The Sporting Class: Hydration Breaks, FIFA Trials and a Condo Full of Cats

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I'll give Fox credit. Fox knows how to make money. Right after this. Some point I will say during this that not even FIFA can mess up the World Cup and the games. Well, I want to start there. Can we just start? Are we rolling? Let's start with that sentence that not even FIFA can mess this up. The World Cup and its competition and the attention of the world upon it can withstand every corrupt, incompetent, silly, pompous move that FIFA makes. And it still is the most extraordinary sports competition in the world. And it's working. And by the way, I like the 48-team move. It's great. It's working. We got to talk about tournament expansion. We got to talk about hydration breaks. I want to talk about the business of this. And I want to establish for people who are not familiar with you, John Skipper, that we are doing this episode without David Sampson here. Very sad that we're doing it without David. Absolutely. And David would already be making fun of you. But instead, David is mourning. And we want to direct the entire sporting class audience, everybody who's ever watched either of us, any of us, to donate to the fund David has established in honor of his daughter, Kira Sampson, who died at age 28, if you had not heard, of brain cancer, glioblastoma. And we will put the link for the Kira Fund, which is already doing remarkable fundraising work, already, in the show notes here. Please go there and donate. And in honor of David, I would like to make fun of you now. Well, certainly, somebody must do it. And he does it quite well. Quite, quite well. And I love him for it. And it is sad. And it does put in perspective that while we are passionate about what we're talking about here, there are some things that make us understand that this is all not that important. The perspective that we need to remind ourselves about as we talk about the most popular product on the planet, which is soccer and the World Cup, is really essential for us to establish here. As I also establish, John, that I think at one point you were the most important soccer fan in the United States. I was the passionate fan in the United States who had a job that enabled him to act upon that passion in a way that nobody else had the opportunity to do. So it was the right person at the right time in the right place. But the notion of you running ESPN. I was running ESPN at a time when, hey, suddenly you have the opportunity. There's actually a very small window, it turned out. When you took the job, right, it was October of 2005. A window that was in front of you to bid on this tournament. And this was, of course, many moons ago. But you were ahead of the curve with the financial resources to actually substantiate the bet. So when I asked George Bodenheimer for the job managing the content, he said, "Well, I'm not sure I can do it." And I said, "Well, I'm not sure I can do it." as possible, and that was important, and I wanted to start by buying the World Cup. And he said, why? And I said, because soccer is someday going to be the most popular sport in the United States. Not positive that's true or not. That may be hyperbolic, but it is now the greatest single event that occurs in the United States. Not the largest audience, that's the Super Bowl, but the country is a flutter aghast at this thing. George said to me, you know, Skip, there's always been somebody who said soccer's coming to the United States. And I said, someday someone will be right. And it won't be because they're smarter. Other people saw it earlier. Other people cared more, maybe. But I did understand, because I'd been to Europe and had seen the game, that it is the greatest spectator sport in the world. And the rest of the world loves it. And people here are going to love it as soon as they quit worrying about the fact that there are not that many scorers. watching the 26 world cup must it must be kind of strange for you because now the thing is taking off and people are in love with the games as you put it because the games are so good But it's the competition is so great. And so you're watching this stuff where the knockout rounds and your bet is coming true. But it's not your network. You're not in that job. And I said, "Well, you're not sure you can do it." And he said, "Well, you're not sure you can do it." Somebody asked me how they were doing in production, and I finally thought of the right answer. It's the second greatest production of the World Cup ever. So they're doing okay. But it's not the greatest production of the World Cup ever. And I take pride in the fact that we at ESPN were right about this, that George supported me. We went out and did it. We built the World Cup in 06, 10, and 14. We celebrated the event. We spent a boatload of money doing stories. I went to Brazil in 2014 for five weeks to cover a zillion games. And Rye Thompson went into the favelas to do reports. In South Africa, Sal Masekela took us inside Soweto. We had Hugh Masekela do the music. We did stories. We had documentaries. We had shoulder programming. We had studio shows that lasted overnight. I watched the Netherlands-Morocco the other night. What a game. And it's over. And they go to like nine hours of commercials. And then I think James Corden is coming on for some