The jumbled world of college sports

Make Me Smart September 1, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

I do love the dogs, which is funny because I grew up a cat person, but that’s a whole different thing.

Kimberly Adams 

Really?

Kai Ryssdal 

I did yeah. I grew up cat person and then I did not become a dog person until, standby, please. Hey, everybody, it’s Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. It is Friday. Today is September the first.

Kimberly Adams 

And I I’m Kimberly Adams, and I just want to know, when you became a dog person,

Kai Ryssdal 

I became a dog person. When we got our first dog as a family. It was, it’s got to be like 15 years ago now. So my son, my oldest son turns 25 today, so he was he was 10 years old when we got a dog. And from there I’ve been sung. Dog wise.

Kimberly Adams 

I love dogs. I just don’t like picking up after them. Which is why I do cats.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh that’s fair. That’s fair. I get that. I am the, I am the designated picker upper in my family. Yes, I have four children. And I’m the one who picks up the dog poop on walks and on the backyard. I don’t know where I went wrong.

Kimberly Adams 

Like I feel like if, when I was growing up, we did have a backyard and we had a dog and it’s one thing if you have like the pooper scooper. That’s like the tall thing with the clamp. It’s another thing you have to put your hand in the bag and touch the warmth. Absolutely not. No. Can’t do it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Now Alright, this is getting a little far afield and then we move on. I think warm is better than cold. Really just yeah, it’s just it’s easier to maneuver and get into the bag. So anyway, what we’re going to do on this podcast today for those of you who are somehow here, we’re gonna do some news. We’re gonna take a break. Then we’re gonna do a round of half full half empty. And that’s yeah. Okay. So anyhow, what are you drinking? What do you drink? Did you make yourself something fancy?

Kimberly Adams 

So not really. But first of all, thank you to everybody in the chat who’s wishing me a welcome back. I’m happy to be back. I have been gone for a while. And I had a little bit of an Easter egg. The last time I was on economics on tap, I did a Bhutanese cocktail at the time and because I went to Bhutan, and then I brought back Bhutanese whiskey, which is a thing who knew? I also had quite a few Bhutanese wines while I was there, and those were tasty. It’s, yeah, apparently, they import the grapes from South Africa and then blend the wine there. But the whiskey they for real make, it says, “essence of the Himalayas.” It’s K5 after like mountains. So it’s pretty good to sit but I’m using it to make a Manhattan today. So what about you?

Kai Ryssdal 

I am drinking a beer. Ellen, Ellen Rolfes, as I’m sure is just completely frustrated with me. Because every every what Thursday morning really early, she sends a note to me, Kimberly and says, “Hey, what are you drinking tomorrow afternoon?” Kimberly says I’m doing an upside down rabbit Jabba cocktail with 14 different kinds of herbs. And I say I’m having beer. And Ellen writes back and says what kind? And I say, I don’t know yet. So Ellen, I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m having a Big Yikes. I’m having a Big Yikes hazy double ale from Modern Times brewing. It’s quite tasty. I’m going to have a couple more because my mother-in-law is coming over for dinner. And you know, that’s what I’m going to do.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, we’ve been working on these economic anthems. I feel like we need economic themed cocktails. Remember how when there was the whole meme stocks thing, and we did the stocktails, but I feel like Big Yikes could often be a beer on theme with what’s going on in the economy.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally, totally, totally.

Kimberly Adams 

All right. I guess now, we should probably get to some news.

