American Kings: The Outsider's Guide to the Elite World of NFL QBs

0:01Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcast Radio News.

0:30is a bulletproof business. Racing's unique because there is absolutely no reason why we can't compete with the guys. Come on, is pro pickleball real? Are people really going to tune into this? If you're playing money ball with a huge bag of money, you're going to be really, really good. Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr along with my colleague Vanessa Perdomo. Coming up on the show, we hear from New York Knicks star forward Carl Anthony Towns about the Knicks' upcoming season and his ventures off the court in business.

1:04Carl Anthony Towns joined us here at World Headquarters for Bloomberg Power Players New York recently. We'll hear his conversation from on the stage with Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Ira Budwe. We'll also talk a little racing with four-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Pillow. That is on the way on the Bloomberg Business of Sports, but first, we are now in week two of the NFL season, and we are still in the honeymoon stage with a lot of teams with new regimes and new quarterbacks. Vanessa and Bloomberg Originals chief correspondent Jason Kelly got a chance to sit down with ESPN senior writer Seth Wickersham.

1:47He's the author of the new book American King's Biography of the Quarterback, a book on the mythology surrounding a football team's most visible player from high school through the Super Bowl. Let's take a listen to that conversation. I've covered the NFL for 25 years at ESPN, and if you cover the NFL for ESPN, you cover quarterbacks. And yet, after all this time, I still felt like that there was a bigger story to tell about what it's like to live this very unique American life with these very unique responsibilities. And so what I tried to do was like a sunrise to sunset look at quarterbacking from high school to college to the NFL and, you know, finally what it's like to be a retired Hall of Famer.

2:33So those are my goals and those are the things that I set out to do with it. You know, we're talking to you, obviously, you know, right as the NFL season is starting. And you've got a couple of players who you profile in this book who who are in the mix, both at the college level and at the pro level. And I'm specifically thinking about Arch Manning and Caleb Williams. What is your takeaway about the state of football this season? What have you seen so far that is like reflected in the book or maybe advances the book even further? Well, yeah, thank you. So, I mean, first of all, like, yeah, the historical aspect of it is interesting to me because, you know, I kind of set out thinking that from the moment that the forward pass was legalized in college in 1906, it would be like a slow build to the quarterback as a job being mythologized and celebrated like it is.

3:23And in fact, like it almost took off immediately. It was like, there was something about that moment and what it became in our culture really kind of culminating in the 1940s with, with Bob Waterfield, who was the quarterback of the Rams and Jane Russell, who was, you know, a fantastically famous pinup star and actress that like, it almost like held this cultural place from the moment that it started. And when you realize that, you realize that people like Joe Namath and John Unitas kind of came later and helped evolve it rather than helped launch something. And it's a good segue to like Arch and Caleb because, you know, the hype is so big with quarterbacks now.

4:02And I think that the way that quarterbacks are handled in our culture to be a successful one, I think, and this is a funny answer, but like I think you almost have to be similar to like a politician or a pop star or maybe like even a CEO where you're kind of in a bubble and you're kind of disconnected from reality because you have to live in a state where doubt cannot be allowed to see. been. And so in a very real way, it's like you're kind of disconnected and isolated from things that are going on because there's so much pressure on this job. And when I look at like Arch Manning, I mean, from the moment that guy picked up a football, life was going to be different for him.

4:45And right now the hype has outpaced his notoriety, which is never a great place to be in. And he didn't do anything wrong. He's learning how to be a college quarterback. And with Caleb Williams, it's very similar i mean i think that like you know the hype coming about him was that he was a generational prospect and while i do i do think that he's going to be a good nfl quarterback um you know he's still learning and you know even though the the position is under so much scrutiny it's still a job that people have to learn how to do well i think that sometimes that gets lost and a hard job a hard job it's hard yeah totally yeah i think one of the things for me that was most interesting that it's like kind of a through line throughout the book and just while we're talking about it, it's the mentality behind the quarterback from all the different ways, right?

