Alright, so we move into our number three. Welcome back. I'm Jim Rome. This guy's funny. It's CSU Foxy.
Mike and Aurora. No! Coach Mora, please don't jack with a jungle of karma. Please show up soon. The season could rest on this decision.
Mike in Aurora. I am proud to be a CSU fan. Jim Moore Jr. knows. He he knows about the karma.
He we have long history. We are friends. He knows.
Something's going on. I don't know what it is, but something's going on. Anyway, we will continue to effort that. We've got an entire hour left. This could still happen.
Don't sweat that just yet. All right, telephone number is 124-1-800-636-8686. If you want to respond to any of this, go ahead. And here's what I love, and especially about YouTube.
So we had somebody earlier come in and say point blank, I've never heard of Jim Rome.
Somebody gifted me this. I hope he has good football takes, which to me is hilarious because I've done this. Say what you want. I have the best takes, I have the worst takes, but I've never heard of this guy. It's funny to me.
Which is awesome. It's awesome. Hopefully that means you're a little bit younger. Then you have this guy. Like, how about this?
At Eric Shun 18. Why do all you clones talk just like Rome? Sign what, bro? Nineteen ninety four? Clones Right, that was the rap.
They're clones. They sound exactly like the guy. What a hilarious thing to ask in 2026. Why do you all talk just like him? And and y'all don't.
Not anymore. But initially, yes. Initially, yes, that's where the term clone came from. They're just clones of this guy. They sound like him, they talk like him.
I think it's hilarious. I don't know what's more funny to me that somebody's asking that question in 2026. Or that somebody's saying, I've never heard of him. In 2026. But they're actually both awesome.
Because that means they're both new. New is great. This is what we're looking for. This is why the YouTube thing has been so great and so much fun so far. All right, in addition to all of that.
And one more thing here. Dear Jim, your comments, this resonated with this guy. This guy got it. Your comments last Friday about having a smack off this year are spot on. I remember a time when you would field at least five or six calls per day from legends, smackoff winners, people looking to get in via the watch list, or a golden ticket.
I encourage the veterans and the challengers to call and get the hype going for this epic event. Signed Jibbikachella. All right, so. I've made the point before. Two things here.
It's not just a jungle thing. It's a sports talk radio thing. It's a radio show thing. It's the format, it's long-form programming. People are not reaching for their phones to call radio programs like they used to.
Hell, people are not reaching for their phones to have conversations with other individuals like they used to.
So, if you're not going to pick up the phone and call your family, your friends, or anybody at all, like when was the last time you had an actual conversation on the phone? If you're not doing that with people who really, really, really matter to you, how often are you going to do that to a radio program or a TV program or a SamoCast? Other than the Beef segment. The phones don't ring the way they used to. And that's not.
a reflection of me because the show is still pretty damn good if you ask me. It's pretty amazing that we could get phone calls. for 40 straight minutes Every single week. Like, I know I cut it down the middle and we go with the write-in segment. But we don't have to.
I could bang telephone calls for forty straight minutes. Every Thursday on the Beef segment.
So I know you're out there.
Now, that's not smack off material. What I'm saying is We have had 30 smack-offs in a row. For those of you that are new to this, And I know there are people that are new to it because one, one guy just said, I've never heard of Rome. And two, another guy just said, Why do they all sound like him?
So there are new people to it. What the Smack Off is, is a once-a-year event for only callers. But then the show became digital, and we included video, and then people started video.
Some of their calls in. But it's once a year. It's for the best of the best you compete. And there's nothing like it in the genre, nothing like it in the business. We've done it for 30 years.
30 years. It has never failed. It has delivered every single time.
So here we are on year 31. And generally by now Obviously by now. In August, we would have either A had the event or B announce the event Or see in the very least Started the official start of SmackOff season, and we've done none of those things. And the truth of the matter is, I don't know that I'm doing it this year. Only because there just isn't that energy for it, because the show has evolved and the show has moved, and it seems like most of the energy is in chat.
Now, if there was some groundswell for no, no, no, no, Rome, wait, what, wait, you mean you're not doing it this year? Yeah, you hear me hear what I'm saying. I may not do it this year. It's not a threat. It's not the end of the world.