Kai Ryssdal 

We should. Alright, so mine is and I promised this is the last time I was talking about this. It’s just a pet peeve of mine. It’s also sports, as many of my pet peeves have been the last number of weeks. So the whole football, the whole, the whole college sports conference, realignment thing came, I think to its denouement today, when Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, and also SMU, but I don’t care about them because they’re not here. And they’re closer to the East Coast. And I’ll explain why that matters in a minute. But Stanford and the University of California Berkeley were invited to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now if you’ve been listening to podcasts or reading any kind of news, you know that there’s a tectonic shift underway in college sports conference realignment, it’s all driven by television money, and it irritates me deeply for a lot of reasons, which I’ll get into in about a second. But I do need to point out that from the Stanford University football stadium to the Pacific Ocean, is 15 miles as the crow flies 15 miles and yet, in in the 24-25 or 25-26 season, they’re going to be members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Okay. That makes no sense. It’s a disservice to the student athletes at Stanford and Cal, it is a disservice to athletes and other conferences. And this whole thing makes me really frustrated because it absolutely gives light to the fact that this is all about student athletes, and it’s all about the joy and the motivation of sport. And yes, I know college football has been about that for a long time. It hasn’t been about that for a long time. But look, if you’re a field hockey player at Cal, or a women’s soccer player at UCLA now and you’re going, they’ve joined a different conference, and you’re traveling to the east coast to play a lot of your games. It’s, it’s a pain in the butt and you’re traveling and all this stuff. Exactly. And, and this just stinks. But here’s what really frustrates me about this. There has been the, oh, I love this word. The palimpsest of college sports being about amateurs and college athletes. It’s a it’s a almost translucent covering a almost false front, a thing that you can’t really see through, right. So it has been that way. Palimpsest, P-A-L-I-M-P-S-E-S-T. Anyway, thank you. It’s been that way, in college sports for a long time. And we all kind of did a wink and a nod. But now I think the band aid has been ripped off if I can torture a metaphor even farther. And it’s all about the money. And nobody cares about the money. And the adults who are supposed to be in charge of these kids with air quotes, right? Because they’re 18,19, 20 year old, fully grown adults, but you know what I mean? They’re doing it for the money, and they don’t give a good God bleepity bleep bleep bleep about the student athletes. And that just it depresses me. And I think that stinks.

Kimberly Adams 

I had no idea this was happening. So thank you for that overview. But yeah, man, yeah, that sucks for those fully grown adults. Sorry, not kids. Because just like they’re putting their bodies through so much anyway. And so then to add that kind of travel to it is no fun at all. Okay, well, mine is, you know, a little still more policy, because I’m getting back into my policy over here. And so the Biden administration is out with some new proposals to make minimum staffing requirements at nursing homes. And the way that the Biden administration and other presidential administrations in the past can force hospitals and nursing homes to do things is to tie funding from Medicare and Medicaid to different proposals, kind of like, you know, with seat belts, where it’s like, well, if you want highway money, you have to change your seatbelt laws. Or, if you want, you know, money from I believe, I believe it was Medicare at the time, it may have been Medicaid, the White House at one point use the bludgeon of that funding to force hospitals to integrate in the deep south. So this is something that has been done over and over again. So now, the Biden administration is saying that they need to have these minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes. Understaffing in nursing homes has been a huge issue. And the people who often work there are paid not very much. And it’s very hard work. And it gets to be very hard to recruit people for those jobs and to keep people in those jobs. And people, particularly during the pandemic, had a really hard time if you’re working in a nursing home. And so this is interesting, because, of course, the industry is howling about these proposed staffing requirements for that exact reason. They’re like we’re doing our best, we’re trying to hire this, that and the other. And there is indeed a staffing shortage and actual labor shortage in this industry. That said, a lot of these for-profit companies are very profitable. And one could argue, you know, siphon some of those profits and pay your people more you can make it work. But it will be very fascinating to see how this plays out. It’s in the comment period now. But this is going to be such, it already is but it’s going to increasingly become such a huge issue, as more and more boomers sort of continue to age and a lot of them age away from their family members, or don’t have very much family. And our nursing home system is not equipped at the moment.

Kai Ryssdal 

Could I just ask an uninformed question here and it goes like this. Is it not also news that there hasn’t previous there haven’t previously been minimum staffing standards for nursing homes?

Kimberly Adams 

I think there, so let’s see the first ever national staffing rule, there’s state level staffing rules. It’s the national standard that’s knew. Way, way back in the day of my early early career in journalism. When I was in college, I did this undergraduate research program called the McNair Scholars, and one of my research projects was about absentee voting in nursing homes, believe it or not.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, interesting, right. Think about that for a minute.

