Over the last decade Sports Betting has grown from an illegal activity run by bookies and organized crime to a $100 billion dollar industry run by powerful Casinos and Political Lobbyists. Sports Betting Expert and Gambling Researcher Dr. John Holden has studied that change. We talk the influence of Sports Betting on Sports and Society, how the Gambling Industry gamed the system and the scandal that could bring it all down. Then, it’s Chili vs. Apple Pie as we countdown the Top 5 Fall Foods.
Dr. John Holden: 01:22
Pointless: 27:46
Top 5 Fall Foods: 43:44
Interview with Sports Betting Researcher Dr. John Holden
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick vinzant Coming up in this episode, sports betting and fall foods.
Dr. John Holden 0:21
We think that the leagues knew that their best customers, the people who watch the most sports, are betting on it. So the amount of money being wagered is in the 100 billion dollar range. You know, one of the things I don't think people want to admit is that we have undoubtedly had fixed games over the years that we don't know about.
Nick VinZant 0:46
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or a review. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies a $100 billion industry that is having a massive effect not just on sports, but society. This is sports betting researcher, Dr John Holden, when we look at sports betting, how has this affected sports it's a little
Dr. John Holden 1:26
bit of a chicken in the egg. Sports and sports betting have always gone hand in hand. If we look back to, you know, like even ancient Egypt, people are betting on sports. So this is not something new. It's only really new in a legal environment in the US. But this has been going on for 1000s of years, and really almost every ancient culture has indications that people were betting on games of some type. So this is really sort of this modern idea that this is something prohibited and taboo. Do
Nick VinZant 2:02
you think that it has changed anything now that it's legal? Certainly,
Dr. John Holden 2:07
anyone who watches television, listens to the radio, reads print media, has noticed things have changed. The advertising of commercials is incessant, and it's really been over the top. So I think, you know, even for non sports fans, they're being inundated with sports betting content. I think when we look at how it's changed sports some of the things that we see is some of the negative externalities that come with sports betting. And, you know, sports betting can be an emotional experience for some people, and some people do not let that out in a healthy way
Nick VinZant 2:48
before it was legalized, did leagues kind of secretly embrace this? So
Dr. John Holden 2:52
that's kind of one of those. I don't know if I want to call it a conspiracy theory, but, you know, it's something that people like me who study this from an academic perspective, we think that the leagues knew that their best customers, the people who watch the most sports, are betting on it. And you know, it's fairly intuitive, when you think about it, right? Who's most interested in sports? Well, people who have their own money riding on the game. So we've known for years that sports bettors, fantasy sports players, they consume more sports the the leagues are multi billion dollar enterprises. They have research teams that are as good as research teams at any top university in the country. So they undoubtedly had knowledge of this. I think, you know, the the opposition to sports betting for a long time was okay, we don't want this to roll out in a fashion where we don't have a say in the control over it. Where
Nick VinZant 4:03
are we kind of with legalization right now? Is this legal everywhere? Is this legal for every sport? Or where do we kind of sit?
Dr. John Holden 4:09
So we're legal in 38 states, DC, Puerto Rico, but we don't have legalization in California or Texas. So when you're looking at much of the country as legalized sports betting, but there's still some sort of big places out there with huge interest in sports that don't have legalized sports betting. So we are approaching sort of the adolescent years of sports betting in the United States, and as we're maturing as a sports betting market that's legal and regulated, we're starting to see some of the negative consequences that come with sports betting that I think a lot of people really. I overlooked in the rollout of sports betting, or downplayed sort of you know, thought that maybe we would be different than what happened in the UK or in some countries in Europe Australia, where we could roll out sports betting in a way that doesn't result in increased calls to gambling helplines and things like that. And we're starting to see that we aren't exceptional. And this is happening, and unfortunately, sort of, one of the great downfalls of this rollout has been the lack of resources that have been allocated to those issues. Why wasn't
Nick VinZant 5:39
there a better plan for it? Like, why didn't we kind of have things in a row? Did we not understand it? Did we just not do it? Like, why was it a kind of in more anticipation? In that regard,
Dr. John Holden 5:51
we came into sports betting through two, two sort of key events. The first was, we didn't get sports betting through the federal government lobbying and repealing a law. We got the Supreme Court striking down a federal law that had frozen sports betting as it existed in 1992 because the Supreme Court struck it down. We didn't have this federal lobbying process where we get uniform rules throughout all the states. So we have each state doing this on their own. When each state does this on their own, I don't know if a lot of people realize but a lot of state legislatures are composed of legislators who have other jobs most of the year, so they aren't experts on things, and they don't have sort of the same knowledge background as our federal legislators. So basically, they rely on lobbying groups to tell them what to do. And I think, you know, the gambling industry really rolled into town and was like, This is how you should do it. And so we got laws that are largely favorable to the gambling country companies, and sort of the one big pushback that we saw was less so with regards to restrictions and more so with regards to tax rates. So states that did push back, effectively push back saying, Well, we're going to tax this at a very high rate. And so that's kind of how we've gotten here. And then the second factor that played a role in the the rollout was the the growth of daily fantasy sports. So if you watched TV back in 2015, around this time, the start of the NFL season, there was a daily fantasy sports advertisement being aired roughly every minute on television. And so FanDuel and DraftKings emerged as these new products. They looked a lot like sports betting. The companies lobbied very hard they were not sports betting, that they were fantasy sports. And you know, one of the things that they did was they basically convinced the major leagues, teams and leagues themselves, that this wasn't going to end the world, and the leagues invested in them. It
Nick VinZant 8:31
kind of sounds a little bit in the sense that, like we did, it more towards an eye of, how can we make how do we tax this and make money off of it, rather than, how can we do this safely? Absolutely.
