How The 2 Live Stews Changed Sports Talk Radio Forever

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Speaker 1: Everybody to an episode of Buttons. I'm the host, Brandon Butler, founding CEO of Butter atl and today we are in the dog house. May look, you already know that. Sound man, we got the one and only Doug and Ryan Stewart. Also those the two live students in the building. Throws how y'all how y'all doing?
00:00:18
Speaker 2: Man, fantastic?
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Speaker 3: H be good to see you man.
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Speaker 1: Man, look, I just got to say, Bro, this is an honor. You know, when I was a little young padwan in the radio business in that closet at seven ninety back in the day, you know, y'all were killing it. But you know one thing I can always say is, man, y'all always embrace the brother. You'll always laid it out, you know what I mean. And just watching what y'all do.
00:00:39
Speaker 3: We were just happy that the brother was in there.
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Speaker 2: I was happy to see another brother.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: If you knew it took me to get that job. Listen the amount of time and in maneuver and I had to do to even get in there, Bro, I was happy to be there.
00:00:51
Speaker 4: Quick story, man, after meeting you, after you've been on the team for a while and sitting there with you, one on one. I went back and talked to Doug. I said, hey, man, this dude's gonna do big things, man, And look at Butter. Look at Butter, manude, you had it written all over you.
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Speaker 3: Man. You've always been a bright minded young man and you are killing it. Man. We're super proud of you, dude.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: Man, I appreciate it, Man, appreciate it.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because you know, just even looking at some of the people that were up in there, you know what I mean, back in the day. Like you know, I always say, like if seven ninety, I don't know if it could happen again. Definitely not like it happened back then. Like we thank god the internet and social media wasn't really wasn't really cracking, man. But you know, so many people do it amazing stuff. I mean, I'll tell you I've been talking to people, you know, Shot to Kathy and everybody else, people just doing some amazing stuff. So I think it was definitely kind of a place where a lot of amazing talent was kind of you know, kind of like drown and it kind of went on to do amazing things.
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Speaker 2: Man.
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Speaker 1: But look, you can't talk about I don't care man, sports talk radio and what it is and is now without talking about you all's impact on it. So this is an honor. Look, let me know, I want you to let me know how doing this interview. You know what I'm saying, because y'all don't talk to everybody.
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Speaker 2: Man, I've been watching episodes. Man, you're doing a fantastic job.
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Speaker 3: Bro.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Man, So look, man, you know y'all y'all as we all know, where as the folks don't know. Man, you know, we go from Monk's Corner all the way to one of.
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Speaker 2: The biggest shows. We call it MOC now. Yeah.
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Speaker 5: Man, Look it's like hashtag MOC.
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Speaker 2: It's branding, branding.
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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, man, Like, just help me understand, man, how did even kind of how did y'all get from there to again having one of the biggest, most well known sports talk brands. Like what was just the back of the day, Because I mean, everybody knows y'all are brothers, you know what I'm saying, But like, what was it like back then? It kind of informed how you all ultimately got into sports.
00:02:31
Speaker 2: Well, we're writing a book right now. As a matter of fact, we've been writing it for over a year now. But we told a story before. Man, we were at his house, okay, watching a preseason football game in the NFL, and we started arguing about something going on in the game, and it was a bunch of guys there and they were watching us. This thing went on for like an hour, and then afterwards somebody pulled us to the side. He was already working for seven ninety at the time. He had just retired and called in a couple of favors and was doing fill ins for those guys up there when they were on vacation or they were sick, and so he was in the door and then after this big argument, we had one of the you know, we talked to each other, we called each other, and he was like, Man, you know what we could do this. You're already in why don't you pitch an idea for an urban based sports talk show. And he was like, yeah, that's that's great. We both kind of came up died at the same time. And so he reached out to Matt Edgar, who you know, who's a program director. C Well, he reached out to West Durham, who was the voice of the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets. West Durham called Matt Edgar, who was the program director at seven ninety, and they got us a meeting. We sat down in front of him told him the idea because we had never heard anything like what we were proposing. Matt Edgar said, you know what, that sounds like it might work, especially Atlanta Wakanda, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, And he was like, yeah, that might work.
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Speaker 2: So we came in like seven o'clock on an evening, this is two thousand and one, and got on and killed it and rap music, barbershop, sports talk, Argus screaming under the Shade Tree, and the rest is history. As simple as.
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Speaker 3: That one part.
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Speaker 4: The other story that he missed was prior to going on for that first show, we called every frat brother, every large brother, every cousin, and we said, from seven to nine o'clock on this particular day, whatever day it was, let's say a Friday, we need y'all to call and just stay on the line rather we take your call or not. We want them to see that there's a need that they want for black sports talk in this black city. And when they see the bank full of calls, they're gonna be like, wait a minute, how'd y'all do that?
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Speaker 3: At nine o'clock at night, and that's what happened. Everybody called.
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Speaker 4: The lines lit up and Matt Edgar was making calls and calling people like and State came up there, and then Saucer came up there, and then one guy from the Border Directors came up there, and they're like, you know, when.
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Speaker 3: The hell is going on tonight? Why is the line so lit up?
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Speaker 4: Because our friends and family were doing what we asked him to do, which was create the opportunity for us to continue to come back to this.
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Speaker 2: Month, and it worked. Buzz.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one thing that I gotta correct in that story, because you got to say that mad is what it's like.
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Speaker 5: You know, yeah, I think it.
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Speaker 2: Right, right right, you still get you guys a chance come on at seven o'clock and you just do do what you do. You got fantastic.
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Speaker 1: And you know I've heard that story before, you know, I think again, that's a point that I kind of want to like double tap on, right, the idea of like kind of engineering success right like because you know, look they put y'all on late night it's the AM station. I mean again, for those who don't know, I always used to joke and say, because you know, I ran like the digital at seven ninety. I always say, when the sun goes down over, it's over.
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Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
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Speaker 1: The signal literally cannot reach all the radios, so you know, go ahead.
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Speaker 3: Our our pitch to him was black people like sports too.
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Speaker 4: How dare y'all have a black signal in this black city but don't have any black people?
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Speaker 3: But Mike talking to these black.
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Speaker 4: People and we told them that we were willing to do it for free, which was huge. You know, you guys are gonna take the time to come up here and do this show for free, for absolutely nothing, because we knew.
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Speaker 3: The value and what we were doing.
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Speaker 4: We knew what, we knew what would happen, We knew how it was going to affect the city, and we knew we had to participation with friends and family that would help us do whatever it needed to to get us in.