reason. I'm like, why is James Corden coming on? Oh, they're going to promote his show during the World Cup. I wanted to watch five hours of commentary to listen to people break the game down. Because you're a fan. Because you're an actual soccer fan. It happens. And all the people who do sports at every network are fans of something, right? There are guys who just can't control themselves when Jim Nantz talks about something like no other. I forget what it is. What is it, a tournament? Hello, friends. Yes, a tournament unlike any other. It is unlike any other. It's the Masters, yes. More exclusionary, more misogynist than any other. And that gets some people going. The azaleas and the collared shirts, this is all someone's fantasy. But yours was the World Cup. And that was the World Cup. In America. In America. And in a time when we could begin to compete. And that also, everything that we thought or wanted or hoped would happen in '94, and the people who ran it, Alan Rothenberg, Don Garber, Sunil Gulati, did an unbelievable job. It was a great tournament. But we were not prepared to compete on the world stage. Now the country's embraced it. Everywhere you go, everybody's watching the World Cup. I'm going to my place. I go get my protein shake after I work out. And these guys are like putting up a television in this little tiny store. I'm like, "What are you doing?" They're like, "World Cup. We gotta watch the World Cup." I go to Gabriel's, which is a fancy New York restaurant, where Gabriel, who owns it, would have, was disdainful of a television at the bar. But there's a television at the bar right now, But there's a television at the bar right now, because all of the help is from Serbia, or a lot of the help is from Serbia, Montenegro, or Croatia. They want to watch the World Cup. So it's all been embraced. It happened, what, six, thirty-two years after people hoped it would? But it's happening. And soccer is just going to boom. Continue to boom in this country. It's hard to get over how palpable it is when the entire world feels like it's focused on something. And, look, you've long had the thesis on, like, what the economic proposition of sports is. And, frankly, from the NBA championship, into the World Cup, which is like this almost exponential step change. Right. Up. As much as I felt like, "Man, the world is celebrating the Knicks," we now see what it actually looks like when the United States can feel like it's in concert with the planet that you looked at and said, "Maybe we should pay attention to what's happening over there." Yeah. Kind of a phenomenon. By the way, the country embraced the Knicks. But the world embraces this tournament. So it's one of the very few things that the whole world cares about. You know, at one point they cared about the Beatles, but I'm trying to think what they care about now, other than the World Cup and tickets. talk i want to establish as well like before we get to the modern day presentation and the production of this 26 world cup i want to get to what it was like when you took over as the guy in charge of espn's content this was back in again october of 2005 because the characters that you had to encounter to navigate the world of winning the world cup's broadcast rights are unbelievably colorful and relatedly corrupt doesn't have to be related in this case it's directly correlated because the tower the literal tower you have to walk into john is is what well it's changed a little bit right and when i walked in in 2005 you were still they were still in zug not zurich proper but where you walk in now is a temple built for the power of football it's got a little uh short small pitch next to it they have a big boardroom in the basement that you go down to that is windowless and feels like should be in a james bond movie what was that organization specter that was the evil organization that james bond had to you feel like you're inspector and that guy with the eye patch and the cigarette holder and the gray hair is in there and uh it's it's full of evil looking people emilio largo emilio largo who does sound like a member of the fifa governance i'm pretty sure he was on the executive committee the uh the year they awarded it to somebody other than espn um no it's look they're they're pompous they think they're a national entity i've told the story before of the security detail for set bladder arguing with the security detail for um president clinton about who had precedence in leaving the opening night event at the south african world cup they really do believe they're an extra national organization they have this rhetoric about and we're here to celebrate the great game around the world spread the game around the world and they actually accidentally do a lot of that yeah while they're busy enriching themselves and buying boats and alpine houses in the in the alps at a non-profit organization um but it it it feels greasy when you go in i mean you just realize that everybody in there um just about everybody in there there are people who care and and who want to do it the right way but the leadership team uh at the top uh from mr bladder to mr infantini they have not missed uh i love infantino how dare you infantino infantini the infantini god uh this is where i miss david i'm just like your dick names but proceed but you're referring of course to the tower which was the