Dr. John Holden 8:42
And, you know, the pandemic, really, I think, exacerbated this. Every state was concerned that, you know, their tax base was going to be permanently damaged, and this was a way of raising new revenue where it wasn't a increase in income tax, it wasn't an increase on property taxes. And you know, states saw this as a way that they could do things like raise teacher salaries, bringing in sports bag money. And there's certainly research that shows when states roll out gambling products to do things like raise teacher salary that doesn't sort of typically hold up long term. And in fact, what tends to happen is they just spend the teacher salary money elsewhere, and we sort of revert back to the mean after a short time. But so I think that there certainly were states that wanted to roll this out responsibly at the beginning, and then the pandemic took over, and there was also this almost hysteria in some states that if you don't legalize this now, your neighbor is going to legalize it, and all of that tax money. Will go next door. And I think that led to a lot of reliance on the gambling industry itself to come in and tell people, you know, how should you run this? And you know, there's a lot of good people in the gambling industry, but the gambling industry is in the interest of are in the business of making money off of gamblers, and there's no denying that
Nick VinZant 10:25
the states that haven't adopted it, why haven't they done it?
Dr. John Holden 10:30
I always sort of explain it as the states where this was going to be easy, it's been done, and it's going to be easy in places where there isn't a stakeholder that either opposes gambling or opposes how this would roll out. And so if we look at California, the issue in California is not that California doesn't want sports betting, it's California has a large number of gaming tribes that have casinos and back. The last election cycle, there was a ballot initiative, competing ballot initiatives, and one would have allowed the tribes to have sports betting on their properties. The other would have allowed online companies to come in, and billions of dollars were spent defeating these two initiatives, and each ran at around 20% popularity. So there's huge money in this. And so there's huge interest in ensuring that in a state like California, it rolls out how the stakeholders want it to roll out. And when you have the the gaming tribes in California and the online gaming industry going head to head, those are two very well resourced groups fighting over this. And what ended up happening was essentially just blowing the whole thing up.
Nick VinZant 12:02
The two were fighting so much they ruined it for both of them. Yes,
Dr. John Holden 12:07
when we look at Texas, Texas has a lieutenant governor named Dan Patrick, who is a staunch opponent of gambling. So even as many stakeholders in Texas, including the Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, has come out in support of legalizing this. They have never been able to sort of get past the lieutenant governor. When you look at other places, a state like Utah, Utah's has a has a large Mormon population, and so has a religious opposition to gambling. Every state has that sort of unique reason why they haven't crossed that line right now, and so certainly, I think at some point, many of these states will legalize sports betting. The big question is, what exactly will bring groups together to do this? When
Nick VinZant 13:08
you kind of look at it like, who's the bigger fish? Is it the casinos, or is it the online in
Dr. John Holden 13:14
California, it's the casinos, and that's one of the big things that a lot of people don't understand. With sports betting, you hear billions of dollars wager, but really the revenue from that, historically, is about 5% so casinos aren't making you know, running a sports betting business isn't the best casino game that you can offer. You can do much better offering slots or something else than sports betting. But a lot of people sort of foresee the legalization of online sports betting as a gateway to online casino, and so brick and mortar casinos like those that many of the California based tribes own, would be severely hurt if online casinos were to come in, especially run by groups other than themselves. So there, there is very much this idea that if you give up on online sports betting, online casino is at somewhere around the corner, and that could really be be devastating for a lot of these tribal communities that rely on gaming revenue to do a lot of things for Tribal members.
Nick VinZant 14:39
Are there that many people gambling.
Dr. John Holden 14:41
So the amount of money being wagered is in the 100 billion dollar range.
Nick VinZant 14:50
That sounds like a ton of money. Is that a ton of
Dr. John Holden 14:54
money being wagered? And I think it's more than a lot of people. Realized,
Nick VinZant 15:01
have any states really, like benefited from this? Like, you could point to this state and say, You know what, this has actually really helped people out in that state. I sounds like a no,
Dr. John Holden 15:14
yeah. I mean, I, I don't think if you are looking at states that have raised a lot of tax revenue from taxing sports betting. New York is at the top. They have exceeded their expectations, brought in more than a billion dollars in tax revenue. They could undoubtedly do a lot of stuff with a billion dollars. New York is a big state, so it doesn't go as far as they wouldn't say Oklahoma, but a billion dollars is nothing to shake a stick at. Is that offsetting everything else? Is that a great win? I don't know. I think it's probably premature to say, if you look at some of the other states, like, if you look at like a Delaware or Rhode Island, has it been worth it for them? I don't know that. A million bucks, 2 million bucks, 3 million bucks, 4 million bucks. It's a lot to be but it's not a ton of money and revenue to a state. And there's a lot of costs that come with this. I mean, you have to create some sort of regulatory agency to oversee this. Those people need salaries, and they have travel expenses and things like that. So undoubtedly, there are jobs that are created by this. But you know, in terms of, I don't think it's some huge boon for states all over the country.
