Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the Great Migration, the factors that drove it, and how this mass movement of people who were already in the United States to distribute them into different places plays such a huge role in the evolution of the US as we see it today. And later on, we'll consider whether pro league all star games like the NBA All Star Game or the NFL Pro bowl have outlived their usefulness in today's world, where we see the stars of these leagues as at any time we want, during the regular season or playoffs and so forth.
Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man whose proficiency in podcasting makes him quite the creator, Tunde Ogon Lana Tunde, are you ready to show him today how things can get kind of sticky out there?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I was looking for that guy you were talking about until I realized you're talking about me. So I appreciate your, your confidence in my ability to do a good podcast.
Let's see what the audience thinks when we're done with this hour.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: All right. Now before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe or hit like on YouTube or your podcast platform. Doing so really helps the show out. Now recording on February 18, 2025. And today we wanted to discuss the Great Migration, which is the 20th century American phenomenon that took place over five decades, really from about 1910 through about five or six decades, because it's really from about 1910 to around 1970. And it entailed over 6 million black Americans leaving rural areas of the US south and going, moving, migrating to northern and western urban areas, so cities.
And while this may not be discussed as much as something like immigration through Ellis island, as far as the development of the United States through the, you know, from the 1800s that we see to really the 21st century country we have today. The Great Migration played a huge role in how many of the major events of the 20th and 21st century have played out. And, and just the regional look of the country that we kind of take for granted today. So it's worth taking a look at as a part of today's discussion. We specifically did check out the 2025 documentary series Great A People on the Move by Henry Louis Gates, which is currently airing on PBS and you can find on Amazon prime and on YouTube as well.
So, Tunde, to get us started today, what stood out to you as far as taking a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as the Great Migration?
[00:02:48] Speaker B: A lot of things to that which I know we'll discuss today, but actually what stood out to me, just to answer you directly right now, a couple things. One was what you actually just alluded to, which is, I think, very curious that we're used to hearing about migration from certain parts of the world into the United States. And like you said, Ellis island being a great example of some of that migration that happened, let's say, late 1800s to early 1900s from certain parts of Europe.
But like, you had just also cited that the great migration internally in the United States from south to north, from south to west, areas like that, from rural to Arctic. Yeah. Had involved about six to six and a half million people over a period of around 1910 to 1970. So. And to. Your point is well taken, as I said through this conversation, we'll point out other things that stuck out to me, but culturally and all that. But I think those. Like the idea that there is this huge mass movement of people over just a couple of generations and that that history is not as discussed as the migration patterns of others. I find interesting. And then. And then something like you said about from. From rural to urban, things like that. And Henry Louis Gates, who. Who was the.
The narrator and the main person in the documentary explaining everything. I. I quoted what he said. He says, quote, people went from medieval America to modern America.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Talking about me. That U.S. south was.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Medieval that.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Medieval. That stuck out to me. Yeah, that stuck out to me a lot, James, because it speaks to the real differences between the Southern states, their culture and their economies to the rest of the country. And I think that cultural contrast, from a cultural standpoint, maybe not as much economic, even though I know economic, it's still there. I think that still resonates with us as a country today.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Well, the cultural contrast, I mean, and some of this started to change when you get to the later parts of the 20th century. The cultural contrast was a big part of what drove the migration. And it leads to a lot of the economic stuff, kind of the approach that was built into the culture. It was not one of abundance in the South. And so it's hard to build a really substantial economic engine without a mindset of abundance if everything is always about turning everybody against themselves.