trump tower by the way that chuck blazer who at the time was the president i'm not sure that's the right title maybe executive director commissioner i don't know he was deputy secretary of concacaf at the time and also uh yes one of the people that you needed to win over he uh we would not have acquired the world cups in 10 and 14 were it not for the umbrage of chuck blazer that umbrage was created by set bladder having a handshake deal with dick ebersole at nbc sports to broadcast the world cups in 10 and 14 the the sort of it's sort of like uh state u.s senators get the right to win the world cups in 10 and 14 and they're not going to win the who approved judges within their state, sort of, Chuck Blazer was supposed to be able to sort of approve any meteorites deals or at least, you know, bless them before the executive committee actually did them. Yes, he was one of the 25 members of the FIFA executive committee. Yes. And the most powerful man in American soccer as a result. He was at the time. And what he was really furious about is NBC would have a handshake deal with Sepp Blatter, but they also had always Chuck and Don Garber and Sunil Gulati and the folks at FIFA always had this sort of pact that whoever gets the World Cup rights, and remember, we were getting them for free at the time, will also agree to do a deal with the MLS. Because we need to build our domestic league if we're ever going to be a soccer, country, so you need to do that. So not only did they do a sneaky deal, but they did it around MLS, which had held the rights before in Soccer United Marketing to sell the World Cup. When you said you were getting the rights for free, explain that. Well, in 06, we had the rights to the World Cup in Germany as a result of a time buy or an ad buy, right? So we supplied the. slots, we did the surround programming, we carried it, we marketed it in the United States, but we did not pay a rights fee. So as recently as 06, the World Cup received no media rights money in the United States. That's amazing. Because that's how little this country cared about it. Right. There were no bidders. Well, and so all of this, the setup, this visit to Trump Tower, the visit with Chuck Blazer, this is an attempt to win the rights. Right. to win the rights in 2010 and in 2014. Mm-hmm. And just the visuals, by the way, on Chuck Blazer, because I fear that you're not doing justice to him. So this is like, you know, 49 stories above Fifth Avenue in Trump Tower. And Chuck Blazer, John, I need you to be a writer for a little bit. Mm-hmm. What does he look like? He looks like Zeus. He is easily north of 300 pounds, probably 6'3", 6'4", and he has a bust head that looks like a cauliflower with a beard. Huge head of hair, big beard, a deep voice, always dressed in a suit, so a powerful voice. He's a commanding presence. He's scared. He looked a little like Burl Ives, too. Remember Burl Ives? I'm looking up Burl Ives. But more like Zeus. Somewhere between Burl Ives and Zeus, and according, by the way, to Vladimir Putin, Sports Illustrated, Karl Marx. Yes. Again, looked a little like Karl Marx with the big beard. Except if Karl Marx loved parrots and cats. Chuck kept parrots in his apartment. He kept cats in his apartment. He claimed, I think inaccurately, that he had invented the smiley face. Yes. That was his cover for why he had so much money in what was basically close to a non-paying job as the head of CONCACAF. He had a separate apartment at $6,000 a month in Trump Tower for his cats. Yes. And the justification for how he could afford this was he invented the yellow smiley face icon. Yeah. Which, if you think about it, if you take that yellow smiley face and draw a big head of gray hair and a big beard, sort of look like Chuck Blazer, because he did have a great old big smile. And he was charismatic and funny. And you did understand, you know how you have buttons on your trousers in the back? You did understand to button those buttons. Keep your wallet close there when you went in to see Chuck Blazer. Well, to give the sort of spoiler alert here, it turned out that Chuck Blazer in his role at CONCACAF was pocketing drives and kickbacks for years, had failed to pay personal income tax on his fortunes, eventually, notably, became a federal informant in the corruption scandal that would engulf FIFA in 2015, when the aforementioned Seth Blatter would have to resign. Wait, you mean there was a corrupt guy who didn't pay his taxes, was kind of a big old, big old lumbering dude with a weird haircut. And an apartment full of just cats. And lived in an apartment in New York City on Fifth Avenue between, what, 53rd and 54th? There still happens to be somebody who fits that description who still resides there. Yeah, fewer. Has his name on the building. Fewer animals, more gold, I think. But look, the point being that you had this vision that you were trying to work your way through FIFA to sell, which was, we're going to televise these things live. We're going to do it right. We're going to actually respect soccer fans as if they matter. And you offered what was then an astonishing amount of money. A hundred million dollars. We offered a hundred million dollars. By the way, we were guided to that, right? So, 40 million for 2010, 60 million for 2014. Yes. And we did agree to do everything live. Remember, this was still an NBC Sports. And I