Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're inside the ICE House, our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision and global business, the dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism. Right here, right now at the NYSE and at ICE 12 Exchanges and six clearing houses around the world. And now welcome inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Josh King of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
I had an idea for this coming weekend, a quick flight to Orlando with the kids and a lightning visit to Star Wars': Galaxy's Edge, the newest attraction at Walt Disney World Resort. I was more juiced about it than my kids, to be honest. But they like babysitting dad, and we'll be packing our bags soon. When Lucas film Limited, the Disney unit that's making the newest episode of the Star Wars saga Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker delivers its film to cinemas on December 20th, you should expect it to bring in between 500 and 600 million dollars during its theatrical run.
Josh King:
The media networks, the parks, experiences, and products, and now the direct-to-consumer lines like Disney Plus, ESPN plus, and Hulu put it all together, and you've got a company delivering $64 billion in revenue annually on a market cap of now $250 billion. Now, it didn't start that way. Disney held its IPO here at the NYSE in 1957 at a price of $13.88 a share. If you'd invested $1,000 at the time, you'd have been able to buy all of, let's say, 72 shares. You're a patient person, someone whose family has had multiple generations visiting one of the parks, and you hold onto your shares through six stock splits over 62 years. Your original 72 shares would equal 27,648 shares today at 138 bucks a share where NYSE ticker symbol DIS sits today.
Josh King:
That original $1,000 investment would be worth over 3.7 million. Now, 30 For 30 Podcasts, the audio studio at ESPN does not do $100 million of box office for its parent company Disney. It's free. Like an E ticket for your ears, all you have to do is listen to the voice of the show's executive producer, Jody Avirgan, lob a pitch at you for OnStar State Farm Insurance and Delta Airlines in the beginning, middle and end of each episode, and you are golden. And that trip to Orlando I was talking about, let me tell you about another trip. Just last week. We're in the car. The kids are restless, long drive ahead. I go to the podcast app and let rip the Sterling affairs. Jody's newest five episode offering from 30 For 30 Podcasts reported and narrated by Ramona Shelburn.
Josh King:
Roughly four hours of incredibly produced audio that keeps the kids and my wife and me driving in fully entertained silence from Manhattan to the Catgill and back. Suddenly, we're at parties in Hollywood, in the locker room of the LA Clippers in the condominium of V. Stiviano at the podium with NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, and driving along the 405 with Shelly Sterling, listening to her husband, Donald spew racist tirades to his mistress on tapes that Shelly continues to listen to just, it seems, for motivation.
Josh King:
Well, maybe not all of the content is for the kids. So for the next 40 minutes or so, join me, won't you, on a trip to a smaller, darker corner of the Walt Disney company with Jody Avirgan of ESPN's 30 For 30 Podcasts, right after this.
Speaker 3:
Now a word from Jennifer Tejada, CEO of PagerDuty, NYSE ticker symbol PD.
Jennifer Tejada:
PagerDuty is a digital operations management platform leveraged by developers, customer support, IT and security to help ensure the brand experience for their end consumers runs perfectly all the time. Our organization reflects the diversity and the richness of our community. We're really excited about global impact. We chose the NYSE because it's a place where iconic companies are truly born in the company of giants.
Josh King:
You can hear the voice for our guest today, Jody Avirgan across what is now five seasons of 30 For 30 Podcasts, where he's responsible for the production of every episode ranging from that first offering, the trials of Dan and Dave, and Yankees Suck to this amazing season, a time capsule back to Southern California, dating back to 1981, when Donald Sterling bought the San Diego Clippers for $12.5 million, stretching forward to 2014, when Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO bought the team for 2 billion. But the stuff that happens in between, it'll blow your mind. Jody joined ESPN in 2015 to develop 538 podcasts, where we covered the 2016 campaign, and was host of What's The Point a show about how data affects our lives. Welcome inside the ICE House and back to the New York Stock Exchange, Jody.
Jody Avirgan:
Thank you very much for having me. And I like that in your intro, you kind of start with Star Wars, work your way to Disney, and then I could see you working your way down the org chart, all the way to me off in the corner, doing our little podcast. But yes, I suppose, I pulled out my ID, my work ID, as you were talking, because I do want to show you that my work ID has Mickey Mouse on it. And it says the Walt Disney Incorporated. So I am an employee of Walt Disney, but I'm in this little corner of, not just Disney, but also ESPN making these podcasts.
Josh King:
I mean, have you got any feedback from Disney corporate about the quality of the show over the years?
Jody Avirgan:
I mean look, 30 For 30 in general, is there mostly to do good work. And I say that, I realize how blessed we are that our primary role is not to flip a switch and make a ton of money for ESPN and Disney. So people are very happy with the work we're doing. The film series, 30 For 30 has been going for 10 years. Our bar has always been in the podcast, which we've been doing for a couple years now. It's just like do the equivalent of that. I mean, been so nice to just be handed this brand and our team just be able to say like, "Our Loadstar is to just reach the quality of those docs of those film docs."
Jody Avirgan:
And so I think our success has been measured in the same way that the success of the films has been measured, which is we're proud of this work. This lets us tell good stories. And certainly, podcasting is in a moment, right now, where there's some business to be done there. And ESPN is thinking through that and being, I would say, very strategic in that way in a way that I've been helping with and so forth. But all the conversations I have about "success" are mostly about was that good journalism, which is nice.
Josh King:
You and I when I first got to know each other when you were producing the Brian Lara show at WNYSE, and I was your go-to guest for all things presidential stagecraft, and I was listening to your five episodes of the Sterling Affairs, and I think you brought it up too with Ramona. Donald Trump and Donald Sterling at similar focus on the importance of optics.
Jody Avirgan:
Yes. So look, the Donald Trump, Donald Sterling comparisons are obvious as you listen to this. Those comparisons were obvious. I think we were compelled by, oh, this is a story about one man that can teach us a little bit about another man who is very important in our lives right now. The other thing to note is that Donald Sterling invited those comparison in the late 80s, he was trying to bill himself as the Donald Trump of the West. There are some interesting differences that are important to point out, certainly in their real estate holdings and the way they think about money. But in terms of what you brought up, this obsession with optics, this obsession with appearances, it is remarkable.
Jody Avirgan:
When I knew I was coming on here, I wanted to ask you a little bit that, because I just felt like I learned so much about that obsession too, like really small. And I would say, at times, petty details for these incredibly powerful men who presumably have a lot of things on their plate, they are still obsessed with these small little moments of optics. And I don't know whether you have learned over the years that that's what makes things different and successful, or whether you think of it as petty and obsessive.
