Transcript of Pablo Torre Is At It Again | Local Hour

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Natürlich an den Autobahnraststätten von Surways und Tank Rast. Hol dir unser super Sommerangebot: ne leckere Currywurst mit Pommes für nur 7,99 €. 99. Ja, du hörst richtig, nur 7,99 €. Da lohnt sich die Pause. An allen TenniNen Autobahnraststätten. Infos zur Teilnahme unter raststätten.de. Does this one deserve that? I'm not sure if this one deserves—

We got another one.

The— Yeah, we got another one last night.

Another one.

Get with the program, man.

Uh, I want to, uh, you guys are all equity stakeholders in Metal Ark Media, correct? Everyone here has, uh, equity stake in Metal Ark Media, so you know the business that we're in? Like, do you understand what Pablo is doing, uh, how it's good for business and how it's dangerous for business? Do you guys understand the dangerous for business part? No, no, I only get the good part. The dangerous part does not follow me. So Pablo released another episode yesterday, and I will say that Amin has had very few days professionally as good as the one he did yesterday, because of course he was extraordinary here, but then he was on with Pablo at night and was better. What those guys are doing is drawing a crowd because they're the only ones that have some information They're telling stories that are interesting, dramatic, making some of their watchers, their viewers mad because at the end of the episode they're teasing stuff. Pablo is teasing this story episode to episode and a lot of people are complaining this is too much, but at the end, hey, surprise, spoiler alert, and there are no, uh, you know, great things being done for people who were promised great things because we've got some sort of alleged side deal.

It was a very Game of Thrones-esque thing because this all— this whole episode started from an Easter egg that came in the very first episode of this Kwai Aspiration thing, which is the LLC KL2 Aspire RIFC. And at the time we mentioned it on that episode, but we never kind of further discussed it. We were focused on other things.

But here's the thing, I mean, about what you, Samson, and Pablo are doing. You guys are so in the weeds on how it is you've won this Pulitzer because you care about all of the smallest of little dramatic details because you're really seeing the underbelly of how dirty things can be done, and they're fascinated by it. Pablo is basically around a campfire surprising Amin and David with stories, and they're hard to surprise. They're executives. They're cynical. Like, they're— they are not naive human beings, and Pablo is placing journalistic fact after journalistic fact in front of them in a way that has them along for the ride too. But you're too deep in the weeds. I mean, I think a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, another, another another episode. The people who care care deeply, but the people who don't also dislike it deeply, which is weird to me.

Like, you could do an episode on cricket and I probably wouldn't care. You know how I know I wouldn't care? I just wouldn't respond to it. But this thing, to me, it's not even the people who don't care, it's the people who are upset. Like, why is Pablo in everybody's business? I'm like, do you not understand how journalism works? Do you not want to know the truth of what rich people are doing behind our backs? Do you not want the information, or do you want the information filtered and delivered to you through a mainstream lens that is very careful, protective of different stakeholders in the way that we were talking about the other day with the NFL?

You answered your own question when you said, do you not understand how journalism works? The answer to that is no, we don't understand, and also very often, and I don't care, and I don't like it. But the crowds that gather around Pablo, that's an entirely different audience that's saying, no, I crave more of this, this sounds more like the truth than anything I'm getting in the mainstream. And Pablo's replaced entities that have alphabet letters as their signature in terms of mainstream. This is the guy you go to when you want to find something out. That's crazy that he's done that in 2 years. You know how hard credibility is to come by? And he's passed other people on. No, when you want to know something, you got to go to this guy. He's got more truth than the others. That's nuts to be winning at that trough.

It's an impressive thing when you go from noun to verb. When you become a standard thing. And I know that this is— we're Metal Ark Media and this is, you know, really blowing smoke up our own asses here. But you know how like you could Google something, right? That's actually at the tail end of Pablo. When we say Pablo, that can't smell good from a million miles away. That trail, smoke, that trail in the Pablo sounder is just us blowing smoke up our own asses. But you know how like Zoom became a verb? And Google became a verb. Hey, Pablo's kind of doing that.

How about TiVo?

Yeah. Hey, let me TiVo that. You boomer ass.

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Pablo Torre is at it again, and his Pulitzer Prize-winning teammates Amin El-Hassan and David Samson are riding next to him in the chariot on a story they are way out in front of. Pablo will join us in 10 minutes. It would appear— the appearances are, dramatic or otherwise— that there is another kawaii side deal that runs through Rhode Island, Rwanda, housing developments that aren't being built for the underprivileged, and an assortment of other things that will outrage people when they get the details. And it seems like this is just one of many upcoming installments Okay, so that part, because I am not outraged.

This just seems on the surface in this one episode, and I don't want to kind of fall for it and don't want to put myself out there, but in the things that I've seen, to me on the surface, and it wasn't resolved in this episode, that this just seems like a normal side investment from a dude with a lot of disposable income. I don't, I don't know the tie to this entire story.

Oh, it ties to the governor of— it ties local news and the governor of Rhode Island.

I saw that. I saw the local news thing with the governor of Rhode Island, and I was like, okay, but where— I'm lost on this.

Let me set it up for the audience so it can be less lost on what the details here are on something they may not have viewed last night, uh, because he did this last night with Ameen and David Samson. And what was interesting to me, as someone who's running a business with you guys, and you guys have equity in what our business is, I'm watching the crowds go gather because they want this information from a source that they know is going to be doing it credibly. As a journalist, and I'm watching people gather being like, holy shit, this is thorough. And what's happening with this story as it grows over time, because Pablo is now in the business of modernizing the old newsroom, he's telling this story because he's got it. He's got this story, and now he can tell it over an assortment of different episodes dramatically so that he's leaving you with a cliffhanger at the end of this one in a way that's making the viewers mad and is bringing even Amin and Sampson, savvy business people, along for the ride when they're like, wait, this is outlandish. So, I mean, just get people caught up.

For those who are saying this isn't enough, Pablo, this isn't enough of a gotcha, I want more here. Get people caught up on why I think that yesterday you had one of your best days. Not because of what you did here, though it was great, but on this show you were great because you're advancing how this story is being told.

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing with this Kawhi Leonard story is it's very layered, and there's a lot of stuff going on, and in any given episode, we're going through so many documents and mentioning so many things that it's easy to move on and move on with what appears to be, quote-unquote, the main thing and not really give any two thoughts about these other little things. I love Game of Thrones, I love Star Wars. What I love about both of those shows, or those, those vehicles, is that they'll have things that are— that feel like an offhanded reference. Like someone walks by, oh, there goes old Zazz, and that's it. Like, oh, it's just some, some side character. But in reality, there's a massive backstory to that person, and one way or another, we will dig deep and find out. A great example of this is Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is about this guy named Ser Duncan, right? What a show. But in Game of Thrones Season 1 they mention him, where like Joffrey's looking through a book, like, two whole pages on Sir Duncan the Tall.

Ophie Amateur Knight.

Right? So, so this idea that like what felt like a throwaway line, just like him musing at something written in a book, there's actually a whole backstory about this dude. So in the same way, we're doing the story about Kawhi and aspiration and the Clippers.

Like the Odyssey.

Sure, like the Odyssey.

What a movie.

The ultimate spinoff, right?

That's correct.

Was it the first one? The Iliad.

Then The Odyssey, and there's a bunch of spin-offs. Yeah, like you watch Troy and you're like, hey, that's Odysseus.

Yeah, what Amin is saying is someone who comes from basketball Illuminati and always telling you to keep your third eye open is they'll give you an Easter egg in the 12th episode that answers a question you have from the first because he's got the ribbons on this story. And it's a really interesting story that he's going to keep telling. He's going to be on with us here in 5 minutes. But what you guys did last night specifically, I mean Where's the gotcha? Because we don't have time for all the storytelling. We don't have time for all the true crime podcasts to, you know, put a flourish on it. Where's the gotcha?

