Speaker 1: Is this Fred Durst on the radio program today? Is
Speaker 1: that what I'm hearing? Is this Fred Durst? Of course,
Speaker 1: so this must mean so Scott Mitchell was supposed to
Speaker 1: join us a segment. But if you're playing Limp Biscuit,
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 2: This is Scott Mitchell. It's his walk up song.
Speaker 1: This is Scott Mitchell's walk up song. So okay, a
Speaker 1: couple of things here. Tell Scott Mitchell he's dead to me? Please,
Speaker 1: will you please pass that message along?
Speaker 2: No, I'm serious. Tell them say you are dead to Spence.
Speaker 2: Spence says you're dead. To tell him he's going to
Speaker 2: be sleeping with the fishes.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a horse's head in his bed when
Speaker 1: he wakes up.
Speaker 2: You be careful what that's a big guy. I ain't afraid.
Speaker 2: Harder they fall. Everyone.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.
Speaker 1: Scott is a big guy. Our next get you know
Speaker 1: what I'm not.
Speaker 2: That's cheap.
Speaker 1: That's cheap, and I'm bigger than that. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that to our guy because I did
Speaker 1: it enough last week. Because we love our guy. We
Speaker 1: love our guy. We're gonna get back to some college football.
Speaker 1: But there is a little RSL news, the Nunky Calf
Speaker 1: Champions Cup or whatever the hell they're calling it.
Speaker 2: The draft took place. They signed a new player.
Speaker 1: The historian, the unofficial historian, the Wikipedia wiki tray, Senior VP.
Speaker 2: What's your title? These days? I always lose track?
Speaker 3: Yeah, VP of Communications, But I've answered a pretty much anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but don't be pretentious now that you're a VP. Oh,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear that.
Speaker 3: It's not a new thing, just to you. I guess.
Speaker 1: Trey Fitzgerald is our guest on a Friday. I kid
Speaker 1: because we love him. Happy Friday, buddy, how are we doing?
Speaker 3: Happy Friday? That is the best intro song I could
Speaker 3: have ever imagined. That's behind blue Eyes. What a great
Speaker 3: lymp Biscuit track.
Speaker 1: Don't know what the name is, and don't say that
Speaker 1: it's great, but I you know, I probably shouldn't give
Speaker 1: you too much of a hard time, because, as you admitted,
Speaker 1: lymp Biscuit got you through your second divorce.
Speaker 3: The first, not the second.
Speaker 1: Oh what which which horrible pop artists got you through
Speaker 1: your second divorce?
Speaker 3: Rihanna not horrible? All right?
Speaker 1: Biscuit gets him through his first. Rihanna gets in through
Speaker 1: a second. Any prediction as far as what will get
Speaker 1: you through third.
Speaker 3: There will be it's third. Man.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Man, I don't know. And look I
Speaker 1: can't talk. But let's move on from it quickly before
Speaker 1: we get ourselves in trouble, all right, fill us in.
Speaker 1: It was and look, I'm a I didn't know much
Speaker 1: about the CONCA CAF stuff until our first experience back
Speaker 1: in the day two thousand and nine to ten or whatever,
Speaker 1: and what I experienced and I'm like, this is this
Speaker 1: is a.
Speaker 2: Really cool tournament.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited that RSL is back in Conca calf
Speaker 1: What do we know?
Speaker 2: What do we need to know about the draw?
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, Spence, this has been rejuvenating. Obviously disappointing endo
Speaker 3: the season with the penalty kicks, shootout losses against Minnesota
Speaker 3: kind of go into a dark time when you take
Speaker 3: your foot off the gas, uh, But you gain perspective,
Speaker 3: and we did have a very successful twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: season with the points and the goals and the home wins.
Speaker 3: But I think the tangible success piece is earning a
Speaker 3: CONCACAF birth and getting back into continental competition for the
Speaker 3: first time in eight years. So we had the draw
Speaker 3: on Tuesday and Real Salt Lake is matched up with
Speaker 3: the Costa Rican club named Herediano, and we will play
Speaker 3: down there in Costa Rica against Herediano on February nineteenth,
Speaker 3: and then they turn around and come back and play
Speaker 3: up here at America First Field in Sandy on February
Speaker 3: twenty six and we are so excited to be back
Speaker 3: in that competition. We're able to get out of those
Speaker 3: two legs against Herediano, we'll go and play a two
Speaker 3: leg series in the round of sixteen against La Galaxy
Speaker 3: that just won MLS Cup last Saturday. So now the
Speaker 3: pieces are kind of starting to fall into place so
Speaker 3: we can plan for next year.
