(upbeat electronic music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Link. – I’m Rhett. I used to say and I’m Rhett, but I just figured, let me say and I’m Rhett. – But we’re keeping that. – Sure. – Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m still Link. – Oh but I wanna do it the right way. – I wanted to force us to keep the first one. Now you screwed up twice. – Yeah, I’m– – You see what happens sometimes, guys? – I’m sneaking it in. – See, this is how sometimes it doesn’t start. – We’ll definitely use both of those, Link, but just go ahead and start it the same way we always do. – Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are exploring the question is watching sports a waste of time? (chuckles) – It was a dramatic pause there. What was that? – I forgot. (both chuckle) I forgot what the question was. – Today we’re exploring the question will I remember what we’re talking about? – I almost said, are watching sports, and I was like, no, that wouldn’t be how you start that sentence. Is watching sports a waste of time? – So you’re having a grammatical debate within your mind about a sports sentence. – I was also, I’m still intermittently listening to the podcast, the Joe Rogan podcast when Elon Musk was on and he pauses– – It’s a long one. – He pauses so long when he’s asked a question that I feel like it’s affecting the way that I’m beginning to think. Like you ask him a question and he waits seven seconds to say the first word and the first word’s usually uh. But he’s like the smartest man on earth. – You didn’t just skip to the part where he smoked weed? – No, ’cause I was listening to it. It’s not as satisfying– – By the time this episode comes out, this is old news. Elon Musk has gone sideways in some other way. Who knows what’s up with him by this point of an air date. So okay, we will talk about, is watching sports a waste of time. I don’t know, I think we might get into it. I don’t know that we’re gonna agree on this one. (low growl) – Well, my answer to that question does not impact my behavior, I will go ahead and say that right up top. – Well I’m not saying we’re gonna slap each other. – No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. You’ll understand once we get going. – Okay, that’s quite a teaser. But I would like to take a few minutes just to catch up with you, Rhett. I just feel like– – Oh good. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that all day. How I’ve been. (chuckles) – Well we spent our professional mornings apart– – Every once in awhile you need a break. – I just think it’s a good practice to just catch up. What did I miss? – I’ve actually got– – ‘Cause I was at work. I was here in the office. – I was at work in the coffee shop. – Okay, well I didn’t know that. All I know is I got a text, you’re like, “Send me the ideas you have for those songs. “‘Cause I’m gonna work on those,” so I sent ’em to you. I was like, I’m done for the day. – So as you might know, we’re gonna be at North Carolina State Fair on October 12th. Dorton Arena at 7:30 p.m. If you have a ticket to the fair, you can come see us. And it is not the Tour of Mythicality. We are doing the Tour of Mythicality in November, but this is a special show that’s all music and of course us trying to be funny in between songs. – But we’re writing a few new songs. We’re writing as many songs as we can just because we wanna continue to shape what our live music will look and feel like as we potentially, we look for our potential to do that more. – And specifically the thing that I was working on, it isn’t even necessarily a song, it’s a musical bit. I don’t wanna get into the details of it ’cause I want it to be a surprise for those of you who see it. – It’s gonna be good though, feeling good about it. – But I’m very excited about it, but I wanna– – Can I, I’m sorry, can I just break in one second, say that I just wanted to acknowledge that in the last podcast, we set up an assignment for you guys and we’re still processing those things so part two to follow up with last week’s, how we interact with YouTube as users, we asked you at the end of that last podcast to tweet us #EarBiscuits any recommendations you have for things that you think that we will actually enjoy on YouTube as a platform as viewers. So continue to let us know about that. – And when we think that we have gathered the information and we have an opinion, we will do the follow-up podcast. So no promises as to exactly when that will be, but we will be watching, noting, and we will come back. – So I’ll tell you what I was doing. When I was driving in, I made a playlist of some songs. I’ll give you a copy of it, so we could practice in our cars singing along ’cause I mean, it’s not like we listen to our own music all the time. You tend to forget and I hate going to a concert where I’m attached to a particular song and then the artist, they can tell that they totally forgot how the song goes and they’re just doing it totally different. – I think they’re just doing it for their own personal joy of it. – I don’t love that. And if I’m gonna do it, I wanna do it intentionally, and if I didn’t listen back to these songs, brother, there’d be a lot of new lyrics and ways that it was delivered, so as a byproduct of that, I’m driving in, of course, LA traffic, I’m just sitting there. People pulling up beside me, waiting to get onto different highways as I try to make my way into Burbank and I am singing or in some cases rapping at the top of my lungs, like, if you looked over at me, which people did, they would– (chuckles) Think that I was nuts, like I was either being attacked by bees or I was like belligerently having road rage at the person in front of me. ‘Cause I’m like, “Yes I am a nerd!” (Rhett chuckles) Like– (chuckles) – You don’t have to do a full bore performance– – Yes, you, Rhett– – In order to practice. – You know what? – I’m saving it. I’m just trying to remember the lyrics. – Mistake, mistake, because first of all– – This is where we’re different. – How is anyone around you gonna think that you’re crazy if you don’t do that, and two, breath control, man. That’s the thing I’m most concerned about. I’m not concerned about remembering lyrics or the other stuff I talked about, like delivering it in an authentic way. I’m concerned about being, given the way that we’re gonna do parts of the show, I am concerned with my breath control, my physical health, my cardio. So I’m giving it all I got in the car, and my throat, I’m trying to build my throat muscles. – Hold on, we’re not performing in Dorton Arena from a car. (Link chuckles) So you’re going to be standing up, potentially moving around, gyrating, so if you really wanna do that, you need to be in a van and have somebody else drive you around and you need to be standing up in the back. – If I can’t have enough breath control to get this stuff out while in a driving position, I’m done for. – I have a bone to pick with you though, because while I was at the coffee shop, which incidentally I had sort of an awkward interaction with the barista because he was like, “Getting some work done?” ‘Cause I had like my backpack or whatever. I was like, “Yep, yep, yep, just a little break “from the office,” which again, that was my pride speaking, ’cause I wanted to let him know, I do have an office– (Link laughs) I do have an office I could go to. It’s very large. You should see it. I don’t need– (crew laughing) I don’t need your coffee shop to work. I’m not one of those guys. – Moocher. – I am choosing to work at your coffee shop. And he was like, “Oh, well what do you do for a living?” And I was like, oh man, I’m in that conversation. And I was like, well, what’s the best way to explain that? – Well given what you just said it seems like this is what you wanted. – (chuckles) And then I said, “I make YouTube videos.” And then he looks at the receipt and he’s like, no, no no, he hadn’t looked at the receipt yet. He’s like, “Oh, you’re a content creator?” That’s how the barista spoke. And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” – We love it when you call us that. – “You go to YouTube space?” I was like, “No, we have our own space.” And I’m not bragging at this point, I’m just being truthful. And then, he was like, “Oh okay, yeah.” He asked another question, I was like, “Yeah yeah, me and my best friend, “we’ve been working together for a long time on this.” And that’s when he looked at the receipt and he was like, “Oh, Rhett! “And Link!” He like looked up. – But I wasn’t there. – No. – I wasn’t above you. – And I think he may be concerned about us, because it sounded like my whole thing was a big story, so sure you’ve got an office and sure you’re working with your best friend. – So that’s the bone you have to pick with me? – No no, I’m getting to that. That was just an awkward interaction that I had. The bone that I have to pick with you is the fact that I’m sitting there at the coffee shop. I actually think before I left to leave for the day, I ended up