Transcript of Who In Sports Could Be The Next O.J. Simpson? | Hour 2 (feat. David Samson) New

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

Nothing personal with David Sampson. David Sampson joining us now. Good to see you, David. How are you today, pal?

I am doing well. I'm getting a little tired of the late NBA games because it's the end of the week, but I'm glad they're at least consecutive now so I don't have to do a dual screen and end up watching none of them. So you see, glad that now I can watch them in a row.

That's interesting that you say that because the, the night before the games overlapped, you know, they were going on at the same time. And I like when the games are going on at this— I like— I have free will. I could choose what game I want to watch. I don't need them telling me you have to only watch this one and then only watch this one. I like when the games are going on at the same time, David.

Yeah, I don't want the conflict. Zazz, I just don't. I want to sit and watch a game. I'm going to watch it develop in order to— it's like watching the Red Zone channel. You end up seeing nothing, but you do it for fantasy or for gambling or whatever you do it. But to me, it makes me dizzy and I don't get to watch a game. Me knows this. There's a rhythm to an NBA game. Yes, it's a game of runs, of course, but you get to understand how a game is sort of unraveling like its own unwritten play. And if you're going back and and you're just looking at the score bug. Hey, that one's close. Let me turn to that. For that, I could watch the first round of the NCAA men's tournament, for crying out loud.

Now, I wonder, because you grew up— you've told us you grew up with the New York Knicks being your number one. That's a team of your childhood. Do you still feel any of that when you watch last night? I mean, they're two wins away from the Eastern Conference Finals for back-to-back years.

Yeah, I'm a full Chorus Line guy. Like, I feel nothing. And it is incredibly upsetting because you're right, watching the Knicks from 1974, missed a championship by a year, through 1999 when I got into baseball, I got to the finals twice in '94, '99, unbelievable series against the Bulls and the Pacers and the Heat. Who can forget the 8 versus 1 May of 1999 game with Allan Houston? Sorry, gentlemen. But now I just, I'm not connected in that way to the team. And, but I still want them to win a championship because I'd like to be I'd like to be around it, but it's— I'm certainly not a fan like I used to be. But here's the other thing, folks. The Knicks are not going to win a championship. If you're watching the Western Conference playoffs, it doesn't matter who comes out of the East. The NBA champion's going to come from the West, and I'd be willing to guarantee that.

Do you agree that if Jalen Brunson were to go against what you just said and win the title, be the best player on a Knickerbockers team that wins the title, that he becomes the greatest Knick of all time. And if he's not the right answer, who is?

You have to go Clyde Frazier. I don't think that winning a title, Brunson winning a title, it certainly puts him in the conversation, but he's in the conversation already. But I think you got to go back with the Red Holzman-led '70 and '73 Knicks. You have to look at Clyde. You have to put Patrick Ewing in there.

I was just going to say, I mean, I bet would argue for Ewing.

Oh, of course. But if Brunson wins a title that Ewing couldn't, But again, the superstar we got for Ewing was John Starks. I love you, John. 2-for-18 is seared into my head like, you know, a tattoo on my forehead. But I will say that when I look at the Knicks, they're an interesting team. But Brunson, he's a one-way player. He absolutely cannot play defense. He's going to get exposed, though. I don't feel like the Sixers are properly exposing him the way the Hawks did in the first round. It didn't work because they got blown out. Every game after Game 3. But I, I would say that, uh, I just don't think the Knicks as constituted can win a title, but we're gonna find out.

I would like to echo the words of my fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Sampson, and I would say that Walt Clyde Frazier is greatly recognized as the greatest Knick of all time, not only because of his two NBA rings, but also, as he alluded to, was a tremendous defensive player, one of the best defensive guards in NBA history.

Why are you talking like that?

Well, I'm a Pulitzer Prize winner.

He's smart.

I'm speaking with another Pulitzer Prize— you wouldn't understand. It's kind of a—

So wise.

You got a thing. So, but beyond that, I would also say his continued presence with the organization cements him as Mr. Nick, whereas Patrick Ewing, as great as he was minus the non-championship, also was gone for a long time and had just recently been re-welcomed into the fold.

