Dan Le Batard 9/2/22 🔥 Meadowlarkers 44: Welcome To Wrexham

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on the recent developments in sports, particularly focusing on Serena Williams and her potential retirement as she approaches the end of her career. The hosts explore her lasting impact on tennis and the emotional significance of her performances, reflecting on what her departure would mean for the sport.

Key takeaways

• Serena's 'last hurrah' is under constant debate; retirement can be as elusive as a tennis ball at match point.
• Athletes announcing their retirement early may seek adoration but also signal their readiness to leave the spotlight behind.
• David Ortiz's farewell sheds light: no one quits when they're cranking; sometimes, it's just about aching feet.
• Retirement announcements can be strategic; it’s about balancing fanfare with the personal toll of a long career.
• The narrative around retirement in sports often oversimplifies; the truth is, sometimes it's just about not wanting to play anymore.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Le Batard (Host) · 16 min speaking
• Stugotz (Host) · 11 min speaking
• Kate Fagan (Guest) · 14 min speaking
• Howard Bryant (Guest) · 14 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Howard Bryant, Kate Fagan, US Open, Arthur Ashe
2. 5:00 – 10:00: US Open, David Ortiz, Sue Bird
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Wrexham, Welcome to Wrexham, Mythic Quest, Deadpool
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Boston Red Sox, Oakland Tribune
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Wrexham, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Wrexham, Deadpool
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Wrexham
8. 35:00 – 40:00: Wrexham
9. 40:00 – 45:00: Wrexham
10. 45:00 – 50:00: Wrexham

Notable quotes from "Dan Le Batard 9/2/22 🔥 Meadowlarkers 44: Welcome To Wrexham"

• Welcome to the 44th edition of the meadow lockers podcast my name is damino hassan i'm joined as always by kate fagan and howard bryant who comes to us live from the house that arthur ashe built us open.

  about Howard Bryant · at 2:29

• I think she's done and i think she's done because now she's kind of speaking in the past tense and as dave stewart once told me once you announce your retirement you're retired…

  about Dave Stewart · at 3:15

• Don't want to do this anymore i'm ready not to do this anymore and i remember when i talked to david ortiz about this in 2017 he was actually hitting 300 and playing really well and the red sox ended up in the world series the next.

  about David Ortiz · at 5:43

• That it was better for the sport better for the fans of it better for growing the game like here i'm thinking of someone like sue bird doesn't seem like someone who would go on…

  about Sue Bird · at 6:55

• The humble beginning fx and hulu have a streaming show called welcome to wrexham in which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this week.

  about Welcome to Wrexham · at 10:22

• Comparison is minor league baseball and i'm not sure we can even make it a one-to-one because we have a minor league team here in charleston we have the charleston river dogs…

  about Charleston RiverDogs · at 14:45

• Some of the community junior college places too i'm when i was in california covering when i was at the oakland tribune i had to go out and cover i think it was laney college had to go out and.

  about Oakland Tribune · at 17:20

• Wanted to make an american comp to it you would have to go to the pro level you would have to go to the dallas cowboys you have to go to the celtics i'd have to go to the montreal canadiens or to find the one piece of it.

  about Dallas Cowboys · at 20:48

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Howard Bryant — Person · Co-host / analyst · 1 mention · first at 2:35
  Provides on-the-ground US Open perspective and anchors the episode’s analysis of retirement announcements, fandom structures, and the class/regional dynamics of sports.
• Kate Fagan — Person · Co-host / analyst · 1 mention · first at 2:35
  Leads much of the meta-critique of 'Welcome to Wrexham' as a celebrity-power experiment and highlights how stakes/storytelling drive fandom beyond ‘best-on-best’ sport.
  Welcome to the 44th edition of the meadow lockers podcast my name is damino hassan i'm joined as always by kate fagan and howard bryant who comes to us live from the house that arthur ashe built us open.
• Arthur Ashe — Person · Referenced figure (symbolic setting) · 1 mention · first at 2:42
  Invoked to locate Howard Bryant at the US Open’s Arthur Ashe Stadium and to signal tennis history and legacy as backdrop to Serena’s ‘last hurrah’ discussion.
  Kate fagan and howard bryant who comes to us live from the house that arthur ashe built us open before we get into today's very interesting topic i want to ask howard very quickly what's it like to witness.
• David Ortiz — Person · Referenced athlete (retirement example) · 1 mention · first at 5:47
  Used as a concrete example of why athletes retire despite strong performance—physical wear, emotional fatigue, and feeling ‘out of time’ in a changing clubhouse.
• Dave Stewart — Person · Referenced source (anecdotal authority) · 1 mention · first at 3:18
  Cited via Howard Bryant’s anecdote to support the idea that publicly announcing retirement effectively makes it final (“you’re retired while you’re playing”).
• Sue Bird — Person · Referenced athlete (farewell-tour counterexample) · 1 mention · first at 7:00
  Mentioned as an athlete who doesn’t fit the ‘gift/farewell tour’ personality type, raising the idea that leagues/communities may encourage announcements for the sport’s benefit.

