Hey, guys, welcome to the Marcast. Read here is the UFL living
up to expectations? That is the theme we are tackling today as we approach
the midway point, Week five of the UFL twenty twenty four season. Can't
believe we're already there. Big show coming your way today. Happy NFL Draft
Week, a weekend, lots of excitement going on. Hopefully by the time
you are listening or watching this, I have pre ordered my Jaden Daniels Washington
Commanders Jersey here pick number two. Pretty anxious today here Mariners are playing the
Rangers. We got the drafts coming up tonight. A little anxious right now,
so hopefully this episode goes well. You guys enjoy it. I'm going
to give you a little trigger warning here if you're one of those people gets
a little triggered by a little criticism of the UFL. Just fair warn here.
Haven't talked with Greg yet, but boy, have I talked with Rick
Sarah Tella this morning. I don't know if I was ready for Rick here
at eight thirty am Pacific on a Thursday. Shot out of the cannon.
Rick Sarahtella, All Around the Football Guy, All Access Football He's now a
scout with the Edmonton Elks, been around a lot. He was part of
the IFA for a while, so Rick certainly knows this stuff. Has been
watching the UFL games, went to the UFL or into Renegade's DC Defenders game
and said, read I have a lot of stuff to get off my plate
and did he so just it's a great interview, very constructive. But boy,
Rick scottson takes, I just hope you're ready. I assume Greg is
going to be as fier. We all know Greg Parks that you know,
the fiery contributor for UFO board, but hey, maybe Greg's going to have
thoughts as well. I don't you know, Breakfast any of this, like
come on and talk negative about the league, but you know we're sharing our
thoughts. We're halfway here through the season. I can't believe it. Halfway
to the Saint Louis Championship game. Speaking of which, like and subscribe,
I think the YouTube cleared out some bots or something lastly losing subscribers. Maybe
it's just all of our fiery hot takes, but trying to get to thirty
five hundred subscribers by the UFL Championship game. We're giving away two free tickets
and then you'll be able to sit with the Professor Andrew Murray at the championship
game. Don't like and subscribe if you're already subscribed, give a thumbs up
to the video, tell the algorithm and you know, comment all your hot
takes and commentary against Rick and Greg's hot takes here today. But big show,
I said Rick Sarahtella, Greg Parks, contributor for UFL board, sharing
his thoughts. It's the UFL A meeting his expectations, exceeding his expectations for
the season. And then I always appreciate Darryl Davis as well, coming on
from Saskatchewan, one of the few Canadian provinces that is not represented in the
NHL playoffs this year. Darryl talking Sean Lemon's indefinite suspension for gambling the Chack
Kelly and how does that investigation relate to the Shawn Lemon investigation. Talking the
CFL draft come up next week and the Rough Riders and everything else. So
I will let you guys have at it. Please enjoy the episode if you
if you agree, if you disagree, that's good. Leave your comments,
leave your feedback, I respond to everything, so appreciate it, like and
subscribe. We'll see at the end. Well, here we are busy week.
Here, I have my commander's hat on. Hopefully as we listen to
this, I guess I'm pre ordering my Jaden Daniels Jersey will see how we
feel about that. We get Rick Stots, but we have Rick sarah Tel
here, busy football man, all Access Football. He's a scout with the
Elks up in the CFL. We wanted to have Rick on during the UFL
kickoff and then obviously busy with travel and all of that. So now we
get him one on one here, Rick, how are you doing? I'm
doing great, man, the best time of the year for me, so
buckle up. Well, no, and that's because you know Rick said,
he goes, hey, I want to talk to some of this UFL stuff,
And I go, well, isn't this like, well, no,
I've done all the you know, this is all like you know, they
all the all the work's been done. We're getting ready for all this stuff.
But now we're talking, we're going I went into UFL Week five.
First off, just how are you doing? And then let's kind of get
into your thoughts on the other season. You know, I'm doing great.
Read thank you for asking. Hopefully you're doing well. You know, Listen,
i have never been to a Canadian Football League game and I'm getting ready
to gear up for my first CFL training camp. We report on maybe eighth,
so I'll be departing for Edmonton, and man, I'm looking forward to
it. I feel like seeing it on TV and experiencing it. You know.
Coach Chris Jones and told me like, hey, you really don't understand
the waggle until you see it live in person. So really looking forward to
it. Man, it should be fun Edmonton. You know, they need
to kind of bounce back this year. I think they need to sign a
few more quarterbacks. I think this week and all that, I think I
think we have nine quarterbacks. Hey is Cardell Jones being called again for that?
But anyway, we can talk a little CFL at the ad, but
let's get into this UFL. The theme this week is the UFL living up
to expectations. So what let's say you you're a football guy. Yeah,
so in terms of like on the field quality of product, I think it's
great. You know, I think it's a step up from the level of
competition. I think there's more continuity there. The games are exciting, and
they've always been exciting to me. And you see a lot of games come
down to the wire, which is great. The ratings are good too,
right, I'd love to see the advertising dollars which might make it sustainable.
But then, you know, I had the opportunity to attend the game Arlington
DC at Arlington a couple weeks back. Didn't pull out my Scout card or
my media card. I wanted to go and experience it as a fan.
I was there with some friends and wanted to just, you know, see
what it's all about. And I'll tell you and I don't want to make
this out to be a hit job on the UFL. In fact, I
know they listened to your show. I know they've rejected my help numerous occasions.
So through the power of the Mark Cast, we're going to offer them
freakinging. But man, they just missed the Mark on so many aspects,
and I'd love to dive into some of them. I don't know how much
time we have, but for for example, you know, the first thing
I'd noticed upon walking into the stadium is that you know, I don't think
they know who their audience is, because what I noticed was most of the
people are really not there for football. Most of the people want to enjoy
a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, take their family out to the game, have
a local team to root for, and not have to pay the NFL cost
of experience, right, and so like you've got fan bases there, Like
there was one crew behind the end zone. Okay, the Renegades, they're
all dressed up robot uniforms. They're going crazy. Anything the Renegades do.
They're cheering. Man, Now, I'm not sure they know any of the
rules, Like you know, down again, it came down to the end,
they were completely quiet. They didn't know it hit them. But my
point is, like the crowd cheers the loudest when they're throwing around a free
T shirt. And so when I go there, and I understand, like
part of the problem is they negotiated bad stadium deals. So I don't know
how much of this they can control. But like we bought our tickets.
I think the two tickets that came out to like forty five bucks in total
for the both of us. Awesome, cool, we're in. Then we
get there and the cheapest parking is like fifty bucks. So now the parking
costs more than the seats, which you know to be expected, I guess
out of sporting event. Now you go to the game. You know,
we get a couple of beers, you know, eight dollars bottled waters,
twelve dollars beers. You know you have two three rounds, a couple of
waters. You're in the whole another one hundred bucks. So I said,
man, this really is not fan friendly to a family of four that wants
to go spend an afternoon and hang out and watch a good football game.
And you know it's Melissa High School. I had a workout there, right
down the street, a stone's throw away from Arlington Stadium. Read I'd be
embarrassed to tell you how cheap I can get that stadium. It's a thirty
five million dollar facility. It holds twelve thousand fannies in the seats. Why
don't we work on filling out that venue first? Okay, because they reported
eight thousand, I'd be shocked, shocked if there was even half of that.
Okay. Then I went to the Frisco Fighters game later that night.
I actually felt embarrassed for the UFL, but it's by their own doing.
But you go to the Frisco Fighters game, there's maybe a thousand people in
the arena, but there's more ambiance, there's more atmosphere. And guess what,
after the game, you go on the field, you get to shake
the player's hands, you get free autographs, you get to have that intimate
fan experience. There's none of that going on at the UFL. And I
think they missed the boat. Like Louis Perez is somewhat of a local legend
down there. You wouldn't know that he's playing in the backyard right there,
hanging out in Arlington. I didn't see one Texas A and M Commerce shirt.
How about maybe giving out some tickets to the youth teams to the Texas
A and M Commerce football program. And I'll tell you another thing, Like
I don't know if you talked about this on the air, I'm sure you're
aware of the figures. I know I know what the numbers are for the
head coaching salaries. What a joke they got. You know, they don't
have NFL money, but they have money to be successful. They put it
in the wrong areas. The stadium contracts, terrible deals. The head coaching
contracts terrible deals. First of all, Like, if you don't want,
if you don't want to coach in this league for four hundred thousand dollars,
take a hike, see you later. You know, because I tell you
what, nobody came to the game to watch Bob Stoops stand on the sideline.
That guy's collecting a retirement check. No offense coach. You know,
I'm not out here to make enemies. But like this is common sense logic.
One oh one. Every head coach makes four hundred thousand dollars, and
I just cut the head coaching budget by seventy five percent by doing that.
You do the math. So, like where they're allocating their resources are just
terrible business decisions. And this has been a completely like I've talked to the
people, and this is completely a USFL operation right entirely in terms of in
terms of kind of management. What do you mean in terms of the people
who are calling the shots? Are the USFL folks, the XFL. This
was a merger, This was not a mergent, This was an acquisition.
So you know, I've got a lot more. But man, those are
just like simple things that they can get like, I know the guy there
that owns the biggest Harley Davidson right down there in the I'm not even from
Texas, but like you think if you gave away a free Harley Davidson or
did like a Pat McAfee kicking halftime show entertainment, you think you might fill
up some seats and have the crowd stick around, at least for the first
half. I mean, it was an embarrassment. Read like, there was
not even four thousand people in that stadium. And I hope they get it
together and turn it around. But I mean there's there's so much fixing up
to do, and then you know, you go down the street, let's
yeah, let's stop dawn a little bit here. It's good. I kind
of get that off my chest. It's been way on me for like two
weeks. Man. I want to see this league succeed. I want to
see them do well. Yeah, and what you know, and we because
I want to because you know, we want to be constructed about this as
well, because we've gotten a lot and even on the show on Monday,
we get a lot of like you guys, like you rag on it,
but what you know, what are the ideas I like having tangible things,
But I said I would have a table out front of the Ranger Stadium every
second of every day there at Texas Live. Hey, do you know,
like I said, you know there's Ranger schemes there this week the Mariners are
in town, Like, Hey, did you know there's football players here literally
across the street coming up this weekend. But it to me the UFL here
is in a weird spot because, like you said, and going into the
CFL, they get that community, right, we're like diving into the community
or investing, and I know we do a little bit of that, right.
I think they had like a home list the people in Arlington, like
the players went and helped to like the local homeless shelters in Arlington, which
was great, But that's I don't care about the Memphis show Bucks players going
to the Arlington Renegades. Yeah, we need to do that in Memphis.
We need to do that, But they don't have the money to do that.
