The Word Podcast: Sports, News, & Stuff · The Word Podcast

Schieffler wins! Golden Dome, Mavs win the Lottery, NBA Conference Finals , "2 Trumps & a Lie" (Party Size)

·1 hr 30 min·2 clips

1.8-percent lottery hit reshapes Mavericks franchise.

The studio is back open. James Mundia and Rich Abernathy return after a short hiatus, and they are pretty happy to be back without trying to hide it. They admit there is a little gloating in the air, but they keep it light. Rich had been on site at Quail Hollow, where the week started wet and wild. Early rain made the course a mess, then the heat arrived and made everything feel even more intense. The conversation does not stay on one track for long. One host keeps circling a whiteboard to-do list he never finished. From there he lands on a DraftKings-style free clone he wants to build. The idea is simple and a little absurd at the same time. He wants to bet on only the things he wants. He wants fake money instead of real stakes. He imagines the revenue coming from microtransactions. Five hundred units of funny money for ninety-nine cents sounds fair to him. He also figures the minute that app existed, a bigger tech company would just buy it. That feels easier than making their own product better. The pitch keeps shifting. It becomes a spread. It becomes a spreadsheet. It becomes the kind of side project you joke about until someone says an AI could probably code the whole thing. Marcus gets pulled into the bit as a sports-betting expert and a venture-capital advisor. The show treats that as both a compliment and a punchline. The hosts keep interrupting themselves and then using the interruption as a bridge to the next laugh. They still make room for the actual sports. The NBA Conference Finals get their turn. The Trump impression segment comes back into play. The show closes by promising more sports news and stuff next week, plus Two Trumps and a Lie, and it keeps the mood easy even while pointing out that strange times can make sports hit harder.

As heard by us

A loose return that turns a short hiatus into a sports-heavy, banter-led listen.

PlayNext comes back from a short break with James Mundia and Rich Abernathy trading some early gloating before the episode moves through Quail Hollow, the NBA Conference Finals, and the show's Trump segment.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for sports talk that starts with a little gloating and wanders into a fake betting-app brainstorm.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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