A 30-year run of smackoffs is pretty incredible. Would I take a year off and bring it back next year? Maybe. Could I still do it this year? Maybe.
It largely depends on you because it's your event. It's the one show of the year where I lay out. And then we judge it. And it's your day. But if none of you are coming around and there are no golden tickets that are flying around, and none of the vets are showing up, and you're just kind of.
Participating the way you are right now, there is no guarantee. Anyway, that guy understood. Jim and Coachella picked up on what I was throwing down last Friday when I said there may not be a smack off this year. The streak might get snapped. Doesn't mean there will never be another one.
Doesn't mean there won't be one this year, but there may not be one this year. I need to see little energy for it, and I'm not feeling it. Yeah, I'm not doing it just to do it. It's a really important thing, and there's a certain standard. The standard has to be met.
Right now, the standard is not being met. I'm not doing it just to do it, but the way you interact with the show is different than the way it used to, so it just might not make as much sense. I'm not here to crack on anybody at all. I'm just saying it's all part of the evolution. Rich Fry is jumping in here.
Rich Fry, producer. Quote. Only about five percent of listeners of any interactive radio show Actually, call the show to interact. Hey Rich, you know what I would tell you? I would say that my numbers would indicate that even back in the day.
When the phones were jumping. and there were less ways to engage. Like, we weren't farming engagement back in the day. Back in the day, we were just taking telephone calls. And actually, I would read faxes.
I would say that less than 5% of the audience would call. I'd always make that joke. None of my friends call radio programs. To those of you who do, none of my friends would ever call a radio program. Thank goodness 2% of you do.
The guy's name's Dick Fry, but I would say less than 5%. And that was back in the day. Back in the day, I would say less than 5%. And today, especially. Today, you know what number would be interesting?
What percent Of those of you consuming the product. Either watching it or listening, engage directly with the show. Either By phone. By exposed to by email or by chat. It's Army.
Let me talk to you. Let's talk some math. You're you're Ivy. What percent and you and I are just guessing What percent of the audience engages In any of those four platforms. That are consuming the product.
And how many are consuming that don't engage at all, but only listen or watch? This is such a cop-out, but it's like the question I'm most obsessed with. I'm fascinated to know because there are so many more people out there hearing the show every day than are participating that much is very clear. The percentage of which. I mean, it almost feels sometimes like it's 90% of the people are not participating at all.
It's only 10% sending anything, written or calling, or anything. And then they just keep coming, coming, coming, coming. That's what they do. It's also fascinating that beef is a kind of a completely different group than normally would call.
So there are people that only, as you know, only call the beef segment. There are people that have been calling the beef segment for years that have never called outside the beef segment.
So that kind of is its own phenomenon. Yeah. Oh, but what's the percentage of people that participate in the show outside of the beef? Not counting the beefers, just the people who write and/or call in any other time that's not the beef segment. It feels like, yeah, five percent might be right.
It might be right. It might be right. It might be right. It's and my point is it's not five percent of the listeners that call, it's five percent that engage, that engage. How many engage with their shows?
And so many fewer engage on the level like chat. You have people who are sending us twenty, thirty, forty, even more than that chats per show. That's obviously way smaller than one percent. Right. But the smack off initially was for callers.
And then we brought in video. But if you're not calling, then the smack off doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of scandals. We generally would have, I don't know, 20 people on that day, give or take a few. Yeah. It makes sense to have them compete on the medium that's most common, that most of them are using, that the best participators are using.
And it seems I very much agree we've gone away from the phones necessarily being that. Or look, if it evolved into people zooming in every single day with rants on video, then that's what would be that would that would be a smack off. Right. Then the smack off evolved into that. But I'll tell you what the smack off has not evolved into the chat off.
And the chat is where the most aggressive and high-volume engagement is taking place right now. And that does not work as a smack-off. There basically is a chat-off every day. The only difference is, you don't come in and name a top 10 at the end of every show. From chat.
It just wouldn't, it would not meet our standard. The chat off cannot replace the smack off. I do not see a day I could do this 20 more years. I think we'd all agree that no offense, chat. I'm really happy to have you, and I'm glad that you found your place.
You're not good enough, and it's not big enough to replace the smack-off.