Yeah, he's back at every game, and I must tell you guys, I've never felt older than looking at the alums who are at the game and seeing Patrick with Starks and Larry Johnson, and you see Sprewell come and you just look and you say, wow, like that '94 Finals against the Rockets, that is 32 years ago. It's almost impossible to believe there are people well into their careers who were not alive to watch Elijahwan against Ewing And now they're just watching 3-pointers get chucked all day.

Well, that was the ultimate split-screen experience. While you were watching that finals, you were watching O.J. v. the Cowboys.

Bronco.

That's right. Bob Costas cutting in on the broadcast.

So a story. I was at that game and the way the Garden was before it was retrofitted, I was online on the concession line and there's TVs above the menu boards and they show the game. So you don't miss anything. And while the— and it's the broadcast, I'm online, and all of a sudden they cut to a white Bronco on a highway, and people online at the Garden lost their minds. Get the game back on. And what happened is we all ran and said, forget it, we'll skip the food. And we went back into the bowl because it's not like where you can wait online and see and access the court at the Garden. You're in a hallway where you have no access to the bowl. So people at that game were furious. Forget the fact that if you're watching it on TV and it disappears, it's insane. It's unheard of.

I cannot repeat the words I said when I was watching on TV and they cut to O.J. in the Bronco. At first I thought it was just going to be like, okay, we're going to get back to the game. And then they didn't. And then I said something to the effect of, make a decision already.

It's Tony, Tashay, and Cody. Are you— do you guys know about that? It was such a weird cultural moment.

You know O.J.? What happened with O.J.?

They cut into an NBA Finals game and they put it in the lower little box. It was like a lot of fun.

A little corner.

They just switched.

They switched.

We did that. Definitely.

I don't think they switched for the whole time, but they definitely switched.

They cut for a good amount of that game. It was Game 5, wasn't it?

What was frustrating was like You could find it on other channels. You know, the other networks were covering the O.J. chase, but the network that had the NBA Finals decided, no, we'll join in the fray.

I was like, well, listen, audience for that, Mike, I will just tell you, if you're the producer making that decision in the control room, the audience for the O.J. chase at the time was way bigger than the NBA Finals audience because that was— remember, he was a suspect in those murders. No one knew what the hell was going on. And all of a sudden, This is O.J. Simpson. People don't remember unless you lived through it. This was a movie star. This was a Hall of Fame football—

beloved broadcaster.

This was Bob Costas talking about an NBC Sports colleague.

Exactly. It's the most bizarre thing. It really is the most bizarre cut-in I've had, obviously short of 9/11. But that's not bizarre. That was tragedy. What you're looking at with the Bronco chase was, is this happening? And by the way, how does this end? Because at the time, what we were told was he's going to kill himself. And we were thinking, O.J. Simpson, make a decision. Can't be happening. And obviously, the rest certainly speaks for itself.

What level of sports celebrity could get a cut into the NBA Finals now if they were in a Bronco?

Who's playing with alleged murderer?

Well, keep in mind, too, like David Sampson just said, this wasn't A guy at the height of his stardom. He wasn't, he wasn't playing sport. He was— but so that's '94. So he had retired.

He was, you know, he was at the height of his, like, movie stardom.

I get it from Naked Gun. I'm talking— but Tashay's question was people from the sports world, right? I'm saying, but he had retired 15 years prior as a football player.

But he was also like, this, this didn't happen right away. He was also in headlines and entertainment magazines for several days because people suspected he had something to do with this. And then the chase kind of served to a nation like confirmation. This is a guilty conscience.

I can't believe it was 30.

But like A-Rod is— has endured as a celebrity beyond being a baseball player. They wouldn't break into no Stanley Cup final to be like, A-Rod's getting chased by the coppers here.

I think they would.

Do you really?

Yeah. So Yeah, the way it would work now is what happened when Mike Breen had to keep telling us that Trump is going to address the nation and we're going to cut away from this game, but just go to blank streaming service and the game will continue. Go to ESPN. Yeah, in that case, or go to Peacock. So remember back then it was either you're watching on NBC or you're not watching at all.

Yeah.

