0:00:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Reiner, Sports talk. Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, okay, now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. The Texas Rangers win the World Series. All right, all right, here's a tip. Rock all these Americano league teams.
0:00:33 - (Tyler Kern): Don't. Wait, you said tip?
0:00:35 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, tip with a P. Keep jamming the ticket colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off session. This is a cool night. Or what? Although somebody would hear that and go, I'm back. And hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of your Dark Companion. We are glad to have you with us, no matter where you may be, no matter when you may be receiving this podcast transmission. Maybe you're doing the live at five thing, maybe you're not. Maybe you're doing it later on. Maybe you're doing it at your own convenience. You know, that's the groovy thing about podcasts. If you miss them when they're happening, never mind they live out there in perpetuity, as we like to say.
0:01:34 - (Mike Rhyner): Anyway, yes, I would be Mike Reiner, and today we're going to introduce to you the newest member of our little podcast encampment on the edge of the city. This is a guy that I have known for some time. Knew him up at the Ticket. I'll let him explain what he did up there, but he's coming on board to do soccer for us. Yes, a soccer show here alongside your Dark Companion and all the other great podcasts we have under the stolen water media. Speaking of which, one of those great podcasts is helmed by a guy who deigned to join us for this today because he is a big soccer guy.
0:02:36 - (Mike Rhyner): And I figured I might need a little help because sometimes when I start talking soccer with people, I do more listening than talking. And when I do talk, a lot of the time I'm just. They just have to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are so far off base, we're gonna have to send out the FBI to find you and drag you back on track. But Rob Irwin of the clubhouse, who we've had on here sitting over there in that chair before.
0:03:07 - (Ron Ervin): Hi, Internet.
0:03:08 - (Mike Rhyner): Helping us out for this, that and the other.
0:03:10 - (Ron Ervin): Happy to be here. I know enough about the football, or the football norte Americano, depending on who you are, to be dangerous. So I'm happy to be here. I'm glad that you called and I'm excited for this.
0:03:22 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, I'M glad to have you. But let us turn our attention to Tyler. This is Tyler Kern, who spent how many years doing this, that or whatever at the Ticket? Tyler?
0:03:35 - (Tyler Kern): Man, probably, I guess two years at the Ticket. And then I moved over to produce at WBAP for about four years and so just up in the Cumulus Building for somewhere around six, seven years. Yeah, you know, I was just in and around things.
0:03:50 - (Mike Rhyner): What were you producing at bap?
0:03:52 - (Tyler Kern): The Morning News with Hal and Brian the Great. How J man? So fun. Really fun days. Like, I'm not a political guy and I know like BAP dives deep into politics and that sort of thing and whatnot, but I got into it because I just, I loved radio and getting a chance to work with Hal was. Was awesome. And so I had a blast doing that and during that time did a little soccer up there on the now defunct ESPN Radio that used to be right across the hall from the Ticket.
0:04:23 - (Tyler Kern): So I did a little show there on Sunday mornings and did some work with FC Dallas during that time also.
0:04:29 - (Mike Rhyner): What did they turn that station into?
0:04:31 - (Tyler Kern): You know, I have no idea.
0:04:33 - (Mike Rhyner): I don't know, like a Chinese takeout joint or something. Or what.
0:04:37 - (Tyler Kern): Right.
0:04:38 - (Ron Ervin): It's now a spirit Halloween.
0:04:40 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. Like every. Like everything else. Yeah, I don't. I have no idea. It's gonna be oldies, who knows? I haven't flipped over that direction in a while, but used to be a Sunday morning show. It was just an hour with. With Steve Davis, who's notable around here for his soccer expertise.
0:04:56 - (Mike Rhyner): And so Dallas Morning News.
0:04:58 - (Tyler Kern): Yes, the Morning News is own Steve Davis. Just all around great guy. And so he and I co hosted ESPN Soccer Today on ESPN Radio for four or five years. Mark Stein was on that show for a little bit while I was there and we just had a blast until ESPN Radio went away. So as they will do. It happens. It happens, you know. But I enjoyed my time up at the Cumulus Building and I got to meet you and some of the other guys up there at the Ticket and meet Hal J. Man, heck yeah.
0:05:29 - (Tyler Kern): I mean I got up and worked every morning with Hal I to a WBAP before they.
0:05:36 - (Mike Rhyner): This is long ago, like real long ago. But I had a year or two up there working as a sports minion in their sports department. And that was in the days of Hal and Dick.
0:05:49 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:05:49 - (Mike Rhyner): And man, it was fun working with those guys.
0:05:52 - (Tyler Kern): They're just, they're just great guys. And I think. I think the thing about working with those guys was that they were just as good and fun off the air. Like, oh, my gosh, there's really no difference. You know that the amount of time that I just spent just dying, laughing off the air because the shenanigans rolled just straight through the commercial breaks. And you come back and you're still laughing at some ridiculousness that Hal has pulled, you know, during the break.
0:06:17 - (Mike Rhyner): And that's when you know you got a good show.
0:06:19 - (Tyler Kern): Yes, it was. It was great. It was great.
0:06:21 - (Ron Ervin): Strive for it. You want to be the same person off air that you are on.
0:06:23 - (Tyler Kern): Oh, totally, totally. And Brian Estridge was there, who I know you've had on on this show as well, and enjoyed him quite a bit, too. Yeah, love Brian. And those were just really, really fun days. Unfortunately, radio, the ceiling of what you can get paid as a producer in radio is somewhere around poverty.
0:06:42 - (Mike Rhyner): It has a place, doesn't it?
0:06:43 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. And so I couldn't stay there forever, but had a blast while I was doing it.
0:06:49 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, we are glad to have you on board. Now, tell us a little bit about what you plan to do with this soccer show.
0:06:55 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. So, soccer, look, the World cup is coming up next summer, as most people are aware, right. 20, 26. And not only is the World cup happening, it's happening here in the US plus Mexico and Canada. So 16 cities across the three countries are going to be hosting games. And more specifically, Dallas is going to host more games than any other host city for next summer's World cup, which is a huge deal.
0:07:21 - (Tyler Kern): And so my goal for the show is to create a place where it doesn't matter what level of soccer fandom, whether it could be zero soccer fan, no soccer fandom to speak of before this, or if you are somebody who wakes up and religiously walks, watches the Premier League every week that you have a place where you can come talk about the game, enjoy hearing and learning more about the game and preparing for the World Cup. So the, the soccer sphere is so vast that you almost have to choose an angle that you're going to approach it from. Right. It can be the Premier League if you are. If you want to be Premier League centric, it can be world soccer.
0:07:55 - (Tyler Kern): But you have to choose an angle because there's just so many leagues, so many teams, so much going on all the time. So we're going to approach it from the angle of preparing the US Fan for the World cup next summer. So everything you need to know to feel ready when the U.S. men's National Team takes the field next summer.
0:08:12 - (Ron Ervin): Well, and you think about when they named it, when named it During. During the pandemic is when they named that we would have it. And you're like, 20, 26. I can't even think. And you're like, oh, that's like nine.
0:08:22 - (Tyler Kern): Months from now, boy. Yeah, I blinked and all of a sudden we're here. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And so.
0:08:27 - (Ron Ervin): And how many matches is the Death Star going to host?
0:08:30 - (Tyler Kern): I don't remember off the top of my head. I just remember there was more than any other, and that they're hosting a semifinal that's also the meet. Dallas will be the media hub, and more than likely, Dallas will be a host city for multiple teams. Right. So teams will choose a home base and then leave from that home base to go play games elsewhere as well. And so a lot of games going to be here. It's going to be a blast.