So there's that. The smack off. Look, believe me, I don't want to kill the smack off. I love the smack off. And I'm not even saying if we take a year off, That might just be it.
We're taking a year off. And then maybe it comes back in a different form. I'm just sitting here on. The ninth And I'm saying September? And we don't have a clear view of what it may be.
But there's been so much change on the program, though. In a sense, I see that too. You couple not to belabor this, but really quickly, you couple these two things. Number one, People don't use their phones to call other people, much less shows anymore. And then, number two, the platform has changed so dramatically.
And the engagement has changed so dramatically, then where does the smackoff fit in? It's not just that pure radio show with callers anymore.
So I don't know. We'll see. This guy weighs in Kowalski 3769. It took me over 25 years. to get my first comment read on the air.
I called once in 2003. And flamed out on JSTO. It took me another 20 years to even attempt to send something after that. All right, so in a sense, bro, I think you took down a little bit too hard. You probably should have gotten back on the salad, sat uh, the saddle a little bit sooner.
But this goes back to my point. How many people consuming the product? engage directly with us. That guy went 20 years between submissions. I think a lot of you drive around or watch and/or listen that never participate, which is fine.
But It all comes back to the smack-off. Ironwork C2Z Rome. Everything evolves. That's why y'all dominate. Smackoff is still here, just morphing to way more people.
JT Austin. I I don't know that the smack off is still here, at least, not the way we've always done it.
SoCal Brave quote: The chat killed the smack off. I didn't say that. Nor did I say this Hey, two hams twenty dollars. Bro, do not put words in my mouth. This pisses me off.
Quote, you heard it. Rome's canceling the smack off. No, I'm not. No, I am not. You didn't hear that.
You know why you didn't hear that? I didn't say that. Did I say there is no smack off? No. I said there is no date.
I said there may not be a smack off this year. There may be one next year, or there may be one this year. I'm just saying, it's very unusual to get this deep into the year without having a date and/or the actual event. And the reason we don't have the date or the event. Is that I'm just not feeling the energy for it.
I'm just not feeling. The need for it. Hey, Jim, I go so far back with the show. I remember before we were clones, we were called Romies. Tony in Riverside.
Were you? Was that a thing? Because I was here for the first day of the the thing. I don't know if I remember that. The Romies.
Yeah, I don't know if that's the thing. There's a lot of things about the thing that aren't true. that I've heard and read and seen. Ray and S.A. Hey at Jim Rome, let me tell you something.
I already have. Two smack-off prediction videos that have been taped, locked, and loaded. Ready to be sent when you announce it. Dude, prediction videos are very different than participation videos. Let's not confuse prediction season with the actual smack off itself.
And one more before I go to break. Big Star Hero at Big Star Hero. Either way, I appreciate the way that SmackOff 30 turned out. And I think that might show the potential the big show has in its evolution. The video calls were especially a nice touch.
Hey, big star hero. That's kind of the whole point. The video calls were incredible. My hope Was that's what that was going to morph into? My hope was that was part of the evolution.
That because the actual audio phones don't ring as much as they used to, that you would use your phone, turn it around, and make video calls for the smack-off. And the thing is. I mean, that would be like pure evolution. I'm just not seeing enough of that to announce a smack off. The smack off, there's such a bar and such a standard with the smack off.
If I don't feel that you all are meeting that standard, we're just not going to do it. Yeah, for instance I have a standard. The XR four TI, we have a standard. We show up every single day with this energy and this standard. I have to meet the standard or they'll rip the bleeping show from me.
In terms of the smack-off, You're just not meeting that standard.
So we're not announcing it. Anyway, so I'm glad that I had a chance to finally lay this all out and exactly what's going on. One last thought: last year, Prior to the announcement, we were getting hammered with Rome. When is the smack off? When is the smack off?
When is the smack off? Not getting a lot of that.
So I'm just doing my thing. And believe me. The world will not come to an end without the smack-off.
Now the world may come to an end if the robots take over by the end of the decade.
Okay. But there's been no determination yet. How do I know that now that I've laid this out, maybe we'll have a major rally? And maybe we do have a smack off before the end of the year. Maybe.
Or maybe it gets pushed to next year. We'll see. All right, when we come back.