The thing that stood out to me, though, is really of how much this was a very American story, that it was driven by optimism more than fear was what really liked it. And I learned about this a long time ago, and I've looked at things on it, and it always felt that the part was always emphasized to me. Was that, you know, there. That terrorism was the way of the world in the south, you know, and there's all these lynchings and, you know, like, that's just terror campaigns is how societies were kept in line, essentially. And so I always viewed the migration from the lens of, well, yeah, if you live in a place where terrorism is the norm, then you want to go somewhere else, you know, and. Because, yeah, we would want to stay there. But what I really saw. And really, in the documentary, we made this connection directly talking about the first wave of migration and then also a second wave. Each of these were connected to one of the world wars. And the waves were driven by, in significant part, the availability of jobs in these northern or western cities that were. That were, you know, these jobs that were open because of the war effort and so forth. So. Because the terror campaign, you know, it went back into the 1800s as well, you know, like, it didn't just start in 1910, 1915, that the terror campaigns were starting. So they were there the whole time, but it was. Those were the backdrop. But then there were all these jobs that were opening, and people were hearing about that, and that's when people were like, yo, let's go. You know, and so that it was something that. The conditions that really spurred it were about optimism and, hey, let's go find a. Let's go find employment. Let's go find something that we can build. That drove this. It really put it in American light, because that's what we. That's what we always kind of romanticize about Ellis island is like, people. Hey, people left everything they knew and. And just went out there on the promise of that they could work for a better life. And that's really what this great migration was about as well.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and let's add to it, right? The migration of Americans out west in the 1800s.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: The Oregon Trail, all that kind of stuff is the same type of idea. Yeah. Opportunity, go getter. And the thing is. And I think that's the big inflection point in American culture, too, because. And this is. Goes back to some of the conversations you and I have had on this show previously. Like, this idea of recognizing a certain level of cultural respect that's given to some Americans and not others.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: And.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: And I think this is a good example where there's a group of Americans that we're discussing in this great migration piece that had the same ambition, same desire to give their kids a better life, same desire to kind of be left alone in their communities and not be terrorized all that.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: And same willingness to drop everything and everything, you know, and just go. Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Wherever they were at and go for new opportunities and become successful and in, in. In those endeavors. And so. And, and that's where you get to, again, this unspoken part of American history where. And this is the interesting part, James, to segue into the two waves of the Great Migration. The first being kind of the post reconstruction era, the 1910 to maybe the 1920s. And then you had the second like.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: That by World War I. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: And but think about, James, the similarity, which is people wanting to move somewhere else to, to. To start anew. They do it and it works.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: And then you have, for example, the red summer of 1919, which, you know, culminated that era. The famous one was the burning of green, the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. And I feel like I learned a lot in this documentary for the second migration when it came to things like the redlining, the kind of segregation in the northern cities, as well as things like eminent domain being used to drive highways through thriving communities. And it seems like every time the people who migrated actually created something of economic value and success, the system came in, whether it was mobs in the early 20th century or the actual municipalities making decisions in the middle to late 20th century of driving, you know, creating highways through successful business districts that the, the people who migrated and made something of themselves, it was kind of destroyed in a sense, and I didn't know that growing up.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: But I don't want to jump too far ahead because like, you kind of kind of took us over through the whole. A big part of the chunk of the story there.
Looking at the specific of. Yes, as you pointed out, there were a lot of ways in which this was successful and then there were ways where it left something to be desired. I mean, I think one of the things that was really. That was done well in the particular documentary that you talked, that you referenced. And like I said that we've kind of, we looked at this and we kind of tracked it a little bit because it was organized very well in the documentary. And this is a four part piece that has been airing over the last month. The last piece airs, you know, like imminently. And so it should be, you know, be out by the time this, this releases and the, the tracking of. Because this is a movement that was really driven in many respects by jobs and even word of mouth. Like in the first wave in this, this around this World War I area, it's the people working on the railroads that are coming Back and saying, hey, you know, there's a bunch of jobs, and up north you can go up there and get jobs, and people would do that. Or the second wave that kind of really picked up around the World War II time and let. Let into that as far as work working. It. It was. There was some success. It wasn't always successful for everyone. When you got that many people moving, everybody's not going to have the best, but it did. People did go and had some success, as you said, created business districts and so forth. But there were also ways where it didn't work. You know, as you already alluded to one. You know, like, the idea of jobs might have been the lure, but the idea of escaping terrorism was part of it as well. Like, that's why if they were happy where they were, then maybe even with the promise of the jobs, they might have been like, we'll, We'll. We'll do something here, you know. But the idea of, hey, we buy something, people just show up at our house and kill us and take our land and stuff like that was a threat that was worth leaving as well. So when you go to the north, though, or go to the West, a lot of that stuff followed you there as well. As you pointed out with the Red Summer 1919. So I look at a lot of the ways, and it's again, very American. Nothing works out 100% the right or a way as you would draw it out. But it did reshape kind of what America was when you had 90% of all African Americans living in the south prior to this. And then you distribute it out and it's about 50% in the south and then 50% elsewhere. That's a substantial change. And then that sets the stage for black Americans not just being a Southern phenomenon, but a phenomenon that is a part of American culture all throughout, which, again, is. I would consider that a success on a large scale. Maybe not it's an individual story, but on a large scale. And you end up with black population centers in Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance and stuff like that, you end up with Motown and, you know, like in. In. In Detroit, and then you got these centers in Chicago and Los Angeles, all over. So you like in terms of kind of the ways things worked out or the ways that things didn't work out, you know, what are the things that. Or were there anything that stood out to you?
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, several things. One of the things, just to piggyback on what you're saying, I drew a direct line in my mind because it was very interesting about the need for labor during World War II in the shipbuilding industry, both in the Oakland area in Northern California and then in Southern California, San Diego and all that.
