, even if I say that baseball's been gaining on basketball, which is very counternarrative and unexpected, I got to say basketball's got to be ahead of baseball. I think that's got to be true in the rankings. I got football number 1. They're not going to fall off in 5 years. Our football, American football. And I do think, and I don't know if I'm hurting your feelings, Mr. Hockey Man, I think soccer's got to be ahead of NHL.

You're not hurting my feelings with that. I've accepted that I don't have to be evangelical about the sport anymore. And not because it is come through clean on the other side, I'd rather— I think Gary Bettman would do well to recognize that it's better as more— as being something that belongs to the provinces of Canada and to the northern states. I know the Florida Panthers exist and I know the—

Who?

The Canes just won the Cup and all of that, but I think accepting that you don't have to dominate the television market, I mean, that's the reality. So I don't know. This deep into a hockey team playing in Texas and multiple teams in Florida that there's a breakthrough upcoming. I think so much of it depends on star power and success in those markets, and you've had that success, and I think it's kind of— I don't know that it's peaked peak, but I don't know where the NHL has to go if it is winning Stanley Cups in two places in the Sunshine State And the Kings did it in LA and the Stars did it in Dallas. It is kind of where it's going to be. MLB, I tried to make that argument 6 months or so ago, and a lot of people laughed at me because I did feel like the trends were in favor of MLB.

Whoa.

And I do get your point about the meaning of a championship. You know, talk about the NHL. The meaning of the Rangers winning that Cup in '94 was outsized for the league, and then the Devils won the Cup and almost killed the league a year later.— But I think that's kind of the danger for the NBA. This thing that— I can't think of the guy's name who did it— Vince Goodwill, I believe—

Oh yeah.

—said on ESPN that, you know, he— I don't— maybe he didn't— he wasn't careful enough with his words calling it a participation trophy, but that's the case I've made about what parity leads to is unless you're completely inept in ownership and management, your number's eventually gonna come up. 8 years, 8 different champs, oh, that's fun! Yeah, because you like the Knicks doing it and the Giannis thing was interesting. There's some interesting chapters throughout those 8 years, but if 4 years from now it's like 4 other teams do it sort of in that sequence, it really is just sitting there at the bingo thing and eventually, well, my number's gonna come up eventually unless, like I say, you're— Woody Johnson is the owner of your team. How say you?

These are great points, and I completely agree with your perspective on what Vinny Goodwill said that became an internet main character, everybody hates this guy sort of thing. He was in the process of making a subtle and good point, but then got flipped when he got interrupted and challenged when he said, oh, so it's like a participation trophy, which obviously nobody believes about the Larry O'Brien Trophy. And then that became the outraged conversation, but he was—

Except, but if you partake, But his point is participate long enough and eventually you'll get to hold the trophy too, right?

Yeah. And the point is this, it's that dynasties are actually good for the NBA.

Mm-hmm.

And we like to associate them with eras. And if you do it again, it feels more legitimate. And this point has been made by other people in different ways that how real do we think the Knicks are as an all-time great team? It's actually not going to be determined by whatever we say about their point differential right now. It's going to be by whether they sustain greatness. That's what's going to determine whether we say, hey, this was some sort of blip or a fluke versus, oh, this was an all-time team and we just didn't know it at first. It's going to be about proving it. The rules they've passed in the NBA make it very hard to sustain greatness. And the advantage of that is that the New York Knicks win the championship. They won the championship in part because the rules enticed the Timberwolves to say, hey, we can't pay KAT. And so the Knicks got him. And the Knicks have also benefited from this unusual situation where Jalen Brunson took a massive pay cut. That might be what has to happen to sustain success if you're not the Spurs or the Thunder who amassed this armada of draft picks.

And then they pulled the ladder up and changed the rules so you can't tank anymore. The only way you can compete in the NBA in a sustainable manner will probably be your star or stars taking a pay cut. And so I agree with you that going forward, that might be problematic if there is a lot of just randomness and the idea that everybody gets their turn. It could sound better in theory. And whereas in baseball, people might complain about the Dodgers, they might say it's what they hate about baseball. They might say it's what disenchants them. But the only thing they hate more is when, I don't know, the Diamondbacks or whoever are in the World Series and then they don't watch. So baseball might have a little something going that they're in the process of trying to kill, funny enough, with this more old-school view of the resources. You have an advantage and you can keep it together for longer.

