Mike Pesca wrote a fine piece for the Free Press on how oddly not controversial the supposedly very controversial Eileen Gu is. She’s from the United States, but competes for China, and yet receives…mostly glowing mainstream American coverage? What’s with that? And beyond Gu, what’s the elite American consensus on China? But before the topics are introduced…

Per the new Substack/Polymarket partnership, I’m posting an Eileen Gu involved competition. As someone incapable of accurately pricing Winter Olympics events, I’m interested in whether bettors reflect Gu’s true odds for winning the Ski Halfpipe. As of this writing, Polymarket has her favored to triumph. Fame halo effect, or accurate probability?

And onto the Pesca pod topics…

* Would we bet that Chuck Klosterman has a secret North Dakota accent?

* Eileen Gu is certainly beautiful, but does she also look a little terrifying?

* Is the lack of elite anger towards China rooted in corporate considerations?

* America is less patriotic now, especially among the young. Bad thing?

* Is the United States the best country?

* Per the Jeremy Carl congressional dustup, is there such a thing as White American culture?

* Stuffwhitepeoplelike was a great website

* Is there such a thing as a “white guy basketball assist”?

* Is it plausible that Spike Lee’s All-Star Game Palestine outfit had nothing to do with Deni Avdija?

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This pod was so hot, so provocative, that our man Ryan Glasspiegel was worried about career consequences. Personally, I believe we were just being reasonable about potentially fraught topics, such as…

* Not everyone loved Ryan’s reporting on the viewership drop during Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance

* Was the bigNBC viewership falloff another “Bud Light” style boycott, or simply lack of American median fan connection with the artist?

* Who SHOULD the halftime show artist be next Super Bowl?

* More people are criticizing Adam Silver these days

* A solution to the NBA All-Star game

* A solution to NBA tanking

* Artists are dropping Casey Wasserman due to Epstein files revelations. But what’s the specific allegation against him?

* I think there’s less to the Epstein story than Ryan thinks

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First of all, congratulations to our SportsPredict Super Bowl winners SFZevi, Nathan Shea and Peter V. I had fun competing against all of you this NFL season, even though I reliably fell short of prize territory.

But before we completely say goodbye to football, I present this look back at the game/season with John Middlekauff, absolute contest BEAST for The Volume network. Of course, we got off topic into issues of interest, as tends to happen. Subjects include!

* How much is Michael MacDonald worth on the open market?

* Why are NFL coaches paid so low relative to impact?

* Why does nepotism work better in the NFL than the NBA?

* Should NBA GMs make more than NBA coaches?

* James Pearce Jr., coming off a 10.5 sack rookie season for the Atlanta Falcons, has been arrested and the details are horrific. How would you assess the pick and process if you’re the new GM of the team?

* NFL media seems happier than NBA media. Why?

* Is the NBA past its peak?

* John’s boss Colin Cowherd famously warned against hiring golfers. Does golf nut Middlekauff still find time to play rounds?

* Can Scottie Scheffler reach a higher echelon of fame?

* Why are pitchers better than hitters at golf?

* Is there a big market to watch non golf athletes compete playing golf?

As I told Chuck Klosterman, I planned to do a pod on his Football book with non sports fan Rob Henderson. So what did our favorite sports agnostic intellectual think of such a deep dive into America’s favorite game?

Topics! Include!

* When one’s job is a bigger marker of identity than one’s race

* Is the NFL a more positive racial story than what gets relayed in media?

* Why did conservative media know football was coming back during Covid?

* Most retired NFL players have painful daily injuries. Most of the injured have no regrets

* How does NFL culture deal with certain positions being higher/lower Wonderlic?

* Libs are fine with young women doing Only Fans; Cons are fine with young NFL players damaging their brains

* Rob Henderson is fascinated by the gender implications of how the WNBA reacted to Caitlin Clark

* Why are NBA teammates rarely friends?

* Rob is interested in why soccer is an elite sport in America but working class sport elsewhere

* Rob and I both loved one particular passage in Klosterman’s book about how his dad reacted to Doug Flutie’s miracle play

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I highly recommend Football, Chuck Klosterman’s latest book. In this podcast, we discuss his trenchant and personal exploration of the sport, along with the following topics…

* Are we primarily writers or podcasters?

