Hey everybody, it’s that time again. That’s right. Fred and the Fantastics on BLEAV and on PodClips, anything and everything in sports, and a whole lot more. With Art Sorce, Laura Snoke, our sports historian Matthew DiBiase, there is so much to talk about. Let’s start with what happened on Thursday. Folks, we’re taping this Friday afternoon, so let’s talk about yesterday. There were five basketball games and three NFL games streaming, and the radio guy that I heard later on said that the basketball games meant more than the football games. I totally 100% disagree. Art. You played football and you played basketball, too. But I don’t think the NBA games, 30 games into an 82-game season mean as much as the NFL Games, even though only two of the six teams who played on Thursday are going to the playoffs, take it away.

I kind of feel bad for the NFL because they used to have this deal where they could actually shift games and teams. They’d schedule them a little differently, but Netflix? Here’s what I feel bad about, honestly, God, and I have to say this. If you’re an average family, four kids struggling to get by, we’ll talk affordability, whatever you want to call it, do you really have the means to pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime? Or are you shut out from football on Christmas Day completely? At least one game they could have thrown on regular TV just to placate us masses. That’s my thought, anyway,

Art. I listened to the first two games on radio and watched the third game because they do have Amazon Prime, but I didn’t watch one minute of the NBA. Laura, three streaming games on the NFL and five non-streaming games on the NBA, which, I know, you watched a little bit of the NBA and you also watched the football. But what games do you think, in your mind, were more important? As far as the regular season and the playoffs in those two leagues are concerned?

Well, I mean, I think the football games are more important because it’s at the end of the season and there’s only 17 games in the regular season. And those of us who love football, I mean, there’s so few games. Basketball is just getting started; we’re going to have plenty of time to watch basketball. But I agree with Art. I mean, I just, you know, I read somewhere that 90 percent of the of this consumer spending is being done by a third of the country now. And it’s just not sustainable. I mean, we can’t sustain an economy based on the top 1 percent. It’s just not sustainable and that seems to be where we’re going. And I mean, I’m privileged, I’m a lawyer, I mean, I made, I made good investment decisions and I was able to retire comfortably. And I do have Netflix and Amazon Prime. But I recognize that that’s not necessarily what everybody else can afford, and they should. Everybody should be able to watch the NFL. I know it shouldn’t be dependent on having to spend what I don’t even know what Netflix is now. It’s like close to 80 dollars.

Without it, without ads or with ads, it changes.

Yeah,

I mean, prices are just going up, yeah, but this is the future,

You still get ads even if you have the no-ad feature.

Because, like, we’ve, like, we’ve talked about, this is the future you’re going to. You’re going to be paying for everything at a certain point in time.

Yeah, I want to know. What were the ratings for the streaming NFL games? Was it high enough that would justify the continuation? Because if it is, you’re going to see more of this because you see they’re paving the way. I think sooner or later, the playoffs and the Super Bowl, the only way you can do it is either through pay or streaming.

And here’s the sneaky part of that. It’s the international audience that’s going to make the huge difference. That’s another reason why they’re doing it, Fred.

I know, I know, you know.

Again, the ratings are important. But to Netflix, it’s how many folks that they got who don’t drop, because I guess you have seven days to drop. We’ll see how many people stick with Netflix for more than 20 bucks a month,

Or forget.

With ads. So it was for me. But again, we grew up Art, you and Laura, you, we all grew up. Everything was blacked out, most of the games were blacked out. We listened to the games on radio. Is that so horrible, Art Sorce?

I love I love great football on radio, I even enjoy an Eagles Games because I like, listen to the Eagles announcer. He’s been doing the games. Yeah, thirty-five, 40 years, I mean. And you know, I used to love my favorite all time announce team as a kid growing up was, was Dick Henberg and then, and Dick Bass and them doing KMPC broadcasts of the game, I would turn down the network game and put the radio on and it wasn’t as big. The other thing that streaming has, Fred, is there’s a huge difference. It’s almost a five minute delay. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed that, but,

That’s right! I was wondering that because I looked at my phone, I got a phone call and it said it was the, it was the Vikings game and it was 13. The Vikings had scored a touchdown, I guess, and I didn’t see it on the TV, and I thought to myself, Did I miss something? You know, of course, did I miss something? What?

