Hey Smiling Strange
I talk mostly music but also really whatever interests me. Guests most of the time. Please sign up for my fantasy football game at klubhouse.gg
Hey Smiling Strange
Klubhouse Fantasy Football
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Hey Y'all,
I've been working for the last 2 years to get this fantasy football game off the ground. It's actually the reason I started posting anything online.
Last couple weeks I have had to really focus my efforts on that, and the culmination of that effort is that the app will be launching this season! If you have any interest in checking it out, please go to Klubhouse.gg and sign up.
That being said, I've had to use Smiling Strange to promote the app more these last couple weeks, if I didn't I would have regretted it.
BUT, that means after this week I can go back to having this podcast/page etc be what it was originally intended to be: a place for me to talk about whatever I find interesting.
Thank you all for everyone that's signed up! I hope you enjoy this episode even if you don't like fantasy sports, and I'll post another regular episode later this week to make up for it.
Regular posting and podcasts to resume next week!
If you've been listening to my content for the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to get as many people as possible to sign up to play Clubhouse Fantasy Sports. It's a fantasy sports game built off the logic of Mario Kart, where the better you're doing, the harder the game is, the worse you're doing, the easier the game is. But, man, I'm out of breath. Hold on. That's great podcasting right there. Great podcasting right there. Anyway, uh, I have been advertising on all of my reels where I talk about music on the Hey Smiling Strange account, the Smiling Strange account. This podcast, I've made uh my own little sales pitches in every single episode for the last couple weeks. I'm sure you guys are all annoyed by it. It is what I call the worst marketing strategy that anyone has ever come up with. And I gotta tell you guys, it worked fantastically. We actually have enough people signed up to play. We're just getting as many people as we can into. We only have 20 leagues this year. As of the recording of this podcast, 11 of them are filled out. So if you do want to play, please let me know ASAP because we are going to run out of spaces. But uh, this podcast is gonna be the last time on Smiling Strange, on Hey Smiling Strange, that I talk about Clubhouse Fantasy Sports for a while. I'm gonna go back to I get to let that go back to being part of my life that is like fun and enjoyable and not work-related at all. It's just stuff that I do because I like talking to bands, I play in music, all that fun stuff. Uh, but I do have to do this episode. This episode is going to be essentially the start of season three of the Clubhouse Fantasy Sports Podcast, a podcast that was started two years ago because I used to write an email to the people that played my game. Uh there's been a group that's been playing for five years. I used to write an email every week trying to keep them up to date on the rules of the game, on how the game works, on how their teams are doing, and they would not read the email. Because they are illiterate, I had to start a podcast. So with me today are my podcast uh co-host, Jesse Wims, and our we actually have an editor for this podcast. The podcast for 12 people had an editor. The podcast that I do uh for me has no editor. That's why no podcast came out last week because I was traveling, I just couldn't do it. But uh Ariel is our I guess third. I can't can we call him a third host, Jesse, or are we allowed, or are we not allowed to do that? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_03I I it's not the seat that he fills on our other podcast. Um host seems a bit generous, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Ariel, how would you describe yourself on this podcast? Yeah, generally happy to be here. First viewer is how I like to think of it. You know, I get to see it before anybody else does.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I think you can earn your way up to host when you do win the league. We'll talk about it if that day ever occurs, obviously. If uh Jesse is a seasonal.
SPEAKER_00We talked about this, guys.
SPEAKER_01Season one champion. This podcast is going to be for the people that have signed up to play, uh, that are getting ready to play next year. Uh, anybody that's just interested in learning about it. Basically, uh, there's not really any football to talk about. Preseason hasn't even started yet. Uh, I just want to talk about the game of Clubhouse Fantasy Sports. I want to talk about it with you guys who have actually played it. You're one of the few people that have actually played this game. Uh, and just talk about like Jesse, I always tell people your story because season one, as you should, the day before the draft, you were begging Ariel to get you out of this league because you did not want to play in it, you thought it wasn't going to be fun, and you had no interest in it. And now you're on the podcast as a co-host. So, what happened? Okay. Hey, Kyle, great to see you.
SPEAKER_03Um been a while. Um for the Discord goblins who are listening to this for the first time. Hello. Um, as Kyle so uh adequately uh stated, I am the inaugural champion of this league. Um, sort of the the Bill Russell, if you will, of this league. The the elder statesman, the the Wayne Gretzky, maybe. I don't I don't know how you would describe it. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01You're the one that threw Bill Russell out there. You know, there's six teams that's about I think it's apt. Listen, nobody knew the rules. Listen.
SPEAKER_03Listen, we can litigate this another time. What I do want to say, and then we can talk about whatever you want, Kyle, um, is as you can notice, I am I am very sharply dressed today. That is not just for style. Um, many years ago, Kyle, I came to you with an idea. God damn it. The the the beginnings of an idea of how to change and fix fantasy football modeled after, you know, perhaps a video game like Mario Kart, where it levels the playing field for all players and casuals alike. And I said, Kyle, let's work on this together, and then you disappeared for years, and I let you do your little game with your friends and take credit for it. Lo and behold, you're franchising it now and have a Discord full of people who are ready to give you money. So listen, Kyle, I'm not here threatening legal action just yet. Just yet. Now, I'm not averse to that. If it gets that, I'm just gonna give you an opportunity to make good, make me whole, and an annual stipend perhaps will make this all go away. Otherwise, I will be forced to consult my lawyer Murph.
SPEAKER_00I will say, do either of you have Lee lawyer Murph on retainer? That seems like a conflict.
SPEAKER_03Murph's on my Murph is on my side. Murph is on my side.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to say too many bad things about Murph's professional life because I don't know him as a professional person. Murph is one of the players in our league. The way Murph conducts his fantasy football team, I would not hire him to represent me for a parking ticket. That is all I can say about what I know. And Jesse, I only have myself to blame. For some reason, I thought we would come on here, we'd have a nice little conversation. Obviously, obviously, you're going to use this to plant seeds of doubt for an inevitable lawsuit that's gonna happen eventually in this. Uh, I want to introduce people to uh our league as a whole. As I built this game out, I knew that you know, each season we only have like one chance to tweak the rules and get the game working. So I wanted to make sure that the rules were like stress tested as much as humanly possible. Uh so I would ask you guys every single year, try to break my game as much as possible. Uh, you succeeded in ways that still drive me crazy to this day. Obviously, the Venezuela Economy podcast that we recorded a couple years ago was uh a highlight for everybody. Uh but it's paid off now. Like uh Ariel, how are you feeling going into the season? Like, this is the first year where there are no major rule changes, week one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's really the only reason that I haven't uh won yet. Is you know, you just keep you keep switching it up. It's hard to keep up, it's hard to get a system set. But now that I think look out. That's what I have to say about that.
SPEAKER_01It is uh it is very strange. Like I don't think people are ever gonna really realize like I would routinely a couple weeks into the Jesse's show, it is a ring.
SPEAKER_03I'm just I'm just scratching, I'm just uh scratching an itch. I couldn't uh couldn't quite get before the pod started. I just gotta get that.
SPEAKER_01I don't I don't wear my ring uh my championship ring until draft day. You know, I wait till the season, but uh yeah, I guess you could wear yours around flash. Mine's getting rusted because it's obviously made out of the cheapest metal that's like possibly.
SPEAKER_03I spent 20 grand on this.
SPEAKER_01You didn't uh but yeah, the most seasons involved us playing the game, and at some point, like a couple weeks into the season, this is why we had the podcast. I would have to like do a podcast where I'd go, uh, something that I thought was gonna be fun was completely broken. The game cannot continue this way, or like it literally will fall apart at the seams. Uh I have to make massive changes to how the game is played going from here on forward. So it's kind of a you know, it's kind of a bullshit thing that I would do every single year, but then I would find myself a tremendous amount of money uh and somehow paw myself back into contention every year because I'm a fucking genius at this. Uh, but you know, also I'm the only person that actually knew the rules. Guys, the rules are gonna be written down this year. Jesse, uh, was that a mistake on my part to have written them down and now there's legal recourse?