The NBA is making a mistake, and I said this 3 years ago, the, the The first apron is now, I, whatever it is, like 11 years old since it kicked in, and the second apron is now 2 or 3 years old, so you're not really comparing this to 1985. This is a recent phenomenon, and that's why it's not a coincidence, for the record, that you have had 8 different champs in 8 different years. Yeah. This has basically been manufactured by the NBA. The wisdom of it is a different conversation. What's funny is, to your point, I completely agree dynasties are good whether or not you recognize it They're not better when you're rooting for the dynasty than not, but still there's a certain amount of pressure that comes with being on the side of the dynasty because if you do anything but win the championship, you're disappointed. And so that's always the make-good for all the other fan bases out there. Haha, you didn't win it all kind of vibe. But what's worse is, I think, I think, you know, the Flacco run for the Ravens 15 years or so ago, it plays as a one-off and it's special, but they don't resonate as a great team that you point back and say, I paid witness to that.— as a fan of this sport.

And in a way, even the Tom Brady one in Tampa, those one-offs are not satisfying. And I think it's funny that baseball is in a position, and like you say, they're about to wreck themselves with a lockout/strike in the coming offseason. Because the thing I continue to point at is about— you know what proves 21st century sports fan cynicism above all else is the lack of songs being sung on a daily basis about Shohei Ohtani, the greatest player in the history of people in our enduring national pastime, right?

Yeah, but I'm impressed by how big a superstar he is. I take the other perspective where I go, there's a guy, he does not speak the most English, we will say. Ha! Interesting, right? And he's a massive superstar in the United States. That is not easy to do. It certainly didn't happen with some of the Eastern European stars in the NBA who qualified.

Well, look, Kucherov just won the MVP, the Hart Trophy for the NHL. Wemby is the— I don't know what face of the NBA means and what comes along with that.

With that, he's the obstacle of the NBA. He's—

But he's a Frenchman. Yeah. And now, now the best baseball player. Yeah, right. That's a funny point.

Wemby is— He's fluent in English. It's just a different situation. And if anything, people think he talks too much. They don't like the stuff he says. That's a different situation. But he's not going to be the face of the NBA. He's going to be the mirror that reflects whatever the face is, because he's the big bad obstacle. He's the Goliath, and the hero is going to go up against him. It's a different— situation. I think that's a good one the NBA has found itself in.

Maybe if you want to— I agree. Dan Le Batard said it best. If you're rooting for the Spurs, you're rooting for a giant. Who roots for the giant in any story, right?

Yeah. And okay, okay, I got a take. I gotta, I gotta get this take off.

Go ahead.

I think that we in sports media underrate the extent to which Wemby has made himself hated because we're like a fish in water. And we don't even understand. We all look at it in the context of our media channels and what we talk about. We go, is he a villain now? I'm looking at some of these YouTube channels, some of this non-sports, usually content, and how they talk about this guy. And I don't think we've reckoned with how hated he made himself in a brief period of time. I'm not saying it's bad or good. Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying it is. I'm just saying if you look at, I don't know, Joe Budden or so, just somebody outside the standard sports ecosystem, because what happened is that he goes in with this really high approval rating and the NBA has their most watched Finals in years where his team is going up against the biggest market team and they're weirdly likable, which almost never happens. Mm-hmm. There's just almost nothing to hate about them. So suddenly you have an introduction of Wemby to 20 or 30 million people, and he's throwing elbows and stepping under guys' feet and shoving guys and being arrogant after the games and saying that he's going to win when he doesn't, but not in a fully confident heel way, but more in some sort of, I don't know, a mix of arrogance and insecurity that's perhaps understandable for a 22-year-old who's 7-foot-5, but— Yeah.

I am just making the observation that I don't think we've seen anything like this. It's like we speed ran the LeBron James decision backlash all in a week. I've never seen anything like it in sports.

It's— you're absolutely right. And the factor that, that is big that probably most of America looks over is that it's New York. And as I always say, New York, whether you want to accept this, this reality or not, They dictate, New York City dictates our national perspective more than I think most people are willing to accept is the case. So this, and against the team that presented, that we accepted as an underdog team, Jalen Brunson, undersized, well, he's the prodigal son of an NBA player, everybody. It's not that big of a deal.