So you're kind of stuck in this area where I think they're doing a
lot in or trying to do a lot in Arlington. But there's those other
seven markets, and we you know, they don't necessarily make sense anyway,
It really doesn't cost a lot to do grassroots marketing though to your point,
like I could have a couple of Arlington Renegades runners and the parking lot of
the Texas Rangers stadium, like giving out free tickets to kids. I mean,
how many people does Arlington hold? Forty thousand people? And you can't
even put four Thousando's marketing starts with the youth. If you don't, if
you don't make fans grow up with this and like it from a young age,
people like you and me aren't going to just discover this thing and and
and become interested because there's no name brand value. You've got to start with
the youth. And they've done none of that. And I'll tell you what
good thing. We weren't hungry because we were already like out two hundred and
fifty bucks just from you know, a couple of soda pops. I mean,
imagine if we wanted to eat like that's not family friendly. Well,
I will also say when I was there for covering the kickoff game, I
also had to purchase We had to purchase our own food and beverage as media
members, which is another another conversation in and of itself. But I just
you know, I don't want to say that plightly, but I just yeah,
it feels like, you know, and we talked about this last week
on the show, like, you how how do we get like these media
members because people sit there and they go like, Okay, who's watching the
you know, who's watching the crowds, who's watching their clouds? I watched
the crowds because that tells me if there's a level of inure in the markets.
Right, we're not trying to just attract the national market. We're trying
to attract local and you know, ultimately the goal here, as they've said,
is we want to sell off these franchises in the next four or five
years. Well I don't see you know, seven thousand in Michigan or seven
thousand in Memphis doing that. So how do you you know, how do
you get these media members not in you know, not in Arlington, to
hop on these media calls to cover this stuff. There's no practice. I
don't I don't know how you get these people that are working at you know,
the Fox affiliated Memphis to care about the UFL. So so I pitched
an idea where you know, maybe you should kind of make me the media
reporter for the league website and have me kind of going behind the scenes bringing
you the stories and the interviews and going you know, behind the scenes kind
of thing. But they don't want to spend the money there. They want
to go pay head coaches through the roof. But the problem is read like
if you if you notice, like beat coverage has dwindled down, you know,
like how many Texas Rangers beat writers are there? Right? Probably not
a lot. So like no newspaper or local media outlet is going to pay
a guy to go cover Arlington Renegades or the Memphis Showboats. Like there's just
no return on investment there because it is a niche market. It's a niche
fan base, but it's niche enough where you can survive. And I you
know, the question I ponder, like we never see anything about the advertising
revenue that they generate on TV. But my big question is like are they
doing the league a favor by putting the games on the league legacy channels?
Because as soon as they go to cable, whether it's FS one or wherever
else, they you got to go looking for the game. I mean,
the audience drops significantly. So is it like, are people just you know,
finding this thing on ABC and flops because it's on easily accessible and yet
when you have to go find like I can log onto the UFL website can
see it's on FS one, but then only two hundred thousand people bother showing
up. That's been concerning to me. I don't know. I'd love to
hear your thoughts on that. No, and I do, I think obviously,
And that's been their tuting point this season. Right as we've consolidated,
we're prioritizing the you know, the time slots. But to your point,
yeah, I think there's half a million people that are always I mean the
Spring League Mega Bowl on Fox three years ago, dree four hundred and fifty
thousand viewers, and that was Brian Woods and you know, a cardboard box
and his garage putting together a league, right, So I think that it
looks better in that way. But to your point, when you move it
off, you know, to the ones where we have to seek it out,
you know, it's not becoming a destination. We saw that with FX
last year. I just wanted to stop down as well with the beat writers
in the lack of that coverage. I don't know if you it was kind
of going online. It was like the sports gambling podcast, like they got
denied credential to go cover one of the XFL games, and like this guy
just went out of TI rate. I didn't want to comment too much,
but they had they had difficulties, and we're blessed that. You know,
Marcuas is pretty well accepted with all this stuff, but they had challenges getting
credential for all this. And to your point, he's like, you know,
who is covering this league? Were that sending out people from San Antonio
to Arlington? Who? You know? You need to focus on the internet
shows, the podcast the other things at this point, because there's not that
many, as you said, like Texas Rangers reporters also covering the Arlington or
anybody else. I agree, and you know, maybe because they're a gambling
website that got denied credentials, but at this point, you know, the
league should be embracing that element too, right, I mean I would be
broadcasting that talking about the odds, the in game odds, whatever over under
during the broadcast, because it's another element that that gauges fan interest and keeps
you interested in the game, and by refusing to acknowledge that again, you're
just cutting off a whole other audience or demographic that you know, if you
got somebody that wants to come and cover the league, I mean, listen,
I'd be opening like the Senior Bowl. Let's everybody in UFL could probably
take a page out of that playbook in terms of kind of I don't know,
more more constructive things you like to see. I know you had a
list of items you wanted to get through. Anything else you want to make
sure you yes, you stop down, well, you know, I mean,
other stuff is kind of just big. I mean, I think they're
doing a good job with the talent and the on field product. But again,
just like an operation standpoint, how do you make this sustainable? How
do you make it profitable? Like the TV ratings, Yeah they could,
they might be able to squeeze or milk another year out of this read,
but like, do you want to sustain or do you want to grow?
Because I haven't seen anything that they've done that tells me that they want to
grow. Funny, it's like I hear talk about expansion, Like how about
you master what you have? I mean, give me a break. There's
one market, Saint Louis, that draws fans, and it's only because it's
a passionate fan base that had an NFL team robbed from him. I had
a chance to attend the Saint Louis Rams game. That is a passionate fan
base. And the BattleHawks are drawing out of default, not because of anything
that the league did. No. Yes, and then we bade that point
as well, the DC and Saint Louis. You know, it's no surprise
that the two legacy franchises around since twenty eighteen on the ones that are so
carried. But you even saw it last It was last week, you know,
Saint Louis, they were down ten thousand week over when they have their
opening weekend, and you always get well, he was study outside and the
Cardinals were playing, and there was a gas station opening up down the street,
and Brian Carey was playing in the county. Like there's all these different
things, and I forgot that was what I was trying to reach to before
you were talking about the the you pitching to be the media reporter. I
like that they had that Josh Lewin do it last year. I thought that
was good. I thought he was too busy. I didn't think that he.
I think he had his fingers in too many different things, and I
don't think he had enough time to kind of do what that position could have
been. But I like that they at least they had a weekly podcast.
At least they had a weekly blog, articles, recaps, interviews with the
coaches. Even I think it should have been you know that times five,
Right, let's do something every day. But at least you have that.
You want to connect with your fan base, how do you do that.
You tell the stories of the players, You tell the stories of the league.
Okay, And I saw one of our buddies, Juan Lozano, who's
a very well known agent, said like, you know, basically the broadcasters
are a joke. And I agree. I mean, I tune in and
these guys are on there smiling and just shooting out the side of their neck,
like acho, love your baby. You came on my show, good
dude, But don't sit up there in front like you even know who any
of these guys are. You never saw any of them play, You don't
know anything about them, And so like, why wouldn't you have a guy
like Emery Hunt or myself I've scouted and communicated and spoken to almost every single
player in the league. I know them personally. I know a lot of
their families, I know their agents, their trainers. I know everything about
these guys. I've hung out with them too. Nobody knows them more than
I do. But they want to go hire some big name phony try them
out there and show up with these game notes and just read like somebody makes
a tackle. Well, let me look down and see what college he went
to. So and so went to Washburn University. How about that? Guys.
It's like there's no there's no there's no pride, there's no homework.
These guys just show up and just shoot the breeze throughout the game. And
it's an insult to the fan base for people like you and I who are
tuning in that really want to see Cavante Turpin and what this guy is gonna
do next and if he has a shot to go to the NFL. And
this kicker like that's the other thing that did that just is really uh mind
blowing to me. Like there's teams now being investigated for tampering on the kicker
baits like like you have a stipulation in the contract that doesn't allow the players
to talk to NFL teams in season. Like, give me a break.
That's the best marketing you can have. So it's like, you know,
listen, dude, you're telling me that teams are gonna be in trouble for
contacting the kicker. What a joke. The best marketing you can have is
this guy talking to an NFL team and they wouldn't know innovation if it's slapped
them in the face. I'm sitting in the stadium wondering why they don't just
change it back to the kickoff rule which they created that the NFL changed,
Right, you would have people that would just be tuning in for that,
but they got innovative slapping them in the face and don't even know it.
So like, how do you like you bring the horse to water? You
can't force them to drink it. I mean, these guys no offense.
Some of these guys running the show are dinosaurs. I said it. Sorry,
guys, the times have passed you bye. Do you find because I
We've had a lot of comments about between the Fox and the ESPN broadcast,
and I'm always like normally I'm doing a lot like I'm on my phone.
I'm not always like, you know, I get a little add going on.
But last week I was watching the BattleHawks game and it was on ESPN
and I'm on the treadmill, so I'm, you know, glued him the
whole time. And it was No, it was not Tom Lugan Bill,
who was a friend of the show, is a gentleman that was the lead
play by play then incestantly talked about the over under of the game the entire
time. I'm like, Oh, we're going for two here, Like that's
gonna help with the over It's like, no, they're going for two to
try to win the game. They're going for to try to score points.
Like, So, is it do you find that across the board? Is
that because people like like Joe Klatt and Curtin them, or do you like
the Fox crew or do you think that's across the board? Or is it
ESPN the shoe. I like Joe Klatt because he does college football broadcast and
he's seen some of these guys, so he comes across as more authentic.
Uh, you know, the rest of them, there's a lot to be
desired. You know, that's the end of the year. Are you including
Seattle sports lizer Brock Heward in that mix. Yeah, I think he's going
on the show. In a couple of leaks. I like Brock. I
think, you know, he's not terrible, but I think you know,
Clatte, you can tell respects the job. I'm not sure Cord puts in
as much work, but he does have a little bit more familiar obity with
these guys. You know, I think the college broadcasters are better for it.
But you know, there's a lot of talented dudes out there that do
know these players, and it would be beneficial for the league to investigate that
well. And even we've talked before about even doing these drafts and everything,
and I think they go, like, well, who cares about the supplemental
draft because it will be it's because no one knows who you know, you
got to find people that knows who these people are and then they can talk
about it. It's yeah, like if you if you put out of their
press release, it's one of those and it's like, I don't know,
it's never hit And I've seen you know, the heights of the you know
the XFL YouTube back through you know, twenty eighteen to twenty twenty when I
was a fan and not being has seemed to get to that point ever again,
and it's because of this, like, well, this is is what
it is. We're just gonna put this out. We're just gonna do this.