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Speaker 2: And they did and listen. I used to listen to sports talk radio a lot. I listened to a radio all day long. So what we were pitching was very unique because I listened to am radio, like I said, and there was no rap music on am radio am radio back in two thousand and one. And beyond was conservative talk show hosts box score talk, box Score talk, Nordics, Nordics that didn't have any tie to our culture whatever. And we were like this Atlanta, once again, this is the blackest, one of the blackest cities in the country, one of the most trend setting cities in the country. Why don't they have a black sports talk show based sports talk show? And I remember someone at the time, maybe it was consulting, that used to come in a lot and sit and talk with us. Uh, they had mentioned to us at that time there were no all black sports talk shows in America, the country where there wasn't. Uh, there were. There may have been one black host, but they weren't two, And there weren't the point person, which is the person that kind of like moves the show along. There wasn't a point person doing it. There may been a couple of black one black hosts on a show, but they weren't the point person. They were kind of like the secondary person. So we were we were told we were the first at that time doing that type of show.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: So when y'all start doing the show and it's kind of going, when was the moment. I mean, obviously there's that moment of just you know, launching it be a night, But like when did when did they pull you into the office and say, okay, hold on now, y'all, y'all, y'all might be on to something.
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Speaker 4: After that first show, which was just a trial run, Edgar came up and was like, hey, hey, can you guys come back next Monday?
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Speaker 3: And we were like, we.
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Speaker 2: Love to so at that time, Edgar, let me sit this and you can go. Edgar was watching the entire show. He was in the engineering room, the showroom, and you watched the entire show. And immediately when we'd done, I saw him on the phone talking and whatever, probably talking to the other owners. And that's when he came and pulled us to the side.
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Speaker 4: Yep, and he goes, we're gonna have the guys come back next week. We'll do the same thing seven and nine. We don't know how you guys had the lines all lit up like this, but when you come back. As a matter of fact, every time you come back from now on, we're gonna give you each fifty bucks a gym. And we're like, what we told you, we do it for free, you're gonna pay us fifty bucks every time we come.
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Speaker 2: Now, keep in mind, I'm still working at nine to five too.
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Speaker 4: I had a gym with Dorsey Levins, and I was running the gym every day, so I was leaving the gym to come over there. But we made that fifty bucks to them like they were giving us a million dollars. We were very appreciative because the fifty dollars is now going to put some gas and it talk for me to come back and forth, and it's just creating the opportunity.
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Speaker 3: For us to get to the bigger bag, which we knew existed.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So I mean you're doing it. And what year was this?
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Speaker 2: This was two thousand and one, two thousand and one, This was like October, and I remember because it was right before nine to eleven. We actually were on maybe a month or two October November of two thousand and one.
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Speaker 1: Okay, And so you know, between there and then by what two thousand and four, you all were one of the if not the top rated show definitely in Atlanta and in seven ninety, right, but like also one of the top rated shows in the country at that point, no question.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we we actually got recognized as the number one sports talk show in America. Like I think two thousand and five we had like an eight page right up on us uh in Sports Illustrated and so yeah, we made a lot of a lot of waves man in the industry.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: What like kind of looking back on that time, what do you think it was? Because again, like, yeah, it was something different, But was it just like the connection was you always brother?
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Speaker 2: Like?
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Speaker 1: What was kind of the secret sauce you all felt like made the show so successful.
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Speaker 4: You're in here with us and we know each other extremely well, but there's certain things that you have to be very careful or delicate how you approach the conversation with us, because.
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Speaker 3: You know, we're homeboys and we know each other.
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Speaker 4: We got love and respect each other, but there are certain topics that you just can't go there with me or with Doug. Doug and I have a relationship where no matter what is done, no matter what is said.
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Speaker 3: When we leave the studio, we're still gonna be brothers.
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Speaker 4: If somebody steps out of bounds with each other in our relationship, somebody's gonna call Mum, like.
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Speaker 3: You never guess what Doug did today, you know, and he's gonna have to hear from her.
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Speaker 4: So our relationship and what we do for and know about each other allows us to be able to in essence, I know what I need to do and or say to get a rise out of Doug. I know what I need to do end or say to make Doug get mad. I know what I need to do and to make Doug last.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: The truth comes out okay.
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Speaker 4: And it's the same way on the other side. So that allows us to be able to be on air in a way that other people that do what we do can't with their co hosts.
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Speaker 3: They've got to be respectful to their co.
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Speaker 4: Hosts, and we respect each other, but we can disrespect each other and still have a relationship without blowing the spot up. That being said, I had just got done playing ball the likes of Dorsey Levin's, Bennie Blades, Ryan McNeil, Brian Westbrook. You know I had A plus athletes in my phone that would take my call at the blink of an eye. That was another part of the pitch when we pitched to Edgar hey Man, not only are we going to bring these entertaining guests on, these A plus athletes and these A plus entertainers from the city of Atlanta. When people fly in the party, we know these people, we can bring them to the studio and get them on.
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Speaker 3: We'll also help y'all book talent as well for other shows.
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Speaker 4: You mean to tell me you think you can call Charles barkedn't get to come on on them Monday morning with us.
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Speaker 3: No question.
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Speaker 4: So all of that played into allowing us to be able to be blessed to do what we were doing at a high level.
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Speaker 2: Thinking about that now compared to today, okay, where everybody, every athlete's got their podcast now is on the radio, bringing on their friends, bringing on their former teammates. In two thousand and one, at the station we worked at seven ninety, none of those guys played professional sports, retired or at the time or nothing. So when he brings in a rolodex full of his teammates and guys that he played college football with in Georgia Tech teammates and this, that and the other, that was unique at that time. You see what I'm saying. But now everybody brings in an athlete so they can bring in their friends and interview their friends and whatnot. Would have probably if you go back, he's probably somebody that inspired that in the way we see that mechanism of radio work and entertainment work today when you bring in athletes to give their perspectives.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: No, I remember because I remember, you know then seven nine can I started doing the same thing with bringing in athletes and stuff like that, right, And I think again, you all kind of created a playbook, kind of a mold that whether people want to admit it or not. And that's why I told y'all even I was like, y'all got to get y'all flowers for that, because I think y'all created a mold like you gave you know, I always kind of say, right, like you either can give a blueprint or permission, and I feel like y'all kind of gave people permission to start doing more content like that, like I always goin to say when it comes to Butter, I think Butter gave a lot of brands in Atlanta permission to start making cultural content at scale, because I know they did because I see y'all copy it.
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Speaker 5: I've seen them do it.
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Speaker 1: I remember I wouldn't talk to some of the meter showed them how to do it. And I think when you kind of go back on it, you know, you all kind of did the same thing. One thing that always sticks out to me and I kind of think about those days is, you know, I remember like I would, you know, go buy you all's office, and like, I'm be honest, y'all didn't really. I don't really see y'all talking to each other much like y'all be locked in.
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Speaker 2: We saved it for the show.
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Speaker 1: But that's why I want to ask, right, like being brothers and doing a show, how did that play into how you all prepare or you know, and what did you do behind the scenes that people might not know about or see that helped make the show special?
00:14:05
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we had a great producer. We have several great producers Home team, brand A Leak who's still on air right now. He was our first producer. Then we had Shaggy. Shaggy Yeah, so those guys they prepared all of the topics. And this is another story about how much has changed today. Five years ago, we had the newspaper. We were marketing up the newspaper, no lie, we were highlighting the stories. And then maybe a couple of years after that, Shaggy started printing out show runs or whatever, and we had specific topics that we wanted to get into. So we had real sports guys like that really dug into the stories and found this good stuff to talk about. And from the beginning we always understood we didn't want to make this thing sound like everything else. We didn't want to just talk about stats and this, that and the other. Wanted to do a box score show, right, and so we wanted to have a good time to laugh, joke around, talk trash, barbershop sports talk. I mean, what are you do in the barbershop when you was a kid? You going there and the old dudes was screaming at each other talking about the sports. That's what we wanted to kind of reimage and do back in two thousand and one, which you've seen grown much more to what you see today where everybody's doing the same stole.