0:08:51 - (Ron Ervin): And because the. The map, if you will, is so huge as to the venues. Yeah, I don't have the math on me, but how does that compare to World Cups in the past? By sheer number of venues that are going to be used for it proper?
0:09:07 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, I think that this blows it out of the water in terms of the number of venues that are going to be hosting games. The space that this World cup is going to inhabit, all the way from Monterrey up to Vancouver. And I feel like there will be.
0:09:20 - (Ron Ervin): Real home and away games for a lot of these teams because like you said, they'll centralize somewhere. Then they'll have to go to some of these other venues to play the other teams that have those as their hubs.
0:09:29 - (Tyler Kern): Exactly, exactly. And so it's going to be a lot of fun to see stadiums across the country that you know and recognize from, you know, football stadiums. You know, you're gonna see the Death Star on tv, but then you'll see Kansas City and you'll see Miami, and I think it's. That's gonna be really exciting.
0:09:45 - (Mike Rhyner): Is any of this gonna go on in the Euro World or is all. Is it all in this hemisphere or what?
0:09:50 - (Tyler Kern): It's all in this hemisphere. Mexico, the United States and Canada joined for a bid. So the way that it works is that you submit a bid similar to like the Olympics, where you say, here are our qualifications, here's what we're prepared to do.
0:10:02 - (Mike Rhyner): Was that a good question?
0:10:03 - (Tyler Kern): It was a great question. It was a great question. So, and then FIFA, the governing body, they hold a vote a long time in advance to determine who's going to be the host nation, and in this case, group of nations for a particular World Cup. And so the US Lost out pretty infamously on the World cup that went to Qatar. There was a lot of maybe backdoor deals and collusion that happened in that process. And so the US Kind of joined up with Mexico and Canada to create a super bid between all the North American countries to then put out like a really strong bid and won the. Won the vote. And now we are hosting the World cup, which is tremendously huge deal. You know, the US hosted in 1994.
0:10:49 - (Tyler Kern): There were games at the Cotton bowl back then.
0:10:51 - (Mike Rhyner): I remember that.
0:10:52 - (Tyler Kern): And on the heels of that, the U.S. launched Major League Soccer in 1996. And so largely kind of using the momentum, let's say, for the game that happened post World cup in 1994. Major League Soccer launched in 96. And that was a huge turning point in. In how we've gotten to where we are now with the popularity of the game in the United States, which is.
0:11:14 - (Ron Ervin): Also really well timed because MLS launches in 96. 99 is the women's World cup, when that just the. The US Team just kind of just owned everything for a while.
0:11:28 - (Tyler Kern): Totally. Yeah.
0:11:29 - (Ron Ervin): That rising tide raising all the boats, too.
0:11:31 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden, you had generations of kids watching soccer on TV and going to games in their hometowns that hadn't really happened in that. In quite that way before. You know, we'd had soccer leagues, you know, the NASL that happened in kind of 70s and 80s happened. You know, there was a little bit of arena soccer, which I know that you were involved with the Dallas Sidekicks at one point.
0:11:50 - (Mike Rhyner): I was.
0:11:51 - (Tyler Kern): And so. So there have been smatterings of soccer across the North American, especially the US landscape, I should say, for a long time. But MLS really helped formalize that because of that World cup in 1994. And now this is kind of a celebration, I think, of the success that those leagues have had and that soccer has had here in the US over the last 30 years.
0:12:12 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, it always seemed like a really flimsy proposition, you know, back then, back in the day. But no more.
0:12:21 - (Tyler Kern): No more.
0:12:21 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, with the foothold that it has in this country now, it seems like it is definitely here to stay and part of the sporting landscape and will be in perpetuity, you know, And.
0:12:37 - (Tyler Kern): I think just part of starting this show and looking to talk to more people about soccer and invite more people into the game is just this realization that I think that the capacity that the US Sports fan has for consuming sports doesn't necessarily have a limit that you can see something and feel excited about it and dive in and want to learn more about it and become a fan of that game. You only have to look at how quickly the WNBA has really taken off in recent years in popularity. But it's all about accessibility to the game, having recognizable stars that you can connect to and want to follow.
0:13:13 - (Tyler Kern): And I think that. I think that soccer is there in a really good place to. To be there for more fans that want to be a part of it. And that's something that I'm excited about when it comes to starting a show like this and really wanting to make it a good place for everybody. I don't think that there's a wrong way to be a soccer fan. And I want people to. To come in, no matter what their knowledge level of the game is or enthusiasm for it, and just say, like, I want to know what to expect for the World cup this summer, no matter what their knowledge level is right now.
0:13:44 - (Ron Ervin): And when you talk about accessibility, I mean, the shirt that I'm wearing wrex them.
0:13:49 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:13:50 - (Ron Ervin): You know, that show, I think, has done a lot to help educate people, too. And the timeliness, of course, because we're coming close to the World cup or. And helping people understand promotion versus relegation, that it's not. I mean, if we could have that in the NFL, I'd be so happy. That's a relegating team scenes, like, for real.
0:14:08 - (Ashlea Bullington): I think you can also credit Ted Lasso to that too, which.
0:14:11 - (Ron Ervin): Fantastic show. I'm ready for the new season. I'm excited what they're doing with it. Yeah, that. That gives it that much more because then you're seeing that star power brought to it or, you know, again, being a kid from South Florida and watching Lionel Messi just score, it will totally. You know, that's. That adds to the excitement of. Because like you said, those names that get brought in that, you know, overseas, maybe they can't walk two blocks without being mobbed.
0:14:36 - (Ron Ervin): Here, they're getting that education of, no, this is. This is a global sport, and here's why.
0:14:41 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. And, you know, I think that it's making soccer accessible and I think normalizing it a little bit for people, but there is still just a slight barrier to entry sometimes. I think for. For folks, that can be a little intimidating. And I think that at times, soccer isn't the most. I think soccer fans could be a little defensive of, like, no, this is. This is our game. This is my game. And I get that. But I want. I want this place to be a place where. Where anybody can come in and enjoy discussing it.
0:15:12 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. I've known a few of these soccer elitists.
0:15:17 - (Tyler Kern): Sure.
0:15:18 - (Mike Rhyner): If, if you will, over the years, and I've been extremely off put by those people. But I must ask, what jersey is that? This is.
0:15:27 - (Ron Ervin): This is a generic for the team that's owned by Rob Mack and Ryan Reynolds, the Wrexham Dragons. They are a Welsh team that.
0:15:41 - (Mike Rhyner): Not.
0:15:41 - (Ron Ervin): They've made it to the. They're the next to the top level right now. They're not Premier League yet. They're championship level.
0:15:47 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:15:48 - (Ron Ervin): Struggling a little bit. Right. They're the only team in history to have gotten three straight promotions. No one's ever done it before. And before that, they were in the bottom rung for 20 seasons. Couldn't win their way out of a paper bag. Basically the same as Ted Lasso. I don't know that they get promoted this year. It's going to be an uphill climb for them. But the fact that they've gotten to this point, to me, that's still a win as long as they don't get relegated.
0:16:19 - (Ron Ervin): Because your top. Your top two teams get promoted every year and sometimes there's a playoff. The top team automatically. They don't have to do anything.
0:16:27 - (Mike Rhyner): Top two teams in the world.
0:16:30 - (Ron Ervin): Of each league because it's. It's not, it's not like a British league or a German league. It's like everybody.
