March Madness: NIL, Transfer Portals, and the Commercialization of College Sports

The Supreme Court said the game had to change, and it certainly has

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed recently, so I’m spending even more time than usual with my life coach, Mark Pope.

I kid, but only a little. I’ve never met Mark Pope, the head coach of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team. I just read all of his interviews and watch all of his press conferences. Paying attention to Coach Pope has become more than a matter of fandom. It’s personal and professional development for me. Consider just a few of these gems from his comments to players and press:

• “The magic you seek is in the work you’re avoiding.”

• “Everyone’s jealous of where you are. No one’s jealous of how you got there.”

• “We don’t stress. We don’t worry. We don’t get anxious. Because it doesn’t actually help.”

• And my personal favorite: “We don’t love people in slices.”

Kentucky basketball has always been important to me because it was important to my dad and my grandmother and…every single person I knew as a kid? I admire Coach Pope primarily because he seems like such a wise, kind, caring person. Secondarily, he gets it. He thinks Kentucky basketball is special, too.

He’s also a realist about the state of the game today. He knows that “wearing Kentucky across your chest” only goes so far. When Kentucky hired him, millions of dollars flowed into Club Blue, the collective that supports name, image, and likeness deals that help recruit and retain players. Big Blue Nation has embraced the new era in college basketball, following the transfer portal as if we’re all responsible for next year’s roster and celebrating the fun our players seem to be having as spokesmen for Clarks Pump-N-Shop.

On today’s episode, Sarah and I discuss and debate whether any of what’s happening in college sports is desirable.

If you’re ready for a break from the non-stop Trump II news, I hope this episode will be for you. If you’re thinking deeply about the effect of Trump II, I hope it will be, too. In 2021, the Supreme Court flipped the table on college sports without any plan for what comes next. We live in a table-flipping, no-plan-for-what-comes-next era. Watching college basketball teams, coaches, agents, players, and fans build a new landscape helps me think about what might come next in contexts where the stakes are even higher than Kentucky v. Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen.

-Beth

Topics Discussed

• March Madness and Professionalizing College Athletes

• Outside of Politics: Bodily Fluids and Discomfort

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Episode Resources

• What to know about House v. NCAA settlement and a historic day for college sports (The Athletic - The New York Times)

• What are the risks of online sports betting? (The Week)

• Letter shows NCAA has found 175 sports-betting violations since 2018 (ESPN)

• More than half of US adults don't want legal betting on college sports in their state (AP)

• Fresno State removes one player, suspends two amid gambling investigation (NY Post)

• This March Madness comes in like a lion (The Washington Post)

• Does College Basketball Have a Gambling Problem? (The Wall Street Journal)

• College basketball’s transfer portal opens with prices rising again. Which schools will keep up? (The Athletic - The New York Times)

• 20-512 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Alston (06/21/2021) (Supreme Court)

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] And this is Beth Silvers. You're listening to Pantsuit Politics, and today we're joining the madness. March Madness is in full swing, and we're coming to a topic that we've wanted to discuss for a while, and that is the wild west that the Supreme Court created by deciding that the NCAA had violated anti-trust law. When the Supreme court issued that decision, it flipped the tables on a massive scale for student athletes and colleges and universities, businesses and college towns, agents and fans. Now we have this whole new world of the transfer portal and NIL deals, and we're going to get into all of that today. Since we're living through a real table flipping period, taking a look at what has transpired since that Supreme Court decision has offered me some real perspective on our capacity to adapt to uncertainty when the status quo is suddenly changed without any real planning for what happens next. It seems relevant. Outside of Politics, we're going to go on a bit of a journey as well. That journey begins with some conversation about the vomit squad at Universal Studios Theme Park, but I think it's going to get more interesting from there, so I hope that you will hang with us.

Sarah [00:01:14] Now we are still following the fallout from the signal controversy affecting the Trump administration. We are also very concerned about the taking of Rumeysa Ozturk and the administration's continued aggression towards students here on visas. We're talking about all that on our bonus episode on Substack so you can go check that out. The links are in the show notes.

Beth [00:01:41] Next up, let's talk about March Madness. Sarah, I remember covering the Supreme Court's decision when a group of players sued the NCAA for antitrust violations. And I heard from the NCAA at the time that if the court struck down their restrictions on paying student athletes, it would end basketball as we know it. And that is just a helpful frame, I think, going into this conversation. There was a lot of concern that the sport of college basketball would end if you took the amateurism out of it. And March Madness seems to be thriving this year.

Sarah [00:02:30] Yeah, this has been a long legal journey. It started with legislation in California that allowed college athletes to profit from their name, image, likeness. That's an acronym you'll hear a lot in this conversation. NIL: name, images, likenesses. And that's how it started. It's just saying at the bare minimum, let them get paid. You had video games, basically ripping off their persons and they couldn't make any money off that.