Now you'd get a choice. You want to watch the Broncos? Watch the Broncos. If you do, great. If not, you have 10 other channels where you can watch the game on 4 other devices. So I don't believe we'll ever have a cultural moment like we had in June of '94 ever again. The Rock.

Oh man.

The Rock would never do something like that.

Neither would O.J.

I thought about O.J.

Yeah.

Derek Jeter. I think so.

We're naming people. If so, if Mike and David are right, that they would cut in for A-Rod. I think you now have to adjust this conversation to how low down do you go before— would Jay Cutler?

This is my problem.

This is my problem.

No way.

No way.

Would they break in to see what's up with Jay Cutler?

Absolutely not. This is my problem with A-Rod. We know who A-Rod is, but do people outside of sports know who A-Rod is?

Yeah, 'cause he—

People outside of sports knew O.J. O.J. was famous famous, not sports famous.

No, A-Rod dated Zaslo's lover. Right.

Billy Crystal.

Yeah, I don't think they'd cut in for A-Rod personally. I think it has to be someone who transcends sports.

Mm-hmm.

And so I don't put A-Rod or Cutler or any of those people in that category. The Rock transcends. Brady, of course, transcends anyone who Ichiro's heard of, obviously transcends. But so, yes, I would say that that is the A-list. To get a cut-in, a primetime cut-in of any sort, even through previously recorded programming, but certainly into live sports, that requires A-list. Jennifer Lopez, I'm—

we're cutting in Giancarlo Stanton.

No cutting.

The answer is Travis Kelce.

There you go.

Now, because that's Taylor Swift, right?

That's absolutely— we got to cut in for Travis. Does his brother— we got to cut him for the brother.

His brother's the driver.

No.

Oh, his brother is the driver and they record a podcast while they do it.

Oh, new heights.

David, a huge congratulations to you. Of course, we mentioned the entire crew at Pablo Torre Finds Out winning the Pulitzer Prize, as it was announced a couple of days ago. How, how did you learn and how did it make you feel?

I got an emotional call from Pablo and he called to say that we had won a Pulitzer and I, I couldn't believe it. Obviously, it's such an honor to be a part of Metal Ark Media and what Dan had done, putting, putting faith in a show that just hadn't been done before and putting resources behind it. It's much like what he does with, with your show and my show and and all of the network shows. But I'll tell you what I thought of immediately, and I said this to Amin immediately when we were talking, is that my daughter actually got sick on September 12th, and the last show she ever listened to me do was September 3rd, which was the first show that won the Pulitzer on the aspiration Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention. And she's in media and was very interested in the story. And I knew we were on to something because she wasn't ever interested in Nothing Personal, did not listen, didn't care about MLB and analyst work, or didn't watch our show here, The Dan Le Batard Show. But this one she paid attention to because we had been talking about it for months.

And then once it was recorded, I mean, we'll remember it was recorded not to go under the kimono, but on August 20th. And so there was a 2-week period where we had recorded the show that it hadn't come out yet. And this was the first show as part of the athletic licensing agreement. And it just was a big deal, except we didn't realize— it didn't even occur to us. Pulitzer? Don't be ridiculous. That can't be. But when I was called, I just couldn't believe that tho— those two things now are together in terms of her last show seeing me and winning a Pulitzer and what it means for the company and, and for all of us. It was really a proud, emotional moment. And, uh, Thank you. Thank you to Dan and to all of you guys who have let me into your, your crazy playpen.

It's awesome. It's a great honor. Congrats again, David.

The other night I was staying in. At least that was a plan. Then the text from my buddy Eagle Eye comes in. Mike, we've got the games on. I say, yeah. I grab a pack of Miller Lite and immediately my plan's gone. Now it's playoff basketball. Every possession feels huge. Baseballs on another screen and I somehow care about that too. Everybody's got takes flying. Nobody's watching just one thing and we're all way more into it than we ever expected. It was one of those nights that you take a sip, you look around and you think, yeah, this was the right move. That's why I reach for Miller Lite. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brewed for taste with simple ingredients, just 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. The original light beer since 1975. And it still hits different. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

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Dan Levitard. Tatas.