Nick VinZant 16:50
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Sure, has this been good or bad?
Dr. John Holden 16:57
So I'm in the camp that thinks this has been good, and the reason I say that is because we are watching it now. Prior to 2018 we had sports bang in this country, lots of it, but because we had sports bang happening almost exclusively in unregulated markets, there was virtually no one watching it. We have people watching it now. We have the leagues watching it now closely protecting the integrity of games. We have people less afraid to call those help numbers and get help because they don't feel like they're telling on themselves for doing something that might be prohibited. So, you know, in breaking down those stigmas for an activity that I think is happening anyways, I'm of the belief that this is a net positive over continuing to let this exist in the shadows. Is there
Nick VinZant 18:02
any statistics in regard to is this more a lot of people doing it, or a relatively smaller number of people now doing it a lot? It's
Dr. John Holden 18:12
both. We have a lot of people doing it and we have a small number of people doing it a lot. I
Nick VinZant 18:20
might be the only person I know who doesn't gamble on sports. Of my friends I grew up with, and know now I think I'm the only one. Yeah.
Dr. John Holden 18:30
I mean, I work on college campuses. It's is everywhere, and it's hard to avoid. And I think, you know, this has been one of the things that we are going to grapple with as a country in the next 10 years of legal sports bag is, I don't know if it's how do we put it back in the box, but how do we find a way that this is less omnipresent and people are able to detach from this more easily than what we're seeing right now.
Nick VinZant 19:06
What league do you think has embraced it the most? What League has kind of stayed away from it a little bit?
Dr. John Holden 19:13
So the NBA is probably the most bullish. The NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in 2014 wrote an op ed in the New York Times where he basically said, we should legalize this. It should be noted that he wrote this op ed while he was suing the state of New Jersey trying to stop them from legalizing it. He wanted a very specific type of regulation. Wanted it his way. Yeah, he did, but he has been very vocal about how he sees the future of NBA basketball. And he has talked about, you know, wanting fans to receive the opportunity to have unique bets in stadium and things like that. So the NBA, by and large, is. Of the four major professional leaks in the US, the biggest embracer of it, the NFL has always been the least bullish on it. And you know, I think some of that is the NFL has always been the most valuable League. They as the most valuable perhaps they have the most to lose from a gambling scandal. And maybe the NFL also knew that it has always been the league that gets bet on the most. So it's always had that out there that I wouldn't say they embrace it now, but they've come along to accept its existence.
Nick VinZant 20:48
Thing you can't believe they allow people to bet on some
Dr. John Holden 20:51
of the Super Bowl prop bets like color of the Gatorade, is not something that should be encouraged to be allowed in the regulated market. In my mind, you know, one of the things that when we're regulating sports bank, we want to ensure that there's not a market for inside information, right? So a number of people know what color of the Gatorade is going to be. We don't want information like that. We don't want to be able to be able to bet on it. And many states don't allow betting on the color of the Gatorade. But some
Nick VinZant 21:31
do. Wasn't there somebody in the Super Bowl who kind of rigged something where he there was a bet about, I think it was like a streaker, and then he became the streaker, and he like rigged this system. There
Dr. John Holden 21:45
are certainly stories about this that perhaps my favorite one, and a good example of why I don't think we should allow these exotic one off prop bets is there was a goalie in one of the lower divisions of English soccer, and he was seen eating a pie on the sidelines, like a meat pie. And so some sports book over in England decided to offer a prop bet on whether or not the goalie eats a pie the next game, he found out about it and intentionally ate a pie during the next game. The problem with that is that's essentially match fixing. You are fixing a market because you are predetermining the outcome.
Nick VinZant 22:40
Do you think all the shoes have dropped? No,
Dr. John Holden 22:46
we have still largely avoided a major scandal. We've had some big one. We had an Alabama baseball coach who was providing information to someone to bet on games. We had a gambling scandal involving Iowa and Iowa State football. We've had johnte Porter in the NBA, but we have not had a major, major scandal yet. You know, one of the things I don't think people want to admit is that we have undoubtedly had fixed games over the years that we don't know about, and that's because we don't have these mechanisms in place that we have now. We have more technology, more people in place, better knowledge than ever before with the regulated market. So I think that'll be a devastating blow to both sports and the regulated gambling market. By Do you think sort of the regulation and having regulators in place will in the long run, be better than had we not had them?
Nick VinZant 23:58
What do you think would have to happen in order to put it back in the bottle, maybe
Dr. John Holden 24:04
a fixed NFL game, or a series of fixed NFL games. I think the NFL is really the only sport that could move the needle.
Nick VinZant 24:14
Do you think that any societal issues would would do it, or would it just have to be corruption within the sport itself? Sadly,
Dr. John Holden 24:24
no, I don't think that we have the stakeholder groups representing those societal interests that would move the needle enough you
Nick VinZant 24:36
think it's inevitable that all states do it, except for Utah. Like I feel like you're
Dr. John Holden 24:40
gonna we hold out there is unlikely. Eventually everyone else which
Nick VinZant 24:47
state surprises you the most that they haven't like I can't believe this one hasn't. North
Dr. John Holden 24:53
Carolina is surprising. Some of the states I'm more surprised. Don't is one of them's Missouri. Uh, Missouri has tried very hard, basically since 2018 to legalize sports bank and has not been able to get it done. It sounds like they might have a ballot initiative this year that could do it.