Yeah,

That’s exactly right. There’s a delay on streaming.

Yeah, but we’re living in a world where they’re going to make it, they’re forcing you to pay through the nose for the most mundane things like, don’t laugh, on New Year’s Day. I’m going to be booking flight tickets for my vacation to Arizona in April, the first time I’ve been flying since 2019. I have not booked my tickets in seven years. And, oh man, they’re taking it out of you for this and for that and the other things. I mean, it’s insane.

You might as well just pack an overnight bag and buy everything you need there. But there you go. That’s going to be expensive too.

It’s the first time I’ve been flying since 2019.

And what if you have golf clubs you want to bring with you? They want to charge you, like $300 for that?

But still, I mean, it’s insane, you know, I’m not looking forward to it, you know, in April, you know,

Nickel and diming everybody along,

I know, and they’re just taking. It’s everything, and not just sports, it’s all of life. You know, all this little extra here, they’re taking it from you. And that’s the thing about the pleasing the one percent of the world and all that. It’s just it’s literally a different class. We’re just here to serve the upper crust and all that.

No, it’s almost like it’s sort of a new economy. Because, you know, in the old oligarch economy, you would have the oligarchs making tons of money and then they would prop up the dictator. But now we’ve got the oligarchs actually getting into the government. So, like with Elon Musk, I mean, Elon Musk got five, some billion dollars in defense contracts, and now he’s, now he’s, Trump is going to give him seven hundred and fifty acres of federal wilderness where there’s protected species to build his SpaceX launching pad. Or whatever he’s going to do, he’s just going to give it to him. He’s not even going to have to pay for it.

Laura. Do you remember the movie, a James Caan movie, Rollerball? Do you remember that?

Sure.

Remember the premise? There are no countries anymore, just total corporate monopolization of all vital resources. Houston had,

Multinational corporations.

Right, right. Houston had all the oil. Geneva had all the banking, Tokyo had all IT, and in other words, it was represented by a city and there’s no money anymore. And the higher up you are in a corporate food chain, the greater your privileges. Even women were traded as a commodity. You know, remember Jonathan? He loves his wife because the higher up fancied her and he took her away from her and all that.

You got to look at it from another perspective, guys, all right, if you spend one hundred and fifty million dollars for a three hundred thousand dollar gubernatorial job, does that tell you things are a little out of whack?

Yeah, yeah. It’s corporate fascism.

I mean,

There’s got to be an insider, you know,

It’s just, it’s,

And I think once we take a lot of the money out of politics,

Literally, corporate fascism,

If we could ever take the money out of politics. We’d have a better world.

It’s getting worse. You know, in Europe,

Yeah. And we’re talking about federal taxation, what about corporate taxation? because who’s regulating corporate taxation?

They’re financed by public funds, they don’t have private contributions. So private people can’t contribute to political campaigns, which is what it should be. It should be may the best person win and not made the person that has the most money win.

I agree,

All right. We’re going to take a quick break here on Fred and the Fantastics and come back with more right after this.

It’s that time again. We took a quick break on Fred and the Fantastics with Laura, with Art, with our sports historian, Matthew DiBiase. And there is so much to talk about. But Art, you were a former professional golfer. What do you think about Koepka retiring, apparently? He’s not that old, why would he retire? He said he wanted to go back with his family?

Brooks Koepka from the LIV Tour?

Yeah. Why?