tweeting about, I saw the Twitter moment– – Oh. – About Pluto. Oh, Pluto should have been a planet all along. It should have never been declassified, and so, I don’t think it was a particularly funny tweet. It was a legitimate observation that you know what, Pluto doesn’t care about the classification. Don’t you wish that you could care as little about what people think about you as Pluto does. – So you tweeted what? – I tweeted the moment. And then my comment about it was, first of all, shout-out to @rhettmc on Twitter. If you wanna see this tweet in all its glory on Twitter. I can tell you about it but if you to go the @rhettmc Twitter, that’s R-H-E-T-T-M-C, you can see exactly how you’re supposed to experience it. I tweeted, “Pluto’s indifference to this whole situation “is enviable.” – Period. – Period. And then I just was like, that’s my tweet. I don’t tweet every day, but I was like, I did some Twitter, I feel a little bit better about myself, going about my day. – Mhm. – But of course after you tweet once, you gotta check back in and see, you know, how people are interacting with it. And at that point I see that people are tweeting back at me and adding you. “Oh you guys must be in the same place “tweeting about the same thing.” What? (Link chuckles) – Actually that would never happen. Because we’re in different places, we both looked at the same thing on Twitter and we both tweeted about it. The moment I tweeted independently about Pluto, I was like, man it’s crazy. ‘Cause I had looked at that, not that we’re gonna perform this song, ’cause we’re not, ’cause it kinda sucks. – It doesn’t meet the standard. We have a standard for Dorton Arena. – We had a song about Pluto from 11 years ago about it not being a planet anymore, I’m like, 11 years later. Pluto’s on the rebound. And I just thought it’d be funny to tweet this old video because I thought about it and I knew most people hadn’t seen it. Shout-out to me on Twitter. – Yeah, what is your handle? – @linklamont. – Okay. You gotta get better. You don’t need me to lead you into that. You need to say, “Shout-out to @linklamont on Twitter,” and then you spell it. – And then, why are you saying Instagram? Shout-out to me on Instagram too. It’s kinda, it’s like a fallow field. – Yeah there’s a great picture of a mountaintop you can take in. – One day from how many years ago? – One day what? – Seven years ago. It’s like a fallow field, my Instagram, and one day, it’s gonna blossom again. – It’ll be awesome. It’s like a corpse flower. – It’s gonna be like soybeans or like, a forest. – Oh it was from November 30th, 2013 we’ve been told. – Okay, anyway. – You know what? – Off-topic. – Maybe it’s like, what is it, cicada? – So I tweeted about Pluto. Yeah, my Instagram account’s like the cicada, it only comes out every seven years. I don’t know how many years. On twitter, I just tweeted about the Pluto thing, and then I’m looking at the comments under there, and immediately somebody’s like, “Oh Rhett also tweeted about this.” I’m like, crap. This is gonna be weird. I bet his was funnier. So then I got a bone to pick with you. – I haven’t even picked my bone yet. That was just the appetizer. – You keep dangling this bone you’re gonna pick. – I’ve been dangling my bone for 13 minutes. – Stop danging your bone and pick it! – (chuckles) Actually I guess it’s your bone I’m picking. – Stop dangling my bone and pick it! – So, I don’t know whose bone it is, I don’t know what picking it is. But I saw that you tweeted another tweet that was unrelated to Pluto and it was, you took a freakin’ screenshot of my texts to you and made it seem like I’m just texting pictures of myself to you. And– – The reason why I did that is because people were talking, I went #EarBiscuits and I’m looking at what people are talking about and they’re talking about the episode two weeks ago where we were talking about conducting friendships over text. – Right. – And then what we decided at the end of that was, you texted that GIF of yourself to me, we’re making fun of it. You did it during the podcast and I thought it’d be funny to share that. – I did it at the end of the podcast, I don’t even know if it made it to the end. I think it was maybe even after it had cut off, but– – You texting me right now? – I did. – I’m looking at it on your phone. Oh gosh, seriously? – That’s hilarious, isn’t it? – Where is that from? – I just typed in Rhett and Link. It’s me giving the double thumbs up. – It’s like a– – [Crew Member] Is that from something? – Did you do that? – I don’t know. I don’t remember but it’s not computer-generated. Took me a second to find it. – You did do it just to be funny, but then, after that, the next day, you tweeted what you were wearing. – I didn’t tweet. – I mean you texted me, yeah you texted me. And I just thought it would be funny to make a private text conversation– – But I could have had– – Very public, because it related to that #EarBiscuits conversation– – That could have been very compromising. – I was having with the people! – So we text pictures– – What are you upset about though? – I’m gonna tell you. We text pictures of what we’re wearing to different events so that we don’t end up wearing the same thing, and I was like, I’m gonna send Link a picture and I’m gonna make a funny face in it because I send him pictures all the time and it’s just so utilitarian. – You got Jessie to– – I was like, “Jessie, take this picture of me “so I can send it to Link,” and I was like, I’m gonna amuse him a little bit so I gave you the sideways thumbs up, I don’t know– – You were being a friend, you know, it was great. – But you weren’t, because what you did is you took a picture from the privacy of my bathroom which had like– – Okay, okay. – It had like the surface of my bathroom sink– – And the floor. – And I look over there and I see there’s like a big old, there’s like a big vat of moisturizer, like lotion. What does he do with that? Is he picking his bone with that? (Link chuckling) And then there’s– – There’s a dark thing on the floor. – Yeah, it almost looks like a sweater condom, but it’s just, all it is is– – Panties. – No, it’s just a sock. It looks like a winter condom. – Like a no show sock. – (chuckles) You have to think about the different conclusions that people can draw! Okay? – Well the conclusion that I tried to get people to draw– – It’s not even winter time! – Shut up! Was, look at Rhett just sending, after our conversation on Ear Biscuits, now he’s trying to be so friendly that he’s sending pictures of himself constantly. And the pendulum has swung too far. That was my tweet. – That was smart, that was good branding. – Oh thank you. I value continuing these conversations on Twitter and that’s my way to do it and give the people what they want, a little candid shot of Rhett in his restroom, but I will say, I was bending the truth a little bit. I was just giving you a hard time and people couldn’t read between the lines enough to know why you actually sent those two pictures. – Somebody did though, I saw somebody comment on it and they said– – You could figure it out. – He’s sending Link what he’s wearing because they saw– – I left the text that you sent off. – That picture from the red carpet at some event, I don’t know what it was, I can’t remember, but they were, oh, he wore that, and so– – We went to the screening for Kidding. – Kidding, Kidding! – Jim Carrey show. But I will say, before I hit tweet, I literally zoomed in on your bathroom countertop and looked at that moisturizer, I scrutinized it. – Why’s it such a big vat? – It was a big vat of that and then there was– – I’m a big man. – There’s some other stuff up there. I couldn’t tell what anything was. – If your body was this big, you’d have a giant vat of moisturizer as well, just so you know. The surface area is unbelievable. – I spent a lot of time on that thing on the floor by your foot, that black turd looking thing. The carpet condom. – Winter condom. (Link chuckles) – And I was like zooming in on it and I loved it because– – It could have been anything. – Scrolled through the– – So ambiguous. – Through the reactions to my tweet and someone zoomed in on that and put like an arrow pointing to it and was like, “We need to talk about this.” I knew it would happen! I love it! Was it a sock? – No it was a winter condom. – Oh, okay. – Okay well we are actually gonna have a conversation about sports. – I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I will not– – We’re moving on. – I will not tweet screenshots of private texts we have– – Sounds like a good rule. – Today. – Today, okay. – Again, I won’t do another one today. – I’m not gonna send you more pictures of myself. Your loss. Okay we’re gonna continue this conversation, but first we do wanna let you know that you can grab one of these mugs that says– – Good luck with that. – Good luck with that! – I love this mug. It’s so snarky yet I feel like it brings me good luck for having it. It doesn’t give anyone luck. – Superstitious, huh? – It