SPEAKER_03Um, well, so I mean we'll see. Now we've opened the door to the the the dozens of Discord goblins who who knows what they do in their spare time. It used to be just our friends who had no nothing else to do.
SPEAKER_01Discord goblins. Uh so when we first launched the Discord, I don't know who said it. I think it was Marco. It has to be Marco.
SPEAKER_04It was Marco.
SPEAKER_01Somebody in the league chat just said, uh, Kyle, the Discord goblins are getting restless because I hadn't answered somebody's question for a couple days. And that has been internally how we describe the Discord users this entire time. And I have been trying my best to think of a better word than goblins for you all, but like I can't. It's affectionate. It's a it's a it's an it's an endearment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I love my certainly said with love.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. The goblins are killing it. The goblins have done more in the last week and a half than the two of you have done for the entire year and a half that have been trying to get this thing as a business, but you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_03Well, well, I mean, other than other than coming up with the literal idea that you stole. And again, I'm not threatening legal action. I'm just saying I'm prepared to do whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_01You do have claim to helping me think of the resurrection draft, which was wild. But uh let's let's talk through the gameplay a little bit here. Uh I don't know, let's see. Uh when you first started playing the game, right? When you first started playing with the roster restrictions, because the first couple years of the league, it was just uh roster restrictions, but like really the only real mechanic. We had the shorter rosters and all that stuff. What was your thought process looking at how that worked out? A lot of people, their concern is like, oh, doesn't that just determine who's going to win the game or not? Because one, you know, six seeds play with a super flex, a flex, and a flex. They might play a one-seed team that only has one flex in that position. They're playing with a two-person advantage. A lot of people are like, that's wildly unfair to the the good teams. I always argue that it's like actually in our league, one, most of the times you're not getting a one-three one versus six matchups, it's usually like three or four, and two, being a good team in this league and beating a bad team when they have a player advantage over you is one of the greatest feelings in fantasy sports. But I don't know, how did you guys uh first interact with the roster mechanics and I don't know, talk kindly about my beautiful game.
SPEAKER_03If I must, I and you know what? It's it's it I I I I hate to give you credit, and it some may have said I begrudgingly joined this league at the beginning. Um pre-marketplace, even the first thing that you notice is the the first games happen, it's fantasy, you're doing the thing. For regular fantasy football leagues, the Sunday itself, including the Thursday game and the Monday game, that's where all your energy is focused. That's the excitement part. You get to watch your like player score change, whatever. In this league, the second the game ends, that's the game is figuring out how do I get a second tight end because I'm the two seed this week. No matter how good my team is, I have I all of a sudden have to play the the commander's tight end because that's my roster restriction this week, and I figure out a way to like incentivize Kyle to give me his so that I can actually find like formulate a roster. That's the best part of all of this is that it's not just like I'm I've drafted my team at the beginning in August, and then nothing changes for the next five months. It's that every week is a new, like little gamified aspect that I then have to like be running around trying to figure out how to like you know adjust and maintain competitive even if I had a good draft. Because that's that's what makes it interesting versus like a regular league where you had a bad draft, you're probably Ariel, you drafted a stupid team, and then you're it's jumping. Your season, your season is over in the second week versus this league where you're always able to tinker and figure out how to win week by week. Um, that is entirely different than a regular fantasy football league. Ariel, I'm sorry I keep slandering you, but it's just it's so easy. I'm sorry, you know, I don't know what to say. No, I'd love to get a ring one day. That looks really nice. It uh could you imagine? Could you imagine being so invested in a league and not being so invested in a league to the point where you built like the mock spreadsheet before the app was even fully running and not having won it before Kyle franchises the league into like 20 satellite leagues?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh if you don't win the league this year, uh there will be 20 new champions next year. The number of people that have a championship that aren't you is gonna increase exponentially from here on out. Uh but just on that point with like the roster restrictions, is like again, I try to look at the game as uh with every game. Like, what are the mechanics? The mechanics of fantasy football. The draft is great, it's super fun. I think everybody likes their draft, whether you do auction, you do dynasty, you do snake draft, whatever league you play in, the draft is like the best day of the year. But I found for the rest for most of my fantasy football life, after that, the amount of attention that I paid dropped off significantly. It felt like buying a scratch ticket and waiting like 14 weeks for it to pay off. What I like about the two things, the really small roster sizes, you only have those two bench, plus having to play a different lineup week to week depending on how your team's doing. You can be a one-seed one week, down to a five, down to a three. Uh it's kind of like the only mechanic you have for roster setting is putting players into these positions. But because you have such a short bench, because you have different requirements week to week, a lot of times you have to go find a third party to help you out, whether that is a way going and getting a waiver pick, whether it's finding a trade partner, whether it is the new marketplace mechanic that we've been doing for the last couple of years. Uh but like to me, that is just that is the mechanic of the game is setting these rosters, making tough decisions and stuff like that, and working out trades, and that every time you have to do something like this, every time you uh interact with the game, you're actually making the game more fun for everybody else as well, right? When you're making actual waiver claims, now the waivers become much more of like a battle for like who can get the good players. Now players are calling each other, trying to scheme their way into a top waiver pick or something like that, so that they can get the tight end. This is ultimately a social game that you play with your friends. You want to pretend to be a GM, you want to dress up like Jesse is with a suit and a tie and give post-game press conferences where you talk about the heart and soul of this team, and that or if they've lost, how you're on to Cincinnati next week. Like it's a role-playing game, and all these little things, like every little mechanical tweak is really just designed to get you to pick up the phone and talk shit to your friends because fantasy football is about it's genuinely about making your friends mad at you in a way that is really funny. That is the point of this game. And I think you know, I don't know. I think this is this is this stupid little mechanic, one, it keeps everybody in all year, because some of your friends are terrible at this game, and I I don't like I don't like when people just kind of quit out on it. I feel like that's a sign of a bad game. The fact that so many people talk about like having to implement a punishment in their league just to keep people playing, that to me says like, alright, it's just mechanically not a very fun game. Uh but also I just I love this idea that if you're good at this game, you're constantly being pressured to keep making tweaks to your roster to stay ahead, you know? How often have you guys like stayed up at night trying to figure out how to consolidate your cart so that it's the best possible cart that it could possibly be, versus when you're bad just trying to get as many players as humanly possible?
SPEAKER_00I'll I'll be like staring at a notes app with six different you know iterations of what my cart could be as I have different trades with four different you know teams lined up. No, it's it's it's all encompassing.
SPEAKER_03The transaction is the lifeblood of fantasy football. And I believe that's a phrase that I coined when I first came up with this idea. When I when I when I first like when Kai, when we first handle this in the we can handle this in the deposition, but when I first came up with this whole thing, I was like, the transaction is the juice of fantasy football. And you said that's such a great idea. Can't wait to work on this together. Like, I'll get back to you in a couple weeks, and then all of a sudden you stop returning my calls.
