[MUSIC FADES IN]
David Greene, Narrating: This is "In Conversation" from Apple News.
I'm David Greene, filling in for Shumita Basu.
Today, why the NFL is more popular than ever.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Whether you're a fan or not, the NFL is everywhere these days.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
[START MONTAGE OF ARCHIVAL CLIPS]
Speaker 1: The NFL continues to set records.
Speaker 2: Everybody is watching NFL football.
Speaker 3: Viewership among teen girls spiked 53%.
Speaker 4: The NFL AFC wildcard game was the most streamed event in U.S. history.
Speaker 5: There was also an increase of about three million viewers
over last weekend.
Speaker 6: NFL ratings dominate Christmas viewership.
Speaker 7: Raiders-Chiefs most watched Christmas Day game since 1989.
Speaker 8: The NFL is literally the Godzilla of entertainment.
[END MONTAGE OF ARCHIVAL CLIPS]
Greene, Narrating: The NFL accounted for 93 of the top 100 U.S. broadcasts last year,
according to Nielsen ratings.
Put another way,
only two other broadcasts broke through the top 50 most popular TV events of 2023.
That would be the State of the Union and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The rest?
All NFL games.
And, you know, this is not where it seemed like the league was headed
just a few years ago, when it was reeling
from controversies around players' health,
also allegations of racism in its hiring practices,
and of course, Colin Kaepernick taking a knee
in protest against police brutality, only to then lose his job.
So, what's happened to cause this NFL boom now?
I mean, it's certainly not the caliber of play.
Pablo Torre: This season, this regular season, was not great as a matter of quality,
as a matter of just, like, how good were the games.
Greene, Narrating: That is the voice there of Pablo Torre.
He's a frequent contributor to "ESPN."
He's also host of the podcast "Pablo Torre Finds Out."
Torre: And so for me, what was so staggering was the way in which the NFL reasserted itself
as the Goliath astride our country.
It was the season to point out,
"Okay, are we really going to be this addicted to football?"
And it turns out we have been more addicted than ever.
Greene, Narrating: Now, there are lots of theories as to why this year was particularly successful
for the NFL.
The league's expansion onto streaming platforms,
the actors' and writers' strikes,
which meant there were, you know, fewer options on television.
And then, of course, there is Taylor Swift and her budding romance
with Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce.
Here is Travis talking with his brother, Jason, on their podcast, "New Heights."
[START NEW HEIGHTS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Jason Kelce: Shoutout to the newest member of the Chiefs' kingdom, Taylor Swift,
who has officially reached the Super Bowl in her rookie year.
That's gotta feel good.
Travis Kelce: [LAUGHS] Shoutout to Tay.
[JASON KELCE LAUGHING]
Thanks for joining the team.
[JASON KELCE LAUGHING]
[END NEW HEIGHTS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Greene, Narrating: So, according to "The New York Times,"
in games that typically run three hours long,
Taylor has been on screen for, get this, an average of less than 25 seconds.
So, I wanted to start with Pablo by asking him
why so many of us are rooting for Red, Taylor's Version.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Torre: It's like we're watching an extremely on-the-nose romantic comedy
where the meet cute is
the most popular pop cultural figure meets the most popular sport
and they fall in love.
And so, everybody now,
you get dared not to watch or at least pay attention to it…
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: …even if it's just via scraps of gossip and tabloid stuff,
as opposed to the actual games.
Greene: The Taylor stuff is so fairytale.
It's like, that's why I think it's hard to believe.
Like, I watched Travis Kelce and Taylor on the field after the Chiefs won
that AFC championship game, and it is impossible to watch them
and think that this is anything but authentic.
You just can't fake that.
And yet, this is all too perfect for, like, the business and the NFL.
It just-- it's mind-boggling.
Torre: Yeah, Travis Kelce is America's prom king.
Greene: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
Torre: That's where we are now.
And, and, and you're right. Dude, the moment when she shows up on the field,
let's be clear for people who haven't been watching the saga unfold.
Greene: Right.