Speaker 1: Didn't you tell me at one point the Galaxy were
Speaker 1: too soft to win MLS Cup this year?
Speaker 3: I did it, knows how little I know what I'm
Speaker 3: talking about. You know what, they were harder without Ricky
Speaker 3: Pousche on the field, and that's why they won MLS Cup.
Speaker 3: They're not soft anymore, just.
Speaker 2: Their best player. Yeah, okay, yeah, all right, fair enough,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: If we expand our horizons and RSL goes and potentially
Speaker 1: either wins this tournament or shows very well, what are
Speaker 1: the benefits for the club should they make a good
Speaker 1: run in CONCA CAF.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first and foremost money. You get hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars for playing in and then advancing from each round.
Speaker 3: You win CONCA CAF Champions Cup, you get five million
Speaker 3: dollars on top of that, and then you get a
Speaker 3: berth in both the Club World Cup for FIFA and
Speaker 3: then a new tournament called the FIFA Intercontinental Cup. I
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what that means and what that is,
Speaker 3: but hey, to get to get into two tournaments where
Speaker 3: you're potentially playing against Manchester United or Real Madrid with
Speaker 3: trophies and money on the line, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Speaking of MLS Cup, and I know I'm going to
Speaker 1: get the tray spin on this, and that's fine. But
Speaker 1: according to Sports Business Journal, the linear audience was down
Speaker 1: massively and c K and I were debating and the
Speaker 1: number we put was five hundred k and it ended
Speaker 1: up four hundred and thirty one thousand people watched MLS Cup.
Speaker 1: Now that's obviously not a great number, of course, streaming,
Speaker 1: Apple TV, whatever, But what's the league stance on a
Speaker 1: number for the biggest game of the season that didn't
Speaker 1: have a great viewing audience according to Sports Business Journal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it looks it's disappointing, right, It's fifty percent
Speaker 3: less than MLS Cup was on Fox the year before.
Speaker 3: I think what kind of gets lost in some of
Speaker 3: these top line conversations is we don't know how many
Speaker 3: people were able to watch on Apple on top of that,
Speaker 3: and obviously now we are two years into training people
Speaker 3: to go to Apple for MLS. I believe the previous
Speaker 3: Cup had almost two million viewers on Apple on top
Speaker 3: of that Fox number. So you know, it is a
Speaker 3: disappointing Linear number, But I would I would imagine two
Speaker 3: two and a half million people probably watched streaming on
Speaker 3: Apple last Saturday. So that would lead you to say, okay,
Speaker 3: we have a break even audience between English, Spanish, Apple
Speaker 3: and Linear. So look, the Apple thing's a hard thing, right,
Speaker 3: because the production quality is great. I think it's really
Speaker 3: cool that Alex Catranas and Matt Crooks and Chico's families
Speaker 3: all over the world they can watch their games live.
Speaker 3: But you know, we have fewer households that watch us
Speaker 3: in the state of Utah than we did when we
Speaker 3: had a three hour infomercial on KMYU. And the hard
Speaker 3: thing with I think the Apple deal financially, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a two and a half billion dollar deal for
Speaker 3: this league and teams benefit from that, but having it
Speaker 3: behind not only an Apple TV Plus paywall, but then
Speaker 3: an MLS Season Pass paywall on top of that, it
Speaker 3: makes it hard for casual fans to find your product.
Speaker 3: And that's something that certainly Messy has helped with during
Speaker 3: his year plus in MLS and in the Apple ecosystem.
Speaker 3: And there are Board of Governor meetings yesterday and today
Speaker 3: back in New York where the owners and the presidents
Speaker 3: and the CBOs are all getting together trying to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 3: how do we keep growing this thing, how do we
Speaker 3: take advantage of Messy? How do we get ready for
Speaker 3: the World Cup here in North America in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Is there a a place where I can go to
Speaker 1: reference this two to two point five million viewers on Apple?