Josh King:
Oh, I think petty and obsessive is a good place to be in the area of optics. I'll give you one example, just driving back from Upstate last week. And I think you've probably seen this too. You're in traffic coming down, Henry Hudson Parkway or the West Side Highway, and you see that sign Adopt a Highway. And this part of the highway was adopted by Donald J. Trump. And that sign has been up there, not just during his presidency, but for a long time. And my wife and I actually looked at each other and said, "I wonder how much money exchanged hands for that sign, or if any actually ever did. And if this highway really is being adopted and maintained."
Josh King:
But for the demographic that is driving down the Henry Hudson Parkway and into Manhattan, or coming from Long Island and sees one of those signs, you are captive to that sign and its implication of the philanthropic generosity of the person putting that sign up. So if you think of all of Donald Sterling's signage in advertising that you put up all around San Diego and LA as depicted in your show, these guys are thinking about the psychological impact of the smallest collection of words that's on the side of the road.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And the audacity of it is kind remarkable too. I mean, one of my, I don't know favorite is the right word, but one of the more remarkable moments in the Donald Sterling history is when he is sued by the Department of Justice in 2006, or he settles in 2006 for housing discrimination, one of the largest settlements ever. At the exact same time, he is taking out ads in the Los Angeles Time, touting himself as an NAACP honoree, and giving out basically sort of essentially fake awards, but to sort of burnish these credentials. And to do that in that exact moment, where you could, as someone describes, you could literally flip through the newspaper, and in the news section, in the sports section read about how pathetic the Clippers were.
Jody Avirgan:
In the news section, read about these DoJ settlements. And then in other parts of the paper, see these ads that Sterling had planted for himself to burnish his credentials with minorities and good causes. And that's just how he operated for decades and decades, which is really the heart of this piece is how he managed to go decades without anyone really holding him accountable.
Josh King:
Reflecting on the introduction that I read, which ties what you are doing at 30 For 30 Podcast to the Walt Disney Company, I'm curious, where Jody Avirgan grew up, was there any sort of a share of Disney stock held by your parents?
Jody Avirgan:
I don't think. My parents were freelance journalists. I grew up overseas.
Josh King:
Where did you grow up?
Jody Avirgan:
I don't think they knew what stocks were. I think they were just trying to get to the next gig. But I grew up in Costa Rica actually in Central America in the 80s. Costa Rica. I don't know how much you know about the country, but it's a fairly stable country. It's-
Josh King:
Óscar Arias, the president.
Jody Avirgan:
Yes, exactly. One in-
Josh King:
One of Michael Dhakal's favorite overseas president?
Jody Avirgan:
Exactly. Won a Nobel Peace Prize, but a stable country doesn't have an army it's written into constitution. A stable country surrounded by Nicaragua, Panama, not too far from Columbia. So a good place, to put it bluntly for two war correspondence to raise children. And so that was where I grew up in Costa Rica, but my parents were always dashing off to cover the wars in Nicaragua and Panama and so forth. I don't think they were owning Disney stock at that point.
Josh King:
Is my memory correct that you came over with 538 to work on 538, and that was more of sort of the Bill Simmons era of ESPN?
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. So ESPN for a stretch, first they started Grantland to sort of a sub site. And then that was successful and prestigious and all those things. And so then when Nate Silver, who runs 538 left the Times, they brought him on to sort of do the same thing. The third one in that progression was the undefeated, which still exists. The 538, and the undefeated still exists. Grantland sort of fell apart a year or two after I arrived. We shared a little offices with them. I'm a huge fan of that site, and a huge fan of Bill's. Obviously, he started 30 For 30 when he was at ESPN. So in some way, I feel like we're continuing that work.
Jody Avirgan:
But yes, I came on board to ESPN to do politics, which is what I was doing at WNYC, and start podcasting for 538. And I think it was a natural for that site. The World of Politics podcasts was just brewing. And I think it sort of exploded in 2016 and the show that I started and hosted and was a part of, I think was part of that explosion of politics podcasts. And then we literally shared floors and office space with the folks at 30 For 30. And so it was really just a conversation over water coolers and coffee machines about, "Oh, we're thinking about getting into podcasting, would you help us figure this out?" So I started helping the 30 For 30 folks, and then eventually, I just sort of transitioned over. But I had sort of three different jobs over the last several years, and never moved desks because it's all just sort of right there in that one office.
Josh King:
And just before we really dive into what you're doing at ESPN and 30 For 30, one of your other sort of side ventures, if I could just press that magical button that makes the world stop and lets me do whatever I want for however long I want, I'd stop at each Sunday morning when Don Van Natta Sunday long read comes in and just read all the best long firm journalism until my eyes fall out.
Jody Avirgan:
Yes. So Don Van Natta ESPN writer, fantastic writer, actually one of his best profiles was of Jerry Jones, a former guest on this podcast-
Josh King:
Which I used in my background research for my conversation with Jerry.
Jody Avirgan:
Yes. So Don Van Natta runs this newsletter that comes out on the weekends called the Sunday Long Read. And I'm the same as you, it is my favorite thing that it arrives at my inbox and it's just a collection of great magazine pieces. And yes, I constantly feel like it's immediate triage of which of these am I going to actually have time to sit down and read? If I could hit a pause button and read all the great work. I now do a little podcast recommendation within that newsletter. I got to know Don a little bit just by being part of the ESPN family, but also by being a fan. And I mean, I think it's funny. I'm just sort of putting this together now, but I do think that one of my MO is mostly find existing stuff that I like and try and glam onto it.
Jody Avirgan:
I mean, I like starting things, but I've often started things from within an existing world. And I like doing that. I like thinking of how do we evolve something, how do we take something that I frankly like, and want to be a part of, if I can work my way in and then think about what's the next phase is. I like that. And it's just as satisfying as sort of starting from scratch, if not more, because you kind of get to do a little auditing of where it's been. What is 538 now? What does a podcast for 538 look like? What does a 30 For 30 ethos? How do we translate that to audio documentaries? And I like going through that process a lot.
Josh King:
Well, if I was the guy in your seat having to pick one show, and you can't because it's your own piece, but I would certainly pick this Sterling Affairs of this one thing that just comes and jumps out at you in August and September of 2019. The project, the culmination of 18 months of work, not just from your team at 30 For 30, but also this large number of contributors. You used a tactic employed by Marvel, another part of the Disney Universe to make sure that your audience stayed through the credits. I want to listen to that.