Torre: That was a big moment. [LAUGHS]
We started with are they just-- Is it an op?
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: Is this a false flag operation?
You know, two algorithms getting together for profit.
And we've gone now to that scene, the scene we all know from the movie.
It's just so, again, it's just on the nose in the sense of, of course,
of course, it would go this way.
And, of course, we would be talking about it in ways that are…
[CHUCKLES] in ways that are a little like, "Is it sad that we care about this?"
And then I'm reminded of, at a certain point,
the spectacle becomes so large that it becomes interesting
just because of its size.
Greene: Yes, well put.
It's like, you can't ignore it, even if you're gonna… it's meta.
Like, even if you're gonna criticize it and be angry about it,
it's like, the thing that's making you angry
is the thing that makes you wanna watch it more, [LAUGHING]
which is the, which is the craziness of it.
Torre: And it's the thing that does not happen anymore.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: Which is that here is the big, big thing
in a world where I'm watching a show you've never heard of, right?
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: All the time.
Here is the one thing that you've heard of.
You've heard of this.
Greene: Right.
Torre: And that's just on its own, like, self-justifying in a…
again, in a mildly dystopian way, I will admit.
Greene: Well, you know, I want to be really careful about how
we analyze the whole Taylor Swift effect,
because there have been some descriptions of this that I have hated.
Like, "Oh, Taylor gave so many women an on-ramp to be NFL fans."
Like, this is coming from someone who, like, my mom, before she died,
taught me to love football, taught me about football,
taught me to be a Steelers fan, like, all of it.
So, she would hate that, despise that sort of message.
And I don't think that's what's going on.
Torre: Yeah.
Greene: It's much more nuanced and, and complicated
and much more respectful of this sort of new group of fans coming in.
But how, how do you see this?
Torre: I see it as a question of power.
And by the way, shoutout to your, your late mother,
who taught you that a Terrible Towel does not need to be retconned
into some story about, like, you know,
the pop star who taught us to wave our fandom freely, right?
Greene: Yeah.
Just so people know, the Terrible Towel is, like,
literally the foundation of being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
It is a towel that we wave at every game.
Torre: Yes, yes.
And so for me, what this story is, is about a power dynamic,
which is to say, like, how does this person who
in every single room is the biggest thing
end up feeling like someone who has to respect the folkways
and the norms and the tribalism of Terrible Towels?
And I was watching her on the field meet Travis Kelce,
and you just see her moving through that
as if she's not the sun of the solar system.
Of course, there are cameras.
Of course, there is attention.
But it's not like every camera is tracking her.
They're watching Travis Kelce.
They're watching Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes,
and it just never happens that way.
And so, is there some mutual genuflecting at each other's altars, right?
The NFL on one side and Taylor Swift on the other.
I think there is this understanding that there is a hugeness here.
There is a, a Venn diagram here that sure, now there's overlap,
but there were so many women [LAUGHS]
who were watching this game before Taylor Swift showed up.
And so, let's not oversimplify it, to your point.
Greene: Yeah.
Well, it's-- it is shocking
what a great year this has been for the NFL,
particularly if we think about some of the, the controversies
and real problems in terms of image, in terms of behavior,
in terms of the physical toll that this game takes on players.
And I kind of want to talk about how they've overcome all of that,
and, and I don't know if we can have that conversation
without bringing up CTE first.
I mean, this is the, this is the brain injury
that a lot of NFL players, probably current players,
but certainly former players suffer from,
from all of the hits they took in the league.
There was one study from Boston University.
Researchers diagnosed 91.7% of former NFL players in their study
with CTE, which is just an astounding number.
Torre: Yes.
Greene: I mean, how can a league that is so punishing
and so life-threatening to people who play it
also be something that we're, we're celebrating?
Torre: It's the point.
You know, violence is the thrill undergirding all of this.
The reason the NFL matters,
and we could talk about the programming strategy
and the idea of we're going to claim a day of the week,
Sundays and then also Monday nights and then Thursday nights now,
like for all the Risk-board-ization that Roger Goodell has done
with taking over American television and media.