admire much of what they do then and much of what they do now. I've always been a vocal critic of the, we're going to take events and tape them and present them as a primetime special later. Sports events need to be live. And. They were not intending to do every group game live. They didn't have the ability to do that, right? They didn't have six, eight, nine networks like we did. So, we said, we'll do it all. We'll do all the women's matches. We'll do all the under 23, all of the under 21. We'll do all the qualifiers. I'll never forget that there was a woman from the programming department with me, a wonderful person. I won't call her name because I won't embarrass her. Great. Who is like, John, you're like giving everything away. I'm like, I'm not giving anything away. We have like eight channels. We're going to put these matches on at 3.30 in the morning. It's great programming. We'll take off all those people who are exercising on the beach. And we'll have more room in the fishing shows and the hunting shows. So, yeah, we – I wanted to – I just like that a guy who has your accent was like, why are we airing fishing? Fishing. What a betrayal. Yes. What a betrayal. I betrayed my people. They have my picture up at the Bass Pro Shop. If ever I walk in, they're going to put a big hook in my behind and drag me across the parking lot. God. But that was the sales pitch was, we're going to treat this like the sport that it deserves to be. And, look, among soccer fans, it worked. It was great. We put – we had people who produced it who love football. We went to Europe and Asia and to North Africa and South America and got commentators who had lived it for 30, 40 years. We didn't try to put people who, you know, had done college basketball or baseball on the game. You didn't have Alexi Lalas, which – Well, we had Alexi Lalas, I think. Oh, did you? Yeah, we had Alexi Lalas. Oh, man. And Alexi did a good job for us. Amazing. And I do – I have read the controversy. I was in Europe for the first two weeks. It is really hard to watch these games in Europe. Most of them are on at 1.30 and 4. But – so I don't have any comment on that. Alexi also helped us with a documentary we did. I've had a fine working – I've had a good relationship with Alexi, who is a challenging gentleman. The fact that you're protecting Alexi Lalas just makes me laugh. It makes me laugh. You're the guy. You're responsible. You're responsible for Alexi Lalas. Okay, I digress. The point being that this thing, this whole broadcast, it emboldens you to feel like we're the natural home for this. We were the right home for it. We were clearly the right home for it. We – And we made it a big event. We made it a big event by showing it for the big event it was. We embraced it. We put money behind it. We sent people to the events. We sent – we were all over different countries. We had stories on every country that was in the World Cup. We did something called I Scored a Goal, in which we interviewed everybody who'd ever scored a goal in the final match of a World Cup. One person turned us down. Who? Pele. That mother – Well, Pele had a reasonable point and didn't see the bigger picture, which is you want to be included in this. His point was people have been interviewing him my whole life. I'm not getting paid for it. I didn't make that much money, which he didn't. Playing football in Brazil and even for the Cosmos, we made pretty good money. And he didn't want to do it. I still admire the guy and respect him, but he didn't want to do it. And he didn't. So he didn't score a goal in that World Cup. I love that you had, though, the insane ambition of like, yeah, we're going to just blow this out in the way that you would do a Super Bowl. And the thing that it leads to, obviously, is – I mean, I just want to spotlight the fact that it's June 23rd, 2010. It's the U.S. and Algeria. And this feels like a turning point. I think it was a turning point. That's the game that Landon Donovan scored. 91st minute. And the place erupted. It just – sort of U.S. soccer nation as it existed at the time. You were there in – where was it? South Africa. It was in South Africa. And I do remember being in the tunnels going into that event. It's an old-fashioned stadium. Had not really been renovated. And I was with my younger son, Clay, at the time. He was about 15 years old, I think. And we got stuck in the tunnel. And I had that scary moment as a parent where you're like, I'm not sure my feet are touching the ground as we go in through this tunnel. And I've got my 15-year-old, who probably was capable – more capable than I was. Yeah, I was going to say. Knowing Clay a little bit, that feels like the reverse dynamic. But I remember going to that stadium to watch that game. And when he scored that game, that did feel like a – I don't know if it's a word – vindictatory. That when you got vindicated, vindictory. Vindicating, but I don't know if vindicatory – Vindicatory, thank you very much. Is an adjective here. So that was a vindicatory moment where it's like, okay, we were kind of right. The end of June and July can be a really rough period for sports fans with football still a few months away and basketball and hockey ended. But this year, we're pretty lucky. Because not only is there a World Cup, there is a World Cup in our backyard. And so make sure to check out the Athletic