We're gonna do it on a Sunday and we'll send out a press release
like you need to. You got to build this up if you want people
to care about it. There there is absolutely zero fan initiative, and if
there is, I mean I challenged the UFL to provide us with the list
of what their fan initiative includes, because I mean, if I if I
had to go off of their actions, they hate us. I mean,
thank god they got the box scores fixed this year. I mean, but
they hate us, like they don't do anything for the fans. They do
nothing to cater to the fan experience. They do nothing to enhance like the
whole situation, like how many years have they been doing this? How many
years? Like they knew they weren't going to fill up Arlington Stadium. You
know how many first class facility high schools And again, I you know,
you probably don't even have to pay much. They might they might just want
it for the publicity and I'll tell you what, man, these stadiums are
nice down there in Texas, right, And Florida's got them too. California's
got them too. So it can be done out of smaller scale and a
much better fan experience. And I think again, if you want to grow,
then that's what you need to do. You need to grow the gates,
You need to grow the merchandise. You know. That was the other
thing too, Like I had to walk probably like more than half the stadium
to find the memorabilia, right, but again after what I paid, Like
I just really wasn't feeling a fifty dollar T shirt, you know. And
so again it's like you should be given this stuff away, like a T
shirt should be like no more than thirty five dollars for UFL T shirt.
I don't know, Uh, call me crazy, but like if you want
people to wear that and buy it and and grow the game, like that's
what you need to do. What do you? And I don't want this
to be And I because I believe we could rag for a long time on
all this stuff, and I you know, it's common sense. I'm not
ragging, Marie. This is this is common sense stuff, right that me
and my entourage in the in the stadium throughout the course of the game,
solved a lot of the league issues just common sense. But is it so
who do you put on this on that is that that USFL side there of
saying like hey, Fox, we need to invest more in this is it
is? To me? It's always just like we saw that the XFL last
year, Like, okay, we we lost money, we cut a bunch
of people, you know, Fox, Okay, we're accepting the XFL coming
into this kind of work, like nobody, we all seem gunshy to be
able to take the plene. You know, when I went from working by
time job to do what I do now, you know, you take a
jump and you go, I'm going to lose some money here for a little
bit and build it up on the other side. And you know, I
mean you're someone that you know does a million different things, Like at some
point, I do you is that the issue? What do you think the
issue is? Well, you know, I think the biggest problem, like
with a lot of these leagues, you know, we saw it with Bill
Polly and I think with the Alliance League is that you know, football guys
are are just that and should probably stay on that side of the field.
When you have football guys making business decisions, it's a recipe for disaster.
You need somebody to come in here and look at this operation as a bottom
line business and not just strictly as a TV reality show. Right, this
is reality TV programming at its cheapest for ABC and Fox. That's what this
league is to them. But when you have the football guys saying, oh,
well, you know, I know the guy over at Arlington, we
can get a stadium there. Hey, let's go play. Let's put a
team in New Jersey and playing Giants stadium, even though nobody gives a crap
about this team, Like you know, it's just like, and I remember
having that conversation with the guys at the time. I'm like, yo,
dude, like, why don't you maybe put them in the MetroStars stadium.
It holds twenty five thousand. You might have a little bit more of an
ambiance. I mean, they couldn't get two thousand people in the Meadowlands.
What a joke. But it's like, are you that tone deaf to your
own product? How many years you've been doing this? I don't get it
to me. And I've said before. It's that balance of I think they
want to view themselves as NFL light and I think that they need to be
more of a CFL brand that we're really investing in here. I don't know.
We've talked and you know, trying to get stories out players, and
we you know, like we did get Darryl Johnson on Riot. I mean
that was super appreciative of the league set that up. But some of the
time some of these team raps, you know, I email every week like
hey, we'd love to talk to that, you know, I know,
and like, I know we're setting up all these coach we're doing all these
you know, the virtual calls that like three people are on, Like I
go check this out. That's the benefit to me, right, And you
have someone on here for twenty minutes, ten minutes we can talk and kind
of go through I can't do a media scrum for a podcast, and they're
like, oh, you know real, like we're trying, we're busy.
I'm like, I don't, I don't know what you're busy doing. Then
like it maybe if I if it was explained to me, I would I
would understand, right, And then like, okay, I'm not seeing what
you're seeing. But we're just like I don't know, like besides setting up
the zoom calls every week, Like I don't know, it's no time for
you. Like I deal with Matt Baker with the BC allions all the time,
and I go, I text Matt, Hey, Matt, anybody in
the world you have to talk to today. I'm sitting in front of my
computer all day. I can hop on at any point of the day and
talk to the and he'll go, hey, so and so, read needs
you for ten minutes before you leave practice today, calling on your phone,
calling on them. It's not it doesn't need to be this, like you
know, the control the agenda. It's a controled agenda. And they've given
me crap again. They hate their fans because the Mark Cast is the best
thing going for the UFL. It's the most watched podcast show. It is
they do they hate They hate our fans. I'm a fan of the league.
You wouldn't guess it by what I'm sitting here saying. It's frustrating,
but I'm actually a fan of the league, and they've done me a disservice
by their coverage. The whole operation, the procedure, how they go about
their business. It really is not a fan friend of the league. But
to deny you and I interviews and access, you know, that comes from
Darren over there. He you know, I put out some stuff once they
got their panties and a bunch over the silliest thing. I'm like, this
is a good thing for the league to be talking about this, but you
know, they don't know a good thing from a bad thing. You know
what. They need to understand that any publicity is good publicity for this league,
and they need to stop trying to control narrative and dictate who can talk
to who, and like all these director of personnel guys and head coaches that
are like scared to talk to you and guys on the record because of the
directive. Again that starts up top from the dinosaurs running the league. I
mean they the management. I'm not gonna name names. You can go see
who's calling the shots, all right. It's not just one guy. They've
got people that are just too old for the position. Football has evolved.
It's a young man's game. If you look what the NFL is doing.
All the coaches and gms now are like under forty all right, it's a
young man's game, and they got guys that are twice the age of that
calling the shots. That's the problem. Let's get some positives here here before
we get out. You said you like the football, right, we got
some this weekend going on, and you know, I think, was it
DC is going into Birmingham or is it the other way around here? I
mean, what do you yeah, Birmingham withys right next? What is it?
It's the we got the double leather and said hawks of DC. That's
how I need do? Was one game? Let's looking for teen there?
What's striking you in that way? Just in terms of like some positivities coming
out. No, the positive thing is like again, the talent across the
board is way up. I think the rule changes then tweaks that they do
implement and have like the fourth and twelve like, I think the NFL needs
to look into that. I know the Eagles proposed like a fourth and twenty
similar type of rule, but how cool is that? Like? And that
means like, hey, you could be down double digits with two minutes left
to go, like the game I was at the DC Defenders at Arlington.
They were down by like thirteen points with two and a half minutes that came
back and won. That's exciting. I love that you're never out of a
game. And again, I think the more uniqueness and creativeness, like they
should be trendsetters rather than trying to do oh well, we want a more
traditional kickoff, like no, he hate me. That was the most innovative
thing you did was let players put their own nicknames on the back of jerseys.
You should be in. I'm racing that. That is what connects you
to the fan. That's what sells jerseys and merchandises. Not Hey, you
can buy this twenty three jersey for the year twenty twenty three. Who're gonna
print a million of them and sell too? I'm like, you know,
but again, I just wish I would This could have all been avoided.
But the on the field product is exciting. I think the opportunities that the
quarterbacks are getting right, Like you're seeing a lot of quarterbacks showcase, and
that to me, Like, I go back to the World League. I
was a really big fan of the World League back in the early nineties.
Guys like JT. O. Sullivan and Kurt Wanner, right, and those
guys may have never gotten a whiff of the NFL had it not been for
the World Football League. So I think quarterbacks, when you look at what's
going on with the draft, I can identify about half the leite half the
teams in the NFL. I would probably like to upgrade their quarterback. Well.
I think it's very cool that you have a developmental system for that position
because I think that's one of the biggest benefits that the UFL is doing.
And I would say, like offensive linemen, it won't get talked about,
but developing offensive lineman is probably one of the biggest needs right now in the
NFL. If you saw what the NFL did with their Canton program, they
were just developing. Mike Tyst was up there just developing offensive lineman. Because
it's a big crisis right now finding good quarterbacks and finding good offensive linemen.
And that's what the UFL is there for, and that's why they need to
get those contracts right. Like, if the NFL team wants to talk to
a player in season, that should be welcomed, right, that should be
embraced, not like no, you can't talk to our guy, he's under
contract, Like bro the whole reason why he signed up for your league is
to get recognized by the NFL. Do you get it? So you know
there's some good I tune in, I watch every game. I'm glued to
it. I love it. I'm a fan, but I want to see
it stick around and if they don't make some of the changes that were suggestion,
then, like, you know, it was hard to sit there and
I stayed to the end, but it was hard to sit there and look
around and say, yeah, this is gonna last, Like come on,
step your game up and I'm available, guys if you want to call me
no. I get that. It's a little deciding. And I remember when
we did the show two years ago because we were live and Dorothy went out
when we were doing the show, kind of walking around and she called in
and I'm like, oh, there are a lot of people out there.
And then this year I was like looking out, I'm like, you know,
then you kind of show up and you're like, oh, I just
kind of walk in and I'm here. You know, I get what you're
saying and decided to be all to end all the audience, but it is
You're like, I just feel like kind of loser here. I don't know,
I always feel like I was like, I care a little bit more
about this, but I want to circle back real quick because I wanted to
make sure anything else about this kickoff, anything else that we talk, because
you talk the innovation, the fourth and twelve and all that. Uh,
you know, Andy's been on our Monday recaps, you know, pounding his
fists all these under in the yards with his kickoff. People say they like
the kickoff because it's exciting. I would say, and Andy would say,
well, now it's expected you're going to get a big return. So it's
kind of negating. Now what do you make of that? And just kind
of like we want to give these offenses more of a head start. But
now it's like he said, doesn't look like it does in the NFL is
going to be and it's any other thoughts on that while we have the football
guy on Yeah, you know I I I like going back to the old
rule. And I don't know why you wouldn't just change it. What's to
the XFL rule? Because it's because they because I think each league said we
have these eight things, and we have these things, and we got it
and it was well football. Football is a game of adapt and adjust right,
like they're trying to again fit a square peg into a round hole.