Shelly Sterling:
Did you see the movie, The Wife?
Ramona Shelburne:
No, I didn't see it.
Shelly Sterling:
Oh, you must see it.
Ramona Shelburne:
Okay.
Shelly Sterling:
She was the ghost writer.
Speaker 8:
She writes it all.
Shelly Sterling:
And here her husband took care of the kids and she wrote all day long, and he got the poet surprised. And she's sitting there while he's being honored and she's getting matter and matter and matter because that belongs to her.
Ramona Shelburne:
Is that you?
Shelly Sterling:
No, it's not me.
Josh King:
What we just heard was the podcast version of post credit scenes. And that was the voice of Shelly Sterling. And you can tell me why you and Ramona and the team decided to tack that on after the credits.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. Well, first of all, shout out for listening through the credits. I appreciate you getting to that point. That's a little bit of Shelly Starling talking to Ramona. And it's this moment where, as you can hear, Shelly goes out of the way to tell this whole story about a woman who was really the one behind the scenes with all the power and no one gave her credit. And then Ramona asks her, "Is that really about you?" And she's, "Oh, no. God, no." And it's so revealing. I think Shelly Sterling is in many ways, the heart of this story. And I think Ramona, when she came in, really felt that, there's so many ways to attack this story of Donald Sterling. But through Shelly is really where you get to all of the issues of gender and race and class and business and affairs and fidelity and all of those things.
Jody Avirgan:
And so we really work to flesh her out as a compelling character. And I think she's the one that you feel most conflicted about. She's the one who really brings up all of the deep questions. And so in working with this with Ramona and Julia Henderson, who was a huge part of our team and really at the driving editorial force in many ways in production force behind the series, we talked a lot about how do we position Shelly? What are the things that we want listeners to think about Shelly, or moreover kind of what do we want to show and then give listeners the space to come up with their own ideas?
Jody Avirgan:
I mean, that is my goal is to not tell you how to think about someone, but to just present them in their complexity. And this particular moment from Shelly was one that we knew would only resonate if it was towards the end, right? Because you have to sort of know Shelly and understand how she thinks in order for this to resonate. But then was also one that was just like a tough puzzle piece editorially, and that's pretty much what you're doing for the last several months of this is just moving pieces around and thinking, "Okay, well, if we have this 40 seconds, is it going to interrupt the flow? And where are we in the story? And what do we know? And what do we don't know and what do we need to get to?" And it was just one of those that just we couldn't wedge in, but it's such an interesting moment. And Ramona and Jules, in particular, were so sort of enamored by what it told us that we said, "Okay, well, let's just stick it at the end, after the credits and see what happens."
Josh King:
So this is where I hit you with the question that I know you've been thrown at you before, and which I'm sure some colleagues at ESPN might throw at you as well as others in saying, what you've produced here and what you've produced through a lot of 30 For 30, it's not sports, Jody. I mean, you Tweet quoted Kara Silverman earlier today. You said, "An American culture podcast masquerading as a sports podcast is probably the best thing anyone ever said about our show." So this is broad creative license to paint a picture of Southern California in the 80s, 90s, 2000s.
Jody Avirgan:
That's exactly right. And that's the kind of work that I like to do. I mean, you hear this all the time about 30 For 30 documentary film series as well, which is, I don't like sports, but I like 30 For 30. And I love that, but I would say any creative person, one of the hardest things to do is to decide what's my lens, and sort of put up those boundaries around on you, because otherwise, you're just sort of drifting in the wind. And so I think sports is really as compelling a lens, and it frankly is broad of a lens to get at almost everything and every kind of story. So we don't feel constricted by it. We feel like sports has always been a place where we work out the other parts of our lives as well.
Jody Avirgan:
And so if we want to tell stories that feel like they go to that level that the 30 For 30 series is a great place to do it. One of the adages of 30 For 30 that was sort of around before I got there and we've adopted it, and it's something we just talk about a lot is when someone brings up a story, one of the first questions we ask is, so what? Okay, that was a cool thing that happened on the field or on the court. But so what? That person is really interesting, but so what? What does it tell us about society? What was the inflection point for someone's life? How did it change things? All those basic questions you ask about any good documentary, you have to ask those about this as well.
Jody Avirgan:
But yeah, I mean, I don't know, there's other parts of ESPN that talk about last night's games and I love those parts too. But I'm more interested in telling these kinds of stories. And one of the big secrets is that we're sports fans, but we're not like sports and nuts. And occasionally, I'll find myself chatting with an ESPN colleague where I'm like, "Oh, you're really into sports." Reminds me that I work at ESPN, and I don't have all the stats that you have at your disposal. And I don't really care that much about this trade or whatever, but I like those storylines.
Josh King:
Seasons One and Two, six disconnected episodes, season Three, which is all about Bikram Season four, back to the curated collection of stories. And now season five, all things Sterling. As you've discovered the arc of storytelling the way you did this season, what's been the arc for 30 For 30 podcasts? And next season, do you go back to individual stories?
Jody Avirgan:
So to answer that question, we're going back to individual stories for the fall. And our philosophy so far has been to do a mix, and tell individual stories and then always look for opportunities to do multi-part. But I will tell you that our thinking is shifting a little bit towards the multi-part stuff. We find that it just breaks through a little bit more, a little of that is chicken and egg because you only decide to do a multi-part if it's a really good story, and then a really good story is going to break through. And so you kind of have to disaggregate those two things. But in general, we have found, from an editorial perspective, I mean, we're putting almost as much work into those individual episodes as we are into the five parters, and the five parters, you get five times more output so to speak.
Jody Avirgan:
And so I think we are going to probably move a little bit more towards doing more series and of things we're talking about for 2020 are both the two things we kind of have going for 2020 are both multi-part series. The other place that I want to play a little bit with is more linking into the films themselves. There are some big time films coming out about some really, really big names and worlds that have tons of storylines. There's a film about Dennis Rodman just came out this week, and we'd been talking, we didn't get it together, but wed been talking about, "Well, we could probably just nibble off a little part of the Dennis Rodman story and do a 40 minute audio doc and have those roll out together, and then it's part of this big event." So that's kind of the other part of our thinking that we're trying to get to. And this is where my work sort of intersects with the more sort of podcast strategy stuff that we're trying to think through at ESPN.