Beth [00:02:55] They are celebrities, treat them as such.

Sarah [00:02:57] They're celebrities, they should be able to, again, at the bare minimum, get these brand deals and profit off their own name, image, and likeness in the same way that these teams do. And so what you see with the Supreme Court unanimous ruling in 2021 is that the floodgates open for their personal pursuit of name, imagine, likeness deals. And now- we're seeing the continued pursuit of this anti-monopoly suit against the NCAA. You had a bunch of states and the state attorney generals join in and sue the NCAA for monopoly violations because now what the schools are saying is like, all right, well, now we want to be a part of this. Now we want be able to pay them directly. Because in the in-between period it very much like, to me, it reminds me of the campaign donation situation. Like, there's no coordination. There's no co-ordination between the PACs and the campaigns. Don't worry. Because who's enforcing that? That's a ridiculous legal gray zone. And that's what you had here. They could pursue the brands, the schools like really couldn't recruit or pay directly, but there was all these outside organizations basically doing that for them. And so we're very close, depending on approval from the judge of this legal settlement, to saying, okay, the schools can just openly recruit under a profit sharing. It's a little bit complicated, a profit-sharing model where they can just pay the students directly. So we're entering like phase two. They can get paid for their own name image and likeness. Now let's talk about them getting paid by the schools themselves.

Beth [00:04:37] And that revenue sharing is very complicated and people are very worried about that because there are going to be caps on what can be allocated in that revenue-sharing. And there's a real fear, especially by schools in the SEC, which love both basketball and football, that this idea that schools can pay student athletes directly is going to really benefit the conferences where nobody cares about football. And that you might have this huge benefit can fade on like the Big East, where football doesn't matter so much because they can allocate more of this money to their basketball programs. So there are all these unintended consequences and most people think that the school revenue sharing is not going to be enough. You're still going to need these collectives. And I wrote the same thing in my notes that the collectives are super PACs. Like we have Club Blue here for UK men's basketball. That these organizations that are not the school, but are very, very invested in the results the school gets are going to still have a huge role to play in rounding out the deal that the 15 member roster can get from the school directly.

Sarah [00:05:50] Well, because the amount of money it takes to recruit is just going up and up and it was like three to five and now it's 10. And that number is going to continue to rise because these college athletes are represented by the same agents out there getting multimillion dollar deals for professional athletes in the majors. And so I'm just like, in what universe does this scale down or level out?

Beth [00:06:12] So one way that they want to make that scaling down or leveling out or some semblance of structure and order happen is by implementing clearing houses where you have to demonstrate that these collective deals are fair market value, that they're tied to something real. And so that has like put on a race for the transfer portal this year because everybody wants to make the deal under the structure they understand today because we think the tables are going to flip again tomorrow. And that's what I think is so interesting about this as a microcosm of what we're living through in a bunch of different ways. So the Supreme Court makes this decision. The Supreme Court says nothing about what to do next. That's not its job. It just says, NCAA, what you had been doing, the challenge restrictions, not even the whole system, what came to us in this lawsuit It fails under antitrust law. Go figure things out. And then there's a two-year scramble of NIL becoming a thing, and we feel kind of a new sense of order, but we don't like some things about it, and there are other lawsuits pending, and so it's getting reshaped again. And it's just helpful for me to remember, that's what we do. They're still playing basketball, and we're still enjoying it, and a lot of things can carry on as we navigate all that uncertainty, and a lot of outside players enter. So you think you're centering the players in these lawsuits, but actually this has been a boon for agents. It has been boon for sports betting. Like there are just lots of different components in play here.

Sarah [00:07:58] Because a lot of people say this has opened up an opportunity for a lot players who would have left, who maybe would have gone to Europe or gone on to the NBA to stay and play. And I take that. Fair. But that in combination with the transfer portal, which really lets them change goals whenever they want, has created an individual emphasis on the players, less an emphasis on the teams. I know that this is the part that the coaches criticize a lot. The transfer portal makes it very difficult to build a team because at any moment you could lose a star player. They could go on to another thing. That was true before because of the movement and the desire for money that maybe would have pushed somebody to Europe or to the NBA. So now you've maybe solved that problem, but you've created another problem because they're just going to go to a different school.

Beth [00:08:47] Right. And they are going to different schools and not having to be redshirted at all. There's no waiting period. You can move and play instantly. And so you have the money as one factor, but for players staying longer in college now and still looking towards the NBA, they're also asking hard questions about playing time. It in one way puts some of the emphasis back on the athleticism that you might've taken with the NIL. So some players are making a lot of money because they are also off the court stars. They've got great personality. They're great in commercials. They do great social media. So their value gets rewarded that way. The transfer portal really speaks to on the court value though. Like the transfer portal itself is basically just a big spreadsheet where the players declare that they're open to being recruited and the analytics in basketball now are so precise that you can really say as a coach, what pieces do I need on my team? And now I've got a track record of this person against some of the exact opponents they'd face with us. What does that look like? And so I think even though all of it feels pretty bad in a lot of ways, we are getting at some of what people were really concerned about.

