Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For our call out today, we're going to consider whether the NFL draft, but also the NBA draft or any of the sports league drafts are generally run contrary to fundamental American values, like free markets. So in other words, are they anti American?
For our call out today, Tunde, I'm going to ask you the question, is the NFL draft or the NBA draft, are they anti American? You know, we, because we, we as Americans, we take for granted the use of sport, you know, of drafts by sports leagues. Right. You know, why do you think so many people aren't bothered by kind of how anti free market it is? You know, you come out of college and you're told where you got to work, you're told what your salary is going to be and you have no choice in any of that. Like, that's not usually, hey, why can't I go interview with several people, get a bunch of offers and then pick the offer in the place I want to be and so forth if I'm coming out of school? You know, like, why do we, why.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Are we so good with this if.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: We'Re so free market people?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I think we're not conditioned to appreciate indentured servitude for millionaires.
So that's all I'm saying. Like, you know, as much as we get, like, as you're leading up to, yeah. Getting told where to work, what to do, I'm like, yeah, that's actually not fair. Oh, $9 million salary, like, all right, I might put up with. Yeah, you'll deal with it. So at 21, 23 years old.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: So your answer is. Let me get this straight. Your answer is that's what the money is for.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. That's really the American part, is that money makes it go away.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: That's the part it is. Hey, we just did a book talking to my daughter about the economy. That is what you just said. The triumph of exchange value over experiential value.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
I didn't think we'd allude back to the first part of the book part of our discussion. But yeah, for the audience watching this, go look at, go watch that show or listen to it because you'll laugh now that we're having this part of the conversation, that was a serious conversation. But no, but as you lead it up, I'm thinking like, yeah, because as Americans, we don't like to being told what to do. We like this idea of freedom. We like this idea of I get to go choose where I'm going to work once I'm done with my training, right. It could be at vocational school to be an electrician or a plumber. But when I'm done and I got my certificate, I'm going to choose where I'm going to, you know, which electrical company or plumbing firm I'm going to. I get a degree.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: It's crazy. Imagine if people getting their MBAs, got drafted by corporate America, like, okay, yeah, go work at Procter and Gamble. You know, you though, you, you over here, you got drafted by this company that's on the border of bankruptcy. You're the top performer in your class. And so we're going to see this company that's on the verge of bankruptcy because we gave them first pick because they sucked last year.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: So what. And what if James, like it used to happen and probably still does some, you know, under, under the radar stuff like what if companies then on purpose, we're trying to become bankrupt by the end of this year so they could get first place in the draft and get the best software guys for the best.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: People are going to tank for the best.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: You know, you get the kid with the best accounting scores, you know, from his accounting degree out of Harvard is like, or Yale. It's like, I'll be like, James, I want my firm to be like bottom of of our peers this year so that I can draft this kid who's at Harvard now. He's a really sharp economy.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: We want to, yeah, we're going to.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Take, he's 22 years old. He's going to come my firm and fix the whole thing.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Tank for tune, man. Tank for tune day. There we go.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: So. So yeah, so let's say this way, James, to answer your question, after we had some fun with it, I think that, yeah, it's a good point you make because on its face, to say that the NFL or NBA drafts or major league by any of our sports leagues, that the drafts are un American flies in the face of my being an American when I first hear it because I'm like, hold on, what do you mean? The NBA or NFL or MLB is un American. Baseball's America's game. You know what I mean? And so. And so. But I think you're right again.
That's why it's like the discussion we had about the book is just in my head because it really is about these imagined orders going back to the book sapiens that we did last year is that we don't know anything different than a draft system here. Yeah, we don't do it like the.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: European System, we don't conceive of it. Like if you force somebody to come up like college football does in college sports, they don't use a draft. So we could think of other ways to do it, you know, but it's like we're accustomed to what is. And so we don't. And we don't necessarily see the problem. And that's actually the biggest point of my question is like, why don't we even see this as an issue? Like not if you sit down and have some intellectual conversation with somebody, you could point out reasons why they would be like, yeah, I'm not necessarily cool with that. But one, that's what the money is for is I'm sure where a lot of people will go. And then two, you know, we just don't conceive of that because where's always, you know, it's inertia. What is, is always oftentimes taken to what should be.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Well, I think what's. So what's interesting is this, number one, because you're right, we have other examples around the world, like the European soccer leagues and their baseball. Sorry, basketball leagues.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: No, European soccer league. Those are billion dollar, you know, some of those are billion dollar entities and they do not have a draft. You know, like you, yeah, you go.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Sign, the guys are getting paid $100 million contracts just like here, you know, like, yeah, the money is there because they have a lot of people that watch soccer and make the same money on tv. Like American companies do so and sports leagues do so. You're right. It's just a different way of doing it, even I would say within the United States. So like I'm a basketball guy. It dawned on me as, as an adult, you know, after I got through playing college basketball and all that stuff, like how come the NBA doesn't have a minor league system? I know they have the G League now that's, that's newer.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: They didn't then though, but, but they.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Didn'T back when I played. And it made sense to me. Like all these kids who, who weren't getting good set grades, you had the whole junior college system and then you had this issue with kids leaving the ncaa. And long story short, it's just because no one in basketball dream, you know, just thought of the way is kind of an inertia that they did in baseball. And also then you have other entities, things like the ncaa, you know, they.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Would not provide a large part of that service for them anyway. So.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah, they didn't.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you're correct. They what had, what was, was seen as good enough. You know, like if what was, wasn't working, then I'm sure they would have thought of, hey, let's look at what baseball is doing much earlier.
But because it was working good enough that they were like, you know, why, why mess with it?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: So yeah, so I would say one.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Thing in addition to the two things that, like when I thought about this, the two reasons why one was kind of just that inertia piece is just kind of what whatever is, you know, even with, I think with college athletes getting paid, you know, it's kind of thing like, yeah, that was so blatantly illegal and immoral for so long that, you know, everybody's making so much money. Billion dollar TV contracts. And, and I would say once the 80s hit is when the calculations started changing. When, when it's just, when it's a fledgling enterprise, then it's not crazy that the football players aren't getting paid. But once you start putting it on tv, billion dollar contracts, it's like, all right, they're not football players anymore. They are TV performers. You know, they're television entertainers. So that was right in our face for the longest time too. And it was just like, that's what we do. So, but it was, it was very much like, like once the court started looking at it, they all were like, this is illegal up to the Supreme Court. And, and it's not like it became illegal, it was illegal the whole time. It's just that nobody took or very few people took a second look at it in that sense. And so I think it's similar here that, and I'm not saying this is, the drafts are illegal. I think the way those are set up with collective bargaining, with, with a union and so forth, that's legal, you know, but it's just interesting to me how so many things that we say we value this would run contrary to, you know, like you pointed out another one I talked about the free market part, but just freedom. Like, hey, I want to go live and work in Los Angeles. Like, no, you're going to go live and work in Green Bay. And it's like, that's cool. Like that, that's how we do things now. And so that's so the other thing though, just I'll kick it back to you.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: I want you to learn how to shovel your driveway.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: But also I think that we also another thing that we like where we may, this is where you start making trade offs in your own values. And so yeah, you might, you might Think it would be good and pro American values to let the guys go where they want to go and make the teams compete. Say, hey, we have the best program for you, or hey, we'll offer you the most money. Or hey, we'll offer you the best developmental opportunity. Or we'll offer you this other incentive, make the teams compete like that. Some people, some people may be drawn to that, but also it's there, there's a fairness in competition. And I think this appeals to people a lot too. Like, hey, you know, because that there's no other reason why you would give the worst performing franchises the best talent. You know, like, aren't they going to screw that best talent up? You know, like, let's, let's worry about that. Like our next stars are going to have. They might have poor medical staffs, poor coaching, all this. They may not become the people they need to be. So it has to be something also in our, in us, that wants to see fairness in competition. So if you had a bad year last year, we're happy to see you get a chance to pull yourself up. And so this idea of parody and stuff like that, I think that that may be another competing value that allows people to kind of even people that are aware of how messed up this kind of is from. Again, from an American value standpoint, I'm not saying it's fundamentally wrong. I'm saying for the stuff we say we care about, it's pretty contrary to some of that stuff. But I think maybe the.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Let me jump in because you got a few interesting points there. One is because you're right. I do think that the entertainment side of. Are sports leagues. And you said it well, obviously these players are players, they're athletes. But once it hit the TV in the 80s and it really became a spectacle, it kind of, it did change.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: An entertainment product, a television.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: This is no longer just a sport. Like you said, it is entertainment. And so I think that number one, is.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Let me say one thing real quick. I'm so sorry, but I think personally.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Killing me, bro.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: I know, I know, but I got to say, because you brought that up, I think personally, I've said, I've said this for a while, but I might as well say it here. The. I think that's the solution to their problems, too. The solution to the problem for the NCAA is to pay the players based on the television money that their sport generates. Like that is the easy, fast solution is that, hey, whatever TV money that comes in for this conference, football or this conference basketball or women's basketball, the players share in the TV money. And that would make. You could apply that universally across all divisions, everything all women, men. If you put it on tv, you pay the players. If you don't put it on tv, then the players just get a scholarship. And that would be to me more consistent with this fairness in the system that existed prior to that. So I apologize for cutting you off, but you led into that and that to me it's such a simple system that I'm amazed that people haven't thought of that and kind of been pushing for that.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry. It's funny, I had to lower my desk cause it gave me a chance to get my dogs. So we're good.