So Pablo's gonna be on in a few minutes with us, and I would love for you guys to ask him that question. For me, my feeling— and again, I know less than Pablo, obviously, because he's the ringmaster, he's got all the information. We also had a bunch of stuff that didn't make the final episode, and I never know, is this because time constraints, or is this because, you know, we have lawyers in the room telling us, hey, journalistically you can't say this because that leaves us liable? So I can't answer that question fully because I don't know what I'm allowed to and not allowed to say, but I know Pablo is.

The thing that I wanted to ask you guys, and I don't know if the audience is interested in this— you guys don't seem to be terribly interested in this.

The gambits are usually a little bit more compelling. Yeah, and I like— I'm not gonna put myself out there and say this is a nothing burger, this one's kind of lame, because I, I'm familiar with how Pablo has operated. But usually the, the, the gambit is more compelling and more of, uh, there could be something here. So far I don't really see where the, the there is there.

The suspicion is in, hey, this guy created this LLC around the same time where the— all the Aspiration thing had fallen apart. And an LLC, which was, I guess, a vehicle for investment in this random team on the other side of the country. But they didn't say anything about it. He— again, there's all this shroud of secrecy around Kawhi's involvement. And by the way, the weirdest connection ever, his own teammate, who was only his teammate for that particular season, was also involved in it, and he got like the big hoopla.

Hold on a second though. I mean, you're getting so deep into the weeds on some of this stuff and going full NBA nerd on caring who the player is.

But I think that speaks to my, my issue. Like, you have to go deep in the weeds because on the surface level, there, there isn't something here. Maybe I know too much about soccer, but if you're looking to make money with Rhode Island FC, get out.

That's the point.

And the, the other And I didn't say the player's name, by the way, Dan. You say, "Oh, you're going too deep." I'm like, "No, I'm not." Because it doesn't matter what the player's name is. It's not a secret. It's Daniel Tice. But the idea is that this guy who is a journeyman who played one season with Kawhi Leonard his entire career happened to be an investor in the same team at the same time in the one season that they played together.

I mean—

And they announced it, but they didn't announce Kawhi?

Circumstantial evidence is not evidence, and you guys being fascinated by the dramatics in that is less interesting than— and I'm going to put this in plain terms before he comes on because I believe the mainstream media is covering this very poorly, at least in part because it has so many layers that it can only be covered well if you are so thorough that you seem to have more information than the law firm that's investigating this, not independently as the NBA keeps saying it is independent, okay? The thing that Pablo's building the bridge to here, and it can still be alleged and it is not proof, proof, proven in a court of law proof, but he's got a lot of things around around here that feel like smoking evidence that if you're predisposed to believe that Pablo is ethical and credible, he seems to have some angles to some things here that make it seem like the way you go when aspiration money disappears is where can we find a place to put it? Is Rhode Island a place that we can give Kawhi a side deal where he can get some money? That's not been proven, but there's just a trail there.

Look, Pablo's going to join us and make me feel plenty stupid. I don't need it from you too. And also it's circumstantial that Daniel Tice played professional basketball in the New England area and he's European. If anybody's gonna invest in soccer, it's that idiot.

Chris, what were your thoughts?

I didn't watch it yet. Bowling night.

Circumstantial evidence, you guys say that like it's a negative thing, and if this were a criminal court, yeah, circumstantial evidence is not evidence. However, this isn't criminal court, right? If it was civil court Circumstances limit us, is it?

All I'm saying, it's like 100 times more likely that Daniel Tice would invest in a New England area soccer team than Kawhi Leonard.

But the problem with what I think Amin is doing, okay, and maybe it's not a problem, the NBA dorks are dorking out on this and the mystery dorks are dorking out on this because they've got this playground where only they've got the information that isn't being disseminated anywhere else. In fact, the media is covering it so poorly, and I want to ask this of Pablo too. I'm reading a story with sources yesterday from ESPN.com that says, hey, Kawhi investigation might not be over till 2027. I'm like, these people are not actually really reporting on any of this.

So is he going to be a Raptor or not?

Yeah, who does Brandon Ingram play for? Like, this— at the center of this, you have it being covered so poorly everywhere else because it's complicated and it is hard to have lawyers vetting stuff because you don't want to make any of these rich people take you to court when they have more money than you. That's the business we're in. It's the danger of doing what Pablo's doing. I don't think you guys are aware of it. Like, I don't feel like You guys understand the danger of what Pablo's doing. If you get it wrong with one of these giant rich people, they will throw an avalanche of attorneys at you and bury you in the mess.