Sarah [00:10:06] That's just cogs in a machine. Is that what you love about basketball? It's saying if I take this player out and put in another one, but they have the same analytics and so they'll play the same. Eew! I thought what people loved were the underdogs and the madness of it all. That thing you could get unexpected results. If we get to this, like, what was the baseball movie where they did this?

Beth [00:10:29] Moneyball.

Sarah [00:10:29] They used the data. Moneyball. They used data. You feel a lot of heart in baseball with that approach. I think that this has revealed the same thing that the Supreme Court did with gambling. They took the walls down and they said, go for it, see what happens. It's just this wild west pursuit of profits that has dramatically increased, not just the pressure on the players, but them gambling, that then they're point shaving. They're making all these-- there's a ton of investigations right now, a lot of NCAA violations from Iowa, Fresno State, University of New Orleans. And I read a really interesting article where this guy clearly had some inside sources that were saying this is just the beginning, we're seeing a lot of the same behavior. Like we're getting these games flagged. And so lots of people are trying to remove the prop bets where you're betting on the individuals because a lot people have access to these analytics that make them just cogs in the machine including the players themselves. And so that's still permitted in a lot of states, but some states have stepped up and said, yeah, okay, let's at least eliminate prop bets. But it's just such a gross approach to something that I thought was supposed to be just an expression of heart, and it's an expression of dollars.

Beth [00:11:52] I think it's been just an expression of dollars for a long time. And so the question is, who gets those dollars? And can you bring some heart back in if you fix some of that? So I'm a big UK fan. I think Mark Bope is an amazing human being and an amazing basketball coach and I am loving following this team. And what I am seeing, especially as more people are writing about his opportunities in the transfer portal, is now that the players can move freely-- it's not just that coaches have more data about the players. It's also that players have more information about the coaches through this process. Players can move freely, everybody can do the money, not just the big schools. The money is out there. The information about the money is up there more. Then some of the soft side like intangibles can come back into the equation. Mark Pope is expected to have really, really good options through the transfer portal this year because the team has proven that he can coach at this level.

[00:13:01] And also because it's everywhere that he's a great guy. It's everywhere that he's fun to play for, that he genuinely cares about people, that is trying to reinvigorate Kentucky as a culture around basketball, not just a place for people to come play a year and then hit the NBA. So I don't know. I guess I don't love any of this. It's like the changes to the baseball rules a couple of years ago. I didn't love it. I didn't love saying baseball should be shorter because then more people will watch. Because as you say, cogs in a machine. It was that anyway. And what I've realized is the sky didn't fall when they changed some things in a way that I wouldn't have. And some of it I do like. There are some upsides. It's kind of like everything we've been talking about lately. It just creates a new set of problems. But I'm not angry about any of this. I understand what the complaints were that got us here and I see some good along with a lot of really difficult circumstances and a lot of ambiguity and then a lot of new problems. And I think that's maybe just life.

Sarah [00:14:10] I was never opposed to the players getting paid, because this has been a commercial enterprise for a very, very long time. A very long time. And I've always had a real problem with the exploitation of players. My cousin was a professional baseball player. When he was in the minor leagues, he made like $2 an hour.

Beth [00:14:34] The minor leagues are terrible.

Sarah [00:14:35] It was a very exploitive situation. You see this with UFC right now. If you make it and you get smiled on by Dana White, then you're great. But if you don't, then it's just a grind at the expense of your body and your spirit and heart and soul. It's a very exploitive situation. I have a problem with exploitation. That's what I have problem with. That's why I don't like sports gambling because gambling is almost always exploited of the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. For me, this just offers an opportunity to go, "What are we doing?" Would you root less if it was just Kentucky basketball instead of University of Kentucky basketball? This is a commercial enterprise. This is now a professional enterprise. Why is it linked to a university? What does it have to do with the university? Nothing. Now it might improve the culture of the school. I sat next to the student section last time I was at a University of Kentucky game, and it was lovely to see young people together, not on their phones, enjoying the basketball game. But there's a part of me that looks at college sports, there's a party of me that looks at all this fallout around the research at universities and says, just decouple, stop pretending. This doesn't have anything to do with these kids learning. They're professional athletes. That's what they are. There is a professionalization and there's a commercialization. Do either of those two things belong in a college or university? That's my bigger question.

