0:15

Pushkin.

0:22

I'm Maria Kannakova and I'm Nate Silver.

0:24

Welcome to Risky Business.

0:26

A show about making better decisions.

0:29

This is our first episode of the show,

0:31

so I want to give you a little taste of the

0:33

types of topics you can expect from us going

0:36

forward. So we'll obviously be talking

0:38

about politics and the elections since

0:40

this is a major election year. We'll

0:42

be talking about poker, We'll be talking about

0:45

the news, and of course we're

0:47

going to be talking about personal decisions. Right, how do

0:49

you take this framework and make

0:51

decisions in our day.

0:52

To day lives conveniently almost

0:54

as that we've planned this in advance. Our first show

0:56

will cover all three of these areas. We'll have

0:59

reflect with Maria on our recent poker success she

1:01

had. We'll do a segment on RFK Junior

1:03

and his effect on the presidential election, and

1:06

we'll talk about Caitlin Clark and the economics of

1:08

the gender pay gap and the WNBA.

1:11

So, Nate, let's get into it.

1:22

So, Maria, was it last week? It's all

1:24

kind of blurring together, but I think last week we were

1:26

making the official Twitter

1:28

slash social media announcement about Risky

1:31

Business. The podcast and

1:33

you were absent from

1:36

that cluster of information

1:38

we wanted to spit out because you were at the final table of

1:40

a poker tournament. Good excuse, I guess

1:42

tell us more about that.

1:43

Absolutely. So I was at

1:46

EPT Monte Carlo, which is one

1:48

of the flagship stops of the European Poker

1:50

Tour, which is a Poker Stars event, and

1:53

I was playing in the euro

1:57

side event and it was going pretty

1:59

well. So at the time that

2:02

I saw your emails and all of these announcements

2:04

going back and forth, I was actually

2:07

in the middle of a redraw for the final table and

2:09

we were finally down to nine players. So

2:12

I had, you know, a few brief

2:14

moments to check my email when I saw of

2:16

this and had to respond to you guys that. Unfortunately,

2:20

I was going to have to be focused

2:23

and not actually be paying attention to any social

2:25

media announcements because final table

2:27

is a pretty big deal.

2:29

How much were you playing for?

2:30

So first place was, and this is

2:32

all in euros, was eighty three

2:34

thousand, one hundred and eighty euros, so that's almost

2:37

ninety thousand dollars and ninth

2:39

yeah, not bad. And then ninth place, which would

2:42

be you know, you're the first one out at the final

2:44

table was eight nine

2:46

hundred euros, so that's just

2:49

over nine thousand dollars. So that's a

2:51

pretty big difference.

2:52

That's why you weren't answering your emails.

2:54

That is why I was not answering your emails.

2:56

You can be bought off for that is correct.

2:58

Date, I had to be very

3:00

much paying attention.

3:02

Yeah, I think people in pokeer and neglect the

3:04

importance so focused sometimes because it's such a

3:07

there's a lot of noise, right, I mean it's given

3:09

final table, it's kind of mostly

3:11

luck. But like if you go jogging or running

3:14

right and you're really

3:16

hungover, you notice the effect on your time, Right,

3:18

there's no noise there in the data

3:20

in poker, you don't, But like, tell

3:23

me more about the importance of

3:25

focus of shutting out distractions, especially

3:27

in a high stakes moment like this.

3:30

Yeah, I mean I think that you really

3:32

really need to be fully present

3:34

because normally during a poker tournament, right,

3:37

this tournament started with around six hundred

3:39

players. I don't remember if it was a few fewer than that

3:41

or a few more, but around six hundred, right,

3:43

So at that point you're sitting at a full table,

3:46

and I'm not going to say you can phone it

3:48

in, but you don't have to always give

3:50

it one hundred percent of your focus, because

3:52

a lot of poker is actually pretty boring, right. You don't

3:54

play a lot of hands, you have to fold a lot, you

3:56

get a lot of shitty hands, and you don't

3:58

actually want to be tempted to play those. So

4:01

a lot of the time you have down time. And

4:03

of course I'd love to say that

4:06

I'm one of those players with laser focus who

4:08

never has my phone at the table, who is always

4:10

one hundred percent present, but that is simply

4:13

not true. I mean, I would be just absolutely

4:15

lying if I said that, And I think it's just

4:17

very difficult for the human brain to do that. I've actually

4:19

written a lot. My first book was about mindfulness

4:22

and presence and focus and the

4:24

importance of that and decision making. And

4:27

one of the things you find is that's incredibly,

4:29

incredibly taxing for the brain because

4:31

the brain in its default state wanders,

4:34

and so it takes

4:36

a lot of effort to focus, and so you

4:39

have to save that effort for the moments

4:41

when it really matters. And the final table

4:44

is one of those moments because you're

4:46

playing for really high stakes and

4:48

all of a sudden, every single

4:51

pay jump matters. It matters

4:53

if I'm out in ninth place versus eighth place,

4:55

versus seventh, versus six. And just

4:58

to add to the drama of this particular

5:00

final table, I had had a really, really

5:02

shitty series up to that point, and

5:04

I knew that in order to kind of

5:06

dig myself out from the hole that I was

5:08

in finance, I needed to place

5:10

third or better. That was the only way that I would

5:12

make money on this tournament, and damned

5:15

if I was going to let anything distract me from

5:17

doing that.