I'm familiar. You explain it to me damn near every day.

Also, Pablo's the one in danger. I'm not. I'm fine, right?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

It's a RICO thing.

It's a RICO?

All of us. Wait a second.

Tony, you're in on this now. I haven't said a damn thing. We're all pulling something.

I support Kawhi.

That's how Dan sweetened the pot. He's like, hey, you want to pull it, Sir Tony?

Yep, we all did. Journalistic crime fiction.

Welcome to the class.

That's why he was handing it out to everybody. That's right, Chris, you're a Pulitzer winner.

That's right, we're all in the— look, it's all our responsibility.

I'm not here to be deposed.

It is. You guys got an equity stake. What do you think it means?

That I get the good stuff, not the bad stuff.

In fact, I don't—

I—

yeah, it's a nothing burger.

I don't think Pablo thinks that I'm a Pulitzer Prize winner.

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Dan Levitar. What is the worst part of the life?

Jonathan Sassalo. The worst part of the life of what?

This is the Dan Levitar Show. Okay, Pablo's on with us now. We've got a lot to cover here with him, and he is milking the story. Some people are mad at you, Pablo, for the way you ended the episode. Like maximum drama, but also like, give me the journalism, journalism boy. Give me all the journalism, not just some of it now and some of it later. You're pulling dramatic flair out of this story. And I wanna go over the particulars with you, but I don't wanna lose my audience either because already we've talked about this enough. And once we get into the details of this, the way that you and Ameen care about this is so deep and it's feeding an audience that is very hungry for it. But it doesn't seem to be our crew here. They're tired of episodes.

Hi, good morning. I'd like to formally begin by disavowing whatever it is you guys have discussed already today. I have no idea what you said. I have nothing to do with it. I'd also like to detach from whatever the discourse has been. The episode we did, though, is best consumed in the way that the chef, the chefs, our entire staff— we worked so long on this— intended. So I don't want to just rehash the whole episode. I think you really need to watch it, not just because I need to send my daughter to first grade next year, but also because I think that's the best way to actually get why we're telling the story. It is funny though, big picture, Dan, to be simultaneously the guy who is throwing anything at the wall, allegedly, but also being way too restrained here. Like, accuse them of cap circumvention. And I'm like, no, we're telling you the story that we can responsibly and journalistically present to the public. The story fundamentally of the public interest, we partner with a local news organization in, spoiler alert, the state of Rhode Island investigating the sitting governor of a US state.

That happens in the story. We talk about the housing crisis. We talk about promises of affordable housing using public money that have not, spoiler alert, come to any sort of completion. And also the way that this is all told along the spine of why in the hell Does Kawhi Leonard, whenever you investigate his business dealings along the timeline of his extensions with the Clippers, why the hell do you wind up always seemingly finding yourself talking about these alleged self-presenting good guys like Aspiration, like Fortuitous Partners that promise we're gonna save the world and deliver—

Benevolent, benevolent.

Benevolent.

They're choosing the words. Let's examine some of this, okay? It is a work of art. It's a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of art, and it is a story for today where sports, you know, becomes America's story. And you guys are telling me that this guy as a journalist isn't going gotcha enough when the latest episode has at the end, what do you mean they didn't build any houses for the impoverished? And we're just so numb to shame at this point that that's not gotcha enough on what do you mean they didn't build any houses? Nah, that's the way people do business. Around the salary cap? Around Kawhi Leonard? So, uh, Pablo, what are the most incriminating details here? Because, um, you do make, uh, not a lot of leaps, but there are links there that aren't, uh, quite provable. And so there are more questions that people have based on, uh, what you're led to infer by the reporting.