One of the neighborhoods that blacks populated in the Los Angeles area was South Central Los Angeles. And I kind of thought to myself, James, in preparing for even this discussion today, what do we see in the super bowl halftime show? Last week we saw a retired tennis star doing a Crip walk in front of the whole world. And that is a cultural phenomenon from South Central Los Angeles. And I just thought about the influence of the black American culture on the world. And to learn that, like you said, 90 of black Americans were in the south until 1910. And so this idea that black.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Just real quick. So that's like one culture, you know, like, that's like it. That's not going to be a very diverse culture, but in the diverse experience. But once you spread all these people out, then you have a distinct Southern California black culture. And then you have a.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, New York black culture. And all these different cultures then are start independently evolving and becoming also, as you point out, with super bowl becoming part of America's larger culture as well. So it really creates a more robust kind of contribution to the American culture.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: No, I mean, think about what you're saying. You're right. Coming out of the south, what comes out of the south, you know, culture like the blues culture, which once it was translated, you know, those migrants ended up in cities like Chicago and Detroit soon after. What do you get? You get rock and roll, right?
[00:14:20] Speaker A: You get.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: You get all these other genres and you get jazz and Harlem and these. And Detroit in these areas in the West Coast. What do you get? You get, you know, different cuisine that is brought by the people from the south. And it creates a new genre of food and culture there. So this is, again, it's amazing reading this stuff because there's so much influence that this one group of Americans has brought to the rest of the country and then through the proliferation of Hollywood and the media to the rest of the world. And how this story has progressed over time is just something that has not been told. That's what I mean. Other things, for example, when blacks realized that they were also being segregated in the North. But it was different, Right?
[00:15:07] Speaker A: You talked about, like, the redlining and stuff that was really a part of this post World War II life. And, you know, that's something that we've touched on briefly in. But in terms of how that was, it was really a fundamental characteristic of, okay, well, you got all these black people showing up in these places, and it's almost like. Like these cities put up these defense mechanisms to. To really make sure that the spoils and the benefits that were being created in these cities were not being shared too broadly. You know, really interesting. So, I mean, did you want. I know you want.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: The problem is when. When you bring up this. These facts, these historical facts of America, then this is where you run against the resistance of the majority group in this country to discuss these things. Yeah, well, some, obviously, let's just put it this way, enough that we still have to not discuss them openly without threat of retaliation from the state. Right. Even though we have freedom of speech. But that's a whole different show. But anyway, but that's what I'm saying, James, is that because then when you have to discuss this, you naturally have to discuss something like systemic racism. Right. The idea that the fha, a federal housing authority, was allowed legally not to give loans to black people to buy homes, or the GI Bill after the Second World War, excluded blacks, but sent 10 million white Americans to college. All those examples are examples where then two, three generations later, one can appreciate, when you and I are growing up as kids in the 80s and 90s, going to school, no one's talking about that part of the history. So what is everyone else doing? We're looking around saying, wow, why are all these black people in this condition and everyone else is in that condition? And the same with immigrants when they come to this country, so on and so forth. So it becomes, again, where some of us in this country have this information and many people don't. And that's why a lot of times, when it comes to American culture and history, we're talking past each other, not with each other and to each other. And so that, to me, James, is really what stuck out with a lot of this is that you're looking at things like. I mean, there's a lot. Right. Like the idea of housing covenants, for example.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to touch on that. Well, let me, let me jump in because.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Go ahead, man.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: The thing.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: I want to discuss that, too.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Well, the thing that, like you, you pointed out how, like, some of us have the information and other of us don't. But the thing is, is that all of us are 100% sure that we know what's going on, though. Even the people that don't have the information. You know, it's not like they're like, oh, well, this is what I think, but I know I. I don't Know, people don't account for the things they don't know, you know, so to speak, or at least in many respects. But what I saw with this and this, this talked really about like from the, in that mid 20th century period and you know, like where you had black folks that are having success in these areas and so forth. And. But they were still being kept in really small areas of the, the urban areas of the cities and so forth and not allowed to kind of expand out in different ways. And one of those was restrictive covenants. And these eventually were challenged and using the law and eventually won. You know, like at the Supreme Court level it was found these restricted covenants which said basically in the deed you couldn't sell it to a black person or you couldn't sell it to a Jewish person or something like that. This was written into the deed. And so these were, would be used to prevent, even if somebody did successfully buy a house, they come and get sued and, or prosecuted criminally for buying it. Because hey, hey, the restrictive covenant says on the deed says you can't. A black person can't buy this. You bought it, so now you're a criminal and so forth. So these, they eventually get challenged. The U.S. supreme Court rules them unconstitutional. What that really brought out to me, because we know a lot of the things in this mid 20th century period where black Americans were able to get access to the franchise, to rights in the United States to be able to take advantage of this free society, quote, unquote, was done through their use of the legal process and constitutional arguments to make these games. And then whether it be Brown v. Board of Education or the Supreme Court knocking out these restrictive covenants. What it made me realize with that though, there's a reverse side to that and there are people who are losing these battles. And I wonder, I think you look at this and you say, man, the black Americans are like the most constitutionally kind of adhering to people in the United States. Like they're always saying, hey, but what about the Constitution? Hey, we should have the right of right to vote. We look at the Constitution and so forth. There's also a flip side where there's a bunch of Americans who seemingly their main objective is to avoid the Constitution with all of these. They like, oh, the Constitution must be kind of something that they're almost hostile to because every time they try to do something to try to keep black folks out of this area or keep black folks out of their schools, keep, the Constitution comes in and makes it says they can't do that.