00:15:20
Speaker 4: We would put topics on the board, and after the topics were on the board, we would basically figure out what are we going to get the most debate out of between each other. If there was a topic on the board that we both agreed on, we take it off the board.
00:15:35
Speaker 3: We don't want to talk about.
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Speaker 4: That, yeah, But if there's something that we disagreed on, oh, you feel that way, Okay, fine, keep it to yourself, save it for the show next topic. We get four or five of those through the course of our three hours, and we would go through those topics, recycle those topics, and go at it from every angle that we could to try to prove who was right and or wrong on whatever that topic was for the day. And everyone loves to order debate. Everyone gets to choose a side. All the young brother got him this time. Doug don't know nothing about no sports. I'm gonna go with Ryan because Ryan played ball. You know, people get to choose the side and who they identify with. Older brothers would always come in and talk to us about how Doug is always right because they were.
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Speaker 3: The older brother. You know.
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Speaker 4: Younger brothers be like, man, we appreciate you for sticking up from the younger siblings. So you got to create something that people like and people want to be a part of, and you want to create something that people can identify with.
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Speaker 3: And I think we did that better than a lot of people that at the.
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Speaker 4: Time when we got started, people were just coming in there looking for box scores and talking about the numbers on the box scores. There was nothing personal about what they were doing on the airwaves on radio.
00:16:40
Speaker 1: Well, I mean well speaking of personal too, right, if you can kind of go back and think about it. You know, even the callers, right like had a big part of the show because again, think about where we're at, Like this is the early two thousands, y'all. Like Facebook is just getting going. Social media is a thing people are chosen. I mean, hell, I remember buying I think it was either the first second iPhone while I was working at you know, seven ninety I remember that's when the iPhone came out and so. But like even the social media was going starting to pop off, the comment sections weren't as big the big thing they are now, right, Like you all had integrated you know, the callers, and there were certain callers you already know they gonna call up.
00:17:14
Speaker 4: The shows that were on air prior to us. They would take a few calls and it's like they couldn't get the caller off the phone fast enough. Yeah, whereas we got in that studio, like you know, everybody that calls up, it's your show, what you got today?
00:17:27
Speaker 2: They gave they gave themselves nicknames, right right, right, So we made it real personable and how about this BlackBerry we were we were using blackberries. The iPhone wasn't out yet, so we were using blackberries and our communication back and forth with the emails and text messages and whatnot. But yeah, we we always tried to make the listener feel like they were part of the show. You called up Saint Louis, Ron Vince from Atlanta, Lsu Harris or whatever. So so, and I think that also at that time, our audience, who was a predominantly black audience, felt like that they kind of like associated with us. They fit in better with us than a lot of other sports talk shows. Everybody guys love sports talk shows. Black people, black men love sports talk shows. But to identify and hear these guys talking like them and their friends talk when they're at the barbershop or under the shade tree or hanging out the bar was a very refreshing thing, I think in two thousand and one.
00:18:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, again, it was just creating community in lots of different ways where you just don't you just didn't see anything like that. And I think again, they always gotta talk about this idea of like pushing the culture forward in different ways, because I mean, now even think about, you know, going back to you all were doing events, and I'm gonna say something too, like that's one of the biggest lessons I even learned at seven ninety that I've even applied and a lot of stuff I do now with butter and everything is because we had that AM signal. My thing was always be can you mobilize people and get people from behind the screen and to.
00:19:02
Speaker 5: Come out in the real world. Like so I said it all the time.
00:19:04
Speaker 1: It's all about butts and seats, I say it all and so a lot of things we even do now, I always think about, like, Okay, what do you It's cool? Did you do stuff online and you do stuff on air? Right, But like when we rate to mobilize the community, they would show up. I remember the Super Bowl, I remember the AFC NFC party, right, Like, what was it like when you all kind of started having those events and the audience started like showing up. I mean I remember saying, Louis Ron, I knew, I knew it. Ron looked like, like, what was it like though, when you all were doing those events and the people now coming from behind you know, the phones and actually showing up with you are.
00:19:34
Speaker 4: One of the first things we did was a two Live Dudes tailgate that had nothing to do with the station. M Falcons were popping. Mike Bick was in town at the dormant was an experience. Every time we would go down there and we said, you know, we're gonna do a tailgate. We talked about it on air. I knew Smooth the ticket guy Smooth Smooth Tickets dot Com, and I hit Smooth up like, look, man, we need a spot to do a tailgate. Can we use your wark a lot? He's like, yeah, sure, man, you know people that park gonna have to pay.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: I'm like, no.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: Problems, food, no problem, It's all good.
00:20:06
Speaker 4: But that first time we mentioned it on air and went out the next week to do our first tailgate, four or five of the listeners that are P one listeners that listened every time we were on.
00:20:16
Speaker 3: Air pulled up like what can we do to help.
00:20:20
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, man, I'm about to cook this food, and Spadojia said, well, you know what, don't worry about the food.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: I'll cook the food.
00:20:27
Speaker 4: And then DJ bing pulls up, Hey man, y'all got a DJ today. I'm like, no, man, we would love for DJ well, I brought my equipment. I'm gonna set up. So we had all these listeners that were a part of the tailgate. But all these listeners that were willing to work the tailgate, they didn't want us to do anything. They just wanted us to come out and have fun and enjoy ourselves. So that went on every.
00:20:49
Speaker 3: Home game for years.
00:20:52
Speaker 4: We'd be out there three hours before the game. We'd be up to two hours after the game. Our entire Sunday was out there by a listener led tailgate that the studentes were hosting.
00:21:02
Speaker 2: Skip skip forward twenty five years. Man, the same people that rock with Us back then still rock with us now. They listened to the show. We only do the show twice a week now as of right now, but they listened to the show. They message each other in the little text mechanism they have chat room, and they're still part of the show literally. And we've had like some different reunion type things over the years within the times where we weren't on seven ninety and they show up, Like I got pictures of like, you know, seventy five to hundred people coming to a cookout that we sponsored or we talked about on air. And it's just a lot of love.
00:21:41
Speaker 3: Man.
00:21:41
Speaker 2: We just we just feel like that our listeners are family.
00:21:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker 1: Now and again, you know you all obviously killing it. You're going now you're on ESPN, you know TV one, Like, is there a moment that kind of jumps out in that hole? Because again, like see y'all ESPN again, it's just like it's kind of surreal, right, Like, is there a moment that jumps out y'all? Remember about that whole that whole time.