Nick VinZant 25:15
I don't know if you can do this or not, but like, how how often are games fixed?
Dr. John Holden 25:19
Oh, we have no idea. It's not often. I mean, I don't think, I don't think there's NFL games being fixed regularly or anything.
Nick VinZant 25:29
What about, what about NBA? NBA is, NBA is the big conspiracy one, isn't it?
Dr. John Holden 25:34
When we're looking at sports where I think fixing probably happens. You know, college sports are always going to be vulnerable, right? It wasn't until 2021 that college athletes could be paid any money, which, you know, one of the things that we know about match fixers is that they want to fix as cheaply as possible and do so as easily as possible. And you know, one of the easiest things to do is pay someone who's not getting paid. So college sports is all was, historically, I think, the most vulnerable, and certainly the the numbers that we see coming out have indicate that right, most of our big scandals of fixing in the US have been college sports related, Arizona State basketball, Tulane basketball, Toledo football and basketball. So, you know, I think some of that market has probably been protected through college athletes being able to monetize their n i l rights and stuff. But you know, that's really nil. Deals are largely concentrated in big dollars, in a small handful of athletes. So I, I still think you know where, where we should be devoting a lot of our attention is to college sports and protecting athletes there. What's
Nick VinZant 26:56
kind of coming up next for you? Like, what are you researching now? What are you working on?
Dr. John Holden 27:00
So I'm working on some NCAA stuff, sort of looking at what we can do to help protect athletes from harassment online. It's kind of one of the big projects that I'm excited about. Other than that, just teaching some classes.
Nick VinZant 27:19
I want to thank Dr Holden so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. And if you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version will be live on September 12, at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Scholl and get to the pointless part of the show. So do you hang up your T shirts, or do you fold them?
John Shull 27:53
Hang them up if, if I'm even going to get the ones that are hung up, I don't mean to sound gross here and maybe unhygienic, but if I wear a shirt just to work, like a dress shirt, I don't see the need to have to wash it unless it gets dirty. Yeah?
Nick VinZant 28:10
But dude, you're still sweating in it. Are you wearing an undershirt?
John Shull 28:14
Oh yeah, always, I'm not like, you only skinny guys don't wear undershirts. Oh
Nick VinZant 28:18
yeah, I don't wear undershirts, but I don't hang up my shirts at all. I don't understand the point of hanging up a t shirt to me. That's just, you're asking to stretch out the collar on the neck. I can't stand a shirt with a loose collar. Man, if I get a loose collar, that thing's going in the trash.
John Shull 28:32
I hang my shirts up. It's just, if it's in the regular rotation, if it's in the weak rotation, I'll just throw it in a pile and like, if I, if I happen to maybe wear it on a Friday after wearing it on a Monday or something, or a father following Monday, so be it, it's not dirty. Okay,
Nick VinZant 28:50
here's my other question. So I'm going to be starting a new job here in the next couple weeks where I have to go back into the office for the first time in like, four years. Do you think I can get away with wearing the same clothes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? Like I'm gonna have my Tuesday clothes, my Wednesday clothes and my Thursday clothes, and just wear the same three outfits every single
John Shull 29:12
week? No, I think it's a new job. I think I think maybe, if you are, if you become established, maybe I never think, unless it's pants, I never think you should wear the same shirt multiple days in a row.
Nick VinZant 29:28
But how, okay, how many weeks Do you think I could do this before people notice, like, how many weeks could I wear the same thing on Tuesday, the same thing on Wednesday, the same thing on Thursday, before somebody would notice the pattern.
John Shull 29:44
How many people are you going to be working with? There's 1000 people in the company. I would give it a month, and then people will start to notice, I think I would
Nick VinZant 29:55
say a month, if it was five days a week in. The Office, maybe six weeks. If you're going into the office three times a week, that I could pull it off, because other people might not be there in the same days. So I'm gonna give I would give myself six weeks. Is okay? What do you think the percentage is? So I pulled the audience. What percentage of people do you think fold their T shirts? What percentage of people do you think hang up their T shirts. I'm
John Shull 30:21
gonna say 6040 in favor of hanging.
Nick VinZant 30:25
Oh no, very close on the percentages, but you just got them wrong. 64% fold and 36% hang.
John Shull 30:34
I I'm curious to know, what is the like do? Do women wash their clothes more than men like the outfits they wear on a regular basis.
Nick VinZant 30:45
I'm the wrong person to ask this, because without a sense of smell, I wash anything. If I wear it for five minutes, I'm gonna wash it because I have no way of knowing if it smells or not.
John Shull 30:54
I tell you what. That's an experience, by the way, friggin Little League Soccer got my first dose of that this past weekend. Holy Hell, that's
Nick VinZant 31:05
that's not a recreational activity. That is a business. That is, I mean, that is a business.
John Shull 31:11
I mean, God bless him. But the other team, they were playing one of the teams, the coach, these are six years old. Six year old kids coach is running formations. I'm
Nick VinZant 31:24
like, Oh, that's too much.