* Many believe that young people are correct about the future, but few think they were smarter as young people

* Will opinions change less often now that we are publicly anchored to opinions?

* Would Chuck lie if his privacy was violated to procure damning information?

* Why do we want coaches to be scary assholes?

* Chuck asks me if I scream at my kids

* Why Mike Holmgren screamed at Andy Reid

* The media driven ego battle between Bill Belichick and Tom Brady

* Why television dominates our sports memories for games we saw in person

* Do we want football to stay American?

* Has history forgotten Roger Staubach?

* Chuck has been a closeted Dallas Cowboys fan

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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Great conversation with Mike Pesca in which I, unfortunately, regressed to my old ways of pronouncing Chuck Klosterman’s name incorrectly. This is possibly our most controversial and free associative podcast yet.

* Was Alec Baldwin’s best Trump imitation actually Jack Donaghy?

* “Seinfeld sucks and isn’t funny”?

* Mike disagrees with certain Minnesota ICE takes from my podcast with Kat Rosenfield

* Berkeley made me biased against protestors

* We discuss Brian Phillips’ belief that Trump era chaos is all a devious strategy

* The oddness of initially not knowing whether the 2nd Alex Pretti video was AI

* Should the new Pretti vs. police video have any influence on how one feels about the possibly unrelated deadly encounter 11 days later?

* We aren’t conquering Canada and also, adding Alberta would look so stupid on the map

* Mike weighs in on whether the NFL should All 22 itself

* Most people agree that a man’s morality shouldn’t influence his NFL Hall of Fame case, but nobody will make the Hall of Fame case for serial rapist Darren Sharper

* Is Robert Saleh good or just good at playing the media game?

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Kat Rosenfield has, as she often does, written brilliantly of late. I especially enjoyed her nuanced takes on the Minnesota shootings. We discussed intrusive thoughts on recent political events, millennials seeking meaning, the adultery based cancellation of Jay Asher, and whether James Franco was morally wrong to LARP as a college student so as to pick up college women. A great pod imo.

The House of Strauss SportsPredict playoff contest continues, so make some picks for this weekend. For the championship round, the prize is a $500 DICK’S gift certificate, plus, of course, bragging rights. So join in.

In this episode our friend Tyler Dunne from Go Long is here to discuss NFL. We also get a Glasspiegel cameo at the start of this episode which is, admittedly, HEAVY FOOTBALL. Topics!

* Why was the Sean McDermott firing controversial?

* Why did Ryan Glasspiegel want Matt LeFleur FIRED?

* Are young defensive coaches the next wave?

* Tyler’s take on that whole Jaguars journalism controversy

* Is football great because it’s hidden from us?

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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First, congratulations to Kevin Turner for winning NFL Playoffs Week 1 of our Sports Predict contest. He receives a $250 Ticketmaster prize, and I have it on good authority that there’s more money to be won (by Kevin or whoever) this week. I’d encourage all of you to join for the Divisional Round and beyond, given that the contest is free of charge and it’s a lot of fun.

This podcast was initiated by our man Tom Haberstroh breaking a story on a drastic dive in NBA offense, attributed by many in the league to a sudden secret shift in referee practice. What’s going on with this? Why is it happening?

Many a great topic in this discussion, such as:

* Is Rich Paul correct to lobby for Austin Reaves getting traded?

* Is it close minded to say an out of shape Luka can’t be the best player on a title team?

* Is it crazy to consider dealing Luka instead of Reaves?

* Is Deni Avdija getting unfairly accused of being a foul grifter?

* My dislike of the great (and necessary) Victor Wembanyama

* Is a substation is getting 49ers injured.

Enjoy!

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I spent much of Monday listening to Spike on the WIP livestream as Philly digested the Eagles playoff loss to the 49ers. What I encountered did not necessarily fit Philadelphia’s reputation for brutality but it did validate its stereotype for sports passion. I was spellbound and needed to converse with Mr. Eskin.

In this pod, Spike Eskin and I discuss the Eagles disaster, head coach Nick Sirianni as Tim Robinson character, the media controversy stemming from that nice Jacksonville reporter’s question of Liam Coen, and, of course, LeBron James’ commemorative 23 jersey patch. Enjoy!