Yeah, but not a very good NBA player, Dave.

I get it, but still, I think you would perceive, if I told you, hey, there are two guys out there, do you want the one who, and we're gonna play pickup basketball, you want the one who's the son of an NBA player or the one who isn't? I mean, you know, you would assume better chances of success. And so yeah, the Wemby storyline is going to be fascinating, and it is amazing that before they even won a title— you think OKC feels sad today? That's the thing that probably makes them feel a little bit better is like, well, at least we won a title before everybody hated us.

Yeah.

The Spurs haven't even won one yet and people are against them. So I don't know if they're were really wired to become the Oakland Raiders of this decade in the NBA. You know, some people like that. Some people know how to rationalize that and use that to their benefit. I don't know that Wemby and those guys— we don't know them enough quite yet, but you know, Reggie Jackson and John Madden's Raiders loved that. They worked— the Pistons knew how to turn that into something in their favor. The NFL, Well, the reason it's not— it's easy, "Well, it's not gonna go anywhere." The thing that would, in real terms, get in its way is if there were a change, and it felt like 5, 10 years ago that the concussion stuff was really coming to a head, pun intended, that it was like, "Man, maybe flag football is just the way we need to go. If we, you know, if we want to be empathetic human beings, we really got to get rid of this sport." for our pleasure. But okay, I don't think that is going to happen. And so I think, I think college football's playoff has taken it to its— for all the bellyaching about it from me and other people, it has taken it solidly into the second position.

But the NFL is king because, in part because of college football and the pipeline of quarterbacks, we are now focused more than ever on that one position we all We all appreciate that it is the most important position in any sport, is quarterback in the NFL. And I think our fascination with that and the fact that we can look into college football to see our future, our future potential as a team and what's going to happen to the league when that guy, when Arch Manning makes it next year, or whatever name you want to float out there, I think that holds our attention. And in that chase— I mean, The MVP of pro football now always goes to the quarterback, and I know people are upset by that, and I don't like that spiritually, but what it does ultimately lead to is an effect where you just are constantly looking at who has those guys and how do we get one of those guys, and that guy hasn't won one yet, is he gonna get one? Yeah. But the other guy's in his way too, and he needs to get one, and that race is compelling enough to to keep or to hold, to stiff-arm all the other sports off.

How say you?

Yeah, no, we've got a good noble lie going there where it's all about the quarterback and we pretend it's all about the quarterback, even though we have enough evidence to know it's not all about the quarterback.

But it's easy to follow is the point.

Yeah. We just saw Sam Darnold win it, and he eventually righted the ship over that course of the Super Bowl. But I didn't think he was particularly good, and I don't know if he ends up having a good game but for all the bites at the apple you get when your defense is dominant. I felt similarly about Jalen Hurts with the Eagles, and now people are debating after they said, oh my God, this guy's actually great. Now they're debating whether he's even good. So clearly you don't need the quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Maybe in a sustainable way that you do. But I think it's the perfect tension. I think that's what's great about American football. is that there's that quarterback that you can focus on. You've got that star, but there's enough team stuff going on. You can get into the nitty-gritty and actually think about a 53-man roster while deploying a disproportionate amount of attention to just one signal caller. It's really, I think, a great balance and why I tend to prefer sports with that sort of balance to the aforementioned soccer. I like soccer. Soccer. My position on soccer is it's fine.

It's fine. I don't hate it. I enjoy what's happening right now. But 11, 11 players, it's just a little too much. It's just a little too much spread out responsibility for me. And what do I love most? Well, obviously I love—

I mean, physically spread out to my eye. My eye can't fully accept what it's looking at. That's the obstacle for me. I'm not trying to react to that, though, in where I rate soccer. I'm trying to relate to everything. I think your point about football is exactly right. American football. The casuals can vibe to the star of the team. You know the star of every team because it's the quarterback, but if you want to be a pretentious ass, you can be like, "You don't understand football because the 48th and 49th guys, that's where the games are really won." It allows for all levels of fandom in a way that the other sports maybe don't. Anyway, I'm sorry I interrupted you.

