Roundtable Time!!! with Mike Maniscalco & Randy Slack

Camelot, it's only a model. Shit. And we have two award winners.

Actually, I don't know if the second person is an award winner. There he is, Randy Slack, ESPN, Wilmington. Are you on Threads? I don't give out Twitter handles anymore. Are you on Threads yet? I'm not on Threads because I would use it for the same thing I use Twitter for, and I can't do that twice. So right now I'm just still on Twitter.

Just jump over to Threads like all of us. Until Elon breaks it, I'm just going to stay on there. What do you mean until?

What do you mean until? He's crushing it. He's running over it and then backing over it.

And then backing over it again. Adam, I'm starting to think that maybe these guys with a lot of money aren't smarter than all of us and they just have a lot more money than we do. No, they're smarter than all of us in what they did best.

And they're dumber than all of us because they don't understand what they don't understand. So that's Randy Slack from ESPN Wilmington and the voice of your Carolina Hurricanes. I guess he's the award winner.

Mike Maniscalco is also with us. Mike, I know you won an award. You got an award for something. I was not privy to this.

And I didn't see it yesterday when we were on a Zoom call that we can't talk about. So what was the award you won? It's the one that you got a few years ago. We were all working for WRAL and then I was behind the scenes and everybody got this little statue. I don't know.

I think I'm going to hang a hat on it. Were you named Sportscaster of the Year? No, I won an Emmy.

We won a regional Emmy for the live broadcast. Awesome. Dude, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you like I'm a parent. Awesome. Congratulations, my friend. Hey, Daddy. Oh, gosh.

Before we get into the things that I said we were going to talk about, I'm going to throw in a number zero here. The NBA is starting an in-season tournament. So, quick reaction from you, Randy, on an in-season tournament for people who are familiar with an FA Cup or an EFL Cup in English soccer. It is a US Open Cup here. Something that is a trophy that matters. But it isn't part of the championship season, if you will. And I'm going to twist it for you, Mike, but tell me your thoughts on an in-season tournament in the NBA, Randy.

I mean, in theory, I like the idea. The problem is you talk about the FA Cup, you talk about the Spanish Cup over in the league and things like that. Copa del Rey. You talk about those. Those are in England.

Those are in Spain. We don't know about those in North American sports culture that well, so I don't know if they'll get enough time to marinate where people will ever care about them. That is possible, but it's up to the leagues to make it matter. Mike, I talked about this yesterday and all I could think of was how do we make Wednesday afternoon games between the Royals and the Mariners matter? And we make them matter by including one of them in an FA Cup style, an in-season tournament for Major League Baseball.

Are you with me? For baseball, yeah, absolutely. I think baseball needs to do something to drum up a little bit more because even though it's not the case, the perception is it's just the same four teams that win. So if you can create something where you'll drum up interest in the middle of the year, in the dog days of summer, I'll be for that if it means getting rid of the All-Star game. Like, give me a tournament like that where the players are playing for something that is meaningful.

So yeah, I would be for that. I kind of agree with Randy, though, because the way that we're conditioned over here, and I often bristle at when people try to tell me why I need to be watching soccer in the Premier League and all that, when I hear this is the biggest game of the year, and then two weeks later I hear this is the biggest game of the year, I'm like, wait, I thought it was two weeks ago. Well, that was the Premier title. This is now the FA and the champion. That's too many things for you to try to tell me this is the biggest game of the year or that it's important. We have filed it down or dumbed it down, however you want to, that we play one game or one series that means everything, and we're Americans, and damn it, that's how we like it.

I will say, I'm in. All in the Premier League, Mike. Don't disparage the beautiful game. Randy, what have you got?

I heard the thing that when Leicester City won a couple of years ago, this is the biggest thing ever to happen, and then two weeks later it was Man City winning another championship and that was bigger than the Leicester City thing. It's too many things for me to try to figure out. Oh no, you're an award winner. You're a smart guy.

You can multitask. Randy? I will say, when you bring up baseball, I think it is a little different because in the FA Cup, you do have all English leagues playing. So a team like, you know, a Rexham who's in the National League, soon to be League Two could be in it. If the Durham Bulls could potentially draw the New York Yankees, if, you know, the Chattanooga Lookouts could draw the Toledo Mudhens and then they eventually play the Guardians or something, then you add a little something.

Because there is one thing we do like, and it's the thing we like about March Madness, we love the Cinderella story. If a double-A baseball team somehow makes it to the quarterfinal of Rob Manfred's ruined baseball cup, then somebody would be pretty excited about that. The one thing holding anything like this happening in baseball is the fact that Rob Manfred hates baseball. The commissioner of the sport, which I can't get over that we have a commissioner that actively goes about trying to kill his own game.