5:18

One thing, too, is you kind of can't even

5:20

like fake the focus part.

5:22

There's a long discussion about this in my forthcoming

5:25

book On the Edge. We're actually talked

5:27

about an experience we had playing together Maria

5:29

in the Bahamas where we were playing the

5:31

twenty five k PSPC first

5:34

time I played a twenty five thousand dollars tournament, and like,

5:37

I was just really wired more

5:39

than I wanted to be. You know, you're feeling

5:41

your heart rate escalate a little bit, and

5:44

when you're at a final table, then you

5:47

are just inherently more

5:49

in the zone more alert that

5:52

can be tuned too high. Sometimes part of

5:54

the benefit of experience playing poker

5:56

is that you know how to deal with that extra

5:58

awareness and stress that you have, but you can't.

6:00

You can't fake being interested on day

6:02

one of some tiny buy in event

6:05

two hundred blinds deep, right, but look, did

6:09

you have any cool.

6:09

Hands that you point I did have one,

6:12

specifically one very cool hand,

6:14

which really I think illustrates

6:17

a lot of the principles of a final table.

6:19

So I came into the final table as

6:22

one of the shorter stacks, so there

6:24

were a lot of people who had more chips

6:27

than I do. And let's

6:29

say, for a second just

6:32

kind of do a little asterisk

6:34

and talk about how that

6:36

changes when you're kind of at the beginning stages

6:38

of a tournament versus the final table. So,

6:41

because as I mentioned before, they are these huge pay

6:43

jumps, and you know, the monetary

6:46

value really shifts depending on which

6:48

place you get. Your chips are

6:51

no longer worth what just what

6:53

they say they are, and

6:56

the ranges meaning the hands that you play change,

6:59

how aggressive you want to be changes,

7:01

and your strategy really really changes

7:03

depending on whether you're a short stack, a

7:06

middle stack, or a chip leader, right, whether

7:08

you have a ton of chips. And the

7:10

cool thing about my situation

7:14

when I was the short stack is like I'm

7:16

in last place anyway, so I

7:19

can take risks and I can actually put

7:21

a lot of pressure on other people because

7:23

I still have enough chips that I can

7:25

really really put a dent

7:28

in what they're doing. So at this stage of the tournament,

7:30

I think there were eight of us left and

7:32

I started the hand with I think seventeen

7:35

big blinds. Big blinds are kind of those

7:37

fource bets that you have to make blind

7:40

to get some action going. So the

7:42

number of big blindes is just a good way to gauge

7:45

how long you can go right without without

7:47

playing a hand, and how long you can survive.

7:50

So I was in first position, first

7:53

to act, and I had ace

7:55

king, which is a really strong hand.

7:57

So you're in here's a test through which are

7:59

our audience members know about poker? You're

8:01

in first position. That must be really good. You

8:04

always want to be first.

8:06

What an interesting question, Nate. That

8:08

is actually the polar opposite.

8:10

So in poker and in

8:12

decision making in general, this is actually a really

8:14

really crucial point position, really

8:17

really matters, and you actually

8:19

want to be the last person to act.

8:22

You want to be the last person to make the decision,

8:24

which means you're in position. If you're

8:26

in position, that means you get to see all the information

8:29

beforehand and then you get to act. If you're

8:31

out of position, that means that you have to go first,

8:33

right, you choose what to do, but

8:35

then all these other people see that and

8:37

they have more information and they get to make a decision

8:40

after you. So if you think about away

8:42

from the poker table, like if you're in a salary negotiation,

8:45

you do not want to throw out the first number.

8:47

Say you're negotiating terms for a new

8:49

podcast about decision making.

8:51

Exactly, you want the other person

8:53

to make the first offer right because

8:56

you do not want to accidentally

8:58

low ball yourself or you know, you just

9:00

you just want to know what the other

9:03

person is thinking and then be able to respond

9:05

to that. And so the positional

9:07

advantages in pokers are huge. So

9:10

when you're in early position, right, when you're acting

9:12

first, you have to actually be much more

9:14

selective with the hand you play, and you have

9:16

to be much more cautious because

9:18

so many things can still happen and I

9:21

say this over and over, whether it's in poker

9:23

or in decision making, because we're always

9:25

playing games of incomplete information. Right,

9:28

information is key. Information is

9:30

power. The person with the most information

9:33

has the edge, and so you want

9:35

the edge and acting first ate

9:37

it. So in this particular

9:39

case, though, I have an amazing hand, so I'm going to open

9:41

it. So that's what I do. And then

9:44

two people who are acting after me

9:46

decide that they're going to call, and they're both

9:48

going to have position on me in the hand, So

9:52

middle position calls and the button calls,

9:54

and then the blinds fold. So what this means

9:56

is that the only other two people in the hand are actually

9:58

going to be deciding after me. And it's

10:00

three ways, so that means that there's three of us, which

10:02

means multi way, which is much more difficult

10:04

to play. All right, So here we

10:06

are ace King two p

10:09

We'll call and we get a flop,

10:11

which is the first three community cards that everyone

10:13

can see, and they are a Queen, a

10:15

ten, and an eight and rainbow,

10:18

and rainbow means that there

10:20

are three different suits,

10:23

so no possibility of a flush draw.