Kimberly Adams 

Right? Because you have lots of people, registered voters who are living in nursing homes and getting their ballots and it’s a very sort of dodgy situation about who is actually really filling out those ballots and sending them back and I’m not conspiracy theorist at all. But um, you know, it was very it was a very interesting topic to look into and that was back in like, what was it 2002 or something like that. So, anyway, so yeah, nursing homes. interesting topic. All right. Um, that’s it. That’s what I got for news. You. Yeah, we good?

Kai Ryssdal 

No, I’m done. I’m done. We’re gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, Drew, yes, I’m stepping on you, yeah, I apologize. I know it says Kimberly right there in the rundown.

Kimberly Adams

That’s okay. That’s alright

Kai Ryssdal

Anyway, Drew’s, Drew’s here he’s gonna take charge and save Kimberly and me from ourselves. Half full half empty is the game thank goodness gracious. Drew Jostad is here. Drew, go.

Drew Jostad 

Are you half full or half empty on the return of the business lunch?

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, so this was an interview I did with The Wall Street Journal reporter this week, in which, slowly but surely, business lunches are coming back as office occupancy rates rise. But it’s a little awkward as it always has been. There’s a whole you know, three or four year’s worth of people, well, two or three year’s worth of people who don’t know what business lunches are like, because they entered the workforce in the middle of it. And it’s not just lunches of course, it’s cocktail hours and happy hours and business dinners. I’m half full because I’m so over the whole empty offices and and we can never see each other again. That’s, that’s my thing.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m really torn on this one actually, um.

Kai Ryssdal

How come?

Kimberly Adams

Because, like, there’s so many nuances to a business lunch that can make things harder and also make things operate differently. So there’s the etiquette, there’s the power imbalances. There’s who’s paying, there’s the what your company will pay for versus what it won’t. And is that really the best use of company resources? Or, you know, here in Washington, the way a lot of people get around sort of rules about what you can and cannot give to people is by wining and dining them. And there’s a lot of money that and experiences that end up changing hands simply through the conduit of the business lunch that said, you know, it can help ease things and make business work. And it is really important for the economy of downtowns. So I’m gonna say half full, despite some reservations, I never never imagined I would have that many deep thoughts about it, but I do.

Kai Ryssdal 

That was that was a lot but okay. Yes. Yes. What Kimberly said,

Kimberly Adams 

All right, what’s next?

Drew Jostad 

Okay, with the Beyonce and Taylor Swift tours, people are shopping around for the perfect outfit to wear to the show. Are you half full or half empty on concert glam attire?

Kai Ryssdal 

I honestly, I’m all the way full. I think people ought to do whatever makes them feel good in those moments. I mean, life is too short. Go to town. I’m not a dress up person. I’m not a I’m actually not to go to a concert guy. But that’s a whole different thing. totally go for it, whatever works for you.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I’m hopeful also, um, when I was doing some interviews yesterday for the story I was working on about, you know, the fact that the PCE numbers showed increased spending on toys and games and recreational activities. One of the economists I talked to was like, yeah, a lot of this is the Beyonce and Taylor Swift concerts. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’ve been very sort of interested, I’m waiting for someone to do a comparative economic analysis of the relative economic impact of these two concert tours. Because since Taylor Swift was first, there was so much coverage about what it was doing for the local economy when she came through and how it was a big bump. And this, that and the other. And I haven’t heard the same kind of analysis for the Beyonce concert and and Beyonce fans. And I don’t know if that’s a function of like, you know, some people’s internal bias or just because Taylor Swift was first, but I will be very interested to hear the comparative economic impact of these two different tours with pretty different fan bases coming through. I think there’s different fan bases. I’m actually I don’t know that for a fact.

Kai Ryssdal 

But yeah, we there would have to be some regression analysis for demographics and all that jazz, right, but it’d be totally interesting. Be totally interesting. Also, by the way, sorry, just very charged, very, very charged.

Kimberly Adams 

Right. Yes. Yes, for sure. April McCaffrey says in the YouTube chat in LA they’re not doing the shuttles for Beyonce that they did for Swift.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. That’s like, that’s not great.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Well, I’m half full on the concert outfits. I want people to enjoy their best lives. Because I know a lot of people saved up and worked really hard to be able to attend these concerts and it’s, you should enjoy it to the fullest.