But that's another matter altogether. All right, Mike Mataskowko, we've all, I likened it to this. It's a relationship, whether it's an intimate relationship or a platonic relationship, or just a good friend where somebody undergoes a change and you don't recognize that person anymore. When free agency happened and the Hurricanes were arguably the most active team on day one of free agency, I just went, I don't even recognize you anymore. What are your thoughts? Dmitry Orlov, Michael Bunting, maybe Vladimir Tarasenko in a few days if that ever ultimately gets across the finish line. What are your thoughts on what Carolina's done? Well, one of the things that I like that I don't think is getting the, I think enough headlines or headway for what the the canes did is the players that they kept and then they kept them for cheaper deals combined than what they had them on last year.

And these are key players when we're talking about Jordan Stahl and Jesper Faust and then the goaltending situation that they resolved it by keeping everybody and they got everybody on a lesser deal except for Jesper Faust. I think that first off was great. And then when we go to July 1st, it's funny because I was asking, hey, should I should I be around?

Is there a lot going on? And I was given that it should be a pretty quiet day for the team and then everything breaks free. But I think that this is a team that now they've knocked on the door the way that they have the last five years and realized, okay, these are pieces we need.

Let's go for it. Let's push more chips into the middle of the table if we can get them. And I think it also, it shows what kind of organization the Hurricanes are now. This is a place that players want to play. We're Dimitri Orlov, we're Michael Bunting. They want to sign.

They want to be here because they feel that this is an organization that's close to winning a championship. Randy, I know you're a big fan. You have Walt Ruff from Hurricanes.com on your show all the time.

Your thoughts on what the Hurricanes did? First off, is there a beef between you and Walt Ruff? I love Walt. No, you're not going to find a beef between me and Walt. He's the Adam Golden everyone, Randy.

No, no, no, no. See, Randy knows this is not a beef between me and Walt. I love Walt Ruff. I am team Walt Ruff and he knows it. He's a great guy. He won't follow me on Instagram, but he's a great guy.

I love, I love Walt Ruff. As far as the Kings go, you know, it is nice to see them add in free agency. It's a team that, you know, they build through the draft, they build through developing their own guys and that stuff's great. But if you're not ever winning or, you know, getting to the cup final, you have to do something and to see them make some moves. And I'll be honest, as a casual hockey fan, I don't know a lot about Michael Bunting, but I was like, hey, Dimitri Orlov, I recognize that name.

This is an exciting time. It's a good move and I like that they're doing something and being more aggressive. I like the fact that Michael Bunting can at times play like a complete jerk and they need jerks. We have no, everybody's such a nice guy. My wife who's a professional hairdresser, she says, everybody's got a clean neckline.

You can't have clean necklines all up and down the lineup in the National Hockey League. Mike Maniscalco and Randy Slack are here on the round table. All right. Now, I don't know if it's a serious part of this conversation or not, but I wanted to get to it. And I saw Randy, when I used to be on Twitter, I saw Randy tweeting about this and I'm sure Mike, who's been around the media game for a long time, thoughts. I'm just going to use Bomani Jones as an entering point here because Bo's show was canceled, the TV show was canceled on HBO, Game Theory. And it was in a very intelligent show that dealt with a lot of topics that sports talk generally never does. And, or, I mean, some people, some dudes, occasionally we deal with race in sports, but Bo dealt with that. He dealt with drugs in sports and the war on drugs and how it really was triggered by Len Bias' death. But it was canceled.

And so my question is, do sports fans, are they lying when they say they want intelligent sports conversation or would they just prefer loud? Hey, it's Jesse Kelly. Ronald Reagan famously once said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Americans are losing faith in the banking system. And at the same time, the US government could soon be headed toward a centralized banking system.

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I don't invest in things I don't understand. If you are like me and want to feel safe, it's time to call my friends at the Oxford Gold Group. Go to www.OxfordGoldGroup.com to learn more. Again, that's www.OxfordGoldGroup.com. Randy, I'll let you go first.

You're still in it as far as doing it on a daily basis. Yeah, look, people want to be entertained. If people wanted intelligent stuff, they would watch it, unfortunately. I think the networks, it's easier for them to maybe get those kinds of shows. I feel like those shows are probably easier to produce.

But honestly, like the Embrace the Debate shows, those play into our tribalism. When we're into sports, we like this team, we hate that team. You like Coke, you hate Pepsi. I grew up in a Sega Genesis house.