10:25

None of the cards match your cards, Maria, bad.

10:27

That is bad Nate. So

10:30

I decide to check, which is always

10:32

a really really good decision

10:34

when there are lots of people acting after you. And

10:37

what checking means is I

10:39

just say I'm not going to act now. I check to you,

10:41

and you can do what you want to do. And

10:44

so I check, and the middle position

10:47

player decides to bet, and he bets pretty big. He

10:49

bets four big lines and the

10:51

button. So the other player in the hand

10:53

calls, and so here

10:55

I am. And at this point

10:59

we have nine big blindes in

11:01

the pot right starting to start

11:04

the hand, plus the eight that just went in,

11:06

So that is seventeen.

11:09

Right, That's that's my stack because I had bet too before

11:11

the before the flow. So basically

11:14

this is huge. And what do I do right?

11:17

If I call, there

11:19

are still two people behind

11:21

me, and it's a really huge

11:24

chunk of what I have left, and I'm going to be in a really

11:26

bad position if I don't improve. And

11:28

so I decide to run a big bluff or

11:31

semi bluff because I could improve, and

11:34

I decide to shove all my chips in the middle.

11:36

I go all in. And that's

11:39

a very risky play because if either

11:41

one of them has anything and calls me, I'm out of

11:43

the tournament. They both have more chips

11:45

than I do.

11:47

Or you make your or you hit your jack or I hit my

11:49

jack. Right, we

11:51

call it a semi bluff because there are some ways.

11:53

You know, the jack always makes you the best

11:56

hand. You can sometimes hit two kings in

11:58

a row. Occasionally one

12:00

acer king makes you the best hand. Yep,

12:03

So you have some equity in the pot. I do.

12:05

I do have some equity, and I also have

12:07

some fold equity. I mean, I still

12:09

have enough chips that my shove

12:12

puts a lot of pressure on them, right,

12:14

So it's not like I'm shoving for four big blinds,

12:16

which is what they already bet, right, I'm

12:18

shoving for a substantial amount

12:20

more. And the middle position player

12:23

just folds instantly, which I was

12:25

kind of relying on. So at

12:27

a final table, especially, you will

12:30

have been playing with these players for a long

12:32

time several days in this case,

12:34

and so you get to know their tendencies and how

12:36

they play a lot more, and

12:38

so you can make decisions that are

12:40

much more fine tuned

12:43

to these specific players. And

12:45

so I knew that this middle

12:47

position player was a recreational player who

12:50

didn't really know what he was doing. I'm sorry,

12:53

and also really loved

12:55

love to bet whenever anyone

12:57

checked to him, like I don't think he passed a single

12:59

spot to bet, and he would just bet very

13:02

random amount, so I was pretty sure he had nothing.

13:05

And the person who was on the button

13:07

was actually an old pro

13:10

and he was someone who I'd been

13:12

playing with for a while, and I knew he was very

13:14

solid, good and very

13:16

very capable of making big folds,

13:19

which is crucial because after he calls

13:22

with me to act behind, he has a

13:24

good hand, right, he doesn't have just air, and

13:26

so I need to be sure that this is a player who

13:28

is capable of folding, because some

13:30

players aren't. And so he starts

13:32

tanking. And when

13:35

someone goes into the tank that means they're thinking,

13:37

and he is tanking

13:39

and tanking and tanking, and

13:42

the longer they tank, the likelihood

13:45

that they're going to call you goes up, right,

13:47

So the longer he thinks here, I am sitting

13:50

thinking, okay, well I guess I'm out of the tournament.

13:52

And then finally he shows a queen and

13:55

he folds his hand, so he

13:57

folds top pair and I basically

14:00

double my chips without

14:02

any showdown whatsoever. And

14:04

that was an absolutely crucial

14:07

hand in the tournament because it

14:09

gave me breathing room and it enabled

14:11

me to make it to second

14:14

place, which is what I eventually got. How

14:16

much money Maria fifty two

14:18

thousand euros which.

14:21

Is Zero's good? Now there's like one point one,

14:23

Yeah.

14:23

It's it's like fifty six thousand something

14:25

like that. Not as good as it would have been last

14:27

year, but still pretty good.

14:40

So one of the things that has

14:43

been in the news lately and has really

14:46

gotten me a

14:49

little bit scared, to be perfectly

14:51

honest, well, actually scared shitless would be

14:54

a more precise technical

14:56

term for how I'm feeling about it

14:58

is how close this

15:01

presidential election is and the

15:03

fact that with how

15:05

close it is, we have suddenly these

15:08

third party and specifically I'm

15:10

thinking about RFK Junior, who

15:13

is actually pulling ridiculously

15:16

well for a third party candidate,

15:19

and makes me incredibly worried

15:22

that there's a chance that you

15:24

know, this person who has

15:26

a brainworm or had a brainworm, I guess

15:29

it's still in his brain so that he and his running

15:31

mate the worm,

15:34

who do not believe in a

15:36

lot of things that are science based

15:38

and who are members of the Kennedy

15:40

family that the two of them have

15:43

a real chance of making

15:45

a difference in states where

15:48

the elections are close.