Speaker 2: Is there a reference point?
Speaker 3: Now? Oh? Oh, they don't have data.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so let's see seventy million people watched MLS
Speaker 1: Cup on Apple TV. If that's if that's the they
Speaker 1: don't release data, how are we supposed to analyze anything.
Speaker 3: Well, it's for your protection, Spencer. You don't want the
Speaker 3: FBI get into your Apple stuff.
Speaker 1: But if there's no reference point, we can just make
Speaker 1: up whatever number.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. It's quite a conundrum.
Speaker 1: No, it's more than a conundrum. It's straight up dishonest.
Speaker 1: It is intellectual dishonesty. And I will not stand for this.
Speaker 2: Gerald.
Speaker 3: I applaud you and your efforts and your commitment.
Speaker 1: To the bit making MLS great again, the Tray fitz
Speaker 1: Gerald story.
Speaker 2: Just making up numbers on the fly. Goodness, gracious? All right?
Speaker 2: For real?
Speaker 1: How how the Apple television situation? You reference the local
Speaker 1: stuff and RSL was one of the RSL. I mean,
Speaker 1: I give you a lot of guff, but RSL, mostly
Speaker 1: thanks to you Trey, was able to carve out a
Speaker 1: local broadcast footprint that actually did pull good numbers locally.
Speaker 1: But I believe what I read when the release and
Speaker 1: I guess now whatever, let's just make it up, was
Speaker 1: like four or five local teams really benefited. RSL was
Speaker 1: one of them. From a league wide standpoint. What are
Speaker 1: the returns after a couple of seasons with the partnership
Speaker 1: with Apple, and you think it's just the new normal
Speaker 1: period moving forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we were probably one of the four
Speaker 3: or five teams that were really hurt locally by that deal.
Speaker 3: But you have to you know, MLS is up to
Speaker 3: thirty teams now with San Diego coming in next year,
Speaker 3: and with the way the media models have broken and
Speaker 3: are breaking, especially regional sports networks, there were several MLS
Speaker 3: teams that really had nowhere to put their games. I
Speaker 3: think the last non Apple year while we were in
Speaker 3: doing the success that we were on KMYU. You know,
Speaker 3: Dallas and DC United are putting streams on their website
Speaker 3: and it you know, so when you think about it
Speaker 3: from a global standpoint, if your only you know league,
Speaker 3: you know how leagues look at these things, and if
Speaker 3: you're only as strong as your weakest link, you had
Speaker 3: to do something. Now, there are people, especially with the
Speaker 3: Fox numbers coming out over the last five six days,
Speaker 3: there are people that are saying, Okay, it was a
Speaker 3: smart idea for MLS to bet on Apple, the most innovative,
Speaker 3: you know, internet company in the world, But did they
Speaker 3: commit themselves to that model too early? Because we're kind
Speaker 3: of in this purgatory and now you see, like what
Speaker 3: Ryan Smith is doing with the Jazz and Utah Hockey
Speaker 3: Club and what the Phoenix Suns are doing. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of NBA and NHL teams that are now
Speaker 3: doing what we did for eighteen years on free over
Speaker 3: the AIRTV here with RSL, and everything's a trade off.
Speaker 3: You know, we lose sponsor opportunities and partnership opportunities by
Speaker 3: not having that local television over the air, even cable presence.
Speaker 3: But cable's breaking down. I can't tell you where it's
Speaker 3: going to go. I do know Apple and MLS have
Speaker 3: committed to each other for ten years, so there is
Speaker 3: a sense that, hey, we're going to grow this thing together.
Speaker 3: I think the Apple Friday Night Baseball deal has come
Speaker 3: under you know, kind of mixed emotions. There are people
Speaker 3: that really love it, there are people that think it's
Speaker 3: too limited and it needs to expand more. And I
Speaker 3: guess if you went to any non NFL team and
Speaker 3: looked at their local or regional television deal, fifty percent
Speaker 3: are probably really good and fifty percent are lacking. So
Speaker 3: I think we're just kind of in this purgatory where
Speaker 3: journalism has declined. Media ecosystems are changing, but no reliable
Speaker 3: or beloved model has emerged from all that, so hopefully
Speaker 3: MLS and Apple can figure it out. I do know
Speaker 3: that everybody in and around MLS is begging Apple on
Speaker 3: a daily basis to give us data and analytics and
Speaker 3: numbers that we can use, one to get better, two
Speaker 3: to increase our audience, and three to help inform the
Speaker 3: public and celebrate what, on many levels is a great,
Speaker 3: great partnership.