Well, I think I, I, well, I don't know who's interrupted at this point because we're all talking extemporaneously, simultaneously, and we're enthusiastic about this, which is good. I think the point that one of— and this is your, your terms, the Fuentes boys, is that what you say? Is that how you refer to— I want to be respectful. I want to use just proper nomenclature here. But I think the point that was about to be made—

They're into corn. They don't need that much respect.

Yeah, yeah, you know, some people like good music and some people just turn themselves off to stuff they don't understand.

And what are you talking about, it's hard to follow 11 guys?

Literally, American football's 11 on 11. Like, what's the difference? Like, I don't—

Ah, well, they give us the quarterback and they make us follow the ball. See, the crazy thing—

Wait, we don't follow the ball in soccer? It's like the main thing.

No, but the quarter— the star of the movie always has the ball is the point, is in the NFL.

Would you just let me rationalize my stupid bias that was formed on the basis of watching one sport growing up versus the other sport? Would you just allow me to do No, these are all fair points. But I think the centering, if you will, of the quarterback anchors us in a way. Now, the crazy thing about American football is that it is actually shown to us in this incomplete fashion that theoretically is bad, but as Chuck Klosterman has argued, is actually good. Apparently we want that. We should be watching NFL games with the Madden angle where we can see everything. But we don't want that. We want this other crazy thing where we follow the ball in the air and we have no idea what's going on. And it's like that game show, Is It Cake? Are you aware of Is It Cake? Is this something—

Of course. Oh, it's very popular in our home. Yeah.

Yeah. Most long passes in the NFL, it's just a miniature episode of Is It Cake? The ball is in the air. Is it an interception? Is it a completion? Is it a touchdown?

Oh man, is that the greatest point? Adam Carolla once said on the radio when he and I were on the air together, said, here's a great bit for the— here's what we'll do. I'm gonna flip a coin, heads or tails, right? Coin's up. You hear the slap on the back of the hand. We'll tell you the results after this commercial break. And it's exactly right. Of course you have to see the payoff. That's such an interesting thought.

Well, if you had the Madden angle, you would be watching them bake the cake. And that might be interesting for a football nerd to see the play develop and see that the guy's actually open. But maybe it would be less compelling than that Anton Chigurh fear, because you brought up the coin flip of, am I dead or am I alive? I want to find out. And so that appears to be compelling. And hey, I don't know if that's the reason why NFL is still top dog 5 years from now, but I'll throw something else at you. What I'm going to do is I'm going to denigrate hockey until you get mad and defend it. That's what's happening right here in the rankings.

Well, the sports gods rendered their verdict in the early '90s. If they wanted the sport to elevate to a place where it would rank among— still to this day, you wouldn't have let David Volick score in overtime, a Game 7 in the Igloo, because the Penguins would have been in line to win their third straight Stanley Cup, and they would have done it against Wayne Gretzky, head-to-head, '99— no, less than, not greater than '66. That would have been something that would have resonated to this very day, but the sports gods decided otherwise.

I'm glad you got that all out.

Go ahead, denigrate away, denigrate away.

I'm glad you got that all out. I'm sliding golf ahead of hockey.

Ah.

I'm sliding it ahead. And there's similar media theory arguments getting made. I don't know if you know it, but YouTube golf, massive. And how crazy is that? If I had told you 10 years ago, you know what's gonna be really hot, especially with younger people? Golf. It's gonna be big time increasing.

Why is that?

I have a theory.

Tiger?

Not Tiger. I've got a theory about it. The narrative is that golf is boring. It's the most boring of the sports. But if you sit down and you watch golf with a young person, as I do, my son, it's actually more interesting to a lot of kids than having to maintain the attention span for the entire context of a 2 to 3 hour game between two teams. You know why? Because it's all just like TikTok or Instagram Reels. There's one guy, he's about to, there's about to, he's about to swing the club. Boom, new context. Another guy, he's gonna swing the club. We see how that goes. Boom, new context. Oh, this guy's gonna do a putt. That's done. Boom, new context. And so ironically, the theoretically boring sport, because it happens in 20 to 30 second increments, and then there's an instant context change and there isn't really a big break in the action and generally there's no replay review of whether Scottie Scheffler hit the ball or not, it can maintain the interest of younger people in this generation who have had their brains wired—

Hold on.

—for social media.

I have a question. I have a question. I have a question.