SPEAKER_01So I mean first off, I returned all the calls because I always want to get in on any sort of deal. I think my favorite part about being commissioner of this league is like everybody would always call me about like deals that they were working on. I just wanted to know what everybody was doing at all times. Obviously, I use that to try to benefit my team as much as humanly possible, but like I don't know. I remember uh the the trait I honestly bring up the most with people, you guys were both uh a part of this, was this is the first year of us having what was called the transfer window at this uh at the time. We've changed it to the marketplace because I didn't want people to think it worked like the transfer window in soccer, so marketplace works a little bit better. But this was the first year when you introduced cash. You guys uh spent an entire day working out a Christian McCaffrey deal. Walk me through that one, you guys. I want to hear uh part by part the Christian McCaffrey deal, how it ended up, how did Ethan end up with uh Travis Kelsey at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_00What you're missing out on though is like uh what you started to talk about, which is the social part, which because that deal did not start as a as a trade. That started as like a hey, how are you calling like what's up? Let's chat.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, it started as a we both clearly wanted to make a deal. We just had no idea what that deal was. And then after about an hour, like once you're talking about potentially doing a deal for an hour, you better get a deal done, or you've just wasted an hour.
SPEAKER_00There comes a point in the conversation where both or all parties involved are very under it's very clear that a deal will get done. Oh, yeah. It's just figuring out how to make it happen.
SPEAKER_03Because if I go too long in this league, if I go a couple weeks and I haven't made a trade yet, I start to get real itchy. I start to get real antsy, real itchy. I see everybody else making deals and I just want in on the action. Um, and what I from what I recall, um me and Ariel were talking, and then all of a sudden, Christian McCaffrey, which usually is a is a uh person that's never getting moved in any Facebook league on the face of the planet.
SPEAKER_01Just saying as a heads up, I remember looking up uh that week, like after you guys made the trade, I remember going on Reddit and being like, looking up what's Christian McCaffrey's trade value, because this is after he had that like 45-point game where he like threw a touchdown, caught a touchdown, and ran it in. And like the top comment was like, uh, my firstborn son is like what you'd have to trade me for Christian McCaffrey. And then a bunch of people being like, it's physically impossible to trade him for the value. Yeah, but you guys found a way, you know.
SPEAKER_03And I don't remember, I don't like remember the exact what I don't remember exactly the exact package, but then all I remember was all of a sudden Ethan conference called in, and we had a third team that he was able to rip wiggle his way into Travis Kelsey. It was never gonna be done without a third team, it was never done. No, and then it and then but it was also a ton of cash, which that's the other piece, is like the cash considerations along with like waiver picks are just the assets that you can pull together that have value that supersede just like there's no like-for-like player that you're gonna be able to put together that equals Christian McCaffrey. Um, and in this league, and you know, people lose trades all the time, like in real sports, you can be on the wrong side of a transaction, but you can at least have a uh foundation of something where you can rebuild if you have one good piece, like the year I had Justin Jefferson and nobody else pre-transfer window, who's to say what would have happened to my team that year if the transfer or the marketplace existed back then, and I just had to basically trade Justin Jefferson for a bunch of scraps and no capital. Yeah, I couldn't really rebuild. And then now that with the marketplace, we actually have a system where you can rebuild a franchise.
SPEAKER_00You forgot that every time Jesse gets a mic in front of him, it's just a pure propaganda machine.
SPEAKER_03Every single time. If you think about it, I'm actually two-time champion because I was I was able to put that together despite no marketplace existing.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, that I mean the Justin Jefferson thing was like, this is what spurred the conversation. Uh, I believe it was with you, Ariel, for like this transfer market thing. Was your team was awful, absolutely atrocious, and just Justin Jefferson was playing out of his mind. Not yours, Ariel, uh Jesse's.
SPEAKER_00Jesse's yes, of course. Of course.
SPEAKER_01You realize that it's like you ended up doing one of those trades, it was a much more traditional fantasy football trade where it's like you traded Jefferson for like six different pieces, right? Like six different players, and I think some waiver. And some waiver stuff. Yeah. Because the idea is, you know, uh we're trying to model how real trades work. Contending team trades package of assets to a rebuilding team for a star player. That is how 99% of all professional sports trades work. So the big thing I realized during the Justin Jefferson thing was, you know, our package of assets isn't good enough. The waiver wire was okay because we have very small benches, so there's usually somebody pretty good on the waivers, but it's not ideal. No one's really super pumped to get a waiver pick. Uh and there's just no third asset here that makes sense, that like fit fills the gap, that lets you get a hundred percent value for a player. This is where the idea of being able to buy and sell players came from. We already do an auction draft, you draft players for a certain amount of money. We just thought, all right, well, what if you had in game cash? And honestly, the first year that we did this, we did it with a two hundred dollar draft, and then I just started everybody with a hundred dollars. Massive mistake because every other player was bought. When everybody had $200 to spend on their entire team, and then I gave everybody a hundred dollars to go buy one player with, and so everyone ended up like the economy figuring out the economy has been a massive headache, but it it works now. Anyway, the idea was like uh now the you start with 300 bucks, you draft your players, if you drop a player for cash, you get their full cash salary in your pocket to go spend on the marketplace for other players, you can acquire money uh from trading with other people for cash, which makes things very, very easy. If you and I are talking about a deal, we're almost at the finish line, I can give you like five, ten bucks just to make it work, everybody's happy, you move on. Uh and the biggest thing that I love about that whole concept is like if you cut a player for cash, now we're the only league in the world where you make the decision of like, I have this guy on my team, I paid, you know, Brock Bowers last year. I paid a hundred and twenty dollars for him because I thought he was gonna play like a superstar. He's not playing like a superstar, even if he's playing pretty good. I think I'd rather have the cash to go spend on the marketplace, and he ends up getting cut, which does two things. One, now you have the asset of cash to spend. That's great. So that can get spent, it can be traded. That's just one more thing in that package of assets thing. But two, next week, the first overall waiver pick is Brock Bowers, who's a guy you probably don't want to spend $120 for at that point, but getting him waiver one, it feels like getting somebody in the draft any uh at any given time. It's like an NBA lottery pick. You know, these guys, some years it's a good lottery, some years it's garbage, you never really know. But like having that added into it, now you're in the situation where it's like one year Justin Jefferson is traded for a bunch of players, your team kind of middles out, and just uh I don't even know if you made the playoffs that year. It doesn't matter. No one cares if you didn't win.
SPEAKER_02Uh, but I did not the next year.
SPEAKER_01Once we have this marketplace and once you have cash, that was a three-team deal where Ethan ends up with Travis Kelsey, uh, Jesse ends up with Christian McCaffrey. Ariel ended up with like two young players that you know were hoping to make a bigger impact in the second half of the year. Uh, a couple, a handful of waiver picks from Jesse and Ethan, and like $200 in cash.
SPEAKER_00That's so much money.
SPEAKER_01It was so much money.
SPEAKER_00Did not result in a championship, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, none. Oh, did Ethan win that year? Is that the year Ethan won?
SPEAKER_03That might have been the year Ethan won. Or it could have been the year, yeah, let's say Ethan won.
SPEAKER_01Was that the year Marco? Who cares? These people, it doesn't matter. All that matters is at the end of that negotiation, you guys have been working on that conference call for hours. All three of you texted me to say, I robbed these people in this deal. All three of you. I walked away as like an absolute 100% champion of this deal. And I mean, you were all wrong, but you were all right. And that feeling, like the win-win feeling, you just don't get that in any other game. That's the that's my big like point of like this is why I put all this time into that. That feeling of like I talked to my friends and I totally fucked them over. That's why you play fantasy football. That's the fun of it. That's the lifeblood. As I guess Jesse said trade.
SPEAKER_03That's exactly what's exactly what I thought. And it's like, you know, like I told you, Kyle, the amount of leagues that I played in where there's probably two trades a year, and I said, This is not right. This needs to change. I need to find someone who shares this vision with me for more transactions in fantasy football. And I found you, Kyle, just as a sounding board. Um just you know, just kind of try to bounce ideas off of you.