Beth [00:16:15] I don't know the answer to that. And I would love to talk to a lot of players to see what they say about that. I watched an interview this morning of Mark Pope when he played at Kentucky. He was a senior, Rick Patino was talking to him and the other seniors that year. Such a great group. It was a very feel good video. And he was asking them what's been special to you about your time at Kentucky? And they talked about how they got a good education while they played basketball. That they enjoyed being on campus. That they enjoy getting to be ambassadors for the university across the state. Several of the players mentioned, "I love going to schools and telling kids about UK." So I think that it's probably more complex than just this is a commercial enterprise that has nothing to do with the university. But I take your point. Higher ed in general just feels to me like everyone knows that this is a dated system that does not fit the modern world. It's not financially working for people. It's not culturally working, obviously. People are so big mad about almost every dimension of it. The professors who I know are not being compensated adequately for what they're being asked to do and they're asked to more and more every year, just like they are in primary education. And so, yeah, I think it's the time to ask those kinds of questions and certainly this opens up.

Sarah [00:17:35] Yeah, but I think it's also worth talking to people who are not the players. Have you ever talked to a UK student about what it's like to live beside the celebrities? They have different dorms. They're treated completely differently. It's like teaching people at one of the most formative times in their lives that our society is stratified, and you have the haves over here on the basketball team and the have-nots. Now that gets complicated because a lot of the haves on the basketball team. were formerly have-nots in their lives before sports and this is their ticket out, and I take that very seriously. But it's wild. When my friends at state schools would talk about the existence of the athletes, as compared to their existences, like, how could you live beside that and it not make you mad? My personality wouldn't. At this moment, when we're all supposed to be in the pursuit of knowledge, this totally stratified experience seems like a powder keg. Not even like a powder keg, even if you don't get mad, it's normalizing it. It's normalizing the idea that, well, but this is what we really value.

[00:18:44] If you want to see my head spin around backwards, then sit me down in front of the statistics that's true for almost every state in our country that the highest paid public employee is a coach. That runs all over me, all over me. I can't stand it because it says, what do we really value with our tax dollars? What do we really care about? We're paying these coaches, now we're going to be paying the players-- which I'm not mad at. I'm really not. They should not be exploited; they should be compensated fairly. But I'm about to send my kid to college. We're all looking at what the Trump administration's doing with higher ed. And what are we reading? All these state schools are put in this very difficult position because the state governments continue to cut their funding. So the education component of these institutions are just squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed while we're going to continue to pump more and more and more money into the athletic departments. How are you not supposed to look at that and just get mad?

Beth [00:19:59] To try to break that down into a couple different issues. I think some students probably are really mad about it and I think that some students genuinely enjoy it. I think in some circumstances; it's just a steroids version of what all of school is. There's always stratification in school. There are always the haves and the have-nots. There is not an educational environment where every student feels equal in the environment. I wish there were, but I just don't think they exist. And if they do exist, they probably exist in environments where if people walk out of that bubble life gets real weird for them. Everything you said is being normalized because it's normal in American society. It is just true. It's not just that the coach makes more than any other public employee, it's that star athletes make more than every teacher. That is what we value as a society. We run on entertainment in America. Hollywood is one of our biggest exports. This is what you do.

Sarah [00:20:54] How is it working? How is it working for us?

Beth [00:20:54] Whether it's sports or movies, that is what we do. And so I can't ask the NCAA to figure that out. I think it has a role to play for sure. And I think the way that it was trying to play that role was on the backs of the athletes. What I do really appreciate about NIL is that you can have a player who's maybe not a star on the court, but people love that player. And that person makes money too because that does have value. That brings people to the games. It makes money for the school. It would be hard to argue that UK basketball isn't a net positive for the state of Kentucky and for our surrounding states because our fans will go anywhere and buy hotel rooms and meals at restaurants and go to those games and buy those tickets. And so there is an economic component of all of this that is a net positive that reaches beyond the athletic program. So I don't feel defensive about anything that you're saying. I don' even really disagree with you. I think I just want to make sure that I'm holding all of the pieces here because there are so many pieces.

Sarah [00:22:08] Well, I think it's representative of so many paradoxes. Is it a net benefit? Entertainment-wise, sure, it puts some dollars in some people's pockets without debate. But if it's a public institution, has it served the public good? I don't know. There's a lot of problems that Kentucky has struggled with for decades that it's not like Kentucky basketball could or should fix. So it's so hard I think with something like sports because the argument is that it's more than entertainment, that it is more than just a TV show. Although, I guess the argument's always the same. There's an art that reaches and connects us to something more than whatever we pay for; be it a play, be it a movie, be it a game. And I think that's true. And I also think the second the commercialization gets to the level that's it at, something corrosive happens. Be it a play, be it a movie, be at a TV show, or be at game. It's the commercialization, the pursuit of profit is just corrosive. And I'm not even a sports lover, obviously, but it is sad to me that there are just becoming fewer and fewer places where there is true love of the game, true amateur pursuit.