I will say, lit, I like I like being in the I like
the different tweaks of the game. We should be looking for change. The
thing that is really good what they do the best is probably the challenges,
Like the NFL could certainly learn a thing or two about the swiftness, the
transparency, right, just the whole process of how they do the challenges and
replays. Like having inside to the audio and listen to that conversation. I
think that's the way to go. I mean, I love that. Well,
you even get people like Mike Florio. I'm like, hey, and
he hates all these spring leagues, Okay, this is the most transparent and
the review and like yeah, I mean, if you can slay him with
some of this stuff, I think that, you know, I think that
that's good if you can turn some of these nasaras, because people sit there
and then I'm sure the comments on this video would be to say, oh,
right, just complaining, and people are saying, like, you know,
we're the people that are like, Mike's not watching this stuff, right,
these people aren't watching this stuff. I'm not complaining. I'm I'm annoyed
and irritated because I expect you expect more because of who's involved. Do you
expect more because of the position they're at or who's behind it? I mean,
I just because of the money that's spent, the money that's put into
this, it doesn't equate. It doesn't add up from what I see,
like the the results can be a lot better. And there was really again,
like no effort again put into it. Seemed like they're sitting in limbo
land with everybody in the dark for how many months, players, coaches,
executives, the communication transparency, Like I don't think I don't think they're as
stable as they want you to believe they are. And that's why, like
you've you've got like when you see what I saw, you're like, damn,
that's concerning. I know they're bleeding money, Well why aren't they doing
these simple things that can help costs? That's how I it's good. Anything
else you want to make sure you get to before we wrap up here.
I appreciate your time. This has been fiery. Yeah, that's good.
I had a lot of Hey, if you didn't know, I had a
lot of coffee this morning. But that's good. You know we're burning the
midnight oil for the NFL Draft. I'm excited. But the UFL has been
fine. I can't believe like it's halfway done. No, right, it's
halfway done. But again, like having the NFL connect to the Spring League,
connect to the CFL, we got a couple of weekends this year.
Last year was the best year of professional football in the history of the world
because it went fifty two consecutive weekends with pro football being played on the weekends.
Man, that was unbelievable. If we can get it back to that,
I'll be a happy camper. I want the league to succeed. I
think they have another season in them. But again, like the TV ratings
are good, you still have to sell the advertising and until I see those
numbers, until I see the gates and the merchandise improve, and the fan
experience. Again, like Frisco Fighters, you get banged for your buck.
Now, when you go attend a Frisco Fighters game, you know they're giving
away food, they're giving away merchandise, they're letting you on the field,
They're interactive with players. It's everything the UFL is not. And I think
they might want to maybe check out the Frisco Fighters and attend one of those
games to your last point. And I as it gets to this trick,
oh my god, like we're halfway through the season, right, And I
always feel that way, and it's like he said, Okay, we're going
in it next year. And I thought I will at least give Jael Johnson
credit when he was on the show saying, you know, we're doing the
best we can this year and then we're going to make the push for next
year, right because the merger. I you know, I understand all that
sentiment and everything likes that you we're halfway through the season now, because I
always get with like sure, go back to these interview and stuff like Okay,
we just need to get through training camp. We just need to get
through this. We just need to get to that. Like I don't know,
like at what point right now, we're halfway through the season. Okay,
then it's going to be next year, and then it's going to be
okay, well, we just got to get through. Like there's there's always
a lack of like urgency that I think that the spring football maybe needs,
if that makes sense, of like hey, we need to do this now
we're not going to have an opportunity to do that. Oh. They they
are at a crossroads right now. Whether they realize it or not, I'm
not sure they do, but they are at a crossroads as we speak.
I want them to see the fifty dollar hat. I bought like three or
four of these. Read this is how they came in a box with no
protection. The brims are all like warped and crooked, right, And I
could have had my guy Anthony beck to anyone for free. But like I
spend fifty dollars on a hat, I can't even wear it. It's a
it's an office decoration, you know, and every hat like I don't know
if you could see like the crookedness of the brim, but that's how they
show up one hundred and fifty dollars worth of hats and I can't even wear
the damn thing. I mean, I don't know. They hate they hate
their fans. All right, Rick, I appreciate it. We'll get you
on again. This has been fun, long time coming. I go that
I ton't know. I don't. It doesn't affect me, it's everybody else
gets effected by this. I don't. My life is fine, it is
it is, but I think at this point, you know, I think
that I think our subscribers know what's coming and what's not. But you know,
we got it because we got Monday was you know, we get all
these like or I guess it was Tuesday with because when all the ratings come
out in the attendance and there's a lot of like, you know, and
this and that and that, and people like, I don't know I'm here
because I care. It's certainly not the nine dollars that YouTube pays me or
whatever. Like we're going through it, so Rick, I appreciate it.
Like I said, I hopefully I did well this airs. I have my
Jay Daniels jersey coming in the mail, and the draft of the weekend is
exciting for everybody. So hey, the draft is the best time of year.
It gives hope and optimism to all thirty two teams. And uh,
by the way, who's your perdiction is it? Birmingham and Saint Louis are
looking like the contenders here are gonna run run through the league, or I
think so. I think Birmingham's got a pretty much square in hand, and
then yeah, I mean Renegade's and we're gonna talk with Greg Parks about the
Renegades and they have just kind of fallen off here and the BrahMos. You
know, we'll see if they brought in that what Kevin Hogan or whatever.
We'll see with quarterback with Dormerdy and all of that. And then yeah,
but at a Ballahawks right now. Any Murray said they were the most exciting
team since the Roughnecks in twenty twenty. And speaking of quarterbacks, I think
E J. Brown went down and they brought into the other area. Yeah,
yeah, from Brown. And who did they sign? They signed a
Yeah that just came down. Another quarterback that was intriguing. Oh, Bryce
Perkins, Yeah, yeah, exciting. He was there hanging out with John
mcavay for McVeigh a couple of years. So Virginia duel threat, I'm gonna
make it, well make it. That's the one thing I'll say is,
at least these coaches are trying. They might get paid too much. And
as that man, that's the XFL coaches because that's the legacy and people want
to make sure we touch on that. You know, the XFL coaches got
this legacy contract and that's they're gonna hate they're gonna hate me after this episode.
Well it's sly heines word isn't there and everything else, But Rick,
I appreciate it. We'll see you next time. Well, here we are
back busy NFL Draft day here. I've been mayorn. Just be the rate
I'm like sweating here. I'm very excited recording my intro. Greg Parks here
UFL board. First of all, Greg, how are you doing? I'm
doing well read Thanks for having me on. It's good. So we're doing
kind of a check in this week. You know, is the UFL exceeding
expectations? Now? I don't want to spoil we have Rick sarah Tello's interview
as well that I did this morning. If the words the UFL doesn't care
about their fans comes out of your mouth, then you will be doween better
than Rex Saratela's doing. But uh, you know, I want to get
into your thoughts first off. I mean I saw everything he posted with Arlington
and everything else. We'll talk teams, but from a brother sense, like
is the UFL ex feeding your expectations? Uh? Yeah, that's a really
broad question. I think that the on field product is about what I expected.
I would say significantly higher earlier in the season than what we saw from
the XFL, which we expected, you know, we expected, and that's
what all the talk was from the coaches and the players and really the fans
too leading up to this season, was that the combination of the USFL and
XFL, where you're taking the cream of the crop from those leagues, the
expectation was the quality of play would be higher, and I think for the
most part it has been. I think, you know. The only place
that I would say it hasn't met expectations is with the attendance. And I
know we're going to talk about that. I know you and the professor I
heard you got I'm sorry, the face of the UFL. I understand that's
his new nickname. So I know you guys have talked extents about it in
the last few weeks, and I know you know, I'll be giving my
thoughts on it a little later on too. But you know, the ratings
have been pretty good. There are a lot of other pieces that I think
have have been good. And I think the important thing to remember when we
talk about attendance or we talk about all of this other stuff that goes into
it, the marketing and things like that. Realistically, this league kicked off
a little more than two months after it was actually announced, and so I
think we need to take a step back and remember that because as much as
both leagues said they were going forward while they were negotiating this merger, that
wasn't really happening. I mean, I mean that wasn't Everything was basically on
pause in terms of the behind the scenes stuff in terms of the marketing of
the league and everything like that. You know, teams were still making transactions
and everything, but there wasn't a big ticket push anywhere to get anything out
in the off season because everything was so focused on the details of this merger.
So, you know, realistically it was a little over two months.
And then you have the Michigan Panthers. You know, you could make the
argument that they might be the most disappointing in terms of ticket sales, but
they were also selling tickets like a month before, less than a month before
kickoff. I mean, they had a very late start because of some behind
the scenes issues going on there. So I think when you take those into
account, I still don't think attendance is as finding means good, but I
think it's a little more you can put a little bit of an asterisk on
it, as opposed to just throwing throwing the attendance out and saying it's just
terrible. It's still to me, it still feels like we're not taking advantage
and I don't know how how we take advantage of these local markets, and
like we're playing in the markets, we're not really doing anything else in the
markets, right, Like I know that Houston posted, okay, we're doing
teacher appreciation. I'm sure you appreciated that, and doing on my gage door
I tended a screenshow I'm like, hey, guess what, But like you
know, we're even we're having all the teams to share do charity work like
in Arlington, right, but we're not doing anything in any of these markets,
which I understand. I just don't know how we attract, you know,
fans of these markets, media members of these markets. You know,
if you live in Arlington, you can come to the practices, but otherwise
you're basically like shackle to what can I get on a zoom call or can
I get an email back from any of these reps. I just don't if
anything, I feel like that is something very easy that could be doing.
It could be done at this point to kind of help grow that of like
let's incentivize the Detroit Free Press to cover more of the Michigan Panthers by giving
them all that, or like let's get you know, Memphis involved. I
just feel like there's little singles here that we could be hitting that we're not
while we're trying to grow all this other stuff. It's a low bar to
clear. But I do think they're doing better than last year in terms of
that because if you're following social media Twitter and Instagram, you know, they
head there to the city a day before the home teams do, and almost
every week they're doing something in the community that day before, And I think
even the battle Hawks stayed behind an extra day to throughout the first pitch at
the Saint Louis Cardinals game. You know, there was pictures of them at
the children's hospital the day before and videos of that, so you know,
I think, but you know, again, the downside is you can only
do that five times because you're only in your home city five times unless you're
going to go you know, there's no bye week, so you can't go
in the middle of the week. So I think given the hand that they've
been dealt where they are in Arlington. For the most part, I think
they're doing better than last year getting out in the community and being seen.
I know, I just hopped on Instagram before I was on here, and
it looks like the Michigan Panthers have a setup at the NFL Draft in Detroit.
They have a little booth there. So it's those kinds of things that
give me hope. I guess that things could get better, But I just
think the Arlington Hub just makes it impossible to be in the markets as much
as you would like to. And I'm not sure what the battle plan is
on that moving forward. I think it was a three year deal with the
XFL originally signed it with the city of Arlington, and I know it's saving
them a ton of money, So you have to do that balance. Is
the money being saved by having everybody there at Arlington worth maybe not getting out
in the community as much as you would like to so, And the only
people that can answer that is ownership in terms of I guess, you know,
and we've talked about this before, the USFL kind of adopting this model
now of doing this. We've talked and the whole attendance of it all.