Josh King:
What was the moment when, if you're looking up on the whiteboard or the work board in your office, and you say all the options that I have to devote all of this time, sweat, effort, money, to producing one show, it's going to be Donald freaking Sterling.
Jody Avirgan:
There's maybe not one moment, but there's a couple things. Well, one is, it's Ramona. I mean, Ramona Shelburne, I'm a fan of her work. I know that the level of depth she brings to her writing, and her reporting. And so when she walks in the door and says, "This story has this level of depth," then you're almost investing as much in the person and the person you want to work with and the collaborator as you are in the story. But there were a few things about the story, the Donald Sterling story, that convinced us, convinced me that there was enough to do the housing stuff, we just knew, "Oh, this is a story about these tapes that came out. But it's also a way to tell a story about Los Angeles and housing and race and all these other things."
Jody Avirgan:
And then really coming to understand that Shelly Sterling is this compelling character who we had access to, who we could flesh out in those ways. Then there were other little things that just made me realize like, "Oh, there's layers of editorial depth here." One of them being this backstory about Donald Sterling and Jerry Buss, and this thing that a lot of people don't know, which is that very early on in the late 70s, 1979, it was Donald Sterling who lent Jerry Buss the money he needed to buy the Lakers. And then Jerry Buss buys the Lakers, and the next year they draft Magic Johnson, they win a championship and he basically creates Showtime. And Donald Sterling is sitting there going, "Why can't I have that?" And anytime you have this sort of deep psychological question at the heart of it, I mean, I had this image in my head of Donald Sterling with his nose pressed up against the glass, looking at Showtime, Los Angeles saying like, "I want in, I want in," and that I had that very early on and just that's incredibly compelling to me.
Jody Avirgan:
And then you layer in this sort of Magic Johnson stuff and how it comes all the way full circle to when those tapes come out. You just see those arcs and you feel that level of depth that you can kind of keep returning to and know that a story has those themes.
Josh King:
And the story is basically the story of Donald Sterling. And that is not his original name from his birth, but for the listeners, who is Donald Sterling?
Jody Avirgan:
So Donald Sterling was born, Donald Tokowitz, and changes his name to Sterling, a made up name that he thinks sounds more prestigious. He was born in LA, and was a self-made man. And it was a truly successful real estate mogul, and eventually became LA's biggest residential landlord. And it was very hard to live and kind of still is today on the west side of LA, at least, and not enter a Donald Sterling property. So he makes a lot of money in real estate and then he ends up buying the Los Angeles Clippers and becomes as sports illustrated, put it in the year 2000, I think the worst donor in the history of sports.
Josh King:
And the other major character in the series is his wife, Shelly.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And she is so someone who was with him from junior high, they were junior high, high school sweethearts. They built their business together. She had a big part in building the business. And then she, of course, was his wife for many, many years as he became successful in business. But then also became a renowned Philanderer and always had mistresses. And so a big part of this is understanding Shelly's role, her complicity, and also the sort of psychological elements of her having to deal with a husband who was behaving in this way over decades and decades.
Josh King:
So Jody Avirgan, five episodes of the Sterling Affairs, it really happens with the discovery and use of these tapes that V. Stiviano begins to release to the public. Why don't you just give us, from a 30,000 foot view, how this story starts, and then where you take it with the series.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And I mean, some people will remember this moment where these tapes came out on TMZ, and they were recorded by Donald Sterling's mistress, V. Stiviano, and it's him ranting and raving about all of the people that she is posting photos of on her Instagram. But he's using racist language and he's talking about how, "I don't want to see you associated with Black people." And it's incredibly racist sort of vile language. It breaks the internet. I mean, millions and millions of people hear this within the first hours of it coming out. And it sort of throws the NBA into crisis because now they have an owner who has been caught on tape saying these things. And the league has to figure out what to do.
Jody Avirgan:
Kicking out an owner is not an easy thing to do in the league. And so you end up with this moment where there's this real power crisis within the NBA and having to deal with someone like Donald Sterling, who'd been a bad actor for many, many years, but now the world is starting to get a glimpse of what he's up to.
Josh King:
And then Steve Ballmer, what an idiot. He's got $2 billion of cash in his mattress.
Jody Avirgan:
So it's funny when you're making these things, you inevitably have your favorite moments, and then your hunches about which moments are going to resonate. In that exchange between Steve Ballmer and Donald Sterling, and that moment where Steve Ballmer's going to buy the Clippers and they finally meet together to basically seal the deal. And Donald Sterling basically gives Steve Ballmer a hard time and says "You're an idiot businessman for having $2 billion in cash lying around. Like, what do you think?" I liked that moment when we publish on the series. I didn't realize it was going to resonate with people. And it's not just you, because we're sitting at the Stock Exchange.
Jody Avirgan:
But a lot of people have reacted to that moment of like Donald Sterling calling Steve Ballmer a business idiot. But that's one of the beauties of making stuff is you just put it out there and then people then resonate with the parts that they like, and bring their own ideas to bear, and you just kind of watch it evolve.
Josh King:
What I just heard over those four hours of the Sterling Affairs, the audio documentary style that you and Ramona employ is certainly a departure from some of your earlier podcast work at 538 and WNSE, but it did bring you back to your roots in some way. What motivated you to make documentaries as a highest school student, and who were some of your earlier sources of inspiration?
Jody Avirgan:
I mean, this is good research here. No, I mean, I do come out of film. My dad was a cameraman. My mom was a a print and radio journalist. So I haven't fallen too far from the tree. And in high school, I made documentaries, video documentaries. And in college I made a documentary film for my thesis.
Josh King:
What was that thesis?
Jody Avirgan:
It was a film about Joe Hill, who was a labor songwriter for the Wobblies, the IWW. But basically, it was more a look at his sort of musical legacy through the years. And basically how American folk music sort of repurpose its heroes through the years. And it was effectively an excuse to talk to a bunch of musicians that I really wanted to talk to. So I came out of that sort of documentary background and then I wandered into WNYSE, and ended up on a morning talk show, but even there on the Brian Lehrer Show, which I genuinely think is the best sort of public affairs talk show in all of radio. And I think Brian is the best radio host in the world. Even there, one of the secrets of that show is that it thinks about conversations that are happening live as narratives, as stuff that still has an arc, as stuff that has a beginning, a middle and end.
