House of Strauss Ethan Strauss
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- Sports
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A podcast about sports, politics, the future and technology.
www.houseofstrauss.com
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HoS: Ross Barkan Defends Baseball's Future
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com
Ace New York politics reporter, all around culture writer and crazed baseball fan Ross Barkan objected to my “Is Baseball Dying?” article. Naturally I had him here to say his piece and boy did we hit on a range of other topics.
* Contra conventional wisdom, is baseball more international than basketball?
* Why might baseball survive the future?
* Pete Rose was insanely famous in the 1970s, and we’ve forgotten
* Is household name sports celebrity over, post LeBron James and Steph Curry?
* Is Patrick Mahomes anywhere near as famous as prime Tom Brady was?
* Taylor Swift and parasocial fandom
* Will Swift exist outside her time?
* Travis Kelce’s obvious bid for fame
* Tucker Carlson vs. Bari Weiss on Israel
* Campus fight over Israel -
HoS: Joe Pompliano on who REALLY owns the Minnesota Timberwolves
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com
Joe is really smart about the sports + business overlap, as evidenced by his viral story about Glen Taylor thwarting his own sale of the Timberwolves to the ARod + Lore duo. We got deep into that deeply reported article and hit other topics of interest, such as…
* The Pat McAfee + Bill Belichick combo
* Robert Kraft’s Dynasty hit job on Belichick backfiring
* Roger Goodell expanding the NFL season
* NBA TV rights reports
* The paradox of why NBA broadcasters might pay more while asking for less inventory
* The Minnesota mess
* Glen Taylor’s sneaky trick to recapture team control
* Those Forbes team valuations matter more than you’d think
* Why the WNBA can’t pay Caitlin Clark a lot of money
* The articles arguing that Clark got a big Nike deal in large part because she’s White -
HoS: Jason Timpf
Jason Timpf of Hoops Tonight on the Volume Network seemingly appeared out of nowhere, thriving at the top of NBA media. Of course, like many an “overnight success story,” his rise was many years in the making. This was a great conversation wherein we discussed, among other things…
* How Jason used 2020 era Twitter Spaces as the battering ram to break into media
* Why Jason, as the counterpoint to Spike Eskin, loves JJ Redick
* How Jason’s career was decided by Colin Cowherd’s 5 seconds of judgment
* Reducing a game to a story
* How much should we blame or credit luck and variance in an outcome?
* Dre Greenlaw’s Super Bowl Achilles: Luck or something else?
* Analytics-leaners dismiss the midrange at their peril
* Steve Kerr’s secret to NBA playoff success
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HoS: Eli Lake
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Prominent foreign policy writer Eli Lake, currently posting at The Free Press, dropped by HoS to talk basketball. I, of course, wanted to discuss Lake’s views on politics, culture and the ever fraught topic of Israel. I’m not sure which of us won the battle for topic allocation, but I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation (and I’ve made the NBA part of it free).
Subjects include, but are not limited to…
* Why Eli is “my least favorite kind of intellectual”
* Eli’s beloved Sixers…getting mighty intriguing?
* How to fix the Warriors
* Eli, much like fellow Philly Jew Spike Eskin, has issues with LeBron’s public persona.
* Why LeBron vs. Daryl Morey on China turned into a crisis at my then place of work
* Is Eli, post October 7th, still friendly with Glenn Greenwald?
* The Zionist case for America ceasing to fund Israel’s military
* Protestors who block bridges against Israeli military action…is there a logic to what they’re doing?
* Are today’s protestors imitating the legend of the 60s? Or doing their own thing?
* Trump at the bodega -
HoS: Andrew Bogut and Mike Procopio
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com
We’ve got Andrew Bogut and Mike “Pro” Procopio of the Rogue Bogues podcast to discuss the eliminated and possibly dead Golden State Warriors dynasty. Obviously we talked about a lot of other subjects with these first grade ballbusters. Topics include but aren’t limited to…
* The Warriors. What should they do?
* Draymond Green as player-podcaster
* Did the Warriors really screw up the James Wiseman pick? Or were there just few good options?
* Jontay Porter getting banned from the NBA for prop bets
* The way assistant coaches scheme against one another for power
* The time I got yelled at by a media member in front of Steph Curry
* Players and coaches leaking secret information to reporters
* Gilbert Arenas slighting Nikola Jokic
* Is it an issue at all if Luka Doncic is chubby?
* Pro is the King of Feminism because he was pro WNBA before it was cool -
HoS: Spike Eskin, Talking LeBron+ JJ Redick and Michael Porter Jr. Podcast Ventures
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com
Top flight Audio Man Spike Eskin is here to discuss the newest NBA podcast hits. Spike’s gotten a lot of mileage out of humorously critiquing LeBron and JJ Redick’s “Mind the Game” pod, but perhaps he should be focusing more of his energy on Michael Porter Jr.’s “Curious Mike” product?
Topics discussed:
* Is Spike a hater for laughing at LeBron’s Internet-lauded NBA strategy podcast? What’s wrong with two dudes drinking fancy wine and talking hoops?
* Why did Spike’s “LeBron caught himself in a lie” clip go this viral?
* Is the broader media afraid to have fun with LeBron’s foibles?
* LeBron’s child star origins on display
* Michael Porter Jr. interviewed porn star Lana Rhoades and the results are very entertaining
* “Poop cookies” and the controversy surrounding Porter Jr.’s Rhoades interview
* A case of “locker room” talk infuriating segments of social media
* Athletes as political/social omnivores
Customer Reviews
House of Strauss-The Best Sports/Culture Listen
Ethan is a master podcaster who invites friends and colleagues on to discuss issues from both sides of the political aisle. If you haven’t joined the Substack, you’re missing a huge part of Ethan’s fascinating content. I particularly enjoy the behind-the-scenes discussions on sports topics, ranging from Woj to how NBA players really feel about hot-button political issues. Keep up the great work Ethan!
I don’t even like sportsball…
But I really enjoy this podcast. It’s worth listening to the sports banter for me to get to the interesting cultural insights between Ethan and his guests.
Stop talking about yourself
You are not inherently interesting subject matter, talk about topics, let your guests talk. Nobody cares about your self indulgent anecdotes.