And I know we make a lot of it, but to me, it
speaks more to you know, is there actual genuine interest in these communities?
Are people coming out? And I want to get your thoughts as it relates
to wrestling, which I kind of told you in the DMS, but like
to me, I look at it, no one's going to want to buy
any of these teams. If there's only you know, a Birmingham that's been
there. This is three years now, they've been there. They've been playing
every spring around the same time. Twelve thousand people, I mean even okay,
we don't want to talk to the Storm game last week. I mean
twelve thousand for the kickoff their home opener. That doesn't speak to me as
like, well, if I live in Birmingham, this is a hot product
I got to get involved in. Yeah, And I think there's you know,
there's It's hard for me to pinpoint any one thing. It's hard for
me to say this is the fix. It will be better if they do
this right. So if you asked one hundred people in these cities why they
don't go to UFL games, you would probably get twenty five to fifty different
reasons, and so there's there's no one thing you can do as the league
to solve that. I think the UFL needs to control what they can control,
and there's always going to be competition for sports. There's always going to
be as you note a gas station opening up down the street, there's always
going to be something in the city happening that is going to take away potential
fans from your game. You cannot control that. You cannot control the time
slots that ESPN and ABC and Fox give you for the games. You cannot
control, at least not yet, when the stadiums are available for you to
book for the schedule. That stuff is out of your hands. So if
I'm a UFL ownership and I know we're problem solving, reed, We're not
just complaining, we're giving solutions here on this show. But control what you
can control, and a lot of that is marketing. And that's why we
always come back to that when we talk about the UFL, whether it's nationally,
whether it's locally. In these markets, you have to have boots on
the ground. You have to market as much as possible to get fans to
just know that your team is playing in that city, let alone trying to
convince them to come to a game. So I think that's the thing that
the UFL can do. They might not be able to touch all of these
other things, but that's something that is within their control that they can do.
And it goes back to how much are they willing to spend. How
much are they willing to spend on hiring people to put in these cities,
how much are they willing to spend on a marketing budget in these cities.
And I hope that after this year that's something they reassess and they say,
maybe we need to reallocate some funds to local marketing to beef up that aspect
of these teams so that people in these cities know about it and are interested
in coming to these games. Yeah. I mean I used to work at
you know, the Fox station here in the NBC in California. You know,
if I was you know and we have full time team reps now,
you know, I would be following over myself to try to get you know,
the NBC ACB like every week like hey, especially where you're not asking
like hey, we got to go drive a crew out to go do this
like we could do it if you could do a zoom virtual interview in the
newsroom, you know, but to have just just you know, even if
you don't want to deal with like the podcast and the internet shows. And
I don't know if you've followed all that, like sports gambling with them getting
yelling at about not getting credential. But like you know, call the newspapers,
all the TV stations called this, have everyone on there every week.
I mean, it takes no time with all to take a phone out at
practice ten minutes after and pop on and do a quick five to ten minute
phone er. It's just I don't I understand the point of these virtual you
know, hey, we're going to have the media call, but get these
people on, give them calling out. You have a lot of personalities on
these teams. I think you said something in one of the recent markqust that
really intrigues me. And I think, you know, I've got I've got
a column idea rattling around in my brain whenever I get thirty seconds and could
write something down. But it's how these cities were chosen in the first place,
and how that might be problematic in and of itself. So you go
back to twenty twenty when Vince McMahon restarted the XFL, and I remember that
there were surveys done about what cities were hungriest for football and which cities were
support a league like this, and they had I also remember a picture.
I don't know where it was posted, media whatever, but they had cities
basically like applying to get noticed and request a team, and they made their
pitch for having a team. And when the XFL returned in twenty twenty three,
it was basically, well, we own this IP, let's bring these
teams back. Let's Danny Garcia wants a team in Orlando. Let's put a
team in Orlando. Jerry Cardinal wants a team in Vegas. Let's put a
team in Vegas. And then you had the USFL, which, as you
mentioned, it was IP driven. It was nineteen eighties driven. We bought
these trademarks, we own them. We owned the USFL. These are the
markets that we're going to go into, and I mean not even really go
into them, but just use the team name for half of them anyway.
So that's kind of a backward way to select which cities are going to be
successful in this league, which cities are going to support a team, and
I think you're seeing that haphazard way it was done reflected in the tendance.
Now the numbers aren't going to change overnight, and it's really interesting to me
how much patience the league is going to have. How many seven thousand crowds
are they going to draw before they start looking somewhere else? And you know
you're not going to go to seven from seven thousand to fifteen thousand over nine,
it's going to take years. How dedicated are you to the Michigan market
to be able to put up with seven eight thousand person crowds for the next
two or three years until you're able to build that community, you're able to
build that team. So I think I hope that they have that level of
patients because I think it reflects poorly on the league when you have teams moving
and I know people, you know, after one week of poor attendance,
people are already kind of fantasy booking moving teams, And I'm like, what
kind of message does that send as a league that you're so willing to pull
up a team and move it so quickly you know it's back. I remember
back in the Arena Football League was off and they were moving teams every year,
and it's like, that's not a professional way to conduct yourself, and
that doesn't get up give off professional vibes to the fan base that large,
much less the fan bases in these cities. So I don't think the attendance
is good. I wish it was higher, but I also don't think the
solution is to move an ear two. No, I agree with that,
and it's it's hard to me. I go back a lot of times because
you know, like we've talked about that this has been going on for a
long period of time and people that are involved now aren't necessarily haven't been following
it the whole time, you know. And even if I wasn't in podcasting,
I mean I was surprisingly like for me, but pretty hardcore and all
this league stuff back, you know, listening to Mark Perry back in the
day and Alan and Brian and kind of all that stuff. But to me,
I always look at people involved now and it's Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park
and it's like, well, you you have this now, but you didn't
do the like. And I'm not saying that people involved are now aren't doing
work, but like you haven't been a part of this the whole time,
right, you never had to learn why we are the way we are,
And now we're here with these markets and you don't really understand why we've gotten
here and why well this should be working better and this shouldn't be working better,
Like, well, you didn't. You didn't do the work, so
now you don't have the education that you learned in the last six years.
Have been Sickmann or whatever is still been involved in all this. You know,
some of these markets, like you said, you know San Antonio burned,
right, and you hear all the time, well we're not going to
go back because we feel burned. Okay, well if you don't go back,
then you're gonna get burned again, right, like you need to go.
But but I feel like that's how I look at like the UFL kind
of management ownership right now. It's like you, it's that Jeff Goldblum yelling
at the scientists that have engineered the thing. I'm like, well you haven't.
You haven't done the six years of research. You get to this point,
you acquire the league, right, you're for your fox. You're like,
well this worked before we want to do that people like football. Well
there you go, Well you didn't. There was a lot more, you
know, the Sam Schwartz scenes and the aver relux of the world. A
lot of work went into this behind the scenes to get it to a point
that maybe you're not privy too. And I look at you know, the
XFL in its marketing strategy such as it was in twenty twenty three, and
it seemed to be, you know, here's the rock, he's a movie
star. You like, here's Danny Garcia, this businesswoman breaking boundaries. Here's
football you should want to watch. And it's like, it's not that easy,
and you have to give more of a reason why fans should spend three
hours on a Saturday or Sunday watching or why they should spend twenty five fifty
seventy five dollars to go to a game. And you know, the other
thing that you guys brought up on the last show was as far as the
us FL teams, the ticket prices a little steeper than the fans are used
to. You know, what kind of damage did Birmingham being a hub do
and just kind of that overexposure of football in that market, what kind of
damage did that do in the USFL. So, like I said, there
are myriad reasons why the attendance is the way it is. And you know,
I look at guys like Corey Helvey, who who did a fantastic job.
He's one of the hard working guys on social media. He was Orlando's
ticket guy last year in the XFL. But you know, I think he's
in charge of Birmingham and Memphis this year, and it's like, you know,
that's great and God bless him, but I think it's you need people
who know those markets. You need people who know what works in those markets,
and you can't stretch these guys that thin unless you just are kind of
pooing attendance for this year. And maybe the UFL is want maybe they're gonna
take a mulligan, a self impost mulligan on attendance this year, and maybe
in the off season we'll see a rededicated effort to pooling more resources into local
marketing and getting fans in the games. Maybe it was just about getting the
product on the field, getting ratings at a stabilizing place on TV, and
then attendance is a worry for year two. I don't know but I can't
assume that ownership is real pleased with the attendance and most of the markets right
now. The reason, one of the many reasons to have you on was
because I was talking with Michael and Michael paying one of my friends wrestling,
you know, and he we all did all the WrestleMania stuff, and I
was talking to him about, you know, you've really saturated these markets for
Birmingham, you know, two years now, and then the other ones,
like you said, like you would paper, you know, wrestling events back
in the day, WCW. We just got to get people in the front
row. We're giving out tickets and aw and he said, he goes,
you should ask Greg about that kind of his thoughts of like how long does
it take to reverse that or just your thoughts and like how because it's a
very similar practice to kind of what the USFL did with at wrestling. I
just wanted to get your thoughts on that of like, you know, self
degrading, you know the pro you know, the price of a ticket for
that and then now wanting people to pay double or whatever it is. And
I think we're seeing the results of that right now, right based on what
the USFLE was doing. They had priced their games at a certain rate,
and when the merge League comes in and prices it higher than that, you're
seeing fans in that market not really take to that. And so I think,
you know, as I said, twenty five or fifty different reasons why
people aren't attending the games, I think that's probably one of them. I
don't know how high that ranks, but certainly, you know, you're seeing
efforts to discount tickets in Memphis and Birmingham. I know there was ten dollars
tickets that were made public on social media. So the league is tacitly acknowledging
this problem by discounting those tickets and making you know, giving the Bogo deals
and everything like that. You know, so when you do see seven eight
thousand in the stands, you have to take into account, well, how
many got there because of a buy one, get one, how many got
there because of a ten dollars ticket. So you're not even getting the max
revenue from those seven thousand people who are in the stands. So again,
you know, I don't know what the league's marker is for attendance. You
know, maybe when you have Mike Mitchell on next week, he'll be able
to give a more accurate picture of the league's thoughts on attendance. But yeah,
I mean, you know, you want to get as many people there
as you can, but it's going to be a process. It's not going
to happen overnight. You have to understand that. Saint Louis and to a
lesser extent, DC, they're outliers. You know, that's not the norm
to draw thirty thousand or even you know, fifteen to twenty thousand consistently,
the way these two franchises have done. You know, you guys talked about
the reasons why those markets have caught fire the way they have, and I
agree. I think the other thing too, is those fans have an identity.