Yeah, well, you know. He says his wife had a had a little problem with her last pregnancy, a miscarriage. And I think he’s, he’s basically he’s got a lot of injuries that he wants to, to address. And the way the rule is set up, he has to sit out from August, when the when the actual LIV tour ended, and he could still play on the DP World Tour and some other events. He’d get himself ready because he’s eligible for the four majors the Masters, the British Open, the PGA and the Open. But, you know, I just think he got to a certain point and he thought maybe he’d lay back. The other one is Mito Pereira, who’s also on the LIV. A 30-year-old from, from Chile, great player, almost won the PGA Championship three years ago at age 30, was relegated on the LIV Tour. And he decided to hang ’em up. There’s so much money in professional golf right now, Fred, I think you’re going to see a lot more of this, OK? Because, I mean, if you can have five great weeks, you could probably set yourself up, you know, with the way they’re paying now, a million, two million, three million dollar tournaments to basically say, Hey, you know, I’m done. I want to spend time with my family, and you know, I can’t ever, I can’t ever go against that because, you know, that’s an individual’s choice. And Brooks has made a lot of money in his career. But it was surprising to me, Fred.

I thought he was going to go try to get back into the PGA Tour.

Eventually, I think that’s the plan. But he has to wait until August 24th, which was one year after the last LIV tournament he played in.

Based on the law. Laura Snoke. All right.

Based on the contract he signed,

And he also got 200 million dollars over the last four years, so, h

He’s OK.

I know I’m going to retire on.

You can email us at [email protected], [email protected]. We’ve got eight teams, college clubs left in the playoffs, no Notre Dame and no USC, of course, and Art, I think the best game, just, just on a gut feeling, Oregon versus Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl. I think Oregon’s a slight favorite right now. Folks, we’re taping this Friday afternoon. Do you have a thought on that game?

I just think Oregon has so much speed and I just I have a funny feeling Oregon is a sleepy team. I love Texas Tech, I love their middle linebacker, I think he’s done great, I think Joey McGuire’s done great with the Red Raiders. There’s another game that I really like as well. I think, I think Miami is getting far too little respect against Ohio State. The Miami team that I saw step up against Texas A&M last week showed me a lot of, a lot of vim and vigor. And I think that’s going to be a good game. I think Georgia-Ole Miss is another great game. So I like the four teams that are playing in the major Bowls, which are the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Rose Bowl. But, i think you’re right, Fred. I think that that Orange Bowl is something special, and I mean, because it’ll be one heck of a football game. I’m excited for the playoffs, I really am.

Matthew DiBiase, do you have any thoughts about the eight schools that are left?

Yeah, I’m a little bit confused. I mean, why is Number 10 Miami playing against Number Two Ohio State? I thought they would play Number One Indiana in terms of seeding?

No, because they don’t change afterwards and they beat Number Seven.

Oh, okay.

They took their slot.

I think Georgia’s going to beat Ole Miss because Ole Miss lost a lot of guys in that Tulane game. They were dropping like flies. They’re going to go, they’re kind of,

I’m going to tell you, defense always travels well.

Yeah, yeah.

So I figured I’m going with Georgia. I’m focusing on the Indiana-Alabama game because I was watching that thing against Oklahoma and I was rooting for Oklahoma, but hey, Alabama came back. I think they got a burr because people were questioning whether they had a right to be there. That could be a psychological spur. So that’s going to be interesting to see when Alabama,

When was the last time Alabama was like the underdog in football? I love that.

Yeah, yeah,

Let’s go back to,

Not too often.

Yeah, yeah,

Let’s go back to the Oregon-Texas Tech game. Dante Moore, of course, started at UCLA, Chip Kelly and him didn’t get along, so he jumps up to Oregon. He’s got another year of eligibility. A lot of people think if he plays well in this playoff situation, he may go ahead of anybody that we’re talking about going into the playoffs. I think he’s awfully talented. Art. Where would you rate Dante Moore off of this season or last year with the Oregon Ducks?