Companies & orgs

• Charleston RiverDogs — Company · Referenced organization · 2 mentions
  Used as a comparison to the local fan engagement seen in Wrexham.
• Boston Red Sox — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 16:27
  Mentioned in the context of David Ortiz's retirement and team dynamics.
  Ortiz about this in 2017 he was actually hitting 300 and playing really well and the red sox ended up in the world series the next year and we were in oakland and i said to him.
• Oakland Tribune — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 17:25
  Mentioned in the context of Howard Bryant's past work and experiences.
• Dallas Cowboys — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 20:53
  Mentioned as an example of a team with a strong local fan base in the US.
• Cleveland Browns — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 22:50
  Mentioned as a comparison to the passionate but struggling fan base of Wrexham.
  To go around to rally around to a team that's terrible i'm sorry i thought about the cleveland browns the whole time i was like this is cleveland through and through you know what's interesting to me about this first 15 minutes of the.

Places & events

• Wrexham — Place · Setting · 14 mentions · first at 10:26
  The primary location where the documentary 'Welcome to Wrexham' is set, focusing on the local football club and its community.
  The humble beginning fx and hulu have a streaming show called welcome to wrexham in which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this week.
• US Open — Event · Referenced event · 2 mentions · first at 2:42
  Mentioned in the context of Serena Williams' retirement and the discussion of athlete farewells.
  Kate fagan and howard bryant who comes to us live from the house that arthur ashe built us open before we get into today's very interesting topic i want to ask howard very quickly what's it like to witness.

Media & podcasts

• Welcome to Wrexham — Media · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 10:26
  The documentary series discussed in the episode, detailing the purchase and management of Wrexham AFC by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
• Mythic Quest — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 10:59
  A show created by Rob McElhenney, mentioned as part of the backstory leading to the purchase of Wrexham AFC.
  Airs on fx two of these guys got together ironically because rob on another show that he created called mythic quest that appears on apple plus one of the writers on the show is a brit and he's a huge soccer fan.
• Deadpool — Media · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 10:31
  A film starring Ryan Reynolds, mentioned as part of his Hollywood background.
  Called welcome to wrexham in which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this…
• Green Lantern — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 10:33
  A film starring Ryan Reynolds, mentioned as part of his Hollywood background.
  In which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this week so make sure you're…
• Cinephobe — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 10:33
  A podcast mentioned in passing, related to the discussion of Ryan Reynolds' films.
  In which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this week so make sure you're…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:43 stu godzilla i've said it before and i'll say it again i love a good gummy whether i'm on the golf course or winding down after a long day of carrying the show on my back all i need is one good gummy to help me totally relax and now thanks to my good friends at cbdmd getting delta 9 thc gummy shipped directly to your door is not only possible it's easy and affordable how about that every cbd md delta 9 gummy is packed with 10 milligrams of thc per gummy and let me tell you buddy they work cbd md also has delta 9 micro dose capsules that feature 1 milligram of thc so it's easy to enjoy them whenever wherever and listen i know it's easy to get confused with all the different deltas out there but delta 9 thc is the same good old-fashioned thc we've all known and loved for years to learn more about delta 9 and everything else cbdmd has to offer just head to cbdmd.com dan once again that's cbdmd.com for information education and

1:50 the best damn gummies you've ever had must be 21 years or older to purchase delta none welcome to the big suey presented by draftkings why are you listening to this show the podcast that seems very similar to the other dan levitar podcast i'm sorry i'm not gonna apologize for that in fact the only difference seems to be this imaging i have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries that if they're just there that hasn't happened to you guys i've done it and now here's the marching band to nowhere fat face and the habitual liar welcome to the 44th edition of the meadow lockers podcast my name is damino hassan i'm joined as always by kate fagan and howard bryant who comes to us live from the house that arthur ashe built us open uh before we get into today's very interesting topic i want to ask howard very quickly what's it like to witness the last hurrahs of greatness for serena

2:54 williams is it the last hurrah greatness for serena williams because she keeps winning well we know this is the this is the end supposedly but um it didn't look like the end last night so i got no predictions how surprised are you that she's definitively calling it a rap after this one um i think she's done and i think she's done because now she's kind of speaking in the past tense and as dave stewart once told me once you announce your retirement you're retired like while you're playing that is i know tom brady took a little summer off but this but it was off season it wasn't as though he announced his retirement to start the season he sort of had him you know back and forth but with this one i think i think she knows this is it because you can hear her talking about it there's a rumor going around here that i refuse to engage in but when gayle king and they were talking about you know building a family and the whole

3:51 thing there were people who were whispering is she already pregnant i'm like oh here we go that's another news story i don't even want to deal with i'm like how about this we'll deal with that if it ever gets announced but that was the other because i think gayle king asked her on the you know uh write and post match um if you're gonna start a family right away and serena looked and all of a sudden that just set off a whole bunch of uh of other things but it's it's been great it's a really interesting story obviously watching the um you know watching these these last several matches and um it's for another podcast for another time but all that all that comes with this as well in terms of the uh the goat conversation and the marketing and the manufacturing and the discussion and the reopening of the open it's all there's a lot here and um we're going to have some fun with it at one of these

4:49 one of the future metal lockers to you know there you go that's called the t's ladies and gentlemen it is it's it's something well what do you think howard or or i mean too about the difference between an athlete who announces their retirement ahead of their final open year whatever it is versus those who go quietly after the season i think the ones who announced at the beginning of the season this will be my final year it depends on how cynical you are if you're really cynical it's because they just want the gifts and everybody just wants you know flowers they want the fair exactly everybody wants the farewell tour they want that last you know center of attention um homage and on the video board and the whole thing but if you're not that cynical then i think that the message is very clear i don't want to do this anymore i'm ready not to do this anymore and i remember when i talked to david