[00:23:35] You're seeing high schoolers get recruited for millions of dollars. Even before you're a professional, you are tackling that sort of recruitment. You have travel sports, which is a stratifying situation. It's the have and have's not. Who can pay? Who can travel? Who can play to play in these games? And it's sad. And it is reflective of so many areas where it's all about value and commercialization and not doing something because you love it, but because there's some sort of economic component of it. That's why I love our community theater. For better or for worse, at least people are up there just acting because they want to and they're not getting paid. I think that there was something lost and continues to be lost when there are so few true places for amateur play. That was always my beef with the Olympics and I enjoy the Olympics more this year than I have in a long time or last year. But even there is that amateur? I don't even know what the word means anymore.

Beth [00:24:41] And I don't really know how to unhook the money from the culture because I think there is something really deep in American culture where we don't like to be amateurs. We do learn from a very early age, oh, you're a really good artist? Well, let's get you into an art school. Let's get into an arts program. Let's make you a great artist. You're a good dancer? Great. Here's the dance path. You're good cheerleader? Wow. we can really make you a professional cheerleader by the age of seven. And it's not just with kids. It's adults. I was having a conversation. I had a primary care visit today and we were talking about the Oura Ring that I wear and all the data that I collect about my own health now and how positive the outcomes have been for me of collecting that data and watching it. At the same time, this is what happens with everything, right? We can collect more data about everything. and data motivates you to get better, better, better. And it is really hard to keep something in an amateur space.

[00:25:47] We had pickleball as an amateur sport for five minutes before we had Pickleball leagues and Pickleball tournaments and Pickleball merch and suddenly it's an industry and there are beautiful results from that. I have no problem whatsoever making the case that on a net basis. Again, lots of problems, too. But on a net basis, I do think Kentucky basketball is really positive for our state. I do you think it's a public good. And I think it is becoming more so actually under Mark Pope's leadership. So I can absolutely make that argument. But you are right that it is not amateur basketball and that amateur basketball is not being played in most high schools. And amateur basketball isn't even being played in middle schools. For the level they're at, they are so, so good and they're investing a lot to be so, so good. And I don't really know how to get at all the levers that might change that, or if everyone would agree that we want to.

Sarah [00:26:55] I think if we could just have a Zoom call with every parent in America and say, would everybody like to shut down this travel ball situation and stop being exploited for 10 to $20,000 a year by this industry? You would get a majority. Maybe not an overwhelming one, but I think you'd get a majority of people being like I want my kid to love this. I want to have opportunities to play. This is my only choice. People can't opt out individually if this is important to them. That's how you get stuck in this cycle. If your kid likes cheerleading, then you're stuck in monopoly. Talk about a monopoly. You want to see a monopoly? Go check out cheerleading for kids. That company has made millions and millions of dollars. That's the problem with the UFC. It's a monopoly and Dana White is at the head of it. There's just no competition in a field that's supposed to be about competition, ironically.

Beth [00:27:52] There are though a lot of small businesses that give gymnastics lessons and dance schools and--

Sarah [00:28:00] But they have to pay tribute to that company. They're locked in. If you want your kid to compete-- and I'm sure this is true of gymnastics too, like, yes, those are small businesses, but they are also locked in to the so "association" that holds nobody to any standards. The statistics on when they started up in cheerleading and how many concussions, people being paralyzed, it is shocking. It is shocking.

Beth [00:28:28] Again, I don't disagree with anything that you're saying. I just think I don' know that we'd get majority consensus on the travel leagues. I think that there are a lot of things working for a lot people there. And I know parents whose kids do it. They love it. They love the travel. They love the friendships they have with other parents. At some point, the money is just built into their budget. It just is what it is. It's part of their lifestyle for this period of life and when their kids graduate and are done with it, they miss it a lot. We need things to do. We need things bond over. We need places to feel a sense of belonging. We like seeing all of the economic benefits to so many different people from these things. There's a lot of this that is working for us. There's a lot that isn't, but there's lot that is work for us and again I don't know what pieces to move. That's why I love watching what's happened since the Supreme Court decision. Because you are seeing in real time all these pieces move and what the impact of those moves starts to look like and what level of disruption we can tolerate as we figure that out. And that to me is the central question right now. What level of destruction are we willing to tolerate to figure some things out, to try some new things across a wide array of fields and disciplines and industries?

Sarah [00:29:47] See, I don't think it is working for us at all. I don' look at American culture and go, wow, we're really thriving and flourishing right now. And I actually think that the fact that we are not is why our tolerance for disruption is growing. In theory, if things were working, we would be very protective of the status quo. We wouldn't have any stomach for disruption. Certainly not a candidate like Donald Trump. But I think in practice, we are not happy with the status quo. I don't think anybody looks around at modern American life and is like, man, we're killing it. There are so many things that people are deeply, deeply unhappy about. I think philosophically a lot of it comes down to our desire or cultural articulation that there just shouldn't be a lot discomfort. That there just should be the pursuit of happiness and that'll be great and everyone will be wonderful and comfortable all the time, probably because so much of our industry and culture revolves around entertainment.