Stugatz.

Tatas.

This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz. So we were just talking a few— we were just— and yes, the whole crew. All right, we congratulated you the other day. Now I'm congratulating David. All right, that's all.

I'm here.

All right, yeah, but I don't need to congratulate you every day.

So, Zaz, I did some reading on this. I did. And the truth is, you do have to congratulate him every time you see him.

All right.

So it turns out it's like when you win an Academy Award, you're always known as Academy Award winner. Whenever you walk, whenever you're introduced, whenever you walk into a room, hey, it's Jon Kottos, an Academy Award winner. Amin El-Hassan, now Pulitzer Prize-winning podcaster. That's just part of his nom de plume. So anytime he walks in the studio, you have to say that.

Wow. Thank you, David. But that's the kind of grace that I would expect from a fellow Pulitzer Prize winner. You know, some of the lesser accomplished people, they don't know these etiquettes. Yeah.

David, you may have heard we were talking about the World Cup and the lack of ticket sales, uh, all of these games. There's a lot of tickets available for most of these World Cup games that are starting up soon, and it had me think of something that you told us last week where we asked you which would would, you know, a baseball team rather have, which would the owner rather have? Would you rather one person at a game and the price of the ticket was $100, or would you rather 100 people at the game and the price was $1? And your answer, despite, you know, more people means more concessions, your answer was you'd rather have the one person paying $100. So I wonder, like, does any of that line of thinking apply to what's going on here with the World Cup, where the tickets are so, so, so expensive?

Well, keep in mind, as part of the RFP process, a request for proposal, when you're a bid city, part of your bid package includes what the ticket prices are going to be, like when you bid for an All-Star Game or when you are doing a postseason manual in Major League Baseball where you are giving baseball what the prices will be for every seat in your stadium for every round of the playoffs from wildcard through World Series. And then those prices get agreed to and there's no changing them. But there's something deeper going on here. The reason why you're seeing a lag in ticket sales is not because of the price. It's that when you make the assumption, much like the Las Vegas A's are assuming they will get 7,000 tourists to every game, which is obvious total horseshockey, what World Cup did is they assumed a level of foreign tourism that has ended up not happening. And that manifests itself with hotel occupancy rates going up, meaning no one's staying in hotels, and with ticket sales going down. Why? People are not looking forward to coming to the US because they're worried. They're worried about what's going on with immigration.

They're worried about what will happen in terms of security. It is not the perfect storm that was hoped to have existed when North America was granted the World Cup. And I think that they're going to have to sit in it because I don't know what's going to change between now and July. But obviously you can lower ticket prices, but that will not change people's view about coming to the US.

We're a month away. It takes time to travel from abroad to the United States, get those plans in line, make sure you're all clear. It's not really at the drop of a hat type of thing where you can come to the United States if you're from one of these other countries. You mentioned the A's, David, and tell me what's right here. There is internet conjecture that suggests one of the great brands in baseball— I love their uniform sets— one of the great names in baseball, the Athletics. Las Vegas may turn its back on this branding, and I don't know what to believe here. Internet has found LLCs with different team names. The rumor that's spreading online is a lot like what happened with the Utah Mammoths. Smith, where initially they were the Utah Yeti, but they couldn't trademark the name Yeti, so they went in another direction. What's true here? Can they trademark this name?

So they've not been able to yet. They've not been able to prove to the court that the Athletics are a name that can be trademarked within the Las Vegas area because it's not specific enough, because they're not doing business there. And one of the criteria for getting the use of a name is, are you doing something in the area with that name? That would take away any customer confusion about what your business is. Las Vegas Athletics. If you ask a random person on the street, is that a gym? Is that— is that a hotel? Is that a casino? What is that? There are people who don't know that there is a baseball stadium being built and that will be a baseball team. So, A, they didn't get it pre-cleared. So, B, they've got to be prepared for all sorts of eventualities. Is it still possible? Remember, the ruling from the court was today we're not granting it. They didn't talk about tomorrow. They talked about today. And as the stadium gets built and as they get a stronger foothold in Las Vegas, do more business there. And I don't mean, you know, endorsing Little League games and, you know, selling tickets.

