00:00I was more surprised that Spain was dominant.
00:04It felt like portions of the game where Argentina just was not there,
00:08and a lot of it was playing the ball back and forth.
00:10So they would pass it forward down to Spain's side of the field,
00:14and then they would play back to the goalie.
00:15The goalie would kick it far, and then Spain would have possession,
00:18and then they would get a shot over and over and over again.
00:20And it just felt like they were trying to survive until penalties.
00:23Will other teams copy them in the future?
00:26It takes a lot to be able to copy Spain,
00:28just because of the fact that they have the academy system set up.
00:30Their coach was a youth coach.
00:32I believe he was under 20.
00:33And so having that system enabled them to be as proficient as they were.
00:38They've been playing together for a long time.
00:40That system, we don't have that in the U.S.
00:43And I've been reading a lot about that,
00:45how it would be very, very difficult to create that in this country.
00:50A, is that accurate, and B, does that relegate us to,
00:54gee, we hope we can get to the round of 16?
00:55I think that that is accurate.
00:58If you think about our structure, kids are playing in high school.
01:01They're not playing in soccer academies.
01:03They don't do that generally for any sport outside of basketball.
01:06You see basketballs go to charter schools.
01:08Basketball players go to charter schools.
01:09But it generally doesn't happen in soccer.
01:11I also don't know that billionaires who are investing in this sort of thing want to do that.
01:16And so I think that until the U.S. has more superstars on their roster,
01:21that we are going to be delegated to the round of 16.
01:24At best.
01:27So, overall, I think this was like a huge success.
01:30Definitely.
01:31I mean, I think the U.S. and the North America, our neighbors, we did a heck of a show.
01:35Yeah, I think if you had to ask FIFA what they thought of this,
01:38they would tell you it was tremendous.
01:40The facilities were all here.
01:42The only drama that really happened was on the field.
01:45And you ask any sporting organization in the world, what drama do you want?
01:48You want it on the pitch.
01:49And outside of Flo Balligan and President Trump trying to get him to play and that happened,
01:54justice was served 12 hours later when Belgium beat the U.S.
01:58And so FIFA would say this was a success.
01:59I don't know the final was the peak that they wanted.
02:02But sometimes you've got to live with a boring championship game.
02:04Somebody's a star in the World Series, and it extends their career 10 years.
02:09I think it was Justin Turner with the L.A. Dodgers years ago made a career off of his World
02:14Series.
02:15So I look at Nico Williams, the left winger, just magnetic out of Ghana, walked across the Sahara, superstar athletic
02:23club.
02:23Did they now, this morning, does Liverpool want someone like Nico Williams?
02:29I think that for Nico and for players on Spain, a good portion of them are already desired to begin
02:35with.
02:35And Nico, I believe he would have started if he wasn't coming off an injury.
02:39And so I think your price automatically goes up when you're a World Cup champion, more so off the field.
02:45The club battle, of course, and the club play is going to determine your contracts.
02:49But off the field, these guys are going to go back to Madrid and Barcelona and make a killing.
02:55So if FIFA, are they saying, we want to get the World Cup back to the U.S. as soon
02:59as possible?
03:00I wouldn't be surprised.
03:01I mean, look, we have Portugal, Spain, Morocco in 2030, and then we have Saudi Arabia in 2034.
03:06There's an open slot in 2038.
03:08I expect it to be back here just from a facilities perspective.
03:12It's a lot easier when you have these stadiums that can hold 70, 80, 60,000 people all across the
03:18nation,
03:19as opposed to a country bidding for it and then having to invest literally billions, billions of dollars to build
03:24facilities.
03:25Give us an update on what Paul talks about.
03:26Randall Williams, folks, who were this Bloomberg sports business reporter,
03:30which doesn't describe his true encyclopedic knowledge on this.
03:34The TV rights game.
03:36I mean, I'm looking at Fox, Telemundo, and all that.
03:41Matt, it's now got to be even more mental for the NFL, more mental for the Jalen, my Jalen Knicks,
03:49more mental for Premier League.
03:51I mean, are we going to go into a nuts end of the year in sports bidding?
03:55I think that the media rights is probably one of the most interesting parts of the business of sports this
04:01year,
04:02because the NFL has been no stranger in saying that they want to renegotiate their media rights.
04:06They'd like to add an international package.
04:08They'd like to add a game.
04:09However, there's a lot of other properties out there, one of them being the World Cup.
04:12ESPN has come out and said they're interesting bidding for it.
04:15I believe Netflix has as well.
04:17So how much money is left in the pool to go to everybody?
04:21And the NFL is still king, but we just saw soccer and the World Cup watched more than ever before.
04:26If you're ESPN, of course you want to be the center of all of that.
04:30Can you imagine how much larger it would be if ESPN was able to syndicate this on ESPN1, ESPN2, ESPN3,
04:36and also Disney+.
04:38There's the streamer part of it as well.
04:40So it's going to be interesting.
04:41The NBA, of course, is all set with the $76 billion.
04:44Uh-oh, I mentioned Jalen and Shinoka.
04:47Ladies and gentlemen, Alexis Christophorus with an obligatory next question.
04:52I have a non-Jalen Brunson question.
04:53Let's do it.
04:54What about turf?
04:55I mean, because a lot of players are saying, hey, we love this real grass, NFL players.
04:59And they put it in at a cost of a lot of money, right?
05:02Millions and millions of dollars.
05:03Do you think it's going to stick around?
05:04No.
05:04I mean, the reason for that is, look, there's a lot of NFL players.
05:08I don't remember the exact hashtag that they were using, but they were tweeting and basically saying, keep the grass
05:12in.
05:12This is a collectively bargained issue.
05:15And until the NFL players hold the owners their feet to the fire and say, we're not playing until you
05:20replace the grass, I just don't see it.
05:22And the owners have always said, and they use these analytics and statistics and say, oh, turf is more just
05:28as safe as grass is.
05:29But in all reality, the players want to play on grass, and the owners aren't willing to appeal to that.
05:33Cy emails in from Yonkers.
05:35First time listener.
05:37Thank you, Cy.
05:38And he says, can you explain why we're attracted to something where there were no shots in the first 121
05:46minutes?
05:47I'm sitting there.
05:48There's a guy off the post, and I'm going, come on, do what Cole Caulfield would do for the Montreal
05:53Canadiens.
05:54Shoot the damn ball.
05:55What's the mindset?
05:57I think it's a cultural thing.
05:58I agree.
05:59I think that soccer and football overseas and in South America and Europe, it just has a hold on things
06:06more than any other sport.
06:07I would say it's more, this is my opinion, but double the popularity of basketball, double the popularity of a
06:13good portion of sports.
06:14Although the NFL and other leagues like the MLB play in Japan, they play in these other markets.
06:19These are small windows of one game.
06:21It's like a circus coming to town.
06:23Whereas soccer is everywhere.
06:26Yep.
06:26But I'll tell you one thing, the flopping, it's still, I turn a channel, I can't take it.
06:31I literally walk out and listen.
06:33But I know it's been told by people that are knowledgeable, it's part of the game.
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