00:22:00
Speaker 2: Man, I'm gonna tell you, we got to call this is maybe what two three years later, maybe three years later, we got to call to come do at that time Cole Pizza. Yeah, okay, And at the time, they weren't in Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN was. They were in New York. They were in Manhattan, and so they flew us up there, and we told our family about it and know that we had up there. They came and saw us. We went to dinner, but you know, they took us to the studio when we filmed this episode of Cold Pizza with Skip Bayless battling him, debating with him, and we're in the skyscraper in Manhattan. I'm like, man, I think, I think this is gonna work out. You know, this is gonna work out. And then that led to maybe a year or so later they moved to Bristol and they changed the name the First Take and they you know, called our agent and says, listen, man, we want the students to come up here, you know, a couple of times a month. Would that work?
00:23:01
Speaker 3: Hell? Yeah? It worked, and.
00:23:02
Speaker 2: So we we we ended up doing ESPN First Take for like right at five years, maybe a little bit over five years. But when we when we were on ESPN and they hit the goal live button for the first time, I was like, yeah, this is a big time. We really made it.
00:23:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, like again you think about it, you know again, starting getting Moco then right beginning then you know, late night on seven ninety you know, ESPN even between then, like being syndicated, like for the folks that don't know, like help them understand, you know, because at that point, you know, you'll y'all probably make it way more than fifty dollars a Monday. Yeah, I mean, been on top of their syndication. Like just how does the money work? Because lot of people I think there's money in radio, Like how does the money work in those kind of scenarios when you're syndicated, when you're doing ESPN and all that kind of stuff.
00:23:49
Speaker 4: As State would always say, when we were trying to get to the money, you guys think there's money in this, there's no money in this. They were like, yeah, that's fine, but we're gonna need a little bit more. And we went from fifty to about thirty five a year, and that thirty five to about seventy a year, and that seventy a year when we're getting around the year three or four ended up being like six figures, and then we're talking about being nationally syndicated.
00:24:12
Speaker 3: It's crazy how it all happens.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Man.
00:24:14
Speaker 4: It's like every time there was a phone call from a stranger at the office or on our sales, every time there was an email that came through from a.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: Stranger, it was an opportunity. Somebody liked what we were doing.
00:24:26
Speaker 4: Somebody heard us driving through the SI illustration, the SI article that talked about earlier.
00:24:32
Speaker 3: I can't think of the gentleman's name now.
00:24:35
Speaker 2: That road article.
00:24:37
Speaker 3: But he was.
00:24:39
Speaker 4: Listening to the studs as he traveled around the East coast, and he said he started setting up his travel to make sure that he would be in Atlanta stuck in traffic while we were on air.
00:24:50
Speaker 2: You know.
00:24:51
Speaker 3: So he hits us up one day and we don't take his call, not knowing John Hellier.
00:24:56
Speaker 2: That sounds right, sounds right.
00:24:57
Speaker 4: He hits us up one day and the minut he says his name. I'm like, I know this name.
00:25:02
Speaker 3: You know. I got the computer in front of me.
00:25:04
Speaker 4: So while I'm talking to him, I'm googling his name and pulling stuff up, and I'm like, Oh.
00:25:08
Speaker 3: This guy writes for Sports Illustrated. So, mister Hall, how can I help you?
00:25:12
Speaker 2: Man?
00:25:12
Speaker 3: What do you need us to do?
00:25:13
Speaker 4: I just want you guys to know I love you guys show, and I would love to come up to the studio one day if you guys are broadcasting live while I'm in the city. I would like to do an article on you. Oh, an article you write for a different a few different publications. What publication do you want to post this article in? Oh, it's going to be a feature in Sports Illustrated.
00:25:32
Speaker 3: What are you serious?
00:25:35
Speaker 4: A magazine that we read from cover to cover every day for the last twenty plus years. We would love to So it was a trickle down effect, and that things like that started happening. Sporting news radio would pop up, Tom Joyner popped up. You know, we want to get you guys on once a week to just do you know, five or ten minutes, and all we want you to do is talk about sports. But make us laugh, you know, make everybody laugh if you can get into some characters, I tell some tell a few stories, just just enjoy yourself and have a good time.
00:26:00
Speaker 3: So about five years then we're making good money.
00:26:03
Speaker 4: And literally all we're doing is what we would be doing every day rather we.
00:26:08
Speaker 3: Were behind this microphone or not.
00:26:10
Speaker 2: You know.
00:26:10
Speaker 4: And I can't even start to explain how much of a blessing it was and it still is today.
00:26:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, and again to do it as brothers, I think it's also makes it special. But like I got to ask though, man, you know, you know, because people I try to tell somebody. Man, Look, I was in the studio when when the wrestling match happened.
00:26:28
Speaker 5: So first of all, who won.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: Well, in the studio, you know who won? Well, well, let me say this. The camera started rolling late the first third of that the first sorry, the first third of that of that little rastle match. We had in the studio was dominated by me. Then they cut on the camera where I slipped on a banana peel, fell down. Uh, And then he jumped on top of me and tried to pin me the old school wrestling style, threw his arms over me and told the rest to start counting. That's what happened.
00:27:08
Speaker 4: That's what this dude beat me up, locked me in closets and gave me headaches weekly, hit me with pillows for a few decades. And my my sophomore year after he went to his first year of college, he comes back home and he's talking junk like he usually does, and pushing me around like he usually does. And my dad always said.
00:27:31
Speaker 3: Y'all can't do it in the house. You can take it outside, but don't do it in the house.
00:27:34
Speaker 4: And it's one particular day he's at the house with his buddy and he's pushing me around.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: Why are you bringing up old stuff? And that's what I'm the man asked him about the little dispute he had in the studio.
00:27:45
Speaker 4: And my dad sees it and goes, you know what, y'all take it outside. You know you can't do that stuff in his house. And Doug goes outside. And when he goes outside, my dad closed the door and looks at me, and he goes, you got his ass to day. You've been living through waights, you're running in, you're training him. You got his aff to day. Go out there. I'll be looking through the window. I'm not coming aside. I'll be looking through the window. But go out there and toss his ass around. And that's the last time he whooped me. Prior to that, I've been tossing him around ever since. So I didn't want to embarrass him in the studio, but I did want to enforce my will upon him so he would know that little brother ain't little brother no more.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: And it's crazy. Out of all of the video we took him studio, we didn't take a lot, but that one still is on YouTube. Right, It's crazy that that video, the little video, the part where he gets the best of me, is online in the world to see. I've tried to get it deleted a thousand times, and it just keeps coming back. It just keeps coming back. Man.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: It's all love though, man, Man, No, you know again, it's just thinking about you know, those moments I got to ask too, right, Like when all the Mike Vick stuff started going down. I mean, you all, especially being in Atlanta, you all were kind of an epicenter of that. Like, what do you all remember most about that time?