0:16:38 - (Ashlea Bullington): Well, so, okay, so I was gonna say, Mike, it's kind of like in the. In baseball, but the teams get to go, not the players.
0:16:45 - (Mike Rhyner): Back to baseball.
0:16:46 - (Ashlea Bullington): I got you. I got you.
0:16:47 - (Ron Ervin): You know, she's absolutely right. It's just like my A, triple A single A, it's the same thing, but it's like it's by team, not my player.
0:16:56 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, every, every. Every country does it a little bit differently with their leagues. Right. So England, you have the Premier League, and in, in Italy, you have Serie A, and in Germany you have the Bundesliga. And so you have to look at all of these different leagues and they, they do it all differently, but all of them have some sense of the worst teams move down a division, the best teams move up a division. And it's always shuffling between and the.
0:17:19 - (Ron Ervin): Money changes and the broadcast changes and I mean, there's, there's benefits to it and it's. I love it. And is there a cooler word than Bundesliga?
0:17:30 - (Mike Rhyner): No, there's not.
0:17:31 - (Ron Ervin): Just isn't. I just love that word.
0:17:32 - (Tyler Kern): I love the Bundesliga.
0:17:34 - (Ashlea Bullington): I had friends that played in the Bundesliga, a lot of friends that played in the Buddhist Liga. And it's always hilarious to just watch those games and be like, I don't understand a lick of this, but I get to say Bundesliga.
0:17:42 - (Ron Ervin): But I know they're excited and so I'm excited for them to be excited. And there's, there's also no fans in the world like soccer fans.
0:17:48 - (Tyler Kern): I think, I think that's true. I think the, the closest thing that we have here to what soccer is like overseas is, is college football. I think it's, it rivals.
0:17:59 - (Mike Rhyner): You were going to say. It's Peter and Andy.
0:18:04 - (Tyler Kern): They, they are, those guys are wonderful. I love those guys. It is.
0:18:09 - (Mike Rhyner): I love them too.
0:18:10 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, they're, they. And they do an excellent job. And yeah, I, I, I by no means want to take away from anything that they're doing. So if you're a kick, if you're a kick around, P1, like the kick around is wonderful. And it is, I've, I've been on that show a number of times and, and absolutely love what they're doing, but it's, it's college football. It's, it's the tribalism that is experienced in college football is, is similar, I think, to what they have going on overseas.
0:18:38 - (Ron Ervin): I, I would put it, I wouldn't say a distance second, but it's definitely the silver medal. Like, I saw some videos on YouTube recently about these groups of fans, and they all wear these basic black suits with black ties and white shirts, but they do these routines where they'll open up and the inside of the suit is a different color and they make these formations and the formations move and just plus the history behind it.
0:19:07 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, yeah.
0:19:08 - (Ron Ervin): Some of these rivalries go back centuries and the fandom is just. There's a reason some of them get called hooligans. I mean, there's a reason for it.
0:19:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:19:19 - (Ron Ervin): But it's just, it's a different level of fandom, and I'm, I'm here for it.
0:19:24 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. Yeah.
0:19:24 - (Mike Rhyner): So what is your team, Tyler?
0:19:27 - (Tyler Kern): There are so. There are so many leagues. Right. So you can have a bunch of different teams across, you know, a team in each league and that sort of thing. So my boonda.
0:19:37 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you have other teams besides that one?
0:19:39 - (Ron Ervin): I wreck some. Of course. I follow FC Dallas. I follow Miami.
0:19:43 - (Ashlea Bullington): That sounds like a cop out, boys.
0:19:44 - (Tyler Kern): No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on.
0:19:47 - (Ron Ervin): Like, I've got even within America as.
0:19:49 - (Ashlea Bullington): Somebody who plays played. That sounds like a cop out, boys. I do understand that, but still, I want one, just one.
0:19:56 - (Tyler Kern): Okay. If you want just one team of mine, my Favorite team that I probably cheer for the most is a team in Germany called Borussia Dortmund. They are black and yellow. They have the coolest stadium, I think, in the world, with just the best fans, like what Rob's describing. They have a. They have what they call supporter sections in soccer stadiums, which are. There's usually no seats. It's just a standing section. And it is this ridiculously steep standing only section that is just always decked out completely in black and yellow with flags. They have these things called tifos, which they raise before the game. That is often like an image or something cool that they create.
0:20:35 - (Tyler Kern): And the level of fandom is just on another level. And I've loved the team for a long time. They've had a cycle of Americans go through Borussia Dortmund over the years. And so they've just been a team that I've always loved watching, and they've played an exciting style over the years. And so, yeah, that. That is my. That's my ultimate team. I've never really had a Premier League team, and so I've never had a team in England, which is where normally people pick a team.
0:21:01 - (Tyler Kern): But I like the ability to just turn on a game on Saturday morning and enjoy it with coffee and, you know, got the dog laying on my feet and. All right, we're watching soccer.
0:21:11 - (Ron Ervin): And if you're lucky enough to have a cosm where you live, sure. I've not had a chance to watch a game, a match there yet, but I can't even imagine having watched what I have watched there, what a soccer match is going to look like.
0:21:23 - (Tyler Kern): Ashley, is that a good enough answer?
0:21:25 - (Ashlea Bullington): Like, yes, Tyler, I appreciate it. Thank you for. Thank you for being committed.
0:21:31 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, let's critique Tyler right quick. How do you think we're doing here with him, Ashley? Do you think we got the right guy for this?
0:21:38 - (Ashlea Bullington): I like him.
0:21:39 - (Tyler Kern): Yes.
0:21:39 - (Ashlea Bullington): This is my first time meeting Tyler. I like him.
0:21:42 - (Tyler Kern): Ashley's great.
0:21:44 - (Mike Rhyner): I like you, too.
0:21:45 - (Tyler Kern): I like you too, Mike. So this is a good. It's a good working relationship so far. Yeah, it's going well.
0:21:51 - (Ashlea Bullington): This has got really awkward, really.
0:21:55 - (Mike Rhyner): As things with me.
0:21:56 - (Ron Ervin): Just sit over here in the corner. I'll be fine. Actually, I'm gonna have him see if I'll do our show on Thursday night to promote the new show.
0:22:02 - (Tyler Kern): Oh, wow. I would love that.
0:22:04 - (Ron Ervin): Yeah, let's have you on Thursday night.
0:22:06 - (Tyler Kern): That sounds great. That sounds great.
0:22:07 - (Mike Rhyner): It'll be a lot more sensible talk for you than this.
0:22:11 - (Tyler Kern): No, but, you know, I think. I think people like you mentioned, Mike are reticent to approach soccer sometimes because they have a bad experience with soccer fans, or there's. I can't figure out offside or, you know, there's something quirky about the rules, and it's all just too European and too different. And so I think there's always. There's always a little bit of that fear for. For people if they've had a bad experience with soccer, soccer folks, and I want to help demystify that a little bit and just make it an accessible thing. And so one of the things I would love to do with the show is just create a bank of episodes that are evergreen, that just explain basics of certain soccer concepts. So whether it's offside here, you don't.
0:22:50 - (Mike Rhyner): Have to worry about that. You want Evergreen, you will be Evergreen when I'm here.
0:22:56 - (Tyler Kern): So whether it's offside or promotion and relegation and that sort of thing, or, you know, who are local teams here in dfw, it's different.