5:35It's the way they get treated from the time they're in the fifth grade and they pick up their first ball to high school and they're the most popular kid in high school to getting everything they want in college and being treated like, you know, the big man on the campus. And then that can all change when they go to the NFL and then they're starting to fail a little bit and taste that for the first time but then also on the other side you just you just have all these different things and one of the other things that was really interesting to me too was the way that their parents treat them you know and and this sort of feeling that maybe from the outside of like arch manning's you know um bringing up that you kind of noted at that his family was very different obviously because they knew what they were doing but like with calum williams dad it was very different you know they feel like almost their quarterback dads are like dance moms that's what it felt like to me that's such an astute point because okay there's a couple factors at play number one this thing is so big that if a dad is told by someone a coach or a quarterback guru that you know your son's got your son's special it's like they become nomads in the desert i mean will do anything and it's like just hand over their credit card because you know they start seeing um you know their kid one day on stage at the hall of fame with a bust and a gold jacket and so you have all of these things then you have a high school system and it's like this input this uh this circuit this industrial complex that is a multi-million dollar business and glorifies these kids in ways that happens very young.

7:15And so it's almost becomes like a Mickey Mouse type of club. So you have that where it's like these kids are realizing from a very young age that maybe they're a little special and they're a little different. And you need that mentality to succeed. Because as we said earlier, like you can't live in reality, you kind of have to live in a suspended state. Then you have the dads and the moms sometimes who are very, very controlling and want to help navigate their kids through a very dangerous space, which is totally understandable. And then you have, where does that leave these guys if they're not one of the, look, there are 16 ,000 high school starting quarterbacks in America.

7:57Three tops out of every couple years end up making it to the Hall of Fame. So what if your kid just by natural selection isn't good enough it creates an entire tension and complication to this job that i really try to explore in there because like take this kid colin hurley he's at lsu right now you know i i wrote about him because he wanted to be the most precocious quarterback maybe that ever existed i mean he wanted to be on the fastest of the fast tracks he wanted to be the youngest one to do everything. And he entered college at LSU, which is one of the best, you know, football universities in the country at age 16.

8:41But like when he went to college at age 16, his dad was terrified of just a kid that age being in that setting. And, you know, even though he kind of had gone along with it. And, you know, last January, his son was in a horrible car accident and almost died, drove his charger into a tree. And, you know, I write about what it was like in the ICU because I went and visited him like that night and, you know, was there for a couple of days. But it's like it opens up all of these larger truths that happen to regular people, not just superstar quarterbacks because of all of these dynamics. Yeah, and it's a great segue to where I wanted to go next, Seth, which is this NIL era, which has radically changed the economics of the business.

9:29I mean, maybe in one of the most profound ways that we've all seen during our lifetimes when it comes to an economic change in sports. Obviously, that was part of what was driving Colin Hurley. It's a huge aspect of the Arch Manning story. It's a huge aspect of the Caelan Williams story, and it will continue. So when you think about a Carson Beck choosing to go to Miami rather than going pro, What does the new economics of the college game mean for the role of the pro quarterback going forward? Man, that is a great question. I think, look, I think it is general. Look, I think generally speaking, it's positive because I believe that American teenagers and college students were the only people in the world who were not allowed to cash in on their name, image and likeness and be able to play like, you know, the sport that they do.

10:32were so good at doing. I believe that that was true. And it was because of these NCAA rules, which, you know, were horrifically outdated, you know, and so the college game, I think that like the college game is kind of a mess right now because it's essentially pro football, which is what it's kind of been for a long time, but there's no structure. And so how they sort that out is going to take some time. Now, what does it mean for college quarterbacks entering the NFL? I mean, I think there's two things. Number one is that I, I think that for the best, hopefully it, it allows them, you know, they entered the NFL with a little bit more of a financial cushion and, you know, they're maybe more exposed to some of the aspects of pro football that they wouldn't have been otherwise because they were so sheltered in college.

11:22And so I think that like, look, this is a book about American ambition and a book about American fame and fame warps people. And I think that like the earlier they can be exposed to that and kind of get used to it, maybe the better it is for them in the NFL. You know, how does it how does it play out in terms of their ability to have a cohesive college experience? I mean, that's a whole other question. Yeah, that's a different podcast. Maybe they don't. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Tom Brady talks about it, you know, and Brady is funny because, I mean, we graduated high school and college the same year.