Some more things I want to get to. Baker Mayfield got his deal. We mean to talk about that. In full. Still looking for Jim Moore Jr.
That's not officially dead yet.
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This was actually not meant to be a topic. But it's a pretty interesting topic. Since I asked the question, how many of you Listen, watch. Consume the content, the show, all these years, and then actually participate and do more than just listen or watch. This guy at Stranger quote: I listened to the show for about thirty-three years.
without ever calling. Faxing. or contacting the show in any way.
Now I do it almost every day. That's the power of the YouTube chat. That pretty amazing. But but not You know why? You're more comfortable in the chat.
Because, for whatever reason, it's in the back of your head or in the front of your head that, you know, if I do it in the chat, it's safe over there. That's our show. That's where I'm comfortable. But I'm not putting that out there for the entire world to see or the entire world to hear. But I'm good with chat.
I'm just gonna hang out here and chat. And then, for some of you, chat would not be big enough. And for some of you, chat's more than big enough. P. Staffler.
You've always been talking About evolving. You have something called the Reinvention Project. Exactly that. I've been listening for 15 years, and I've had three tweets read. And I appreciate that.
Matt in the OC, but Larity says he can't ever get through on the phones. Maybe Jim is saving P. Lara from himself. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
He can get through. Parody Larity can get through. I think if that's what he's telling you. He's doing it to save face. I am saving all of us from.
From him. I'm not saving him from himself. I'm saving all of you from him. He absolutely could get through. One eight hundred six three six.
8-6. Eight six. Let's go to Let's go to the phone. Since we're talking about the phones and the phone's not ringing, why don't we go to the phones? Let's go to Eddie in Pensacola.
Eddie, good to have you on. Eddie, what's going on? Man, not much, brother. Man, I can't believe you guys have been having a smack off. I mean, I moved.
To Pensacola about two months ago, and I finally reconnected with the jungle, man. Hey, what happened to Stu, man? Is he still around? You know, he used to, we had the huge call of the day. I still got mine.
It's uh, you send a video game out, man. I don't know if you guys still do that, but I called last week. uh you know given On the West My Deep. I had to let Sandusky know what was up. And just as I was getting done with my laundry today, I check out my Ann Arbor feed.
And Michigan man storming the field because I did something spectacular. No, I didn't. I did what my wife told me to do. Rack me, Jim. I'm freaking out.
Oh I'll do that. You just asked where Stu is, and am I still giving away video games for the huge call of the day? I'll rack you for that, Eddie. Idiom Pensacola, my man's like a time warp. It's like Eddie disappeared for 20 years and then all of a sudden showed up and like, hey man, I came to Pensacola and I found the smack off or I found the jungle.
Damn, the jungle's still going on. Alvin, when was the last time J Stew worked here? Schuett! Twenty years? Fifteen years?
I mean long enough that it's hard to even track. And this guy's going, Is Stu still there? Alvin thinks twenty twelve. Anyway. 12 or 15 years.
Eddie, no, Stu is not here. Stu's still around. Stu's still in the business. Stu is still doing his thing. I saw Stewart's Super Bowl.
He's doing great. But no, he's not still here. You know, so. Remember last week when I did that thing? And I wished Mike Piazza a happy birthday.
And then I played some of the great Mike Piazza clips. And that I said, you know, I don't have favorites. I never play favorites. And that's kind of not true. Mike Piazza is one of my all-time favorite athletes, one of my all-time favorite jungle participants.
So I did something where I normally would not do. I jumped on X. I don't have a phone number for Mike at this point, but I jumped on X and I jumped into his DMs. And I said, Hey, Mike. Happy birthday, brother.
You have no idea how much I appreciate you. Jim. And then a few days went by, I didn't hear it, didn't think anything of it. And then he hit me back. And he said Yo, dude.
Sorry it took me so long to get back. Great to see you still getting after it. Hope all is well.
So I think about that, and that's how far back that goes. But it's just funny. Is Stu still around? The the the jungle, like when we went to Westwood One, so we started a new network. And then you find people, and then one more thing: I understand this, and some of you were saying this on X, and I get this.
I was in the same time slot for 30 years.