Podcast Network to stay up to date on all things related to the World Cup. You can wake up with the Totally Football Show from LA, then dive deep into the biggest talking point of the day with the Athletic FC Podcast. And you can watch the TIFO Podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon. All shows are free to watch or listen on your favorite podcast platform. The World Cup Final in 2010. It's the most watched men's soccer game to that point in U.S. history. It's over 15 million people on ABC, another 8.8 on Univision. And the thesis is proven. Even outside of like what the Americans are doing, like people want to see this. And so all of it brings us to the idea that it's time to renew. It's time to renew this relationship with FIFA. And for those who don't know, John, what happened? How do you explain this at a party? What happened? Oh, it's a downer at a party. You really don't want me to come to your party and get on an exegesis about how we lost the World Cup. We lost the World Cup because members of the XCO were bribed. Uh, there was, they were going to award it to Fox. I don't know how that happened. I, by the way, I'm not accusing Fox of anything other than being in collusion. I was in collusion with FIFA and it didn't work out because they black, they, uh, backtracked on me. Uh, but we weren't paying money. Somebody paid money. I don't know who, I'm not accusing anybody, but somebody paid money to XCO members. So they would vote, um, for the World Cup in Qatar. Everybody was fooling themselves and lying to themselves about, I read, I was a member of the U.S. World Cup bid committee. Right, to bring the World Cup to the U.S. in 2018 or 22. Right. And so we got to read the Qatari bid book where they said, we are going to build new stadiums that are completely air conditioned and that will break down when the World Cup is over and send into Africa to help build the sport. Uh, they weren't air conditioned. They had to move the World Cup to December. That breached their contract with Fox, who appropriately was unhappy with that. They have NFL football in that part of the year. They don't need the World Cup. They have a nice big opening appropriately in the summer. That's what they had bought. So they, uh, huffed and puffed and threatened to blow FIFA's doors down. Uh, it is now documented. It is now documented that Jerome Valk, um, went to the Exco in, I forget, April of something. Uh, this is in, um, Tariq. Panja's. Panja's story in the New York Times, uh, that Jerome Valk went in and said, they're unhappy. I am going to recommend, or said, we've already made a deal that we're going to give them the 2026 World Cup, um, for a modest increase so that they will not. That they will not continue on. So the, the people that they colluded with to get the World Cup are now suing them. They're scared shitless that they will not be able to land in the United States, uh, and, uh, without being subpoenaed. And, uh, Letitia James, uh, dragging them in. Yeah. Attorney General of New York. They're scared of that. So they decided to give it, uh, to Fox. It's ironic, of course, because they came in 94 to open up the game because they won't at the U.S. money. So then when they finally get to the U.S. and should be getting U.S. big money for media rights, they decide, well, we'll protect our own buttocks as opposed to having what will clearly be a huge auction. Now, they had not announced U.S. yet. So I am sort of alighting a few things. Sure. But, but they probably knew it. Uh. Well, but, but the point here. Uh. The point is that they didn't take the money. Right. The one time they didn't take the money ever. Yeah. So, so just, uh, to recap. So. what Fox is paying for the 26th World Cup right now is less than $500 million to air this tournament. This is per the New York Times story in May. And what experts are saying is that the rights are worth as much as three times that. And so the question becomes, how is it that FIFA didn't extract maximal money? And it drives back to this arrangement that FIFA Secretary General at the time, yes, Jerome Valk or Velka, however you want to pronounce that, depending on what part of the European Union you're in. What the New York Times reported, according to the people with direct knowledge of this meeting, is that the FIFA Secretary General told board members that, quote, it had been agreed to extend Fox's contract to 2026 to this World Cup in exchange for Fox not acting against FIFA should the World Cup dates be moved because this thing was going to be in Qatar in 22. And a month after that, FIFA announces, hey, it's going to be in Qatar. It's going to need to be in December and November. And two months after that, and this is just the order of operations, the entire FIFA leadership winds up being removed following a sweeping Department of Justice indictment alleging nearly two decades of corruption, mostly tied to the sale of TV rights to competitions in North and South America. And yeah, you happen to be a guy who's familiar with the inside of that courtroom as all of this was happening. I was indeed. I did testify against two gentlemen. By the way, I did not test. You don't testify against them. You testify on behalf of the state, which has brought a case. I was not asked about their actions at all because I had no knowledge of it. I was asked, what do you know about what happened? What happened when you were there getting it? What agreement did you have with them? What happened during the bidding process? Because they were trying to prove malfeasance. My testimony did not prove that. I did not testify. About malfeasance, I testified about our experience in which we lost the World Cup bewilderingly. And didn't get to do the thing that you've established on the sporting class one million times, which is come in with whatever the highest bid is, plus $1. Yeah. You were not given that opportunity to outbid Fox, which was perhaps just using the powers of logic and inference, a red flag. There would be no reason not to take the top bidder who had just done, a spectacular job in the World Cup in '06, shown the path to how you break it through in this country and get to a billion dollars in rights fees for a single World Cup, which would certainly have happened this time, will happen next time. I would think they'd do a billion, half, two billion next time, which is, you know, I'll give Fox credit. Well, let's talk about it. They made good money on the World Cup in Qatar because Qatar subsidized the production, and they will make good money on this World Cup because they got it for a sweetheart price, and they concentrate. They're very good at running their business. Well, the things that we're watching now, you know, we're seeing a couple of innovations, right? You're a guy who said earlier that you weren't a big fan of the expansion of the field to 48 teams. I was not. I was wrong. And you've otherwise been, which is funny to me, because you've long lobbied for the NCAA tournament to be expanded, for the college football playoff to be expanded. So your soccer purity led you to betray your own capitalistic vision that you have for every other sport. David would be perfect on this point. I am feeling him inhabit my body right now. And he's right. As a fan, I did what every fan did, which was, I don't want them to do this. I don't want them to pay the players. I don't want them to, I don't want them to allow payers to transfer. I don't want this or that. I didn't want, because I love my World Cup the way it was. And I was wrong. Because when they started playing, they're great. The games are great. I thought, oh, this is awful. They're going to play all these games and only 12 teams are going to go out. All these Cinderella's. Why do you need the Cinderella's? And it turns out. But it's great. Turns out it's great. And I was wrong about that. I don't know. Are we going to talk about hydration breaks? Yes. Are you going to call that an innovation? I'm going to call that a way to profit in ways that are only thinly veiled as innovation. Which that is clearly what it is. These guys are not going to keel over. They can grab the bottles as they go past. They can pour it on their heads. They could take a 30-second break. This is a way to get an ad break in the first half and an ad break in the second half. We might see the innovation where they have two hydration breaks. Or they might just decide it's okay. We'll stop after 20 minutes. The coaches can talk to the players. But it's bulls**t that this is about hydration. This is about commercials. And Fox was sure ready to go with their commercials on the very first hydration break. Bang, there's a commercial. And bang, they don't get back in time for the action. Well, this is the thing, right? So soccer, part of the purity that you clearly loved was it's uninterrupted. You're getting. You don't have these commercial breaks. And so here, what The Hollywood Reporter is saying, is that according to a media buyer's source, the average cost of a 30-second spot during this new, innovated format is between $200,000 and $750,000, depending on, you know, is the U.S. playing? What are the big draws? And also the stage of the tournament, the knockout stage is underway now, of course. They raised the price. But with six minutes of hydration breaks, that adds up, reportedly, to anywhere between $2.5 to $9 million a game. And so you multiply that up, set out 104 games played, factor in that, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, carry the one. Half a billion dollars out of thin air. And I assume that the sales force is in the market now telling people what the hydration breaks in the final will cost. And that will be a seven-figure sum of money. Yeah. It'll cost a million dollars apiece. And are you begrudgingly impressed? No, I don't think that's an innovation that makes sense. The game better. All it does is create more revenue for a corrupt organization that is a non-profit, as I always remind people, a non-profit with billions of dollars in the bank and executives, all of whom have a very good-sized boat. Well, Gianni Infantino, for the record, says, quote, This is not a financial issue for us. For us, it's purely a sporting matter. He is so full of shit. I mean, the pompous way in which he pronounces these things. You know what he's saying? All commercial agreements were signed in advance. There's no additional revenue here. This is a total misunderstanding of how it is that we are profiting. And he just decided he is concerned about the health of these players. Not concerned when he wants to create another new tournament, which means they'll play 120 games a year. Not concerned when they were putting the World Cup in Qatar. Yeah. How about