doesn’t give anybody luck. It actually gives them the opposite. I don’t believe in what you’re doing. Is kinda what this mug says. But I’m gonna still be nice about it. – It’s comically cynical, was the intention. Good luck with that. (chuckles) – That is the RandLer, the official Mythical Beast mascot with a logo of himself on his tank top. – And the colors of our Buies Creek Elementary School, which incidentally, they changed the frickin’ mascot from the demons, it’s not the demons anymore. – What? – Yeah yeah, I can’t believe I’m just remembering. I don’t even know what it is. Somebody went to Buies Creek school and took pictures inside the gym and it says like Buies Creek Knights or something like that. At some point they realized that demons is probably not a great mascot. – We gotta do something about this. – Yeah, you know what, they need to change it back to the demons. We should start a public movement. – You know what, let’s table that, but let’s think about it. – Okay, is this still the ad? – Still the ad. – You can also get Link’s shirt. Mythical.store. You can’t get my shirt, you can’t just get a blank navy. You have to go– – We should sell blanks. – You’ll have to go to the Hanes section of Walmart to get that. (chuckles) Okay. Okay, okay, okay. – When you don’t shoot blanks, use a carpet. – Winter, winter. – Winter. – Not carpet, it’s not made of carpet. That would be horrible. – What is it made of? – I don’t know. So– – Mythical.store. Okay, let’s get– – Sports. – Let’s get into sports. I successfully delayed us talking about sports for 20 minutes approximately. – I feel like I need to address this right up top. I think I need to address those of you who for some reason haven’t already clicked away, because you’re like, I don’t want to hear them talk about sports, I don’t like sports. This episode of Ear Biscuits is for you. If you don’t like sports. If you do like sports. You don’t have to like sports to appreciate the conversation we’re going to have about sports. And we’re not really gonna have a conversation directly about sports, we’re gonna have a conversation about the merits of watching sports, specifically being entertained by watching, and I think I would say on television. I’m not even necessarily talking about going to sporting events, which I feel like– – Interesting. – It’s a different experience. – I feel like they could be lumped together and it’ll change how I feel. – Okay, we can lump them together, but, at least when you go to watch a sporting event, I’ve had people who say, I’ll go to a basketball game or I’ll go to a hockey game and kind of experience the group thing. – Okay. – I’m just talking about a man like me, a man, a woman, anyone sitting down on a couch just watching other people do stuff in a completely disconnected place. Is it worth it? And you know what. – What got you thinking about this? (Rhett sighs) I know you’re anticipating that I’m gonna be in opposition. I am definitely coming from a different place, but I want you to tell me what got you into this. – Well first of all, what I meant earlier when I said– – Not sports but this conversation. – What I meant earlier when I said, my answer to that question does not dictate my behavior, whatever I said, was the question to me is yes, the answer, it is a waste of time. But I do it a lot and I probably will continue to do it. So I’m not gonna try to argue necessarily. I’m interested in the psychology that keeps me going back. So I’ve got a little research that we’ll go into. So I’ll tell you my experience. – Okay well then I gotta say it’s not a waste of time. Just for the sake of a foil here. I think it’s sad for you to be so, I want you to quantify how into sports you are. And then what I’m gonna tell you is, I think it’s sad that you’re as into sports as you say you are– – You’re asking me a question and now you’re telling me my answer is sad. – Yes. – You haven’t even let me answer it yet? – If you quantify your love for sports and it is a lot, I think it’s sad that you would say yes, it’s a waste of time. That doesn’t go together to me, man. And I think you would change your own mind by talking about it. – There’s so many things. – Quantify your love of sports, just start there. – Eating dessert is a waste of calories, but I’m gonna keep doing it because it’s fun. So okay, first of all, I feel like there are two different audiences and I’m so, I’m super self-aware about this, so I feel like I have to address both of them, because in the general population, I’m kinda like, kinda into sports. Like when you take into account where I grew up. – Like when’s the last time you painted any part of your body to align with a sport color motif? – Never. Well, college once, when we had a new coach. Herb Sendek, NC State basketball coach. Four of us, you and me and Greg and Tim painted ourselves H-E-R-B, and it kinda just looked like a marijuana ad. – At the basketball game. – Herb, man, Herb! (Link chuckles) And no one knew what we were trying to do because it was his first game coaching. – I think they knew. – But a lot of people didn’t. – When was the last time you altered your schedule for an extended length of time for sports? – This past weekend. – Now we’re talking. – Yeah, so, that’s what got me thinking about this. So I am, on the scale of people at Mythical Entertainment, I am on the very top end of the spectrum, with just a couple of other people who care about sports. But in normal groups of people, okay, Alex here cares about sports, he watches Michigan sports, we talk about college sports. And Darren cares a significant amount about sports. – But when you take your place on that continuum and you apply it to the greater, just the general population, you’re low on the fanatic scale. – I feel like I’m just average dude, but I don’t know. And I get the sense whenever I talk about sports on the internet, just like I did on my little rant that I did last season of GMM, which I really thought was gonna be awesome and was gonna get shared by a lot of people and it wasn’t, so. Still regret that. But just like when I– – It burned you a little bit and that’s informing this conversation. – When I talked about it, when I talk about it on the internet, the people who interact with me on Twitter, they seem to just not have any idea what I’m talking about, nor do they care at all. – It’s as if the majority of people who comment on things that we’re a part of on the internet do not have a space for sports in their life. It’s like it’s been taken up by either us or things tangentially related to us and more related to the internet. – I think your clarification, those who comment. So, people who comment unsolicitedly, is that a word? Because what actually happened recently is, a couple weeks ago we did an episode and then in Good Mythical More, it was the Good Mythical More with the Kobe episode. So we’re back in the studio and we went through ugly basketball shoes– – And for those of you who are fans of us, Kobe Bryant, the guy who was on that episode, he was a very good basketball player. – Yeah, and so I made a joke about the Fab Five, you know, the Michigan– – I know, man. – 1991 or, I don’t know what year it was. Somebody out there would know. But I made a Fab Five joke about the Chris Webber shoe and there’s an extra time out in the shoe because of the whole time out thing. – It looks like they have a cheese grater on the bottom. Like you can grate cheese with the side of your shoe. That’s pretty good. – Yeah, here’s the thing, you unfold that little part that says Web, you get a extra time-out. (crew laughs) – Boy, you’re really search with that one. That’s like a Fab Four references. Were there five of them? – It’s actually Fab Five. – Really? – There’s some people out there who appreciated that joke more than anything that’s ever been said on this show. That was just for you. – [Darren] I appreciate it. – Okay, and he’s here. – Well Darren was like, “I get that, I appreciate that.” Then and I made a comment like, for the one of you out there who understands what I’m talking about, I had two or three people who have never tweeted at me, who’ve never commented tweet and me and say, “Hey I just wanna let you know “that I really appreciated that Chris Webber joke.” Never commented but just letting you know. – You think they’re listening right now? – I think there are people who are sports fans, but the Venn diagram, the crossover between sports fans and then people who really want to engage vocally with us on the internet, it’s a small crossover. For whatever reason. We are gonna get into some psychology. – So first just getting to, I mean, you said that you haven’t painted yourself but you have cordoned off scheduled aspects of your life and altered it for sports. – And I think this is gonna blow your mind, because the sport that has consumed me to a certain level is the sport that most people consider by far the most boring sport to watch, golf. And not only, it’s this crazy intersection. How