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Don't worry, James. Recently. It was recently removed from the website of the White House. So you might be get your wish finder.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: As much as I look at and appreciate the US Constitution, if there are equally people who look at it and resent it and say, man, all of the stuff that we want to do, we're not able to do because of this freaking Constitution.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah, James, you're right. So let's go there, because the documentary talked about it, which is very interesting, which was the beginning of black enfranchisement in the north because their ability to vote. Yeah, right. And that's what I'm saying. Like, that's the stuff to me that was like, yeah. See, this whole thing about, you know, in today's language, we'll say, you know, handouts or DEI stuff is. Is again a projection. Because those same people, James, that are hostile to the idea of the United States Constitution, maybe they like the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, but they are hostile to the United States Constitution because they do want to limit access to things like the ballot box to people. Because in their minds, they must feel that if they actually have to have a true equal playing field, somehow they or their children may not be able to compete with maybe people like you or I. However, at the same time, those same people want to use excuses that people like you or I may not be as intelligent or as at the same level of humanity, that we deserve to actually have a seat at the table for some of these things. And that's what I mean by whether it's the red summer of 1919, whether it's the redlining, whether it's creating highways through successful black business districts to break them up over time. It's this idea that every time in the last 160 years that blacks have asserted themselves when given the opportunity of equality and have shown that they can compete. Tuskegee Airmen, another example. There is, you're right, there is a certain amount of people, not everybody, that are so hostile to that that they are willing to, whether it's usurp the Constitution or do undemocratic things, because emotionally, I guess they just, you know, can't accept.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: It's that inevitable black backlash that's always. It's always seen. But the thing is, is that I think I just worry about my own blind spot with. This is really what I, you know, like when I. When I pull away and I'm looking at this, I'm just like, man, because I'm walking around thinking that we're all in on the Constitution, like that's what makes us married. You look at the oath of office, the oath of enlistment, all of those talking about protecting and defending the Constitution, you know, like, not about, you know, these other abstract ideas or serving one person or that one person will save us from everything. It's all about the Constitution. And I'm walking around thinking that, yeah, we're all in on that. But this just puts it in my face that, no, we're not. There are a lot of people who would want to. That the Constitution stands in the way of them creating the kind of society that they apparently want to create. So I think the migration piece just kind of emphasizes that and also the resilience of black folks to continue to try to get the United States to live up to what it says it is in the Constitution and the successes that have been had over that. So.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: So a couple things to that, James. I just want to say this one because it's important in learning again, or being reminded, I should say that especially the migration to Detroit where blacks were being employed by the booming auto industry, those black Americans are one of the reasons why all workers in the United States today enjoy certain rights like overtime pay and certain things like that. And I think to your point, the story of black Americans pushing for equality is a story that actually led to all Americans getting more enfranchisement, whether it be employment rights, whether it's immigrants coming over and not being discriminated against once they arrive in the United States. And so that's something again, that the documentary helped me appreciate even more. So that where these people migrated to and the challenges they faced, whether it was the housing covenants on the west coast in California, whether it was the workers rights in Detroit, whether it was issues in New York because of all the other immigrant groups they had to deal with and all that, you know, these are things that over time became like their struggles and their fights against certain things became codified in the American system. And I think you're right, James.
There's some people, because we see this now in our political discourse that are hostile to some of these protections for the everyday citizen. And I'm saying not protections for black people talking about like workers rights stuff, protection for women, things like that, that have all morphed out of this kind of hundred, 160 year struggle of black Americans looking to have the country live up to the ideals of the Constitution.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I think that what we see with that is ultimately you always reference it in kind of the terms of the divide and conquer thing. And, and like when a group pushes for better conditions and they're using things like the US Constitution, what happens is, is that if they're successful, then the benefits of that can benefit everyone because the Constitution is supposed to apply to everyone. That's kind of, that's their argument is that, hey, you can't pick and choose who these benefits apply to. Or, you know, equal protection under the law is not, hey, let's, let's take care of black people. That's, everybody's supposed to have equal protection. So if one group is able to advance the idea of equal protection and say this applies to restricted covenants and housing, then everybody gets to benefit from that. And so it changes the face of American society. So, yeah, ultimately I do think, and I mean, the documentary goes much more beyond this. We were looking really at the Great Migration piece and it actually even touches on later on in the documentary pieces on the reverse of the migration that's happened, you know, and let's say the last 60 years, 50 years or so. And, and then also just immigra. Immigration coming from Africa and the Caribbean and so forth. So it. Beyond just much more detail in the Great Migration. So. But obviously we're not going to discuss the whole thing. But the Great Migration piece, though, is something that just as an American, you know, you should know more about it or we should all know more about because it really does. Even the Civil Rights movement and how that was influenced by the fact that in the years leading up to it, blacks had dispersed and evolve. Like when you disperse when you're, when you're all together, you kind of evolve in one group. But when you disperse and then continue to evolve, you evolve in different directions. You have different experiences and so forth that if you come back together, you can bring all that in. And so we saw how that played out in things like the Civil Rights movement. But I think we can close up this part for right now. You know, this part of the discussion, but definitely would recommend the, the, the doc to view the documentary series and just to continue to looking at things like the Great Migration and then understanding, you know, the, the, the way things have unfolded in, in American history and how that affects and influences the life that we all lead. So I think we'll close up this part. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this part of our episode and we'll talk to you soon.