Yeah, I mean, fundamentally, why is it that there is yet another deal with Kawhi Leonard in which the whole notion of why you're in business with a superstar athlete is to announce it, is to market it, is to have him say, I'm a part of this ownership group, a second-tier soccer team in the state of Rhode Island. Much like in parallel to Aspiration, why would you sign a guy to a $28 million contract to be an endorser of a company, but you never announce the endorsement and he never does anything? Why is it that this is happening again? Literally the LLCs Kawhi started, KL2 RIFC LLC and KR, excuse me, KL2 RIFC Real Estate LLC, two LLCs formed the week before he signs a submax extension with the Clippers when he is, and this is important, still owed millions of dollars that have never come his way that he was contractually obligated from the Aspiration deal. Why is it? Why is it that this is also another secret arrangement? And why, when you ask everybody involved, the team, Kawhi, Kawhi's representatives, the governor of Rhode Island who greenlit the stadium deal for the team, the owner of the team, the Clippers, the marketing agency that brought apparently the governor of Rhode Island into the Intuit Dome for the home season opener sitting next to the owner of the soccer team.

This marketing agency, which is the marketing agency that is running the partnership between the Clippers and the jersey patch sponsor Visit Rwanda that replaced Aspiration, because Aspiration of course collapses in a heap of fraudulence and bankruptcy. Why is it that none of these people can answer a straight question? Why are none of them telling what would only resemble to a reasonable person anything approaching the truth? That's what we're asking. Why is it so hard to explain any of this?

All right. So like all investments, you make an investment to make money. But I don't know how much you know about lower-tier professional soccer in the United States of America. There's not a lot of money to be made. So how does Kawhi and company allegedly make money from this deal?

It's a great question, and it has to do with the stadium deal. So when Brett Johnson, the head of Fortuitous Partners, and again, there's a whole bunch of good guy sounding names, Benevolent, Fortuitous, those are his two entities. But Fortuitous Partners is running the build of a new stadium in the state of Rhode Island. And this is a multi— I mean, this is a 9-figure operation to build a stadium. And at first he promises only private money. Money. Then he pivots to actually, we need your private money, we need your public money, we need taxpayers to help fund it. And the thesis of it, Mike, because it's a very good question, is we're not just going to build this stadium for an obscure soccer team. We're going to build housing, we're going to build an entertainment complex. This is a real estate deal. This is not merely equity in a soccer team. Brett Johnson, the owner of RIFC, is talking on tape that we play in the episode about $1 billion of investment flowing into the state of Rhode Island. Now, whether he will ever deliver on that is a very good question, which we did so many public records requests over the last 10 months to help try and triangulate.

But what I can tell you is that the promises and the pledge and the marketing around why do you need taxpayer money to build a stadium answers the question that Mike is asking. It's because this is not merely a soccer team. This is about You're talking about revitalizing an entire American city that is also suffering from, according to local reporting, our partners at WPRI, according to them, this is a housing crisis that is unparalleled in the United States. And so it's all of that money that you then access. It's not merely I'm a part owner in a random soccer team. It's this is a land deal. And that's why this is so interesting to me.

Okay. It's one of the reasons it's interesting. I don't know how much more is there over subsequent episodes, I have a lot of questions for you, Pablo. One of them, the report yesterday that led from sources that this Kawhi investigation might take the NBA now until 2027. What's that story?

I mean, it's funny that ESPN drops that story hours after we publish our first, like, hey, we're doing a new Kawhi episode tonight. You might want to tune in. And truly the day after we make requests to all of the people that I mentioned in that laundry list of individuals, everybody knew that that episode we published last night was coming because we asked for comment from everybody. And so what does ESPN publish? They publish a 'this may take a while, guys,' that till 2027 story hours before they— I suppose the whole audience that might be listening to me before they get to know what's actually happening. And so I am not going to get into the minds of ESPN and the NBA in this regard. I just know that they fear at the league office, which is talking to Wachtell every single day about what the findings are. League office at the NBA and Wachtell, their quote unquote independent investigators, talk every day. About the findings. And so I just know they're worried about what else is out there that they don't know. And frankly, I think one big precedent for their worry is what happened in Miami with the Terry Rozier deal, in which they say, hey, go and, uh, go and trade for Terry Rozier, Miami Heat, um, go for it.