5:49 ortiz about this in 2017 he was actually hitting 300 and playing really well and the red sox ended up in the world series the next year and we were in oakland and i said to him hey man why are you quitting i mean you're hitting three something i said you're leaving the team at home runs what's up and he was like my [ __ ] feet hurt you know he's you know he's like he's like it's hard to put on a pair of baseball shoes every day so like emotionally i don't want to do this anymore i don't want to do this i don't want to exercise he's like i i look at the clubhouse and he's looking at mookie betts and jackie bradley and everybody goes and i don't know these guys where's manny where's pedro where's he was a man out of time so i do think there's a difference when you quit ahead of time you're like yeah game over there's also a different layer to the question of people or athletes who announce their retirement ahead of time

6:47 i do think there's a category as well of athletes who probably didn't want to but the people around them encouraged them that it was better for the sport better for the fans of it better for growing the game like here i'm thinking of someone like sue bird doesn't seem like someone who would go on a farewell tour yeah well there's a lot of that going on here to be perfectly honest there has been a lot of discussion that the open had said hey cause i never thought serena was gonna quit i really didn't i didn't i thought she was gonna just go away because she says i don't do goodbyes very well and i don't and she had really been sort of consistent about that then all of a sudden comes the vogue article which is part of her fashion side of her business and then every you know she doesn't do an interview without mentioning serena ventures and so there's that piece of it and and then the us open is sort of like

7:38 you're going to give us a chance to do this thing right i mean we're getting back to full you know pre-covered levels they sold 30 000 tickets i mean they're so all of the different components of this are suggesting that yeah and i think that's appropriate in some ways hey do us a solid we could use this i think there's another component to this that is perhaps the opposite of the narcissism or whatever you want to call it of saying give me my my flowers on my way out it's the athlete who understands once they get go start going through it like i kind of kind of don't want to stop doing this this is fun i miss the camaraderie or whatever it is obviously in the case of serena as an individual athlete's a little different but from the team sports standpoint guys like being around the guys and all and so by announcing it before the season it's kind of like posting on twitter i'm going to lose 10 pounds by the end of

8:39 the month you have to do you're held accountable now as opposed to holding it within keeping it a secret now you get the chance to change your mind like i don't know one more year and then you say oh i can't believe i did this one more year then something happens you're like okay i remember vince uh vince carter you know while he was still playing during the finals he would do the jump with us he would be there live on location and do jumping and they'd ask him when are you going to hang it up and come join us full time and he said he'd always say two more years but he'd say that every year because you know for as much as the the the hassles of playing and you know that that poppy big poppy story is funny because that's what a lot of guys say i don't i don't get tired of playing i get tired of getting ready to play and i get tired of recovering from playing those are the things vince carter said

9:35 dunking is fine jumping is fine it's landing that's the big issue so by kind of announcing this ahead of time you prevent you know a decision being made at the height of euphoria like i can do this for five more brady's still doing it like to prevent that you you get out in front of it at the beginning and say this is it this is it whatever happens this is it it's gonna be interesting to see what happens to serena on this swan song if it is indeed one but we are not here to talk about soon songs yes that's coming soon to a metal lockers near you we're here today to talk about the exact opposite end of the spectrum not the end but the beginning the humble beginning fx and hulu have a streaming show called welcome to wrexham in which ryan reynolds the world famous hollywood actor you know him from deadpool from green lantern which by the way is the cinephobe episode this week so make sure you're catching cinephobe

10:39 first podcast yeah crossover alert yes sir and then rob mcelhenny who is the creator and star of always sunny in philadelphia a very funny show that also airs on fx two of these guys got together ironically because rob on another show that he created called mythic quest that appears on apple plus one of the writers on the show is a brit and he's a huge soccer fan huge epl fan and so through this co-worker slash writer rob mcelhenny is introduced to the world of professional soccer in england and the passions and the uh the the exuberance the the ups and downs and it reminded him very much of his childhood being a philadelphia sports fan and so he said i want to get in on this knowing nothing about the sport i want to get on this i want to buy a club finds out that they cost a lot of money so you kept going down down down down the divisions until he got to one uh where he could somewhat afford with

11:48 the help of someone else's money and that's ryan reynolds and so the two of them collaborated by this club called wrexham it's based out of wales it is about four or five divisions deep away from the chelseas and the man united yep right and said wouldn't it be nice if we bought this club put a little elbow grease into it and help them ascend the rankings throughout this pyramid of english professional soccer and wouldn't it be fun if we filmed ourselves doing this and so that's the premise of this entire series is them buying the club them now owning the club and putting in the investments and when i first heard about this show i thought it was going to be a lot of hijinks and funny and and silliness between these two very funny people and what i've discovered now i'm four episodes in what it is is like hard knocks but a grittier version a version where they show you the firing of the coach the hiring of the new coach