The real world is out.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: When I was making that point, you've.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Probably heard, heard making some noise. Now that they're okay, they're in the room with me, they're okay. And I'll bring them up here for the audience to see. But no, that's what I'm thinking. So back to what you were saying was a couple things because I think that there's something to be said that yes, these people, we all know that their salaries, right. We know that they're multimillionaires. So I do think there's something where we're not. We don't look at them as people that are being pushed around like they're coal miners being abused by the big bad, you know, owner of the coal mine, you know, that kind of stuff.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: But I don't think we show too much sympathy for those people either.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say that's a whole different conversation. Let me not jump around too much. Some people have more sympathy for those people, let's put it that way. But, but I do think that then the idea of like you're saying this, this the. So let's go to the idea like you're saying it's unamerican. And this is a very interesting kind of way you've said all this because. Yes, the idea of not having a free market for labor in a certain sense and not allowing people to choose their employer and locking them into contracts and even the ideas in the real world, not the sports world of things like non competes and all that have been challenged, you know, because of people saying I got a right to work. Like in Florida, we're a right to work state. And so. So yeah, so in one sense that does feel un American when you explain it like that. In another sense though, it's very fascinating what you're saying because we've been in our society in 2025. The year started off with a lot of discussion about things like meritocracy. Right. And the idea of handouts and all that. And so what we're kind of. If I can reverse engineer this thought is the way sports leagues are set up are almost like the socialism for the billionaire owners.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Like so that they share their TV money.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: They all kind of get to. None of them can fall real far based on their own bad things because if you mismanage your team and run it into the ground, at least you'll always be have high draft picks in.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: The future seasons and you still get the TV money. But also conversely, no matter how good you do, you still have a ceiling on how good you can go. Like they do set it up in a very socialist way.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: So that's what I mean is like so in a certain way. And that's why it's just I see all these tie ins. I'm not trying to get too galaxy brain with it, but it's like as a society, and I'm not saying all of us, but a critical mass enough where this has had the life we've been living, let's say for most of our lifetime, probably since the 90s and definitely since the 2000s, which is we accept socialism for billionaires and the 1% class. Right.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Like you don't want to go build a billionaire stadium, man. I thought you were all for that.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, when I can get the city to issue a bunch of municipal bonds and put the city in more debt and I don't have to use my money even though I've got the money, then yeah, I do want to be that billionaire guy.
And it's not just that.
It's things like when those at the top have created our economy in the 2008 period, for example, the banks get all the bailouts, no one really scrutinizes them and the public is the one not getting as much attention. Right.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Or we got to go into debt for the nation more to get the public a little bit of help and give trillions more of stimulus that's, that's unfunded and it goes on the, on the, on the deficit. So those are all things that to me I just kind of realize as you're talking like, yeah, I guess the sports league is very American in that sense. In the sense that the, the capital side is able to dominate the labor side and we're okay with it. That's what I'm saying. It's just.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, well, and also they're able to collect. They're able to operate collectively. I mean, they're a cartel in that sense. And we don't bat an eye when they do all this stuff to try to make sure, like you said, to give themselves a hard bottom, even if it gives them a hard top. But if you. If anybody talks about applying that type of mentality so society wide, those are the same guys that'll be the first ones to be like, no way. You know, so it's interesting. It's kind of we. I don't know that humans in general. So I don't have any opinions on Americans, how consistent we are. You know, like, how hypocritical are we when it comes to these things? Because a lot of times you'll see a lot of things there. It's like, well, it's good for me, but it's not necessarily good for you. But I don't look at, like, I just like, this is. This is kind of an American phenomenon. We say we're about a lot of things. Sometimes, you know, we're about voting, well, who are you voting for?