All right. For our second part of our discussion today, we saw the. The NBA had an All Star Game recently. The NFL had their pro bowl games a couple weeks ago. And one of the criticisms we've seen for things like this, these All Star games, all, you know, the, the NFL, NBA and stuff, is just that the people said players don't play hard, they're not entertaining as much, and the rate TV ratings are down and so forth. And it strikes me that this may just be a fundamental issue in the sense that because we can watch the stars of these teams, we can watch these teams anytime we want, whether it be through NBA, there's league pass and NFL, there's Sunday ticket. It's not being able to see participants, particular stars that you want to see is not that novel. Then you got YouTube, you can see these highlights and all that stuff all the time. Like we can. We can watch whatever we want whenever we want to watch it. So. Versus like 1980, when the only, only chance, if you lived in, you know, Miami, the only chance you see Larry Bird on television is at the All Star Game. You know, like there is maybe one or two national TV games in a year. And so the idea of wanting to see the stars themselves is just. Or that the need is not as great as it was then. Now seeing them all together is a whole nother thing. But I wanted to ask you someday, like, is, are we looking at just the structural problem where the interest and the dissatisfaction in these All Star games just in the fact that it's just not that new to see these people anymore, or do you think there's more going on?
[00:28:14] Speaker B: That's a good question. I think there's probably a little more going on.
I don't think it's that we don't want to see these people or anything or just, you know, they're not new. I think you're right that the way that our media ecosystem, for all of us, you know, like you said alluded to in the 1980s, it was broadcast television, maybe some cable, but primarily broadcast. And the amount of games were limited during the week. The amount of availability to see people outside your local market or regional market was limited. And then like you said, we didn't have phones and tablets and all this stuff where we had services like YouTube where we could quickly call up any highlights of our favorite players and people made all these nice videos of all these mashups and of highlights and things like that. So I do think that there was a bit more novelty with an All Star Game back in the day where it was something exciting. The only place in a whole year where you would really see all the greats together playing against Each other. And then I also think that there's a certain.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: Well, you would see the only place you'd see all the greats and then you. But also got to see them play against each other. So those were like two separate, two separate draws. Like you get to see the greats and you get to see them together. So.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's what I mean. It's, it's, it's, it's. It was like an event, right? Like more of an event than it is now. Clearly because of, like I said, the inability for us to see these people at all times, like back then, like we do now. And I also think, you know, this isn't. I don't want to be one of these guys blaming these younger athletes today and being, you know, a middle aged guy shaking my fist at the clouds at tell these kids to get off my lawn type of thing. But I do feel like there's, there's probably been. I'll talk to the NBA specifically because I know that better than other sports leagues certain things that have allowed the creep in, I think over time that have just got us here. Like for example, the way the amount of money and contracts. A lot of times guys don't want to get hurt in anything outside of, let's say a regular season or playoff game with their team.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Yeah. What they're actually paid those big bucks for, you know, they don't want to jeopardize.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: That might say if you get hurt outside of this, then, you know, you're going a quarter of your salary or whatever the case. Right. Or and I just feel like, you know, there's a lot of other little examples like that that if you add them up, might have caused people to either play less aggressively and less competitively when they're playing or to sit it out and not play at all. And I think one of the things, an area that I think we've seen in the NBA All Star game and then I'll shut up, hand it over. Where I don't know if this is for those reasons, but I'd say where we've seen the lack of participation from stars, I think diminish it a bit was something like the dunk contest. You know, when I was a kid in the 80s, it was like a big deal. You had, you know, Michael Jordan versus Dominique Wilkins and that was huge. And then you had this outlier little guy named Spud Webb come in one year and win it. And you know, and even in the late 90s, early 2000 at Vince Carter and these Guys that were stars and entertaining at the All Star Game. And I noticed in the last decade, it just. The guys winning the dunk contest are guys I never heard of.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: You know, the guys, I mean, and nothing. Matt McClung has done some entertaining dunks. The guy who's won it the last three years doesn't even play in the NBA. Like, he's like a development elite guy, you know, that's what I mean.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: So think about the symbolism of that. Right?