Kai Ryssdal 

You should, you should 1,000% have a good time.

Kimberly Adams 

Absolutely. Yeah. All right, what’s next?

Drew Jostad 

Okay, Tinder, Bumble and other dating apps are developing premium subscription services. Are you half full or half empty?

Kai Ryssdal 

So what’s interesting about this is that yes, these dating services are generating you know, more revenue by doing the whole premium service thing up to, I think it’s $500 a month with Tinder. But what they’re doing is market segmentation, right? If you’re gonna pay $500 a month, they will give you x level of service, if you didn’t really pay whatever it is a month, there’s gonna be x level service, which is what the internet economy has done for a very long time, thank freemium and all that stuff. I think it’s super interesting. And I, I’m, I guess I’m half full, I don’t know. I don’t know, my experience level, obviously, with online dating is zero, zero, sub-zero, negative, Arctic, like zero Kelvin.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s okay. Well, as someone who has quite a bit of experience with online dating apps, I thought this story was interesting. Because there have been premium paid services on all these apps for ages at this point. And so it seems like they’re getting more expensive, and they’re moving more and more features into the paid version. What was most interesting to me in that story that Meghan did is that a lot of people are willing to pay, because they have an unrealistic expectation for how long, they’re going to be on the app, which is the idea like, I will pay for these benefits, because it’s only going to take me a month or two, to find my person. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if I shell out the $500. And again, like false sense of expectation, and I mean, they’re very good advertisements, and they’re like, you’re gonna find your person, there’s so many people on here, it’s gonna be great. And so I understand why people do it. There was a story a while back here in in D.C, I think it was like a year or two ago, about the amount of money that people in D.C spend on matchmakers, which is, oh my god. Yeah, a lot. And that I read that service is apparently becoming more popular. So I mean, look, people get to spend their money, how they want to, I’m always going to be skeptical of how effective a service is, when they make money off of you not being partnered. But the goal is for you to become partnered. So I mean, it’s sort of like real estate agents, you know, where the goal is to sell you a house, you’re supposedly your agent is supposed to get to the house the cheapest amount possible, but they make more money depending on how much you pay for the house, etc, etc. And so, you know, yeah, totally. Half empty.

Kai Ryssdal 

Fair, totally fair. You’re, look I will I will absolutely defer to you. 1000%.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, what’s next? All right,

Drew Jostad 

Are you half full or half empty on Brazil overtaking the United States as the world’s top exporter of corn?

Kai Ryssdal 

So this was a story that Meghan McCarty Carino did for us I think it was yesterday it’s you know, it’s kind of about the rise of the rest it’s about American agriculture and doing other things. Look, this is a global economy we just live here and let’s get used to it I’m I’m gonna go I’m gonna go half full and half empty at the same time, I’m status quo how’s that for compound?

Kimberly Adams 

Half full, because I think that it’s a good idea for the global economy to be diversified and not have so many eggs in one basket or corn kernels in one basket as it were. So half full.

Kai Ryssdal

Fair enough.

Kimbelry Adams

I couldn’t resist, couldn’t resist. Is this the poll one? Alright, everybody get ready in the WhatsApp.

Kai Ryssdal

Alright Drew, is this the poll?

Drew Jostad 

All right. The FAA predicts that this is going to be the third busiest travel weekend of the year. Are you half full or half empty on traveling over Labor Day?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, third busiest, so Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Drew Jostad 

Well, I think I think the third busiest so far actually was what it was that like Juneteenth and Father’s Day fell at the same time. So that was like a heavy travel weekend.

Kai Ryssdal

Oh, is that right? Wow.

Drew Jostad

Yeah, this particular year. But the TSA predicts 11% year over year growth from last year.

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry. So restate the question, what is the proposition?

Drew Jostad 

Proposition is half full or half empty on traveling over Labor Day?

Kai Ryssdal 

I did not have Labor Day in my bingo card of travel intensive holidays. So I honestly do not know what to make of this.

Kimberly Adams 

While we’re waiting to give our responses, people in the chat want to know what’s in your Costco boxes.