Well, I mean, I really like him. I also think he’s got a bevy of talent around him that makes him look maybe a little better than he might be. I’m a huge Mendoza fan from, from Indiana. I watched him when he played for Cal the year that he had. Tell you, I like Dante Moore, though. I think he can do everything. It just comes down to can he translate that into an NFL type quarterback? That’s the hard part now, because you sit in that, you know, in that, in that pistol offense, with a back next to you. Then you go to the NFL and you have to take steps under center, you have to do a lot of different things and you know, that takes a little time. It’s like nobody thought Shedeur Sanders would wind up probably being the best rookie quarterback in the, in the in the league this year. They didn’t draft him until like the fifth or sixth round, but he’s actually come on and then led Cleveland to some, some decent finishes. So, you know, you just you have to almost project. And I think a lot of these NFL teams rush their guys, they want them to get in there and it’d be really good. In the old days, even with Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre, Then you sat around for a couple, two, three years learning the game, then you got in there and did your thing. Now it’s coaches don’t get five years. They get two years, one year to make it happen, and I think it ruins a lot of young quarterbacks. I don’t know what you guys think, but that’s my theory.

I know, I agree with you, but let’s, let’s just switch the subject for this. So the big game this Sunday in the National Football League, of course, the New York Giants at the Las Vegas Raiders,

The Number One pick?

Both fighting for that Number One pick,

The O.J. Bowl. The O.J. Bowl.

Art, who do you, no, let’s go to Laura in this one. Laura’s the big Raider fan. Who do you like in this big one?

I just hope the Raiders lose.

You know what? They’re going to, they’re going to crush you. They’re going to wind up winning the game because Pete Carroll loves to win, and look how they played last week, last week against Houston, they played the best game they played all year.

What’s the betting line? Remember Pete Carroll managed to beat the spread in that Thursday night game? I wonder what the betting line is? What the spread is?

He got the phone call: Kick the field goal. We need it.

Yeah, yeah, the over/under. What’s the spread?

There’s an envelope waiting for you at the Westgate.

I think Vegas, as we tape this on Friday, is a one-point favorite, Art?

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

I think the Raiders are a one-point favorite in that one. But, again, you know, a question, I’m listening to WFAN this morning, and they think that this could, after one year, he could be out, Pete Carroll in Vegas. So, to screw the Raiders, he had to find a way to win just because he knows he’s out. Art. Do you think that’s a possibility?

I think it’s a huge possibility. But I think they’d be making a really big mistake, because I’m going to tell you something, there isn’t a guy in the world that could come in and take that franchise and turn it around in one year. It just, as great a job as Johnson’s done with the Detroit Lions, you guys, he still had talent. He had six or seven guys that he could build around. The Raiders have three really good players. Three. The magic number in the NFL is six to eight. That gets you a playoff. If you have eight, you got a chance to go to the Super Bowl. They don’t have the talent. And I mean, that’s just my theory, but I hope, I hope that, that Mark Davis doesn’t pull the trigger on, on Pete. Give him one more year to build that team and then let Brady go out and find the right quarterback. Mark Davis, kind of exit, stage right. I think they’re going to pull the trigger on him because that’s what they’ve been saying on the internet.

I think they’re going to pull a trigger on him, because that’s what they’ve been saying on the internet. They’re gonna pull the trigger on him.

But it’s such a mistake to do that because that’s the, that’s been the problems with the Raiders. They just,

Thank you.

I think Derek Carr, who I thought, Derek Carr was a pretty good quarterback,

From Jack Del Rio all the way down the line. They were 12 and four, they came back the next year. I think he won nine games. And they fired him.

Right.

You know, and they were on their way. And then the, the, the special teams coach for Green Bay, Bisaccia, he takes them, he takes them to the playoffs and they fire him. You got to give a guy a chance. I mean, it’s like, Philly. Philly, you know what they want to do with their coach? It’s like, Sirianni, Seriously, you guys, yeah, he’s, you know, he’s, he’s a handful, but he wins.

He won the Super Bowl last year.

That’s what I mean.

The thing is, you know, if the Eagles really get the Eagles crap out early they will get rid of their offensive cordinator, that’s my little prediction. If they crap out early, they’ll get rid of the O.C.

I think the play calling has been really atrocious for Philly.

Dan Campbell.

Yeah, I think there’s a disconnect between Hurst and the offensive coordinator, I think there’s a disconnect. And I think that’s why they had to,

Look at Detroit. look at Detroit. I mean, I’m a, I’m a huge Campbell fan, but he can’t call offensive plays. He’s terrible. So Mark Brunel, Mark Brunel is right there, Mark Brunel can call offensive plays.