15:49

Marie, can you please, first I need to interrogate

15:52

you. What state are you from?

15:53

I'm from Massachusetts.

15:55

Do you understand Americans the other four nine

15:57

states don't give a fuck about the Kennedies and don't

15:59

understand the entire Kennedy thing.

16:01

No, Nate, I disagree. I disagree.

16:04

I think the Kennedy thing is a huge thing,

16:06

and it is a very big

16:08

deal. But yes, point

16:10

taken.

16:11

Okay, let me give two other kind of points

16:13

of context for the listeners, one of which is kind of

16:15

like a meta abstract point. Right,

16:18

Maria, you planned to vote for Joe

16:20

Biden? Is that right? Yes? Correct?

16:23

And we're doing shows on politics. I think Maria

16:25

is not going to make any hidden

16:28

attempt to pretend that she's not a

16:31

you know, if you're a Democrat or not, but you're going to vote for Joe

16:33

Biden. And I plan to vote

16:35

for Joe Biden too. For what

16:38

it's worth, however, I am not in

16:40

these politics that've been's going to make as

16:42

many assumptions about what our audience

16:44

necessarily thinks. Right. I hope we do

16:46

have some Kennedy listeners and some Trump listeners

16:49

whatever else. You're welcome to listen to no matter

16:51

what. But Maria is kind of going to be playing

16:53

more of a partisan hat role, and I'll

16:56

have more of a non partisan hat. So, and

16:58

the second kind of assumption here is,

17:00

I think you're assuming that Candy

17:02

will draw more from Biden than from Trump,

17:04

when I'm not so sure that's true. So in

17:07

polls, Kennedy overall is it ten

17:09

point two percent of the vote

17:12

according to the five thirty eight average, which is

17:14

the highest share of anybody since Ross

17:16

Puro in nineteen ninety six. If he wants up realizing

17:18

that, well, debate in a moment how the numbers

17:21

are more likely than not to fade. But ten

17:23

percent is a serious chunk

17:26

of the electorate. However, I

17:28

mean, as you mentioned, Maria RFK Junior

17:30

is not some liberal,

17:33

progressive, pro

17:35

science democrat with one of those yard signs

17:37

we believe in xyz in front of in

17:39

front of their house. He has some beliefs that the

17:41

scientific consensus would not endorse about

17:43

things like vaccines, for example.

17:46

He is not to Biden's left

17:48

on issues like abortion or Israel Palestine.

17:50

He's to the right, although sometimes inconsistent

17:53

and what he says, although at times he's

17:55

been kind of linked with a libertarian

17:57

nomination, has kind of views all over the place

18:00

on economic issues, a little hard

18:02

to play, so he kind of seems to me like

18:04

an anti establishment. You

18:06

can say this nicely or not too nicely. U

18:09

or docks is a nice way to say it,

18:11

maybe kind of low information

18:14

mix is a not so nice

18:16

way to say it. Right to

18:19

me, that reads like it's coming from the

18:21

Trump pile as much as the

18:23

Biden pile. And then the polls is all over the place.

18:26

There are some polls where Candy draws

18:28

more support from Trump, similar he draws

18:31

more support from Biden. You could sell

18:33

examples, but you can have you can, you know, every

18:35

which way potentially in terms

18:37

of the effect on November. By the way, there's

18:39

also Cornell West and Jill Stein

18:42

who are definitely running to Biden's left and

18:44

are I think purely harmful to Biden. But I

18:46

think look, if I'm Joe Biden, I have

18:48

a lot of concerns right now, including

18:50

the fact that I'm eighty one years old, the fact that you

18:54

know, voters are still concerned about inflation, the fact

18:56

that you have kind of a lot of pushback against

18:59

the left. Now, I'm not sure if RFK

19:01

Juniors had my top five

19:03

concerns at the moment.

19:06

So then, but in an

19:08

election at least right now, so

19:10

close, right, so many polls have them

19:13

just neck and neck, fifty to fifty more or

19:15

less. Some have you know, Trump ahead, some

19:17

have Biden ahead. You know, it depends on the

19:19

state. But when we're talking about states

19:22

that actually matter, So Nate,

19:24

you vote in New York, and I

19:26

voted in Massachusetts. Then I voted

19:28

in New York. But now I actually

19:31

get to vote in Nevada, which

19:33

is a purple state and a state that is actually

19:35

a swing state. So my vote finally

19:37

matters. It actually matters who

19:40

I am voting for. And in places like

19:42

Michigan, you know, votes definitely matter.

19:44

So in those cases, right in those states

19:46

where every single vote is actually crucially

19:49

important, do we think that

19:51

collectively third party candidates,

19:53

including RFK Junior, are going

19:55

to be in a position where they actually might

19:57

swing the outcome of the election.