0:23:03 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, it's very different. And like, when I was coming up through grade school and all that back in the Pleistocene era, they, you know, we were aware of soccer. We knew there was such a thing as soccer, but the idea that it might be played at school or that. That somewhere down the road there was going to be a very common thing, which is what it's turned into. Yeah, that was completely outside the realm of vision of anybody, you know, but that's just me. That's. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm a little bit late to this party. I mean, like, I grew up following football, baseball, and basketball, like all my friends did, and hockey came in here, and it took me a while to adjust it, but now I'm a stomp down, hope to die, legitimate hockey fan.
0:23:57 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, it's awesome. But, like, you got exposed to it in the right way.
0:24:02 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I did. I did. I got exposed to it in the right way. And if I'm exposed to this enough, I know I'll become a fan sooner or later.
0:24:13 - (Tyler Kern): And, you know, the US kind of slept on soccer for a really long time. And there were. There were some notable, you know, some things here and there. There's a big victory in 1950 where they beat England once, you know, and we all, like, celebrate. We're very, very happy about that. But those are really few and far between. And, you know, there were, like I said, attempts. There was the NASL that people, you know, don't like it if you don't mention that. That Pele was here playing and some of the greats of all time kind of came through that nasl.
0:24:41 - (Tyler Kern): But it really, you need that consistency and you need a league that's going to stay here and be here, and a way to capitalize on the fact that so many families are taking their kids to play soccer on Saturday mornings, you know, out at parks. And DFW is a huge hub for that. You know, there are massive tournaments that go on here and I mean, you just need to drive past the park on Saturday and there's a ton of soccer going on. And so.
0:25:03 - (Ron Ervin): And you're about to have up right near Cosm, you're about to have an establishment that is a combination virtual soccer restaurant bar open up.
0:25:15 - (Ashlea Bullington): If you look at most college, if you look at most college rosters, there's a couple kids from DFW on it. Yeah, almost every single college roster.
0:25:23 - (Tyler Kern): It's true. It's true.
0:25:25 - (Mike Rhyner): So do you think MLS is here to stay, or is there something out there better than that, better and bigger than that that might make its way onto this great land of ours?
0:25:35 - (Tyler Kern): I think MLS is here to stay. They've done a great job of building incrementally slower often than people would like for them to be.
0:25:43 - (Mike Rhyner): I mentioned this, I mentioned them only because, because, you know, we kind of understand the structure of that because it's not that different from, you know, the other sports or looks kind of like the other sports.
0:25:56 - (Tyler Kern): It's, it's true. A lot of MLS teams are owned by NFL owners and the league is largely modeled after, hey, how do we make this an NFL style thing so there's no promotion and relegation in the Major League Soccer. And it, it is pretty familiar in structure. They have intentionally kept spending limits on teams in a lot of different ways and restricted some of the ways that teams are able to, to grow and to spend. And oftentimes that's frustrated members of the media, fans, other people. And the salary mechanisms are complex.
0:26:29 - (Tyler Kern): But what it's done is, it's kept, it's kept it from getting out over its skis the way NASL did and just blowing out before it was really at a maturation process.
0:26:40 - (Mike Rhyner): Where do you think NASL went wrong?
0:26:43 - (Tyler Kern): Got too big too fast and people just weren't quite sure what they had on their hands. And it wasn't a sustainable model for growth, just bringing over the old players. Right. And what Major League Soccer has done really well is provided some mechanisms to bring in the big stars, to bring in the. Beckham was the first one right. In 2006. Bring in your David Beckhams and bring in your Leo Messi's over the years.
0:27:08 - (Tyler Kern): But also MLS has incentivized academy programs. And so FC Dallas here locally has one of the best academy systems. So if you're a young player playing in the DFW area, there's a chance you could be discovered by the FC Dallas Academy and kind of groomed from a young age. I hate that word. Taught from a young age. How to, how to be a really good soccer player. Yeah, you're welcome. I didn't need that clipped. And put on social media.
0:27:37 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. Thanks, Ashley. Yeah.
0:27:41 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, it may be out there forever, but we can fix shit around here.
0:27:46 - (Tyler Kern): But how do you, how do you, how do you make this a self fulfilling cycle? How do you have players come up? Because around the world, what you'll notice is that they don't have college soccer teams. They have these academies that take kids from as young as 6, 7, 8 years old. And they play in these academies and sign pro contracts when they're in their, their teenage years and eventually end up being pros after playing at lots of different levels of this club. And so MLS has been smart about incentivizing growth through your local soccer systems.
0:28:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you think they've done a good job at developing their own guys, their own stars and everything?
0:28:25 - (Tyler Kern): It's getting better. Right? And I think that, I think that in the same way that you could go to a country and teach them how to play baseball and give them good baseball coaches, there's something in the DNA.
0:28:38 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:28:39 - (Tyler Kern): That just has to be developed over generations that you can't just go and say you're a bunch of young, good athletes. You, here's how you play this game. There's just, there's something that's almost spiritual about it to where it has to be passed down almost. And you have to create a system and a structure of how this looks in the United States that we don't quite have, that is not quite producing stars at a massive level. It's producing some really good players and we're starting to export more and more players that go play in these big. On these gigantic teams overseas.
0:29:16 - (Tyler Kern): But we're not prolific yet. And I think that people thought, oh, it's the U.S. like, we'll snap our fingers and we'll be amazing at this. Almost entirely ignoring the fact that the rest of the world got like a 90 year head start on this game.
0:29:29 - (Ron Ervin): And think about the end of the nasl. That's three generations between then and the kids that are playing now in mls.
0:29:39 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:29:39 - (Ron Ervin): Like we basically had for. From a soccer standpoint as a country. We had to do hard reboot after the NASL fell apart.
0:29:47 - (Ashlea Bullington): Well, it technically still around. Well, it was still around at least a couple years ago.
0:29:50 - (Tyler Kern): It was.
0:29:50 - (Ashlea Bullington): It just wasn't as big as it used to be.
0:29:52 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:29:53 - (Ron Ervin): Right. But. But it's taken this long for us to finally come back around and like you said, just bringing up those. Those kids and those kids of their kids and the kids of their kids to be. To get it to a viable place. Place. And like you talked about with the growth. You know, there are people that were like a. Grew too slow and it's like. No, with something like this, you have to. And the fact that you only had a couple of your big names from overseas that got plugged in.
0:30:16 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:30:17 - (Ron Ervin): You know, that's. I still think we've got a ways to go.
0:30:21 - (Tyler Kern): Right.
0:30:21 - (Ron Ervin): But I think we're on. At least we're this go around. We're on the right path.
0:30:25 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Why do you think it took so long?
0:30:29 - (Tyler Kern): It's a great question.
0:30:30 - (Mike Rhyner): Because a lot of the time, I mean, now just for the sake of discussion, let's say the NBA were to fail for some reason could happen.
0:30:45 - (Ron Ervin): How.
0:30:47 - (Mike Rhyner): But let's just say it did.
0:30:49 - (Tyler Kern): Right.
0:30:50 - (Mike Rhyner): If that were to happen, I'll bet there would be a new pro basketball league forming like next week.
0:30:57 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. Yeah.
0:30:58 - (Mike Rhyner): Why did. Did. I mean, it took years, didn't it, between the NASL going away and MSL coming along.
0:31:07 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. And it. It took a. It took a long time. And I. I wonder if people just thought, you know, we tried that and it didn't work. There's just no money in soccer here in the US and said like it was. It wasn't here for a long time and it wasn't here for a reason, I kind of imagine. And it took some people with. I mean, it took Lamar Hunt. Yeah. To really put some money behind it and to really put some weight behind it.