Greene: The commissioner, yeah.
Torre: The fundamental product is violence,
and it's that life or death, literally, everything matters here.
Football has always been more like war than any other sport.
George Carlin remarked upon this, right?
The vocabulary of, like, how to make your way down a field,
it borrows the vocabulary of military generals
in a way that other sports do not.
And the CTE question is not a question anymore.
It's happening.
And so, I think what we've seen is just a clear proof
that Americans value entertainment.
They value entertainment even at the cost
of the well-being of the participants of that entertainment.
Greene: Right. Right.
Torre: In that way, it's a reality television show
in which the stakes are not just humiliation,
but cognitive health.
And then also, I think, to be maybe more generous
to football fans like myself, still how do we justify it?
It's because we assume now that the participants know the risks.
Greene: Yes.
It's all out there.
Torre: And so, if you're an adult who chooses to do this,
it reminds me of boxing, you know. Like, do we want to outlaw boxing?
Boxing is literally professional, legalized, sanctioned,
consensual concussions.
And my view on boxing has always been, if you know what you are in for,
you know the risks, you've seen the studies,
the doctors are not lying to you, which was not always the case, by the way,
with boxing and certainly not with the NFL.
But now, because there has been
so much reporting, investigative journalism,
forcing the hand of the NFL to admit that this is real--
And they could do more and more of that admitting and disclosure,
I will also point out.
Now, you're like, okay, they see the costs and they see the benefits,
and they've made that choice.
And so now, the gladiator metaphor is not just flowery language.
It's, oh, this is part of why this is thrilling,
is, is the mortality of the people involved.
Greene: You know, I think that's a really good point.
I think you're touching on why I, as a fan,
continue to be okay being such a diehard fan despite this,
because I think now it's not hidden.
It's out there.
Players are making a choice to play.
And they know the risks,
and somehow that gives me some element of peace as a fan,
but it's, it's still hard.
I think the thing that, the thing I think about is kids
and what a lot of parents are now going through
when they have seven-, eight-, nine-year-olds who are diehard fans.
I have a nephew who is like, you know, is dreaming about being an NFL cornerback,
and he's probably going to be a great one if he, if he decides to go that route.
But, but his parents are like,
"Can we pick another sport that doesn't, you know,
so clearly put you and your brain at risk and alter your life?"
Torre: Yeah.
I mean, there are, there are characters, right,
the toughest men in this game throughout history,
who say, "I don't want my kids to play it."
Greene: Right.
Torre: And simultaneously, "The New York Times" did excellent reporting into this as well,
there are the parents
of now incredibly tragically deceased young people
who had CTE found in their brains posthumously,
and they even still today with their siblings say,
"We want them to keep playing."
And so, look, the calculus for all of us varies for all these reasons,
but the, the thing the NFL is going to have to grapple with
as the science on this becomes that much more clear
and that much more intimidating is just
what does that do to our pipeline of prospects?
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: Because I'll, I'll refer to boxing.
Boxing is the sport of the desperate, right?
Like, suburban kids don't become boxers, man.
And that's for the obvious reasons of its consensual concussions.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: And so, in the NFL, you dress that up with everything,
Taylor Swift down to just the glory of a high school field.
And I think you have to make a choice as to, "What am I signing up for here?"
And therefore, you know, I think about if you have a relative exodus
of suburban, well-off kids who choose to do other things,
I think that changes just the demographics of the game.
It points it in a way that's even more troubling…
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: …certainly, of like, okay, so the socioeconomically disadvantaged,
racially, what does that look like in that overlap with socioeconomics?
And then for the NFL, and we've seen this already,
you know this as a fan of the game,
how do we protect the most valued among them,
which is the quarterback?
And so, we're, we're seeing these rules that are protecting the quarterback,
protecting offense, protecting entertainment.
Because if you end up being a league where every quarterback is sounding,
on the back end of their career, like, like a boxer,
because of the cognitive decline, because they're slurring their words,
because of all of these things,
well, now the commercial for the game becomes bleak.