Jody Avirgan:
As a host, you are finding ways to layer in new information as you go, to withhold information so that you have somewhere to go to. And all of those sort of same instincts of what's a story that people can climb onto? So I think no matter what kind of precise format I've been in, I've always thought about just like, what's the arc, and what's the story and where is this this ride that we going to evolve to next? But it has been really compelling as a sort of new chapter for me to really dig in on longer form narrative, audio, and particularly, the... I've reported a few stories, but often, my most consistent role is sort of as editor, effectively. And it's been really satisfying to just work with our producers and work with people like Ramona, and Jules, and sort of think about how we're going to piece these things together.
Josh King:
You began a freelance career that lasted all of one month in 2015. How did you end up at 538?
Jody Avirgan:
I've been a fan of Nate. I mean, I think in the same way that we had you on the Brian Lehrer Show, every once in a while, we had Nate on the Brian Lehrer Show every once in a while. And so I got to know just Nate and his work through that. And then when I left WNYCE, that was a big decision, I think as a lot of people, when you leave a really good place and kind of your first big job, it's tough. And so when I left, I was like, "Well, I should leave. If I'm going to jump, I might as well be in the air for a while." But it actually didn't... But then the other thing I said to myself was, "Unless the perfect thing comes along and I know that for 2016, I want to cover that election."
Jody Avirgan:
And so when I ended up just sort of getting connected with Nate, and he was saying, "Oh we do want to start podcast stuff. And we brought someone on to do that, but she's pulled it in a million directions and we knew each other from WNYC. And so she recommended me, it just felt like, well, even if I had been a freelancer for two years, and this came along, this would've been the gig I was waiting for. So I might as well just skip those two years and go right to this gig. And then of course, the 2016 election happens and we're in the thick of it, and we didn't anticipate exactly what that was going to be, but it was great to be on board with 538 for that.
Josh King:
We've had the team from, Wait, What? on this show, we've watched very closely what Alex Bloomberg has done with Gimlet, and its sale to Spotify, NYC ticker symbol S-P-O-T certainly also focused on what Jacob Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell are doing with Pushkin industries. I mean, these are all sort of podcasts startups. You are going to the worldwide leader in sports where they might have not have had the perfect microphone, but they had as much equipment and expertise in production as anyone could possibly imagine, but you're not a sports guy. And yet, you are the kind of person who will win the pool for the NYC March madness. But what's it like showing up in Bristol those first few days?
Jody Avirgan:
I go to Bristol every once in a while. Luckily, I get to live in New York and live in Brooklyn, but yes. But the Bristol in our minds are yes, I travel there fairly often. It's interesting. I mean, look, ESPN has been doing podcasting longer than almost anyone, right? And that's along the range of ripping the audio from PTI and putting it on the web and that's digital audio and that's podcast. And those pretty good numbers to a lot of the stuff that was happening with Grantland, which was some of my favorite podcasts ever, and very much setting a mold there.
Jody Avirgan:
When I arrived at ESPN, it was this moment of really needing to evaluate what is it that we do? And I mean, I will say when I got to ESPN, a lot of the conversations that we had were about podcasting, and we'd talk about our podcasting, our podcasting strategy. And it took a while to even get to the point where that language would shift to just a realization that, "Okay, we make migrated audio, we make original talk, and we do storytelling." And those are three things that are all podcasting, but they're distinct. And the strategy around each of those should be slightly different. And it's taken a bit to-
Josh King:
I mean, one of your-
Jody Avirgan:
... change that language,
Josh King:
One of your first efforts, I think, was to basically migrate the audio from an existing 30 For 30 video document and try it in this format. Didn't work.
Jody Avirgan:
No. And I mean, that was one of the first ideas with 30 For 30 was like, can we rip the audio from the films, maybe recut it a little bit and make it a documentary? And we tried that and it just didn't work. And so in the back of my head I was like, "Okay, we'll try this. It won't work. And then they'll say, 'Okay, well, you got to go do this for real. Here's a budget and report original stories.'" So that's what we've been doing. And so I've tried to help with some of those larger conversations, but I'm really looking at that storytelling lane and saying, what are some of the other things we can do? Because I think places like you've mentioned, like the gimlets of the world have been so good at showing that when you have a few different shows that feel of the same ilk, but there's a few of them, they can all grow together.
Jody Avirgan:
And that network effect is something that's a little missing at ESPN, and we're aware of that on the storytelling side. And so 30 For 30, we're a little bit in a silo at the moment. You look at ESPN's podcasting portfolio, and it's 40 some shows that are talking about last night's games, effectively. And then these documentaries that take a year to make. And so what other storytelling efforts can we do? Some of them a little cheaper, a little faster, but still invite that kind of listener. That's the kind of stuff I'm trying to help think through.
Josh King:
I mean, Don's new video series, what's called? The Backstory-
Jody Avirgan:
Backstory, yep.
Josh King:
That seems to show at least some good advancement toward some original vision for the kind of reporting that we saw and we do see an outside the lines, but ESPN doing its job to tell us things that we didn't know about last night's game.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. That's exactly right. And there will always be a home for that kind of storytelling at ESPN. And I think that will most likely always be my home, if I'm at ESPN, will be in that lane. But there's all sorts of different kinds of ways you can take that on. They don't always have to be historical documentaries like we do with 30 For 30. They can be more present-day, they can be follows. What's the hoop dreams but for audio, but for some other sport? We're thinking through a lot of those kinds of things.
Josh King:
After the break, more driving down the storytelling lane with Jody Avirgan, and I will explore the process behind the acclaim 30 For 30 Podcast series and will be right back after this.
Ramona Shelburne:
Our mission is to bring the world together through live experiences. We're focused on building a technology enablement platform for event creators, lower the friction and cost of creating an event, and increase the rate of success for event creators all over the world. We're a global inclusive company and 11 countries. This really marks a new chapter for Eventbrite, and it feels like the starting line. Eventbrite now listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Josh King:
Welcome back before the break, Jody Avirgan, host and producer of 30 For 30 Podcasts, we are discussing his career and how 30 For 30 Podcasts got its start. Let's back to that first episode, which explored the story that came out of this campaign in 1992.
Speaker 8:
Who is the world's greatest athlete, Dan or Dave? Dan's mom.
Speaker 9:
Dan.
Speaker 8:
Dave's mom.
Speaker 10:
Dave.
Speaker 8:
Dan's coach.
Speaker 11:
Dan.
Speaker 8:
Dave's coach.
Speaker 12:
Dave.
Speaker 8:
Dan's dentist.
Speaker 13:
Dan.
Speaker 8:
Dave's mailman.
Speaker 14:
Dave.
Speaker 8:
Dan's paper boy.
Speaker 15:
Dan.
Speaker 8:
Dave's pastor.
Speaker 16:
Dave.
Speaker 8:
Dan's girlfriend.
Speaker 17:
Dan.
Speaker 8:
Dave's wife.
Speaker 18:
Dave.
Speaker 8:
Dan's ex-girlfriend.
Speaker 19:
Definitely Dave.
Speaker 8:
To be settled in Barcelona.
Josh King:
Dan versus Dave. Jody, why was that the one story you wanted to tell first?
Jody Avirgan:
We felt that that was just like a classic sort of... I occasionally get to employ sports metaphors as an ESPN employee. So classic like pitch right down the middle in terms of a 30 for 30. I mean, it checks one of those fundamental boxes, which is this thing that people half remember, but they don't really know the full story. And so, I think a lot of people certainly of a certain age remember all those Dan versus Dave ads, and they think of it and history has reduced it to, "Oh yeah." And then one of those guys didn't make it. And that ad campaign was a bust.
Jody Avirgan:
And we then get to do what I think is, in many ways, our job, which is to take the way history is reduced, something to one sentence and then ad layers and add complexity. And in this case, this really remarkable thing that A, the way in which that ad campaign came together and went "bust" with Dan O'Brien not making it to the Barcelona Olympics as was promised in all of those ads. That was an interesting story to tell, but then of course, Dan O'Brien, four years later, goes back and wins the gold and had a kind of remarkable journey to do that. And moreover, I mean, Dan O'Brien the greatest... I mean, Dan was better than Dave. I think Dave would even admit that, certainly in a career sense.
Jody Avirgan:
Dan O'Brien effectively had a flawless career for a decade, except for one Sunday in new Orleans. It happened to be the moment when he was trying to qualify on the heels of this massive Reebok ad campaign. But that's kind of the only blip in his record. I mean, he's just incredibly good, including winning, as I said, gold four years later. So just getting to pull that lens back and add that perspective, but it's also so business story, which I really liked, and a lot of our stories kind of nudge up against the business side of sports. And obviously, it's an ad campaign, and I came to realize it was... And we flick at it a little bit in the documentary, but it was a moment in a very long and storied history of moments when Reebok and other shoe manufacturers, but in particular, Reebok seemingly, had this thing where they were like, "We're finally going to take down Nike. This is our moment."
Jody Avirgan:
You could tell that they thought, and then it blows up in their faces and that has happened over and over and over again. So it's a nice to kind of add that to that legacy.
Josh King:
Were there business considerations pro or con about relationships with Reebok today, and how a deep dive into that story might have affect any kind of existing relationship?
Jody Avirgan:
I'll answer that on two fronts. I mean, the first one is there's whatever metaphor you want to use a firewall or whatever. I mean, it's this remarkable thing that ESPN generally pulls off, which is it is both a business partner on the one hand, and a journalistic enterprise on the other. And so that's stuff very rarely actually comes up. I mean, I'm being honest here. We just basically get to tell our stories how we want.
Josh King:
Because I was thinking that the beauty of the Donald Sterling story is, there aren't a lot of interests to offend as you go through it-
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah, I mean-
Josh King:
... because Donald and Shelly are private people who are $2-billion richer.
Jody Avirgan:
Sure. It's probably not. If you ask the NBA, like, "Give me your top 10 lit of the stories you would like to come out about your league right now," Donald Sterling probably wouldn't be on that list. I mean, I don't think they loved that we were doing this, but it is-
Josh King:
Although it reflected on Adam Silver as quite a hero and a fast thinker and opportunistic in those few key weeks in 2014.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And he agreed to participate, and we're under no illusions that when he decides to participate, he sees some sort of... At some level, he's doing a calculus about his interests and so forth. So yes. But with that one and with our other stories, we didn't feel restricted. I mean, one of the beauties of doing historical stories, although the Donald Sterling thing is, it starts 30 years ago, but it only ends five years ago, but the Dan and Dave thing, people are over it at this point. A couple of the like execs from Reebok are still a little pissed off, but generally, and this is one of the beauties of doing these historical docs, is that after 5, 10, 15 years, people's emotions simmer down, people have often reconciled, and you can go back and tell those stories.
Jody Avirgan:
Whereas, if you went to them, if we went to Dan O'Brien six months after that and said, "We want to talk about all of this, and we want to talk about your emotional state when you failed in new Orleans," he wouldn't have done it. And we wouldn't have gotten that access. So the passage of time helps in terms of getting people to simply open up and be honest. It also, of course, hinders too, because obviously, as time goes on, you forget stuff. And so a lot of our work is getting people back in that emotional state. And with Dan O'Brien in particular, we had to really... he's great talker. He's very thoughtful, but we showed him that video of him failing over and over and over to really just get at him into that space because it's audio, right.
Jody Avirgan:
We don't have those visuals. So we need people to take us there emotionally and walk us through it. And one of my favorite scenes in that doc is the sort of five minutes where Dan O'Brien is just telling you beat by beat, what is happening is he's going to do that pole vault that he eventually fails on.
Josh King:
I mean, speaking of audio and visuals, I want to get into the power of audio by listening to some of the first episode of season five, the Sterling Affairs.
Ramona Shelburne:
It's hard to guess Shelly's age if you don't know it, because she keeps her hair this convincing pale blonde. And her face is very well maintained. Driving into Beverly Hills is basically like entering estate park for the rich and famous. There are the iconic brown and yellow signs that let you have entered a special place. And Shelly Sterling and her husband Donald own a ton of it. Over their 60 year marriage, the Sterlings built a real estate empire. In their heyday, they were the largest residential landlords in LA County, but most people knew her husband, Donald Sterling, as the longtime owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. One of the worst owners in all of sports. His team was the laughing stock of the NBA for decades. For Shelly, it should have been, would've been just a John down rodeo drive to return some wildly expensive clothes. But unbeknownst to her, her husband was also at Neman Marcus that day with a woman 49 years his junior named V. Stiviano.