SPEAKER_01I'm trying to jokingly agree with you on this because this is all being recorded. You should back off on that. I feel like I can't say anything. It's like the thing is like, I feel like as a bit, you will bring this to court. Like, you'll make me sit in court just to be like, yeah, it's funny. No, uh, no, I didn't do it. That wasn't me.
SPEAKER_02How much hush money are you willing to give me, Kyle?
SPEAKER_01That is the question. Uh, how would you compare uh let's say it's like week six, right? How would you compare your interest in this league versus your other leagues that play a more traditional version of fantasy football by like week six?
SPEAKER_03Well, I'd say this league, not not only am I like still invested by week six, it actually ramps up, I I would say, versus regular fantasy football. Like regular fantasy football, unless your team is nasty, I don't give a fuck. I'm sorry. Am I allowed to swear on this program? I don't know. Well asked the goblins. I'm sorry, yeah. I'm sure the goblins have heard much worse. Um, I I think as because as it ramps as we get deeper into the season, um one, I would say this, and this is not gonna happen this year because all the rules are written down. We always could hold out for you changing the rules drastically in the middle of the season. Um, so that was always an exciting wrinkle. Or you addressing inflation levels in the economy that superseded like 2011 Venezuela, perhaps. Um but I would say that um as you're trying to get into the playoffs, you're trying to consolidate and figure out like what is my core cart gonna be. Um and that as the marketplace evolves and you can take more and more players off the marketplace, it just actually makes it a little more difficult and you have to be a little more creative um each week. So I'd say your interest grows as the season goes on, as opposed to like my other leagues, we're all like chit-chatting in the group chat for like a cup, maybe a month, and then halfway through it's clear who's good and it's clear who's bad, and nobody's really talking about fantasy football anymore. It's just more you're just waiting to see who gets the the bag at the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And another thing about like fantasy football is uh unlike normal sports where the playoffs are like the most exciting part of the year, in fantasy football, as soon as your team has no chance of winning, nobody gives a shit. It's done, you're out. So it's like you can't wait for the playoffs to ramp up intensity. Uh you just get to the playoffs, and it's like you and the guy that you're playing in the finals, and nobody else has any idea that the game is still going on. Still a case in our league, but for our league, uh, every single year that we've done this, 11 out of the 12 teams have had a shot at uh the playoffs with two weeks left. The last week of the season, the the vast majority of the league still has a shot, even if it's a wicked outside shot. And like we've watched games, we've watched Thursday night games where the text messages are flying off. Because like, if this game, if this guy scores a touchdown on this drive, then next week these guy playing this guy will determine who gets the one seed type of stuff.
SPEAKER_00Like everyone has these charts figured out, but basically, the what I love about the Kyle, not not to interject, there was a Monday night game that ended up I think half a point was the difference, and it changed all three seeds in the playoffs.
SPEAKER_01It's what I love about the handicap mechanic, the thing that like is fun as a guy whose team is generally pretty good, uh it gives every single team a playoff game. So it's like if you are that 12th team with two weeks left, it's like, dude, I have to win her I have to win my next two games or it's done. Or I'm over, you know? Uh that's that winner go home mentality. You're not done by week like eight or something like that. It's like, alright, there's no hope or whatever. Versus in this league, especially that last week of the season, it feels like a playoff with all 12 teams. Uh Jesse, I remember last season, your strategy was just I'm gonna try to win as many games as possible, spend all my money on like short-term rentals for players. Locked up the one seed with, I have to say, the worst roster anybody has ever brought into the playoffs. Well, I mean it was still a playoff team.
SPEAKER_03Sort of so they they called me last year actually. They actually called me the New England, Drake May's New England Patriots. Actually, I think that's what that's what they called me last year.
SPEAKER_01Okay, alright. Don't don't touch uh don't touch Drake May for a little bit. The the boy's still licking his wounds. Sorry, sorry.
SPEAKER_03Diana Rossini's New England Patriots of last season. I apologize.
SPEAKER_01How can I forget? I keep telling people if this Patriots offseason was a Jets offseason, nobody would have us winning more than three games. But because we have the Patriots name attached to it, everyone's like, yeah, they'll be back. It's like, I'm not, I'm not excited about this situation.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you know, it's been obviously tumultuous offseason. You just I'm just really happy you got some veteran leadership in AJ Brown in the locker room. I'm sure that'll calm things down. And really on him. It'll be I'm sure, I'm sure that's gonna go great. The guy who was unhappy winning the Super Bowl, I'm sure will be perfectly content on the Patriots. I'm sure they'll be fine.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I just he's just he's just like burning off years of of steam, living, going to high school in New England, not being a Patriots fan.
SPEAKER_01I call it just jumped on it. But yeah, I I mean the big thing that it uh getting it back to fantasy football, it's like there are different strategies that can win versus a game where everybody is playing the exact same strategy, get the best possible players for every single position. This is a game where it's like you can a lot of times what people will do is like, oh, I'm a one seed, I'm playing a six seed next week. I'm gonna lose that game. But how can I make that loss as beneficial as possible? What can I do? This can I rent out a player this week? Can I trade somebody for future draft capital? What can I do with this guaranteed L? You know, can I throw this game and get something in the future for it? It just gives you decision making that you don't really get outside of, you know, board games or something like that, like actual games. Really, ultimately, I'm just trying to make an actual game out of fantasy football.
SPEAKER_00It's like a fun timeline of the simulation where every week you do get to like get a little draft in the waiver wire, or like you do get to like have a rebuild year and say, like, we're gonna, you know, like you said, throw this game and rent all our players and the next week we're gonna come back stronger. So I don't know. That was it's it's an it's an interesting scale, but it's really fun.
SPEAKER_01I think I've messed up the draft every single year we've played this game. Like, my draft has been terrible, and I always end up going like week two. I'm like, alright, my team's awful. I hate these players, I don't want to look at them anymore. Uh, I'm going full Oklahoma City tank, rebuild, collect as many picks as possible, collect as many like future assets as possible. And that to me is like the most fun. Every year I try to see how long it takes me to uh trade off every single player that I drafted. Last year was week three. The longest I usually keep one guy as like a mascot of the draft until at least like Travis ETN 11. What's up?
SPEAKER_00Travis ETN, perhaps. Hey.
SPEAKER_03First of all, his name's Devon H N. I'm glad you're locked in as we're heading into the season. Uh-uh. Did he change his name? Oh, oh, it is. It's pronounced. His name is pronounced pronounced. It is pronounced Achan.
SPEAKER_01HN, okay. Alright, there we go.
SPEAKER_03Look who's not locked in. Not to be confused with Devon Achan on the Dolphins.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's how you spell wait, that's how you pronounce ATN's name?
SPEAKER_03Everyone, it came out like this year that he's like, yeah, by the way, it's pronounced A Chan.
SPEAKER_01Guys, do you know how excited I am to think about this fantasy football app as an actual game that I get to play with football players and not just as like the one thing I you guys have all stopped thinking about fantasy football since the last time we played. I have not stopped, I have not had a break from this game in like two years. I have not had a off-season. It's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_03Kyle, I haven't thought about you in about six months. It's been lovely.
SPEAKER_00It's been great. The detox after the season each year is like so nice.