Greene: But getting back to some of your, your questions
about race and, and class
and suburban kids not wanting to play because of the, of the risk,
I mean, how do we grapple with the potential for this being
a real, a real race-class problem?
Torre: Well, the good news for the NFL is that it has largely been this way already.
And it's been not a thing that has stopped people from loving the game.
Those breakdowns exist already in terms of the-- just the percentages.
In 2022, at least 56% of the NFL was Black.
And so, in that, of course, there is always an array
of, of troubling questions about power dynamics, right?
Of what does it mean to have almost entirely white leadership
steering a Black population?
How does that overlap with the ways that these athletes are, in fact,
already desperate to make it out of their station growing up?
And sports happens to be both an incredible way
to shoots-and-ladders your way towards a better life,
towards an American dream
and also this incredibly misleading sales pitch…
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: …that you can be them.
And statistically, of course, that is not the case.
Greene: Not at all.
Torre: And so, what happens to all those players who tried and failed,
put their eggs in that basket,
because they, they bought into a, essentially, a lie
that they can be one of these players.
And so, the, the knock-on effects, the negative externalities,
the unintended consequences of what it is to be the most powerful, popular sport,
it does require an uncomfortable bit of introspection
and sociological self-awareness…
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: …because this is a microcosm of, of labor and race in America.
Greene: Well, and adding to that, I mean, you have a…
you have a really respected former coach, Brian Flores,
who files this lawsuit against the NFL, you know, basically saying
there is systemic racism in hiring practices,
particularly hiring practices when it comes to coaches,
which, of course, fuels the narrative that you were talking about,
that we have, you know, largely white owners
and coaches who are leading, you know, athletes of color
into battle in a sport that is deadly.
Um, I mean, it's-- These sound like things the NFL's got to confront.
Torre: They gotta confront it on every level of, I would even say, moral obligation.
And it's something that they absolutely do not have
to confront on the level of economic pressure.
It just feels like we're at a point that for all of the Sturm und Drang
of people pointing out these inequalities, that the popularity of the game is
in its own way self-justifying, right?
Like, I think about the NFL, um, posts, certainly--
I mean, Colin Kaepernick, right?
There are all of these examples of a-- In that case, a Black quarterback
who persuasively claims to have been blackballed
because of protesting the national anthem.
Greene: Right.
Torre: Right?
Um, into how does the NFL then deal with 2020? Right?
This year of "hashtag racial reckoning."
They literally will paint "end racism" in the end zone.
Um, they'll put logos on helmets.
Greene: But, but blackball Colin Kaepernick.
I mean, according to him, of course. So, yeah.
Torre: Yes.
And also, have, have an ownership class that is devoid of representation
of the people whose bodies as we've pointed out quite clearly,
are the grist for this mill.
And so, in those ways, um, the NFL certainly pays lip service,
but those actual structural inequities are, are overwhelmingly
and undeniably still real.
Greene: Let me ask you about another, another aspect of what the NFL
has been going through in its evolution.
This speaks not just to the NFL, but to sports in general.
I mean, there was a time not so long ago when you wanted
to separate gambling from the sports and teams themselves.
And it feels like somehow we have arrived at a point where the NFL
and other leagues are not just accepting, but embracing gambling
as part of the culture, as a way to build the brand.
What happened and, and is this okay?
Torre: There's a great quote from the former head of "NBC Sports,"
the legend Don Ohlmeyer.
And the quote is simple.
"The answer to all of your questions is money."
[GREENE LAUGHING]
And, and in that way…
Greene: It doesn't feel that profound, but so… it's so true.
Torre: But so true.
And so with gambling, it was,
"Hey, do you guys want to add another bit
of plutonium to this power plant you're building?
Do you want to unlock all of the revenue that lies inside of now the legalization
in many states now of sports betting?"
And so the NFL is in this position of,
and sports broadly are in this position of
this used to be verboten.
It was the one thing.
It was heresy.