19:59

So historically, third

20:02

party candidates get less of the vote in

20:04

swing states because voters,

20:07

even before our podcast, Maria, some

20:09

voters were rational. They would understand that,

20:12

like, if you're running in New York and you want to

20:14

send a message to Biden

20:16

and Democrats or the two party system by

20:19

lending a vote to a third party, it's not going to actually

20:21

affect the outcome in the election. If you're in Pennsylvania

20:23

or Arizona or Nevada, Georgia, Michigan,

20:26

then it might. And I think people like actually are are

20:28

relatively rational about that. We've

20:31

had in the last two elections what

20:34

I call tipping point states, a fancy term for

20:36

the states that make the diffen between

20:39

who gets two hundred and sevent electoral votes and not came

20:41

down to a percentage point or so. So

20:44

yeah, in theory, if you have a guy taking

20:46

ten percent or let's say, because by the way, it

20:48

usually does go down. Because

20:50

right now, people kind of use RFK as

20:52

like a free parking space for deciding

20:55

what they'll do later to demonstrate their lack

20:57

of satisfaction with these two very

20:59

old men who are running again in a rematch.

21:02

A lot of Americans do not want. Although Canny himself

21:04

was I think over seventy years old.

21:06

He is, and he had a warm parasite in the

21:08

brand who ate part of his brain?

21:10

Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I'm

21:13

not sure what I told people that personally, if I have

21:15

brainworms, I'm not going to do a brainworm segment

21:17

on this.

21:18

He didn't.

21:18

He didn't.

21:19

It came up because he used it during

21:21

a divorce trial, where let's

21:24

just say so I have a background in con artists.

21:26

My second book was about con artists the

21:28

confidence game, and con artists

21:30

are known for telling people what they want to

21:32

hear or what's strategically good

21:35

in that particular moment, which has a high

21:37

overlap with politicians in general. But during

21:39

his divorce proceedings, RFK Junior

21:41

was trying to argue that his cognitive

21:44

capacity was greatly diminished and so

21:46

his future earnings potential was a lot lower,

21:48

so he had to pay less money during

21:50

the divorce and would have to pay a lower settlement.

21:53

So this was a matter of record, and journalists

21:55

dug it up. And now of course he's saying, oh,

21:57

no, no, no, cognitive capacity not diminished

21:59

at all. What are you talking about.

22:02

We don't think he was lying in the divorce anyway.

22:05

He was lying in one of the two.

22:07

The point is, if you had to historically,

22:10

so for example, Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate,

22:13

was polling at maybe

22:15

around ten percent now or eight percent of remembering

22:17

this offhand, and got more like

22:19

five percent. Russtrow bounced around

22:22

a lot in nineteen ninety two. He was at

22:24

one point leading in the polls,

22:26

believe it or not, and then dropped out

22:28

and then rejoined the race. God, I'm going off memory

22:30

here, nineteen percent or something like that. So

22:33

if you had to project where Canny will wind up,

22:35

you've probably take an over under of like seven

22:37

points and not ten. Right

22:40

with that said, look, seven points will almost

22:42

certainly be bigger than the margin of difference

22:45

between Biden and Trump in a state

22:47

like Michigan, for example, So if Kennedy

22:49

were to take most of that vote from one side,

22:52

that would be a problem for whoever lost those

22:54

voters. But again, I

22:56

think it might wind up being fairly

22:59

even. And if the Biden campaign knows what's doing.

23:02

I mean, you've seen actually Trump

23:04

advisors begin to express more reservations

23:07

about RFK Junior. Right as

23:10

people learn more about him, they learn more

23:12

about the vaccine stuff, they learn more about

23:14

how he's not some typical liberal

23:16

Kennedy. He may compete more with a kind of

23:18

disaffected, sort of Trump voter archetype

23:21

instead.

23:23

So just to kind

23:25

of sum that up, we're

23:28

not sure at this point. We're not sure what's going to

23:30

happen, but this is put a potential issue.

23:33

So how you know we're getting new polling

23:35

data all the time. You know, the New York Times just released

23:37

a big poll this week. How should

23:40

we read the polls? How should we think about

23:42

the polls going forward in the months

23:44

leading up to the elections? Or should we just ignore

23:46

them up to a certain point.

23:47

Put like this, if you're a Democrat, I'd

23:50

be worried because Biden is losing to

23:52

Trump right now, I wouldn't care so much about

23:54

RFK Junior. It's like not my first concern. You

23:56

know, you almost if you're losing Maria in a

23:58

poker hand or something. You want more variants,

24:01

you want more things that are in the mix. And right now, if

24:03

you had an election today, Biden would probably

24:05

lose at least in the swing state. So give

24:07

me more RFK Junior. Right, the

24:10

more worried you are about Biden's position overall,

24:13

the more you should welcome chaos, I think.

24:15

All right, So with that I

24:18

will welcome chaos. Welcome

24:20

to the race, RFK and worm, and

24:23

let's see what happens. And as a

24:25

Democrat, I hope that I don't

24:27

need to hit the panic button quite yet, but I'm

24:30

ready to just in case.