SPEAKER_01I'm envious. Yeah, talk about that. That's like one of the things. Uh I get honestly, this is something I almost worry about telling people. It's like everyone that plays this game, there is a sense of relief when you are actually kicked out of the playoffs. Like when the season is over and you get to go, okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. The one, two, three cancun that they do for the NBA. That's that's me. I'm like, I'm all I can think about, my my relationship with my girlfriend suffers, my relationship with my family suffers, my my mental health suffers. There's no time for that, Jesse. You're a GM of a professional sports team. I'm trying I'm calling people, trying to make deals, trying to get a third waiver wire pick. It's exhausting.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. Those waiver wire picks, uh, they go hard. Uh, I think my favorite thing that I've done to all of you, like psychically, damaging wise, is and I hadn't thought about this when I first thought of the uh the marketplace, right? Is Wednesday night when everybody learns because the way this works, uh, we have a marketplace, every player has a salary, you have a certain amount of money in your reserves, you can bid an amount of money more than their salary, right? If like you know, Jesse, let's say you have a $20 player, I have $30, I bid $30 on that player. Jesse now has to make a decision. Does he come up with $10 to match the salary? Does he negotiate a trade with me of player for package of assets? Or if he does nothing, if he can't think of anything, I just get the player for the 30 bucks and he has to go spend the 30 bucks next week. So it forces you to make a decision, which also means on Wednesday night, you are sitting on anxious breath, waiting to see a list that is gonna tell you whether or not you're about to spend the next 48 hours of your life negotiating like a madman. And it's my favorite part. We're the only league in the world where Wednesday night is like a highlight of the week for a fantasy football league.
SPEAKER_00I think I've told this story on a different iteration of this pod, but uh there was one Wednesday night where I was out to dinner with like my girlfriend and her whole family uh right around the time that the bids locked. And I think I went to the bathroom where we were leaving, and I looked at uh my phone and I saw that I had like bids on crazy bids on like my three best players, and it actively changed how I, you know, performed for the rest of the evening. It was a real detriment. It really, really gets to you.
SPEAKER_01It really hurts your feelings, you know? But it's great because all of a sudden, I what I love about it is it gets one, it's a good way to put a little uh bargaining power in the guy that's trying to make the trade. The way that trades work now in fantasy football, you might engage somebody, you might get them to be like, yeah, that's a totally fair deal. I just don't want to do a deal right now, and then they walk away and you you can't do anything. You get at least one offer a week on a team to be like, hey, we have to talk about this. You have to come to some sort of conclusion. It gives a little bit of bargaining power to the guy that's trying to make the deal happen, which increases the amount of deals that people get made, you know, increases the amount of times people talk to each other. But it does force you to have to make strategic decisions every single week. How am I gonna keep this player? Is this player worth keeping? Or I guess Jesse, the thing I'd ask you is like a lot of people are very worried about the idea of like they're gonna lose a player for cash, right? Yeah. One, I always tell them it's almost never that somebody just gets sold straight up for cash. It's but like talk through, like, how how are you able to keep a player if you want, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, because it's it it sounds it sounds like oh shit, this is a death sentence. Um, but it's like so not at all. Like it's I'd say there's always a way for you to keep the player if you really want to keep the player. Um, whether it's like there's usually someone else in your league that is gonna be willing to like exploit you for waiver picks, oh yeah, or like maybe they need a second tight end, or they need another backup QB, or there's enough mechanics and enough assets that you can pull together to put together the capital. You can even rent guys for money, like you can put together, there's a lot of opportunity here to put together money that you can match a bid where if you really want to keep a guy, you can, and but there's also the point where like it does get to the point where the assets might be more valuable than that player, and you still end up being better off just letting him go in the long run. There's very few guys I find in fantasy football that are like so untouchable that with the assets that you've well, I say you've created technically, but you know, we'll litigate that later during the legal proceedings. But the assets that exist in this league that is currently up for dispute, um, to actually, like we talked about in if you're like if it's not an example, you're trying to rebuild your team, but just trying to make your team better. You can do that in a variety of ways, and you're not gonna lose Justin Jefferson for an unfair price that you're not gonna be able to recover from. And in many ways, you might end up being better off. And Jesse, guess what?
SPEAKER_00Guess what? What if you do if you do lose Justin Jefferson, yeah, yeah, you just go buy Jamar Chase. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Exactly. Then you're the guy. That's that is actually the fun part. Like, if you do lose a whale, you're gonna lose him for a bag. And then you're the guy with the bag, and then everyone else is terrified of you going into next next week's transfer marketplace, and then you get to just go big whale fishing. You just get to go, all right, let's talk about Christian McCaffrey. What's it, big whale, big game hunting? Is that what it is? Big game hunting.
SPEAKER_02I think I was gonna I I would say big whale fishing is what I said. That is that is a professional podcaster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That this is the guy who allegedly thought of this game. My league was actually gonna be called big whale fishing.
SPEAKER_01But, you know, we'll see. One of my favorite things in this game is like, yeah, well, what are those what I love about this is like I think of these mechanics, and then when you play it out, you learn like new things about it. I had never considered what it would be like to be the guy with a lot of money in this league. And every once in a while I've been the guy that just has twice as much money as everybody else. Getting a text from somebody on Wednesday afternoon that's like, hey, by the way, just in case you didn't see this, uh, Christian McCaffrey rolled his ankle in practice. I don't know if I'd um I don't know if I'd put a bid on it. And like just every time you text somebody, the fear in their eyes of like, what are you talking about? Who are you interested in? That guy's not good. He's not even good. You don't even want Jesse had a podcast last year where he successfully used state radio to put stink on his own players to avoid losing them the week before uh knocking them off market. But like even if having I mean uh money doesn't score points. We always talk about that. Like, yeah, spend money to to to win games. But if you just want to have some fun with your friends, having a ton of money and just letting them know like everyone on your team is mine, actually. I have I can have any of these people if I want them to. It's phenom it's a phenomenal feeling.
SPEAKER_00Everyone's much nicer to me in the weeks that I have a lot of money. It's the only time. It's the only time we're nice to you.
SPEAKER_03What I like to do, like you said, Kyle, is not like talk about how bad my players are, it's to talk about how good the other teams are. I'm like, oh, look at Ariel's team. Look how so for the the goblins, uh, and anyone else listening. Um last year we had a weekly extremely fair and unbiased uh power rankings that I would put together. Um and for whatever reason people got really upset about them. And I put a lot of thought into them. I thought they were extremely rational and extremely fair. Um and I used that week when someone had a big bag to promote other teams.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that people got upset because for 14 out of the 15 weeks you had yourself as the first ranked team in your own power rankings?
SPEAKER_03I had the I had the one seed as the first ranked team in the power rankings.
SPEAKER_01This is that is the most upsetting part about last season. You play the win the game. Unbelievably.
SPEAKER_03Listen, just because you know the Patriots had a quote unquote easy schedule. Yeah you play the teams that are on the schedule. That's what you guys told me. You told me that all all year. You play the they don't make the schedule. I don't make the schedule.
SPEAKER_01Last year was low-key one of the worst things that happened to this league just for Jesse being right. Like in terms of Jesse being right about stuff, because everyone he zagged when everyone else zagged. Everybody else is like, no, I'm gonna prep for my playoff team, I'm gonna have a great cart, I'm gonna and Jesse's like, I'm gonna play every single week. Like I have only this week to win. I'm just gonna win games.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna zag. I'm gonna zag and I'm gonna win every week. How about that?
SPEAKER_01As Ethan said, winning games is a zag in this league, you know?
SPEAKER_00It is crazy how many villains there are. Everyone's in a 12-man league, yeah. Everybody.
SPEAKER_01Oh. But yeah, I just uh mechanically, I don't know. This is what I love about this.
SPEAKER_03Were you supposed to explain the rules in this podcast?