11:58But, you know, he he can sound very much like a back in my day type of guy because he took so much pride in being broken in college and having fixed himself and how it gave him the self-confidence to go into the NFL and exploit the chance that he had. And I think that like he has a point when he says that if you can just transfer after two months, if you don't like what's going on there at your college, there might be a cost to that, even if there's also a benefit. That's ESPN senior writer Seth Wickersham speaking with Vanessa and friend of the show, Jason Kelly, about Seth's new book, American King's biography of the quarterback.

12:42Up next, we turn to racing and hear from four-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Pillow. With Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

12:59This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Now let's talk a little racing. Joining us now is Alex Pillow. He's a four-time IndyCar Series champion and winner of this year's Indianapolis 500. He made history as the first Spaniard to win both an IndyCar title and the Indy 500. Alex, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my goodness. Let's put it this way. When you win eight times on the circuit and you have 14 top fives and you beat your second place opponent in the standings to win the championship by almost 200 points. Yeah, I think I see why you have four indie titles and the last three you won in a row.

13:51Yeah, it's been it's been incredible. Honestly, I cannot really believe it. But sometimes I still pinch myself because it's been crazy couple of years, honestly. But this one has been super special. Like winning my first Indy 500, winning eight races and a championship the same year. It's just been incredible. Alex, tell us about this year and how it was different after winning the 500. And obviously, you've won championships before. But something's different when you get that Indy 500 title win. Tell us about that and how it was different for the rest of the season. Do you go into a different stratosphere of people knowing who you are, knowing your name and all that?

14:30I mean, the 500, so for people that don't know, it's our Super Bowl. It's our biggest race by far. We have over 350 ,000 people at the racetrack that day, just that day. So it's when you win there in front of so many people with all the pressure that you have, with how hard it is to win that race. It's like an endurance and a sprint race at the same time, like 500 miles, 200 laps. So the feeling there was so emotional, like seeing people, my mechanics, my engineers cry because they've been waiting so long to get it. And also for me, like just winning that race was amazing. So I won three IndyCar championships before winning the Indy 500.

15:13But the exposure I got after winning that race was a lot bigger, like something that never felt before. So to top it off with another championship at the end of the year has been surreal. Yeah, amazing. You're on a champions list. I want people to understand you're going to surpass. AJ Foyt has seven, Scott Dixon six. You have four tied with Mario Andretti, Dario Franchitti, and Sebastian Bourdais, all at four. And, man, you've got years to go, man, to just blow everybody out of the place. What is it like? You've been racing in IndyCar for six years, and you have accomplished this. It's crazy to think.

15:57It's crazy when I look back and the amount of success my team, Chip Ganassi Racing, and I had in such a short period of time. I think it's tough. It's tough to continuously have the best team around you. It's tough to have that confidence to be a little bit better than your competitors on track, and to have that little bit of luck that you need sometimes on all sports. But we're going to continue pushing. I mean, obviously the target is to get more, to try and surpass those guys that you said, which is very tough, tough work. Those guys are legends. My teammate Scott Dixon, as you said, he has six IndyCar championships and it's very tough.

16:39Like he has done it over 20 years. I think that maintaining the momentum and the speed and everything you need to continue to win races and championships over 15, 20 years is very, very tough. Yeah, it's unbelievable. But after winning the Indy 500 in the same year, winning a championship, and then three back-to-backs, all of that, what is the motivation that keeps you going for the next few years? Is it winning? Is it surpassing those numbers? Is it surpassing those legends that it's going to keep you going? Or what's this next motivation that you're going to have going into the next year? Not really.

17:11I mean, I love it. I would love to have the option to hopefully get six or seven or eight. But what really motivates me is when we start the next season in 2026, everybody's going to have zero points. That's it. So everybody starts from zero. Although we've won this year, that doesn't matter. Like people don't, my team, we don't really care about that. I mean, we're super happy, but I mean, like that's a pass. So we need to focus on scoring as many wins and as many points as possible to try and get that 26 championship and then move on. That's what motivates us is working on those cars, working on putting together cars that are a little bit faster than everybody.