24:45

Some Maria. A couple of weeks ago,

24:48

my finance bro buddy texts

24:51

me and says, do you want to go to the New York

24:53

Liberty game in a couple of

24:55

weekends? Right with is a divorced

24:57

dad with his young daughter,

25:00

And I'm like, sure, you know, I mean, it was a

25:02

little surprising in this particular friend

25:05

of mine, not to profile too much, wanted

25:07

women's basketball tickets, but he has a young daughter who's

25:09

so it kind of makes sense, right. And then I learned that it's

25:11

the game against the Indiana Fever,

25:14

which is the team that drafted Caitlin Clark,

25:16

the superstar point guard from

25:19

University of Iowa, who is maybe

25:21

the most famous female basketball

25:24

player in history, probably more

25:26

famous than any amateur NCAAA

25:28

men's player, at least as of the date of the NCAA

25:30

tournament. And I was

25:33

excited about this and

25:35

any texts again and says, by the way, we're

25:37

in. We're in the bleachers for

25:39

this and the reason

25:42

why is that, unlike a typical

25:44

New York Liberty game, the court side

25:47

seats for this game costs tens of the utter made,

25:49

not tens, but you know, high four figures

25:52

worth of prices. The cheapest

25:54

seats when I checked yesterday were about one

25:56

hundred and five dollars with Ticketmaster

25:59

fees, So that is actually more

26:02

than a typical Brooklyn Nets

26:04

game, right at least in the post Kevin

26:06

Durant era. Maybe not as

26:08

much like a Knicks game. The Knicks

26:10

are a very popular in demand ticket but

26:13

all of a sudden, women's basketball

26:16

is when Caitlin Clark plays, drawing

26:19

on a par with the

26:22

NBA.

26:23

I mean, that is crazy and quite

26:25

the phenomenon. Just to be clear,

26:28

I know the names of two female basketball

26:30

players, Britney Griner for reasons

26:33

that have nothing to do with her playing

26:35

basketball and everything to do with

26:37

the political crisis in twenty twenty

26:40

two right where she was detained by

26:42

Russia as a prisoner, and Caitlin

26:44

Clark, And all of a sudden, whenever

26:47

something bleeps on my sports radar

26:49

And for people who don't know me, I am not a

26:51

sports fan. I do not watch sports.

26:53

I have actually never been to a single basketball

26:55

game in my life though, name you

26:58

say you want to? You want to? Yeah,

27:00

yeah, so Caitlyn Clark has popped.

27:02

Yeah, I bet the friend who's

27:04

buy tickets this game could also name those

27:07

exact two women's basketball players, maybe

27:09

Sue Bird, maybe one or so other.

27:11

Right, if you go, for example, to the next

27:13

game at Barclay Center, the Seattle

27:15

Storm at New York Liberty, I can buy

27:18

a good seat for twenty one bucks.

27:21

So, as of now, this is very much

27:23

focused on the particular

27:25

cultural phenomenon that is Caitlin Clark.

27:28

Yeah, so obviously this is a huge

27:30

deal. But then what I started reading

27:32

about her, the stories that I encountered,

27:35

were all about the contrast between how

27:37

popular she is, right, what a huge

27:39

audience and viewership she draws. And

27:42

then we have her starting

27:44

salary as at WNBA's number one

27:46

draft pick, which is going to be seventy

27:49

six thousand, five hundred and thirty

27:52

five dollars. You know, I

27:54

think that's crazy, given that

27:57

in the NCAA March Madness Final

28:00

she averaged well, their game

28:02

averaged eighteen point

28:05

seven million viewers and

28:08

peaked at twenty four or million between

28:10

ESPN and ABC, while the men's final averaged

28:13

fourteen point eight million. Now,

28:15

let's compare the salary of seventy six, five

28:17

hundred and thirty five dollars to

28:20

the lowest draft

28:23

pick in the NBA, not the WNBA.

28:25

The last pick in the first round of the NBA

28:28

draft gets two million dollars in

28:30

their first year. So that is quite the contrast

28:32

to someone who has brought in record audiences

28:36

to the sport. So there are two things

28:38

that I want to talk about. So

28:40

first of all, a lot of people point

28:43

out, yeah, but her salary isn't it right. She's

28:45

going to get endorsement deals, She's going to get branding deals,

28:47

she's going to get opportunities that most women's basketball

28:49

players or men's never get because she's

28:51

a superstar. I want to talk a little bit about the

28:53

superstar effect here, But then I do want

28:55

to talk about that gender pay gap and

28:58

the fact that we're seeing these absolutely

29:01

huge differences between someone

29:03

who's just a slam dunk top superstar

29:06

and what a superstar would be

29:08

getting in the NBA. So

29:11

Nate, do you have any initial thoughts

29:13

on that, because I can start going

29:15

and it's going to be hard to shut me up. So I'm going to let

29:17

you get an word in edge West first.

29:20

As an mostly

29:24

underpentent capitalists

29:26

most of the time, I

29:28

think the issue is that the system is not capitalistic

29:32

enough. Right, that Caitlin Clark

29:35

does not have leverage to

29:37

demand her marginal revenue product

29:40

would be the way that an economist would put it, and

29:42

that I don't agree. I mean just because she makes money from

29:44

endorsement, so I mean, look, she

29:46

should also have the right to make money based on the on

29:49

the fact that she's bringing five or ten

29:51

times more ticket revenue than any other

29:53

player in the w NBA. Right. One

29:55

problem is that rookies and

29:58

almost every sports league are on

30:00

a salary scale where they're

30:03

basically underpaid. Right. One reason

30:05

why NBA teams tank, meaning intentionally

30:07

trying to lose, is because you cannot

30:10

only get a player like Victor

30:12

woman Yanama for the Spurs. He was number

30:14

one pick in the men's league and the men's I'm saying

30:16

men's league. In the NBA. He's also paid

30:18

far less than he's worth,

30:21

and it has to do with the dynamics of union

30:24

bargaining frankly, and the fact that like

30:26

established players to some extent,

30:29

are screwing over rookies

30:31

who do not have as much leverage in the player union.