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, no, I think that anytime you're looking at something like this, you got to look at the incentive structure. And I think you touched on something in terms of as far as that the players from a baseline standpoint make so much money now. And this is not to knock them. This is looking at. I think when you look at the incentive structure, the whole point of that is saying it's not necessarily about the character of the people, it's about how a average person would act in this scenario based on where they're, where their incentives are and where they aren't.
They have they all of NFL, which NFL doesn't even do a real football game anymore. Now they doing flag football for there. They, they are doing gimmicks. NBA is doing gimmicks. They tried this tournament style thing this year. They've done, you know, they've switched it up, had players pick teams and all that. They're, they're, they're, they're trying all these gimmicks because the leagues realize that, hey, we're having a hard time maintaining interest in this thing, at least the level we want. But they have, the players have more to lose and less to gain from doing these things now. Whereas in the 80s that wasn't the case. It was the opposite. They had more to gain. They, they could with all the eyeballs and all the interesting stuff you go out and show out there, that might be endorsements which may dwarf your NBA salary. That may be all these other opportunities that you open up for yourself if you go show out in an All Star game versus now, it's like nothing that they do is going to greatly enhance their earning capacity or their notoriety or anything. You know, it's going to be kind of a wash at best and at worst you get hurt or you get embarrassed and so forth. So the incentive structure isn't set up for them. And this, one of the big complaints you hear is that, you know, when this was in the NFL is an NBA. Like the players aren't trying that hard, you know, like. And that's I think that's a concern if you're going to have like these, these sports are entertainment products, but they're competitive entertainment products. And so you do need a level of competition for it to work. Now remember I talked about that there were two kind of things. One is the idea of I never get to see these players, saw a lot of these players so I want to see them in the All Star Game. The second piece is I want to see my favorite people team up and go against other people that are, that I like as well. That piece is still the option of or the draw of. I never get to see these players. That's gone. They're not going to be able to recreate that. The scarcity doesn't exist anymore and it won't come back. But the idea of getting to see your favorite players team up is still a potential draw. I mean that's like you got all these, the Marvel stuff, like they took advantage of that with this whole Avenger thing and oh yeah, you got. Everybody has all these movies and then they get together in a couple of these movies and people get excited about that. So the idea of the team up is still something they can make some hay with. But yes, they do have to figure out a way because they're selling a competitive product, they got to figure out a way to make it more competitive and they have to overcome the lack or the way that the incentive structure is set up right now which disincentivizes the creation of a competitive product. And the only thing I'll add just real quick is that some of it is you can look at the players and say particularly the prior generate last 10 years or so and that. Are you, are you just the beneficiary here? Are you putting more in for the next generation as well? And that's the only place I can look at them and say like I, I don't knock it because it's like again, I see the incentive structure and I see why you come to that conclusion. The only thing I can say is that sometimes it is good to look beyond just your, your current situation and say, hey, how can I leave this better than why I found it? And so, but I don't know that that's just, I don't know that that's enough, you know, like to, to just say, hey, don't leave this worse than where you found it as an individual kind of looking inside yourself thing. I do think the creativity is, is good. Try to come up with something because you got the Avengers Assemble kind of thing going. But how do you do that and get a competitive product out of it? NFL tried flag football. We'll see if that works over the next few years. I don't know what the NBA is gonna do though.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the point about the competitive product matters a lot. I think in the end it's just like any other consumer kind of good, good that at the end of the day, consumers want quality and especially, yeah.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Like if you're watching a comedic show, you want comedy. You know, if you're watching a competitive product, you want competition to some degree.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: And I think you, you make a good point. When you said earlier about guys not wanting to get embarrassed, you know what I thought of, man, I don't mean to say this is a knock to anybody, but I was like, man, you'd say in the NBA is full of Drakes. You know what I mean? Like, I was thinking about like the way, you know, Drake, Drake, Drake got such an L against Kendrick that it's like I could see him not even want to show up to something. Like, yeah, nah, I'm just going to sit it out, man.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: And I was thinking like battle All Star Game.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: That's what I mean. Like, he might just be like, nah, I'm good. And so. And that actually might be to his benefit.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: But just to make that point, emphasize that point. Like the reports are, you know, from people and you'll hear this, you know, from people in the know is that when they do these games, these kind of pickup style games in the summer, you know, like the Drew league type things or these, these different program type leagues that the players will. Some of the players that like to do it go around and do they play much harder in those than they do in the All Star Games. And so it's like, well, hold up. But there's, you know, that's not a, you know, broadcast everywhere around the world and you know, all this other stuff, that's a different thing, but all of the same disincentives are there, you know, in that sense, you know, like for them to not so.