And what happens is, surprise, there's a federal investigation. And surprise, the Miami Heat are seeking recourse because they were not informed of the fact that there there was this possibility. And so there is some kind of a settlement involving a second-round pick. Mickey Arison, the owner of the Heat, decides not to fight the league. And I think you contrast that with what the league is fearing with this story, in which there's a lot more here than people, I think, who are just listening even to my podcast are aware of in terms of what possibly is lingering. The Athletic had recently reported, by the way, that there is a second sponsorship deal that the NBA probe has now been examining. We don't know what that is. But what I'm telling you is what the league is worried about is Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in American sports, fighting in a way that other owners would not have the resources or the inclination to fight. And that is what is happening.

That's crazy to me. That's crazy to me. That's crazy to me, Zaz.

So he could just do whatever he wants, whatever he wants.

But when I'm reading, Zaz, when I'm reading this story, am I reading something wrong? When it is said in the story that one of the problems with punishments on the Clippers is that Ballmer has to agree to the punishment, that, that Ballmer has to be sort of— if he doesn't agree, what's going to happen after that is Ballmer's going to be fighting your league. And do you want that? And they clearly don't want that. Am I making jumps there that are unreasonable, Pablo?

Everybody And I am here to say that what the NBA wants, because what they want is for this story to go away and to shrink because it's been very embarrassing for lots of different reasons beyond me even. They want this story to shrink and go away. And the only way to really do that is to get the Clippers to stop making this messier, to stop fighting it. And so a settlement is what the league absolutely would prefer when it comes to how can this speed up and get out of the—

Think about that for a second. Hey, Bomber, can we get to a settlement? Like, since when does punishment work that way? Like, what is that?

All the time.

Well, this is— In sports?

No, but in life.

When you're punishing athletes and they have to appeal stuff and then lose the appeal because the appeals to Goodell?

No, not so much in sports, but in life all the time. Yeah.

In life, yes. Not so much in sports.

But this is, but this is, I think, where it's interesting is that sports, the CBA, this investigation, Adam Silver as the Supreme Court justice, this is not a real justice system. This is a business hiring a law firm to try and control a problem in which the public may never know the depths of whatever they discovered. Because of course, it's bad for business if this thing keeps on expanding.. And so if you see it through the lens of this is not justice, as much as we like to dress it up as independent investigation and this whole, like, Constitution, 500 pages of CBA rules and fairness, right, which is what sports rests on. Sports rests on a principle that is more important to sports fans in the sports context than it is in the political governmental context.

That's the paradox of sports. Do you understand that what Pablo is saying to you is at the crux of what this fight would become between Ballmer and the NBA is your rules aren't real rules. Yes, your rules, like your rules are bullsh—

rules.

I don't have to live by your rules.

Yeah, just because there's one owner who's even wealthier than all of the wealthy owners, he doesn't have to agree with any rules because he'll go to court and you may be exposed. That's so stupid. Well, I also want to say this, right? So anybody who's being investigated, who's a defendant, so to speak, They deserve, in a real justice system, they deserve due process. They deserve to have their case be heard. They deserve all of that, right? What I'm merely saying is that it has been now almost a year. It's been 11 months since Wachtell, the law firm hired by the NBA, started following up on what I reported in September. And this entire time, typically what you would imagine, because I know that reporters who are also curious about this have been asking the Clippers for it.

It.

Everyone's been wondering, so when you said this was provably false in the days after part 1 of this now 13-part investigation, when you said it was provably false, can you help us understand how you're gonna prove it? And at every point in this saga, there has been nothing resembling that evidence. And you'd imagine that they would want that to be communicated to the public. Public, right? And it's not emerged. And so what do you have? You have this question, Dan, and this is important. This question fundamentally is, if you're the Supreme Court Justice of this fake justice system, Adam Silver, right? Do you need a signed confession in order to prosecute what seems to be the largest and most flagrant cap circumvention scheme in the history of sports? Or are you willing to actually do what a real judge would? And I've talked to so many literal former federal prosecutors who are investigating Aspiration, the literal case who launched it, who have been on my show since, who have said if this was in court, in real life court, not sports court, not podcast court, but real life court, you have so much more circumstantial evidence to prosecute.