Josh King:
So that's the voice of Ramona Shelburne saying you have entered a special place. It seems counter intuitive, but with all that description, why is audio so successful about painting the picture for a listen? And certainly the post-production music that you put in is huge.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. I mean, I love that score and we worked a lot on that score with Hannah Brown. And that part you played there, I mean, I feel like I learned this lesson over and over. It's writing, right? I mean, at the end of the day, a lot of this is just good writing is good writing, and Ramona is a good writer. And moreover we have a really rigorous editorial process, and we worked. That's from the first six minutes of the show, which are actually very different from what we often do. The first six minutes of the Sterling affairs is very writing heavy. And we tend to be more about the interviews and the archival and let the people who kind of live the story tell it. But we felt with this, that Ramona is so well-positioned to tell this story as as someone who's from LA and has covered this. And her introducing herself and her laying out the themes at the top was really important.
Jody Avirgan:
And then we would kind of back into a story that really is in the hands of all the people who we interviewed. But yeah, there's something I mean, you can hear it in the quality of her voice and the voice of Shelly, certainly, and certainly in the voice of Donald in those tapes that you hear. There's a level there that differentiates it from video. And I mean, this is sort of an cliche at this point, but it really is that audio is intimate. You hear that word all the time. It's there. It's in your ears as you're walking around. But moreover, I've always thought of audio as a transaction. A film often is presenting you with almost everything you need to know. There's scoring, there's there's visual elements. There's sometimes written text on the screen to give you context. There's archival.
Jody Avirgan:
With us, with audio, there was always that moment where the listener kind of has to complete the transaction in their head. They have to paint a picture of a character or they have to sort of take that next step or they have to envision what a scene looks like as you're describing it. And I don't think of that as an inadequacy. I think of that as our secret weapon, right? Is that we're setting people up to do some work. And then when you've done work, it means you're invested. It means that you're leaning in, and you're kind of... and if we have you, then we have you, and then you're a deeper listener in that way.
Josh King:
I've Heard you do sort of postmortems with your reporters, both Ramona on this season, and in prior seasons, and often a question that you ask is the people that you didn't get to talk to. I'm kind of curious as I listen to this audio malonge that you put together for the Sterling Affairs, about how much you and Ramona and your team kind of mourn the idea of things that you have to take out. Not necessarily interviews or access, but archival stuff that you found. I mean, it's not like you're producing a segment that needs to fit into sports center or a multi episode documentary that only has a certain amount of time to air on Prime time. You could have made seven episodes to this.
Jody Avirgan:
Sure. Yeah. I've lots of thoughts on this. I mean, this is one of kind of my big jobs is to help guide the, like, what is our editorial structure? What are the parameters? And a big part of the work is sort of setting up guidelines for yourself. So then as you come across decisions to make, does this go in, does this go out? Where does this go? You have those ideas of like, "Well, no. This episode is about this." Or, "This season is really about this one thing." And a lot of times, you do months and months of work, you have millions of drafts from rewrites. And it's all in the service of coming down to basically like a one sentence load star that you can re- a mantra that you can repeat to yourself.
Jody Avirgan:
They're like, "No, no, no. This episode is about power, or this episode is about exploitation, or this episode is about housing." And then you test all of your, "Is this going to go in or is this going to go out? Or how are we going to frame it against that?" The other thing I keep in mind and I tell people all the time is that when you're making something, the only person in the world who knows what's not in your piece is you.
Josh King:
I mean, you can look at the title of these five episodes. Number one, that tape two, Showtime, three property, four fallout, five, not fit. I mean, that is an elegant outline for what the series is.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And it took forever to kind of get down to that one word. And we did it with the Bikram series too. I think those were truth, power what are those? And then we have our own little one sentence beyond that. I read an interview with Francis Ford Coppola, where he talks about in all of his films, including the Godfather, he had one word, it would take a lot of time, but he would come down to like, "This film is about," and it's one word. And when he would have to make decisions, he would test it against that one word. And I think there was one where the conversation, which was one of my favorite films of his, I think the word that he came down to was transparency or disclosure or something about kind of what's seen, and what's not seen, but it was one word.
Jody Avirgan:
And he talks about how the wardrobe folks came to him with two coats for one of the characters to wear in a scene. They were rain coats. And one of them was green and one of them was plastic see-through. And he was like, "Well, this film is about transparency. We're going with that one." But it really helps you give yourself those guidelines and make those decisions.
Josh King:
I mean, Ramona certainly had her own set of guidelines as she was doing her reporting. Sports serve as the backdrop of the series. But I want to listen to how she summed up her takeaway from season five.
Ramona Shelburne:
It always bothered me because I'm somebody who watched Anna Carena, and had a real visceral reaction of like, "Why does Anna Carena pay the price, but the guy she has the affair with gets to keep living his life?" When really, everyone is just asking themselves the same question, how far are you willing to go to get that fame and fortune? And as a woman, that really stuck with me. And I think this whole series in a lot of ways is a meditation on that.
Josh King:
Shelly was ready to go very far. And as you have your sort of surprises in the fifth episode, you realize just how far she went and how the arc really came back to the very beginning for her.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And I think that was something thing I learned from Ramona over the course of talking about this and Julia as well. In a way I came, it took me a bit, I'll admit to sort of embrace the like. And this is not dismissive, but the soap opera nature of this story and realizing that this is about people who are maneuvering around each other and about personal relationships and about petty moments, but that have sort of Shakespearian overtones. And it took me a bit to kind of realize that and then realize, "Okay, well that means we need to then flesh out Shelly Sterling psychology. We need to come to understand V. Stiviano. We need to come to understand the sort of strange rules that dictate this world of this soap opera that we're exploring."
Jody Avirgan:
And Ramona, I think, just to her credit had that sort of within her from the very beginning that this is a story about people and how they operate around each other and it results. I think in the first episode, there's a line that basically says a domestic drama that boiled over and through a league and in many ways the world into crisis. And it's that. It's this domestic drama, is really at the heart of all of this. And we really needed to come to understand how people were operating within that.
Josh King:
The Voice we've heard on a couple of clips that we've listened to on the series so far has been that at Ramona. We still hear you speaking on the episodes, but it's through the ads that you're reading for OnStar State Farm and Delta. Got to pay the Piper. Is that enough of your voice behind the mic? Or do you want to have your voice telling more of these stories in the future?
Jody Avirgan:
I mean, 30 for 30 has always been about the story. And obviously, a Ramona Shelburn is a key storyteller, but every 30 for 30 film and every 30 for 30 documentary, our first goal is to do justice to the story itself. So I understand that. And so I understand that sometimes other people will tell stories, and I have found it very satisfying to be in this editorial role. I do get to report every once in a while, but I'm trying to keep this balance of hosting, being on mic, but then also really I... It is satisfying to help others tell their stories and be in that editorial role. And then occasionally, I have to read an ad here and there. And I'm happy to do that too.