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: No, I think, I think number one, it would be nice to see a competitive All Star Game. Like we had Twitter 25, 30 years ago where guys at least try, you know, and there is a certain level of pride to showing out a bit and, and guys don't want to get embarrassed to actually play some defense too, you know, Like, I think there's, there's something to that.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: So then how do we change the incentive structure to where, I don't know.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: About the incentives of all of it, because I'm sure there's a lot that we can't see too just in this conversation. But I think to your point about changing, like, for example, I'll talk about the NFL. I think it's an interesting idea, the flag football thing, number one, because specifically to the NFL, that's. There's a lot more potential for injury, obviously, you know, with that kind of sport. The other thing too is because. Because of the potential for injury, I could see things as. One of the complaints I saw is that, you know, the. In this year's Pro bowl that the running backs only carry, like, combined, like, had three carries. Like, so. So it's like they might not have Trump wanted to carry the ball too much because they don't want to run through a buzzsaw, you know, like, there is no buzzsaw.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Like, that's the thing. Like flag football ends up becoming like a seven on seven thing. So. But that's just the structure.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: But either way, what I'm saying is by the ability of maybe knowing you're not have the potential to get as injured, maybe these guys would actually play a bit harder with flag football. The other thing I thought of is, I know there's a push to try and make female flag football, something a little bit taken more serious, like a professional league. So this could be a smart move by the NFL to say, you know, looking at the long game, if we start putting. Promoting men doing flag football, there might be more of acceptance for a female league and generate revenue.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: And the NFL has lobbied successfully to get the Olympics to add flag football. You know, like.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's what I mean. So to me, I think the NFL's onto something with that. Let's see how the experiment goes.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: So promoting, like using it to promote a complimentary type of thing.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: That's an easier answer. Like in the NBA, it's like, okay, well, you could do something like that. But again, you still got to deal with the incentive structure. I remember watching, I was watching the All Star game the other day and there was a breakaway. And I start holding my breath, like, are they gonna. Is this guy gonna try to jump up and contest the breakaway? Which is, you know, that's an easy place to get hurt. And they didn't. And I'm like, okay, good. So basketball, it's a little harder to do that. I don't know if you could do half court or something like that, or like the unrivaled basketball league, the women's basketball league, that Just started. They did as part of kind of their mid season thing, a one on one tournament which was amazing, you know, like. And so, but again that goes into our NBA players. Would NBA players be willing to do that? There's conceivably much less chance of getting hurt in a one on one type of thing. You know, like then. Or maybe a two on two kind of thing, like do some kind of, you know, NBA Jam type of type of tournament or something.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Giannis had an interesting, I think his idea was to. Yeah. To do the like a USA Basketball, like. But yeah, but like I guess not USA Basketball like Olympics because it would include I guess players like him.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Like no, he's saying have the American born players play against everybody who's not from America and.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: So to try to create, again, create competitive juices and so forth.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: So that to me would be an interesting, you know, See, I just know.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: That that changes the incentive structure though for the, at the top of the food chain, you know, so it might.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Change from a competitive standpoint because that's where you know, the American players are.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: Going to say whether it would be you have more to gain than you have to lose. Potentially.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: For being competitive about it. I don't know. It maybe it will maybe if the international guys get out there and start trying to take it to the Americans, the Americans out of pride will be like picking it up. But we don't know. The other thing I wanted to mention though, real quick with this and I wanted to touch on our, you know, Kevin Durant, you know, very popular player, but also a very online guy, got into some arguments with fans about the criticisms of the All Star Game. And his point with, with, with a lot of that was just that fans seem to just like to complain and there's just nothing that like people are going to be upset and complaining no matter what. And so do you think just kind of as a media culture or just a culture in general that we fall victim to that? Like maybe this is this. Are we making too big of a deal about this? Like is this just. Hey, you know what? No matter what they do, people are gonna complain. You still got a good number of people watching this thing. You know, compared to most television people don't watch anymore. You know, like you still, they still get millions of people to watch this thing. So is this maybe all just overblown and all we're just listening to the people who want to complain?
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm thinking actually one of my old friends, I think he's Kevin Durant's boss, depending if I got the right team, and I might send him this and tell him to show Kevin and just tell Kevin, welcome to America, dude.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: I think he knows.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: I think he knows people don't complain about whatever you're doing, good or bad, they're just going to complain.
So, no, I think, look, I think Kevin Durant is onto something that's greater in our culture. I mean, we talk about this on various conversations, which is the Internet as a town square.