Speaker 1: Well said straight out of the playbook. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: expected anything less stray well done. All right, there have
Speaker 1: been some I'll just call them minor roster additions. We're
Speaker 1: gonna try this Forrester a Yago a Yago.
Speaker 3: Yago Yago. He's a twenty three year old Ganayan striker.
Speaker 3: We get younger there because right now our number nine
Speaker 3: is are Chicho and Anderson Julio, who are both in
Speaker 3: their you know, upper twenties. I think twenty seven to
Speaker 3: twenty nine. So just a flyer MLS re entry draft
Speaker 3: basically kind of a free agency draft. And you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't know his name until Kurt told me about
Speaker 3: it a couple hours ago. So there are Nashville fans
Speaker 3: that think, while yes, he may be a raw somewhat
Speaker 3: youngish player that they maybe gave up on him a
Speaker 3: little too early. But you know how it is, Spence.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's all situational, and a player can find himself
Speaker 3: with a certain locker room or certain coaching staff and
Speaker 3: the switch gets flipped and things start to make sense.
Speaker 3: So you know, he makes us deeper and younger and
Speaker 3: maybe he'll thrive here over the next couple of years.
Speaker 1: Moving over to the ever popular half day Major League
Speaker 1: Soccer trade window.
Speaker 2: What a dumb league dude. I didn't even know this
Speaker 2: was a thing.
Speaker 1: RSL has acquired Tyler Wolf, who is and Porter hop
Speaker 1: on the mic here. Tyler is best known as essentially
Speaker 1: being Josh Wolf's son. Porter please remind the audience what
Speaker 1: the official stances of the drive on Nepotism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nepotism, no patience, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't win with them soft. So ultimately, that's
Speaker 1: all I know about Tyler Wolf. But ARASL acquires him
Speaker 1: during the half day Major League Soccer trade window back
Speaker 1: on December ninth, because of course, tell me about this
Speaker 1: young man.
Speaker 3: Well, the trade window is mandated by the collective bargaining
Speaker 3: with the players.
Speaker 2: Stop it, it's silly.
Speaker 3: And you know it is, Yeah, Tyler Wolf, twenty one
Speaker 3: year old left back. Again, somebody that makes us younger,
Speaker 3: Somebody makes us deeper. Somebody that played sixty games for
Speaker 3: Atlanta the last few years, including some as a teenager.
Speaker 3: Also played almost sixty games with Atlanta's kind of Monarchs
Speaker 3: B team level. So again, somebody that we think is
Speaker 3: a raw young player, he's too mature to be called
Speaker 3: a project. But somebody that can make us a little
Speaker 3: deeper there on the back line, especially on the left side.
Speaker 1: Any other potential you know, it's interesting because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, Elliott and then Elliott and then Kurt obviously
Speaker 1: taken over for Elliott, seems will put together a pretty
Speaker 1: young and talented, exciting roster that if given time, you know,
Speaker 1: to grow together, probably feels like the best route. You
Speaker 1: made a lot of summer transfer acquisitions, of course, Diogo
Speaker 1: and Dominic and a lot of exciting talent that simply
Speaker 1: just needs time, I would imagine. But any other potential
Speaker 1: additions coming up, either in the transfer window or the
Speaker 1: half day whatever the hell they call it, whenever you're
Speaker 1: allowed to do it, Potentially any other you know, talent
Speaker 1: acquisitions on the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Kurt and Tony are working the phones.