So, when we migrated to 12 noon Pacific and 3 o'clock Eastern, I know not all of you could make that move. In fact, this weekend I was out and about. And somebody did stop me. And I was actually, believe it or not, I was in the 805. And I was in a casino.
And I found a clone, a longtime clone, a clone that said to me, and he got really emotional. Really emotional. He said, Rome, I've been listening since 1991. And His wife was there. Don't do that, Abby.
He was going through some stuff. But he said he still listens, or another one said, it's the move. When you move to 12. It became too difficult for me to stay with the show.
So I know that migration hurt some of you, without question. There's lots of moving parts. Right. From brick and mortar to producing it in-house to us being digital to us to me taking over the radio show and owning the radio show and then running that portion of the company.
So I'm no longer just a talk show host, but I'm an entrepreneur and a business owner. Like there are so many moving parts and so many things happening. And then life, right? They're like.
Some of you will say, where is this clone? I dunno. Their life changed. They moved on.
Some people move on, then they come back.
Some move on, they never come back.
So, in other words, lots of moving parts. Let's go to Robert in Tampa. Keep calling, weaklings. There's Stu. Yo, Robert, what's going on, dude?
How are you? Yeah, Jim, I got a message for all those pansies in their mom's basements giving takes behind a keyboard, hiding out, smoking pot, eating Doritos. Clones, every once in a while, not every day, but every once in a while, walk upstairs, go outside, look at the sun, look at the clouds, touch the ground, Jim a call. Because I'm telling you what, it's going to be okay. The worst that happens, you get run, you still wake up the next day.
I got to tell you, I was with my dad a couple years ago. We were listening to local talk radio. These schmucks who were calling the local talk radio, they have no pronunciation, they don't know anybody's names, they have terrible sports takes, but they keep going on and on and on. And my dad's like, why don't they hang up on them? I said, Dad, forget local radio.
You got to listen to Jim Rome because one strike and you're out. Actually, one strike and you're run. He doesn't give you any second chances. My dad starts listening to Jim Rome. He loves the show.
I say, okay, Dad, you love that?
Now start listening to the smack off. He listens to the smack off. He said, that was amazing. What was that? I said, that's the best of the best when it comes to callers going head to head.
So my dad calls me the other day. He says, hey, when is the next smack off? I say, Dad, bad. News Jim might not have one because no one's calling up again.
So please get the calls. Ringing, the best parts about this show for 20-some years have been Jim's takes and the callers. But unfortunately, the callers have been letting me down. Please bring back the smack off, pick up the phone, get back in the game. See you later, Jim.
I'm out. Rock, Jim. That's the energy I came for. Right there. You know, a guy like that, if that guy were to call again with a second call or a third call, he'd get a golden ticket.
He'd be in the smack off because he had a take and it didn't suck and he had the good energy. That's smackoff energy right there. And what a great anecdote that was, too. Like his dad's like, man, this, all these schmucks calling all these local radio programs that are going on and on and on and on and on and have nothing to say, and their takes are terrible. And he says to his dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, do this.
Listen to Rome. Listen to this national show. He doesn't tolerate that. He's always said, have a take, don't suck. If you want to call the program, we'd love to have you on the program.
But have a take, don't suck. And if you can't keep up, you're going to get run. It's fine. It's not made for everybody to call. That guy can.
And by the way, I don't need a million of you. That's the whole point of the smack-off. It's for the best of the best. One day out of the year, the very best of the best call and they compete. How did we come up with this idea?
They came back way early on in the evolution of the program because I knew every single day I would show up and I'd be prepared and I would do a really good interview or two or three and we'd have really good takes, two or three or four or five. And then you never knew what you were going to get from the callers. But every once in a while. You'd get two or three really good calls. And I thought to myself, man, if I could just hand pick, if I could hand pick the callers, then I would know that I would get really good calls every single day.
But you can't do that. But I can one day out of the year. One day out of the year, I can hand pick who I want to call the program. And so that's what we've done for 30 years. And whereas we used to have the huge call of the day.
If you won the huge call of that day, the smack off, you then were the king of smack for a year. You then were the best caller. On the most important day of the year. It's like winning a Grand Slam event, right? It's like winning the Super Bowl.