John Shull 31:26
I'm like, Man, calm down. And anyway, I ended up becoming an assistant coach. It's great. It all worked out. So, oh, are
Nick VinZant 31:33
you gonna so what are you gonna? Are you gonna try? Are you gonna try to assert the power? Are you gonna try to become the head coach? You gonna try to weasel your way in there? No.
John Shull 31:41
And actually, I didn't want to do it. I was happy sitting on the sidelines with my beer and my koozie, by the way. Is that not is that an okay to do to bring alcohol to a kid's soccer game? No,
Nick VinZant 31:52
you shouldn't probably be drinking alcohol or bringing alcohol to a kid's soccer game. What time does the game start?
John Shull 31:59
Uh, Sunday was two o'clock, and then they had one at, like, four o'clock. So two and four, I
Nick VinZant 32:05
mean, you can't make it a regular thing. I feel like, if you really go for that and you're doing it all the time, like, oh yeah, he's drinking at this little kid's soccer game all the time. Might be nobody pushing more from a you're, you're the problem is, is that you're going more from a guy having a good time to the person kind of like, oh, he might have a little bit of a problem. Nobody
John Shull 32:25
knew it, though, and I guarantee you. And for those of you out there, judging me, if you've ever been in that, if you've ever been in that spot, there's always, if you haven't been one of them, there's always those people that, I mean, on Sunday afternoon, it was the first Sunday of football. I just wanted to have a celebratory drink.
Nick VinZant 32:44
You may not think everybody knew, but everybody knew. Nobody knew. Not everybody knew. They all No. Nobody said anything to you. They all knew. Nobody
John Shull 32:53
knew what's that you
Nick VinZant 32:54
can you can tell by the way, somebody's drinking, like, if you're drinking water versus drinking a beer, like, you know what somebody's doing. Everybody knew like, so here's the assistant coach out here drinking beer. Yeah, dude, well, I
John Shull 33:07
didn't take it. I didn't take it over there. I didn't take it when I was coaching. Not that much of a putz. Uh, you ready for? You
Nick VinZant 33:13
ready for shout outs?
John Shull 33:15
I mean, I was born ready? This is shout outs number 187
Nick VinZant 33:19
I think, Oh, it's a lot. We're probably getting up there to be honest with
John Shull 33:23
you. Uh, so let's see. Let's start here with Jeff flex, Christopher Brewer, Ken Smith, Joseph zorio, Luca, Brazi, Jack, Nissan, Brandon, Blakely, sendo, Garcia. Though I don't believe this is a real name. I picked it out anyways, because I love it. Uh, Magnus Leinart. Magnus could be a real first name, right? Magnus
Nick VinZant 33:47
is a real name. I believe that's a Norwegian, Nordic thing.
John Shull 33:52
I hear we're huge in those countries. Uh, Sean McElroy, Joe Rocco, Maria lawless and John Shaban, hm,
Nick VinZant 34:04
solid. Lot of solidness. Lot of solid names there. Okay, alright,
John Shull 34:09
let's, let's talk some things here. Let's, let's just get to the one that's probably the most saddest on the list today, and that is the the passing of a legend, a cinematic legend, today. James Earl Jones passed away. Oh,
Nick VinZant 34:23
that's a big name.
John Shull 34:27
I did pick out what IMDb claimed were his five best roles of all time that he did. Okay, okay. Two of them are voices. Three of them are acting credits. So obviously from the voice acting, you know, obviously Star Wars and Lion King, yeah, yeah. And then acting, acting, I guess, if that makes sense, uh, sandlot, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Coming to America, yeah. And filled of dreams, yeah.
Nick VinZant 35:00
He's kind of like, and he made that a little bit, you're like, Oh, if he's in it, it's probably pretty good,
John Shull 35:05
yeah. And his age shocked me. I, you know, I felt like he'd always been around forever, but when I saw that he had died at the age of 93 I was like, man, he had, you know, he he'd been around for a minute, um, and probably a guy that really he had, like, the the favor of not having to reinvent himself. He was literally giving, given, a God, given talent with his voice, it sound like he had to keep trying different things. People came to him and also, wasn't he the the guy, the voice guy in our the Arby's commercials, Arby's, we have the
Nick VinZant 35:44
meats, no man that's being reigns.
John Shull 35:50
Are you positive on that
Nick VinZant 35:52
100% we have the meats that's being reigns. Let's
John Shull 35:56
see here. As we all know, Beetlejuice came out, if you haven't seen it, like I haven't check it out. What struck me here is AMC, like any company trying to make more money than they probably need to, charging $31 for a Beetlejuice drink. I would I won't pay $10 for like a movie theater soda, let alone $31 for a Beetlejuice drink. No,
Nick VinZant 36:23
that's not the kind of commemorative movie either like, Okay, if you're gonna get away with that, with maybe Star Wars or something like that, where you can really sell commemorative stuff, I get that a little bit. But Beetlejuice, ain't it. I don't understand how, why anybody would like if you were a movie theater owner, this is what's baffling to me. To go on an entire rant. It's like, wow, going watching entertainment at home is more convenient and cheaper than I don't know about cheaper, but more convenient than ever. What should we do as a movie theater owner? Well, let's make it difficult and Jack all the prices up. That'll get them to come in. Like, I don't understand that at all
John Shull 37:01
well. I mean, I mean, I think, like any business, right, they had to figure out how to survive the pandemic. And, you know, I mean, I don't get it. It's 20 bucks for like, a medium soda and popcorn. Now, that's kind of crazy. That's a load of nuts. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 37:17
I wouldn't pay that. Man, that's too much not paying those high prices.