I mean doing business. They could get that name trademarked. Will it be too late? I guess we're going to wait to see. But it's something that's never talked about in sports business, but it's a huge part of it. By the way, Mike, there's an entire department at MLB that does trademark clearance stuff.

Wouldn't that stand as a major failure and an embarrassing one for, for Manfred and company? This is an enduring brand, Athletics. It didn't start in Oakland, it was in Kansas City and otherwise. How— I mean, that doesn't sound like much of a case.

I'm not a—

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, I'm not an attorney. But I mean, it seems like this would be a pretty straightforward case, right? Like, well, we didn't just create this name. It's been around for 100-plus years.

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear when you look at relocated teams, when you look, the Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers. The New Orleans Jazz became the Utah Jazz. For crying out loud, the Vancouver Grizzlies are the Memphis Grizzlies. There has been cases where teams move and keep their name, and there have been cases where teams move and change their name. The Washington Nationals are not the Montreal Expos. And so you have to really be on top of the legal part of this. And did MLB anticipate this ruling by the panel? My guess is they did not. But once it came down, they were able to pivot both in terms of how to establish that you're doing business in Vegas, but also making sure that you're covered by coming up with some other names. And that's what happened in Utah as well. Uh, Mike.

David, the Philadelphia 76ers of course went down 2 games to none to New York last night. The next game, Game 3, is in Philadelphia. Joel Embiid at the end of last series against Boston pleaded with Sixers fans not to sell their tickets to Knicks fans, that they need to make sure they have the great home court advantage. Uh, he said if they need the money that he'll take care of them. I don't know what that means, but the Sixers, they have done the move where they restrict being able to buy the tickets to a certain area code. What is, you know, to keep the New York fans away from being able to even buy the tickets. David, what do you make of that practice?

Well, tomorrow night you're going to find out that that practice does not work. And in Miami, you guys know this, uh, we, we were the inventors, all of us in Miami, of trying to keep out foreign people because we wanted any semblance of a home court advantage. My man, if you close—

I'm sorry, my man, keeping out foreign people. Love it.

If you— well, I'm talking about non-Miamians, obviously. So people who don't like the Dolphins or the Marlins, but I'm talking about— if you close your eyes and go to a Dolphins-Jets game, you know what the story is. You know that you don't know where the game's being played. So what you do is you restrict zip codes on the ticketing sites. To only local zip codes. And what we also know is it doesn't work. Joel Embiid got very bad advice. Well, so luckily it's not a legal contract. He doesn't have to pay anyone opportunity cost for what they could have sold it versus what they do sell their tickets for. That was a funny, nice gesture. But tomorrow night there will be a lot of Knicks fans.

How about that? You know, there are some venues like the Clippers do this, I believe, you know, the Clippers in their new— in the Intuit Dome. The, the wall, you know, behind one of the baskets. I think you, you're only allowed to cheer for the Clippers. You're, you're, you're like not allowed to cheer for the visiting team. Do I have that right?

I mean, that is, that is correct, Jonathan.

I'd like to ask Mike this in terms of football, uh, the supporter sections. Can you sit in a supporter section if you're rooting for the other soccer team?

I know you can. It's very difficult.

It's very difficult because the other fans will get angry at you.

Yeah, dude, it's a dangerous thing. I've walked into opposing stadiums like the first time I watched a game in England. I was wearing— I went to see Chelsea play at Watford and I was wearing a little blue and security told me to cover that up.

Wow.

It's still football, America. Let's refer to it as soccer when we're within these United States. I'm sorry to be an ugly American.

Dan Lebatard.

Go pee pee.

Stugatz.

Go pee pee.

This is the Dan Lebatard Show with the Stugatz. I don't know if you remember, there was a time down here with the Panthers when that snake oil salesman Michael Yormark was the CEO, where they made one of the, uh, one of the goals, behind one of the goals, there was a section there, only Panther fans. You're not allowed to wear gear of another team. You're not allowed to cheer for the other team. That obviously did not work.

That's sad for those teams that can't control their fan base or not, don't have a passionate enough fan base. To keep out visitors.