And now, you have ads everywhere!
Just sanctioned official sports betting partners,
and all of that is not something
that I approach with a moralizing hectoring, "How dare you,"
but more with the… with the chuckle of what it used to be like.
And so the NFL now is just in this position of like,
"Okay, what do we do? How do we square the circle?"
Well, the thing they really fear is this accusation,
not that people are going to gamble too much,
but that the players themselves will be compromised
or be tempted to be compromised by the money they could win
if they were to throw a game, affect the outcome of something, you know.
Greene: Right.
Which has happened over the years of sports,
but, like, not as much as I would expect.
But it's definitely been a problem when it happens.
Torre: Correct.
And it feels like the integrity of the game in that way is a real,
actual mortal sin still.
So, what the NFL does is they over-punish these players who happen
to be making bets on things that are not even affecting
the games they play in.
But if you walk into a facility in the NFL and you make a bet on something else,
that is a punishable, um, offense.
And so they're just doing this scared straight program
with players where it's like they're trying
to get them to stop gambling
at the same time they're telling everybody else to gamble
because that's the thing now they're going to protect amid all of the change is just
let's not have the games themselves be called into question
because by the way,
the integrity of the games is also the business of gambling. [LAUGHS]
Greene: Right. Right.
Torre: And so, again,
it goes to the money you can make if these things are still fair experiments
of, of chance and skill.
Greene: Well, I--
I want to look back, um, even further into-- into history
because you're actually, you're doing one of your episodes
of your podcast on the first Super Bowl
which, I mean, I've been an NFL fan all my life,
and I did not fully realize what an absolutely wild mess
of a game that was.
I mean, tell me what got you interested and, and, uh…
you know, give us a bit of a window.
Torre: Yeah, so we're obsessed with firsts in this country
and certainly in sports.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: And it just occurred to me that I know nothing
about Super Bowl I.
Greene: Right? I didn't either.
Like, yeah, I'm glad you-- I'm glad you're illuminating.
Torre: Yeah, like, where did it all start?
Like, this is the number one event culturally in America now.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: It's the biggest thing in terms of money and influence
and all the things we've been talking about.
And it started, of course, in almost the exact opposite place.
And so for people who don't realize this, remember this, um,
the NFL was not always the NFL.
The NFL was once a startup with a competitor,
and its competitor was the AFL.
The American Football League and the AFL was this threat.
It was the younger league.
It was speed and passing and it was actually more welcoming
of Black players relative to the NFL, which is more conservative,
um, despite it being relative to now still quite young.
And so,
what happened was, there was an agreed to merger.
The AFL and the NFL were going to finally merge in 1970.
But before then, they were going to start playing these games
that would decide which league was better.
Greene: Right.
Torre: And so the first Super Bowl was in January 1967.
And it was… It was a joke.
Greene: Wasn't there a halftime show, like, some debacle
with a jetpack at the first Super Bowl? What…
Torre: Yes.
Yes. Yes.
There were hydrogen peroxide fuel jetpacks,
which was the entertainment.
Greene: Right.
Torre: The third quarter. right?
So, the kickoff then, um, they had to redo it
because the cameras missed it, because it got botched.
So literally the game started and they were like, hold on,
we got to do this over. It's just like, this is,
it's Bad News Bears stuff.
And it's this thing where people…
It's just funny on so many different levels
to go back and revisit it.
And one of the levels that's funny about it is,
the tape of it was lost to the sands of time.
Greene: Yeah, okay, that part shocks me.
How, how did, how did they lose the footage of the first Super Bowl ever?
Torre: So, it's even more bizarre than that because the NFL had to deal with CBS,
the AFL had to deal with NBC.
This was simulcast on two networks.
Greene: Huh.
Torre: Which has not happened. [LAUGHS]
Greene: Right.
Torre: It was a wild thing in terms of just broadcasting.
And yet, because it was 1967, and because at that point,
people were not quite so concerned with posterity, over time, literally,
like, the tapes got taped over.