John Shull 37:21
Let's see. I thought this was interesting. People are dying from complications of having six pack surgery. That seems like a great idea. Let's implant different kinds of collagens into our intestinal area and think nothing's gonna happen. So
Nick VinZant 37:42
I didn't even know that was one of those that was possible. I remember some episode of, like, true life way back in the day about a guy getting calf implants. And I thought that was crazy, but I don't understand getting six pack surgery, because, like, what about the rest of you? So then, if you're the rest of you, kind of gets big, you still got this six pack that's just like, super glued onto your body, like you're wearing some kind of, like, Halloween outfit armor. That's a little strange.
John Shull 38:08
I mean, I'm sure it's kind of like anything, right, like ozempic or any kind of these drugs. Like, I think you have to meet a criteria. Like, I don't think they're going to take me and just automatically say, like, Hey, we're going to give him a like. It's not going to, it's not going to look natural like, unless they're shaving my body down. Of course,
Nick VinZant 38:25
I always go back and forth on that stuff, right? Like, that sounds ridiculous, but if that's really what's going to make you happy, okay, I probably wouldn't risk my life for it.
John Shull 38:35
Um, so no more Pat Sajak or Alex Trebek officially, like they're they're done. The seasons are over. They've moved on. Alex Trebek is dead, right? But, I mean, like, as a duo, like, you know, because when you think of Jeopardy and wheel of fortune, Oh, I see what you're going for. Okay? You know, you don't think of those shows without them, too, even though Alex has been dead for a few years now. However, my question to you was, and anyone out there, will there ever be a greater one two punch when it comes to game show hosts than them two No, like, do people? I
Nick VinZant 39:13
don't know anything about it. I don't think anything about it.
John Shull 39:15
Well, I mean, I mean, come on, will a fortune and in jeopardy used to be like must see TV for lots of of people,
Nick VinZant 39:25
yeah, okay, Don't come at me with that weak stuff of wheel of fortune. Okay, the only two game shows that I'm interested in are Jeopardy and Family Feud. Wheel of Fortune is a distant third place to wheel to family feud and Jeopardy. It's not in the same class, right? Family Feud and Jeopardy are pro level, and we get down to high school level when we're talking about Wheel of Fortune, don't care.
John Shull 39:54
It has nothing to do with the level of intellectuality it takes. To do the game. It's the legend, the legendness of the two games.
Nick VinZant 40:05
What I'm the only thing that I really have to think about Wheel of Fortune is the idea that Vanna White's getting like, ten million to essentially walk across the stage like that has to be and good for her, the highest return on investment that anybody has ever gotten in terms of you're getting paid this to do this, because she's not really a big factor in the show, right? It's not like, Are people tuning in to be like, Oh, Vanna White, what's Vanna gonna say? Vanna is funny. Like, maybe she is. I don't know. You're the super fan of wheel of fortune, but to me, like, is there anybody who gets paid more for doing less than Vanna White?
John Shull 40:47
I mean, I mean, good for her? Like, I don't know. I mean, but I mean, it's not like she made that. I mean, she's been on that show for what, 30 years, 35 years,
Nick VinZant 40:57
yeah, but still, like, that's the kind of thing that when I went into con, okay, this is just me. If I went into contract negotiations and I was in though of all to be like, I want this much well, like, you don't do anything. You're not getting it. How about you take 100 grand and be okay with that, because you're not really doing anything, okay? I mean, I wouldn't ask for any I'd be like, well, I'd be happy with what I got for what I was doing. That's just me. So
John Shull 41:21
I get what you're saying. I definitely, I mean, this is going to sound terrible. I feel like I have to say it. Vanna whites are unfortunately, like a dime a dozen, right? If you sat down in contract negotiations and were to say, hey, we're only going to pay you a million instead of 10 million, she may walk right. And you can find someone else to do it. However, it comes back to my point that the Wheel of Fortune itself, it was its own legend. Show without van and without pads, Pat Sajak, it doesn't have the name recognizability that that it has.
Nick VinZant 41:57
I could see that argument and that she is the name that you know with that show. So in some ways that maybe she's not doing anything, but the show got to where it was because of who she was. I can see that argument kind of, yeah, but I brought the fame to this.
John Shull 42:14
Let's see last thing I have here, this. This was just weird. Walmart has released a throuple costume for Halloween. I don't even know what that is. It's a three person costume. It is a smore. So somebody is, you know, someone's the graham cracker, somebody's the marshmallow and somebody's the the chocolate and bottom graham cracker. But it's all connected. It's a little weird, little weird. It's
Nick VinZant 42:40
a lot of effort. I don't generally try to put any effort. I'm not putting more than 15 minutes of thought and 15 minutes of effort into a Halloween costume. I
John Shull 42:55
mean, it's fun, I guess. I mean, I don't know. I'm not against it by any means. I mean, I I don't really want to partake in it, but I'm not against people who like it, who want to do it.
Nick VinZant 43:05
Yeah, I'm just not going to put I like Halloween. I like seeing people dressed up. I think some of the costumes are cool. I'm just personally not going to put any more than 30 total minutes of effort into it. But I feel the same way about cooking. I'm not going to put more time into making dinner than I am eating it.