30:33

Also, a lot of rookies are bad. Sometimes

30:36

rookies are playing for developmental reasons,

30:38

so they tend to lack leverage in general, and that carries

30:40

over to the WNBA. The other is

30:42

she though, is that she is a big

30:44

outlier as far as her

30:47

marketability. Even forget the rookie

30:49

thing, right, even if she weren't a rookie, the

30:51

entire WNBA salary cap is like what

30:54

like one point four million dollars I

30:56

was looking up a moment ago. The entire salary

30:58

cap is, yeah, one point four six three million

31:01

dollars, which is less than

31:03

what a single NBA rookie

31:06

makes. Now, that's because WNBA

31:08

has or has made much

31:11

less revenue than the NBA.

31:14

There are debates about whether it's even profitable or

31:16

kind of like a loss leader for the league. But

31:18

she that doesn't work

31:20

for her, right, she should have some special

31:22

provision where she probably is going to make

31:25

in marshall revenue probably ten

31:27

fifteen twenty million dollars a year,

31:30

and she's being exploited because

31:33

if she decides she doesn't want to play or go plays

31:35

in China or something, which is where she might ultimately

31:38

have leverage, that is money out of the coffers

31:40

of the Indiana Fever and also visiting teams

31:43

like the New York Liberty that are you know, people are

31:45

going there to see her. My friend's

31:47

daughter will be wearing a Caitlin Clark jersey and

31:49

not a New York Liberty jersey. So

31:52

she's getting screwed over by by a

31:55

lack of ability to kind of achieve what she's

31:57

really worth.

31:59

Yeah, I mean that seems to be pretty

32:02

clear and something that I didn't realize.

32:05

So when you're talking about how you know, the WNBA

32:08

is a younger, doesn't make as much money

32:10

generally as the NBA, so you know the salaries

32:12

are lower. But what I didn't realize

32:15

was that the NBA players get fifty

32:17

percent revenue share, that's kind

32:19

of what goes towards their salary, whereas the

32:21

WNBA only get ten percent. So

32:24

even if we account

32:26

for the lower revenue

32:28

of the WNBA, they're still getting screwed,

32:31

right, They're still getting a much smaller percentage

32:33

of the overall revenue share than

32:36

the male players. And this, I think is something that

32:38

is general to the league and not just to

32:40

Kaitlin Clark, even though obviously we know Caitlyn's

32:43

getting now doubly screwed because that superstar

32:45

effect is not actually applying to her, right,

32:48

it is applying to her in certain

32:51

endorsement deals, but it's not applying to her when it

32:53

just comes to her basic salary. And that pushes

32:55

people like her, as you said, and like Brittany

32:58

Griner to go play abroad

33:01

where they might get detained because

33:03

there's just no revenue opportunity in the United

33:06

States.

33:07

Yeah, I mean, look, men's basketball

33:09

has not historically had as

33:11

much of an audience as men's basketball,

33:14

particularly not outside of the

33:17

US. So in the NBA. The European leagues

33:19

are are relatively speaking more

33:21

competitive, but in general, there

33:23

are genetic differences between men and women,

33:26

and those manifest themselves and things that are relevant

33:28

to athletic competition, like who can jump

33:30

farthest or run fastest or things things

33:33

like that.

33:33

Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna interject here

33:35

to say that Caitlyn Clark was the top overall

33:38

scorer in NCAA history, which

33:40

includes men.

33:41

But she's competing against women. I'm not gonna get

33:43

away. No, that's that's the good point. I don't fine because

33:45

she's competing against women and not

33:48

men. But for the most part people,

33:50

it's kind of socially constructed, Like why do people,

33:53

for example, watch college

33:55

basketball at all? Right, the games

33:57

are much much, much worse than the NBA.

34:00

It's because people like are not watching for the pure

34:02

sake of athletic competition. And I

34:04

think maybe a lot of mostly male decision

34:07

makers underestimated the market to bill of

34:09

women's basketball, and now there's a big

34:11

correction, and I think I think that players

34:14

should demand their restructuring, like

34:16

sooner rather than later. I mean, it may have

34:18

been appropriate compensation given

34:20

what the league's ratings were up

34:23

until Caitlin Clark, and now it's going

34:25

to be in all likelihood different,

34:27

and you know, they should use whatever

34:29

marketing power they have to rectify that as

34:32

soon as possible because now they are being underpaid.