This is frustrating. This is—

and that's what you need, circumstantial evidence in real life.

This is super frustrating to me, okay? You've lost our show. Your take—

Frustrating to you? We got a week till fall camp.

Dan Levitar.

Analytics have/are ruining the game. We're playing AI hoops.

That's his team! His team's in the forefront of all this!

Dan's ass!

Don't steal my thunder! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

Jonathan Sasslo. I get carried away.

This is the Dan Levitar Show. Pablo's frustrated. Because he's in this rabbit hole. He's like, guys, don't you understand the very construct of sports? It's all bullshit. And, and, and we got the receipts with journalism. And you guys are like, shut up, I'm bored.

Settle down, Pablo. Didn't you give this whole thing a Viking funeral at MIT Sloan? We doing—

um, if only, if only that was the end. Um, I thought it was, by the way. I, I would— so, Mike, it's a really good question, right? Why have we taken 10 months months to report this story. We've mentioned RIFC. We played in the episode we did, we played Amin reading the names of the LLCs. We just published the episode about last night, months ago, months ago. And we did it because on some level I have been entirely open and inviting of other people to look into this stuff. And in the process, I have been doing my own due diligence such that we don't get sued by the richest man in sports.

I'm mad at all of you. I'm mad at all of you.

We're just constrained.

You're just making our lives a lot harder by not being interested in it.

Finally, your good contribution there was cutting him off.

Pablo is articulating why we're in business and what we're doing in our business, and you guys are bored by it even though it's your business.

That's right.

Yep.

And we're all going to jail if apparently something goes wrong.

I know.

Not me. I do terrible in jail.

Apparently this is a RICO thing.

It's an ethical RICO. Ethical RICO. It's the opposite of a RICO, but it functions the same way.

Darian Mensah's preseason OLACC. All right, I'm frustrated.

Pablo, thank you for your time. Pablo Torre Finds Out, you can do the deep dive there. Stop frustrating the viewers at the end who love you.

Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's— I just gotta promise, if you start watching this, you will have a good time. Well, okay, that's all I gotta say.

Yeah, but this is the thing, you're trying— look, this is a beautiful piece of art that he is making with Amin and David Sampson, and his story meant for our times to be told over time.

I'm glad you said that. You haven't mentioned it enough. Well, Okay, so all I'm saying is keep the same energy whenever Mystery Crate tries out new potato chips. We stopped doing that, by the way.

Oh, the part that I'm frustrated by is, and I think Ameen might be, even though Ameen likes his occasional anarchy, that Pablo is sitting here shouting from the top of the rooftops, guys, look at all this bullshit here, it's unending and it's fascinating, and you're watching the clown car of your whole system of rules is bullshit when the richest guy can not only not get punished over here, but the rich guy over here can buy FIFA because he can just give pieces of the World Cup over to his family.

That's America. Chris Cody's talking about chicken sausage in the YouTube chat.

Yeah, it's the superior sausage.

I mean, I could feel the audience drifting away as Pablo talked and talked and talked with more and more details when this stuff is hard to do, and Mike's like, stop telling me how hard it is to do.

I mean, I just think like Pablo, the way I compared it to is like Game of Thrones. You think it's a castaway line or whatever, cover, but every character has an incredibly rich backstory. And what we're doing on the show is, is basically following all these backstories that, as you so eloquently pointed out, anyone is capable and able to pick up on any one of these threads and follow them, but they're not.

Oh, but the thing about that to me that is a content farm, I mean, is, uh, Pablo's telling this story in the murder mystery true crime style of today's podcast. Like, he's, he's unspooling a tapestry that all of rich people, you're realizing, I mean, that some of the people in leadership in the sport you love the most, they're in a bit of a clown car here following his investigation. I am sure the NBA's watching that last night being like, what's next that we're going to get embarrassed by here that we don't know?