00:28:56
Speaker 2: Well, I just I just remember that at at some point, very early, I realized this was very bad, Like because you know, stories come and go, and it might seem super hot, and it might seems like we're gonna talk about it for you know, a couple of days, two or three days, but the next story happens and it's over. I never forget when they said that they had like he had turned himself in or something like that. I was like, oh, yeah, this is bad. This is bad. I also remember, in particular, we kind of being the face of that conversation pro mike Vic. A lot of people would look at it and say, well, these guys are supporting Mike Vick. No, we didn't support what mike Vic did, obviously not. We came from the stands that mike Vic had never really been in trouble before, he'd had a clean record, he was a good guy. Give him the benefit of the doubt, and all of this thing innocent into proven guilty, innocent to a proven guilty, and he admitted to a lot of things later. But the point was, this guy was our everything in the city. Man, he was everything in the city from a black perspective. Remember, were the only black perspective, the only one not just in Atlanta but anywhere at that time. So we're pretty much the only black perspective, and we gave you black opinions, and knowing this guy's history, knowing what the excitement and what he had brought to the city, we were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and a lot of times where a lot of other shows they just crushed him and he ended up going to jail. We know the story. But yeah, I just remember feeling like that we were the voice of the people, the community kind of disorder, and a lot of people in the industry didn't like that. They didn't they didn't you know, ride with us on that, and uh, you know, it just was a very memorable time in sports talk history, not just in Atlanta but in the country. Man.
00:30:53
Speaker 4: Have you ever had a situation in your life where you got a choice to make and you make that choice and shortly after making that choice, you're like, man.
00:31:00
Speaker 3: I made the wrong damn choice.
00:31:05
Speaker 4: Again, we were screaming innocent, proving guilty a lot of people that already said that this guy was guilty, this guy done all these things, and we just kept trying to tell people, you know, let all of the evidence come in the light before you condemn this dude, or take this dude's job, or ruin this dude's name, or say some things that doesn't allow him to do what he does to create his livelihood. I don't regret anything that we did or said, because again, we just wanted their brother to be innocent and until proven guilty. The minute he was proven guilty and admitted to what he had done, you know, we.
00:31:33
Speaker 3: Started telling the truth about our feelings about it.
00:31:35
Speaker 4: You know, but by then people kind of judged us and put us on the side of you guys a team Mike Vick and you supported him through out all the bad stuff.
00:31:44
Speaker 3: That he did, and we kind of got a bad name because of it.
00:31:47
Speaker 1: No, but I mean, but again, I think you're sitting in that space to say you really just trying to give the black perspective, and again, people can take it and try to twist it however they want to kind of twist it but I think again, you all were just kind of saying the things people were like saying in the barbershops behind the scenes, right, Like, let's just understand it happens all these other athletes. Everybody's a hold on, let's down, let's let's see the facts first, right, and then all of a sudden you ask and so people, because y'all are out there, that just shows, to my opinion, how big and impactful you are, right Like, obviously you know what I mean, if you're if you're not at that level, people are gonna be coming to y'all like trying to find ways to you know, pick it apart and trying to misrepresent the stuff he said.
00:32:21
Speaker 4: And at the time, he was the biggest athlete slash celebrity in this country, absolutely no question at all. So that garnered a lot of attention and not garner a lot of light. And we kind of got vilified for our take on just saying this guy's innocent, prove and guilty and is it a black white Yeah, we only.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: Got vilified by a certain segment of the population. Atlanta showed us a lot of love every time you see us in the street. Man, glad y'all guys are giving the other side of the story and this guy's never done anything in this history, and so and so U you know, so we got a lot of love from that at the same time as well. And you're right, ultimately, I think it was part of the reason quote unquote for our downfall, from the from our bosses, from the people that were writing the checks. But you know what, I have no regrets about anything, man, And I feel like that we're right now in the place where we're about to make a super, super big comeback. We've been back for two years now, and that's one part of our story. The other ninety five percent of our story is what we've been talking about thus far.
00:33:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when you think about you know again, we're podcasting is at right now, where audio is at right now, Like everybody's essentially doing what you all were doing. I mean you talked about it earlier, right like athletes weren't necessarily coming on shows like that. Now athletes got shows. Now they've got this stuff. And again, I think that you all really kind of gave the opportunity for that.
00:33:51
Speaker 4: You mentioned the podcast, and then I got to give Dug some flowers. He's ultimately the brain behind this whole thing. They fired us on a Friday, which in TV and radio, when you get fired us on a Friday, Okay, they find us on a Friday, that's Saturday afternoon. He called me like, hey, man, what you're doing on Monday. I'm like, what do you need me to be doing? He's like, I got some equipment. Man, We're gonna start recording our show at the crib in my basement. And I said, wait a minute, man, then people got to pay us our salary for the next year.
00:34:21
Speaker 3: You want me to come to your house.
00:34:23
Speaker 4: Every morning, which is about forty five minutes away, to do a show in your basement. He's like, yeah, man, did we start right now? We can care the momentum from everything that we've already created right into something new. All the listeners will follow. And if we don't do this now, man, all the listeners are gonna go someplace else.
00:34:41
Speaker 3: So I think we should do this.
00:34:42
Speaker 4: I said, Man, at a minimum, I'm taking six months to do nothing.
00:34:46
Speaker 3: He goes, that's a bad move, man.
00:34:49
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, I hear you, man, But the checks are gonna come, and I'm not gonna do nothing while they coming. Terrible decision on my behalf one of the worst decisions ever in my life.
00:34:59
Speaker 3: But after ten years of that.
00:35:02
Speaker 4: And he started that Monday doing his own show, The Dug Store Show. So after listening and watching watching the show for quite some time, I'm like, man, I don't believe I've missed the boat. I don't believe I've blown this opportunity. So I called him and I'm like, ten years later, hey, man, I know you've been asking me to come and be a part of the show, but if you have me, I would love to come back. And he's like, man, I've been waiting ten years for you to do this and again now we're two and a half years and having the time of our life again and things are starting to create itself all over again like you did the first time. So I want to give miss Flowers for being a visionary and understanding what could have been, what should have been, and what is now because it was all really his idea.
00:35:43
Speaker 2: So I remember very vividly and we just talked about this because he's actually reached out to the person you might remember the name JT. The Brick. So JT. The Brick had a nationally syndicated sports talk show. He kind of took us under his wing, kind of like his ment like mentors mentor, and he used to reach out to us. We had a lot of guys like that in the business that used to reach out to us because they liked what we were doing. We were so different, so fresh and jg the brick. He we went to Vegas for one of these fights or whatever. We used to go to Vegas for a couple times a year, and he reached out to our manager or to our producer, maybe it was Shaggy and said, hey, you guys, you know you guys in town. You want to come play around the golf. So we went. We played golf with him, and throughout that round of golf, he said to me, he said to us, he said to us, if something happens to you, I think this was the way he put it, if something happens to you and you guys aren't doing radio. Again, Remember, people forget radio hosts very fast. So if you are out of business or if you're not doing radio, you need to figure out a way to stay in front of your audience because they'll forget about you very very fast. And so I remember that when we got shown the door, and I was like, man, we got to stay in front of these people face because He's exactly right. It felt like that people forgot about you, and which you did very very fast in radio and radio. When they fire you, they don't they don't have a big press conference about it. It's like you're there today, last ten years and like they never mentioned your name ever again, you know what I'm saying. So that's how the game was played. So it was it was. It was something I always remembered that I always wanted to kind of keep the connection with our listeners. And twelve years later or whatever, we're back. But we we didn't start from from from ground zero. We actually kind of you know, we're staying in the in the viewpoints of uh, in the views of our listeners that it rocked with us back, you know, twenty five years ago.