Kai Ryssdal 

So look, I am in, alright, so yeah, so sorry. I’m gonna I’m gonna pull up the, okay, sorry, go into full screen here. Hold on. I’m going to select myself, whatever, screw this. So I’m in a shed attached to my garage. And not too long ago, I discovered a leak in the roof of the shed.

Kimbelry Adams

Oh no.

Kai Ryssdal

Yes, yes. And as you know, we’ve been having a lot of rain here in LA most particularly in the last like 10 days with that tropical storm. So I discovered a leak in the roof of the shed, which is the roof of the shed. Here’s the sound booth that I don’t use anymore. And so here is the the leak, and thankfully, it’s dry. But in order to clear up that space, I had to do all of that stuff. And so you know, so those are all dining room chairs from my apartment in Ottawa like 30 years ago. There’s a heater when I use when it’s cold. I mean, you know, there’s all kinds of stuff that is perhaps more than you want it to know. But, but that’s what’s going on with the Costco box. Oh, I should also tell you sorry, wait, one more thing. The reason the reason we have all this crap in Costco boxes, sorry, Bridget, if I swore and your daughter’s in the car is that my my wife has a in house improvement project going sorry where she is replacing all the cabinets in the family room. And of course, the cabinets in any family room contain all of this stuff, all the flower vases and all the old medicines and all the old like placemats. And that is all now in these boxes behind me. So that’s what’s going on there more perhaps than you needed to know. But I think we’ve killed enough time, that’s all I’m saying.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, I should probably use this moment to explain the reason there’s no Jasper action today is because I do not have a bed at the moment. I’m getting a new bed and my old one has been taken out and I have the pieces of the bed, the new bed behind me and so waiting to get that assembled. And so that is why there are stacks of pillows and no actual bed behind me. So there we go. All right, that has been enough time. What was the question again, I forgot.

Kai Ryssdal 

Drew save us from ourselves again.

Drew Jostad 

Traveling for Labor Day. You personally traveling for Labor Day.

Kimberly Adams 

Half empty I avoid I avoid heavy travel days whenever I can. So half empty for me.

Kai Ryssdal 

So you know that’s so funny. I’m I’m agnostic. I don’t have a decision on this one because Labor Day is not a holiday that I would worry about. I worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas. And not Labor Day. So I refuse to vote. How about that. But here’s what it looks like in the poll, by the way. I know I just I, I’m standing up for myself Kimberly.

Kimberly Adams

I love that that’s the hill you’re dying on.

Kai Ryssdal

That is the hill I’m dying on. 163 votes out of 298 people listening half empty on trembling on Labor day. 80%, half full19%. Wow. Well, there you go.

Kimberly Adams 

So we have found our tribe.

Kai Ryssdal 

We totally, totally totally.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, this is a good point. What Megan O’Hare says if you live in a tourist area, it can be bad. That makes a lot of sense. I live in a very tourist town. So that’s yeah, so alright.

Kai Ryssdal 

So oh my goodness. Well, so we’re done. Now finally. I know. It’s been 25 minutes. We’re out Monday for Labor Day we’re taking the day off. Here’s the thing though, and I can’t quite believe this next Friday is going to be our 1,000th episode, which is a lot of episodes. Be here. We’re going to do something I don’t know what it is. But hopefully Marissa and Bridget and Courtney have a clue because I don’t it’s all I’m saying.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s gonna be special and we may entertain some requests for episode 1000. So in the meantime, what we want to know is what are some of your favorite episodes, guests moments from the last one 1000 shows, leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART. Or email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org. We can’t wait to hear from you and feel free to reach as far back in your memory as your little heart desires.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, for reals, honestly because y’all probably have a journey. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker who right now is questioning her life choices. Today’s episode was engineered by Charlton Thorp. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi. Drew Jostad wrote the music for our game half full and half empty.

Kimberly Adams 

The team behind half full half empty is Emily Macune and Antoinette Brock. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the Executive Director of Digital and on demand.

Kai Ryssdal 

It occurs to me it’s actually half full and half empty. It’s not half full and half empty. Unless unless I decide to waffle and not actually hear anything.

Kimberly Adams 

I mean what it says in the script is half full slash half empty. So I mean, we could just do that.

Kai Ryssdal

I suppose