SPEAKER_01Sure, rules are very simple. Uh 32 minutes in. Yeah, 32 minutes in. Maybe we'll put this in the beginning. Uh man, I'm gonna go through and make a bunch of little uh like one-minute videos explaining all the individual rules. But the differences are that we play uh everyone plays the same roster quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, and defense. Then you have one of three flex positions to fill out uh depending on how you're doing in your rankings. Every uh league is separated into 12 teams, uh two six team divisions. If you are the sixth seed, you play super flex, flex, flex, five seed, you play super flex, flex, tight end, uh four seed, super flex, flex, three seed flex, flex, two seed flex tight end, and one seed just a flex. So it's a natural handicap mechanic. It also creates a narrative. If you are a good team, you're trying to consolidate your roster to trade to a bad team uh for you trade a package of assets to a bad team for a star player, so you can consolidate your roster. That bad team gets to play all of those players and get the full value of them. We've also built in a bunch of other mechanics to make those trades work. Uh my favorite one and a lot of people's favorite one is the extra bench spot, which uh was another mechanic that I wanted to solve a problem that I have in the world.
SPEAKER_03Who was that introduced? Who who was the uh impetus for the extra bench spot?
SPEAKER_01Everything was me, and I'm the only thought uh I'm the only I'm the only brilliant brain that ever thought of anything. Uh I realize I have to say this now legally.
SPEAKER_02I am legally The only brilliant brand who ever got of anything.
SPEAKER_01This was a way to solve for two for one trades. Two for one trades are like the most common trade in fantasy football. But if everybody has the same roster size, anytime you do two for two, you'd have to drop somebody so they were all or two for one, you'd have to drop somebody so it was always a two for two deal. It was just one team was dropping the worst player in the deal, but it's still two for two. You have to account for that value loss. In this league, you can add an extra bench spot, maximum one extra bench spot, for three weeks of games. So three, you know, Sundays, NFL Sundays or whatever, uh, to hold on to an extra player. So your roster size goes from 11 to 12, I believe it is. And uh that extra player, you can hold on to it, and you know the bench spot's gonna go away after three weeks, so you have one of two options. Number one, you find a two-for-one deal on your own where you send two people out and get one player in, so you're now you're trying to consolidate to get back to a legal roster. Or two, you have to work out another deal because the only way to extend the bench spot is to do another trade. And what I love about that, what I love about the disappearing aspect of it, is like there are a lot of times where you literally are just making deals because it's like, oh, I don't want to lose a player, or I, you know, I'm my bench spot's about to go, I'm about to lose a player for nothing. I'll trade you this guy for a waiver pick in three weeks, like whatever. Just some little trade. Because again, uh as I have said, trading is the lifeblood of fantasy. So anything that gets you to text your friends to be like, hey, I'm about to lose the bench spot. Uh, do you want my backup tight end? You're playing, you're playing as a five seed this week, you need another tight end, let's do the deal. Those little interactions, those are what turns into these conversations that eventually learn turn uh turn into the narrative that all your friends are monsters and you hate them.
SPEAKER_03Couldn't agree more. Um, were you practicing monsters and I do hate them? Were you practicing that in the mirror just to make it really sound like you that was your idea?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah. There were my ideas, my brilliant ideas. I'll see you guys.
SPEAKER_00Did you notice that as soon as Jesse figured out you were gonna clip this for TikTok, he started showing off his ring.
SPEAKER_01I saw that. That was great. Every time I talk, he just flashes the ring.
SPEAKER_03What are you guys talking about? Arya, why don't you uh why don't you flash off your ring? Movers lost it. Godcha, gotcha, gotcha.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, basically the idea is uh that I think the thing that I I find the most difficult right now, because we're so close to like releasing the app and people are gonna play it, right? And you guys played it over the last couple years with the spreadsheet, you know, which was even that was you know it was fine, but it was not using it. Ariel did a great job. Ariel did a great job. Ariel did a great job. Thanks, Jesse. Listen, it let us get through this entire thing. We were able to have a transfer window, a market economy because of this stuff. But the thing that I want to emphasize to people that are like listening to this is that it sounds much more complicated than when you actually just play the game. You know? Yes, when you are getting it, like what ends up happening is a bunch of people in our league don't care that much about football. Uh, we all know them, we all love them. The people that do care and like know how the mechanics work, they tend to just approach those people with fully formed deals. Be like, hey, uh you sent me this, I'll send you this, this, and this. Do you want to do it, yes or no? So those people they still get to engage, they get the the deals made for them. This is where the money thing comes into play, because it's like RL, you might need $10. Then you look over at Murph, he hasn't really done anything, he's got $25 in his reserve his reserves. You realize he doesn't have a backup quarterback, now you're just being like, listen, you need this, I need this, let's make it happen. Uh everybody wins it keeps yeah, so it all it all kind of plays itself out in a much more cohesive way than I can really articulate uh via podcast, obviously. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03For those, for those listening to this and assuming that because this is the original uh league of this format, that we're some fantasy football sickos who are like super in-depth knowledge and like monitoring everything to do with fantasy football. We half of this league is asleep for the entire week. Like they're they're barely functioning humans as it is, and they love they they do just fine in this league. I can assure you, you do not need to be some you can be a sicko. I encourage you to goblins listening who are sicko's. I encourage you to be a sicko, but you definitely do not have to be a sicko.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, last year, the most one of the most fun parts of last year was the high dollar collective, which is our our communally run team. There's two. Speaking of half asleep, they have openly admitted that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They they admit that they have not watched football in like years, they've not watched any of it, but they had Christian McCaffrey on their team because they got him in the draft and they got to a point where their season was underwater. If you're wondering why I say 11 out of the 12 teams uh were in playoff contention with two weeks left to go, this is your 12th team, guys. They like so if you're worried that like if you don't play at all, your team will still win. Not really. You'll be around for about 11 out of 12 or 10 out of 12 weeks, but you still gotta do something.
SPEAKER_03There's always an exception to a role.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's all I mean, you know, the skill does express itself. We want that to be the case. You wouldn't want it to be totally random. Uh, but these guys, they had Christian McCaffrey on their team, and at one point they're like, all right, I guess we have to trade him because our team's terrible and we haven't done anything. And they announced publicly we're gonna trade Christian McCaffrey. They got deals from every, not everybody in the league, but I'd say over half the league like dipped their toes in and sent some atrocious deals, including the city.
SPEAKER_03It was similar to the it's the LeBron James sweep saves that are going on. Every every team it was consolidated to a handful of teams that all got to put in their pitch, and then we all just got to wait and let them decide who they were gonna go with.
SPEAKER_01And the way they made their decision, they took all of the deals. Then they uh what I learned later, they told me it's like these are the three that we like. Later on, I learned they randomly selected three deals, and then they made a wheel. They made a wheel online and they spun the wheel and then sent me the results of the wheel spin to send to the rest of the league, and that was the Christian McCaffrey sweepstakes. It was literally a sweepstakes, they got a whole package of assets from one of the owners. I uh doesn't even matter, but for about 48 hours, the entire league was on baited breath for the team that was the worst team in the league and the least engaged, and they still had an incredibly fun little 48-hour window where they the entire league was like last place every year. Last place every year, and just superstars for 48 hours.
SPEAKER_00They were they were the prettiest girl to dance. It was amazing. You know, when you buy a lottery ticket and you like fully convince yourself you convince yourself you you've already won, like you already think about how you're gonna start money. Yeah, I had I had already slotted CMC into my lineup. That was devastating.
SPEAKER_01My favorite part about that was like I was looking over the deals that they'd accepted before I learned that they were randomly accepted, and I was like, okay, how the fuck did Ariel make it to the top three? This is just three players that did all the things. It was a bad offer. It was a bad offer. It was a bad offer. It was awful, and it almost won. That like that absolutely would have my god. Uh but yeah, I mean that's the thing. Like, whatever your version of fun is, whether it is just like one deal, you know, you just don't have time to play this game otherwise. It's one deal. You can find some way to have fun and blow up the group chat. And literally, like, guys, if you're listening to this right now, there's gonna be an Ariel in your league. You can ruin his entire week with like three text months. Oh, so yeah, stop it a week.