00:37:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean again, the big beautiful part of it now is is you all build that and grow. You own the audience now, like you own those relationships. You can do to the things. But it like, what were some of the things that you all learned with ten years plus of actual like live you know, talk show host experience that you translated to the pot casts that have helped it, you know, become successful.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: Same things. Man, We just incorporate the listeners. We talk a lot of smack, We have debates, we have passionate debates. We try to answer emails, we try to take phone calls, we get text messages all the times. It's really the formula was man, just just have a good time. Laugh our agent rest and soul norm shut. Rest and Soul Norm shut. Always just say the title. We forget about this, but your title is radio personality. You gotta show big personality. You can't come in there and just be monotone and real dry. And you know, because people, you know, they're trying to find or they're listening to you as an outlet from what they're doing exact and what they have going on in their daytime, in their day and so they want to come to places where they're gonna laugh and have fun. It's not about stats and stuff. Like we've mentioned several times today.
00:39:00
Speaker 4: Out to the Great Ryan Cameron, he was listening to our show one day and after the show he called me and he goes, hey, Man, you got a second. I'm like, yeah, what's up? Arc See he goes, man, you were talking about. You know, I just had my first son and it was a late night. My wife was out of town. It was like my first time with him by myself, and I was up all night. He wouldn't go to sleep, you know, he said, Man, you just told the story on air about how you're tired and how your energy is that because you were up all night, and I felt you because I got kids too. Man, But do you think Joe and Jim and Bob that's working twelve hour shifts five days a week want to listen to Ryan story talking about he's tired, he's sleepy, he don't feel good because.
00:39:42
Speaker 3: He was up all night. They're not tuning in the heir that shit. Man. You know you need to make him laugh every day.
00:39:48
Speaker 4: You need to keep in mind when you're behind the mike, Ryan, that people are wanting to be entertained. They're wanting to be informed, They're wanting to know you and your brother, but they don't want to create time to hear you talk about how bad your life is when they want their life to be like yours. Damn, Ryan, Man, I really appreciate that. Man, all right, you got what I'm saying. I got what you're saying, man, it'll never happened again. All right, man, I'm about to hang up on you click get.
00:40:13
Speaker 3: On your phone up.
00:40:14
Speaker 4: But what he said hit home, And every day when I get behind the mike, still to this day, this is twenty something years later, every time I get behind the mike, I'm trying to figure out what I can do or what I can say to make someone that may be listening.
00:40:26
Speaker 3: For the first time enjoy their experience.
00:40:29
Speaker 4: What can me and my brother do to each other are separate, apart from each other, to make the listeners enjoy their listen for however long they may have created the time to listen to us.
00:40:39
Speaker 1: No man shot to Ryan Carrara. Man, No, I used to intern for Ryan. Like I said, he fired me, but I remember he had went on. He was at Nice and five, and he had went on and he said, either fax me or mail me a copy of your resume if you want to be my intern. That's how long ago it was. And so I had this brilliant idea where I said, you know what, I'm a male, ninety seven copies of my resume. Because if I do that, there's no way he won't see it. So I was at this company. I went down to the mail room. I knew the mail guy was like, hey, bro, look I need ninety seven envelopes and ninety seven stamps. And I made nice and I mailed him in and like probably about like four or five days later. I remember he called me on air and he was like, Brandon.
00:41:16
Speaker 2: You got the job.
00:41:17
Speaker 1: Stop mailing me resume. But I but I didn't know that anything. He was like, all right, you know, you come intern. Did also was like, so you need to be up here at four o'clock in the morning.
00:41:26
Speaker 3: Man.
00:41:26
Speaker 1: I never forget that first day I drove up there. Man, it was the worst rain and thunderstorm. I had this little Honda Cord. I'm driving up here. I'm like, I'm a down o way up here. I get there like four am. He don't even short it for like two hours and like he ain't talked to me. And I held out like two weeks and I was like, man, I can't do this no more. And I and I tell you, man. I remember he called me and he was like, Brandon, Man, I'm really disappointed in you. He said, you know, I thought you really wanted this, and I see you didn't really want it, so best of luck with you. So the funny part is I see him on you you All show like years later, and I'm like trying to talk to him and He's like, no, I remember that shit. But it's even better though, man Shot of Ryan, Like now, like Ryan has honestly become one of my mentors. Literally, like I talked to him at least once a week. He's going the show before.
00:42:16
Speaker 4: We I've seen the episode, the last episode you guys did together, and I'm cool with both of y'all, So I really enjoyed the episode because y'all were just being who you organically are with each other and it was a great episode.
00:42:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's been there for me, you know what I mean, and like he's helped kind of guide me on stuff. We usually go to lunch, Like well he literally hit me up and be like, hey man, we ain't been to lunch in a couple of weeks. It's y'll turn to pay this time, you know what I'm saying. So like man Shot and Ryan caring man. So it's just amazing to hear, you know again, like people like that doing that. But even you know, even talking about Ryan and everything else. Man, like we even think about the students and y'all's impact. You know, I always talk about like coaching trees, right, like there's been a lot of amazing people and talent that have worked for you all and and gonna do big things. I mean, the first person comes to mind is l Duncan you know, like, what did y'all see in her back then? But she's looking like the stuff she's doing now is amazing, right, But what did y'all see in her back then?
00:42:59
Speaker 4: We did a contest every year to get a new entertainment reporter. And the the contest that L was a part of, she didn't win. She she came in second and the winner. I'm not going to say her name, the winner. We told her after the contest, Okay, look, you start Monday.
00:43:21
Speaker 2: They knew this before, they knew us.
00:43:22
Speaker 4: Before you start Monday, you're gonna have two segments. We want you to do this, this, this. You can create this segment however you want. It's all your your your creativity, bring it to the table.
00:43:32
Speaker 3: But it should be fun. Bam bam. Bama did a great job, you know.
00:43:34
Speaker 4: Congratulations And the next day she called and said that she wouldn't go.
00:43:39
Speaker 3: I hope you.
00:43:40
Speaker 4: Guys forgive me, but I'm not gonna be able to make it on Monday on your first show.
00:43:45
Speaker 2: Right, you knew all of this before we had this contest.
00:43:48
Speaker 4: Okay, well damn Okay, then don't worry about it. Oh She's like, oh okay, great, So I said you on Tuesday. I said no, no, no.
00:43:55
Speaker 2: No, no no, don't worry about it if.
00:43:57
Speaker 3: You can't come day one.
00:43:59
Speaker 4: After we booked this thing up to be what it is now, you know we're gonna go with the runner up.
00:44:04
Speaker 3: And the runner up was ol.
00:44:06
Speaker 4: Great personality, Love Sports. New Sports came in in, was willing to debate and battle back and forth with us. Very cute lady, and she didn't now standing in job. She knew how to talk. She just we didn't have to give her much instruction at all. And six or seven months in to her year with us as an intern in the Entertainment Report, Ryan Cameron.