ironic is it that not only is golf, from someone who on the outside, the most boring sport you could watch, it also is by far the lengthiest. Name one other sport where they play four days in a row for four to five hours at a time and you have to watch all of that if you wanna watch the full event. Could you imagine a basketball game that lasted like 15 hours and you had to watch it over the course of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? – Well wait though, I’d like to see that once. I would like to see– – It’s a slug fest! – I would love to, I would watch that once, man. I would watch like– – The never-ending basketball game? – If it was the best NBA players, like if it was the NBA championship, like one year they’re like, guys, they’re about to do, what’s the toss up thing? – The tip-off. – About to do the toss up and they’re like, guys, I just wanna tell you before we start. This is gonna last four days. You’re gonna break for dinner. – There may be a weather delay. – When it gets dark, you’re gonna sleep. You’re gonna get up the next morning. You’re gonna start at different times, but, I would watch that. – Once. – Once. I mean, can you imagine them all getting so exhausted? But I digress, also, in the interest of digression, I wonder what the second longest match play sport is. I mean I know some tennis matches can go, record tennis matches could be like eight hours. Like pro-level. Jacob, look up the– – Longest tennis match ever? – Longest tennis match, professional tennis match. – There’s probably a baseball game that’s gone for a long time before. – Yeah baseball can go a really long, well not as long as a tennis match, but we’ll come back, go ahead. So you’re devoting four days. – And let me clarify. There’s a few caveats here. Number one, I typically don’t watch the Thursday and the Friday, I watch the weekend. I watch Saturday and Sunday. And I’m also recording all of this and then I am doing what I call Tiger vision. – And there we have it. You’re not watching golf. – I’m watching Tiger Woods. – You’re watching Tiger Woods. – Now first of all, I embody everything that true golf fans hate. Because I am that guy who only cares and I’m only watching because Tiger Woods is in contention again. If you haven’t been following, and first of all, when this comes out, this episode will come out, all I’ve seen is I’ve seen him play the BMW Championship but the tour championship, the final event of the year will have just finished like last night when this episode goes up, so I don’t know what ended up happening. I’m sure I know and sure I watched it. But yes, I am that guy who– – I’m sure we’ll both be tweeting about it at the same time. – I am that guy who only cares about Tiger Woods when it comes to golf. I am a golfer. I played on a high school golf team, didn’t set any records. Wasn’t that great. Still play occasionally. Shepherd is currently going to golf a few times a week. So I’m kinda getting back into it. – And so is Tiger. – There was a period of time in which I watched back when he was the greatest player to ever play the game, and was winning all the time. It was one of those, it was sorta that Michael Jordan, LeBron James factor where somebody begins to dominate in such a significant way that it just intersected with me at a time in my life where I just really wanted to see him succeed. – Which was like 10 years ago. – Yeah yeah, well– – Which is crazy. – It was 20 years ago and then up to about 10 years ago. We’re getting some feedback on this. The Isner-Mahut match, the 2010 Wimbledon Championship took 11 hours, five minutes, over three days. Total of 183 games. Wow, they had to keep coming back. I didn’t realize– – Three days, 11 hours. That’s a sport thing that I almost knew. – And tennis is like another potentially boring sport. So anyway– – But not nearly as boring as golf. – Right, and so, and we’re gonna get– – They’re constantly playing each other. – We’re gonna get into why some people find– – For 11 hours. – Certain things boring, but so I admit, I am everything that is wrong with golf spectating because as soon as Tiger had his whole deal, his whole world fell apart because of what he did and cheating, and then he got hurt. – And you just said that in a dangerous way, but we’ll come back to it. – Said it in a dangerous way? – It seemed like you just made Tiger the victim. “You know his whole world fell apart.” – I said with the cheating. He was responsible for his world falling apart. – I know, I’m giving you an opportunity to, especially, you know– – Which is an interesting aspect. It’s an interesting aspect of this because I recognize that, ’cause there are some people who are like, okay, he showed his true colors and he was this totally deceitful guy who has no character, he proved that and it was public. So I’ll never pull for him again. I respect that. For me, it has always been and still is just about the athletic dominance in this particular arena that I am personally interested in. And again, I’m not saying I’m proud of it, I’m just saying, I cannot pull myself away from it. When he came back this year– – So you’re not defending that you’re right in being a fan of Tiger Woods. Would you actually call yourself a fan of Tiger? Or you’re just– – I’m a fan of Tiger Woods the athlete without a doubt. – But you’re not defending that choice as being righteous or– – What choice? – The choice to follow him and therefore support him given his past– – At the same time, I recognize how annoying it is for all these other guys who are out there doing incredibly well in the golf world and no one caring about them for 10 years until Tiger comes back and all of a sudden– – I’m saying especially given what, I honestly don’t know everything. I remember vaguely pieces of it, but… – Let me tell you what he represents to me, okay? He’s 42. I’ll be 41 very soon. And he’s got back issues specifically. He had exact same injury that I’ve had with the herniated disks, he had fusion surgery. He’s coming back and he’s competing with these guys and he’s almost won. And I feel like there’s this part of him that represents this 40-something year old guy who still has it and can still compete and I feel like I am pulling for myself in some ways. Strictly talking about athletically. – In spite of the fact that he cheated on his wife and whatever else he did that I may not be able to remember. – I’m conveniently setting those things aside, and I recognize I’m conveniently setting those things aside. – Well I think it speaks to the power of sport in your life that it’s not about him, it’s about you. – Yeah and so– – On a brain level, I mean, there is science that says that when you watch sports, you’re not just… Your brain interprets it as a relationship and you’re in it, you’re a part of it, it’s you. Whatever that team is. And so it’s a very powerful thing psychologically that has much less to do with, I mean, you may be intimately acquainted with in the world of football, the whole concussion injury thing and that just doesn’t make sense. How could you understand what’s going on with people, with their brains and still support it? I mean people will say the brutality of boxing. There’s something that I think you’re hitting on there that’s very fascinating that it’s about– – Of course it’s about me. – It’s not only that it’s about you but there’s this deep, ineffable connection that certain people, not everybody has. And so I’m, when it comes to Tiger, I can see how the things that you rattled off very much make it about you and so that starts to make sense of why you would devote your entire weekend to it. – And I’m exaggerating a little bit. So Locke and I were watching the third round of the BMW Championship at home, on Saturday. And Locke has gotten into it as well. Locke’s played a little bit of golf. We’re gonna talk a little bit about what the research says about if you’ve played a sport, if you have a physical connection and appreciation for a particular sport, it actually, what’s happening in your brain is one of the reasons that you find it not boring. I could only imagine if I never played golf or had an appreciation for what it’s like to do what they are able to do, that it would be the most boring thing I could possibly imagine. – Yeah. – But we’re sitting there watching it and we’re like, we get really into it. We’re like, we get up, we yell, we give fives. You’ve seen how ridiculous the fans, the Tiger fans are. If you watch this for a little bit and you see how crazy these people react to golf, to a little ball going in. – Well the thing that I’ve noticed when I look over your shoulder because I saw you, it was a Monday and a tournament was continuing and you were doing your Tiger vision. – Well I couldn’t do Tiger vision ’cause it was the livestream. – He would drive the ball off the tee. – That’s a good swing. – And then, he would all of a sudden, the shot would be on him but I would just hear, at first I was like, after he drives the ball off the tee, multiple