It's the Super Bowl for callers. And for 30 years, we've done it, and it's been absolutely incredible every single year. This year, the energy has just been different.
Now, that guy brought it back for a minute. You know, like I'll give you another example of some smack off energy. When John and Seatown called yesterday, that was smackoff energy. That was an OG who rose up out of nowhere and bam, he brought it. That was Smack Off Energy.
That dude right there in Tampa, Smack Off Energy. Drizzle last Friday, the return of drizzle. If there were a smack off. drizzle would be invited. He was away for a while, and he explained why, but that was smack off energy.
You know, the goat, Brad, BIC. BIC, it seems to me. I just have to announce a date and then he'll be there. Brad will go the entire year without calling the show and then show up the day of and win. That's why he's the goat.
He's that kind of guy. But it's the others Like I'll give you an example, Vic. Vic has won a smack-off. Vic participates every single day. Vic's been in the chat for the most part.
You know, I'll tell you somebody who calls. I will tell you a guy. That is a smack-off Icon that does call throughout the year. It would be their day off. Mark and Hollywood.
Mark in Hollywood absolutely is still that guy. But if I only think five of you are showing up on that day, we're not doing it. It's not enough. I I need to see More energy for it, and it's fine. It's fine.
I'll do another show that day, like I always do. Just not that show.
Alright, well we'll come back. If you have thoughts on this or anything else, go ahead and hit me up. I'm trying to get to Baker Mayfield. The Clippers unbelievably, are still acting like morons.
Now, reportedly, they're the ones holding up the trade with Toronto for Kawhi Leonard. Because reportedly, they're unhappy that the NBA did not hit Kawhi hard enough for his role in whatever it is they say they didn't do. Because that makes sense. Hey hey, Steve Ballmer, I'm I'm here to help, not hate. I'm here to help.
This dude Kawhi Has cost you. 10 first-round picks. Ten. If you want to recoup any of them, Execute the trade. and get two back in that trade.
If you want to get anything else back Cooperate with the NBA because they have you dead to rights, and then maybe they'll give you back one or two of the five that they ripped from you. Why are you still fighting in a fight you've already got your ass kicked in? The the Clippers are mad at Kauai. Hilarious What you ought to do is build that guy a statue. Why are you mad at him?
Why are you mad at him? What did he ever do to you? other than destroy your whole franchise. Why are you so mad at him? What did Kawhi Leonard ever do to you?
Bomber? Other than ruin everything, what did that guy ever do to you? Mip. Mad Adam, you ought to build and erect a statue of him. Every Clipper fan should have to pass by the guy that destroyed that franchise on the way into your toilet palace.
Holding up the trade. Come on, man. All right, stay tuned. You're listening to that Jim Rome show. Time to answer your Ask the Pros question.
Were you clones going to submit a question to me or anybody else on the program? Just hit Edgemroam on X. It is sponsored by O'Reilly Auto Parts. Think O'Reilly Auto Parts for all of your car care needs. Get the parts and service you need fast from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts.
King of Smack Where did your roots for smack derive from? Did you utilize SMAC as a youth when Pops was working you to the ground in the family business? Thanks, Jason in Texas. Warcraft Chat. No, no, no.
That had nothing to do with the family business. You know, I'm thinking about these things as I'm putting the book together right now. If you're asking where did the attitude come from, or where did the approach come from, or where did I get the idea to do a show like this when there were never shows like this before? That was it. I I mean it's it's really kind of convoluted for me to get to here.
But I will tell you this. The one thing that I did know, I knew early on in my life, my one advantage was. I knew what I wanted to do at an early age. Be a pro athlete. Then I figured out at an early age that was never going to happen.
But I always loved sports. I was like a lot of you, I was obsessed with sports as a kid. I was addicted to sports as a kid. It's all I cared about. It's all I ever wanted to do.
Watch sports. Watch sports. I mean, I played sports like any other kid. I played Little League Baseball and I played tennis and I did all those things that you did in Southern California growing up. But once I realized that I was not going to be even a college athlete, I'm like, man, how do I stay in this business?
How could I break into sports? What could I do? What could I do? Oh, maybe I could be a broadcaster. You don't have to play the game to be a broadcaster.
Maybe I could do that.