12:59 the uh a version where they show you the signing of a big name player and the jealousies among the other players about how much money this big name player caught and it it it rises a lot of questions but first and foremost i want to start with this because it's very apparent that this very downtrodden club has a very strong support base is there anything in america that can compare to the almost you know xenophobic levels of support that the english soccer fan has of their local club not of the big ones not of the the big household names arsenal and and man city i'm talking about a club like wrexham what's the yeah let me start with you kate what's what's the comp here for us in america well that's what i was trying to piece together while watching welcome to rexem was is there a comp i guess the closest we could say and howard you'd be the expert here is your local minor league baseball team

14:06 i mean that that seems to be in the us the only level of fandom in which communities do engage even though the sport is not being played at the highest possible levels in the world otherwise you may you look across the spectrum you're like college football maybe a little bit but that's different than the fifth tier the national league five down on in soccer in england college football would be you know one level down possibly because we don't have a bunch of levels basketball same thing college the really the only even close comparison is minor league baseball and i'm not sure we can even make it a one-to-one because we have a minor league team here in charleston we have the charleston river dogs we go once a year to see them and i don't go to watch baseball i don't go because i care if the river dogs win the southern league i'm not even sure if that's right they're affiliated with the temple tampa bay devil rays but

15:10 i don't go and i don't care how they perform and i i'm not sure there's maybe there's exceptions but i don't think you're going to a minor league baseball game because you care if your team wins because then they can ascend and get out of one league and up into another the way the structure works in the epl league howard do you have a do you have a comp that's that's better than possibly minor league baseball yeah i actually i did have a comp and i and i think you're right we don't the the systems are not comparable because we don't have the same relegation system and also they don't apply to you because you're not from south carolina and we're talking about these people they live and die there generationally when they're looking at that town so you don't even have a chance necessarily to have that sort of protection of your town because you're not from there so and that's the same it's also true of

16:04 the minor leagues as well when you look at a lot of the minor league teams not just the players but this the restructuring of the minor leagues there are very very very few minor league teams that are so connected to a region that they supersede the big club everybody knows their feeder systems and everybody i mean whether you're the pawtucket red sox or the toledo mud hens or even you know the columbus clippers or some of the famous minorly you know the durham bull some of them famous baseball teams don't have that so this that piece of it i did not feel like there was an american comp to it but where i did see an american compass high school that is probably the closest thing where it's an in or out type of thing where this belongs to us you know maybe football in this in the south you know friday night lights type of thing but also but also where you have these a lot of these blue-collar towns that have their

17:07 team and they and they protect their region and there's a bloodline to it so to me the only thing that i really saw i didn't see anything on the pro side that made this comp but i did see it in terms of high schools and also in some of the some of the community junior college places too i'm when i was in california covering uh when i was at the oakland tribune i had to go out and cover i think it was laney college um had to go out and and and go play a game out in gold country out in sacramento and it was one of the most hostile environments i'd ever been to i'm like i didn't know anybody cared about this level of basketball that much and it was i think class wise no but but maybe racially yes um and xena you know not just xenophobically but also the level of regionalism um but i didn't think that i i don't think that our sports model is set up to have anything like that yeah it's i thought about college football even in

18:10 the sense that like or college sports in general like if you go to a a ucsd game which is division two basketball like they're gonna be people in the stands right and and you know you think about georgia southern football that i mean it's it's a powerhouse within that subset of of college football but ultimately it was just the passion is palpable coming off the screen of these people who are so invested in what they know is a losing proposition right because it's ours and that's a very england thing there's a quote in the latest episode where someone says football isn't life or death it's much more important than that right that's that's where they're at it's like no yeah but there's a reason there's another reason for that too which i think is you know once again i don't think there's any reason to comp it to anything else but the when you get that in the way it's shot and everything because england is so damn ugly anyway

19:11 it's just so it's just it's just so great it's so great it's always so gray and grim and icy and awful and so you do get that feel like that's that's not san diego over there right and so this is it it has i mean i feel like listening to like a smith's album or something you know birmingham and some of these others you know i'm just like whenever you look at those towns and say okay just show me the smokestack and and we can be on our way um it's also because it's so old so you're looking at some of these clubs that have been around since 1900 since the mid to late 1800s and so because of that it if there was a comp here or something that we could sort of relate it to it would have been back in the in the in the old days when when major league baseball only extended out to st louis and the local team there were only eight teams or 12 teams and the local team your industrial team you know those teams were the teams that

20:16 you saw every day and those are the teams that you really really cared about um maybe even the pacific coast league teams too which they had been around for 50 years before baseball got there before mlb you know came out in 57 to the west coast so that level of generational passion and protection we just don't get here because because we don't have anything that is as um permanent to our you know permanently local i would say though however that if you wanted to make an american comp to it you would have to go to the pro level you would have to go to the dallas cowboys you have to go to the celtics i'd have to go to the montreal canadiens or to find to find the one piece of it um to find the protection piece of it but not the but not the class piece of it the class piece of it i don't see any any comps you know you know where i went i think i went to the midwest as they're describing wrexham i'm like this is pittsburgh this

21:19 is cleveland this is detroit this is all these cities that feel forgotten because starting in the late 80s and 90s the the you know as industrialized jobs moved overseas or outsourced to asia um a lot of these factories closed down and and cities that were once bustling you know metropolises became ghost towns and everyone there is either really old or really young um the when you talk about that inheritance there's a character character there's a person a fan in the show who talks about i remember going to my first game and i sat there and he points to the exact section me and my dad and then he's got his kids with them and he's walking them around the pitch and he says and this is where we scattered granddad's ashes like his father was basically buried on the grounds this stadium which by the way is the oldest stadium oldest uh in use professional soccer stadium in the world that's their claim the racetrack is what