people are injured. (Rhett groans dramatically) I know, it’s like, that’s literally what it sounded like to me. (Link yells and yelps) – They get so into it, they get so into it. As much as any football game. – It’s like you pull somebody off the front lines of Gettysburg and you’re amputating them at the ankle or something. – That’s a little extreme. But so, and I was telling Locke– – The raucous. – I need Tiger vision because Tiger vision for me is, I recorded the whole thing and I wait until I won’t catch up with live, and I stay off of the internet and then I fast forward and I wait until I see the red sweater or the red shirt. That’s on a Sunday, and I stop and sometimes I get it wrong and sometimes we see a putt go in and I’m like (groans). Tiger vision’s really tough. I just want a program that is just Tiger vision. People would pay for Tiger vision. I know it seems like it’s so anti-the sport, but, I just wanna see what he’s doing, and then anyone who’s actually competing with him and is relevant in comparison to him, I like to see them every once in while. – I’m sure they’ve thought about just putting a camera, there’s a camera following the whole time, right? Why can’t you just watch that stream? It’s like freakin’ a la carte viewing. – Golf Channel will do that sometimes where you can follow a featured group. I don’t want to follow the featured group because it takes the featured group four hours to play. I wanna see Tiger’s highlights and see a score change but all back to back in like a 40 minute period. Honestly, how much time are we talking about? He’s onscreen doing his thing. It’s gotta be less than an hour. – I think you’re describing SportsCenter. (Rhett chuckles) – But it’s not the same ’cause I don’t feel like just watching the highlights do it because, I don’t know. It’s psychosis, man. I’m not saying it’s healthy. And I haven’t even gotten to talk about NC State sports. – Let’s skip to that, then. – Okay the other thing that’s happening is it’s freakin’ football season again. And I don’t care about NFL football. I’m from the south, man. We watch college football. And yeah, there’s Carolina Panthers, but they didn’t really, they weren’t around when I was growing up, and plus, they’re in Charlotte and that’s a Carolina town and we’re NC State. I don’t care, who cares, right? I care about NC State sports. I care about the football team. And so I have made it a point to find where the game’s gonna be being broadcast and then, I do watch that mostly in real time. Sometimes I’ll skip the first half and kinda catch up, but I do rearrange– – Why? – So, what I would say– – ‘Cause I don’t. – Well, the reason that I watch it is because I– – Can I tell you the reasons why I don’t? Because this would be really quick. Because they lose a lot more than they win and I experienced so much disappointment when I was close to it, ie, in college and going to some games and then getting out of college for the next few years trying to maintain my allegiance, and it just, heartbreak. That’s the Wolfpack MO. – I don’t believe that that’s why you don’t watch. – And plus, I’m just, I’m no longer that into it. It’s definitely not fun to watch and lose much more than win. It’s just not. – Okay yeah but that second part of the equation is not true with NC State football. We’re actually pretty good at football. – Oh really? I feel like if I started watching, we’d start losing again. – That’s called sports superstition which is a totally different thing we could get into. – Well I definitely believe in that. – So, yes. – You don’t have to refute me, just keep going. – That would be what I would say, if you were watching Carolina football this year. Carolina is the worst team in ACC. ECU beat them by 20 points. – Maybe I should start watching. I mean I– – So it isn’t about that. For me it’s definitely not about the fact that we’re winning or that we’re losing. – I’m just saying, I gave up at a time when that was the case. – For me, it is about, I have placed some portion of my own self-worth on the performance of the sports that I watch. I don’t watch sports disconnected. There are some people who are like, just show me a college basketball game. Just show me a sport, I don’t care. I won’t watch a random basketball game. I won’t watch, like even when March Madness is around, it’s like, every once in while I’ll get into like following a team but like what I really connected with is NC State sports and then a few random athletes like Tiger Woods. Usually somebody who’s like dominant in their sport. Like LeBron James, which, we’ll talk about how he’s complicated things in coming to Los Angeles. – You sure you don’t mean Ginobili? – Exactly, so, but with NC State, interestingly, so what I would have said before I looked at the research is that there’s a portion of my self-image and self-esteem that is tied into the performance of these things. I have either made an association. Like with Tiger Woods I have no association with him at all, but I’ve made an association– – You’ve made an identification. – He’s about the same age, back problems, all that. With NC State, it’s where I went to school. – And that comes up in conversations now with people. I mean, on any weekly basis, you’ll probably mention that you went to North Carolina State. I’ve actually found that to be true of myself. I would assume that then having a connection to the sports program and especially in success, there’s like, you start to feel better about that association. – And it will affect my day. – Oh. – So. That’s why Jessie’s always like, “If you’re gonna choose to watch them, I hope they win “because I know how you will be after this game.” And I’m sure anyone who’s actually a sports fan could very much relate to this. Is it logical? No. Is it something I’m proud of? No. Did I have any impact on the outcome of the game that happened probably in the past because I’m watching a recording of it on the other side of the nation? No, I didn’t have any impact on it, but yet I still receive personal self-esteem boosts by watching them win and associating with them. Now, let me just talk a little bit about what the science says because it was pretty fascinating. – Okay. Because my theory is that it has to do with your upbringing. I think, knowing about you and about me, I trace it back to that. – Well definitely, that’s what entered, yeah. ‘Cause if you go back, my dad was and is a huge sports fan. Again, mostly college, very much Georgia football. He watches all sports, but the thing he’s passionate about, the thing that he has tied his self-esteem to is Georgia football. – Completely? His self-esteem is completely tied to– – When it comes to sports. And he takes it harder than I do. He will be, and I remember this growing up. If they won, it was great. If they lost, and the good thing is is that Georgia’s been traditionally very good at football, so if you’re gonna tie your self-esteem to one team and one sport– – It’s safer. – Georgia football is not quite like Alabama, but it’s pretty good. But definitely, I remember the way that we experienced sports, and we would find it in anything. I remember watching really competitive tennis matches and golf and back when there was no sports channel, there was no ESPN, and so the major sports championships were on network television, everybody watched them in real time, you watched them with your family and my dad and my brother and I would sit there and we would watch these things just intently. – Everybody would know about it. – Super vivid memories of like, Boris Becker playing tennis, you know what I’m saying? – Yeah (chuckles). – And caring so much about it. And identifying with it, so it was in my household so it was ingrained in me in that way as far as the nurture side. – And for me it was not. – Right. – And you don’t make an active decision to tie your self-esteem in any capacity to these things, but it happens. I think that’s probably what you’re gonna get at. – ‘Cause if I could choose. – Because my argument is, is it a waste of time? It’s not only a waste of time, it’s a waste of emotional energy that, just hike. Just go on a hike. Connect with nature. Bring people along that you love. – And listen, I don’t feel good after I do it. Let me also clarify that. – Sounds like an addiction. – Even if the team wins. When I realize that I’ve been laying there– (Link chuckles) Watching a man in a red sweater hit a little white ball– (Link chuckling softly) For hours. And meticulously fast-forwarding and then backing up when I see too much and trying to erase it from my memory, I don’t feel good about myself when that time is over. And I don’t feel great. Maybe it’s the color red because NC State and Tiger Woods, I don’t know. Incidentally that is something the research shows is that people, sports teams who wear red are more feared, but that has not really come into play with NC State, so, maybe times are changing though. – If more scientists like sports, then all sports teams would be hues of