So I knew early on that that's what I wanted to do, and then I set my mind to that. All right, so how am I going to do this? Do I want to do play-by-play? No, you know what I want to do? I want to do a show.
I wanna do a show because when I got in, there was almost no sports talk radio. WFAN was the only all-sports station in the entire country when I went to college and I was breaking in. Then 6:90 a.m. in San Diego was half sports, half news. But there were sports talk shows.
But when I was growing up, There was almost nothing. And what there was was really not interesting.
So I was never the best or the brightest in the room, but I did have a sense of: man, this sucks. This is really boring. This is just some dude with a big radio voice breaking down the Dodger homestand. And I'm like, that's not interesting. Where's the show in that?
And me and all my buddies, we would just talk ish, we would just talk bleep. We would just come up with gloss. We would just say, Man, that dude looks like a rat. You know, that dude looks like a rat. Damn, we should have a whole rat family.
And th this is just how we would communicate over beers and things. And I started to think about if I ever got a show, This is what I would do for a show. What I do over here that I don't get paid for. And that was just the way I saw the world. That was just my POV.
That was my point of view. That dude looks like a rat. Or the Knicks, man, they can't shoot. What a bunch of bricks. They're not Knicks, they're bricks.
You know, things that are like lame now and tired were kind of cool and fresh back in 1989. But anyway, that that's where my roots came from. I just That's how I watch sports. It didn't seem that different, right? Except that people were not doing shows like that.
And I was one of the first to come on the air with a show like that because I had a long time to think about it because I kept trying to get a job, trying to get a job, trying to get a job. And while I was trying to get a job all these years, I was formulating this show. And I just liked athletes to talk junk. I like the athletes to talk smack. That's why initially where that's where the the moniker Vance Mack came from.
I first hit Nick Van Exel with it. Because Nick Van Exel talked all this smack. I thought he was great. I loved him. This is why I loved some of the young athletes that I loved on the way up were like that.
And when I hit Nick Van Exel with Nick Van Smack, he didn't like it. And you don't even have to play the cut, Albi. But in an interview, it came up, and I'm like, you don't like that, do you? He's like, no. I'm like, why not?
It's a compliment. He's like, it's not my name. I'm like, all right. Respect. You don't like that?
That's not your name. I will stop calling you that. But I'm going to take it for myself. If you don't want Van Smack, I will be Van Smack.
So Nick Van Exo did not like being Nick Van Smack, so I became Van Smack. And I well, I self-glossed. Run me, Alvie. I self-glossed. Van Smack.
And that just stuck. Anyway, all of the show, the energy, the attitude, the way I interviewed, the way I went at people, the way I held people accountable, the way I hype people when they earned it. All these things were not the way things people were doing back in the day. People didn't have takes. They didn't have takes.
If anything, I'm not saying that I invented the format, but I will say this: I think that I was the one that popularized the take, the rant. Have a take. What is your take? If you're going to call the show, don't ask me a question. Call the show with a take.
I know you have an opinion. I know you saw that game last night. I know you want to say something. I mean, it seems so basic now because everybody's got a take. And there are a lot of bad takes.
And contrived takes and manufacture takes. But when I first came up to answer this question: where did my roots for SMAC come from? I just had a vision for a different show, and I made a commitment to myself. if I ever got an opportunity. I was gonna do the show that I wanted to do, and then if it didn't work and I failed and I fell on my face, so be it.
But I was not going to do the show that everybody else was doing that made no sense to me, that was not entertaining. That's where the roots came from. I mean, she's just a sports fan. I was just a sports fan that found a way to get a show. And had a vision for it.
Right, so there's chapter one of the book. Great.
Now I know what people mean when I interview them, when I interview authors, and they're like, Rome, I don't want to give up too much of the book. You just got chapter one. O'Reilly Auto Parts can help take the guesswork out of your vehicle's check engine, ABS, or maintenance light with O'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE Certified Master Technicians. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today.
My thanks to Dana White. I'm not sure what happened to Jim Morris Jr. Coming up still today. We're not done. Episode number 425 of the Jim Rome Podcast.
John Talty has written a book on Lane Kiffin, Lane being Lane. We're going to push that out. In the next hour or two. Look for that.