00:44:31
Speaker 3: Again calls me like, hey man, what you're doing after the show today? I said, what do you need me to be doing? I just meet me downstairs, said okay, cool. I went downstairs.
00:44:41
Speaker 4: He's like, hey man, I know elsa intern, but I think I want to see if she wants to come and be on the show with us.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: I said, well, man, that sounds.
00:44:52
Speaker 2: Great, but.
00:44:54
Speaker 4: We don't pay nothing. Are you gonna pay her? And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna give her a couple of dollars to doing it. I said, well, got our blessing peace. At that point, everybody that had done the Entertainment Report moved on to do bigger and better things, and we looked at her as a great opportunity.
00:45:08
Speaker 3: For her and also for us.
00:45:11
Speaker 4: You know, she goes on does Ryan camer Show for a while, is working at the news station, doing a few different things than she is who she is now. But again, from day one, she was just very smart, very intelligent. She she knew the assignment. Might I say it was very good. She knew the assignment and that's why she's killing it like she's killing it now and has been for the last.
00:45:30
Speaker 2: Very proud of her.
00:45:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's got a whole new I think, a whole new deal. Like it's just she's the face almost of ESPN.
00:45:35
Speaker 3: Like it's crazy, right, like the face of Netflix, isn't it.
00:45:40
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:45:41
Speaker 1: Man, look at it all all from the stools, you know what, she still picked up the phone if y'all hit her up.
00:45:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, not not Doug. I don't know why she won't pick up.
00:45:53
Speaker 4: The last time or two I've texted her, she was like, you know, like, oh, it's right, Hey, what do you need.
00:45:59
Speaker 3: I don't need to think. I'm just saying hill, Okay, I got no time for that, but I'm.
00:46:03
Speaker 2: Gonna keep it real. She as my call, and now I'm not mad because she's probably busy, Like there's no reason for her not dance my calls. But nah, she she got me on block. She got my name in her phone with block. This ninja. If this ninja called, don't answer. That's what it says on the name on her phone when I call her, do not pick up.
00:46:23
Speaker 1: I gotta I got a petty friend, and she would have if she fell out with somebody, she would just delete their name and put a tombstone there.
00:46:30
Speaker 2: Right, that's probably got tom You just.
00:46:33
Speaker 5: Got like a graveyard on your phone. She was like, I don't know who these people are.
00:46:38
Speaker 2: Right, I love it?
00:46:40
Speaker 1: Hey, man, look at you so like, what what is it is? We kind of like think about you know, y'all saw in Atlanta that really felt like it was an opportunity, you know, especially because now Land's all about sports and culture, media, and especially where Atlanta's at now. But like, was there something that y'all just saw back then that said, you know what, we knew this would work if you give all give us an opportunity to do with the way it should be done.
00:46:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I just go back to me. Okay, So we're both business majors. I worked in the mortgage industry. I had a AM little transistor radio on my desk every day listening to AM radio, and all of the opinions were the same in sports talk. All of them used to listen to Neo Boards and I used to listen to the Kimmer. You know, these guys, all these names from Atlanta AM Radio, and I was just like, man, all these opinions are just so they're so red, you know, and they're so the magai like okay, for lack of a better way to put it. And I just knew that if we had the opportunity to bring on this different type sports talk that would appeal to the culture of Atlanta, to appeal to sports fans in Atlanta, to appeal to guys that grew up going to the barbershop here and their uncles and their barber's having all these debates about sportstock. I knew it would work. I knew it, and uh it did. I mean, it took probably six months before they they started paying us. And the concept didn't just work in Atlanta, It's worked everywhere as we As we've attested, you got a lot of shows that that sound like US okay today in twenty twenty six. But it's just it's just it just it feels like something that was destined to be for us. I used to love radio, am radio, and it's magically. I'm on AM radio, have been on AM radio for a long long time and been able to bring my brother into into the whole thing, or he brought me into it because he had the contact, and it's just been a blessing man. Just genuine, genuine personalities, genuine fun. It's just worked.
00:48:49
Speaker 4: Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas. There's several cities that people look at as black cities, says, that are filled with black people. In all of those cities, what we do can play if the two people that are doing what we do know each other and know whatever the topic is. I don't care if it's lifestyle on camp, it's music, I don't give it's sports. Black folk will listen and support each other if you give them a good product to listen to. And we figured that out a long time ago, and it's.
00:49:21
Speaker 1: Been working through all the you know, the whole career of the ups and downs, the starts and the stops. Like, what's something that you all know and believe about the media business now that people might not be ready to hear?
00:49:34
Speaker 2: HM, great question, Brandon, Well, I would say something that that a lot of people want and a lot of people may notice. But I think this is something that we could we could harp harp on a little bit more. It is very political. The business is very political. Everybody knows everybody. Uh, everybody has cross paths with somebody. Uh. The station program director in this city knows the program director in that city and that city, and it's kind of like, you know, they got like a fraternity or whatever. So a lot of a lot of things that may come into play politically in this business. When you first get into you don't realize how political it is. But it is very political, and the listeners dictate what comes across on air. And so if you got an AM station with a lot of people that feel one way or have this opinion about politics or whatever, that's going to resonate with the program directors. So really it's in a nutshell, is way more political than you think as far as the content that's talked about. I give this example all the time ESPN. If you notice ESPN, they're very slanted towards if there's a conversation with this team, that team, they're very slanted toward New York and Boston. Why is that Bristol, Connecticut is right between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, And so a lot of their employees they work for ESPN, A lot of those employees grew up rooting for the Red Sox, so they grew up rooting for the Yankees. So there's always like a slant towards Northeast sports, Boston and New York teams in particular. So it's way more political than I thought than it was when I first started. I thought it was all about opinions. I have my opinion, you have your opinion. We can agree in the middle or disagree in the middle, or whatever the case may be. But Nah, there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, and what comes across air is because somebody gave it the green light to come across.
00:51:45
Speaker 3: Air, And such is life.
00:51:47
Speaker 4: Everything every genre business has a political aspect to it. Some people think that's not fair, but it is what it is. I don't think. I don't think it's difficult to understand. One of the first things we were taught in radio was whatever you guys do while.
00:52:05
Speaker 3: You're talking sports.
00:52:06
Speaker 4: You know you can you can bring music into you can bring lifestyle into it, but do the best you can to stay away from politics and religion. Okay, if you stay away from those things, the likelihood of you pissing people off will be few and far between.
00:52:18
Speaker 3: It it just won't happen.
00:52:19
Speaker 4: But the minutes you get into that things that people are rooted in their political views and their religion.
00:52:26
Speaker 3: They're not gonna back down.
00:52:27
Speaker 4: If they don't agree with you and your stance, they're going to hate you and want nothing to do with you. So stay away from that stuff. So in every genre of business is a game you gotta play.
00:52:36
Speaker 3: You gotta learn the rules.
00:52:37
Speaker 4: You got to learn the dudes and the don'ts, and you got to be effective and efficient while navigating those dudes and.
00:52:43
Speaker 3: Don'ts while you try to build whatever it is you're trying to build.