[00:30:57] Now in theory, sports could be a place to pursue a more articulated form of virtue that requires some discomfort, that requires pain, that requires pushing yourself, that require sacrifice. I think that's what appeals to people. I think is a lot of why sports in all its forms have such staying power. Because there is this articulation you don't find in a lot of areas of American life that everything can't come easy. And that's what people love about it. But I worry that the commercialization and the pursuit of profit mutes that. It distorts it so that people can't find inspiration in other areas of their life to say I can do this hard thing. I can make this sacrifice. I can stomach some pain to get to the place I want to be.

Beth [00:31:51] I don't disagree with you that we're not thriving in American culture generally and that people have high tolerance for disruption because they're upset about a lot of things. But what I do disagree with, I think, is that sports is the manifestation of that. All the data says sports is our reprieve right now. Highest rated TV is sports. Sports are where we're still getting out of our houses to do something. We're still willing to go places for sporting events. it still brings people a lot of delight. Like this tournament, even though people are kind of complaining about fewer Cinderella runs, that is one, not an aberration. If you look at like the long history of March Madness in just last year, there were a lot Cinderella runs. Let's not talk about Oakland for Kentucky fans in particular.

[00:32:33] There is still so much with sports that you could look at the data and say this seems to be one thing that is working for a lot of people. This is a place where people are finding a lot of relief and I think it's for reasons that you mentioned. Even when the money's there, people feel a lot of inspiration. They feel a bond. I would say the same thing about the Eras tour. That was a commercial operation from start to finish. The tickets, the merch, the book, the movie. There is nothing about Taylor Swift that is not commercial, but it still creates that sense of inspiration and bonding and participation. So I just don't want to look at the money and look at data and look the cogs in the wheel and say, well, because of this, the whole thing doesn't work because I think a lot about the thing is working.

Sarah [00:33:25] No, that's what I'm articulating. I think the lasting power is because there is a balance of pursuit of greatness at personal sacrifice. That it costs something. And I think that there is hunger for that. And I the reason people like Taylor Swift is because she doesn't always sing about being happy all the time. She sings about a lot of personal heartbreak and a lot struggle and people are drawn to that. And I think for better or for worse, a lot the success that you see in the manosphere there are people who are perfectly comfortable articulating this sucks. It hurt. It was hard. I had to do it. Either if you're a UFC fighter, advocate-- I don't know what he is. Somebody like Joe Rogan or Theo Von overcoming addiction. Or even Robert F. Kennedy and his muscular pursuit of health. There is a hunger, I think. Again, you see there's a Venn diagram where a lot of this overlaps with sports. And I think, again, not to continue rigging this bill, but you see a lot of it in the UFC. It costs you something. People don't believe you. And maybe it's a relationship to the backlash of what we were told for decades, which is social media is free. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't and we all can see that now. This stuff wasn't free, it cost us.

[00:34:48] And maybe there is a relief in seeing a place where the costs are articulated. I think they're just not always articulated perfectly. That there are bigger costs. That the commercialization comes at a cost, not just the pursuit of athletic achievement, not just that easily articulable journey that we've seen play out in a million different sports movies, which I love. I don't love sports, but I love a sports movie. But I just think sometimes we think the money can just fix the rest of it and often I think it makes it worse. And so it's not that I think like they should just-- I don't know. I'm in an all or nothing space right now. If you're going to keep a team at a college, it is an amateur. We're going to strip all this out. Or just take it away from the college and just call it something different because it is something different. We can all see with our eyes. We're all smart enough to understand this is something different. This is a commercial and professional pursuit. Doesn't mean it's unethical. It just means it's a weird thing to stick in a university.

Beth [00:35:54] And I think that if that happened, if you stripped it away from universities, you just have a new set of problems. There are universities that really do need that sports revenue. There are university that really did depend on that for recruiting. There are going to be new problems in any situation where we've tried to fix things that are happening right now. I kind of like talking about this because it feels relatively low stakes to me. Even though the stakes are very, very high for the people within the system, and there is a lot of money on the line, compared to talking about, say, the Department of Education or USAID, the stakes feel a little bit lower. And it does seem like a place where we look at, look, if you pull this thread, look what happens over there. And look at all the places this was connected and look at the different constituencies here. To your point about tolerance for discomfort, I have a little story I'd like to tell you for Outside of Politics as we continue that discussion. Sarah, my family recently spent some time at the theme parks at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. And we learned that they have a vomit squad, okay?