SPEAKER_00Why stop it a week?
SPEAKER_03That's the other thing, Kyle. Is even if you're bad, like say your team sucks, like you've gotten bad luck with injuries, whatever. Even if you're bad, the whole thing we've litigated how you can rebuild your team, which is a very viable option. What you can also do is just really bother your friends who are in this league, and just throw up, you can collect a bunch of assets, collect a bunch of capital, a bunch of cash, and just throw a $200 bid on your buddy's best player in first place. And he you're probably not gonna get them, but you're at least gonna annoy him enough that he's gonna have to tinker with it and figure out how to keep them. And that's that's what fantasy football, again, like I've you know, like I've coined, the lifeblood of fantasy sports is the transaction. You're awesome.
SPEAKER_01My favorite, uh, my favorite one, which I'm sure everybody here has their own examples of this. My favorite one is just randomly waking up to a Marco trade offer of like his worst player for your best player, and when you just go, no, Marco, that's a bad deal, he just goes, No, the guy I'm trading for sucks. He's like, Jamar Chase isn't even good. The bangles stink. And it's like, he just doesn't just to bother you, just so you have to respond to Bill.
SPEAKER_00No, man, Josh Allen, bad. Not a good, not good. Marco's very chill.
SPEAKER_03He's very chill about it, though. He's very chill about his bad trade offers, I would say.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Probably the most chill owner uh in our league, as everyone has said. He coined it himself that he's the most chill owner, even though all he does is send trade requests that nobody ever accepts. He's a champion. And a champion. That was the era of good feelings when Marco won. Weirdly enough, this guy is the guy that everybody is like, yeah, when he won, no one had any bad things to say about him. But uh one issue. You know, that's uh honestly, guys, if you're listening to this, uh, this podcast is really just kind of lined up for the people that are trying to play. Uh, we're gonna do this podcast every single week. Jesse is going to do his power rankings. I think one of the things I'd like him to do is randomly pick a league every week to do a power rankings on, maybe two a week or something like that. I want to prepare you all for when you hear the Jesse Wims power rankings, right? You're gonna get upset about where he ranks your team. I need you to be. You are. It's gonna bother you forever. I need you to try to understand. He did not think about it that far, even though he is speaking confidently, he has no idea who's on your team. He randomly assigned the numbers. Okay.
SPEAKER_00For somebody, for somebody who I know on a on a different platform, actively talk shit about the NBA TNT crew for commenting on games without watching them. He does a very similar similar behavior on how he runs his power rank games.
SPEAKER_03It's it's so funny you bring that up, which is uh this is a perfect time to plug our other platform. It is Dishing and Swishing, presented by Orb Analytics. It's an NBA podcast. For you goblins out there who love hoop, you goblins out there who love hoop, check out dishing and swishing wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, we should have another episode coming. The second LeBron grows up and picks a fucking team, we're gonna do another podcast. Um, who knows when that it could be it could be any minute now, but uh dishing and swishing. Dishing and swishing presented by Orb Analytics. That is Dishing and Swishing presented by Orb Analytics. And again, I am the founder of Clubhouse Fantasy Sports. This is a masterclass.
SPEAKER_01He showed his ring every time he had a chance to do it. He's claimed ownership of the product, and he plugged his podcast and uh orb analytics.
SPEAKER_00Uh he told you he's a he's a professional podcaster.
SPEAKER_01He read two ads that I didn't give him permission to read, uh obviously. Uh but I guess, you know, uh you you pick, I don't, I don't know, I picked you to do this. I asked you to be in this podcast. This is my fault at the end of the day, isn't it? It's not your fault. It's my fault. Yeah. Look, you knew who you were.
SPEAKER_03Listen, how many, how many, you know, late 20s white guys do you know with a microphone and a willingness to hop on a podcast to talk sports? Huh?
SPEAKER_01It is it was a hard thing to pull off because it's like we had to find somebody that knew enough of the rules in the league, and in our league, that was hard to get because most of these people are wildly indifferent. Uh my favorite, oh god, my least favorite thing was whenever I would do a little rules change, I would just I'd be so upset because I'm like, this has stopped everyone on the bottom half of the league, the people that only minimally care. Like they were this close to getting it, and the second I change a rule, they don't read the rule change. They don't understand the rule change. They go, Alright, Kyle changed the rules. I don't have to read anymore, I don't have to know how this works anymore. I'm done. I'm out. I don't I'm not gonna read another thing ever again. I'm not gonna understand how this game works. So I had to find somebody that knew the rules and also could pretend at his actual job uh that he could hit an hour off to record a podcast in the middle of the day. So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_03Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay.
SPEAKER_01After hours.
SPEAKER_03It is late hours. It is, it is, it is 12 a.m. Okay? It is 12 a.m. I don't it's 12 a.m. This is this is 12 a.m. Alright? This is late night.
SPEAKER_01You guys did a good job of not including any windows in uh in your backgrounds there, so we can possibly deny what time of the day it is. Congratulations. Very good.
SPEAKER_03I know what you're talking about. This is when when I take you to court and then they release the podcast revealing that I've been podcasting during business hours, that may be an issue for me.
SPEAKER_00We'll deal with that when it comes. Kyle, do you have any uh do you mean goblin mailbag?
SPEAKER_01I wish I'd prepared the the mailbag questions, but uh who's your favorite goblin?
SPEAKER_00Who's your favorite goblin? Oh, tell us about the goblins, please.
SPEAKER_01First off, first off, all the goblins love you all to death. Uh sorry for calling you goblins. That was probably before you were in the Discord. Uh but I all the ones, uh first off, all the ones that have volunteered to be commissioners, all the ones that have volunteered to be commissioner and brought their whole league with them. That is huge. Uh, but specifically the ones that uh volunteered to be mods, the ones that have uh, you know, gone out of their way to put together spreadsheets to help me organize like all of the leagues that are set up and play. I genuinely am blown away by the enthusiasm people are showing for a game they haven't even played. These are two people that I have worked tirelessly to let them play this game for the last five years, and the amount of effort that they want to put in is we'll take a phone call if it's recorded and I get to plug my other podcast. That's the work that I get from people that have actually played the game.
SPEAKER_03No such thing as a free lunch, Kyle, alright?
SPEAKER_01The fact that these other people are so enthusiastic to get going on this thing uh and to really help me out. Like it it really is uh it I I cannot I'm not to get like mushy or anything like that. I cannot stress how much time I've put into this, guys. It ten years ago was when we started this idea. We've been playing it for five years. I have been trying to figure out how to turn it into like an actual product every single day for the last two years to see that there's people that are enthusiastically signed up to play, there are people that understand the rules, which again I did not get the 12 people in my league to fully understand the rules, so that's wild. Uh, and to like volunteer their time to help out for a game that they haven't even played yet. It is wild, man. I'm like super excited. I cannot wait to see you guys react to like I can't wait to hear the first trade in the other league. Guys, we're gonna be able to, on this podcast, react to other leagues' actions. We'll be able to go through. I want to do like a PTI segment on trades where we just talk about each trade that happened for like 30 to 60 seconds or something like that. On Wednesdays, when the marketplace opens up in all these other leagues, it's gonna be so fun to just go through and be like, oh my god, this guy spent this much money on this, this guy's put a bit on that one. I want to see how this thing resolves. We'll we'll probably bring in our our favorite marketplace offers of the week. Uh just to be able to comment on how other people are gonna play this game is gonna be incredibly fun for me. But like, I don't know. I just I I can't express if you're excited about it now, like it genuinely is so much more fun when you are actually playing it. Even if you understand how it works, it is just it all kind of fits together in a very like casual way somehow, which I don't even know how that worked out. That must have been Jesse's doing.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, you can't say stuff like that. You can't say stuff like that. I know I kind of bleep it, bleep it.