I mean, in England in particular, they have this ugly history of hooliganism. And I saw— I went to a rather famous Manchester City-Liverpool match that ended up deciding the championship that year. And I was in like a posh part of the stadium. I was in the hospitality lounge, and there was a gentleman who was not wearing Liverpool red, and he was just sitting in a section adjacent to—

So you turned his lights out?

The hospitality— no, I was there. I'm a Chelsea guy, so I was just there to appreciate the the soccer, and this guy like did one of these, like a little fist pump after something good happened in the match for Liverpool. Damn near got his ass kicked. Like, it was rough. Everybody was yelling at him just because he gave like a little subtle like fist bump as something happened. So while I think it's a little overblown, I've seen it happen.

So, you know, guys, this is not unique to England. It just happened the other day that someone outside of Busch Stadium in St. Louis got attacked. You've seen what happens in Los Angeles.

Yeah, I saw a Yankee fan get attacked recently. That went viral.

It's not cool.

After Game 1 of Knicks-Sixers, there's a guy walking around with like an Embiid jersey and he got— he got mobbed.

That's not cool.

I'm gonna tell you, like, real talk, when I worked for the Knicks, uh, at the same time there's this guy, he played professionally in Greece, and I remember the first game we went to, like, when we first started that week He was floored that he saw people with like Bulls jerseys on because the Bulls were in town. He was floored. He's like, what's going to happen? I'm like, nothing. He's like, what do you mean nothing's going to happen? Because in his, you know, experience— murder.

Yeah.

If you went to Panathinaikos with like an Olympiacos jersey, you are— no, no, death wish.

Violence. It's absolutely— it is. It is. And look, there have been a couple of high-profile incidents here in the United States. I think even like Famously, there was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that was brought into court as an alibi. But largely, you can go into an opposing stadium. We did it at MSG for the Panthers, New York Rangers during the Eastern Conference Finals. You can rep your team and you'll have some banter, but you won't— it won't— most of the time, a vast majority of the time, it won't accelerate to like this physical confrontation.

I remember I went to the Miami game.

Yeah, you were repping Georgia Tech.

And I was wearing Georgia Tech.

People were giving you guff?

But most of the people around me were good-natured. There was one guy who got drunk and like tried to start something, but everyone else kind of like said, "Chill." Yeah.

Not something that can happen abroad.

I would say you have to be smart though, because I wore a Knick jersey to Game 7 in Houston in 1994, and I will never forget when we lost the game, I took the jersey off to walk out of the stadium as the Rockets were celebrating their championship, because it just— I didn't want any problems. Obviously, I'm not— I wasn't big at the time. And then again in San Antonio in '99, lost a game, took the jersey off because why invite it? I don't, I don't appreciate that it has to be that way, but it's sort of understanding your surroundings. If you know that there could be an issue, my view of it is that it's your responsibility to not put yourself in a position to have an issue. And I'm not victim blaming. Don't make that that. I'm saying situational awareness in life is generally a good thing.

Samson, how— what— you went to how many Finals games? How are you getting these tickets?

I, I was very lucky. I went to every game in 1994, all 7 games of the Finals, and I went to all the games in '99 in San Antonio and in New York. I just was a lucky season ticket holder who was able to secure tickets on the road as well. And I was with the Knicks and Spike Lee in, in Houston. They took all of us, the families, to a rodeo in Houston. I'd never been to a rodeo before. When you're there for the, for the games 1 and 2. So it was, it was fun to be a part of it. And this was before I was in baseball. I was just a huge, huge fan. And that was when I had my first dose of, wow, don't, don't meet your hero, because I got a chance to have Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley in a hotel hallway. It was just me and my friend, and I saw them and I just wanted to say hello and say good luck tonight. It was Game 7. They were just sitting in the hallway talking. And they were both very grumpy. And I said to my friend, oh God, we're not going to win, are we?

Of course, it didn't occur to me that Starks would go 2 for 18, but all I wanted was like a, yeah, thanks for coming to Houston. Let's go, New York, go, New York, go. And all I got was like, up yours.