17:55On my side is going a little bit further on like driving wise, like just breaking that little bit later, a little bit better than what we did the last day or last year or last race. So, yeah, that's a motivation. You race, as you mentioned, for Chip Ganassi. What is it like when you have a chief who used to be behind the wheel? Oh, it's great. I mean, so I've raced. I started racing in Europe, obviously. I've raced for many different team owners. I've raced in Japan for a couple of years. So I've seen a lot of different team owners. And honestly, it's a lot easier when the team owner is a driver.

18:33It has been a driver or it's still driving just because he understands. He's on the driver's side. He knows what we need. What we need is all the tools to try and go out and win, which that's like all the resources, all our partners, like all the best mechanics, the best engineers. That's what we need to go out and race. So, yeah, Chip is an awesome guy. He says that he likes winners. That's all he cares about. He only cares about winning. All the rest, he doesn't really care. It's like an NFL coach who used to be a player. Yeah. Exactly. I think it just helps to understand and to maybe push for what's more important.

19:13I'm glad you had brought up your previous experience in racing in Europe and racing in Japan and things like that. And I actually had come to the first race of the season this year in St. Pete. That was my first time coming to an IndyCar race. So I was just trying to take in everything and taking the differences that I saw there that I've seen at Formula One races and things like that. And I found that one of the things I thought was the most different was this access that fans have to you guys being able to be right behind the paddock. Like, it's just a different culture, I guess, between like Formula One, which is global and European and all of those things.

19:49And I don't know if this is very American that we're like, we need to be right there. I mean, you guys are just passing right by everyone on like scooters and stuff like that. Like, what do you think about the level of access fans have here and the difference between American and European style? I mean, you cannot beat it, what you get in IndyCar. Like, you can get right to the cars. Like, you can not touch them, but you can be right there. Yeah. Especially, not mine, please. But you can be right there seeing what the mechanics do, how they work, just the drivers as well, and see how the personalities are, not only on TV.

20:25I think it's very tough on IndyCar and all motorsports series that you cannot really see our faces while we drive. We have that helmet on and we're on that race car. But you can get super close to us at every single race. That makes IndyCar so special. For us, sometimes drivers is tough because it takes us like 20 to 30 minutes to get to the car. Because there's so many people, especially at street courses like you were in St. Pete. But it makes it super fun and super special also for drivers to get that atmosphere, to get that energy from those fans that are cheering for you, cheering for your team, or just for IndyCar in general.

21:04Safety in IndyCar racing. It has come a long way, just in a few years, especially with the aero screen. Can you tell us more about safety in the IndyCar today? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I'm super lucky to be driving in this era of IndyCar. The safety has evolved so much over the years, but especially now. We introduced the AeroScreen, I would believe, five years ago now in 2020. And that just basically protects us from the ovals. We raise a lot of ovals at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We're getting speeds of 240 miles an hour. So when there's pieces from other cars and they fly towards you and you're going 240 miles an hour, that's dangerous.

21:49So getting the cars that we have now, the safety that we have now allows us just to be safe and just to be secure and just to be ready for the next couple of races, even if something happens. Yeah, it feels like that. Can't believe it didn't exist before. Yeah, now you look back at the other pictures and you're like, oh, there's something missing, right? When it got introduced, everybody was the opposite. It was like, whoa, why do you put a screen on a car, on a single-seater car? But now it makes total sense. Yeah, yeah. What are the other things that you've seen in these last couple of years?

22:24It's being in IndyCar that have changed the most for you. I mean, now there's a new broadcast partner with Fox. Has that brought a new viewership or anything like that? What are the biggest changes you've seen? So I entered IndyCar in 2020, and it was a bit bad timing, obviously, with COVID and so on. But what I've seen the past two years, I would say, it's just the young audience that we have. like very young people, men and women that are coming to a racetrack and just enjoying the races. We used to have the fans that have been following IndyCar or motorsport for a long time, like those 20, 30 years.