red. – [Rhett] Right. – Thank goodness scientists have better things to do than– – Okay, speaking of scientists, now when you begin to look at what scientists say about the psychology of sports fandom, you realize that, there’s not a whole lot of people who are thinking about this. There hasn’t been an incredible amount of research devoted to this, no funding. Nobody’s getting grants to study fan psychology. – They already know how to make a lot of money off of it. The people who are making money. – But there is a guy, so I read this article from the Columbia Journalism Review by a guy named Eric Simons. And he talked to a guy named Daniel Wann. Might be Wann, it’s W-A-N-N. He’s at Murray State, and this guy is, he’s described by most of his colleagues as far and away the leading sports fan psychologist in North America. In Murray State in Kentucky. So he has no grant funding. But his specialty is studying this. If you go to his Murray State professor page, it says, “In particular, I am interested in the causes “and consequences of sport team identification, “ie the extent to which a fan feels “a psychological connection to a team.” – Which is incidentally exactly what he says to his barista– (Rhett laughs) When he works from the coffee shop. – What do you do for a living? Well, let’s see how I can explain this. Go to murraystate.edu. – He does what now? I was thinking of my joke so hard I didn’t actually listen to you. – Basically he studies why people watch sports. And okay– – I’d like to study why he studies that. – According to Eric Simons, when he talked to Daniel, Professor Wann, he said there are eight reasons. Let me just go through these. People like sports because they get self-esteem benefits from it. Also because some people have money on it. Because their boyfriend or girlfriend or family member like sports. Because it’s exciting. (chuckles) Okay. – It is exciting. I mean, I’ve experienced the excitement of being at a game and something thrilling happens and you’re there with people you know, and, I don’t know. Not everyone’s vomiting. – Because it’s aesthetically pleasing. Because, like the theater– – Aesthetically pleasing? – Yeah, because like the theater, it is a venue for emotional expression. Because they need an escape from real world troubles. – Well and I think those last two are very much like, I just don’t think it’s fair to pick being a sports fan apart if you’re not willing to pick being a movie fan apart. Like, you’re gonna waste two or three hours. You watched Wyatt Earp? That’s three hours, man. – Right, exactly, Wyatt Earp. – What kinda jerk are you, man? What are you doing watching Wyatt Earp again. Three hours! – You could say the same thing about a lot of things, including every single thing that we’ve put on the internet for people to enjoy. Including this very conversation. Meta much? And finally, because it provides a sense of belonging and connection to a wider world. – So we’re to the tribalism. Right, is that it? – Okay so interestingly, speaking directly to that. Eric says in his article that a popular theory is that sports are a substitute for tribal warfare, which is what I’ve always thought. It’s what I said in my little rant that was not as awesome as I thought it was. He does not agree with this. He says there’s no evidence. But there’s an article I found in Psychology Today which says exactly the same thing. An evolutionary biologist says that essentially, this is tribal warfare that has become, it’s a safe modern-day expression of it and that’s why we identify with it to the degree that we do. – We’ve evolved to survive. Evolution is survival of the fittest. That’s an aspect of it, so, yeah, you fight, you fight to– – By emotionally supporting and associating yourself with a winning tribe, you are propagating your own DNA, essentially. That makes sense to me. I still believe that that’s an aspect of it. – Depends on what happens after the game. – But the most interesting thing that I found that I’d never heard of before is something called mirror neurons. And so basically, simply stated, about one-fifth of the neurons that fire in the pre-mortar, I cannot speak today. – You’re not even saying neurons right. – Neer-ons. – That’s not how you say it. – Ner-ons. Nur-ons? – Neurons. – Neurons. Nur-ons, neer-ons? – Neer-ons is what you’re saying. – Yeah, there’s an E in it. I’m saying neer-ons. Neer-ons. (chuckles) You just want me to say neurons, that’s so boring. That’s like golf. About one-fifth of the neurons that fire in the pre-motor cortex when we perform an action, say like kicking a ball, hitting a golf ball, also fire at the site of somebody else performing that action. So they did an experiment. This is in an article that was linked to by that first article, where they had three different groups of people watch guys shoot basketball free throws, simple action. There were guys who played basketball in the first group. The second group were expert watchers, like sports writers, and then the third group were students at this university, I think it was in Italy who had never played basketball. And the players and the writers had areas of their brains activated related to the motions of shooting a free throw. While the non-sporty students did not. And this is also true when people just read about sports. So hearing about sports activates the same parts of the brain that it would take to play those sports. And that’s why if you have experience with a specific sport, again, golf is something that is incredibly difficult to master, not just to master, it is incredibly difficult to become a non-embarrassing golfer, right? – But to complete your thought, it’s impossible to watch having never played and begin to even start to appreciate that. – And this is true from me in the way that I now appreciate watching Ninja play Fortnite. I think I’ve talked about this at some point. I never understood Let’s Play. I’m not a gamer, but because my son was playing Fortnite and I tried for a little bit to play Fortnite. – Again the self-esteem thing. – I then can now sit, and I don’t seek out Ninja’s videos but I follow him on Instagram and he’ll do these little clips and instead of just passing over them mindlessly, now, I watch them and I’m like dang. I understand how, first of all, I have a point of reference for the physical space he’s in because I’ve been there and I’ve played the game. But I can also appreciate how amazing he is at what he does, and I could see myself sitting down and watching it for an extended period of time. Because I put myself in those shoes, so for me, that continues to be a big part of it. Now I’ve never played football but I’ve played lots of sports and I’m really into sports and I’m really into competitive things and so– – You become much closer to identifying to what it would feel like to be tackled. Or to escape a tackle. – And how bad it would hurt my back. – Again, this supports my theory which means I love it, because– (Rhett chuckles softly) Even if you didn’t play football, your dad was obsessed with it and Georgia football so you had a bond. You were taught how to experience football as a spectator through somebody who was like the sports writer in the study, right? Your dad taught you how to watch it, and he created an environment where memories were made that you subconsciously pull on all of that and you passed that experience on to Locke. I do not have that experience with Lincoln. I mean, we started going to Clippers NBA basketball games because it was your idea and I was like, you know what, I wanna get in on this. I think Lincoln’s into playing NBA Live. He’s really into basketball now. – 2K. – 2K, because, he started playing video games and he started playing it in the real world and we went to Clippers games and I wanted to foster something in him that I didn’t have. And I’m glad to say that he plays basketball multiple times a week, and of course Locke’s very into it. But I’m trying to remember my point. Going to the, I can’t remember my point. Going to the Clippers games, was something about that. – Well, it’s the connection. – I didn’t have enough of that connection and it was hard for me to foster it at that point. – And when I make that connection. This is my… And even if we go a little bit over our typical time, I do wanna talk about LeBron coming to the Lakers because I know we have opinions about that. – Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. – But specifically when I watch sports with Locke, or when I talk about sports with my dad, which does continue to be– – A point of connection. – The majority of the point of connection that I have with my dad. At those points, it doesn’t feel like a waste. And I said that, that was my closing line in the rant was something about, it gives me something to text my dad about. Well and you might say from a psychological perspective– – So you don’t think it’s a waste. – You shouldn’t need this in order to connect with somebody, you should connect with somebody