Jody Avirgan:
And I mean, I will say, you've mentioned some of our sponsors, it is a sign of where podcasting is. And I think of where ESPN is that we were able to get some of these sort of name brand sponsors. And we're not reading direct marketing promo codes at the end of those. They're image spots, they're about a sort of brand. And I think that that's a sign that's starting to come into the world podcast.
Josh King:
I mean, I'm sure that the Delta spot by heart now.
Jody Avirgan:
They write copy, and then we work it, and there's a few things where they... It's been maybe a little more of my life than I've wanted to kind of go back and forth with advertisers and our sales team. But it's been an interesting thing to work out kind of like, how do we both own this and make it feel like it fits into our show? But then obviously, Delta and State Farm have their tagline of the season, and they they need to include that. And so occasionally, I'll put something in my own words, and they'll be like, "No, no, no. You just messed with a line that hundreds of people spend eight months kind of conceiving up. So you mess with this stuff and keep the tagline the same."
Josh King:
But as you think about the process of listening to five episodes in the placement of those spots, and listening to Ramona's voice, and then shifting to Jody's voice, and hearing the story that you tell about Delta, you can't come away from absorbing the bulk of that series, as long as you're not really fast forwarding through the ad spots and not have a warmer spot for Delta by the end.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. I mean, I think that's why a lot of advertisers are interested in podcasting because of that, again, that cliche word of intimacy. I mean, there's a level of that it's just a medium that... Well, frankly, demographically it attracts I think an attractive audience for a lot of advertisers, but it is a medium that people feel a general affinity towards the product and the things that are associated with it, then get to catch some of that magic as well. Your question about the hosting role that I have, it's a little different from a 538 Podcast, or a show like this, where people are hearing you in their ears. And so then when you turn around and say, "Here's something I endorse," carries that.
Jody Avirgan:
With us, it's a little more like, I have a role and I have a presence and I do these bonus episodes. I think people get to know me a little bit, but it's different from other shows. And so we've thought about and played a little bit with, "Well, should some of these spots be in just in a sort of generic ad voice?" And so you're hearing that more and more in podcasting now, too, but so far the conversations we've had are that people have an affinity towards me, and I have a sort of role as the sort of convener of this world. And so I'm happy to do those spots.
Josh King:
I mean, Malcolm Gladwell on Revisionist History, he's performing those spots to the nines and you don't want to miss those ads.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. And I mean, he's someone who seems to really embraced that. And I mean, I think that's a sort of strong tradition in podcasting as well as the host who has fun with the ads and really embraces and put. On the 538 show, I did a fair amount of that. And it was a very strange experience where we'd do live shows, and I would have to read the spots because it's a live show, but we still have to do the spots and people would applaud or get excited when an ad for me undies was coming up and it was just this weird experience. 30 for 30 is different, right?
Jody Avirgan:
That's copy. We don't really mess with that copy. I don't like make jokes around it. It's a little more straightforward. So you kind of got to evaluate the medium. And again, it's part of like, this world is growing up. And so there's just all different types of podcasts and different kinds of approaches. And there will be, and that's a sort of sign of a maturing industry.
Josh King:
You're no doubt familiar with the archive shelf of all the 30 for 30 documentaries that have done and dusted by ESPN? Is there any one of those titles that you say, "Geez, I wish that got the podcast treatment from beginning to end before it became a video?"
Jody Avirgan:
I mean, we just did an anniversary series in the podcast feed where I went and talked to a bunch of filmmakers around some of our favorite shows, some of our favorite documentaries. I mean, I have favorites that are along the lines of a lot of others. I think the Two Escobar is one of the best documentaries ever made. Obviously, OJ Made in America. Are there any that... Your specific questions when I haven't really thought about which is which ones would lend themselves best to audio? I tend to be a believer that a good story's a good story, and that the things that make the films good or the things that would make a podcast good.
Jody Avirgan:
I will say with Sterling, and it's this weird thing that we... I almost didn't really think about it that much going into it, but of course, it's huge that at the heart of it is a piece of audio. And so when you have a story like that, where audio is central to it, where there's a tape that really helps. And so there's probably some in the 30 for 30 Canon that include just pieces of audio tape that we could play with.
Josh King:
People who have a Bluetooth headset and enjoy podcasts, they can travel this subways forever, just listening to new audio. And in fact, you did travel the subway forever. 2015, 154.6 miles over 13 hours, 48 minutes to complete the longest possible journey in a subway in New York City. Any plans to redo that journey with the second avenue edition when-
Jody Avirgan:
Oh, wow. Second avenue. That was a bit of a stunted/reporting trip at WMIC somehow convinced me to do. Actually, I think I had just left. And then the first call I got was like, "Hey, do you want to do this thing where you ride the subway for like 11 hours or whatever?" And I was like, "Okay, I'll give it a shot." I mean, I'm a big believer in New York City subways. I love being on them. I will say, what, when was it?
Josh King:
2015
Jody Avirgan:
Summer, 2015 or something? I do think that I did that experiment at the last possible moment for the MTA, really started to decline. And I think if I had done that like six months later or a year later, it would've been a much more hellish than it was because I generally didn't encounter that many delays. It was a pretty pleasant experience. It was a lot of time on the subway. I smelled awful at the end of it, but it was great. And now, I think it's a big thing that the city is grappling with is our deteriorating subway. But it was a very good lesson in that. And that's where it sort of was a journalistic enterprise, was like, I want to see as much of this system as possible and sort of trying get a state of affairs with the MTA, but it was great.
Josh King:
Well, 13 hours, 54 minutes, even if it's 20 hours now, you could probably do that whole trip and not listen to the whole archive of 30 for 30 podcasts. Come back when you have season six and season seven, and we add to the whole archive. Thanks so much for joining us-
Jody Avirgan:
I'd like it.
Josh King:
... inside the The ICE House.
Jody Avirgan:
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Jody Avirgan, host and editor of ESPN's 30 for 30 Podcasts. If you like what you heard, please rate us on iTunes so other folks know where to find us. And if you've got a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, email at [email protected], or tweeted us at icehouse podcast. Our show is produced by Pete Ash with production assistance from Steven Romantic. I'm Josh king, your host signing off from the library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:
Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available whole sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing here in constitution offered to sell a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some of the proceeding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.