22:25 it's called so there's a lot of as they're describing and the guy's talking about how kovid was so hard on his mental health because he couldn't go to games and that's the part where they talk about it's not life or death it's way more important than that it's how these people were just devastated devastated by not having the team to go to to go around to rally around to a team that's terrible i'm sorry i thought about the cleveland browns the whole time i was like this is cleveland through and through you know what's interesting to me about this first 15 minutes of the conversation is that we have focused our attention on the wrexham storyline and the underdog storyline the people of wrexham what the club is that's kind of odd and juxtaposed with what the framing of the actual documentary is the most of the documentary you are behind the shoulder of a ryan reynolds or a rob mcelhany you're not

23:23 obviously they're introducing you to a couple key people on the team and a couple key people and they want you to get invested in wrexham but for the most part this documentary is hey can these two hollywood superstars turn this club around and it changes it evolves yeah well i mean i've only seen two episodes so far but i do think there's a conversation to be had besides just did the story lines like sink their teeth into me yes i am a sucker for a good sports duck i am a sucker for an underdog story and clearly these two actors understand story lines deeply but i do think there is there is an interesting conversation to be had about what we're actually watching here are we actually just watching hollywood power brokers seeing how far their power and prestige can take them like how much can they leverage just their star power to have a small investment on the relative scale of sports team

24:28 and leverage their name and power to just see how big hollywood stars actually resonate in the world what what are we watching about i mean do we even know why ryan reynolds bought this club i mean we kind of get a sentence can i say that rob mcelhaney he's a philly guy he's gritty the eagles winning the super bowl is one of the top five moments of his life and he loves that storyline whereas and then it's like and ryan reynolds has money so so i mean i think we should get into a little bit of beyond there's some interesting things about this wrexham story but there are some things that make me feel a little bit weird well i think all of that i think all of that is really appropriate because look we're we're watching what they produced and so in watching what they've produced what are you seeing and i think when i first started watching it one of the first things that hit me was the the images that were being shown as

25:22 as always you know you know my mind looks at the you know the cliche of the die-hard fan and who those fans really are and it's very interesting watching both the images here where you're looking at essentially i mean it's england so of course the you know the town is you know gritty blue collar and everybody sort of loves that and it's you know all white and the players are not and then you look at the same thing when rob is talking about the his love for the eagles and you show all the fans going to eagles games not a single black person in any of those shots then they then they show the field and it looks like roots right i mean so we always see that that's what it's always going to be and and that's the selling part of the story but then the other part of it is what kate brought up which is you know the why are you here piece of this and i don't think they ever said exactly what the team cost

26:20 so i was sort of like okay well how much did you actually pay for this yeah and why and why are you here my biggest fear when i heard when i watched the first episode and started the second episode um was i hope you guys aren't really here just to make fun of these people that this is you guys showing how much flex you've got and let's see what can happen and and you get to you know the two actors get to play they get to play owner but you're actually playing with these people's lives because they actually do care about this thing at a certain level and you know and by the time you get through the second episode you notice that business is creeping in here that we what do we really want here this isn't just a cute little local soccer team or football team um we want to win and what does that cost what is that what does what what sort of investment does that entail so i am looking forward to getting into

27:18 episodes three and four and going forward because yeah i was sort of looking at this thinking the same thing kate about ronald ryan reynolds going okay what's your passion here why are you here why did you agree to do this and also the fact that those two had never met they're not even friends it's not it's not like oh we got it so they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're one to buy it yeah they're like modern day friends right like that's their friends they know each other through the industry and they know each other they're friends through social media but that was their first time meeting in person which is kind of funny because it's not like one lives in philadelphia that lives in vancouver yeah exactly live in l.a they're in the same town and don't know each other so there's a lot there that i also think about from the standpoint of the creation of the show you guys are leaving out some kind of

28:05 important stuff that makes you trust the endeavor a little bit less if you guys don't know each other if you're not engaged in this in a certain way then why exactly are you here mr deadpool stu godzilla i've said it before and i'll say it again i love a good gummy whether i'm on the golf course or winding down after a long day of carrying the show on my back all i need is one good gummy to help me totally relax and now thanks to my good friends at cbdmd getting delta 9 thc gummy shipped directly to your door is not only possible it's easy and affordable how about that every md delta 9 gummies packed with 10 milligrams of thc per gummy and let me tell you buddy they work cbdmd also has delta 9 microdose capsules that feature 1 milligram of thc so it's easy to enjoy them whenever wherever and listen i know it's easy to get confused with all the different deltas out there but delta 9 thc is the same good

29:07 old-fashioned thc we've all known and loved for years to learn more about delta 9 and everything else cbdmd has to offer just head to cbdmd.com once again that's cbdmd.com for information education and the best damn gummies you've ever had must be 21 years or older to purchase delta none so this it's a lot of great points very interesting things brought up and the stuff that's brought up by them by the way throughout the process because ads are trying to buy the team as they're trying to make decisions it's always brought up to them you know and i believe episode three they're trying to hire a new manager they've sacked the old manager and they're trying to get a new manager and the guy they want is kind of like the larry brown of english professional soccer this guy gets bad teams and gets them up he's got them i think three different clubs promoted through various levels whereas i don't think any managers had