on something more personal that you share between the two of you that’s more direct and not some intermediary thing, but the fact is, when I sit there and watch Tiger or NC State by myself, which ends up happening, Locke’s doing a bunch of stuff on the weekend, at those points it feels like a waste. When he’s there with me and we’re watching it together and we’re really getting into it and the trifecta is, we’re watching it, they win and he’s there. – You’ll never forget that. – That doesn’t feel like a waste. We get so crazy. At that point– – Triple overtime, it’s like going on a nature hike, it’s like going on a backpacking trip and having a near-death experience but then making it through and you’re grabbing each other by the collar and you’re like, “We made it!” – Hey man, this is a Hanes. It’s special. Don’t just grab it like that. I gotta, it’s $3. – We made it. – Yeah, so, I think, now that I’ve thought through this, I think my theory, my answer to the question is, if your connection to the sport, based on something that may ultimately be unhealthy or something that’s deep in your reptilian brain, if that causes you to then connect with somebody in the here and the now, it’s not a waste, but me just sitting there individually enjoying it like a junkie and just Tiger vision. Oh, there he is. Oh, he’s chippin’ it in. (Rhett chuckles) – Okay. Chip it in, Tiger. Oh goodness. Don’t make me wait. – If that is my experience– (laughs) Then I feel like it’s a waste. But here’s the thing, sometimes I’ll watch it and then, okay, so Locke was in North Carolina recently, Tiger’s playing and he calls me, he’s like, “Dad, you see Tiger? “Did you see what he did?” and we talked about it. And so I had a point of connection with my son. Maybe it’s not a waste. – Can we really get to the point though? – Yeah, sure. – How do you feel about Andre Agassi when he went bald? I’m just joking. Do you really think that you have to justify being a sports fan– – Yes. – With a connection with your son? – I do feel that way. Yeah, I do feel that way because I– – So you can’t watch a movie alone? – No, never gonna watch a movie alone again. No, I just think that– – Wyatt Earp, man, three hours alone. It’s good cinema. – That’s a good point. It’s a very good point. But I don’t– – I don’t know, I think you gotta go all the way and you gotta defend it as just a form of recreation. – I feel like there’s a difference. Here’s the difference. When I enter into a movie, I’m doing it with the understanding that this is just for me to be entertained. That is not why any sports fan watches sports. You think sports fans, non-sports fans think that sports fans watch sports to be entertained. They are wrong. – I am wrong? Okay. – Sports fans watch sports because they can’t help themselves. Because of the self-esteem boosts that we’re talking about and this identification with it. Now I’m not saying some of those things are not in play when you’re watching a movie– – And the last point is, to me, I at least begin to understand… Maybe I pity you. You’ve been built, you’ve experienced sports directly and indirectly by playing them, with your dad growing up. Lots of other things. It’s a part of, like watching it is some magical connection that I do not have because sports was only associated with anxiety when I participated. So for me, I don’t feel anxiety, well I do feel some anxiety when I watch, but I ultimately, I just don’t connect. It’s like I don’t get it. It’s a biological language that you’re having with this thing. – Yeah, well I don’t disagree with that. But what I’m saying is I don’t feel like it’s the same thing as watching a movie. Because when I go into a movie, I’m going into it completely selfishly to be entertained, and yeah, it’s cool to do that with somebody but I could do that on my own. When I’m watching sports, I’m not choosing to do it to be entertained, because if it was about being entertained, then you could substitute someone who wasn’t Tiger Woods which has happened every single weekend this year, who in that instance is better than him. And I don’t wanna watch Bryson DeChambeau vision. You know what I’m saying, I could care less about that. He’s better than Tiger right now. But I don’t wanna watch him. It’s not about being entertained. It’s about this psychological connection to something I’m hoping that someone can accomplish for me that benefits me in some way that I don’t even quite understand. – I think you’re describing actually, don’t sell that short. I think you could spin it the other way and you could then be building your case that this is a deeper form of entertainment for you. A deeper form of connective recreation, in the same way that someone may describe 10 years down the road, how much more advanced virtual reality will be. You don’t understand. When I’m in it, it is me! – Well I do think that we connect with entertainment that taps into our empathy. When you can relate to a character and you are putting yourself in the shoes of a character and you want them to win, that is how you enjoy the best stories. I agree with that. – I just don’t think your landing point should be that you should slough this thing off and well as long as I do it with my son, it’s more than just a form of entertainment that feels like I actually should be going to therapy for it. – But there’s tangible, the reason I think that I could do that is ’cause there’s tangible benefit in that approach. There would be tangible benefit– – I’m trying to– – If I took out of my life– – I agree with that. – Apart from the connection that I made with other loved ones. – Oh, well restate that. – I’m saying that, if I sat down with my therapist. I haven’t discussed this with my therapist. But if I said, explain all this and he said, “Well I think you should watch sports with your son “but I don’t think you should watch it by yourself,” then I would be like, I understand the logic behind that decision and I can’t dispute that. – I don’t. I mean it’s not my place to tell you what your position should be. – ‘Cause I’m already watching movies and television. – I’m fighting on behalf of sports fans to not, at the end of this conversation, have made where they come from illegitimate. Or dirty. Or something that needs to be fixed. Because hey, I think it’s stupid, but you, my friend, have got to champion this. We gotta do it for them. You gotta champion it. – Here’s what I’ll say. If you enjoy these things– – I don’t think it’s stupid, by the way. I’m trying to empathize. – If you enjoy these things, yeah, ’cause you’re like the cable news producer that wants there to be two opposing opinions. (Link laughs) You’re American cable news. You’re like a Fox News producer right now. You don’t have to have two different opinions. But we can ’cause what I’m gonna say right now is– – I’m actually thinking about that thin slice of sports fan that is listening. Maybe it’s 50%. And I think I’ve learned things, I think you’ve brought things to life that not only make me empathize but it’s just like, you know what, I kinda envy that deeper connection. I don’t have it because of, those things were missing from my upbringing. So I start to feel, I actually feel jealous. So I’m starting to think maybe you don’t have to defend yourself, you’re just like, it’s actually a magical connection. – But if I don’t feel good after I do it, then I think I could– – That’s probably a problem. – So now you can take an experience you have while watching sports alone and then connect with someone else after the fact. That’s what happens all the time. Oh you’re a Pittsburgh fan too? And then you’re into a conversation. So I’m just saying if it benefits relationships, then I see direct social benefit, but I also recognize that in some ways we’re just tapping into some deeper something in our brains that doesn’t necessarily need to be fostered. My opinion is not going to change anybody’s behavior, I don’t think. Sports are not going away anytime soon, with all the changes in the landscape. Let’s just talk briefly about LeBron coming to the Lakers and how we think about that ’cause we haven’t discussed it in detail but I know that we have different perspectives on this. So as Link said, we have been and I am, continue to be a Clippers fan. A lot of people are like, “Oh you’re a Clippers fan “because of when you moved to Los Angeles.” I am a Clippers fan for a number of reasons, let me state them very quickly. The Lakers to me have always seemed like the Carolina of the NBA, right? There’s people who like them and wear their jerseys just because they have a winning tradition and so as an NC State fan I despise UNC. We have talked about this repeatedly. You go all around the world and you see people have no affiliation with the university who just like to wear the jersey, and they’re all about their tradition and all the winning that they’ve done and it just makes me sick, right? Yeah, sure, I’m jealous. But when I moved here to Los Angeles, I was like, I don’t wanna be a Lakers