John Shull 43:24
Man, I will spend hours if I ever get the chance on, on just cooking. It's, it's fantastic,
Nick VinZant 43:31
yeah, well, the No sense of smell thing just does it makes it meaningless for me. Uh, do you have anything else? Are you ready for the top five?
John Shull 43:39
I mean, speaking of smelling and tasting. Mm,
Nick VinZant 43:43
okay, so our top five is top five fall foods. Your number five. So
John Shull 43:47
my number five. You're not going to agree with it, but I put it on the list, and I don't care. It's still, it's still a kind of food. And I went with like a fall coffees, like pumpkin spice coffee, apple crisp, mochiados from Starbucks, any of that kind of seasonal coffee, that's my number. Oh, no.
Nick VinZant 44:05
I'm sure a lot of women have that on their top five. Okay,
John Shull 44:09
okay, you know what? It's delicious, and you should try it. Get yourself a, you know, an iced apple crisp, oat milk, shaken Espresso from Starbucks, and you'll thank me later. First
Nick VinZant 44:19
of all, if I'm going to drink coffee, which I don't, I'm going to have straight coffee, black for sure, of course, not going to do that. What kind of alcohol you want? You want a nice little cosmopolitan? You want a Manhattan? You want strawberry daiquiri? No, give me whiskey. Neat, straight up. Maybe, maybe I'll put a dash of warm water in it, but it's gotta be from a garden hose. What toughen up? What's your number not drinking no fruity drinks? My number five is not proud of it. What's
John Shull 44:54
your number five?
Nick VinZant 44:55
My number five is hot chocolate. I don't actually really like hot. Chocolate. I like the idea of hot chocolate.
John Shull 45:05
I mean, I there's no difference in what I just said, comparatively to hot chocolate. Coffee and hot chocolate are one in the same, almost.
Nick VinZant 45:13
I don't just I completely disagree.
John Shull 45:21
I Yeah, well, I mean, you can disagree, but I still think you're absolutely wrong. I
Nick VinZant 45:25
will say I can't finish a thing of hot chocolate, like, it's too much by the end of it. Like, you want a whole glass of hot chocolate, like, now I'll have, like, half of it.
John Shull 45:35
I mean, the problem is, is I drink it too fast. I mean, there's been some times when I've been out with my kids, my wife, and it's 10 degrees outside, and you're drinking hot chocolate, and it tastes like the greatest thing you've had in your entire life, but it just goes too fast. It's just the the reward is not worth the effort, in my opinion.
Nick VinZant 45:54
Okay, okay, what's your number four?
John Shull 45:56
Uh, anything sweet potato related?
Nick VinZant 46:01
I actually have sweet potatoes as my number four too. I think sweet potato is actually the dominant potato. I think that sweet potato should replace all other potatoes. It's the best potato. Ah,
John Shull 46:15
yeah. I mean, it's not as versatile as, you know, say, you know, yellow potato or Russert, but it's, it's still, I mean, they're delicious. They're it's my favorite potato.
Nick VinZant 46:27
Yeah, it's the best. Although there is something like a yam. That's not a sweet potato, that's actually a yam. I don't know, somebody at the grocery store confused the crap out of me the other day about it. It's like, oh, that's not a sweet potato, that's a yam.
John Shull 46:39
Oh, boy. What? Anyways, my number three, and this is specific, probably the only real specific one I have, and that is pumpkin soup.
Nick VinZant 46:50
Oh, I've never even heard of that. I mean, obviously, I've heard the idea of having pumpkin soup, but, like, I've never heard of somebody eating pumpkin soup that sounds gross. It's like, you know, it's
John Shull 47:00
like squash soup, pumpkin soup. I mean, they're, if you can find a good recipe, they're delicious and worth it, by the way.
Nick VinZant 47:08
Okay, my number three is the only fall fruit that I think should be on the list, and that's pears. I don't care about your apples. They're not that great. Apple is the most average fruit that you can get in the world that's like, oh, okay, great, it's an apple. Pear is pear is fancy,
John Shull 47:26
okay? I mean, I am against pears, because when we moved into my house, there are two pear trees in the backyard. And every other year, those things sprout off, like 300 pairs, and they're an asshole to pick up in November and December, but I could see it. Pears are fine. They're they're, I have no real issue with pears, just the fact that I live in a yard with pear treats.
Nick VinZant 47:48
Normally, I would make fun of you and say that that is ridiculous. But if you've ever been in the Pacific Northwest and dealt with blackberries, blackberries are like this. Well, vegetation that if you get it in your yard, you are not getting it out. Oh, and it's blackberries. Oh, yeah, you can't do anything with that. They, like, that thing is going to take that would take over the world, I think, if it could. And so nobody here, like, I don't eat blackberries because, like, dang it, I've pulled so many of those and they got big thorns, and you get hurt. Like, you're not, you're not pulling all the blackberries out of your garden without some blood coming off of you.
John Shull 48:25
Have you? Have you bled? Oh,
Nick VinZant 48:27
100% I did it. I did it. On Friday I was bleeding.