Wachtell and the NBA, they watch every episode. And I don't even say that braggingly. It's just been the case this entire time. I know it because I've heard it from sources directly familiar. And so look, I'm not here to say that we are whatever, the most special snowflakes and please pay attention to us. I'm merely saying that we live at a time in which the people in power have a greater ability than ever before to not tell you what's going on. The public interest has never meant less. It's true in the state of Rhode Island, the smallest state of the union, in which there are now $116.6 million of taxpayer money being apportioned to this stupid stadium over the next 3 decades that happens to also be a story quite relevant to the NBA. And so I'm just here to tell you the story. Capsule convention to me is not my life's mission. I don't wake up every day wondering about capsule convention. I wonder about what is the story here and why is it important? And the reason we did this one is because I think there's really a lesson to be learned about what the public is entitled to know with literally our money.

That is beyond just like, is Kawhi getting really his fair due as a player? That's not the issue. The issue is everything else that they use in sports to sell you on something that you're not supposed to know about.

Vienna sausage, second place.

The chat is—

I love a wet sausage. The chat goes Vienna sausage in water.

The chat goes Patty. I link. I love a wet sauce.

I know, that's a great take, Pablo.

A tiny—

I find it—

I want a tin with water in it.

It's so rewarding to cut open a casing. Oh my God, you put that in a pasta? My God, pal.

Love the snap of it.

I love a wet sausage. What is that?

Yo, put it on the sausage.

Do you love a wet sausage, Pablo?

Uh, in Rhode Island, could you compare this to what happened in Mississippi with Brett Farve? We were on sausages, allegedly.

Allegedly. The alleged apportioning of public money and using sports as like the playground for it. Yeah, man, this is a national problem. I don't want to speak to the Brett Farve story because I am mindful of just making sure that I am within the bounds of what I have reported. And he is very litigious. I will simply say that if you're wondering, does the governor of a US state in this story that we've been talking about—

You asked, I apologize to the audience, Roy. Okay.

Well, we were on—

Sorry. So Pablo, this is what just happened. Roy got interested all of a sudden in Brett Favre and welfare and he ruined the wet sausage path. We were on the wet sausage path and Roy ruined it. Is that what I sound like?

Roy was trying to talk about what about the poor people in these sports stories you guys claim you care about. And I realized I should have gotten back to the view. Vienna sausages. Too late. So my bad.

But there is, I have to tell people, okay, go find Pablo Torre Finds Out. He really is doing difficult work at difficult times.

I have a Vienna sausage story if you want that also.

Yes.

One time when I was younger, my brother, I sent him, we were playing video games. I sent him to the kitchen to get me some water. He came back and it was just a cup filled with Vienna sausage juice. Haven't been able to eat them since. It scarred me because I was expecting water. —If you're expecting water— —And then you sipped it. Yeah, because I was just like, oh, thanks for this glass of water from the kitchen. And it was Vienna sausage juice. Well, did it look before you started drinking?

You guys, you guys—

Pablo's got something here.

I've tasted that water. It's not that bad. But when you're expecting water, jarring.

Do we have anywhere the video of Pablo eating pickled pig's feet? Because to see where you've come after— you're talking about journalism and the principles that are very serious because you're trying to do an artistic thing with your podcast.

I'd like people to not know that I ever did this, by the way. This is not, I think, something that I am particularly proud of.

Can you do top 5 shames that you have? Like you in an orca costume? Like now that you're a serious journalism person.

I was eating 9/11 conspiracy theories dressed as an orca from Jesse Ventura and had no way to even begin to like fact check any of it. That was an issue for me. I ate pickled pig's feet on camera. That was a problem for me. I was lured into judging a bikini contest with Dan and Poppy and got the scoring system wrong at the Clevelander Hotel. That was a problem for me. My general association. Oh, the time I sat in on an interview that you guys did with Donald Trump when he was running for president or preparing to. That was a problem for me. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot that you guys have done to destroy my integrity that I've only begun to rebuild recently. So I love a wet sausage. Can you— That was number 4.

You probably have to go, but I would love if someone around you, if parts of your staff could bring you some sort of sausage and you could do a wet sausage review for us either now or the next time.

Vienna sausage, white rice, a little mustard on the side. I love a wet sausage.

You will live to regret that.

I love a wet sausage. Enjoy your dry sausages, you freaks.