00:00We officially tie a bow on the World Cup here in 2026. In case you missed it yesterday,
00:07right around this time yesterday, it appeared that we'd be headed toward extra time and maybe
00:11even some penalty kicks and Spain ends up taking the World Cup. It's a hot button topic here in
00:17the United States today. I think most would agree it was the most popular and most watched and most
00:22exciting World Cup ever. But the finale of the World Cup is getting panned as it probably should.
00:29I mean, you saw the Saturday third place game, which was just incredible. I believe seven goals
00:33or nine goals. I just couldn't keep up. There was so many goals in that one. And then Sunday you
00:38get
00:38this dud of a 0-0 until Spain ends up winning it in the end, Tom. So we'll put a
00:44bow on that. What
00:44was your final assessment of it? As a matter of fact, if I'm, I think Chris, if I'm not mistaken,
00:49I think I picked Spain on day one to win this thing, which is the only thing I think I've
00:53got
00:53right here in a couple of weeks. But Spain ended up winning and winning the championship. Messi goes
00:59home. What was your takeaway from watching the entire thing, Tom? I feel like we watched it
01:03more than ever here in the United States because it was here. Yeah, we did. I think it was a
01:09great
01:10step for the popularity of soccer across the board. We do have the European leagues starting in just
01:17over a month, which, you know, a lot of people hopefully are tuning into for the first time this
01:21year. The finale between Spain and Argentina is all credit to Spain. Argentina looked terrible.
01:27There's no other way to put it. Spain dominated the game from the start the entire time. Argentina
01:33did absolutely nothing on offense. They should be absolutely embarrassed by their performance.
01:38They should be embarrassed by what happened after the game with the players and the altercation.
01:43Spain put up one of the best performances, not just in the finale, but across the entirety of the
01:48World Cup throughout the group stage and bracket play. Their defense was phenomenal. They are
01:53rightly deserving of the championship. And it's a really nice storyline because they want it and
01:58they will go into hosting the next World Cup in four years in 2030 between Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.
02:04They are the three nations hosting the next one. So Spain wins it. They'll open up the next one.
02:09I think it's a great celebration. They absolutely deserve it. Argentina, terrible.
02:14Yeah, terrible in the end. Messi's run may have come to a close. Of course, he did not win the
02:19Golden Boop. That was Mbappe. He ends up winning it. And, you know, he had a great World Cup. I
02:24don't
02:24think that there's any doubt about that. He was one of the favorites, by the way, to win the Golden
02:28Boop. So no surprise that he was the top score in the World Cup in 2026. Do you think, Tom,
02:35that from
02:35watching it this year that we made progress? Forget about on the pitch. It just made progress here in the
02:42United States and more people watching. I don't know. I think because it was here, we all watched
02:47it. In four years from now, it's really hard to say what the environment, by the way, will be with
02:53television. I mean, it is possible, Tom, by the way, that a number of matches in four years from now
02:58will be streaming only. I mean, imagine me four years ago telling you that most TV would be
03:03streaming. You would have said, you're Craig, you're crazy. But that's where we're at here in the
03:07country. I mean, everyone is streaming SportsGrid 24 hours a day, too. So I wonder, Tom, I don't know
03:13that we made progress in that area. I think people got on board heavily because it was here in the
03:17States. Spain, you're going to have time differences and things like that. So what is your final opinion
03:22on that in terms of where we are as a country embracing soccer? Did it improve from this? Did
03:28it get worse? Did it stay the same? Where are you at?
03:31I'm cautiously optimistic that the overall population will be more interested. I'm very,
03:37very optimistic that the betting population will be far more interested once the EPL, La Liga,
03:44Serie A, the Bundesliga get going in about a month. And they'll roll that into the Champions League,
03:50UCLA, UCL, which has just streamed on Paramount. So if you have that, you can watch that. If you have
03:55Peacock, you can watch the EPL. If you have ESPN Plus, you can watch La Liga and Bundesliga.
04:00So there are options out there. I think more and more people continue to know because they're
04:04going to be betting on it because it was here in the United States. Again, if this was, you know,
04:08in Spain, Morocco and Portugal this year, I don't know if as many people would be getting on board
04:12waiting for the next one. Yeah. I mean, think about where we were, Tom, four years ago,
04:17scratching the surface with sports betting being legal again. Prediction markets did not exist.
04:23I mean, so many differences. I mean, who even knows where technology is going to be
04:28in 2030? We're just so far away from that. But I think it's a fair point to wonder.
04:34And I think picking up when you think about it, where Netflix feels that they're in sports,
04:38they just took the, of course, home run derby, didn't do well in terms of streaming. Could it
04:42be Amazon Prime? Could it be somebody else? As of right now, FIFA's got that contract wide open.
04:47It's not like they have a deal in four years. They can do anything they want with this. It's sort
04:51of like what the NFL wants to be, which is just charge as much money as possible until the
04:55government comes in and says, hey, you got a little bit of a monopoly here. You can't do that.
04:59But that's kind of what is going on there.