00:52:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, no, man, this looks. This has been good. It's been a great conversation. And she has to check out, check out, catch up with you all, and again appreciate just having the opportunity to again let me tag along a little bit and seeing y'all build it and see all the stuff man before we got out here. One last question I have is, like earlier I asked, or I kind of said, you know, I think that y'all gave permission to kind of move the culture forward to what became the precursor for a lot of sports talk today. My last question is going to be, is if you could leave a blueprint for somebody that wants to start something like the Two Lives tous like what you're all doing right now, what would the blueprint be that you would leave behind for the next Doug and Ryan they want to do something similar.
00:53:24
Speaker 3: Believe in yourself.
00:53:26
Speaker 4: Believe in yourself and know what it is you're trying to build, don't deter from it. Trust your beliefs, trust your work. And again I said, trust your work. It all takes time, man. You gotta you know I mentioned how I told Doug I'm gonna take some time off.
00:53:45
Speaker 3: There is no time to take off, man. You gotta keep going.
00:53:47
Speaker 4: You gotta keep digging, You gotta keep doing every single day. If you get up and you don't have nothing planned, you're a failure for that day.
00:53:54
Speaker 3: And there's not a day you can afford to fail.
00:53:56
Speaker 4: You got to try to succeed or build or create something every single day that you are breathing. And that's something that I've learned the hard way through. After I got done playing football, I took some time off. After we got fired from radio, I took some time off. There's no time to be taken off. You need to keep going. And I think that's something that God wants us to do too. He needs us to continue moving to push his agenda, his agenda forward for him through us. Don't ever stop, just keep going.
00:54:24
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean it's very simple, man. You hear it all the time. If you like what you do, you're not it's not work. And uh man, it's it's like we were born to do this. This sports guide talk thing and made a lot of waves in the industry. A lot of big, long lasting waves in the industry, and uh yeah, just have fun what you're doing, you know, be true to yourself and everything will work out. Everything. It always works out. You know. I listened to these these affirmation things, try to daily and everything works out for you. Man, It all always works out in the end, bottom line. If you have that mentality, Uh, it will work out.
00:55:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:55:06
Speaker 4: We want to invite you on the second annually two Light Studes cruise before we get out of here. Look, it's our second annual Super Bowl cruise. We call it Super Bowl. We're gonna port out of Fort Lauderdale and go to the Bahamas and Coco Bay, Coco Kae. It's a three day cruise in this particular year because it's a super Bowl cruise, it's it falls on Valentine's weekend.
00:55:30
Speaker 5: Oh so perfect.
00:55:31
Speaker 3: It's perfect, per perfect start. You can be with your homies, you can be with your wife, but we're gonna watch the game.
00:55:37
Speaker 4: We're gonna celebrate Valentine's Day a Royal Caribbean cruise, casinos, shopping, tons of bars, fine dining and restaurants, pools.
00:55:46
Speaker 3: It's a great time.
00:55:47
Speaker 2: Man.
00:55:47
Speaker 4: Last year was amazing and we're doing it again this year. We're gonna do it annually and I'll send you the information so you and the wife can think about coming.
00:55:53
Speaker 3: Man, but we would love to have you.
00:55:55
Speaker 2: Man now, Now now that he said that, and we're in the promoting stage of this interview. Two love Stus YouTube dot com. Yeah, it's very simple and I'm sure you probably would have put that out there anyway. But Monday and Thursdays Live seven am me some time. But you can go back and listen and watch any episode that we've done for right now, like right at two and a half years. So two livestees YouTube dot com. Catch you boys. A lot of people from Atlanta don't know. You know, when you do this promotion on social media, many they want their money before they promote you. You can't just put it on your page and think that people on your page gonna see it. No, it don't work like that.
00:56:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:56:32
Speaker 2: So a lot of people are running too. It's like, man, I didn't know you guys were back. Yeah yeah, okay, so bam, this is where you can listen. Okay cool. So yeah, two lives Stews YouTube dot com.
00:56:41
Speaker 3: And lastly, I promised this time shout out out to our manager, Larry Brown. He's in the building with us.
00:56:45
Speaker 4: He's been working with us now for a couple of months, and the Needle has certainly moved forward in several different aspects of our business since he's jumped on board. So there's some big things popping. And had to give Brown a shout out for getting us in here and spend some time with you and for all he's doing behind the scenes to make us get back to where we once were a decade ago.
00:57:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:57:03
Speaker 1: Man, look, no, absolutely, it's amazing. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned. I just want to say about the cruise one. Y'all got a plan, Yeah, we do.
00:57:13
Speaker 2: You can put a month.
00:57:16
Speaker 1: You said something actually that you've reminded. I gotta ask y'all Opini about it because you kind of hit on it. The super Bowl is on Valentine's weekend next year. When I first heard it, I was like, oh, this is gonna be a mess.
00:57:27
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
00:57:29
Speaker 5: I said, that's gonna be a mess. Number Thank y'all for killing two birds. Y'all are saving marriages and relationships so that y'all.
00:57:38
Speaker 3: My wife didn't go in the last cruise.
00:57:39
Speaker 4: She said, you're gonna be working, and I don't want you to leaven going to do that and me just sitting in a room or sitting by a pool.
00:57:44
Speaker 3: So I'm not going this year. She's like, hey, I'm.
00:57:47
Speaker 2: Going with you and that cruise.
00:57:49
Speaker 4: Of course you're going with me because it's Valentine's weekend. Be you gotta go. So it's gonna be great. Man, if you can make it, that'd be great. But we appreciate you for having us, man, and we're probably you for all you're doing. Man, But it now, mixed is amazing.
00:58:00
Speaker 3: Four or four days freaking stupid. It's it's mind blowing how crazy it was out there.
00:58:05
Speaker 2: Stupid doesn't good. Isn't good.
00:58:06
Speaker 3: That isn't good.
00:58:07
Speaker 4: But you're killing it, man, and I knew you would, and we're happy that you're doing what you're doing.
00:58:11
Speaker 2: Man.
00:58:11
Speaker 1: Man, appreciate y'all. Again, I know y'all you know drop some stuff. But again I always ask you before we get out of here, tell them how can they get in contact?
00:58:17
Speaker 5: How can they follow y'all? Which is information to give them all the things?
00:58:21
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, once again, very simple. Two Live Stews YouTube dot com U two Live Stews The Number two last stus YouTube dot com. You can email me at s m E dot Doug Stewart at gmail dot com and him s m me dot Ryan Stewart at gmail dot com as well.
00:58:37
Speaker 4: And our manager at Larry Brown sm me dot Larry Brown at gmail dot com phone number four four eight ninety five nine three ninety five.
00:58:45
Speaker 3: That's his phone number.
00:58:46
Speaker 4: You're trying to get us to host something or be a part of something or interviews whatever, Larry Brown will take care me.
00:58:51
Speaker 3: Man. We appreciate you, Brandon.
00:58:52
Speaker 1: No man, appreciate y'all. Man again, thank you all for everything you the congratulations. Can't wait to continue to support y'all me on that cruise. Come to know right now, man, thank you so much. Appreciate that. Ye what that said, y'all? That's the pod We out peace,