[00:15:26] Speaker B: You know, like.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Like, we're about, you know, like, again, equality contracts. But, you know, again, if your job is firing you, that's different than if you're saying, hey, I want to hold out. And you see this in sports all the time. I want to hold out for a better deal. You know, so, you know, we. A lot of times we talked about this in other contexts as well, where we see people judging the actor of who's doing something as opposed to what they're doing. So if who's doing it is somebody that we'll make excuses for, then we're good with it. And if. If who's doing is somebody that we won't, then we're like, no way. We're not going to consistently judge the action the same way. And I think we should do better with that, honestly. I'm not saying that not not offering sympathy to coal miners is a good thing. I think it's terrible, but it's definitely something we see and so don't tell. I think that undermines the idea that it's because the professional athletes make so much money that we don't have sympathy with them for whatever reason. Many Americans just identify more and sympathize more with the billionaire than the employee. And for whatever reason that is. I mean, maybe that's just good marketing, man.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, probably.
But I think, like, as you're saying. Yeah, because you know what it Is though, it is good marketing because, you know, in America, that's the beauty of the American thing too, is this. This big smorgasbord of kind of bs, Right. Because we're so optimistic as Americans on the individual level that we could one day be that billionaire.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: So we want to kind of. That's. I think the great marketing from the billionaire class is, hey, one day. And you know what this comes back to?
[00:16:53] Speaker A: My tax is low. So that if you're ever like me, you will pay low taxes, too.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm going to go somewhere here which you're going to not be happy about. But I'll just say this is from 1800s, 1700s culture in America, which is the planner class telling all the other poor people, hey, one day, man, if you just keep this system intact, you'll be like me. You'll get to own some slaves. But. But even though you can now, one.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Day you will make it so that you make no money now.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Keep it in place now. And then in the future, you'll be like me.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Even though. Yeah. Slavery is the reason why you're poor in the Appalachian Mountains, because all these slaves doing this work for free for me. And I'm never going to hire you and pay you, but if you keep this system up, it'll be good for you. Trust me. And it convinced millions of young men to go fight and die in a war for the side that lost. So it's. This is. That's what I say. And I don't say that.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: So I guess it is. It is an anti American. It's very consistent with.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: How America.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: But in the operating way, it just.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: May be inconsistent with kind of how we sell ourselves is what I think, by the way, is a bad thing in the sense that maybe we should have kind of a way to aspire to better. And we just need members amongst us to keep kind of prodding us to try to do better. You know, it's like, I'm not saying, you know, so. But I want to wrap us up, man.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: No, I know. I just want to finish this. James. It actually is a part of the American story. You're right. It's a very anti American strain. But they've been here the whole time. And that's kind of the point about.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: You know, anti American. It's anti American. These values that we say we're about, but having values that are more aspirational. I would say America is a better place now than it was in 1790, in significant part because it had its values. It didn't live up to its values then. Now, obviously it doesn't live up all the way now, but it's better now than it was then, probably because we're still striving. We're setting the bar out far to try to get somewhere, and that's probably a good thing. You know, if we were, I, I would. I think it would be worse if we were looking back and be like, yo, let's. Let's try to make it worse than it is now. Let's go backwards and make things like they were before. That'd probably be a worse mental.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: I can't resist. I know we got.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: No, no, no. We gotta go, man.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: We gotta do that as we have leadership trying to take us to the 1890s. So let's see how this ends up.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but, but I. Anyway, we appreciate everybody for joining us on this. Call out, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Check out part one of today's discussion as well, where we. We talked about the book, talking to my daughter about the economy and our whole library. And we'll talk to you soon.