0:31:32 - (Tyler Kern): And I mean, FC Dallas carries forward that. That Lamar Hunt legacy and is really one of the pillars of Major League Soccer as a result. And so I think it's that. I think it just took some powerful people saying, we can't just keep sitting on the sidelines of this. There's. There's money to be had here, first of all. But also like this, it's a great game and more people we can. We can bring in people with this. It's. It's viable.
0:32:00 - (Tyler Kern): And I think that World cup in 94 really showed that there is the passion and the enthusiasm for the game here.
0:32:06 - (Ashlea Bullington): The 1 in 99 is what did it in, though.
0:32:09 - (Tyler Kern): Well, and okay, so I think that that's an interesting story also that women's soccer here, women, the reason that the American women are so good and the American men have not had that same success, I think is funding and amount of time that has been put and the amount of resources that have been put towards the, towards the women's game because of title nine. Right. And so the US Women got a big head start on the rest of the world because we were treating soccer, women's soccer as a pretty high priority here when the rest of the world wasn't.
0:32:42 - (Tyler Kern): And that's. I think that gap is closing. But we are only now starting to give American, like men's soccer the kind of attention that it deserves and that it needs to start producing star players and start producing the talent that is going to push to be competitive on a world stage.
0:32:57 - (Mike Rhyner): You mentioned Lamar Hunt a minute ago. Man, what an impact that guy has had on sports. These are two sports now that over the course of his life, Lamar Hunt has had a massive, major, major impact on soccer and football.
0:33:12 - (Tyler Kern): He named the super bowl, right?
0:33:14 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, he did. He did. He founded the afl.
0:33:18 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:33:19 - (Mike Rhyner): He founded the Dallas Texans. And you're talking to a card carrying member of the Dallas Texans Huddle Club here. And don't you forget it.
0:33:27 - (Tyler Kern): I was a Junior Ranger back in the day. That's. That's just an aside.
0:33:32 - (Mike Rhyner): That's okay. That's all right. All right. This is Tyler Kern here with us, and I want to get into exactly what your plans are for your podcast.
0:33:42 - (Tyler Kern): Yes.
0:33:43 - (Mike Rhyner): In just a bit. But first, let me tell you about the CBD House of Healing, if I may hear you now. The CBD House of Healing is a place you can go if you are in pain, if you are hurting, if you can't sleep. They've all got all kinds of stuff out there to help you out. The reason I know this is because right now I got something wrong with me somewhere.
0:34:18 - (Tyler Kern): And it's vague and ominous.
0:34:21 - (Mike Rhyner): I know you're probably, you're probably saying that's nothing new. We've known that about you for years, Mike.
0:34:25 - (Ashlea Bullington): We won't ask where.
0:34:27 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, it's, I think maybe muscular or nervous or something like that. And I've been putting stuff that I got from the CBD House of Healing on it. And once this stuff is on it, number one, it tingles like crazy. It's kind of Fun, kind of trippy. You open this door, it makes it go away. It makes it go away. And for at least a few hours, I don't feel it. Now, if you've got something like that going on, then, you know, need to go see the people at the CBD House of Healing. Their owner is also a registered rn, and you're probably thinking, ah, he's just sending us to a head shop.
0:35:10 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, if that's what you want, there's probably some stuff up there that you'd be interested in. But if it's stuff like what's going on with me that you're looking for, what will happen is you go in there and you talk to her. You tell her what's going on with you, chances are she's got something there that can help you.
0:35:29 - (Ron Ervin): And they grow it themselves. It's their stuff to their quality. They're not. They're not outsourcing that stuff.
0:35:35 - (Mike Rhyner): No, no. They are not outsourcing this stuff. They are very, very strict about the purity and quality standards of it all. And they will have something that will help you out. The reason I know this is because they. They're doing it for me right now. If they'll do it for me, they will do it for you. So go up there and see them. They're at Plano Road and Northwest highway in the northeast quadrant of that burgeoning intersection.
0:36:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Go up there and tell you. Tell them you heard about it from us here on your dark companion, and I'll bet you'll be very, very happy that you did.
0:36:08 - (Ron Ervin): CBD, Dallas.com.
0:36:10 - (Mike Rhyner): Cbd, Dallas.com if you want to find out more.
0:36:16 - (Tyler Kern): Is that it? Yeah.
0:36:16 - (Ashlea Bullington): Ashley, yes. That was great. You did so good. Stuck the landing, especially with our teleprompter dying today.
0:36:22 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes.
0:36:22 - (Ashlea Bullington): You just did awesome.
0:36:23 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes. I was just kind of winning.
0:36:24 - (Ashlea Bullington): That is a Texas Radio hall of Famer.
0:36:26 - (Mike Rhyner): I was just winging it, just faking it. That's all I was doing.
0:36:29 - (Tyler Kern): I have some back pain right now. I could use some. Tingly. Yeah.
0:36:36 - (E): When I asked him this morning.
0:36:38 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, yeah. It's kept it away.
0:36:40 - (Tyler Kern): All right, then.
0:36:41 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. I have more reason to go and see.
0:36:43 - (Tyler Kern): There we go. There we go.
0:36:46 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, now I want to talk to you a little bit. This is Tyler Kern. He's going to be doing a soccer podcast with us.
0:36:52 - (Tyler Kern): Thank you.
0:36:52 - (Mike Rhyner): He's joining the Stolen Water troupe. And what. How do you see the podcast going? What do you think it's going to be like? What are your plans for it?
0:37:02 - (Ashlea Bullington): What's the name of it.
0:37:03 - (Tyler Kern): The name of it is going to be the Sunset Soccer Club. Playing on the sun. The Sunset Lounge, obviously. Right? So Sunset Soccer Club. The Sunset Soccer Club. Everyone's welcome at the Sunset Soccer Club. It's soccer for everybody again. We want to make it a place that's accessible. And so the show I want to set up and just kind of start off the show with news info that people need to have and then have a guest on every episode that is going to bring a good perspective, a new perspective to the show for soccer. So we have so many great soccer people here in Dallas Fort Worth, people around the country that I know who are big soccer people and people that can help us also prepare for what it's going to look like when we have the World cup here next summer. And so there's a lot of great people that we're going to be able to talk to, just bringing different perspectives to the world of soccer. And so I want to highlight those voices and have some regular segments as well that can be people can expect and know. Okay, here's what we're going to hear. Here's what we're going to learn. We're going to learn about a different US Player and that sort of thing. So if you already know a lot about soccer, it's not going to be patronizing to you by any means. We want it to really be a good place for. For anybody who's interested in soccer.
0:38:15 - (Mike Rhyner): Is there any specific aspect of soccer that you specialize in or that you seem to know a little bit more about maybe than others?
0:38:24 - (Tyler Kern): I have always viewed soccer through the lens of the U.S. men's National Team. Right. So it's. Sorry, CBD.
0:38:33 - (Ashlea Bullington): A lot of heartbreak.
0:38:34 - (Tyler Kern): A lot of heartbreak. But so, I mean, it's like the Olympics, right? You represent your country at the international level, but you play for a club team. So you play for the US has players playing in Italy, playing in mls, playing all the way around the world. And a coach kind of decides who he wants to call in and who he wants to be on his roster. So we have a coach, he decides, I want these 18 guys on the roster. So I've always viewed soccer because I first got into soccer because of the World Cup.
0:39:04 - (Tyler Kern): I've always viewed it through the lens of where are the Americans playing in the world, how are they playing and how do they play when they come together? How do they form that unit that makes up the US Men's national team? So that's kind of the area that I feel that I know the best.