30:08 more than one anywhere so this is the guy but they're asking him to move because he's i believe at the championship level they're asking to move several divisions down so the equivalent would be grabbing john calipari and saying hey can you come coach arizona western which is a d3 college but ryan reynolds is the owner so you're going to be on tv so so so the funny thing here is the guy refuses to be interviewed on camera he refuses he has a phone he says no at first because it's it's a step down and then rob says let me talk to him and they show rob talking him on the phone and the caption says that uh phil parkinson refused to have his side of the conversation recorded so there's a large skepticism about them in the sense of what is your purpose and how do i know that you're not going to do this for 18 months or whatever and then the team doesn't get promoted and then you guys just kind of lose

31:16 interest with your new toy so a lot of there's a lot of trepidation by people on their involvement they're that what are they here for and are they here for the long haul because i guess you know there's a skepticism going on obviously of american or north american interests coming in and buying these clubs and whose reason are you here for are you here for our reasons or your own and so you know you talk about the business creeping in one of the i don't know how much they paid for the club i'm sure i could probably google it but i kind of want to leave it i want to preserve the viewing experience for myself but they talk about the pitch wasn't good enough they got a brand new pitch it cost them a hundred thousand pounds and then like one game and they're like this is not good enough well how much is it gonna cost to fix it another two hundred thousand pounds so we're even at this level there's a money

32:10 pit unalienable cost that you have to deal with and as a result they bring in sponsorship it says the sponsorship went from local tractor company to tick-tock right the sponsorship on the back went from local saloon or whatever to expedia and these are all them flexing their hollywood might of saying we can get big money sponsorship why because we're doing a tv show and the tv show in essence is free advertising for these companies but i guess my question becomes do we care about motivations if the results happen if they're putting money into the club as a fan of wrexham these people are coming in they're pumping money in and they're trying to do things the right way in terms of the best manager they can get trying to acquire the best possible players etc etc do i care if all of this is basically something for them to sell so that people can watch and comment what i what i care about is

33:13 how it impacts the story and and the you know the journey of this club in ways unseen because this is not a documentary where i uh all or nothing right on where that's the name of the one on netflix where they the club already exists and we are just parachuting in to capture it there's going to be some distortion there no matter what just like there's distortion on on every documentary possible but this is really like a real life before we even step foot into this storyline we have decided we are recording it part of the story is the recording of the story right this is like nora ephron everything is copy brought to life we are not three years in and we are recording it is part of the process and i think there so there was this line in vulture that i think really hammers home like a thought that i have that i couldn't quite name where they said uh so the documentary and this is what they said quote a tool to material

34:18 excuse me a tool to materially increase the value of the club and an insurance policy against failure so it's like you've got this recording of their pursuit of of wrexham and them leading this club and the documentary is both like a way to grow it and a guard rail against if they fail which is that to me that is that's like that's a smart financial play by them what i wonder as a viewer is if everything is copy and you've brought in cameras from day one and i'm a believer that like a camera on something a photograph of something changes we think of as real it changes everything about how this is gonna work so then you have to say like i'm really watching a a a blurred docu-series tv show this is not really how the world works how the world of fifth level national league works money at football well even even with without the the the presence of the cameras right the uh you know ruining the presence of the uh

35:24 observable observer ruining the experiment just the fact that the amounts immense amount of money being dumped into a national league club that's not that never happened yeah that's not natural yeah well that's that is the equivalent of of michael jordan joining the birmingham baseball team and buying the team a bus yeah like a brand new bus it's like all of a sudden we've got we're in a in a bizarro world now for our level all because of one guy the the question i'm asking myself as i'm watching wrexham is like i'm not really watching a soccer documentary i'm watching something i'm watching a power dog yes that's right this is what this is where i think that the next two episodes are gonna clear that up because i'm watching this and i'm saying this is hard knocks if they showed me the stuff that i really care about right like not the hey is like there there's some of that fringe stuff in the

36:27 first couple episodes of which players are going to be here next year is you know who's going to be here for the the the americans coming in with the money right but it it very quickly starts to go into stuff like again the manager the idea that yo he's coaching for his job right here and he gets let go as a result and the search for a new manager uh the signing of there's a player called paul miller that they sign who's again a couple of divisions above where they are and an incredible goal scorer and they say well one of the reasons why they have a chance to get him is because he wants to be close to home because he's got a young family so they bring them in and it costs them of course because you know you're asking someone to drop down divisions and then they have like this scene where the other players are sitting around talking about uh something costs a lot of money i like by the time i get my i

37:24 get paid half of it has already gone to taxes whatever and someone says you should ask paul to pay for it he's got more than enough and then they start mocking him they say yeah i told i told him you owe us 50 quid every time you miss the target because for the amount of money you're you're getting paid you shouldn't miss football and like it's joking and laughing but you're watching the money and it's not serious this is these guys are really like kind of like rubbed the wrong way that they open the coffers for this guy despite him being a great talent and that's the stuff that made me realize when i watch hard knocks i don't get to hear that i don't get to hear the guy say i'm [ __ ] better than him i'm better than that guy you guys got uh you know jared gaul starting a quarterback i'm better than him i i like there's a little bit of that this season of hard knocks with the the linebacker uh malcolm rodriguez