I think that is a— that's a great life lesson from David Sampson. I said it earlier in the show. You got to live in the world that as it exists, not the one you want. And if your team loses, there's a weird psychological or sociological thing that happens.

You—

the fans don't attack visiting fans wearing jerseys and otherwise unless their team wins. It's like a gut punch. If it goes— if the visitors gut punch your heroes down on the field, the people in the stands are also feeling that emotionally, and they just sort of, uh, they just sort of walk out of the stadium. When they win. Now they're imbued with reflected powers and they attack it. Good for you to take that jersey off. I said at the, the, uh, the game the Steelers beat the Ravens, the odd-a title game, there was a loudmouth right in front of us with a Ray Lewis jersey on the whole game, and he was talking stuff when it looked like the Ravens were going to win. As soon as Troy Polamalu pick-sixed him, I got in his ear and I was like, I would turn that stuff down, man. I would take the jersey off.

Because you were being sincere.

I was. I was like, I would not continue cheering and talking crap now because the tide has turned and you're going to— you are going to get a whipping if you don't take that jersey off. He listened.

Look at that.

Like a real humanitarian.

Great empath. How many times I have to tell you?

Hold on.

The guy took off his jersey.

He had to.

No, no. You got to keep that on.

I like the idea of Dave Dameshek being like the quiet, menacing guy. Like, I'd take that off if I was—

Yeah. Hey, Jens, all these Jens around here is not going to like you wearing that Ray Lewis jersey. I would take it off, dude. That's my advice to you, David.

How do you feel? How do you think that management in Boston hears what Jaylen Brown has been saying the last couple of days, specifically when he talks about this year being his favorite year? Because I would imagine management, this was not their favorite year.

I'd have to believe that they know their player. And so when we'd have players out in public doing certain things, very rarely were we surprised because you live with the player every single day. Do I think that Brad Stevens woke up and said, wait a minute, Jaylen Brown Brown's doing a Twitch livestream. I highly doubt that that was his first experience with Jaylen Brown doing that. When Jaylen Brown starts going after the referees, if I'm the president of the team, I'm calling him up and saying, dude, get your checkbook out, you're about to get fined. And he ended up getting fined $50K. I get it. It's just emotional for him. He was doing it without Tatum for most of the year. Tatum comes back, they continue to do well, and then they just you know, live and die by the way they were built and what they did. But for me, I look back at the year of the Celtics and say, what a success for their front office. It's a team that could have easily decided to give in with the way they cut payroll and had the Jayson Tatum injury. But instead, look at how competitive they were throughout the season and up through 7 games against Philly.

So I sort of take it with a grain of salt. I'm certainly not going to make transactional decisions based on a Twitch stream one day after a Game 7 loss by any stretch, but I am gonna look around the league and say, hey, we're not good enough, so we have to make changes.

Hey David, real quick, back to something you were talking about 20 minutes ago. Mike was talking about the athletics in Vegas and all of that. If this all winds up with it being a bust once they do open that ballpark, I'm surprised to hear you say that, that they're not going to get foot traffic. Of the tourists. I don't think that would work in a destination city like Miami or Los Angeles, but that's because they're more sprawling. Everything in Vegas is right there. They're not going to just standardly get a bunch of people from around America and beyond walking into that yard.

Yeah, so baseball is different. You know, you can build the stadium and have the Raiders play 7 games, 8, 9 games there, and people will come to Vegas when their team is playing on the road. And they'll say, all right, it's a weekend, let's go. But when you're talking about a Tuesday game against Colorado in July, you're not going to go to Vegas for that game. And also, there's just way— there's 10 times more home games. It was unrealistic the minute it was presented to the public, the minute it was presented to Major League Baseball. But the reason why baseball turned their head to the fact that Oakland won't work in Vegas is that, A, A, they were so upset for being last into Vegas, and B, they had to take care of the Oakland situation so they could get to the real money, which is an expansion. So they got to take care of Oakland and Tampa in order to get to 32 teams, which is when the owners will cash the expansion check. And so you turn your head to an assumption that ends up being wrong. By the way, guys, it happened in Miami.