John Shull 48:32
Well, hell yeah, hell yeah. Then good, good on that blueberry Thorn for getting you. You deserve Blackberry,
Nick VinZant 48:37
Blackberry. And if you're out there working in your yard and you don't come back a little bit bloody, then you didn't work in your yard. That's how I feel about it.
John Shull 48:48
My number two is, I feel like it's a cop out, but you have to have it on the list, and that's a good pie, like, if it's an apple pie, you know, just some, some kind of pie, preferably, probably Apple.
Nick VinZant 49:03
Apple pie is the only pie that I'm going to accept any other kind of pie, if we're talking about like pumpkin pie, or pecan pie, or any other kind of pie like that. It's just a waste of time to me, because I just rather have chocolate. Like, do you want this pumpkin pie? No, I'd rather have something that's actually good.
John Shull 49:21
I mean, I don't know if that's fair to say, pie is very good. Oh, pie
Nick VinZant 49:25
is good, but only certain kinds of pies. I just don't understand the concept of, why would you have something besides the best thing that you could have? Like, do you want this? Boysenberry pie? No one apple pie.
John Shull 49:38
Are those even real berries, boysenberries. Oh
Nick VinZant 49:42
yeah, boysenberry, boysenberry, there's huckleberries. There's all kinds of berries. Man, you got boysenberries, huckleberries, dingleberries, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries,
John Shull 49:54
blackberries,
Nick VinZant 49:55
blackberries. Did you hear me throw in dingleberries and see if you'd catch it?
John Shull 49:59
I. Did I just, I wasn't really listening. What's your number
Nick VinZant 50:04
two? Chili?
John Shull 50:06
Okay, that's my number one. Is chili. Yeah, I
Nick VinZant 50:08
thought she would put chili as number one. But my number one is the bread bowl. I love a bread bowl. I think a bread bowl is one of the greatest inventions that we've have as a society. Have ever, ever come up with.
John Shull 50:20
But okay, so here's here's how everyone out there can tell the kind of person you are. Do you eat the bread bowl? Yeah, okay, alright, I'd ask. I've been sitting with people who do not eat the bread bowl because they don't want to eat the carbs.
Nick VinZant 50:37
Did you take the bread bowl and then shove it in their face like you should have, because as far as I'm concerned, not eating the bread part of a bread bowl should be something that you should be banned from a restaurant for. No, I like, No, you're not coming back here, sir. Think
John Shull 50:50
that's assault, but I thought about it, if that matters, but I think it's assault.
Nick VinZant 50:54
Yeah, I think that you should have, if you don't get the you gotta eat the bread bowl. Man, that's ridiculous. Uh, yeah, that's my number one. What do you do? You have any honorable
John Shull 51:02
mentions? You know, they're really just comfort foods. Now that I look at it, I have, like, good donuts, macaroni and cheese, like a good, like, we're not fall as unnecessarily Thanksgiving, but like, like a good, like, hearty sandwich, you know, like, like a good Thanksgiving sandwich. What's so funny?
Nick VinZant 51:25
What is it?
John Shull 51:27
Hearty, hearty sandwich, like, you know, like a good like Turkey, mashed potato, stuffing topped with cranberry sauce on bread. It's delicious.
Nick VinZant 51:37
But what kind of thing is it?
John Shull 51:41
A sandwich.
Nick VinZant 51:44
Are you golfing sand wedge? Is that a Michigan thing? Is that a Michigan thing? Like, do you pronounce it differently than other people who live in the area that you do? Because to me and you're saying sand wedge,
John Shull 52:00
I mean, you can clearly tell no one's really ever called me out before, so I'm guessing probably not. It's a sandwich. It's a sandwich,
Nick VinZant 52:07
sandwich, sand, sand sandwich. Okay, sandwich,
John Shull 52:13
which sandwich?
Nick VinZant 52:15
Yeah, that's how, that's how you say it. But you say sand wedge. I don't know if I have sandwich. I don't know if, well, I'm from Kansas, which is the kind of notorious for having, like, the most average dialect of all time. So I don't think that there's something that I pronounce that other people in other regions like that. Somebody would say, Oh, that's a regional pronunciation of that.
John Shull 52:38
Holy hell though I do say sand wedge. It's a sand Oh
Nick VinZant 52:42
yeah, you say sand wedge.
John Shull 52:46
Ferg, man,
Nick VinZant 52:47
is this gonna change your life? You've been saying that this whole way, this whole me out on
John Shull 52:52
a on a few things. I mean, let's not forget we are kind, kind of close to Canada, like, so, you know, maybe I picked up some dialect I don't know. Like, maybe Michigan has its own dialect. I also really don't know.
Nick VinZant 53:06
I Yeah, you never noticed. Nobody's ever said to you that you say sand wedge instead of sandwich. Yeah,
John Shull 53:13
no one's ever said no one's ever, I mean, not that I can recall. No one's ever picked me out like that. How
Nick VinZant 53:17
are you going to take this news? What are you going to do? You change your lifestyle. You're gonna cry in the corner. You're gonna like, no, revolutionize the world and try to make it sand wedge instead of sandwich. I'm actually upon living. I'm
John Shull 53:28
probably gonna keep on living, and I may actually leave you now to go have a sandwich.
Nick VinZant 53:34
Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of profoundly pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out and let us know what you think are the best fall foods i i would put chili at number one if it wasn't for bread bowls, which, like I said, are arguably one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever come up with.