We hated the kids that had Super Nintendos, PlayStation, Xbox. It's like this all the time. So sports feeds into that. And I do think there is something to, I know people say stick to sports and I get that people can use their platform. And I think that athletes absolutely should use their platform. But for a lot of people, watching sports and watching sports talk, they don't want to have to deal with the serious stuff because they have enough serious stuff going on in their life. That's really well said.

I'm going to take it to the next point and not try to dumb it down. But people like to watch the car crash. They want the loud noises. And we can talk about the Embrace the Debate.

If it didn't work, we wouldn't have 50 million of those shows out there. I don't think that it's the entire sporting fandom that doesn't want the intelligent sports talk. I think that people want to be informed. They want to be in the know. But when it comes to sports talk, you don't want to sit there and have a critical thinking session about what did I just hear and how is this affecting my life. I think you want to hear and it's the reason why Paul Finebaum came to power. You let somebody yell that Alabama sucks and then let somebody from Auburn pile on that a little bit more than somebody from Alabama piles on Auburn.

That's why that worked forever. And it gets to a point where you turn to sports and guys we've been in forever to get away from the serious stuff. And I think that's one of the things when you start talking about, hey, you can do an intelligent show. You can do an intelligent topic. I don't think anybody is sitting here and doing the let's be as dumb as we possibly can be for things. And sure, you get to certain aspects of it.

I go back to my time in that chair, Adam. You have some topics you know that, and I've said this before, you think this is going to be great. You've done your research.

You've done your homework. You have your guests. And anybody listening is going to think this is the Marconi award-winning segment of the year. And you get crickets and nothing to it.

And the next day you can go to you like vanilla or chocolate and you'll get 50 million phone calls on it. So I think it comes down to just what Randy said. At the end of the day, you just want to be entertained by somebody.

If people are entertained by guys yelling at each other over you're dumb or this point is wrong, that's what they're going to be entertained by. There's nothing wrong with that. Is a hot dog a sandwich, Mike? Oh, that's the thing. I do not engage in that because then it's a pizza sandwich.

What, say it again? It's a pizza sandwich then. It's bread with toppings and stuff.

When you fold it, yeah. And it's a calzone. A calzone is a sandwich too. Oh, goodness.

They're all under the sandwich umbrella. So is that a yes or a no? That is a debate I will never embrace, Mike. Oh my gosh.

Were you a Christopher Russo guy? No, God no. Thank you. That's loud for the sake of loud. Randy, is a hot dog a sandwich? A hot dog is its own thing. It's not really a taco. Tacos a sandwich too.

Is it an open-faced sandwich because there's only one, you know, because I guess a pizza would be an open-faced because you know you've got the toppings on the top with just like your carb on the bottom. But you know it's, look, here's the thing about hot dogs. If you want to put ketchup on a hot dog, God bless you. You want to put mustard and relish and onions on a hot dog, who cares? Don't let anybody decide. It's your hot dog. It's your choice. You put whatever you want on that bad boy. You want to eat it right out of the fridge like an animal? You do it. I don't care.

We are not far from the Supreme Court telling us that it's only brown mustard on a hot dog, and I am here for that. That is Randy Slack. If you're still on Twitter, at rslack37. Mike Meniscalco, you on threads yet? Oh, yeah.

I got on the first day. All right. I got to find you on threads then. What are you on threads? I mean, MikeMan75. MikeMan75. So a different handle on Twitter than you are on threads.

I'll find you now. That's MikeMeniscalco, the award with the Emmy. That sounded like a threat. You know me. You know me.

It could be. Mike, I will see you very soon, man. I appreciate your time. You got it, guys.

Take care. Can I get a graphic on the bottom next time I come on? Can I get my name on the bottom too?

Yes, absolutely. You're there. MikeManiscalco is bigger because he won an Emmy. Bro, I work at Capitol.

What are we doing here? It's a regional Emmy. Let's not go crazy. It doesn't matter. It's an Emmy.

Don't quantify by saying it's a regional. Don't belittle it. It's an Emmy. All right.

Congratulations to you. I'm a big deal. Next time, I need to be addressed as Emmy Award winner then. I'm a little upset you didn't know that. I didn't know what it was.

Victoria didn't die. It's my fault for not knowing. I spoke to you yesterday too. All right. I'll talk to both of you guys another time. I appreciate it.

All right. So we need Randy. Randy needs an icon, something, because we have this corporate synergy thing going on. Right. We've got a red carpet for Mike. And Mike will be Emmy Award winning Mike Maniscalco. Yes, absolutely. Or maybe I'll say regional award winning. Yes. Emmy award winning Mike. Right. And don't ask him if a hot dog is a sandwich.

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