We had an assumption that our attendance would be way higher than it, than it was, and it's been because we assumed that it was a roof that would make the difference. And it ended up not being the case whether I'm there or not there. But at the time the stadium was being built, baseball wanted to get rid of Miami as a problem, get a new ballpark, move on to the next problem. And that's really how sports leagues look at these situations.

David, what have you watched recently? You have a review for us?

I do. I've been watching the Untold series and I want to talk about the death and life, life of Lamar Odom.

Wow.

It's 76 minutes. It was an hour and 16 minutes about Lamar Odom. I had totally forgotten about what happened. I had remembered that he was in some sort of brothel and that he almost died. I'd forgotten totally if I ever knew that he had a reality show with one of the Kardashians who was his wife. I didn't know all the craziness that happened after he was unconscious in the brothel from a binge. I didn't know where he was today or what he was doing. I didn't know he had other kids. I didn't know anything about his situation. And I found it to be compelling in its unbelievable sadness as someone who spent decades around athletes who are deified by so many. And it turns out a majority of them are just struggling like the rest of us and trying to figure it out because money doesn't buy the end to your problems. And so Lamar Odom had addiction problems and money didn't change that. He had fame. Money, and it still didn't change the addiction issues. And he's, you know, what a story for him. He's still alive and he sounds great. He looks great.

But his life, what could have been with him— and you guys know him from The Heat— it's just totally different than the script he thought. And this Untold, much better than The Jail Blazers. This Untold is worth your time.

David, it's funny because years ago I did a podcast with Pulitzer Prize winner Pablo Torre, and he had just written a feature about James Harden, who's with the Rockets, and at that time his girlfriend was Khloe Kardashian. And so we were talking about the effects of kind of celebrity and addiction and all these things, and it was what, to this day, probably the best podcast episode I've ever done up until the one where I won a Pulitzer Prize. And, uh, the haunted hotel was great too. The haunted hotel one was great. Then they ESPN pulled the episode off the site 15 minutes after it was on. And we were like, "Why?" They said, "Well, 'cause you guys made light of alcoholism." I said, "No, we didn't make light of it. We were trying to illustrate how pervasive it is, not only with players, but with staffers, with the media. Everyone around sports pretty much has a substance abuse problem by the definition of, you know, the medical definition." Well, guess what happened an hour after they pulled that episode down? Lamar Odom hospitalized on his deathbed. Had they kept it up, we would have probably had a crazy relevant, greatly done episode with two future Pulitzer Prize winners.

But ESPN, in their imminent wisdom, of course—

He almost died, but Amin is the victim. That's right.

David, always good to see you. Nothing Personal with David Sampson, weekdays wherever you get your podcasts, of course, and on DraftKings Network. Great job, David. Thank you. There you go.

All right, children and millions of dollars left behind. Yeah, but how about all the downloads I could have had?

I could have been a star, I say. Oh, but also, I love this week. You know, it's Thursday, we're not done with the week, but this week one of my favorite things that's been happening is that we do an interview, we get done with the interview, Zazz sends the subject on. All right, thanks a lot. That was David Sampson. And then we still have time on the clock and he just has—

it's all right.

Ah, that's like, I've got nothing.

All right, great job.

About a half minute.

I'd rather not go on.

Maybe tease our next segment.

Someone else. This is the end of the live hour, right?

Everybody else is showing up.

Somebody says something about firefighters.

I'm kind of hungry. You?

Very good. Nice.

I'm a cook. Have you heard from your sister-in-law?

Nope.

Has word gotten to her?

Her husband may have told her yesterday.

Is he pillow talker?

The other night I was staying in. At least that was the plan. Then the text from my buddy Eagle Eye comes in. Mike, we've got the games on. I say, yeah. I grab a pack of Miller Lite and immediately my plan's gone. Now it's playoff basketball. Every possession feels huge. Baseballs on another screen, and I, I somehow care about that too. Everybody's got takes flying. Nobody's watching just one thing, and we're all way more into it than we ever expected. It was one of those nights that you take a sip, you look around, and you think, yeah, this was the right move. That's why I reach for Miller Lite. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brewed for taste with simple ingredients. Just 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. The original light beer since 1975. And it still hits different. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.