38:19 where the coach is saying hey i don't care if he's an undrafted rookie i'll start him because he's playing the best one out of this whole group what we don't get is the group saying this brown noser over here oh you all up in the all kissing teachers pet that uh we have none of that real part of that which is a a very human thing we're getting that in this documentary in this docu-series and so even as i have my alerts up for well it is produced and it is only produced by it is the creation of the the people who own the club so that everything is going to have a sheen on it i think there's a part of it because they are so far removed because it's not like the ford family or the haslams or whatever where it's like this club is my life they're removed and now we're like yeah i'll show you the dirty laundry because it ain't me i'm over here i'm in hollywood and that to me is fascinating yeah i mean i i think there was a scene

39:19 in i think it was the second episode that i did recognize i mean in that moment it was the scene where they're actually in the locker room with the player who got red carded and you got to see someone's reaction not glossified this is gen and not making millions of dollars so they can just console themselves that whatever i got 10 million in the bank you got to see somebody who not just disappointed his team but knows that likely his professional career is over because he made a bad decision and that's like a grittiness of sport that we almost never see anymore that takes me back to like you know aau games where you think so much is on the line so much more than just money like back to your point it's not just football it's so much more than that and be having cameras in the room there for somebody who's not practiced at having cameras in the room created an interesting moment so i don't deny that there is something

40:17 about this where we get to see parts of sport that are different it's just it like to howard's you know quick aside earlier i feel like more so what i'm watching is a power documentary like how big and influential is celebrity actually is it so powerful that we could leverage our way up like that you know the shows that people have made where it's like you start with a spoon can you end up with a house and you've got to trade your way up yeah that's almost like it feels like okay we're starting with two hollywood celebrities it's not that they have a billion dollars in the bank but can they leverage their power their cachet to take a fifth level wrexham team and um you know probably they think the sky is the limit right we're ryan reynolds and rob mcelhaney and that's what i'm watching yeah how it howard is it exploitative oh of course it is anytime you put a camera on somebody there's a reason for it

41:13 and it's going to change your behavior once you know you're being filmed i think that the real balance that they're gonna have to to navigate is if and when the people of that town feel exploited and that's when people will turn on you um it's all good because they're so downtrodden they're happy anybody's paying any attention to them right but what happens when the dynamic changes or if they want out you're not invested in this long term these folks are invested in this for generations is a it's a dynamic it has a dynastic quality that sort of makes both the two r's involved here they look so out of place as we go forward we'll see if they become more enmeshed in this and it becomes a bit more personal but part of it feels a little more like empire as well let's just see what we can do like it's almost in some ways in our american in our american attitudes it's like flip this house you know let's just take this little

42:20 fixer and let's see what we can do with it and and you are playing with people's lives when you do that on the other hand you may be able to do a lot of good with that because people want that team to succeed but i haven't seen yet and i'm looking forward to seeing it in the documentary is what's their attendance since everybody lives and dies with this team so much i haven't seen a shot yet when the stadium was full but maybe it's also because of coat because of coat exactly so but i wonder traditionally you know there's a lot of passion but do they sell out do they fill the house pre-coded these these english football clubs tend the even these small parochial ones tend to sell out uh now a lot of that is because going back to what you said earlier howard the introduction of business hasn't happened to them right so 10 quid gets you a ticket standing room wherever it is in the stadium right um

43:18 so the level of where here in the united states we've we've kind of grown accustomed to well it's a vacation when you do that now you want to go you go to a game yeah it's almost a thousand dollars if you want to go parking tickets for four good you know 200 bucks per ticket depending on where you're going that's changes who gets to go i was watching uh the lakers documentary on hulu it's called the antoine fukudar the anton fuqua yes and so they talked about dr jerry buss when he took over the team a courtside ticket was i want to say like 25 30 and he jacked the prices up to 150 bucks and everyone lost their mind right but he he saw that there was a level of of revenue that was being left on the table because no one thought about it like that they're just like yeah i would just show you know you want to take it to the game uh uh keyshawn johnson once told me he went to like the the 81 world series as a kid i called

44:31 [ __ ] there's no chance he said no the ticket was like 10 or something like that why would you call [ __ ] on that because it just didn't make sense to me that a kid like at 10 years old or however old uh keyshawn was could make it all the way i'm not talking about in the you know in these proverbial ways i'll talk about literally physically make it all the way from from south central los angeles all the way up to chavez ravine and then buy a ticket to the world series for ten dollars like it just does it sounds and this is my youth speaking like it's my relative you speaking it sounds like fantasyland yeah there's no chance well the reason why it sounds like fantasyland is because those days are long over two things to remember about the dodgers about baseball and the dodgers in particular number one baseball has always was always the sport that was the lowest priced so everybody could see it because it was the american