0:39:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Is playing it when you were younger, what got you into it?
0:39:22 - (Tyler Kern): It's not actually my mom. Love my mom, but she said, hey, all you kids, you get to choose one sport, and if you can change that one sport, but you can't do more than one at the same time. Because she was like, I can't do all of the practices, all of the driving all around dfw. So my sport was always baseball that I played, and then I just play soccer in the sports schoolyard and all of that sort of stuff, and just always loved the game.
0:39:47 - (Tyler Kern): And then the real kicker for me was in 2002, the World cup was in Japan and Korea, and I got awful poison ivy that summer, and they gave me steroids that I took every day to get rid of the poison ivy, and I just could not sleep. Stayed up and watched every game of that tournament on Spanish television and just loved it. And incidentally, it's the best the US has ever done at a World cup was getting to the quarterfinals of that.
0:40:10 - (Tyler Kern): Of that 2002 tournament. And so ever since then, I've just been hooked and been a. Been a freak for it, so.
0:40:15 - (Ron Ervin): Well, this team. Yeah, this team has. One of the things that's been almost the bane of this team's existence for a while now has been who's at the head of it.
0:40:26 - (Tyler Kern): Sure. Yeah.
0:40:27 - (Ron Ervin): Is this guy the guy.
0:40:29 - (Ashlea Bullington): That's the whole system in general, though.
0:40:31 - (Ron Ervin): Literally, the coaching of this team has been the problem.
0:40:34 - (Ashlea Bullington): Yeah. But from the top all the way down to development, it's always been the head coach of the men's side that screwed up everything for everybody.
0:40:41 - (Mike Rhyner): But can I just say one thing? Looking at this from an outsider's point of view and not knowing any more about it than I do and just reading headlines and the occasional story here and there, man, it does seem like a pool of chaos.
0:40:59 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:41:00 - (Ashlea Bullington): The men's coach has, like, a huge duty, though, that's different than, like, the women's coach and other national teams, because he controls all of US Soccer. So not only does he control how the men play every year, but he also controls how the development teams and the youth leagues and that kind of stuff. How they all kind of. I don't exactly know how to explain it the right way, but, like, how they train players and that kind of stuff as well. It's really weird.
0:41:28 - (Tyler Kern): They're trying to move away from that. Um, and they've kind of hired more of, like, a general manager for the entire U.S. soccer structure. This coach is named Mauricio Pochettino. And he coached a team called Tottenham over in England and was a very successful club team manager. Coaching a club team where you can have those players and coach them every single day and then play 50 games a year with that team is a different skill set for a manager than being an international manager, where you only get to have those players for two weeks at a time at random intervals throughout the year. And you play probably about 10 to 15 matches with them over the course of a calendar year.
0:42:14 - (Tyler Kern): And so there's a real challenge with how do I communicate my message of how I want this team to play when they are playing individually all across the world. Right. And so I think that this coach has the managerial chops. It's whether or not he can get the most from these particular players. And I think that it's been a rough year. He's been in charge for almost exactly a year and it has been very rough at times.
0:42:41 - (Tyler Kern): And he started to show signs of figuring it out. And I am hopeful that this is not a wasted opportunity.
0:42:50 - (Ron Ervin): That earlier about watching it when it was overseas, having everything be within at least two hours live of where you live in this country, I think is going to benefit the World Cup a lot too.
0:43:03 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:43:03 - (Ron Ervin): Because you don't have to be like, oh, I got to get up at 3am to watch this match because I don't want the Internet to ruin it for me.
0:43:09 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's. It's a. It's a great point. I've been lucky enough to be overseas for a couple of different World Cups and experience it in different cultures. I was in Greece in 2010 and that was a. That was a blast to get a chance to watch how a different country consumed a World Cup. And in every bar, cafe, restaurant was just packed to the brim and. But Rob makes a great point that it is, it is a really fortunate thing for the game here that games will be at, you know, prime time, television slots. And I think, I think that's a really good thing. But this US Team has a lot of potential. It's probably the most talented on paper team that the US men have ever had.
0:43:49 - (Tyler Kern): It remains to be seen whether or not they can gel as an actual unit because again, you just don't have that much time playing together. And despite the fact that this is a ridiculously talented team, is an oft injured team. And so soccer is just a. It's a complex puzzle because you can't just replace a like for like player and continue to play the same way. Guys just bring different qualities and different skills that you can't.
0:44:14 - (Tyler Kern): You just can't replicate necessarily.
0:44:16 - (Mike Rhyner): And it would seem that just like any other sport you care to name, baseball, football, basketball, hockey, whatever, it is largely driven and large, largely hinges on what kind of chemistry a team has.
0:44:33 - (Tyler Kern): Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, chemistry is a massive thing. In soccer, you have to have positional awareness and the awareness of where your teammates are going to be at any given point. Because unlike other sports where in. In football, there's just always a quarterback and the ball is just always going to be in that guy's hands. In soccer, at any given point, the. The man with the ball has the. The onus on him at that moment to make the next good decision.
0:45:03 - (Tyler Kern): Right. It makes it a hard thing to measure who's good, who's not. Um, but it's. It's totally up to him in that moment to. To make a good decision. And I think that that requires an incredible amount of chemistry on the field. Um, and you can also tell when teams just really don't like each other off the field, uh, because that chemistry just doesn't exist in the same way.
0:45:26 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, it's that way in any sport.
0:45:28 - (Tyler Kern): You know, it. It matters a ton. It matters an absolute ton in soccer because, again, you don't stop and reset where everybody is after every play. Right. And so there just has to be an understanding of how movement works, how patterns of play work. If I pass this to you and then I move 10 yards this way, am I going to get the ball back? If I move into this space, am I moving into the same space as this other guy on the field? Because then if two of us are occupying the same spot, well, then that means there's space over here that's not right. Being utilized. And so it's all about that awareness. And that's. That's also kind of what I mean about the American player kind of continuing to need that. That seasoning and needing soccer to be a little bit more in the.
0:46:09 - (Tyler Kern): In the collective DNA of the American athlete.
0:46:12 - (Ron Ervin): And we talked a little bit before we went on air. The field is even different this year because you were saying that there's. There's more countries that don't have that or may not have been part of the World cup before.
0:46:24 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:46:24 - (Ron Ervin): How does that even change the dynamic?
0:46:26 - (Tyler Kern): Well, so we're moving from 32 teams to 48 teams in this World cup, biggest World cup that we've ever had. And that means that there's going to be teams who have never been represented before that have the opportunity to be in this World cup, which is, I think, a really exciting thing. You see some awesome stories of tiny nations like Cape Verde in Africa, which did not even really know was a country that just qualified for their first World Cup. So I think things like that are going to be really exciting, and you just don't really know what that team is going to bring. But each fan base brings a different flavor and a different level of excitement, and I think that's a.
0:47:01 - (Tyler Kern): That's a really exciting thing about the World Cup. There are some absolutely seedy things about soccer, about FIFA, about the governing bodies, and all these sorts of things, but you still get really pure moments of sport. Yes, I. I love that. I love when you see a nation rally around a team. And we've gotten some really incredible moments of that in. In the World cup over the years.
0:47:27 - (Mike Rhyner): That can be said about any sport. There's a lot of things going on with all of them.
0:47:31 - (Tyler Kern): That's right.
0:47:32 - (Mike Rhyner): You may not like, but at the end of the day, you still get to watch the games.
0:47:35 - (Tyler Kern): Exactly.
0:47:35 - (Mike Rhyner): And the games are where it's at.