You know, Kaw is the law, it's the blue and white,
it's the rabid fandom, it's filling the dome. That is the identity of
the BattleHawks fans. The Defenders have the beer Cup, they've got the Lemons,
they've got all that stuff. That is their identity and people want to
be a part of that. And the other fan bases don't have that same
identity yet And perhaps when they get closer to that, maybe we'll see the
stands fill a little bit more in terms of your thoughts of stuff. And
I problemise we'll talk football here. Does it cause you know Rick was on
and talking to you, he was at the Arlington game. I've been at
the r I was at a kickoff which was higher even than the one Rick
went to. But like low attendance. From a TV viewing standpoint, I
know AW is dealing with this, right, and like nobody is going to
the thing. Does that Does that energy translate right on TV? Because that
might That's my thing besides franchise and all this, Like if you're a casual
fan, you're turning this on. Nobody's there, right, So effects of
viewing on TV and then if you're there, I kind of feel like a
loser if I look around and there's four thousand people at the I think it
affects both sides of that. How do you view the lack of attendance Where
it's affecting the most from a TV perspective or an in person or where do
you see? I think it's TV, But I I also understand people who
are not affected by that, you know, they're I think, yeah,
yeah, no, But I think it cuts both ways. You know,
I think that there are people who just want to watch football, and you
know, to use the old Rod Woodson quote, they watch football played on
a highway. You know, they don't care, they just want football.
And I think that's kind of the Emery Hunt when he brought up the attendance.
I mean, that's fans have that attitude. There are certain fans who
do. To me, I think it affects. You know, I love
watching Saint Louis BattleHawks games and DC Defenders games a lot more than I like
watching Michigan Panthers games, and it's due in part to the crowd. I
think they add something to the games, add something to the viewing experience,
even watching at home. And I do think you're right for the casual fan
who's tuning in. You know, they don't want to watch something that feels
like a cold product. And you know, aew can kind of get away
with it because there are ways that you can shoot inside the arena that that
doesn't make it seem as empty. There are, you know, a smaller
arenas they can go to, or even if they draw a couple of thousand
that looks full, you can't get away with doing that. In Ford,
fields you can't get away with doing in the Alamodome. There's only so much
production trickery you can use to mask those empty seats. So, you know,
speaking personally, it does affect me, But I also know that there
are people out there who, you know, empty seats do not affect their
viewing experience. I just think there's different expectations, right Like you watch a
baseball game on a you know, Wednesday afternoon, and you understand like,
okay, there's going to be you know, not as many people, but
also the people there there are going to be invested in then I do think,
I don't know, I think we're getting better energy crowds and maybe we
got with some of the paper USFL crowds where it's like, hey, we're
just here. But you know, I think the people that are there at
least care right feel like they're invested in it. Do you feel like so
football good if you're it has the football big at the level where if you're
a casual attuning in that this league is justifying its place in the landscape right
now? It depends. I think there are some games that have been rough,
but there are some games that have been pretty good. There are some
of good games that have been bad. So it really all depends on when
they tune in, you know. So we're kind of getting into the midpoint
of the season, injuries are starting to hit. We're seeing quarterbacks go down,
We're seeing other skilled position players go down. Luckily, we're getting players
like Jakor Pearson and Mark Thompson back, so that's going to help the offenses.
But you know, it's I think the level of play is fine.
I don't know what the general audience expectations are. You know, I don't
know if it's kind of NFL or bust for them. You know, I
also don't know how many people casual fans are going to tune in when they
don't really have an attachment to any of the teams. You know, That's
the thing, and that's what takes a long time, and that's why another
one of the arguments against moving these teams right away is, you know,
you got the Green Bay Packers who have a waiting list of season tickets.
You know, that didn't happen overnight. That's established over decades and decades and
decades, and Spring football just hasn't been able to get to that point where
they've created that history with these teams, So you know, ideally you get
to do that where when a person tunes in to watch the BattleHawks and the
Defenders, they know the history of that rivalry. They know, you know,
when I watch a Kansas City Chiefs game, I know what I'm gonna
get. I know what a Kansas City Chiefs game looks like. I know
what a Miami Dolphins game looks like, right, just because of their history
and I know having watched them, this is the kind of team they are,
and you don't have that really in the UFL yet. Teams are trying
to find their identity over time, and that's only going to happen when you
have had coaches that are there for a while, when you have players that
are there for a while, and you know, hopefully we get to that
point with these teams. Well, then you're also battling you know, players,
this being the spot where maybe this is the last time that players play
and then they retire, they use this as a jumping out point or doesn't
take off and coaches, I mean, then you're battling out on that side
as well. For me, teams do that too. I mean, this
turnover every year on NFL teams. It's the same for UFL. It's just
instead of free agency like they have in the NFL, they're moving on,
they're retiring, or they're moving to the NFL. You know, you have
teams like the BattleHawks and the Renegades that are bringing, you know, twenty
some players back on a fifty one man roster. That's not bad. I
mean that's pretty good, I would say, And you have to take into
account that this is a merger year, so there's more player movement than usual
coming on and off teams. So I would expect that number to be even
higher next year. Renegadees, is that your biggest disappointment of a team this
year thus far? Oh, without a doubt. You know, when I
was doing my power rankings for the teams and I was kind of assigning numbers
to each position group, Houston came down at the bottom. So not surprised
that Houston was struggling, But I'm really shocked at Arlington. This is not
a team that lacks quality players, and I think that's what's so surprising about
it. And it's even doubly surprising when you have a head coach like Bob's
Dups College Football Hall of Famer. If there was ever a coach that you
think these players would respond to, it would be Bob's Dupes. And you
know, if you ever thought that there was a team that this would not
happen to, it would be a Bob's Dups coach team. So it's really
hard for me to understand what I saw on Sunday. I saw players that
the tackling was atrocious. It was almost like they were not trying. Like
I don't want to put that on them, but that's just you know,
it did not look like it looked like effort was an issue, to be
quite frank, and you know, the offense not being on the same page
and everything like that. I was. I was stunned at the quality,
partly because they had been in every game up to that point. You know,
they took Birmingham to halftime and they played them tough. There. They
lost on a couple other last second things, and you wonder if that mentally
gets to a team. But yeah, I was. I was surprised at
what I saw on Sunday in terms of parody of talent on lacrosse teams.
Are you seeing now or not? Because I feel like that was the pitch.
Hey, we're getting all this. You know, every team's an all
star team, you know. To me, it feels like we kind of
have the battle Hawks. You know, we have the Stallions up there.
DC's figuring it out. There's a big job, you know, Houston,
are you and obviously the Ready Gates. What do you feel about the parody
across all eight teams. I think it's okay. You know, it's impossible
to be have complete parody, so for what they're doing, I think it's
it's good. I think the XFL Conference has a little bit more parody than
the USFL Conference, where it feels like Birmingham and you know, the team
lucky enough to kind of stumble into that second playoff spot at this point.
You know, Michigan's dealing with quarterback injuries, Memphis is dealing with quarterback injuries,
Houston's dealing with quarterback injuries. But I feel like they're coming out better
on the other side with Reed Sinnett, who's performing better than than Jared Garentano
was when he was in there, so that may be actually a bright spot
for Houston. And then in the XFL Conference, you know you've got Saint
Louis, You've got d See, You've got San Antonio. I grouped them
pretty closely together right now. And then you have Arlington, which is zhero
to four. But you know, talent wise, when I look at their
roster, I don't think they should be this far behind the other teams in
that conference, which is partially why I'm just stunned at the oh and four
record and the performance. So I think the XFL Conference teams are grouped a
little closer, and I think it's gonna be a little more interesting in that
conference when it comes down to it, because you know, I think there's
there's a lot more up in the air. As good as Saint Louis has
played, you know, we've seen them last year kind of stumble at inopportune
times. That's what cost them the playoff spot. So I'm not ready to
crown them yet. I want to see a little more consistency from them over
time. But Birmingham is just gonna run away with the USFL cover. I
don't see anyone in that conference really stepping up well. And then this week,
and I mean they're going into d C, right, so that'll be
an exciting game. Kind of uh No, sorry, excuse I keep doing
that. Saint Louis going into DC. I keep them I haven't keeping had
my gun. Yes, I do agree, running away with it all.
Last question here, and so you know Renigae's biggest disappointment. Who is the
biggest surprise here? That may because for me, I've had the BrahMos We're
going to be duty. They were good and then Chase got hurt. Now
we're you know, now we're dealing with quarterbacks switch ups there, and we're
signing, you know, signing guys and everything. And Dormandy, you know,
I mean he was around last year. He's not really like the most
exciting player, but he seems to be pushing the ball. Who are you
pleasantly surprised by this year? I thought I figured San Antonio would be good.
Uh so I can't say I'm real surprised by that. I don't know
if there's any team that really jumps out at me as a surprise. I'll
say this. I thought Birmingham was going to be good, and they were
number one in my rankings of the position rooms. But and and they're not
infaillible. You know. It took them a last second field goal to beat
the Defenders. So but you know, to be four and zero at this
stage in a league that, as you mentioned, parody is important, it's
surprising, and I expect them to go five and zero against Houston, though,
who knows. We could have an Orlando upsetting DC situation this week.
I think that that would be the Apps comparison for this game. So Birmingham,
I expected them to look good, maybe not this good, so maybe
that would be a surprise. Other than that, I mean, other than
Arlington. Like you said, I don't see any other real Shockers this far
into the season. You know, ask me in week eight, maybe my
answer will be different because we have a little bit more of a base to
go on. But through four weeks, I wouldn't say I'm really surprised by
any any team's performance. Well there you go. Well, Greg, appreciate
it. Making time and the NFL Draft week and everything else. Yeah,
exciting night tonight and then everything else. So hopefully you know, anyone actually
watching this, I really appreciate it right now because you're well, no,
there's just so you know, there's so much you know, buy you for
attention, all that stuff, So I appreciate it. Good luck with that
get your mock picks in. And I know Mike Mitchell's big on that too,
and he's I don't know whatever he submits to the big nationwide thing or
whatever. But anyway, good life with all that. I hope it works
out. Thanks Reid, appreciate it. Well. Here we are back here,
had Dave Naylor last week getting back into the CFL coverage, Draft coming
up next week, you know, Sean Lemon in the news with everything else
going on, Daryl Davis, you're asked the scatchwan, how are you doing,
sir? Great read? How you been haven't seen it since? Great
cop? I know, I know. We're getting back into the season here.
We may the jumbo tron. I guess at Jordan Everly's thousand game ceremonies.