we go up to Norway and play next time where it's a little cooler and you won't need a hydration break and take a little cut in the money you get from the host nation. Yeah, and for those not keeping score at home, 2034, we're looking at Saudi Arabia. Gee. A notably temperate. They've probably figured out that air conditioning thing by now. Yeah, they're going to. Yes, USAID might be gone, but don't worry, FIFA is going to export air conditioning after they use it throughout the Middle East to all of the developing countries in the world. You do know there is a rotation of countries that get the World Cup. Explain. Meaning they've always sort of said, okay, next time is Africa's time. Next time is Oceania's time. Next time is South America. Well, in order to get the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, which was another inside deal, by the way, and I doubt any money changed hands there, they had to cross off South America. So we have opening games in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. Then, oddly enough, there's going to be a couple of games in. So that takes care of South America. There's going to be a couple of games in Europe. They're going to play in Portugal and Spain. Right. And they're going to play a few games in Morocco and Africa. 2030. So, click. We're through Africa. We're through South America. We're through Europe. We can go back to the Middle East. I guess Infantini is going to tell everybody we're celebrating the World Cup. It's innovative. Around the world, we've got. South America and we've got Northern Africa and we've got Europe involved. This is a great new way to do the World Cup. The best way to do the World Cup is to go to a great soccer nation and let people be able to drive around in a car to go from place to place. Think how expensive it's going to be to follow your team when they're not just in Dallas or they're in. You're in Scotland. You're Scottish and you come to Boston. Then you've got to go to Miami for a game. Now you're going to get to go to Montevideo, Montevideo for the first game. And then maybe the second game, you can go to Lisbon and then you can go to Marrakesh for a game. It's just. Just take the boat. You just take your boat. It's just going to become, you know, a World Cup for plutocrats who can afford to get around all these places. Well, this is. And this is where we get to the paradox, which is a World Cup for plutocrats is, of course, what we're on some level already watching. And yet, because the games are so f***ing. good. It's also the rise of the African democracy. diaspora yes in which you're watching a country like morocco just one example alongside ghana i mean you can go down the list and you can say to yourself this is actually something like the global village of our planet paying attention to countries that we otherwise don't care about but we are celebrating in a way that feels almost refreshing and meaningful and and this is astonishing right now in new york this has been such a great just being now this player we pay attention to well new york has a cape verdean community i don't know if it's verdean they have a cape verde community a friend of mine went out with a friend of his to to watch morocco netherlands play in little morocco yeah which i think is is it jackson heights i forget where it is but there's a little morocco there's a little cape verde there's a little uruguay in my neighborhood in the west village i went to a restaurant i usually one of my that i frequent and they're having a colombian watching party because somebody has bought the restaurant out to watch the columbia game yes astoria by the way in queens is is a seems it seems the designated place to go watch and celebrate and eat morocco yeah but this is this is this is something that i think is quite encouraging in spite of the oligarchy uh it is look it is ultimately the people's game and they it's a hell of a product and they're having a good time and they're having a good time and they vote every four years that we love this tournament they it has been again it's why i was wrong about the 48 teams it's been lovely to see the fans from cape verde and the fans from uh other countries who'd never been before it's great to see scotland back in the world cup and it's just there's no begrudging it's great to see king abdullah the second of jordan visit a jordanian restaurant in richardson texas yeah and by the way while they got beat the jordanians and the latins they got beat by the jordanians and the latins they got beat by the last game they played acquitted themselves very well they they have good players the other thing this tournament has shown is that there are good players everywhere and while the u.s is going to have enough good players to be a national power you kind of don't take any team for granted in this world cup you the world cup is not going to have enough good players to be a national power you kind of don't take any team for granted in this world cup speaking of being taken for granted there is a bit of an update a postscript to this whole fifa federal corruption case which you again were a state's witness in because and i just got to read what the u.s attorney uh said on behalf of the justice department which in may decided to give up the case against two of the defendants um one of whom uh is the and this is what u.s attorney