[00:37:16] So my daughter and husband and our friends are waiting in line for the VelociCoaster, which I will not ride because I don't like to be upside down. That's a level of discomfort that I don' want to tolerate. I'm not willing to get stuck upside down, so I'm willing to go on a roller coaster that goes upside down too many times. The VelociCoaster is off my list for that reason, but they all love it. It's their absolute favorite. They wanted to do it a million times. So they're in line and it's taking forever. And when they finally come back to where I am waiting for them, they tell us that it's because someone threw up on the round before them. And the people who work the ride were explaining that not many people can clean up that situation. And so they have a special team that does it and they take it very seriously and they walk them through all the hygiene, and I was delighted to hear about all the hygiene attached to it. But I did think I would have thought that if you worked at a theme park cleaning up vomit is probably part of the job description, that everybody just has to do it. And I was thinking about childcare and teaching and nursing and being a parent and all of the places where bodily fluids are just a fact of life that you deal in every single day. And I wonder if that's relatively new or how long that's been the situation. I just have many, many questions about this.

Sarah [00:38:38] I would like to say, if we're disrupting things, can we serve different food at theme parks? People vomit because you pump them full of high fat fried foods and slushies, and then we all wonder why we puke. It's such a weird set of food we serve there, especially they're all hot. And a lot of times you're at a theme park and it's like 80 degrees. I don't want onion rings. It's hot outside. And I have to say, it doesn't have to be that way because it's not like that in Japan. They have that stuff. But when we went to DisneySea in Japan and Tokyo, there were refreshing options. That's the thing that's always missing from theme park food. It's not refreshing. It's so heavy. So then you get turned upside down and you puke. It's not surprising to anyone. And I would say, yeah, you can. I just had this conversation with some friends and one of which was a doctor and she's like I don't do snort. I cannot. And I do think everybody has a thing they cannot.

[00:39:52] The other friend was talking about her daughter was bleeding and she just yelled for her husband. She was about to pass out. She was just like, I was like, I can't help her because I cannot. I'm going to pass out. There does seem to be like a real visceral reaction with things. My thing is open wounds. I have told my family openly and honestly if you have something that needs to be packed, we will have to hire someone. I can do anything. I can do vomit, I can do poop, I can do pee, I can do snot, I could do anything! I cannot deal with something that should be closed that's open. I'm sorry, I cannot do it. Just the thought of it makes me want to come out of my skin. So I do think everybody has like a bodily fluid that they just can't.

Beth [00:40:33] Yeah, I have a really hard time with wounds, too. Even like I fell and skinned my knee, I struggle with that even.

Sarah [00:40:43] No, I don't care about any of that. My kids have gashed their heads, that doesn't bother me. But if you have a situation, like you've had a surgical scar and you have to pack it and it has to stay open, I'm out.

Beth [00:40:59] Yeah, it's very hard. I do have a strong reaction to that as well. And I understand and I respect everybody's preferences. I just thought it was interesting that that's not just sort of standard amusement park required behavior, required activity.

Sarah [00:41:12] My husband has a real thing. He doesn't do teeth, like lost teeth. He can't do teeth and he won't do vomit because he gags. You don't want to send somebody up to clean up vomit who's just going to vomit. That's a bad situation. And some people definitely have that reaction.

Beth [00:41:29] So I am interested in hearing from you on this because you have very strongly said in a number of episodes lately that you are worried that we have no tolerance for discomfort anymore. And I wonder at what point do you say, okay, well, you struggle with this, it's not your thing. And when do you push on it?

Sarah [00:41:47] I guess wouldn't there be a reaction vomiter because you don't want to clean up more vomit. That seems like the line. If you're just like, no, I don't want to. Or maybe everybody does a round of service in the vomit team and then we assess how you held up. You got to try it. Let's see if you can do it. If you can't, we'll go from there.

Beth [00:42:05] But even as a parent, taking it out of the theme park context, because I really appreciate the people who work at theme parks and I'm not trying to pick on anybody. But even as a parent or as a daughter, I've cared for my mom after surgeries and have helped with her wounds and it's very, very hard. I really, really do struggle with it. I feel faint whenever I see it. And I am having a hard time with myself, but even more with my kids, figuring out when you go, okay, well, this is a trigger for you or a pressure for you, or this is your thing where you have that visceral reaction, when do I push on you and when do I see and honor that difficulty?

Sarah [00:42:50] Y'all should pray for my kids because the reality is that Nicholas and I we need more help on the other end of the spectrum. We need more of real careful analysis of when we should back off, because we are both really kind of hard on our kids. Because we grew up in households that were hard on us and we don't really have a lot of beefs with how we were raised. And so I joke like I look for reasons to make my kids uncomfortable. I look ways to push them to try to do something they can't do, to do that's hard and uncomfortable and they feel like it hurts. I need more help on the other end of when I should be like, okay, well maybe this is just like a thing you don't do. Because I just didn't grow up that way. My mom didn't care. If you were asked to do some, then you did it. And if it was hard for you, that's okay, you'll figure it out. And that's how Nicholas was raised, too. And that kind of how we treat our boys. Like Amos in particular is very physically sensitive. It's just obvious. Like a tag will bug him. He's sensitive to heat, sensitive to cold. He's just very sensitive. And I have to really watch myself. Not necessarily because he can't do it, because he can do it. He's a boy scout. He goes through all kinds of discomfort. I have to say scouting in general that's why I like it because it's sort of built on a system of we really want to push you to see how much you can handle, to see, to persist in the face of discomfort or confusion. And I like that like very structured way to do that. And so he can.