Speaker 3: And to your point, there are several different MLS mechanisms
Speaker 3: between now and next which next Friday is like the
Speaker 3: college draft. There are a couple other like re entry
Speaker 3: and free agency mechanisms. Certainly, the trade window is now
Speaker 3: wide open for all the teams, and then you have
Speaker 3: the international player market with MLS and RSL starting pre
Speaker 3: season January eleventh and getting ready for a February eighteenth
Speaker 3: Conca Calf game. I think Kurt is feeling the pressure
Speaker 3: to try to give Pablo as complete a roster on
Speaker 3: the ground as he can here in three weeks. So
Speaker 3: you know, like you said, we did a lot of
Speaker 3: shopping late last summer, especially with Diego and Dominic. But
Speaker 3: you do, especially if you're going to make a Conca
Speaker 3: Calf run and balance countercaff on top of a league's cup,
Speaker 3: Open Cup and the season. You want to be healthy,
Speaker 3: and you want to be deep, and you want to
Speaker 3: be ready. So I would not be surprised at all
Speaker 3: if we didn't add four or five more players to
Speaker 3: our ross. Sure in the next couple of weeks and
Speaker 3: they're look, we might have say goodbye to some guys
Speaker 3: that we love because you can't always acquire an asset
Speaker 3: without giving up something either. So it's going to be
Speaker 3: an interesting time between now and January tenth.
Speaker 1: Would one of those players who potentially could be on
Speaker 1: their way to something different be moon Boy?
Speaker 2: Oh, excuse me, moon Man?
Speaker 1: After the growth this year, what's the latest on the
Speaker 1: potential departure of Diego?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Diego Luna twenty twenty four MLS Young Player of
Speaker 3: the Year. I think. Look, there are rumors of European
Speaker 3: teams kicking the tires on Diego. It's funny the way
Speaker 3: the world works now because it's like we are exploring
Speaker 3: the possibility of potentially making a call, but we haven't
Speaker 3: made a call yet. Look, if somebody you know made
Speaker 3: us an offer we couldn't refuse, I'm sure we would
Speaker 3: go to Diego and say, hey, do you want to
Speaker 3: go do this? And if he said yeah, we would
Speaker 3: make the sale, similar to what we did with Andre's.
Speaker 3: But right now, all expectations are the Diego will be
Speaker 3: here for the twenty twenty five season, especially the first half,
Speaker 3: and he's got an opportunity maybe if he gets called
Speaker 3: into the US national team January camp with Poachattino and
Speaker 3: does well there, and then does well in concer cap
Speaker 3: and has a good first half of the season. Then
Speaker 3: I'm sure there'll be a lot more people looking at
Speaker 3: him next summer with much bigger wallets.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you loose, I'm noticing that
Speaker 1: you tweeted at me earlier, because I'm never on this
Speaker 1: dumb thing. What did Donny have to say? Did I
Speaker 1: catch him? Did I catch him? Strays from Donny today
Speaker 1: that I'm not aware of.
Speaker 3: It's the standard. When Donny talked about his post playing
Speaker 3: career and how he got into media, he takes liberties
Speaker 3: with how poorly you and I were doing the pregame show,
Speaker 3: and how he basically says, if you guys want somebody
Speaker 3: that knows what they're talking about, you should just throw
Speaker 3: me on the mic. And you know, that's ultimately what
Speaker 3: it happened. But I think I think he enjoys taking
Speaker 3: shots at us, and you know all the things we've
Speaker 3: tried to do to grow soccer in this great beehive state.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're saying Donny per usual his whimsicle that
Speaker 1: I'm the hero of my own drama memory yet is
Speaker 1: always an accurate is reflecting once again. Did he happen
Speaker 1: in this article to talk about how I badly petitioned
Speaker 1: to get him on that show?
Speaker 2: Or did he leave that part out?
Speaker 3: No, he left that part out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, shocking, good old Dunny whimsy. Yeah, fun, yet
Speaker 1: get accurate.
Speaker 3: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, and I guess seventeen billion people
Speaker 1: watched MLS cup on Apple too, So what's real anyway?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: All right, Trey, good chatting buddy. Let's get a golf
Speaker 1: trip on the calendar.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's do it. Thanks Bence.
Speaker 2: All right, there he is Trey Fitzgerald. Little RSL.
Speaker 1: A lot of RSL news kind of comes and goes
Speaker 1: when we're pretty football and basketball centric, so I figured
Speaker 1: we do a little RSL on the program today