joseph nacella told the judge quote it is focused the justice department focused on other matters now like homeland security narco-terrorism gang violence and human trafficking these are some of the things that they're saying we don't have time to look into these quaint matters that one john skipper may care about we got to stop narco-terrorism this this is you know always in an event like this like the world cup it reminds you of the great nations of the world and that some people speak english and some don't so you might need that translated i think that is some very powerful people called uh called the white house lobbied them promised a campaign contribution and we got a call that we needed to drop these lawsuits before anybody before anybody is embarrassed this happened right before the world cup right yes oh yeah this is in may you want to clear that out and you just got to think about well who could be embarrassed and i'm not going to personally well any accusations but you can probably figure out the likely parties many of whom are friendly with this president well the solicitor general of the united states d john sauer also requested the dismissal of the two indictments and four other defendants in the case have come forward since to ask that their convictions be dropped as well arguing that the justice department is showing that no crimes were ever committed and you know so it is that maybe we can all get this cleaned up yeah nobody broke into the capitol on january 6th either and i love the name e john sauer d i'm assuming d john sauer the john sauer d that sounds like an island down in south carolina yeah i'm going to do john sauer yeah and i have a little vacation with my family i mean i'm assuming it's s-a-u-e-r s-a-u-e-r not s-o-u-r correct um and i suppose i should add this note as well which is uh in the reporting here um since the fifa investigation began in secret 16 years ago because again this was a sprawling federal case looking into this thing that was just in plain sight prosecutors had netted more than 30 convictions and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and restitution and now of course the story of what this is they are via this administration attempting to revise it but you mentioned uh perhaps inadvertently radicalization and if it was not only inadvertent i don't even know i did it you mentioned january 6th and it does feel like what we're watching is the radicalization of now soccer fans in america i and i wonder if some part of you is delighted that despite all of this despite the story that is intertwined with corruption and apartments for cats and arrests and oligarchs boats and plutocrats and attempts to undo prosecutions for corruption that you can watch these broadcasts and be like you know what i see myself in some of what's happening here you you remember of course pablo when it was not uncommon for um critics of the sport to suggest that it was boring and awful and to suggest that it was basically a socialist enterprise correct right you needed to look at american tackle football now that's a capitalist sport you're conquering territory that's what it's about and people big powerful people call the plays so you can gain 10 yards but they and they accuse soccer of being socialist right it's collective action of a bunch of people who aren't having to listen to a coach yell at them the whole game because the coach can't be heard so it actually is a collective of players who do most of the decision making as opposed chuck klosterman's book is brilliant about this yeah his book on football where he talks about why football is the supreme sport in this country that it does reflect a lot of the values of this country the past history including powerful people being in charge powerful people up in the booth who are called an offensive coordinator defensive quarter we're in charge not those damn players who would want to put the people in charge there is a top-down militaristic aspect yes to american tactics and i think it's a great game on television as chuck also points out in his book so many so many commercials it is it is no it's made for attention spans being challenged in this era yes made for the way we live it's okay it's made for being able to go to the refrigerator and get a beer and not miss anything there's nothing wrong with that that's not insidious or or uh evil or anything it's great it's fun to watch uh and when i watch it i enjoy it so i'm not i can do you i do until i think about how many of those people are not going to be are going to have cte when they're 52 years old sure that is a hard problem uh that does trouble me a bit and does interfere with my fandom the whole consensual concussions thing does ruin the vibe at a marty yeah call me crazy but when i see people smoking cigarettes now i'm like it's not a good idea well i grew up in an era where people still sort of said i don't think you can really conclusively prove that cigarettes cause lung cancer and now look at you yeah now i know i quit i quit smoking you're a soccer loving clean living quit smoking socialist guy who drinks protein shakes and is selling socialism back to america i'm sorry david wasn't here to uh to correct me on some of this stuff i miss him for that reason this has been pablo torre finds out a meadowlark media production and i'll talk to you next time you you you