[00:44:29] But I do have to remind myself he's not faking it. He's feeling this. This is not a ploy to get out of the chore. But I think it's always good. I also had a doctor's visit this morning at the dentist office, and I have overall beef with the proliferation of anesthesia just for cleanings. It's okay to be uncomfortable. Pain has a purpose. I think culturally we're all in this dopamine. I feel like dopamine is coming up everywhere right now. That we all need a dopamine fast in our dopamine receptors and we're dopamine starved. And all these places we're having this conversation because I think we're like realizing it's like our brains have to have some pain input. It's the stasis that our body needs between all the pleasure, to the bigger conversation about entertainment. We have to be bored. We have to be in discomfort. It's just an important thing in relationships and in human existence. Like where do you find yourself? Do you find yourself more having to push your kids or more that you're pushing them too hard?

Beth [00:45:34] I think more having to push than pushing too hard. But I also do not have any problem pushing. I like when I say, "You go over and ask for this." And they say, "I don't want to." And I say "Well, it doesn't matter. You're going to go over and ask it for it."

Sarah [00:45:51] Do your kids order for themselves?

Beth [00:45:53] Absolutely.

Sarah [00:45:54] Yeah, that really bugs me when kids don't order for themselves.

Beth [00:45:56] Absolutely. I pushed them to do all their own advocacy. You didn't like what happened at school today? Okay, I'm on your team. Let's strategize, but you talk to your teacher. I'm not calling your teacher. You talk your teacher about what happened today. So that kind of thing. Yes, being uncomfortable. I more and more regret ever introducing an iPad into their lives period because I hate the sense of like, "How long is the car ride? Do I need my iPad?" You don't need your iPad for a car ride. Like you can be on any length car ride without an iPad and be okay. So we're working through those things on her own. Jane decided to apply for a summer job this year that is going to involve like cleaning bathrooms and dealing with vomit in a pool and things like that. And I think that's great. I think really important. Where I need to push them more is on routine household chores, just things that need to happen all the time. I lose my fight.

[00:46:56] There are days when I'm like, fine, I don't care. And I need to push because what I see is that executive function is really a challenge for Ellen. Jane is extremely disciplined, married to a routine, almost to a fault, where she feels thrown if anything gets disrupted in her routine. So I need these two different approaches because I can't get Ellen on a routine at all. And I need Jane to be okay getting off hers occasionally because that's life too. So that's sort of the tension that I'm feeling right now. I got to have my fight ready for that. No, every single day you make your bed. Every single day, you empty the dishwasher. Every single you put your cup away. These are the things that I expect and I'm up for it every day to make you do it.

Sarah [00:47:41] I should confess here, considering the long controversy of this topic on our show, that I do not make my children make their beds. I just never have. I think it started because they were in bunk beds when I was really building the chore muscle. And you can't ask a five-year-old to make the top bunk bed. It's really hard to do. None of my kids have a flat sheet. They just have a blanket and pillows. That's also how I sleep. I do not have a flat sheet. But even Amos's bed is like set back in a way it's like hard to make. But it's just like never when I picked up, I probably should because it's probably the fulcrum for why there are rooms are such disaster so much of the time. But no, that makes sense to me. The chores I always find fighting because it doesn't matter what it is, I want them to do it more than I want to do it. I don't like any chore enough that I'm not going to be like I'll just do it. No, I don't want to do it. You do it! I'm more worried about when they leave the house and I have to do all my chores again. It's going to be so hard. But I was really proud Griffin went to Camp Ernst last summer. He was on the crew, which is the ones that makes all the food. And he won an award and he was like nobody else was capable of just sucking it up and cleaning the dishes and making the thing. And I was like that's my baby. I'm so glad he can clean dishes!

Beth [00:49:08] I want you in the physical world doing the physical things. And that's really important to me. Well, I'm so anxious to hear from all of you about how you're navigating this in your lives and with people that you love, as well as your thoughts on the rest of this conversation, especially basketball. I love to talk college basketball.

Sarah [00:49:24] Yeah, I'm accepting volunteer applications for at any point that my family members need wound care, too, so I'll take that as well.

Beth [00:49:33] Thank you so much for joining us today. We will be back with you next Tuesday with a brand new episode. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.