So that was probably the last time you saw me. They're on the
broadcast or I sent you the photo. I can't remember, but yeah,
big times here and we're you know, we kicked off the CFL or a
UFL season. We're halfway through, so now it's time that you know,
it's almost June. Can you believe what's the countdown here for the CFL season?
Oh man, rookie camp's open May fourth, don't they, And I
think eight or four or five days after that training camp opens. Everything's moving
earlier all the time, right They've talked about trying to get the Great Cup
Game earlier. It didn't used to start till June, but now there's certain
things in May, so that is a little bit of an adjustment. We've
still got NHL playoffs going on a big time, so it's it's going to
be a bit of a change getting started earlier and earlier every year in the
Canadian Football League. Well, it's hard because you know right now, wanting
to talk to CFL A lot of the people I would normally talk to the
far Hauns of the world, and Jason Gregor is not that you're not up
there, but like everyone's covering NHL now, it's just kind of hard where
you know, Saskatchwan doesn't have that, you know as much, I mean
obviously with everything else. But I figured we could get you on this week
big news. I guess first coming out that Sean Lemon of it all was
kind of weird where and I had kind of forgotten that he had pseudo retired
like two weeks ago. Coming out obviously probably expected something like this, what's
your thoughts on this and and how the league's kind of handling it. Wow,
it's really wild. You're right. Sean Lemon actually signed a year a
new contract extension about a month or so two months ago, and then two
weeks ago announced his retirement. Obviously knew that he was he was about to
be discovered. It's a weird, weird situation. Twenty twenty one is when
it happened. He Seann Lemon was playing with the Calgary Stampeders bet several times.
It sounds like small bets on CFL games, including one parlay that had
the Calgary Stampeters involved. That's a no no. The worst sin you can
create you can probably get involved with in any pro sports is betting on your
own team legally, illegally, anything like that, because all of a sudden,
the integrity of the game is at risk. So to prove that,
Commissioner r and Dey Ambrosie suspended Seawann Lemon in definitely. It's funny how the
case didn't come up until three years later. It was a twenty twenty one
incident. It didn't really start getting investigated until twenty twenty four when they found
out and they have, you know, obvious proof, and it sounds like
they've done a pretty thorough investigation. Obviously a better investigation than they're conducting on
Chad Kelly, it seems like. But they're doing something and decided that they
better suspend him indefinitely, which is weird that you would think that somebody who
is betting on his own team, even if it's with his team to win
betting, that would not be a lifetime ban. That's the first thing I
would expect, right, they've done with Pete Rose, they did with the
ninth I know is a long time ago, but this is when it all
started. Nineteen nineteen. Chicago White Sox goes back. You cannot have anything
to do with the outcome of your game other than trying your best. So
if you're making money off your team losing your team winning, that's a cardinal
sin. And I'm surprised if the CFL didn't say that Sean Lemon was suspended
for life. I guess at the age of thirty five, he's played a
long time. He's played with almost every team in the Canadian Football League.
I guess they figure he's done anyway, But I think they could have sent
a stronger message and probably should have sent a lifetime ban as part of the
announcement. Does this, I mean a lot the obvious question this marsh his
legacy, But in terms of you know, you get a lot of guy
go up to the CFL and maybe we're trying to make some money or extend
our career whatever. Someone like him who has played, like he said,
for so many teams, multiple Gray Cup winner here, you know, not,
I assume not going to be included in the CFL Hall of Fame?
Like does that? Is that something that you know? Because there's various levels
of players in these leagues, right, and he's someone who's been very invested
for a long time to not have that be an honor. I wonder if
that affects him. I got asked that yesterday, Jamie and I asked me
that on our radio show in Johina An Roucoll and like, I'm a voter,
I'm a Hall of Fame voter, and I'm not supposed to get into
the specifics of how we vote, but he did ask me how I would
consider it, and I'm free to talk about that. What Seawn Lennon,
what Sean Lemon did as a as a player betting on his team, I
might be inclined to still say, you know what, that didn't have anything
to do with how well he played throughout his career. Is he a first
ballot Hall of Fame er? No, I don't think he is, but
he might be considered somewhere along the lane with this tar hurt his chances,
of course, will hurt his chances. But does it make him for sure
not eligible for the Hall of Fame? I don't think so. I think
that you could still consider it, and I would as a voter, I
would look at that and say, you know what, his career was pretty
outstanding. He might be worthy of the Hall of Fame. And I don't
know if I'd be able to convince other people. And that's part of the
part of the deal when he get around to it. But did the betting
have anything to do with his career? Not at all? You know?
So, yes, you can think about because there are character clauses in all
Halls of Fame out was this person, you know, a criminal? Or
was he a horrible person? Should he get in? No, he's never
really tarred the cefl And with a bad brush until this incident. And if
it's just a small bet. I'm starting to think, you know what,
maybe he still is Hall of Fame worthy, and it's it's an interesting discussion
read, and it's one that you bring up that justifiably so because I've been
wrestling with it a little bit. I won't have to wrestle with it for
three more years when he does become eligible. But the rest of the committee
will have to wrestle with that too and decide. I would be more inclined
to vote Sean Lemon into the Hall of Fame than I would Andrew Harris.
Andrew Harris cheated according to using you know he was using performance enhancing drugs.
Is he a Hall of Famer sir, the way the way his numbers reacted,
of course they are. He is. But he's also been suspended for
cheating, which made his career even better. So you know, when you
when you balance the two out, I think the lesser evil of the two
is gambling as opposed to cheating on your lifestyle and breaking the rules that are
put in place for every player. I think that's rare. And this is
actually really interesting to be here because I know he is signing. I think
it's today signing with Winnipeg, do retire as you know the one day with
all that, uh that, this is very interesting. I wonder if everyone
would a have your openness to be having Sean Lemon be able to go in.
But then you know, Andrew Harris continued to play and win and do
Like. It's different in that way too, where he came back and was
able to I don't know, resurrect. I mean a lot of the drug
stuff was kind of overing out the drug, but you know, the performance
enhancing was a lot before we were involved in the CFL, so it was
a little bit before my time. But where he was able to come back
and resurrect, that does that change out of doll or now a little bit?
You're right, he won to he won a Great Cup afterwards, so
you know, was he he only tested positive one time? I know that
the drug chain tests and the CFL have been you know, kind of inconsistent
over the years, but finally they if he had been only using it.
Maybe he was only using it though one time, and maybe he just he
did get caught using something that he shouldn't have and got suspended for it.
But in my mind, that is cheating I'm a lot more sympathetic, uh
to gambles. It's an addiction read and and sports. I've been writing this
a lot for my newspaper, Reginalator posts that gambling has sold its sold to
I'm sorry sports has sold its sold to the gambling companies. They wear little
logos right on their on their shirts. The fields are adorned the board,
so the hockey rinks are adorned with gambling websites. So you say, Okay,
these guys are helping to pay your salary, but don't go near them,
don't bet with them. Okay, I'm finding that very hypocritical. I
think Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I even think
that Mark McGuire and Barry Bond should be in the Hall of Fame because Major
League Baseball was complicit with that. They said, we want home runs.
Go ahead, you steroids, do whatever you want. It creates interest in
baseball. So they did it, and they made baseball interesting for a long
time. The home run chase was amazing, wasn't it, Sammy Sosa,
we all remember that. So the leagues were complicit in that. The leagues
are complicit in this gambling, so they have encouraged all of Canada North America.
When forty of the fifty states I think allowed gambling on sporting events,
all of Canada now allows it. It's only like three years that they've allowed
it. It's become everywhere. Every sporting event you watch, it's just inundated
with these commercials over and over and over. The odds changed during the game.
Here's your prop bet for this quarter of the of the football game.
So the leagues are are are promoting these things. So Shawn Lemon got caught,
maybe got caught up the Maybe he never gambled before, I don't know,
but he did get caught once. What he did was wrong, absolutely
wrong, and it probably deserves a lifetime that you should never bet on your
own team against or four and that's the cardinal sin once again. But the
leagues are once again complicit in all of this. What did they expect was
going to happen? It's not just better around the two countries losing their houses
by gambling and running themselves into debt. Gambling is an addiction. The players
are affected just the same as the rest of the population is. So I
don't have I'm a as I said a lot more sympathetic towards somebody like Shawn
Lemon than I had towards Andrew Harris in the debate about whether one or the
other or Boat should be eligible for the Hall of Fame. It's going to
be an interesting debate, and I'm willing to listen to every side of the
argument. Yeah, I remember. It's so funny that with just a baseball
chase and all that where I remember I was, you know, younger writer
during all of that stuff and traveling through the airport and like every single TV
was on and like every single it just felt like everybody that you went across
was invested in this home run chase and it really did kind of take that
over. Yeah, SNL did a skit. I guess it was earlier this
season and where it was like now you can bet on your buddy losing their
house, you know, like, hey, is your neighbor going to go
all in and all that stuff. You know, we saw and we saw
obviously with the Toronto Raptors player right getting the band and him playing porter yes
yep to curtail off of this, I saw a lot of and speaking of
you know, the Chad Kelly's and Naylor kind of talked about it last week
as well, but well, hey, they were able to get this investigation
done, Like what's going on with Chad Kelly? Like what do you think
of the Chad situation and how it relates to the CFL. I guess taking
action against these various you know, and obviously different way, different circumstances,
but you know they're running these internal investigations. Yes, and you know what,
the CFL is a very small operation, as you've discovered through your years,
right, it's not this big NFL conglomerate. They only have they have
limited resources and limited number of investigators. So we understand it's going to take
a while. Of course it should. But Chad Kelly has had trouble before.
We were aware of that when he showed up in the CFL, and
you thought, okay, but those are the guys who say I'm always fine
and hopefully most people are people deserve a second chance. Okay, Chad Kelly,
go have your second chance, his second chance. I hate to say
he's guilty already, but it looks pretty bad, and I think the CFL
can without saying that he's a guilty man of any crime. I can say
that it looks like he's guilty of misbehaving within his franchise, within people with
people within his franchise. And I won't get in trouble for that because that's
not a legal thing. He was, he was doing improper things with people
in his Inside the Toronto Argonauts, so was their general manager, John Murphy,
who, according to all reports, said, oh, you're wrong,
leave him alone. Don't stir this stuff up. He said to the female
employee who Chack Kelly was supposedly allegedly harassing. There's horrible Those are horrible incidents.
All the CFL has talked about over the years is treat everybody with respect.
It's a welcoming league. Okay, we're fair to everybody. These reports
don't sound like that's what was going on in our go land. I'm very
concerned. And I was asked the other day, do you think Chack Kelly
will be the Toronto Argonaut's starting quarterback this year? I don't think so.
I don't think they can allow him to be after what's been going on.