fan ’cause it feels dirty. It feels like just getting into some sort of tradition that I’m not a part of. At the time, Vinny Del Negro, former NC State Wolfpack star was the coach of the Clippers and I was like, perfect opportunity, I can be a Clippers fan. So a lot of thins lined up. Turns out right after that, the Clippers were just starting to get good and then they became way better than the Lakers. And then of course what happened recently. – But he did not remain the coach. – No, Doc Rivers became the coach and the Clippers had a little run but now basically everything fell apart. – They had a run the year that, well two years ago. – That we had season tickets. – Yep. – And things kinda fell apart for them and who knows what’s happening. We’re in a rebuilding phase. Meanwhile, LeBron (clicks tongue) comes to the Lakers. And let me just say quickly my opinion on LeBron is I think he’s great. I think he’s a great person. I think he’s probably the best player to ever play the game and I tend to gravitate towards people who are dominant in their sport and so I’ve been a Cleveland fan simply because LeBron, ’cause I wanna see him win wherever he goes. – So, like Tiger– – Same exact principle. – At least as far as the excellence goes. You can’t deny that, I mean– – But unlike Tiger– – There are people who do. My mom’s husband Lewis, last time he came out here, I picked him up from the airport and I don’t know how we got on LeBron ’cause this was before he said he was coming to the Lakers. He said that in his heyday, Lewis said he could take LeBron. (chuckles) I don’t know why. I don’t know how he thought. It’s just crazy to me. – I thought he told you that all of a sudden, if he could inhabit LeBron’s body, that he could be a better player. I think he said something about like the winning mindset or something, I was like– – Yeah he talked about how he’s a ball hog and he’s not a team player. – Okay well, here’s a thing I’ll say about LeBron as well. – So there’s people who don’t like LeBron. – That doesn’t apply to Tiger. At least, we don’t know about the specific details of LeBron’s life, but it appears that he has been a faithful husband, an incredible father. And done all this stuff for his community and has been very outspoken about a lot of things, and so, it seems like the character is there as well. So there’s a lot of reasons to pull for LeBron, right? Now, he’s coming to Los Angeles. And boy, I’m mad. I’m mad about it because I have too much pride to become a Lakers fan. I like LeBron, but I want him to lose. I want him to lose badly, because now, I can still be a LeBron fan personally, but my hate for the Lakers and that whole tradition– – You don’t hate the Lakers. – Is overpowering him. – You hate winners because we were losers. – (chuckles) No. – I’m sorry, man. And you know what, I’m tired of losing. – So hold on, you’re gonna bandwagon? You’re seriously gonna bandwagon? – I went, I got season tickets to the Clippers and you know what, it was a lot of fun. And it just wasn’t quite enough to bake in allegiance. I was all in. I even knew the name of that guy who came off the bench, the big guy who would shoot threes. Mo, that’s his name. I was like, “Put Mo in!” I would say things like that, like, “We need some Mo.” – Yeah. – Remember him? – Yeah I do. – He’s playing for somebody else now. He wasn’t allegiance. He had no allegiance to the Clippers. Any more than LeBron had to Cleveland! – If the Lakers wanna pay me $100 million to root for them, I will do it, okay? – I just didn’t… I don’t have an allegiance to the Clippers. It was too much. We had a lot of fun, but we bought too many tickets and then we didn’t go to all the games. It was too much. And they didn’t win! It was a disappointment at the end, and I was still, I just hadn’t fully committed and I got burned, man. – But that’s not how we make decisions about who we’re gonna pull for– – I’m not gonna buy Lakers season tickets, but if I’m gonna go to a game, I think it probably needs to be the one that LeBron is playing in. – Here’s the thing. – By the way, we bought season tickets and when LeBron came from the Cavs to play the Clippers– – He sat out. – He sat out! He wasn’t, he sat the freak out! – It was like one of the reasons we were excited about season tickets and then he sat out. And Kyrie sat out that game as well. – Yeah, they both did. – Both of them did. – What? – Okay. To wrap this up, I will go to a Lakers game with you. I’m not pulling for them. – I didn’t invite you. – Oh okay, I will sit in a different section. – I don’t want you to– – Are you gonna root for them? I will go and it will be pure entertainment to just be able to see LeBron in action. – That’s all I’m giving at basketball right now is just, I’m going to watch it like a movie, because you know what, I kept score for the girls’ middle school basketball team. That’s my only connection, man. I watched half the season and then we’d take– – Are you like keeping score in your head? – We’d take our friend– – Rebound, rebound. – And he’s like explaining what a triple double is, and I realize, I didn’t even know that was indicated on the, I could look at that score. I realized I wasn’t even enjoying the game. I’m gonna go watch LeBron just like some fair-weather dude but I’m not a fan of the Lakers either. I just give up. – Okay good, as long as you’re not a Lakers fan. You just can’t be a Lakers fan. – But that Kevin Costner, boy he is something. (Rhett chuckles) Put him in a western, boy he’s great. – Is he a Lakers fan? Was that your callback? – It was a Wyatt Earp callback. – Wyatt Earp callback. – Yeah remember, we watched that together. – Yeah yeah, I think it was his best performance. – It was long though. – Boy, he’s horrible in Field of Dreams. Try to enjoy that. Okay, I don’t know if we’ve come to any conclusions. – So the LeBron thing, you can’t do it because– – I’m not gonna be a Lakers fan. I don’t care. – You’re a loser, man. – If the Clippers leave Los Angeles, I will reconsider. – If it wasn’t for what you just said to everybody, you could have just been a Lakers fan. – No ’cause people know that I’m a Clippers fan. – People don’t know, people don’t care. – Enough people know. I don’t do that, I don’t flip, man. I’m not a flipper. I’m not gonna do that. – You’re a loser. – Yeah, I’m a loser. I’d rather be a consistent loser than a flipping winner. – A fair-weather winner. – Yeah, you can always be a winner, you just see who the best team is and you root for them. – But I do agree that I can’t just say, “I’m a Lakers fan.” I can’t do that. – Right, you’re screwed. You’re screwed. – I’m out. – Okay. You’re out for good but we’re gonna go to a game. – Oh yeah. – I do feel like our allegiance to either the Chargers or the Rams is still up for grabs, even though I did go to a Rams game and I bought a hat. – We should get two– – Two years ago. – Yeah, you tried that, it didn’t work. – But then, the Chargers came and Philip Rivers is the quarterback, NC State grad. So, I don’t know, is he? – I don’t know. – I don’t follow those. – We should get two friends, we should go to a Lakers game, we should paint our chest. B-R-O-N, and then when somebody goes to the bathroom, we’re either gonna be bro or Ron. (Rhett chuckles) Like is there a Ron on the Lakers? – We could be RNB. – R and B. Any way you slice it, anybody goes to the restroom, only one at a time. – It’s the RNB guys. – We’re still something. We’re either Ron, RNB or bros. – Or if two of us go we’re just like pound. (Link chuckles) – I need a diagram to follow this now. Okay. Well there you have it, we talked about sports. – No, that was LeBron. You just said Bron. – Yeah, there’s no L. – Okay, if you’re still listening, thank you for doing that. – #EarBiscuits, let us know what we should watch on YouTube, or talk to us about what we just talked about. We value that back and forth. – Yeah, in fact, just this past week when you guys started talking about the texting conversation, a lot of people took issue with some of the conclusions we came to in that particular episode and then began to explain how texting had been so instrumental in their own personal communication and I don’t know, it opened my eyes. I also tweeted about that. – Mhm. – Some of you talked about how you got a lot of anxiety around just normal face-to-face communication and texting allows you to be able to do that and so, I totally get that. I still stand by the whole idea of texting and face-to-face communication being used together being the most effective way, but– – But it can go a lot further than we at first realized. – Yes. – Share this episode with somebody who loves sports or hates sports or is anywhere in between. – That’s everybody. – Exactly. Talk at you next week. – [Rhett] To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the links in the description to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show Good Mythical Morning, click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your Mythical best.