23:01But now we get a lot of young people. And I think it's just feeling like all those racetracks. You saw in St. Pete that it was a lot of people, a lot of energy, and everybody's just going there to have a great time, enjoy some racing. and yeah, just hang out with friends. My oldest son, and I'm proud to say, you think I'm a motorhead? My oldest son, I taught him well. He adores racing. He's a native Detroiter, so when you guys race in Detroit, he's always there. And I told him, I said, listen, Alex Blow, I'm going to talk to him. And he said, don't ask a stupid question. So in honor of that, how did the bricks taste, man, when you kissed him at the Indy 500.

23:46Well, you've done a very good job with your son. But honestly, yeah, that's one of the traditions that we get to do at the Indy 500 is you get the milk after winning to celebrate instead of champagne. And then you get to kiss the bricks on the front stretch. And honestly, I mean, they taste like dirt, obviously. That was what we had there. But one funny thing was that I was doing it with my wife and my daughter. I have a 20-month-old daughter. Congrats. And thank you. And we told her to kiss the bricks. And she was looking at us like, what? You've been telling me all the time not to touch the ground or take anything.

24:31The outside is icky, and now I have to touch the bricks. But we have great pictures. Yeah, I love that. And you've talked about being a father kind of has changed your style of racing a little bit, the driver you are. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, it's been crazy to think that I'm a dad and that she's already like 20 months old. But it's changed my life completely. Like now I have to worry about somebody else, not just me. But the fact of just getting home after a hard day or just a long day or a bad race, whatever, and seeing her smile. She doesn't really care about what's going on.

25:09She only wants to play with you. She wants to have a great time with you, and she wants to be with you. And that's been the best thing that ever happened to me. And it's been pushing me to just work a little bit harder to push myself even more and to try and chase those victories. Make her proud. Yeah. Our thanks to four-time IndyCar Series champion and Indy 500 winner Alex Palau for joining us. Up next, we hear from New York Knicks star forward Carl Anthony Towns when he joined us here at Bloomberg World Headquarters for Power Players New York. For Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports and Bloomberg Radio around the world.

25:53This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr. Earlier this month, Bloomberg World Headquarters in New York hosted Power Players. It's an annual event bringing together some of the biggest players and executives in the sports world to talk about what's next in the industry. Our friend Jason Kelly is executive producer and always gets great names. New York Knicks star forward Carl Anthony Towns was here, and he spoke with Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Ira Budwe on stage about joining the Knicks, looking ahead to another big season, and some of what he's up to off the court.

26:41Let's listen in. So you've had 10 years or nine years in Minnesota. Last fall, you come to the Knicks. Yep. Basketball-wise, how did that experience compare? Your time with the Knicks last season. Two very good teams. Yeah, no, I've been blessed to be in a situation where both teams found success. And to be part of the success of both organizations that haven't seen that type of success in so long is nothing short of a blessing. So to be in a situation now where you come from Minnesota, you come to New York, and then you see the garden. You step in there and you feel yourself with the history of the game.

27:19Patrick Ewing, Bernard King, John Starks, you just feel the history. And to be part of that history now is it's something that as a child here growing up in the tri-state in New Jersey, being a big Knicks fan growing up, it was a special moment. This coming season, you got a new coach. Yep. Last season, you're almost there. Yeah. You're going to go all the way this year is I think what the crowd wants to do. I mean, the plan every year is all the way there. So everyone's ring chasing. So we're doing nothing that I think all the other 29 teams ain't saying the same thing. The East looks pretty open.

27:54right now i gotta say you know they said that last year too they said that last year and i think uh the east proved itself to be worthy competition against the whole league for a conference that was told to be weak in the standards of nba we uh we showed out and the playoffs showed how competitive the east is and also uh in the finals uh you know we showed how great the east is as well. As you mentioned, this is kind of a homecoming as well. Yeah. Yeah. What is that like being back in the tri-state area? You grew up in Jersey. Is it, how many ticket requests are you dealing with on a nightly basis?