0:47:37 - (Ashlea Bullington): And one thing about some of those smaller countries is they do get a lot more time together to play. So it's not like it is in the MLS and in Europe and those things. Like, a lot of those people have been playing soccer together since they were kids on the national team, when they reached whatever age, and they've just all been playing soccer. So their chemistry is different, and they're just. The way they move together is different. They know each other a lot better. So that's kind of how some of that stuff evens out the playing field a lot differently.
0:48:04 - (Tyler Kern): Sure.
0:48:04 - (Ashlea Bullington): It's crazy. That's like Japan's women's team a couple years ago. They were fantastic.
0:48:11 - (Tyler Kern): It's that chemistry, you know, it's that. It's that ability of knowing exactly where your teammate is going to be. And that's so much of soccer. I mean, there was a. The. The Spain team from about 2008 to 2012 that won the 2010 World cup had this freakish level of just like ESP, of knowing where everybody was going to be final and just going. They had this midfield that could just. It was like they shared a brain, the way that they could play together and move.
0:48:40 - (Tyler Kern): And I think things like that are incredible. But I also just love the sporting moments of getting to see countries rally around, you know, their team and seeing the levels of. I don't know if you call it patriotism, but pride that people take in their country, around the world, I think is, is second to none when it comes to a World Cup.
0:49:05 - (Mike Rhyner): Who do you think's the best player out there right now?
0:49:09 - (Tyler Kern): It's a great question because up until the last couple of years, I mean, Leo Messi has been the best player in the world, I think still, I think the best player of all time. I don't think he's the best player in the world anymore. I don't know that anybody has really reached up and grabbed that, that crown from him necessarily in a definitive way. I think the guy that scores goals better than anyone else is a guy named Erling Holland.
0:49:38 - (Tyler Kern): Hulking Thor of a man who plays for Manchester City in England, but he's Norwegian, scores goals and is able to, to move as a large guy playing soccer. Because Leo Messi is 5 foot 7, right. Tiny guy, lower center of gravity. The ball has always looked Velcro to his foot. Erling Holland is like a six foot three, you know, Greek God running down the field. Not normal for soccer, not which is not normal for soccer, but has a level of precision and power.
0:50:07 - (Tyler Kern): This like insane combination that's really exciting to watch. But you could also go to France has a guy named Killian Mbappe who is incredibly fast and really exciting to watch, who plays for real Madrid. I, I tend to like the guys that are the, the, the tiny guys in the midfield that orchestrate everything. And so, and if you think baseball spends money, soccer spends an insane amount of money.
0:50:32 - (Ashlea Bullington): That new Dubai league over in. Or that new Dubai league just spent all that money on Cristiano Ronaldo. It's crazy.
0:50:40 - (Tyler Kern): That's a.
0:50:40 - (Ron Ervin): Get paid nine digits a year.
0:50:43 - (Tyler Kern): It gets in.
0:50:44 - (Ron Ervin): Insane.
0:50:45 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah.
0:50:45 - (Mike Rhyner): And that's before we got a new league coming on now.
0:50:48 - (Tyler Kern): The Saudis. Saudis, yeah.
0:50:51 - (Mike Rhyner): Okay.
0:50:52 - (Tyler Kern): The Saudis are splashing money. It's, it's dirty, you know.
0:50:56 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, that's, you know, like American sports too. There are teams that, you know, that are bad for a few years and a new guy comes in, maybe the owner, maybe a general manager, general manager says, look, I'm not taking this job unless we spend some money and get some pitching in here.
0:51:14 - (Tyler Kern): Right, right.
0:51:15 - (Ashlea Bullington): And the next thing, this is more.
0:51:16 - (E): Like, like we're going to.
0:51:18 - (Ashlea Bullington): Yeah.
0:51:18 - (E): Got a whole thing. We're going to start our whole own.
0:51:22 - (Ashlea Bullington): This is like, the whole league's a little bit shoddy.
0:51:25 - (E): This is, this is.
0:51:26 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I know, but the, but the principle is the same guys, you know, start throwing money at stuff and, and you know, that's how they make their way. That's how they get to where they're going.
0:51:36 - (Tyler Kern): So in soccer, oftentimes players don't get traded and there's less. They. There's. There's free agency and that sort of thing. But most of the time you pay a transfer fee for a player. And so if you have a player that I want, I go to you and I say, how much money will it take to get your guy? And you say, 50 million. And I say, that's crazy. He's good, but he's not that good. I'll pay you 30 million. And eventually you come to an agreement.
0:52:01 - (Ron Ervin): Tell him what you're going to pay him.
0:52:02 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah. And then you have to come to a salary agreement with him on top of that.
0:52:06 - (Ron Ervin): No, I mean, even you can loan guys.
0:52:08 - (Ashlea Bullington): I was, That's. I was.
0:52:11 - (Tyler Kern): Using.
0:52:12 - (Ron Ervin): With the. With rights to take them back when you want.
0:52:14 - (Tyler Kern): So let's say, let's say last year, the Rangers say Jack Leiter's not ready yet, but we want him to get some major league starts. And they look over at, you know, the Marlins, I don't know, somebody who just like, wasn't. Wasn't doing very well and said, hey, we will continue to pay Jack Leiter salary people, but can he pitch for you every fifth day for this season? We just need him to get some MLB experience. You have an.
0:52:39 - (Tyler Kern): You have injuries in your rotation. You need a guy to just eat up some innings for you. Why don't you take lighter for this year? That is essentially kind of what happens in the soccer landscape. We have this guy. He's 19 years old. He's not better than the guy ahead of him on the roster, but in a couple of years, we think he might be. But what he needs is game time. What he needs is starts. We will continue to pay his. His salary.
0:53:02 - (Tyler Kern): Maybe you pay a little bit of his salary. He's better than your guy in that position right now, so he'll help you be better in the standings than where you would be otherwise. So you work out a loan agreement. Yeah, that way. So it's kind of a fun. It's kind of a fun, quirky thing.
0:53:17 - (Mike Rhyner): Cool.
0:53:17 - (Tyler Kern): It's all. I mean, it's a whole different world. It's a whole different world of sports. And that's what I mean by the soccer universe is just vast. Right. There's so much that you can always be looking into so many different leagues, so many different players, teams, all these things. And so you kind of just have to choose an avenue. And so ours is going to be the U.S. men's National Team and we'll talk women's soccer when.
0:53:40 - (Tyler Kern): When it's time to talk women's soccer.
0:53:41 - (Ashlea Bullington): The better of the two.
0:53:43 - (Tyler Kern): The US women win stuff. The US men don't really win a whole lot.
0:53:47 - (E): So elsewhere in the world, soccer, that's the city, the country that they're in differently. Is it Liverpool that's just now getting back? I want to say it's Liverpool like.
0:54:00 - (Ashlea Bullington): When they were really.
0:54:01 - (E): That they got knocked down so low that they, like people lost jobs.
0:54:05 - (Ashlea Bullington): Liverpool got relegated.
0:54:07 - (Tyler Kern): No. So it's a. There was a. There's a great Netflix documentary about a team called Sunderland.
0:54:11 - (Ashlea Bullington): Okay.
0:54:12 - (Tyler Kern): And they got relegated twice in a row. And I would encourage everyone to go watch the documentary. It's called Sunderland Till I Die on Netflix. I hope it's still on Netflix.
0:54:23 - (Mike Rhyner): Sunderland.
0:54:24 - (Tyler Kern): Sunderland. That's what it's called.
0:54:26 - (Ron Ervin): S U N D E R L.