45:29 game right that justified because it justified the fact that baseball also had 81 games there's a lot of games so everybody got to go and the dodgers in particular when they moved from brooklyn and especially when dr stadium opened in 62 the dodgers historically have always had the lowest prices i mean super low like the bleachers in the 80s were two dollars fenway park bleachers today like 50 bucks and so the dodgers had always kept ticket prices low and so it always changed who got to go to dodger games and i think part of the reason was because of the battle if you ever read um stealing home eric nussbaum's book stealing home on the creation of chavez marie ravine the dodgers are really specific yankees no i don't know maybe he could sneak in and go there because new york's a little different but andy stadium has so many and so many seats but dodger stadium is a really unique place in that regard san

46:33 francisco too but dodger stadium that story is completely plausible even for a world series game because of the history of the tickets there so that's actually a really cool story that's awesome but i guess that that comes to the attendance at these uh english soccer games because i remember going england five years ago and i was in brentford which at the time was either one division down or two divisions down and i said oh that's cool let me let me go to a game and everyone laughs like go to a game like this thing sold out for months like for years yeah there's it's because everybody goes and ever it's such an ingrained part of the community to this is what they do they don't have anything else yeah it'll be interesting because one thing that they have not addressed at least i mean in the first two episodes is truly what their long-term goal is here they've introduced us to a short-term

47:29 goal of getting them out of the fifth tier the national league and up and that's a set of problems that seems maybe expensive but not crazy expensive manageable but like three years from now if you've succeeded there's a different set of problems that are much more expensive and to that point you go from sure this is a community game you can get into to no we actually need to have exclusive seating uh because we need to pay for our new midfielder and i don't know i mean does wrexham i mean i guess if i lived in wrexham i'd be happy i'd be like fine i'll watch it on tv and i want to be in the second league or whatever the cap is for for wrexham um one thing i do love about the seri the series and i and i found it very enjoyable even though i like have meta kind of questions about what i'm actually watching i was interested for all 30 minutes of each episode but one thing i love about it and you know i have to

48:28 bring things back to women's sports is it very clearly nails the fact that sports is about the stakes of something and the story lines like that's all they're introducing us to the storylines in wrexham and the stakes of what what they need to do which is to get out of the fifth league and get up a league this is not even close to the best football in england and yet i am like it has fortified my desire to watch their team even though those are the probably the fifth tier players and i think the more examples we have of that because i think in the us we are just obsessed with we think we're obsessed with it has to be the best of the best and that's like the cultural messaging we get and this wrexham story very clearly shows us we love sports for mostly reasons beyond that it has to be like the most elite athlete ever who played it and i like that part of it i like that storyline it just goes goes back to the idea that you

49:25 know you have to be connected to what you're watching and who you're watching and as the the business expands and the empire expands and the money expands the less connected you get to it the less it matters no matter how good everybody is i don't care about this which is uh a live golf conversation for a metal archers coming near you that's true yeah this is exactly this is another sort of question that that we'll be monitoring and asking because it's not always about the best it's about how closely you feel to this entity it's ours and we love it because it's ours not because it's the best yep i i i'm so curious about with every great venture of passion when the money comes around to mess it all up kate what you talked about that's exactly what i said because i'm watching them they they're interviewing these fans and they're like finally these guys are gonna come in they're gonna they're gonna use their their

50:30 their juice they're gonna spend money the club's gonna get better the players are excited oh we got owners that'll spend money until they realize yeah there are people who are sacrificial in this endeavor and some of them are you players and some of them are you the manager and at some point kate you're right because season one is getting out of the national league where they've been for 14 straight years which i believe is either the longest active streak or the longest streak ever and getting to the next level but presumably this thing is supposed to keep going as they keep getting higher and higher right which maybe that's ryan reynolds ultimate answer to why he's involved um yeah but to continue the show that is but i'm wondering that's all well and good and the fans will cheer it all on up until the point where yeah the cost of us being better is that you can't come to the game anymore

51:31 and kate i believe you sounded like the ugly american when you said it doesn't matter i'll watch on tv and it'll be great my favorite team is winning and that's the part where i think the american business sense comes in and smashes right into this parochial provincial way of life of it's not just that i want the team to be good it's important for me to not only be there but take my children there and that one day they'll grow up and they'll take their children to this thing as well and when those two opposite forces meet they're gonna be some broken hearts along the way uh thank you k and howard uh tune in next time where maybe we talk about the last of the real ones that's what i'm calling serena she's the last of the every superstar that's come after her in athletics in sports is of the new model social media creature she is the last i believe of the mohicans of the superstar athletes the way we remember

52:34 them and i can't wait for that conversation it's a good way to put it so you

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Dan Le Batard 9/2/22 🔥 Meadowlarkers 44: Welcome To Wrexham"?

Dan Le Batard (Host), Stugotz (Host), Kate Fagan (Guest), Howard Bryant (Guest).

What is "Dan Le Batard 9/2/22 🔥 Meadowlarkers 44: Welcome To Wrexham" about?

The discussion centers on the recent developments in sports, particularly focusing on Serena Williams and her potential retirement as she approaches the end of her career. The hosts explore her lasting impact on tennis and the emotional significance of her performances, reflecting on what her departure would mean for the sport.

What is mentioned in this The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz episode?

18 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Howard Bryant, Kate Fagan, Welcome to Wrexham, Wrexham, US Open, Arthur Ashe. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Dan Le Batard 9/2/22 🔥 Meadowlarkers 44: Welcome To Wrexham"?

The episode runs 54 min; the transcript is about 9,152 words in 52 timestamped sections.

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