Greene: [LAUGHS] Like the old days of us, like, accidentally taping over a movie
that we really wanted to hold on to.
Torre: Yes. You taped over the finale of M*A*S*H with your kid's piano recital.
Greene: Yeah, exactly. [LAUGHS]
Torre: This literally happened to now the biggest media conglomerate
in the world or in America.
Greene: That's crazy.
Torre: And so, it just was this mystery of, like, "Well, where can we watch it now?"
Um, it turned out that a guy named Troy…
[BOTH LAUGHING]
in his own actual house, like, his dad had taped it.
Greene: Wait, are you kidding me?
Torre: A guy named Troy, yes, is a key character in this
because he-- He's from Shamokin, Pennsylvania,
in his attic is a tape.
It's a two-inch tape, which tells you how old it is.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: And Troy calls the NFL and is like, "I have your tape.
I have the Ark of the Covenant when it comes to sports broadcasting."
Greene: "I've saved the Super Bowl."
Torre: Yes, "I am the one who has provided you with your history.
I've returned it to you.
Let's work out a deal."
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: Right? Like, "What do I get?"
Greene: Good job, Troy, yeah.
Torre: And the NFL, um, offers him exactly $30,000.
And it's just like, hold on. [LAUGHS]
I bring you this tape, all I get is 30K?
Greene: For the only, the only known footage of the first ever Super Bowl,
that's what they're offering?
If I'm Troy, I hope he didn't turn it over.
Torre: Oh, I mean, the story goes on, but Troy, there's a legal drama
that he pursues, there's litigation, and the tape ends up
at the Paley Center in New York, a museum of media.
Without spoiling too much, the only way to see it
is if Troy grants individual permission to those who seek it.
You have to, like, go visit at his altar and beseech him for access.
Greene: I love that.
I can't wait to listen to your episode.
Um, well, let's talk about the king of everything
that the Super Bowl is today.
I'm going to acknowledge two things to you
before I ask you about this Super Bowl.
One, my wife's whole family is from Detroit,
and I am devastated that the Lions are not there.
I'm thrilled for 49ers fans.
I think that the story of Brock Purdy and all the criticism he gets
as a quarterback, the chance to win a championship is huge.
I'm also going to admit this is the ugly side of me.
As a lifelong Steelers fan, it brings me tremendous joy
that the Ravens will not be enjoying this Super Bowl Sunday
and playing in this game.
Watching their pain, watching the pain of Baltimore fans persist
at feeling left out, it's just a beautiful thing. Um…
And we're gonna have more Travis-Taylor
and Patrick Mahomes maybe being one of the greatest quarterbacks of…
of all time before our eyes.
Okay, now. But, but I'm here to ask you what you think.
[LAUGHS] Those are my-- those are my first thoughts.
Torre: No! My, my, my first thought is that the NFL is getting exactly what it wanted.
Greene: Yeah.
Torre: Which is to say the biggest name characters,
all converging the most obvious storylines
getting to be chewed on.
It's just a story of Goliath to me,
which is fitting, I guess, for our conversation,
which is that the Kansas City Chiefs are now
the team that you must default to picking
from here on out to just be in this game, if not to win it outright.
They've been in four of the last five.
Patrick Mahomes, to your characterization,
is fairly labeled
the most talented quarterback anyone has ever seen,
even if he hasn't won as much as Tom Brady just yet.
Travis Kelce, America's prom king, we now know him very well.
Andy Reid, this coach who has somehow gone
from a guy who people laughed at when he was with the Eagles to now just,
again, the guy who is piloting this monster against
the San Francisco 49ers, who, to me, the Brock Purdy story.
If you don't know him, he was the last pick
in the NFL draft in 2022. He was Mr. Irrelevant.
That's what we call him. The last guy to get drafted.
Literally the last guy.
And here he is stepping into this mech suit
that is the 49ers offense and just like wrecking cities.
He's been really, really impressive.
And so it's a story about excess.
It's a story about underdogs.
It's a story about Goliaths who can feel a little bit like David.