So you're saying—

It's a 5-hour thing, but you're exactly right.

That's number one. It's also—

But he's right.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. It's in 30-second increments. First of all, golf's barely a sport. It's basically a hobby that people do and they put it on TV. It's crazy. Okay, and then, so what you're saying is, so golf, very interesting, even though baseball's the exact same thing. It's a 30-second sport. The guy either gets a strike or he hits a hit or he hits a home run, the whole game changes. It's the same thing.

No, baseball, you are sitting there in the same context. They're not doing rapid camera changes to a new situation in a new spot. You're in one context. You're watching a movie, whereas golf, you're watching YouTube Shorts. And I'm not arguing against baseball or saying that baseball is on the way out. I think baseball's advantage is it's life's screensaver. It's nice to have on in the background and you don't need to—

Not this year, but most summers it's the thing you have and it's every day. That's why it wins, right?

The screensaver of life. That's, that's its market inefficiency. That's attacking right there.

Listen, Ethan Strauss, I want to— I feel like we should spend another 3 hours on this, but— I'm gonna wrap it up with this. NFL, college football, 1 and 2, NBA 3. This is 5 years from now. I'm trying to blend now into 5 or so years from now. NFL, college football, NBA, baseball, then soccer. I think you're right. The question is, does soccer jump baseball? I think baseball's done some great work to modernize, but if they strike, I don't know what that's going to do. And then the other one is WNBA. We didn't even—

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Oh God.

And people will tell me, will try to convince me WNBA is already more popular than NHL in, in some television ratings.

It's too top-heavy. It's, it's too dependent on one person and it, it's uncomfortable with how dependent it is and tries to obscure the popularity of that one individual. And God, I don't know, is she gonna be playing 5 years from now? Is she gonna get hurt? I, I'm not sure. So So yeah, I don't know. I was joking. I don't think I can put WNBA above NHL as much as I want to poke and prod and see at what point you stand up for your beloved hockey.

Well, listen, next time remind me to tell you about my theory on why the Coen Brothers and Anton Chigurh, what the right and wrong call is. They tell you with that movie if you're supposed to call heads or tails consistently, but that's for another time. In the meantime, Everyone within the sound of my voice, House of Strauss, great Substack, always makes you think about the thing we love most in our world, with the possible exception of our children, sports. Thanks for the time, Pally.

Always love being on. Thanks so much, Dave.

You know what that music means, Gino?

Sounds like World Cup music.

It's time for—

I know what it means.

Yeah, Dave knows, Dave. It's time for the World Cup. —little—

Aplausos, fútbol! That's right, fútbol!

Damn, Dave, that was pretty good. Fútbol América!

Whee! Ahora y siempre!

Sí, como que no! Dave Damacek. Dave? David?

Let's make our picks, fellas! Or you make your picks. I'm not gonna be such a pretentious ass to pretend that I have any idea who's gonna win.

Well, we're talking about strikers today because the USA, they have a striker who's a little change of face of a team. Ain't that right, Gino?

Balogun.

Don't give me the big sigh.

This guy.

2 goals! Balogun got 2 goals.

Not 1, but 2!

He got 2 goals. He's up there with—

Put a little flair on the second one, yeah.

With Mbappé, with Erling Haaland, and up in the leaderboard right now in goals scored. The only one up higher than all of them, Leo Messi, plays for a team down here in the MIA. But that guy's on another level. So let's not go there. Right now we're just talking about how Balogun has changed the face of this USA.

Very quickly, after the conversation we just had with Ethan Strauss, are you rooting at all? Is Argentina your 1A because Messi plays in Miami?

Hell no.

No, no, I got a Colombian wife.

All right.

I'm just asking.

We're going for Colombia. Los Cafeteros are the second place in our household.

Correct. Second place in my heart, really, because the United States is number one as always. But Mr. Balogun came a specific way to these here United States national teams.

Yes. Sue Campbell, our producer, said you got to tell Dave this story, and I'm anxious to hear it.

Okay, so Nigerian parents living in London. Living in England, yes.

They go on vacation. The wife of Balogun's mother is 7 months pregnant. They won't let her back on the plane. They won't fly her back because she is too pregnant to fly. And so she ends up having Folarin Balogun here in the United States of America by happenstance, and 2 weeks later he goes back to London. But in the end, when it came down to choose what senior side he wanted to play for,— he chose the US of A.

Thank God for birthright citizenship because that's how—

I was just gonna say, what's more topical than this?

Exactly, it's right on the nose. Tough name to say. I want to keep calling him, uh, Florin or Florin— Folarin. F-O-L-A-R-I-N. Folarin Balogun. Uh, they came over here, like you said, to visit his aunt. Mom couldn't fly back. Thank you, uh, I think Brad mentioned in the pre-show, it's Delta or one of those things. Thank you because now the USA has a striker. And speaking of strikers—

Who's gonna be mad? —like, for real, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. The influence of sports and what stars do, and then that impacts how we perceive the sport. For real, who's gonna be against this if the US makes a deep World Cup run here on the back or on the toe of Balogun? Now, people will be like, "Birthright citizenship for all!" That's right.

If you want to compete, let's do it.

If it comes down to the USA versus England and Balogun scores the winning goal, there's gonna be your complaint.

Yeah. Since we're looking at top goal scorers, because that's what Folarin is, he's a top goal scorer We are going to take a future right now against— well, not against, that's a little weird to say it, but Erling Haaland. Okay, he's a striker, big Norwegian guy. All right, I don't know if you've seen him, big guy, was on a bunch of night shows.

I know.

So he has 2 goals already.

I told you he looks like the bad guy in Die Hard.

Yeah, he looks like a 007 villain. So Haaland going off right now to lead the tournament scoring. Now it's a little weird when you go for top scorers because that means you have to pick a guy who's gonna go kind of far in the tournament. You gotta go far, right?

And how far do you think Norway's going?

Exactly. Because you have Leo Messi in front of him, you have Kylian Mbappé, and you have Harry Kane. But now, Haaland, 55 goals, I think, in 51 appearances for his country. That's a crazy ratio. That's over—

You got to do some damage.

Exactly. So he could do enough damage in these games against poorer sides, even though he has a tough group, that he could somehow put his way up. That's crazy value, right? So we're going to go Erling Haaland, top scorer of the tournament, 2026 World Cup.

All right, Gino, you want to give us a pick there?

Um, I mean, I'd hate to, I hate to go too chalky here, but I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna stick with— well, I had France going all the way, right? So I'm gonna go— and if you're gonna go France, you're gonna go Mbappé, so I'm gonna go Kylian Mbappé there.

I like it. All right, give us a pick to look at for the weekend so we have some rooting interest here. Mike Fuentes hit it on the head. Boy, you, you came out of the gate strong last week. You said both sides would score but the U.S. would win. No, you didn't say the U.S. would win.

I did, I did say the U.S. would win.

Oh, you did. You said U.S. would win but both sides —would score.

Yeah, and I predicted 2-1. They gave me 2 extra goals, a little, you know, a little extra, so 4-1. Ooh, for the weekend. Weekend's kind of tough. Okay, we're gonna—

All right, G, now it's your turn.

You gotta catch up with your brother. I'm gonna go to Saturday.

Okay.

Because, you know, that's— On Saturday, the Netherlands take on Sweden. Now, the Netherlands drew in their first match, a great game between Japan, 2-2, and Sweden put 5 on Tunisia, got their coach fired. So, but I don't think Sweden's gonna be able to do that again, and I think this is where the Netherlands Netherlands, the defense and that midfield really shows up. Netherlands take the win over Sweden, who just scored 5 goals.

And I have my game. I'm going to say Ecuador against Curaçao. Curaçao had a rough go against Germany, 7-1. Goal differential matters. Ecuador's coming off a loss. They need goals. So I'm going to take over on goals and Ecuador to win.

Football America and football America, either way DK Sports has you covered. Good stuff there, Fuentes boys. I think I'll ride along with both of you here this weekend. I've been sharing my thoughts online. Make sure you're following along on all social platforms there. Like I said, also already even more important, follow along wherever you find your podcasts and on YouTube, Football America with the exclamation point. Be a dear, leave us a comment, even if it's, uh, to denounce Dave's music tastes or otherwise. We appreciate you following along and we'll be back on the other side of the weekend to help try to figure out what's going down. Down as football season— American football season— draws ever closer. Until then, thanks so much, my fellow football Americans. It's been a thin slice of heaven.