Yeah,

Art, let’s take it from there on Thursday’s game. I think three or four times he goes for on fourth down. If they go for a field goal, the score is closer, or they might even be in front, when at the end, he went for the field goal down 13 to seven, which made no sense since he didn’t go for the field goals the first two or three times. So, your point, I think, is well taken.

I’m telling you, managing the game, I mean, years ago you had Jack Faulkner, who was on the headset with Ray Malavasi, and Jack Faulkner, who was a brilliant guy, could build a team. He would say, Ray, we got to burn a timeout right here. And he knew, because he was far enough away with all the excitement, that he knew how to manage the game. And I mean, you need to have somebody like that who’s been around in your headset to say, hey, hey, hey. And you know, I mean, the other thing is, with six, seven minutes left, you remember how Belichick used to, a guy would come, Oh, got the sore ankle boom. They’d stop the clock instead of a 40-second clock. Then it’s a 25-second runoff, so he’s saving 15 seconds here, 15 seconds there, and at the end of the game, that’s 45 seconds, which changes the course of the game. The one thing Belichick did is he took advantage of the rules, he knew what he could do and what he couldn’t do.

Yeah, precisely, but you got to have faith in your offensive coordinator. That’s why Bruce Arians was so great. He always had that symbiotic relationship with all of his quarterbacks, from Payton to Roethlisberger to Luck.

And look, what’s happened to Mike Tomlinson since, since Arians left?

Yeah, yeah, you’ve got it, you’ve got, you’ve got to have that faith. And that’s why the Eagles had that slump. There’s a disconnect and that’s, that’s my belief. If they crap out, that O.C. is gone, that’s my prediction.

Look what Moore has done with, with New Orleans? New Orleans was nothing. In the last five games, they actually have played some pretty good football. Yeah, it was Shough at quarterback.

Yeah, Art,

You’ve got to have that faith,

Art, at 128 years of age, you’ve got to take some legal medicinal products to discuss things as well as you do. What legal medicinal products might you be taking right now? Friday afternoon?

Well, it’s called the professional formula of Prevagen, and it’s very, very good for the noodle. It’s got all kinds of nootropics in it. Things that you need to keep things working and keep things flowing. But I take a lot of stuff. I got my limit tracks I’ve got, oh, this is complete CBD, this is good stuff, it’s legal and. But other than that, you know, I try to take up, keep up on them. I was one of my minors in college, was, was chair in college. And I’ve always been fascinated by what it takes to live a long life. So although in my car accident last week, I what you got all of it, yeah.

Laura, Laura Snoke. Give us a 30-second recap, your thoughts about the week ahead in sports?

I’m looking forward to it. I mean, there’s some great games on this weekend. And you know, all the festivities and sort of quieted down at least until next week, so it’ll be a lot of fun. Wish everybody a happy and safe New Year and,

Same back.

Matthew. Give us a 30-second thought about the world of sports right now.

Well, emotionally, I like to see Indiana go as far as they can in the CFP. Just unbelievable. A basketball college dominating the football thing. It’s so, it’s so incredible and all that I like to see Indiana pull it off personally, that’s it.

Art, give us 30 seconds, your thoughts.

Well, I just want to, you know, let everybody know that two of my favorite all-time golfers who I competed against, Fuzzy Zoeller and Jumbo Ozaki from Japan, both passed away in the last 10 days. And they were both in their late 70s and we found out that both of them had cancer. And they were just wonderful people. They were always good to me. And, and I like to pay homage to great people. And, you know, Fuzzy got a little bit of a bad rap there with Tiger’s situation. And Jumbo won 114 tournaments around the world and only one outside the Japan, which was the New Zealand Open. And he happened to beat me that weekend, so,

That’s funny.

It is funny. So I mean, I always loved Jumbo, he wore silk, he was like bigger than, he was the Jack Nicklaus of Japan.

All right, that’s it for Fred and the Fantastics, with Laura, with Art, and Matthew. And thank you guys and gals, and listen all the time for more of Fred and the Fantastics.