And I asked Pinball Clemens, the president, the boss of the Toronto Argonauts,
the other day, is John Murphy still on your staff? Yes?
He is, and then they didn't want to talk about it very much.
And I see John Murphy tweeted the other day as getting ready for training camp.
If he behaved this way and allowed this to happen and protected his quarterback,
there's no way after his second chance because he got fired and suspended for
an off field incident after after a football game, he can't be in the
league either. I'm not a canceled guy. You get a second chance all
the time. I'm fine with that. But what they've been doing is wrong.
This investigation better get going. And Randy Ambrosi sure he's done. He's
done something with Sean Lemon. He better do something with Chad Kelly. Because
but those stories are true, which they seem to be, then they have
they better get this going before training camp opens. Otherwise they've got a firestorm
on their on their hands. And they're being very hypocritical because they're not making
the CFL offices a safe place to be. Would this be a different circumstance.
And obviously Toronto is the biggest market and all these things, but we've
talked before. You know, the argos get a little swallowed up with all
the other activities going on. There and visibility of it with MLS and all
of their properties. Like this, if he's the quarterback of the Saskatchewan rough
Riders, is this a different situation. I mean, we had Cleaty darl
I on the show. He's like, I couldn't even go to the grocery
store without getting and I mean and that was just football play, right That
is it like any that was this, Hey, you're you're a terrible quarterback.
Regina's like that. You've been here, read you know what a small
market it is. And when you were talking about all the guys are usually
talking far hand and they're all watching NFL playoffs. Yes, in Regina,
we're watching NHL playoffs too, but we don't have a team involved and we
don't have an NHL franchise here. So the rough Riders are year round entertainment.
Everything they do is constantly being scrutinized. I could write a rough Rider
column every week, every day I wanted in the Leader Post and it would
be read because people want to know what's going on with the rough Riders.
If this was if this happened to one of the Saskatchewan rough Riders quarterbacks,
it would be getting like weekly attention or regular attention. You're right, the
Toronto Argonauts slip under the radar quite a bit, especially now with them when
the Maple Leafs are playing. Oh my goodness, there's nothing else going on
in the entire world around Toronto, right, So Chad Kelly, it's good
timing in that respect for the CFL. But they better be able to use
that smoke screen a little bit to get to the autumn of what happened and
make a ruling on it. Would it be bigger in Saskatchewan, Well,
you'd get you'd be hearing a lot more about it than you are from Toronto,
from the from Toronto media because they're paying attention to other things. But
because he's also the reigning Raining champion right Raining Outstanding player, we won a
Great Cup two years ago, so he's massive name. He also has massive
name recognition in the United States because of his college career, so it's going
to get bigger coverage eventually. But you're right, in Saskatchewan, if Chad
Kelly was a Saskatchean rough right of his quarterback and was accused of the same
thing, you wouldn't be seeing him in any grocery stores. It's just weird
because you know, coming off of you know, the playoff game and I
have the concussion, and then we go into the off season and then like
it's just been kind of it's just swirling here where it wasn't really a clean,
uh you know, clean exit into the off season for him and now
this stuff. And you know, I think Naylor had said last week,
like would he suspend him? And because it doesn't really matter right now because
nothing's happening, but I mean, see it's coming soon here, like you
said, rookie camps and everything. It just feels like, I don't know
how you go into that season with the investigations, So on your way.
Yes, they better get a resolution. That's a great point. They need
a resolution before training camps open, with their general manager and with their quarterback
because the way things have been described, there's no way that they should be
involved with the Canadian Football League team right now. And if camps are about
to open, they should be able to even the Toronto Argonaut say at least
deserve the courtesy of being told your guys won't be available, you better find
replacements for them. And if they show up on May the fourth and they're
both allowed to be there, I would have a lot of I wouldn't respect
the CFL as much because it doesn't sound like the like nothing should be done
to the people who put this assistant coach in that situation. In terms of
the Riders here, like you said, we draft coming up, how are
the Riders looking going into the season obviously not as successful kind of last year
with everything else, and what are you kind of looking forward to for the
team? Well, the draft coming up on Tuesday, the Global Draft I
think is earlier on Monday or something, and you know that you find a
global player or two. And they got a pretty good punter last year.
The Rough Riders did the Global Draft, so they do find some players.
On occasion, the Riders pick third. Overall, I'm advocating for them to
continue to pick Canadian receivers. If you start a Canadian receiver, you have
to have at least one or two backups. Right, they have three pretty
good receivers. When you think of Bradon Lenius as a keyan Schaeffer Baker and
Samuel Emilis, those are three very solid receivers. They're Canadian receivers and a
few years ago before I think before the Marquez started showing up to the Canadian
Football League. The rough Riders had a contain. They called it the Canadian
Air Force with Chris Getz, Laugh, Rob Bag and Andy Fan, twos
great great football players, all Canadians, all receivers, and it was rare
for teams to have that many Canadians. Usually you'll find one Canadian receiver,
so to have three of them in Western Dresser, who's going to be in
the Hall of Fame, was the American and he was from North Dakota,
so he was kind of an honorary Canadian anyway, right, So so they
called it the Canadian Air Force. And I think the rough Riders have built
themselves up enough that way to do it to really rely on their Canadian receiving
corps, and that allows them some freedom to add add Americans and other places
because they've really struggled along the offensive line. The fact that they got Peter
Godber a couple years last year from center from the from the BC Lions as
a free agent outstanding. Robert Blake's there, They've they've got decent, three
decent Canadian players, or Philip Blake, I said, Robert Blake, Phillip
Blake and they need. They got JaMarcus Hardrick as a free agent. As
for one tackle, they need another American tackle, allowing them to find more
Americans and maybe even playing one in the secondary, playing all American linebackers or
something would really help them. And I think that they can do that.
They can help their ratio. The teams. We've found over the years that
the teams who have the best Canadians are usually the teams who win the Great
Cups. So the rough Riders have built, they've had trouble finding offensive linemen.
They don't raft may Ne offensive lineman, so why not find the players
they're good at finding would seem to be receivers and then put the Americans in
other places, find Canadians who can start. So that's what the I see
the rough Riders doing, looking forward to it. When you ask how are
there? How are they going to do this year? Same as every CFL
team. How's their quarterback? Trevor Harris thirty eight years old when the season
starts. Last year, tibio fracture five broken five places. One of his
legs was broken in right on the kneecap and didn't play. He missed the
entire season. If he comes back. I think he stabilizes a team.
But can he play. He's never been the most mobile quarterback. But can
they protect him and can he stay healthy the entire year? They might they
have a chance of being a respectable football team if he can play the entire
season. Pressure on coaching staff and everything else now coming in, Yeah,
well they're new, right. Craig Dickinson was here for how many four or
five years and did an okay job, But last year his strat on field
strategies were really bad. He made every every chance he took blew up in
his face, and you know he's gambling at the wrong time, or he's
he's kicking at the wrong time. And the players notice that. You could
tell that they were losing faith in him, not that they disliked him as
a man. Craig Dickinson's a wonderful guy. As a coach, Well,
he waffled a few things and really was bad and on field strategies, and
then the players start thinking, oh, we can't we don't have faith in
him, And you could see it. Frit Or a way. For the
last two seasons they've gone. They ended their seasons with seven game losing streaks,
so you could just see it. It was. It was imploding before
us as we as we watched, so they did have to change it.
They changed the coaching staff, brought in Corey Mace, former defensive coordinator with
the Toronto Argonauts. Very popular throughout the league. Everybody seems to like him
from our limited, well not limited. He's been very accessible since he arrived
in Regina in the Saskatchewan and you see him everywhere and everybody seems to be
buying in. You know, when they get Olett, they're running back the
free agent from Toronto because he wants to play for Corey Mays. You start
thinking, oh, okay, this guy has something special and that's absolutely the
truth. He has that charismas he wants to be here in Saskatchewan kind of
the you know, is it the center of the CFL. No, but
it might be the heart of the CFL, right and he understands that and
he wants to be a part of it. So he's put together quite a
coaching staff, a few guys who are familiar. He's brought along guys he's
worked with, including Mark Mueller, who's a former offensive coordinator or not offensive
coordinator, Quarterbacks, coach. I guess with Calgary, he's the offensive coordinator.
How will he do here? You have to remember that last year they
took away his play calling duties in Calgary, so he's got to prove again
that he's capable of running an offense here. And he'll be given a pretty
good green light on those things because Corey may likes to have his coaches coach,
and Corey will be the front guy, I guess. But look at
I'm even calling him Corey, so I don't usually do that. I usually
call them by their last names. That's the type of person he is that
you just feel kind of like you know him as soon as you shows up.
And I think the people of Saskatchewan, the fans of the rough Riders,
really look forward to his coaching style this year. Well, it should
be exciting. And like I said, I think you know Aj going in
there kind of rock star, one of the big names of the CFRR and
now kind of makes that feel sexy. And Corey Mason all that other stuff.
Darryl, I appreciate it, Like I said, getting back into the
CFL coverage here, I'll have you back on and then you know, we'll
be figuring out if we can make any games, but a definitely great Cup
in Vancouver and everything else should be fun. So I appreciate anything else from
you. That's it. Look, I can't wait for it too. We'll
be watching the NHL playoffs, but training camp is special around here, and
with the new coach, there's a whole bunch of buzz around this province,
even more so than usual. Read. So we're looking forward to it around
here too. Yeah, I think it should based that. Yeah, a
couple of a couple of years here and not so great, So yes,
do for do for a bounce back, So Daryl, they have us.
I appreciate it. Good, good saying you read so soon. Huge special
thanks again to you if if you've made it this far through the episode.
And then of course all of our guests today, Rick Sarah Tella taking time
like really NFL Draft week, He's like, I'm ready to come on,
ready to talk. So appreciate Rick. I appreciate Greg is always making time
with his busy work schedule and life schedule and all that means a lot.
And then Darryl Davis as well, you know, coming out of retirement now
writing again and contributing always enjoy getting his thoughts about the CFL and everything,
Rough Riders and everything else. That'll do it for me today. Enjoy all
the NFL drafts coverage and everything else. It should be a good weekend of
UFL gameplay coming up here. And then next week I think we will have
Mike Mitchell on. I think we're shooting for kind of a welfare how is
hell is the UFL, but kind of a mid mid season welfare check on
the UFL. And then I think Andy and I are postgame recap for UFL
Week five is going to be on Sunday, so I will post that on
Twitter, but I think we've been doing the Monday Tuesday. I gotta work
all next week Vegas conference down that you in Vegas, So I think we'll
do that Sunday night once the games are done, So stay tuned. I'll
post all about that, but life subscribe. If you enjoy this, give
a thumbs up, lots of work. We'll see you next time. Thanks,