0:54:27 - (Tyler Kern): A N D. Yeah.
0:54:28 - (Mike Rhyner): And it's Sunderland Till I Die.
0:54:30 - (Tyler Kern): Sunderland till I Die. Go watch it on Netflix. Fantastic documentary, but it details this team that got relegated one year. So then they're in the championship. They take a huge financial hit from that. Some people lose their jobs. The next season, they. They get relegated again. And so all of a sudden they have no money. And it's a. It's a fascinating look at what it does to local communities, local businesses. You know, the guy that runs the hot dog stand outside the.
0:54:59 - (Tyler Kern): The stadium takes a hit, you know, all of those sorts of things. But I heard about that. Yeah.
0:55:03 - (E): The devastation of the city and all the people, their economy just getting flat.
0:55:08 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, that sounds good.
0:55:10 - (Tyler Kern): It's really good.
0:55:10 - (Ashlea Bullington): Before you do that, Mike, we should start you on Ted Lasso because it's actually very good.
0:55:15 - (Ron Ervin): It shows greatness.
0:55:16 - (Ashlea Bullington): Normally, soccer shows are terrible. It's fantastic.
0:55:20 - (Mike Rhyner): I am so turned off. What, by the idea of Ted Lasso.
0:55:27 - (Ashlea Bullington): One of my favorite lines from that movie is, who's the goalkeeper? I don't know. The guy with the Mickey Mouse gloves. Freaking I died. It was fantastic.
0:55:36 - (Ron Ervin): You like a goldfish.
0:55:38 - (Ashlea Bullington): It's always be like a goldfish.
0:55:41 - (Mike Rhyner): Something about that show just told me that I would not like it.
0:55:44 - (Ashlea Bullington): Okay, fine. Go watch Sunderland then.
0:55:48 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I did think that about and Rush. Yeah, I did think that about Pink Floyd and Randy.
0:55:53 - (Ron Ervin): You and I haven't even talked about that yet.
0:55:55 - (Mike Rhyner): About what?
0:55:56 - (Ron Ervin): About this. Oh, when they come, that drummer, she's incredible.
0:56:06 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, I can see why discovering her made them want to do this again. Yeah.
0:56:13 - (Ron Ervin): They're playing four shows here, I think.
0:56:14 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:56:15 - (Ron Ervin): Is that over at Dickies Arena?
0:56:16 - (Mike Rhyner): I believe so.
0:56:17 - (Ron Ervin): Yeah. I've seen them twice, and do not disappoint.
0:56:25 - (Mike Rhyner): I've never seen them.
0:56:26 - (Ron Ervin): They don't need an opening act. They take an intermission. It's. I mean, with a catalog that deep, you don't.
0:56:31 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah.
0:56:32 - (Ron Ervin): You know, you'll play three hours.
0:56:33 - (Mike Rhyner): I've never seen them, despite the fact that for the last 22 years, I've been in a band with a guy who is a Rush fanatic, and they've come through here a couple, three times over the course of my time of knowing him and playing with him, and there have been times when he has just literally begged me to go to the show with him, but I always looked at Rush like, nah, they're nothing but teen art rock, you know?
0:57:08 - (Mike Rhyner): And I don't know how, don't know why, don't know when, but over the years, I've kind of softened on that stance, and I really wanted to see them, but they came through here the last time, and. And I probably would have gone then, but I couldn't. And so now I'm living with Rush regret. And now here's a chance to fix that.
0:57:32 - (Ashlea Bullington): You'll live with Ted Lass. I regret, too, one day.
0:57:34 - (Ron Ervin): And you're. And. And you had. You and Getty Lee and your love for baseball.
0:57:38 - (Mike Rhyner): That's right. That's right.
0:57:40 - (Tyler Kern): It is true.
0:57:42 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, I can't wait. Can't wait.
0:57:44 - (Ashlea Bullington): For a Rush or for the World Cup?
0:57:47 - (Mike Rhyner): Both.
0:57:48 - (Tyler Kern): World Cup's gonna be great. Yeah, it's gonna. It's gonna be huge. It's gonna be a big thing. There's another team starting in Dallas that'll play at the Cotton bowl in 2027 called Athletico Dallas. Doing a lot of good things. I like those guys a lot. There's a women's team playing at the Cotton bowl right now, Dallas Trinity fc. Also, really exciting. I like their branding, their colors, good team going on. They just set a new attendance record out there at the Cotton Bowl.
0:58:15 - (Ashlea Bullington): They also have a ton of girls that are from DFW playing on it. Yeah, grew up in dfw. It's really cool.
0:58:21 - (Tyler Kern): There's a lot of soccer happening in our. In our Fairberg Mike.
0:58:24 - (Ron Ervin): We just had recently the. The throwbacks for FC Dallas, too.
0:58:28 - (Tyler Kern): The Adidas, the old. The old Dallas Burn stuff. That.
0:58:31 - (Ron Ervin): That gear looks great.
0:58:32 - (Tyler Kern): Yeah, it's awesome. They're doing good things.
0:58:35 - (Mike Rhyner): Everything is going on out there a lot more than we think it is. And that especially holds true for soccer for you and the guy to Tell you about it is Tyler Kern. He's going to be holding for fourth right here with us under our little podcast envelope. We're glad to have you, man.
0:58:53 - (Tyler Kern): I'm really excited to be doing this, and I really appreciate the opportunity to do it next week.
0:58:58 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes, next week.
0:58:59 - (Tyler Kern): You start right next week. So we'll. We'll record on Tuesdays, release on Wednesdays. So keep an eye out for that. If there's anything you want to know about soccer, just. Just email us. What is it? Sunsetsoccerclub? Stolenwatermedia.com Just email. If you hate soccer, just email me. It's great. Like you want to. If you want to. Yeah, hate on soccer, email me. If you love soccer, email me. I had a guy call in and leave a voicemail at BAP when I was there, because I did a. I was filling in for Steve Lamb one day and I gave a soccer score. As part of the soccer update.
0:59:31 - (Tyler Kern): He called Tyler Cox, our program director's office, and left a voicemail saying he would choke me if he ever saw me on the street. If I ever gave another soccer. If I ever gave another soccer score. So if that's you, you. If you would like to choke me out for coming on here and talking soccer, that's great. You can send me an email about it. I would love to hear from you.
0:59:52 - (Mike Rhyner): Yes. And if you want to choke him out, there's. That's too bad, because no matter what you do, he's still going to be talking soccer.
0:59:58 - (Tyler Kern): That's exactly right. But sending us an email nonetheless, and subscribe and tune in and yeah, we're going to have a good time. We're going to talk to some really good people, and we're going to prepare for what's going to be a massive event here in dfw.
1:00:10 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, he is Tyler Kern. Check him out. And don't forget that you can find all of our stuff out there. Wherever you get your podcasts, as they like to say. It's almost a cliche now, but that's where it is. Like Spotify, Apple, where else? I heart.
1:00:35 - (Ron Ervin): Wherever.
1:00:36 - (Mike Rhyner): Wherever you get podcasts, you can find the stuff we have here at Stolen Water. You can find little your dark companion. I really appreciate it if you check that out and let us know what you think. Man, we're into finding out. We're into finding out what you like, what you don't like, what you think we can do better, what you think we're great at, whatever the case may be, whatever kind of feedback you have for us.
1:00:58 - (Mike Rhyner): We are all about it. So let us hear from you. This has been your Dark Companion. Thank you for watching. Bye. All right, I'm gonna go take my pants off. Your Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.