And like any town square, it's become occupied by a lot of people throwing tomatoes from the cheap seats. You know what I mean? And so I think there is a lot of just, that's the reality of online world today, no matter what it is in our life and our culture that just, you know, people are gonna, you're gonna have some people genuinely out there trying to have conversations and how can you make stuff better? And then you're gonna have probably five to ten times more people that are just there to pile on about something.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: Hold on, hold on.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: I think you're wrong.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: I think you're wrong. I think what it is, man, I think generally speaking, you're right. I think the distribution you have, you're saying is wrong. We're in a golden age of haters. Like, that's really what it is. Like online social media type of thing, because negativity creates engagement, and engagement is engagement is rewarded. On social media, negativity reigns. So there may be that the haters may only be 10% of the people. There might be a lot of people, but they're the ones that are going to get amplified. And so it's not even just the cheap seats. Like, major media understands this. And so now haters dominate major media too. And like, hey, how are you good at hating? Are you. You good at coming up with a negative thing to say about anything? Hey, you can get a million dollar contract, you know, because we need somebody out here hating. And so it's just, I think that's, that's kind of the thing, is that. So, yeah, there are pop. There are many people who thought the All Star Game was fine. And, but they don't hop on their computer and then start over their phone, start typing in, man, this All Star game, it was cool. That's not what they're going to do, you know what I'm saying? And, but the people who want to say, oh, this sucks, everything sucks, yada, yada. Yeah. Not only are they more inclined to hop on and post, but then those posts are more likely to Be seen because they're going to be engaging people saying, you know, thumbs up, thumbs down, I hate you too, yada, yada, yada. And so what, we're just living in this golden age of haters. And so hate is just kind of hating on something. Hating on this, hating on that is just what we're going to see more of. And I do think that clouds our perception on, like, there's a reason why people are pessimistic about everything because all they see is the haters talking about everything.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right, man. I mean, look, I think it's. It's probably a little bit combo of all of it, right? I think you're absolutely right. And that probably affects how, you know, getting back to just the NBA, how fans perceive the NBA. Because we talked about this when we had the. The discussion, I think, over the holidays about my experience playing Call of duty Black Ops 6.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: And how I liked the game a lot. And then I went online and in two hours I started questioning if I liked the game because I saw the hating on the game and I'm thinking.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Like, hey, all you saw was all this negativity.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: I thought I liked this game, and now I don't think I like it. Why is that?
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Did I like it?
[00:44:03] Speaker B: So it's probably the same thing with the NBA. You know, it's funny, James, because I don't watch basketball as much as I used to when I was younger. I think I told you this. All this hating on the NBA lately that you see on YouTube and on the other, like you're saying about the conflict, right? That that's what I'm getting in my phone. And it's funny, I think I told you that the rare. I've only watched like two, three NBA games this season, but one of them I watched in a hotel room in early January when I was out of town. And it was like some random teams like the Pelicans versus the Mavericks or something. Not. Not some great team. Man, this game was awesome. It was really entertaining. It was great. A bunch of young players. I mean, the only guy I really recognized was Kyrie Irving and Zion Williams. You know, like, I didn't recognize most of the players. And they all were good. Look at me being older. I was going to say they look like good, hard playing kids.
Like, that's what I mean. Like, I was like, oh, man, this is just a good competitive game. These kids playing hard. Like, yeah, all this hating on the NBA. Like, why?
[00:45:01] Speaker A: And if you spend time online, though, you would Think the NBA is the worst possible thing it could possibly ever be. You know, like. And it's like, I do think. That's what I'm saying. I do think that. That because hating on stuff is so profitable and so prolific.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: You're right. And the unfortunate thing, James, as you said it, I had this immediate. In my mind, I hate to bring it up. I just thought how sad it is because it's basically translated nationally. Like, so many Americans hate their country. I think this country sucks and everything sucks, and we got.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: The economy sucks. Everything sucks. Like, it's just like, geez, maybe you.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: Go overseas to some other country, you'd be like, damn, I miss a home, Erica. You know what I'm saying? Like, so.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: But anyway, yeah, I mean, so I thought that Durant bringing that up and putting it front and center, I thought was very, you know, it was good to have that as part of the discussion. It's just like, look, people are just going to complain, you know, like, negativity is, you know, like, it just springs eternal online.
And it's like, this is just what we're. And just in general, with our media, it's not about, can you. Immediate reward, again, incentive structure. It's not about, can you inform, can you enlighten, can you make people feel good about things? It's really about, can you stir some kind of emotion in them? If so, then you drive engagement and stir an emotion. The most reliable way to do that is to say something negative. And so that's just kind of where we are.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Can you shake the missile? Remember that?
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Yeah, shake the missile. Exactly. And so I think that that's. That's going to cloud our perceptions with these things. And so whether the. Whether. Whether it's as bad as we kind of perceive or whether it's not, we don't really know. But I do think, though, again, if you're selling, if you're. Like I said, it's pretty simple. If you're selling, you know, drama, then there better be some drama there. If you're selling comedy, then there better be some. Some comedy there. If you're selling sports, there kind of needs to be competition. So they do need to work on that.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: But at the same time, you know, it's probably not as bad as what we think. So. But I think we can wrap it from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like, I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: I'm Tunde, and I'm not an NBA All Star, unfortunately.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: That's why you brought it today, man.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: That's why I'm on a podcast.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: All right, so we'll talk soon.