Greene: Oh, I love that. That's very poetic.
And I think that-- that feels right.
Torre: So, it's going to be great.
I mean, I say all this with all the-- I'm glad I've got the moral caveats aside
because what this is going to be is a-- is a heavyweight title fight
between the two best teams in the sport.
That's where we wound up after all the mediocrity
and the slog and the ethical conundrums is now we're going
to get to watch best versus second best.
And just to kind of come full circle,
Greene: I mean, you say the NFL is getting everything they wanted.
Do you think, have they made really shrewd decisions
to come through some of these controversies and, you know,
moral caveats as we said or is it more about just
what football is, what role it plays in our culture
that makes it seemingly impervious somehow to problems?
Torre: Yeah, there's an episode of "The Simpsons"
that's not about football but baseball.
And in that episode of "The Simpsons,"
cartoon Mark McGwire asks an assembled crowd,
"Do you want to know the horrible truth or do you want to see some dingers?"
[GREENE LAUGHS]
And everyone yells, "Dingers!"
And so too is it with the entertainment of the NFL.
Like, it's not clever what they've done in any way
to mask and to address and to react
to the criticisms of their business on this ethical and moral hazard level.
It's simply that the product is so compelling.
And when the game is so good, [LAUGHS]
when the game is so good, you don't have to do a lot
of strategizing on how to sell it.
It kind of sells itself.
And I think we're probably a little naïve as to the ways
in which the thing we're hiding is actually the reason why we like it.
And that's the conundrum all of us sort of reckon with
when we sit down on our couch on a Sunday.
Greene: Say that again. I think that's really important.
The thing-- The thing we're hiding is…
Torre: Is the thing that draws us to it.
Greene: What-- say more.
Torre: It's the thrill of danger.
As much as you want to say we should make the game safer,
we just, we should legislate
out of existence all of these medical issues.
The medical issues are the reason why this game has the drama,
has the stakes, has this ability to make us not want to look away.
There was a great study on this.
How much action is there really in an NFL game?
There's like less than 15 minutes.
You compress it all into just like stuff happening on a field.
But every second of those scarce minutes of action
are honestly fraught with consequence and also conflict and also danger.
And that's why we keep on having to watch all of it.
Greene: Yeah, I think it's the violence and that level, but it's also for me,
and I'm sure you have your own version of this,
like, it's the… my fandom is a connection.
It's a connection to my late mom.
You know, we watched games together and, you know, shared terrible towels
and wore jerseys.
And it was so central to our relationship.
And that's something I want to hold on to and my city.
Torre: Yes.
Greene: It's, like, I love Pittsburgh so much.
I left years ago, but, like, that is, that is home.
And, like, every time I'm watching a Steelers game on TV or in person,
I feel like I have my community around me.
We all sort of have this shared experience and history.
We all sort of vibe in the same way.
It's a love and respect for everything that Pittsburgh has been through.
It's so deep for me.
Torre: Yeah, and I should say that in some ways, the NFL is a throwback.
Like in this era of individualism, social media,
where we want characters, right?
We want reality television-style protagonists
to show us themselves, not just their face,
but their shames and their humiliations.
The NFL is a sport where people wear helmets
and you don't really get to see faces.
And when you talk to fans who've loved this generationally,
who've inherited it like an heirloom
from their parents and their ancestors now,
it's because there is a tribalism around this team.
It's that collective.
And so I don't want to understate, it's a great point you brought up,
I don't want to understate the collective aspect of the NFL.
It's about the team and the city even more than the individuals
that we love.
And the team is the thing inside of which all of these moral conundrums,
these guilty pleasures are housed because, you're right!
Because we enjoyed those pleasures and those conundrums with others,
especially the people we loved the most.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Greene: Pablo, this has been a great time.
It was important to sort of grapple with this stuff as we then go
and just spend a day watching a great football game.
Torre: It's the American way. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Greene, Narrating: You can listen to "Pablo Torre Finds Out" on Apple Podcasts
and we'll include a link for you on our show notes page.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]