34:34

Absolutely, And you said, you said a phrase in

34:36

there that I think is absolutely crucial, which

34:39

is socially constructed. Right, So I

34:41

do think that a lot of this, a

34:43

lot of the compensation, a lot of the historical

34:46

differences. And this is not just true

34:48

of basketball, This is just now, you know,

34:51

more broadly speaking, when it comes to

34:53

men versus women, gender pay gaps, et cetera is

34:56

a result of generations

34:58

of socially constructed norms

35:00

and what people you know, are doing

35:04

versus not doing. And so I think that that's

35:06

absolutely crucial to remember as

35:08

we talk about, you know, moving forward,

35:10

what is reasonable? What is An't it reasonable? Because

35:13

even you know that fifty versus ten percent revenue

35:16

share, now they can you know, can they

35:18

push for fifty percent? Right? Because that accounts

35:20

for that accounts for the fact that

35:22

there are differences. They're not saying we need

35:25

to be paid as much money as

35:27

the men. They're saying we want to proportionally

35:29

be paid as much money as the

35:31

men. And to me, that's absolutely

35:33

reasonable. And you know, obviously

35:36

I'm a woman and I've been on the I've

35:38

been on the bottom end of the of

35:41

the gender pay gap from you.

35:42

Yeah, look, when you are charging

35:46

one hundred bucks for a

35:48

cheap seat for a regular season

35:50

WNBA game in Brooklyn, that's

35:54

real money. That really adds up they're whatever,

35:56

eighteen thousand people in that stadium, and Caitlin

35:58

Clark's going to sell out every arena as long

36:00

as she remains healthy and isn't a total

36:03

flop. That's real

36:05

money, and the players who are generating that money

36:07

deserve more of it.

36:09

Absolutely, And I think that we

36:12

need to look more at that argument

36:14

as opposed to, oh, their gender

36:16

differences, because it's incredibly

36:18

easy to get bogged down in that and then

36:21

to start using that as an excuse.

36:23

So in my own area, right, I'm

36:25

a writer, I'm a speaker, and I

36:27

happen to know with one hundred percent

36:29

certainty because I've actually talked to people

36:31

about this and compared that I

36:33

get paid less for speaking engagements,

36:36

I get lower advances, I

36:38

get paid less a lot of the time than

36:41

male counterprohaps who don't have a PhD.

36:43

And by the way, I got that fucking PhD

36:46

so that I could have those three letters behind

36:48

my name, because as a woman, I

36:50

need that in a way that men don't. Just like Caitlin

36:53

Clark to achieve what she needed to, she

36:55

has to be a million times more extraordinary

36:57

than a man, right, Like that's what you

36:59

have to do to get over that.

37:02

And even still I have people who say,

37:04

oh, you don't know what you're talking about in psychology,

37:07

and they have an armchair degree, right, They they've

37:09

never studied psychology at

37:12

the level that I have, and yet they say that to

37:14

me all the time.

37:15

Look as the kind of dumb sports

37:18

pro between the two of us, Right,

37:21

I somewhat

37:24

object to how

37:27

what you can map those differences in

37:30

things like speaking gigs onto

37:33

sports where there are more objective

37:36

measures of performance. But I think like

37:38

championing women's sports is like something that like young

37:41

women and young men like. Right,

37:44

the social norm around that changed fast.

37:46

I mean I have heard more conversation

37:49

about women's basketball from my

37:51

sports breou friends in the past six

37:54

months than I have in my entire lifetime

37:57

before that, right, And so I think encouraging

38:00

that behavior, I mean, I think, for example, the Insane Tournament

38:03

is a lot more fun. We need these kind of two tournaments

38:05

going on together. You can bet, by

38:07

the way, on on the women's

38:09

game. I made a fair amount of money betting

38:12

on women's college basketball this this march.

38:14

That was that was you know, a way to get into the sport too for

38:16

certain people. But like, look, I think this is

38:18

good, and I think Katelon Clark needs to demand

38:22

demand that she is paid for

38:24

the revenue she generates for the league because this whole thing wouldn't

38:26

be happening. Maybe it's not true, maybe you'd have some other focal

38:29

point, inflection point, but

38:32

no, she should. We should have a whole march

38:35

on the NBA offices on Park Avenue. Would ever be

38:37

like pay Kate and Clark more. I agree on that on

38:39

that point at least, maybe not for the same

38:41

reasons, but like I agree with the conclusion.

38:44

All right, excellent, So we can agree on the conclusion,

38:46

and we can hope that when we're having this conversation

38:48

again on episode one thousand

38:50

and one of Risky Business, that

38:53

we'll be able to look back and say thank

38:55

you to Caitlin Clark for being

38:58

kind of the catalyst for a

39:00

revolution in the gender pay gap

39:02

and how people compensate women for

39:05

what they do. And

39:09

This is hosted by me Maria Kannakova.

39:11

And me Nate Silver.

39:13

The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries

39:15

and iHeartMedia. This episode

39:17

was produced by Isabel Carter. Our

39:19

executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

39:22

Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Sarah

39:24

Bruger, Eric Sandler, Kira

39:27

Posey, Greta Cohne, Christina

39:29

Sullivan, Kerrie Brody, Owen

39:31

Miller, Farah Daygrunge, Jordan

39:34

McMillan, and Jake Gorsky. If

39:36

you like the show, please rate and review us

39:38

so other people can find us too. Thanks

39:40

for listening.