SPEAKER_03Thank you that that will that that will go on the record. Uh and Kyle, at the at the risk of having an earnest and authentic moment with you, it is genuine, genuinely amazing to see the traction of all these people who are you know organically interested in uh joining this league and and helping out and and participating. Um, all you goblins out there, um, I guess I'll hop on the Discord and just say hi once you release the pod. If anyone wants to, you know, chat with me, ask, ask the inaugural champion, you know, perhaps some tips and tricks of the trade. I'm I'm happy to discuss. Um and and again, all I ask is that you subscribe to dishing and switching uh presented by Orb Analytics. Masterclass.
SPEAKER_01Uh you guys should hop on the Discord and say hi. Uh, if anybody's listening to this from uh our league, uh hop on, say hi, answer some questions if you want to. People are really enthusiastic to play, and I'm just uh the next podcast we do, so just as a heads up, if you're listening to this as a smiling strange music fan, first off, congratulations. You made it an hour into a fantasy football.
SPEAKER_02Who are the music fans who are still in the victory?
SPEAKER_01That's insane. You're a fucking champion. You should play this game just because I mean I tell me if you got into this via the hey smiling strange stuff, because I will tell you right now, uh, that is not that has not been a resounding target audience for fantasy football. But you know, hey, if you're into it, awesome, that's great. Uh but from now on, that is gonna be split off into its own podcast. We'll keep I'm gonna just go. I've got a bunch of podcasts that are coming out for that. I'm gonna keep interviewing bands and talking about music, and and that's you know, fun, whatever. Uh, if you are listening to this for the fantasy football stuff, if you are a clubhouse member, we are gonna do at least one of these episodes a week. Uh I'm gonna try to find some other stuff to do. Like, I've thought about just live streaming Wednesday nights when uh the transfer market stuff, like when the marketplace bids drop, just live reacting on a Twitch stream or something like that. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I'm content-brained now. Uh, but like we want to make this as fun as possible. We want to see you guys make some trades and we want to like sit here and talk about them. I guarantee you we will talk about them with the exact same seriousness that like CNBC talks about uh like bills getting passed in the House of Representatives.
SPEAKER_00It's shocking how into it people get because you you I something I just want to backtrack on is you guys, I think, have started to portray the the players of the in this league as sort of like casuals, and that's not the case either. Like people get really, really into it. Um and I it's nice again to be not thinking about it right now, but I'm about a month or two away from being ready to get back into the arena.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. Yeah, I um I'm very nervous to see uh I have not gone on like the subreddit for I haven't looked at like any actual fantasy football stuff because the second I do, one, uh it's gonna start consuming a lot of the time that I don't necessarily have right now because I have to think of this as a business. And two, the more stuff I look at, the closer I get to spending $150 on Kyle Pitts. Yep. That is like it's a one-to-one. Every bit of fantasy football stuff I read makes me closer and closer to drafting Kyle Pitts, and he will ruin my season this year.
SPEAKER_03Wait, are you telling me that there's preseason Kyle Pitts hype?
SPEAKER_01Obviously, there's pre-sea- Did you see how he finished last season after he got off my team?
SPEAKER_03Wait, you're telling me there's once again preseason Kyle Pitts hype?
SPEAKER_01I think Tua is the quarterback of the Falcons. Is it Tua Talmud? Whatever.
SPEAKER_03Uh I think yes. I think well, I think it's him or him or uh what's his name?
SPEAKER_01Um, the the guy that drafted Penix or whatever?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's him or Penix, I would imagine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01My favorite part about this is they're about to learn like uh my actual knowledge of football players versus my knowledge of game mechanics for fantasy football are two wildly different things.
SPEAKER_00So we gotta lock back in you call him Greg Kittle.
SPEAKER_01Oh. Oh, I do I call him Greg Kittle? Greg Kittle, I say probably every single time. What's my favorite one? Is uh Jeff Goff. Jeff Goff is Jared Goff. Jeff Goff is such an awful name. Who would who would curse their child to be named Jeff Goff?
SPEAKER_00Oh, um and yeah, to uh Tua is the uh the QB one on the depth chart right now. We'll see if that changes.
SPEAKER_01See, that's that's why we have a three-person pod here. But anyway, we will try to do as much as we can uh to make the you know, not what is this entertainment, the media arm of Clubhouse as entertaining as possible. Uh I think it's gonna be really fun this year just to have like other people playing. The next podcast we'll do, I want to do as a mailbag. So if you're listening, you have any questions, let's do that next week. Uh and yeah, besides that, uh just hit me up. Get your if your friends are interested in playing, if you're interested in playing, hit us up on Discord. I am literally just calling people that are interested in the game whenever they want to. Like I've I've been on the phone with several of the commissioners for a very long time. Well, however long they want to talk. I am here to get you to understand this game so that you can play it as well as possible. Day one. I want everything to go as smooth as humanly possible. All I have to give right now is my time. So use it. Uh call me, text me, whatever. I don't care. Not you guys. You guys know the game. You're not getting anything from me this year. Don't worry, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00I'm not gonna text you, Kyle. Don't worry.
SPEAKER_01I'm here for the goblins. The goblins, you guys got me this year. So uh anything else you guys want to add before we uh sign off on episode one.
SPEAKER_00If you find a goblin who's comfortable coming on here, can Jesse and I ask them some questions? Oh, I got questions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I don't know if I feel comfortable members of this league interacting directly with the goblins. Just listen.
SPEAKER_00No, me neither.
SPEAKER_01We're too fascinated by them.
SPEAKER_03Listen, you you take a week off and you just give us give us one of the goblins. Oh no and we'll take it from there. I just get Interested in the guys alone with the goblins. We'll take real good care of whatever goblin you give to us. I can't believe we're calling them goblins. They consult. It's crazy. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01It's beautiful. That's how I think of it. It's the best shorthand we've got.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's that's what they are. They're the goblins. They're the best. It's it's amazing. It's it's none of this will be happening without them. Um you know, especially none of this would be happening without them or me coming up with this idea. Um so it's just, you know, it's important to thank those that are most important. And Kyle, again, again, I'll just say this and then we can wrap it up. I don't know how much time you have. I am up for sale. I will leave this alone for a payout of some sort, some agreement, some some a percentage on future sales. I we can figure it out. Um, I don't want to make this messy, but I am willing to, is all I will say.
SPEAKER_01None of you guys are getting a dime. None of you guys are getting a f dime off of this thing. I'm not getting a dime. We're not making any money off of this. We might make money in the future. Uh not yet, but for now, the biggest goal, one of the bigger goals in my life, as sad as that is to say, has been to get people to play this game. I am putting more effort into that than most people will put into most things, and I am eternally thankful to everybody that has given me their time, attention, and is gonna play this game. You guys are uh you're you're in for an incredibly unique, one-of-a-kind fantasy football experience. It's gonna be a blast, and I can't wait to hear I can't wait. I genuinely can't wait for the first trade this year. Whoever does that is gonna be a superstar across all the leagues. Whoever does the first trade, it'll be talked about. Uh so very excited for that.
SPEAKER_00Because, like I've always said, trading is the lifeblood.
SPEAKER_01All right, next week on Haze Fox Trade, we return to actually talking about the stuff that you come to this podcast for. If you are still interested, if you are interested in Clubhouse, please sign up. Please sign up quickly. We are running out of spots for people to play on. And uh follow the Clubhouse TikTok Instagram account. There will be another podcast as well. This will come out on the Clubhouse Fantasy Sports Podcast. I'm splitting those things off. Uh, so I no longer will be, you know, trying to promote two things at the same time. Uh, and yeah, thank you all for listening. Podcast.