House of Strauss

NBA/Tech/China podcaster Andrew Sharp is here to “see where the takes take us,” and I love where it goes.

* Is Andrew buying or selling the future of BlueSky?

* The Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight

* What is Netflix’s sleazy strategy with this sort of live event?

* Andrew explains how the NBA made way more TV money while in viewership decline

* What’s driving the NBA viewership drop? Andrew wrote a list

* Are we excited about Inside the NBA coming to ESPN? Are there downsides?

* Has the vibe shifted such that Charles Barkley can talk about San Antonio women?

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Great podcast, if we do say so ourselves…

* Did Ryan lose his life savings betting Kamala Harris on Kalshi?

* The French polymarket whale who bet on Trump using the “neighbor method”

* Has the election inspired a vibe shift in sports media?

* The Ben Strauss argument that FS1 is more woke than ESPN

* The “Democrats need a Joe Rogan” trope

* Is the “Dem-friendly Rogan Bill Simmons”?

* Is Shannon Sharpe the Dem-friendly Rogan?

* The sports journo exodus to BlueSky and why it won’t work

* I don’t think the shift to the right among Zoomers has much to do with “incels”

* Inflation or culture war: What settled the election?

House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

Nick is back, and candid as ever. This was a wide ranging conversation, as it always is, covering sports, media and political subjects. I wonder which aspects might get aggregated…

Topics include but aren’t limited to:

* Nick says our guy Freddie deBoer is mad at him.

* I just bow down to the Kansas City Chiefs now. It’s easier.

* Has the analytics movement devalued winning?

* How does Nick feel about having a different politics than a lot of Kansas City Chiefs fans?

* Would Nick have traded another Chiefs Super Bowl for his Bears pick working out?

* How does Nick feel about having a different politics than Chiefs players?

* Is politics any kind of proxy for how good a person is?

* The NBA is flush with TV money, but is it struggling as a product? Do they need Nick’s reforms?

* The MLB has some juice right now. Can baseball be made into a national sports talk show topic?

* Can you hate your co-host and do a great sports show in the modern age?

And much more…

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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

Not exactly sports, but sort of. I and New York politics expert Ross Barkan reflect on Trump’s landslide victory, the multiethnic factors propelling it, and where the Democrats go from here. Enjoy!

House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

Eric (@HLinsight) is a real life pro sports gambler. He also has profound reservations about sports gambling’s introduction to the mainstream. I can confidently say that the conversation you’re about to listen to isn’t happening at any of the other mainstream sports media sites. This is a candid look at why betting sports, as fun as it is, is mostly a sucker’s bet.

Topics include…

* Parlays and other tricks apps use to keep you hooked

* How the limiting of winners makes sustained success nearly impossible

* Tout scams, busty pick advice, and other ways to get rich off worthless tips

* Sports bet advertising that targets youth

* Betting on games vs. events that are determined by inside info (Draft picks)

* Can games be rigged in this era due to gambling?

* Pro social gambling vs. anti social gambling

* How do we feel about betting on the 2024 election? Good opportunities there?

House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

In addition to being co-host of the Light Years podcast, Saam is tasked with running Creator Growth at Playback, an interactive sports streamer app. This means that a lot of this millennial’s waking hours are spent on trying to figure out the sports viewership habits of Zoomers.

This is the foundation of our conversation in this pod: What’s up with young people? What programs are they gravitating to and why? And are their habits upending traditional notions of what “mainstream” media even is? But first, true to Bay Area form, we start with expressing our annoyance at the conventional takes of Purdy-hating, “NFL Film Watchers.”

Topics include…

* “Film Watchers” don’t have an edge on the data

* Is NFL Twitter worse for the fake smart takes than NBA Twitter

* How the beat writer has to pretend to not care if the team loses

* Ya, I cared when the Warriors lost

* My regret over my ESPN the Magazine Draymond “hit piece”

* How ESPN cut the Nike loses Steph Curry article from the Magazine

* Will Compton farting at the Washington Post over his Bussin’ with the Boys Trump interview

* Legacy media trying to recap these Trump and Harris Youtube show interviews

* The filming over everything makes athletes more paranoid in the locker room now.

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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

My live video with Chris Best is available here as well, so it seems. Great talk, enjoyed being the one who answers the Qs this time.

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Your guy Big Wos is back, with candid takes on the state of NBA media. This was a great conversation wherein we discussed the following:

* A variety of ESPN NBA moves (Woj leaving, Lowe ousted, Shams hired)

* Shams on First Take shows why we didn’t really need Woj anymore

* Why does ESPN value news breaking so much!

* I can now freely say that Brian Windhorst is great

* The friendly fire of an ESPN article attacking ESPN host Kendrick Perkins over his NIL business

* Is Perkins’ business sleazier than SOP for college education loans?

* Will we see more Matthew Sluka situations where players simply quit over NIL issues?

House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe

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When Tim Kawakami and I get together, we’re going to talk sports media. Considering that Tim just recently left the Athletic, where used to be my boss, and joined the ambitious SF Standard, we’ve got much to discuss. Also, for those who like Niners talk, we’ve got a whole lot of it in the back half of this pod. My teaser is that Tim dispels a commonly believed false notion or two. Enjoy!

Nate Jones, NBA agent and footwear entrepreneur at Move Insoles, is here to discuss a shocking corporate ouster at Nike. We get into how Nike modernized at its own expense, lost core customers, and ultimately fired a CEO they were just recently so enamored with. What lessons can be learned from the shoe apparel giant’s issues? What parallels do we see to recent problems at Disney and overall entertainment? Is this what happens when a corporation sacrifices art in pursuit of efficiency?

Oh, and we also discuss why the hell Nike’s not making more of the Caitlin Clark moment. Enjoy..

House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe