For the Love of Judaism
Rabbi Michael Pont, Senior Rabbi at Marlboro Jewish Center, shares his message of love, inspiration and Torah.
For the Love of Judaism
A View from the Press Box
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Lots of kids are into sports but few get to live out their dreams as an NFL beat reporter for ESPN. This week's guest, New York Giants beat reporter Jordan Raanan, is one of those lucky few. Don't miss this far reaching conversation about what it is like to travel the country with an NFL team, the importance of relationships in the pursuit of your dreams, and what Jordan thinks is coming down the road for NFL fandom.
Shalom, I am Rabbi Michael Pont, and this is For the Love of Judaism. And today my guest is Jordan Ra Anan. Jordan joined ESPN in July of 2016 as the New York Giants NFL Nation reporter. He covers the Giants for ESPN.com and has appeared on SportsCenter and ESPN radio. Jordan graduated from the University of Maryland, Roll Turps, in 2001 with a major in communications. He is a native of Marlboro, New Jersey, right here. Grew up in Marlboro, currently resides in Freehold, New Jersey with his wife and their daughter and son. I know Jordan because he is a dad at the Marlboro Jewish Center Preschool. And I'm happy to have him on the show. Jordan, welcome to the program. How are you today?
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Rabbi. Yes, I mean, I was thanks for having me, first of all. And number two, you know, it's very rare that I get a pronunciation of the last name as on point as that, right there. I will say that. Oh yeah. Granted, you have a head start, you speak Hebrew, you probably have an advantage over most radio shows I and TV spots I do. So, but very commendable. I like the uh rah anan. I don't even try to explain that to people. We try to keep it as simple as possible.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I got you. I got you, Hebrew last name. Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's funny because my dad, when I first started in this business, told me, you know, maybe you should just go by your my middle name is Todd. Maybe you should just go by Jordan Todd. It's gonna make life a lot easier for you. So I did not take his advice. I wanted to stick with who I am. Obviously, the Jewish roots part of it. And so Jordan Ron, there you go.
SPEAKER_01See, that's so interesting because I mean, you know this. I mean, you're in the entertainment world. You know that there are so many Jews who, you know, took on different names that changed their last names or first names or both because of pronunciation, or they didn't want to seem too ethnic. So I guess your dad was thinking along those lines, but you stuck with Ra Anun.
SPEAKER_00I think he came to Israel and realized nobody he came from Israel. I'm sorry. Uh, you know, when he was like what, 26, and he realized people have would have no idea how to say our name. And so he realized that it would just be a constant, like every single time you go on something, every single time uh you do something, they would it would be a struggle. And he didn't have a middle name, and so he came to America and so what's your middle name? And he didn't know, so he just said Henry. So he picked up the name Henry, and then sometimes he goes, by David Henry.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Got it.
SPEAKER_00He said, Hey, Ron America has a middle name. I need a middle name too. So he goes by the middle name to make it easier at work. Sometimes he suggested I do the same. That was more the reason than anything. But I don't know. Maybe I was naive at the time because I was young, much younger, and you didn't realize what comes along with uh, you know, politics and uh anti-Semitism and all these other things that potentially come along with it along the way. But I don't know. You know what? I don't know if I if you told the general population the name Rahan that they would even know that it was Jewish or not. Some people might think it's Indian, I get sometimes. You really it you really don't know. It's just a total crapshoot.
SPEAKER_01That's really interesting, Jordan. I want to ask you a question. So, did you love sports as a kid? Like, were you that kid who like imitated sports announcers, like, you know, and just told your family, like, that's what I want to do. I want to be on TV. Were you that kind of kid?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in a way. I didn't say I wanted to be on TV, but I definitely was all about sports. I always say that I'm a very one-dimensional person in general. Like, I know sports, like I know very little about everything else. I don't know how true that is, but in a way, I think it is like that. That's what always consumed me, especially as a kid. Like, I read the newspaper, I was in a rotisserie baseball league. It wasn't even fantasy at the time with my brother where we would we would have to calculate the all your own points because there were like barely computers at the time. Every Sunday you got the USA Today, that's when they printed all the baseball stats. And so I was in a rotisserie baseball league. I mean, I was probably you know eight, nine, ten years old with my brother and crunching numbers and you know, every video game we played for the most part, Tech Mobile and all these Nintendo games were mostly sports oriented. And I was explaining to my daughter the other day, like, you come home and go on your phone. We never we came home and we went outside and played. Like, that's what you did, and it was over sports. And I have an older brother, I have one sibling, an older brother, and I was my brother won't be insulted, I don't think, when I say this. I was the better athlete between the two of us because I was always trying to keep up and I was always trying to play sports. So when I went to college, I said I want to be in sports. I didn't know exactly what. I think in my mind, I grew up with WFAN and Mike and the Mad Dog here was like the big thing. Yes. So I think I was thinking more radio, and then when I was in college, I was in Washington, DC, and I see Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, and they were getting into radio at the time. I said, you know what? All these writers are getting radio shows. Maybe that's the way to go. So my writing score on the SAT was significantly lower than my math score. I always tell that story. Uh, yet I, you know, I think I got a 720, 480 split, something like that. And the verbal was the 480, the math was the 720. And yet I became a writer later on in life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, who knew? Wow, that's a big split.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I wasn't paying attention in English class back in the day.
SPEAKER_01Right. So, when did you decide to make sports your career? And there must have been people who helped you along the way. It's not an easy business to get into. And and who were your role models in the business?
SPEAKER_00Uh, yeah. So when I was in college, I like I said, I had this idea like I need to do something in sports. I had no idea what uh I didn't know whether it would be marketing, uh, whether it'd be, you know, being an agent. I don't, or in media, like it didn't have a singular idea at the time. So I was a communications major, which at the time at Maryland, you take communications as very general. They say, you know, it's supposed to be one of the easier majors. So I'm like, all right, sign me up. You know, that sounds that sounds good to me. Right. Uh, very, very general. I can go a lot of different directions. And so my internship that I had probably my junior year into and then my senior year for I guess two years, was the George Michaels Sports Machine, it was called. So if you it's on NBC. It was on NBC. This this guy, George Michaels, it was syndicated nationally. If you go on NBC, they have uh Bruce Beck does it now. He does like a Sunday night show. But at the time, it was George Michaels, and he was in Washington, D.C., and he cybocasted around the country. So I did that and I realized, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be on the media side. I remember, like I said, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser were two of the guys. They were doing a round table show at the time with George Michael and this other guy, David Dupree, who's a basketball writer for the USA Today. And in a way, in my head, it was uh thinking back, it's probably like, wow, that's like a precursor to P that would end up being PTI, the two of them riffing back and forth on TV with George Michael every week. And I realized at that point, okay, like that's kind of what I want to do. Uh and so, like you said, I grinded my way up. I worked at small papers, online website, uh in the Philadelphia area. And my wife was in law school and she finished, she came out, she was a lawyer. And I'm not making a lot of money, I'm grinding my way, working two or three jobs, you know, small newspaper in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, picking up the phone and filing results of swimming, you know, like just basically data logging is what it was. Right. And uh my wife was a lawyer, she didn't like being a lawyer at the time. She's she was miserable. She said, Why don't you go get a job that makes more money? I said, Why would I want to go get a job where I'd be miserable at, where I would be unhappy at? I want to do something that I enjoy and that I like. So I think that really it still applies today. I always remind myself, even though it's a job and every it still has the stress of a job, and I have to go to work and no, I'd rather stay home, trust me, and be with my family and do stuff with my kids and not miss stuff and not be away on weekends a lot of times and at nights. But I always remind myself, I'm watching football for a living. And there are way worse things to do than watch football for a living.
SPEAKER_01Right. I hear you. Um, so when did you get started at ESPN?
SPEAKER_00So when my daughter Kylie was born in 2011, I said, you know what? I took a job as a web editor. I had a job as a web editor, and it was at nights, and you know, I got to spend all this time with her during the day. She was just born. We had gone through a long journey to have our first child. And I was like, this is great. You know, we were making, we were doing fine financially, having a good living. And after two years, I said, you know, I really kind of want to get back. I need, I'm like an adrenaline junkie. I like to be around the action. And so I want to be an NFL beat reporter. Peter King, who's like, you know, one of those guys you said, you know, who are the people you looked up to? Peter King was one of those guys. I remember I reached out to a bunch of people saying, How do I become an NFL beat writer? Like, that's what I want to do. I want to cover one specific team. I don't want to go jump from sport to sport, be like a general assignment reporter, kind of which what I was doing before. I want to be embedded with one team. I want to know everything. I want to be the expert on that team. And Peter King was one of the guys that gave me advice at the time. He was super nice. And I still remember one of the things he tells me is make sure you reach out every day to three sources. Every day you should be reaching out, and just even if it's just saying hello or connecting or you know, keeping keeping your relationship up every day, three people you should be reaching out to. So eventually I got offered a job covering the Eagles because we were living in Philadelphia at the time. And six months into that, they said, We want you to come cover the giants for nj.com, which was the online arm for the Star Ledger. They said, We want you to come cover the Giants. So for a year and a half, I commuted from Philadelphia to cover the Giants. This was at NJ.com. And one of my friends, and one of the people I hung out with when we went on the road was Dan Graziano, who works for ESPN. He covered the Giants before me. We became very friendly. He's on GetUp if you want to go look most mornings. Uh he's worked his way up the ladder. When he went and worked his way up the ladder, he recommended me for the job. We were friends. He thought I did a good job covering the giants for nj.com and a star ledger. And now since 2016, I've been at ESPN.
SPEAKER_01That's great. So do you have a favorite part of the job? I know that's a cliche question, you know, but is there something that you love, really, really love about the job?
SPEAKER_00Like I said, being an adrenaline junkie, the best part of the job is when you get the scoop. Like when you have something and it's exclusive and it's unique and you know it. And the second you put it out there, like you're sitting there like waiting for like validation. You're nervous, okay. What if I'm wrong? You're like going through all these scenarios in your head of somehow that somebody is lying to you and messing with you, and you know, trying to make you get all like the whole world has conspired against you, and then, but then the second you know, you like really nailed it. Like that rush is it's just like that. That's what you know, that's what you want. Like it's super competitive. I'm a super competitive person. I want to win, and I'm using air quotes when I say that every time I want to beat my competition, right? All the reporters, some people think we're like a group. No, I tell the people of the Giants all the time, these are my competitors. We may be friends and try to you know act civil to each other, but we're trying to cut each other's throats every day, like we're we're all competing against each other. Like I want to beat them in every single thing. So, you know, in regards to breaking news and uh getting exclusive content and uh just being the go-to source for the Giants. So there's that, and also I do enjoy the traveling part of it because it's not a ton of travel. Trust me, I've seen and I did like a little taste of baseball and these other sports. And think about it. Football is the easiest to live a normal-ish nine to five life. Baseball is 162 games, 81 games on the road, night games. You're not getting home or back to the hotel till 1-2 in the morning, crazy hours, crazy schedule, basketball, hockey, 82 games, night games. You're never home at night, right? You if you're covering those teams, you're never home at night. You're not home for dinner with your family or your kids. Football, Monday to Friday, they practice, you go to work. Nobody's really working at night for the most part. There's obviously Monday games, Thursday games, they're adding more and more, but games are generally on the weekend. When you travel, you leave generally Saturday morning and you're back Monday morning. Nice little trips to the best cities in the country. They don't have teams in Podunk, Idaho. They have teams in Miami, they have teams in Los Angeles, they have teams in San Francisco, Arizona, you know, Phoenix. So the trips are generally desirable trips. You go for two days, it's a nice trip. You get to enjoy one day, the next day you work, the next day you're home.
SPEAKER_01Right. Unless, of course, the Giants are going to London or Mexico City. Which is great too. Yeah. Wait, Jordan, I want to backtrack for one second. Now, you grew up in Marlborough. You grew up a Giants fan.
SPEAKER_00I did not grow up a Giants fan. I know a lot of people think and I like people, uh Giants fans who don't like me, like to say, go back to Philadelphia. You're an Eagles fan. Right. Right? You you're you're you're disgustingly Phil Philadelphia, you know, that I see it all the time. And I try to tell people, like, like do your research. I'm not even from Philadelphia. My wife and her family are from the suburbs of Philadelphia. I moved there after college. I had never really been there in my life until I needed a passport one day in advance when I was in high school. Right. Uh, so I grew up a Jets fan, though, because my uncle had something like literally, I'm not joking, 12 tickets, I think it was, to the Jets. So we always went to the Jets games growing up. And my dad was from Israel, went to learn, picked up football, and you know, his cousin or his cousin's husband had jet tickets. So we ended up being Jets fans. Uh, and most of my friends actually were Giants fans, so I am envious of the Giant fan because as a Jet fan growing up, I wish my dad would have been a Giant fan, and then I would have been able to celebrate for Super Bowls instead of uh lifetime of as a child of misery. And then as you start covering the sport, you really your fandom gets muted. You really don't have that same kind of fandom anymore. You don't watch games the same. Honestly, I don't even watch 90% of Jets games. Half the time they're at the same time as the Giants game, even if they're not, I'm working. So you really lose that uh that fandom, that uh affinity for the team. Like that part of you that lives or dies with them is like 99.9% gone. I wonder if I ever stop covering the NFL, if it would ever return. Uh, but I'm not sure because I think I watched the game differently now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, makes sense. Um, you know, Jordan, we talked about your last name, Ra Anan, it's Israeli. You'd like you said, your dad is Israeli. Uh Ra Anan is one of the is a Hebrew word, one of the synonyms for joy or happiness. Um, so that leads me to a question. As a Jew in your industry, have you, you know, run into any any issues or even anti-Semitism? Are there advantages to being Jewish in the sports world? Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know about advantages. I'm trying to think. I mean, obviously, I think as you go along and you're in this industry, you realize there are a lot of Jewish people in the industry. It's not a you're you're not uh you know an outlier, to say the least. Like there's there's plenty of people that uh have the same faith and religion and you see it. Uh, you know, people on social media sometimes, you know, say stuff. I but it's like you have to learn in general, in this job, I think, to sort of just ignore the noise and the the comments of people, especially on social media. Because if you're gonna sit there and get insulted by every you know, insult or name that somebody calls you, you're gonna be spending all your time dealing with that. So uh aside from that though, I don't I don't think I've really seen it work against me or for me very much. I just think it, you know, because there's a lot of different people in the industry, and I think it's uh it's an industry where for the most part people are very open to different uh religions. Uh the one uh the people who have it the hardest in in the industry, I believe, are women because they hear it more than it's more sexist than it is uh anti-Semitic in regards to dealing with people in the media industry. I think that's especially I'm so I'm talking specifically with sports. There's a very sexist view of women should not be in sports. You know, when you don't when you disagree with something a female says about something in sports, the natural reaction that you see on especially on social media is you know, you're you're a woman, you don't know anything about sports. So I think they have it way tougher than I say I would as like a a Jewish individual in the industry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. All right, let's talk about some current trends in sports. As just uh, you know, I mean, I'm a I'm a fan, I I love, especially I love, you know, the NFL, but I'm also a fan of Major League Baseball, the NBA, um, and college sports, definitely. Uh, I see that sports betting has just really transformed just how we consume uh sports. What are you seeing? What are what do you think is going to continue to happen with gambling and sports betting and how it influences the way we view and feel about sports?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you could definitely see it integrating the way we consume sports these days. I think there's no doubt about that. It's going to become normal, right? In regards to just being integrated in, let's say, watching games. Uh let's say, you know, looking at scores online, like it's there's just going to be an easier access to it. I always think it's been there, right? It's just always been sort of below the radar. And like I remember about, I don't know, when I first started covering the Giants, I said to one of the PR guys like they're like, Why do you ask these questions? And my questions a lot of times were very heavily about fantasy and you know, almost geared a little bit towards the the gambling side as well, because we wanted to pretend like it wasn't there, rabbi. But the reality is gambling has been a huge part of the NFL's success for a really, really long time, right? That's a big reason why it's been the most popular sport in this country for a real for a really long time. It just used to be you have to go to you know Joe Bookie to be able to place your bet. Now it's just a lot more easily accessible. You have a smartphone in your hand, you're gonna look up you know what time the game is, and at the same time, oh, there's the and ESPN is involved in it too. We have now ESPN bet. So you go to ESPN and you go to the website, you're just gonna be able to look up over times the game. Well, you know what? That's part of my viewing experience. So why don't I put $20 on my team as I watch it? And you could, you know, that it's it's that easy to do nowadays. So uh now there's some downsides to it as well. I think they're we're gonna they're gonna have to be able to navigate in regards to gambling addiction, uh people abusing the accessibility, but it's not going anywhere. It was always there, now it's just above the table, and uh everybody wants a piece of the money in the pot. So rather than it being illegal, like it had been for what our whole lifetime up until what five years ago at this point, maybe even less. Now it's okay, it's uh it's just going to be accessible, legal, and regulated in some way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_01Right. And you're right to mention the smartphone because our smartphones have changed everything. Now all you have to do is download, you know, one of the various apps, and you can do whatever you want. I mean, it's right there, so accessible and easy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it could be looked at as part of the entertainment process, right? But you have to also do it. It also has to be done responsible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's like anything else. You know, um, it is, it does make you know the whole experience more entertaining and potentially more exciting. Um, and you become more interested in maybe teams that you weren't interested in before. Uh, but yeah, of course, you know, gambling is is a potential addiction, just like a lot of other things. And it has to be done responsibly, no question. But I just love that, you know, you can parlay like so many different things. I mean, and at the Super Bowl, there were lots of Taylor Swift parlays that you could do. I mean, it was just, you know, it was crazy, but also kind of fun and and and cool.
SPEAKER_00It also changes, though, I believe, the way you consume and watch games, like especially with the smartphone. I I'm as guilty as anybody. I'm sitting there watching a game and I'm consuming it. Me personally, my thing is I'm on social media while I'm watching the game sometimes. So it's like you're it's almost like a way to be you're sitting there with friends and other people that and listening to their opinions, you know, like you would if you're sitting in the same room as a friend and you and you just have so many options of what you can do with that smartphone while you're sitting there watching the game. You know, the it's called the second screen experience. And I think a lot of people do that. I mean, I I know I do. I know I'm probably on my phone more than most people, partly because it's part of my job to be, you know, available 24 7 basically, just in case. Uh, but it's certainly. I think the viewing experience. And like I know there's some people who can't just sit there and watch an entire game anymore. You know, like of uh the NFL that's on Fox, they need to and not have their phone and just sit there and watch it. So it becomes boring, right? Now your sensory has changed. You need to watch the red zone where they're going only to, and you want to have your fantasy team on your phone, one phone, and your gambling on your iPad, and you're, you know, just a faster moving experience. Like just one game is now like, and you see it with kids. Kids can't sit and watch baseball in general anymore. For the most part, they all like this is way too boring. I can't sit there for two, two and a half, three hours, whatever it may be. I know the shortening games, but it's boring to them because we're we're a society now that when you sit there, you're on your phone at all times and you're doing multiple things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, and you know, I mean, you mentioned that growing up you were in a rotisserie league for baseball, and you mentioned fantasy, and fantasy also has really, you know, transformed how we feel and consume sports because we're in a fantasy league. You know, you you care about, you know, you care about maybe like a dozen teams because the players are scattered all over, um, which is which is great for sports, I think.
SPEAKER_00I actually think fandom in general, we're gonna see the I mean, I think it's already turned a little bit because it used to be super provincial, right? You grew up in Detroit, everybody was a Detroit fan. You grew up in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, these very provincial cities. You grew up there, you were a fan of the team in that market. A, because it was the only game you could really watch on Sundays, right? When you grew up, the game, the your local team is one of the only games. And then maybe the Cowboys would be on and the Steelers would be on because they were, you know, more of the American type teams, the Raiders, too. And that's why their fan bases are bigger now. But now your fans, your your kids grow up, they're a fan of Patrick Mahomes because he's on their fantasy team, or name the quarterback, right? Any quarterback. And you're a fan of that team because you like this player. So I think fan fandom in general is gonna be less provincial and more toward geared towards individuals and your fantasy team. And it's really gonna, we're really gonna see the difference. And I think we're starting to see the difference, but in the next like 10 to 15 to 20 years, you're really gonna see just in any market be any fan base, and that's why it's gonna be beneficial. You can watch any game at any time nowadays. So you could be sitting in New York market and watch the Arizona Cardinals play the Las Vegas Raiders. No problem. If you want to watch that game, you can watch that game. And your kid who might be a Raiders fan because they like Devontae Adams, totally random, can watch Devontae Adams play every week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned that I'm from Detroit, which of course is true. And you know, thank God the you know, the Lions finally, you know, rose up and had a great year. So, you know, you're welcome, America, that we finally, you know, have a great team in Detroit. So on Thanksgiving, all of America doesn't have to watch like a whole, you know, just awful team play. So you're welcome, America. We finally got something going in in Detroit.
SPEAKER_00We waited a long time, Rabbi. I know.
SPEAKER_01May the Lord bless them. That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00Not waste our 12 p.m. uh time slot on Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_01Jordan, let's just talk briefly about college sports, which also has some interesting trends that have really changed things. Um, what are you hearing in, you know, what are you hearing in your industry about the impact of NIL name, image likeness that players, you know, can now get paid um for when their name, image, and likeness is used in advertising. And what about the transfer portal? That really seems to me to have really changed college sports.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really changed the game. It's like, what are you gonna give me to come play? But again, to me, it's very similar to the gambling side, right? This has always gone on. It just used to be under the table. Here's the envelope of money, come to our school. Now it's just okay, it's legalized, but it's the wild west out there. The rules are minimal. It's you can kind of do whatever you want in regards to okay, what can I do in regards monetarily to come make a player come to my school? But again, it's only out there for a select few. It's not these big corporations that are coming. It's uh it's the donors, it's the uh boosters for these specific schools. How much are they willing to pay? And where are they where are they willing to put the money into? So it's not going to hit you know the lower revenue sports at most schools. It's really just going to be, for the most part, there's obviously outliers to everything. Livy Dunn is uh you know a gymnast in LSU, but she might be the most popular athlete in all of college nowadays and making probably a ton of money. Her pictures on the billboards of Times Square. Right. And uh the I know the Cavender twins were the basketball players at Miami who became a big TikTok thing, and so they profited off of it. But for the most part, it's going to be the major sports, and uh you can see the effect it's having because coaches, I mean I speak to coaches who I know who have who are in college, they're like, Man, I just gotta get out. I can't be offering okay, trying to figure out ways to get money to a 16-year-old kid. It's just kind of crazy concept to think about. It's like I'm texting 16-year-olds and they're asking, what can you get me? Yeah. And it's like, man, at least in the NFL, okay, I could just concentrate and coach on football. But yeah, and then and then the transfer portal is again the wild west out there because it no longer all right, like Tom Brady, take for instance. Tom Brady was not the starter in Michigan, probably got you know screwed over a few times over. I couldn't think of a better word. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01That's okay.
SPEAKER_00And he wasn't, he was the starter, he wasn't the starter, he wasn't playing, he was the second team. You know, Drew Henson came, he was the savior, Drew Henson. They started him over him. Drew Henson wasn't even as good as Tom Brady, and we found out after the fact that he never would even come close to Tom Brady and how good Tom Brady was or is. And but Tom Brady was insistent on sticking it through and motivating himself that way and learning to be better by being the second string. Nowadays, you can just, if you don't like where you're at, all right, I can just go. There's no penalty, I can just go switch schools. It's gonna create a constant uh just shuffling of school for players and really only increase the entitlement of people, like, hey, I I'm gonna go until I play, or I deserve to play, or why am I not playing? It's not me, it's the situation. And that part of it I don't like. I do believe that athletes, if they're making money for the schools, should see a portion of it for sure. Now, granted, part of that, and I think people tend to overlook it, is they're getting a free education that's on the table for them. They're getting room and board, they're getting food and and the cost of basically the cost of living. That's all available to them. That's all part of the package they're getting of what they're what they're providing for the university. But NIL has really changed the landscape. I don't think that here's the thing. I don't think anybody really knows where it's gonna land and where it's gonna end up because they're still trying to find their way right now with it. And who knows if the NCAA is even involved in a few years down on it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, good point. You know, Jordan, um right now the the world, I mean, you could say it seems like a a really tough, scary place. You know, there are lots of problems, there are multiple wars, climate change. I mean, there's you know, it's just it's just a really exciting time, but it's also a very challenging time. You know, so someone could say to say to people working in the entertainment business business, they could say, like, you know, you're like focusing on on a game, you know. Yeah, why why does that matter? I mean, what do you tell people? Like, why do sports matter? And why are we so passionate? How do sports have a positive impact on our lives?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I always tell people this, and I think it's true, is and I tell players this all the time because they have a hard time seeing it. It's like, you know, you know, we are in the entertainment industry. This isn't life or death. Like, I get it, it's the it's their livelihood, it's it's all our livelihood, it's how we make money in the business, you know, to support our families. But at the same time, it's entertainment. You have to keep that in perspective. You know, you're not keeping world secrets. This is sports, and it's a what you do is you're providing entertainment for the public, it's a diversion from reality, and that's why we like sports, and that's why a lot of people don't like when sports intersect with politics and religion and you know, all these other much more serious topics. You go to sports because you just want to, in a way, dumb down your brain, watch this game, which if you think about it on the surface is super silly. Name the game. Somebody made up a rule, you got to gain 10 yards with a ball that's uh shaped, uh, like whoever came up with how the football is shaped, a pig skin that's shaped like that. Right. And they randomly have these markers on the field still that say that that's the 10 yards. Like we don't have lasers, they don't have anything in the ball, a chip or nothing. There's there's so many silly rules. If you were just dropped on the search, you'd be like, what is this game? It is so dope. It's called football when you really don't even use your feet, right? There's so many parts of it. Whoever came up with three strikes, whoever came up with the idea that the bases need to be 90 feet away from each other, everything about it. And so it's just entertainment. These are games we play. We're competitive. You want to win, you can just you could spend, depending on the sport, you know, an hour and a half, two hours, three hours, and just forget about what's going on in your life and reality and worry about your sports team and you invest in your sports team. That's why people take it so seriously. You're so invested in this team that's out there and their success. And it really doesn't change your life and you know, your everyday life, but you just you want to feel that uh feeling of victory just like the players do. And a lot of fans say, you know, we appreciate it more than they do because you're looking at it differently, and and it's a diversion of reality for fans. So I think that's why it's important, and you just need to keep that in perspective that these are just games at the end of the day. And like I always say, I cover football, I watch football for a living.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it is, you're right. I mean, it's it's an it's a good escape, and we all need that, you know, because life can be tough. I mean, whether it's a tough day at work or you're thinking about the big problems that are facing us, to have that escape is healthy, helps you to feel rejuvenated going back to face, you know, serious challenges.
SPEAKER_00So there's a lot to learn from sports too, especially from playing. I'm a big believer in that. Like you learn how to work as a teammate, you learn how learning failure to me is perhaps maybe and the biggest thing about sports and growing up and playing them. And I remember I I even I never even really thought about it until like I had a daughter and she plays very competitive soccer. And she was little and she was growing up and they lost. And you go down the line and you you shake hands and you say, Good game, good game. And she went down the line and she said, bad game, bad game, bad game, right? And I was, and I was like, you know, I took her off the field, ripped her off the field basically, said you can't do that. That's and and part of that to me, and it it clicked in, is you have to learn, and she was young at the time, she was probably you know six or seven years old. You have to learn how to lose. Like that's part, you have to learn how to not be successful, how to take that and use it in a constructive way. So you can use a lot of things from sports and then apply it to the real life and the real world. And that's why I think growing up and playing sports and team sports is a really good thing for kids. And I'm I'm a big proponent of it and playing multiple sports and not just you know, focusing and worrying about a college scholarship at a young age. That seems silly to me, crazy to me in general.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, that's terrific. And you're right. I mean, sports sports does teach us a lot of good life lessons. Um, Jordan, let me ask you one last question. So I'm sure there are lots of young people who really love sports and would love to get into the sports entertainment business. What advice would you give to young people who want to do what you're doing?
SPEAKER_00I say this all the time to people, and it seems like, all right, come on, that's silly. That's like the most basic uh advice you can give to somebody. But it really is true. Just put in the work, like be around. Like to me, I'm not the best planner, right? And so I could go into work and have no idea what I'm gonna write, report that day. But if I'm around and I'm always around, and it seems simple, and you're like, well, everybody's always around, everybody's always gonna work hard. You'd be surprised at how many people really don't work hard. They don't know how to work hard. Like anytime you can go, I can go to an event where I can have FaceTime with people. Some people are like, I didn't get a story from it, it's a waste of time. I'm not going. I don't view it that way. I view it as I go to an event, I'm creating relationships, I'm maintaining relationships. You never know when it's going to pay off. Like that's how I was successful. I feel like I was successful. I just grinded and was always there and did as much as I could, you know, whether it's uh in the terms of jobs, internships, just as much writing as possible. Like when I figured out I was gonna be doing writing, I was like, oh my God, the more writing I do, I need to write as much as possible to be a better writer. And even today, I still feel that way. So just put it in the work, just be around, do as much as you can. And I think this really applies for most fields. Relationships matter. Like, that's how you get jobs nowadays. That's how you get in my field, you get stories, that's how you create sources, uh, that's how you move up, right? Like I said, I had created a relationship with Dan Graziano. We were just hanging out on the road, you know, when we went to cities, he we would go to dinner and stuff. But that relationship ultimately is what got me hired at ESPN, right? So the more relationships you make, the harder, the more you're just always around, the more stories will just, I always say stories I feel like fall into my lap. Now I'm probably simplifying a little bit. I do feel like I'm good at being able to figure out what's the story, like to have the perspective to say, okay, yeah, this is what the story is. I need to focus on that once it like hits me. But that usually 90, literally 95% of the time, the story is just because I'm around and I'm working hard and I'm outworking the other people around me. Like the day that I'm sitting here saying, Well, this guy, look at all the time he's putting in it. He's putting in two to three times the time than I am. He's at every event. I'm only going once in a while. I only show up to the Giants facility once a week. The day I'm doing that, A, I'm doing a bad, I'm I'm doing a bad job, right? Uh, and to me, like I shouldn't be doing it. If that's if I'm gonna basically throw in the towel and do you know, give a half effort, then I shouldn't be doing the job. But you'd be surprised how many people really do. And this is definitely applies a lot in the media field, and probably applies in every field. A lot of people really just, you know, go through the motions and they do the minimal. They'll just take the easy layup rather than you know going outside your comfort zone to uh maybe find, do a story or or look for a job, or talk to somebody that you met you you wouldn't normally talk to. Like those kind of things matter, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great advice. So you're basically saying, you know, work hard, keep grinding, um, build those relationships and take advantage of all any opportunities that that come your way, and just you'll and you'll work your way up. That sounds like great advice. All right. Well, Jordan, look, this has been a great conversation about sports, something that so many of us, millions of people around the world, millions and millions of people love. Um, thanks for taking the time today to give us insight, to you know, pull the curtain behind the ESPN, you know, juggernaut a little bit. Um, I'll look forward to seeing you some Friday at the Marlborough Jewish Center Preschool when we sing Shabbat songs. Um, just thanks so much, Jordan.
SPEAKER_00Sounds good, Rabbi Pond. Anytime for you. Amen.
SPEAKER_01Well, again, everybody, that was Jordan Ra'anan of ESPN. He is the Giants beat reporter. Such an interesting conversation about what's going on in the world of sports and how he got started. Um, and it just reminds me of a couple of images. I'm a big sports fan, like I said, to Jordan. Um, and I think about sports and sports metaphors all the time, so like so many people do. I just want to tell a funny story, first of all, um, about what of one of Jordan's Jewish colleagues, uh Dave Rothenberg. I listen to ESPN radio when I'm driving in my car. And on his morning show, Dave, he was talking about his son's upcoming bar mitzvah and going to visit the rabbi in the rabbi's office. And now Dave is a big Giants fan, okay? New York football Giants. And the rabbi uh of Dave Synagogue apparently is an Eagles fan because there was Philadelphia Eagles paraphernalia um in the office, maybe all over the office. And Dave said, and with all seriousness, he said, it really bothered me. Like it he couldn't concentrate because this guy was an Eagles fan, and it was really kind of pissing him off. And I was laughing hysterically uh in my car because I totally got it. Like we never, you know, we never, it's hard to lose our affiliations. You know, the teams that we love, we, you know, we keep those affiliations. And to have that, you know, the Jewishness and the sports, you know, fandom were in conflict. They were clashing. And it was Dave Rothenberg was feeling that dissonance and was giving him a hard time. And I had to laugh because it was just great. Um, Dave Rothenberg has been to Marlborough Jewish Center because he is friendly with one of our members. He was here for one uh for uh Bar mitzvah and Bot Mitzvah a couple of times. Um so, Dave, if you're listening, thanks for that um on the radio. It was it was just terrific. Uh, you know, sports do teach us a lot, as Jordan said. They teach us about teamwork, uh, they teach us about perseverance. And it does remind me that one sports metaphor that we love is the concept of the underdog. Everybody loves the underdog, the team that isn't expected to win but pulls off the big upset. Um, and that is a very Jewish concept, also, because you know, the Israelites, when they were slaves in Egypt, they were just a ragtag group. They were put down, they were abused by the Egyptians. And somehow, with the leadership of Moses, who also in himself was an underdog, he didn't want the job, he was he was self-conscious, he spoke with a stutter. But God knew that Moses had the stuff. God knew that Moses could lead us to the promised land. And this ragtag group of slaves rose up and marched with pride out of Egypt, across the sea, and we earned our freedom with faith in God, who, you know, who freed us from Pharaoh's clutches. So as Jews, we understand the underdog concept. We are we are the epitome of the underdog. As it says uh in the book of Psalms, you know, the stone that had once been rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. Hebrew, Evan Ma'asu Habonim, Hita La Rosh Pinah. I think about that verse often. When you're feeling down, when you're feeling like there's a task that's too overwhelming and you can't do it, just remember that verse, because God has blessed you with abilities, you can do it. Evan Ma'asu Habonim, Haita La Rosh Pinah. You can rise up and you can win. Even if you're an underdog, even if the odds are against you, uh with perseverance and grit, and I would say faith, rise to the challenge and overcome. Well, again, everybody, thanks for listening today. Uh, that's the end of our episode. Hope you enjoyed it with Jordan Ra Anan of ESPN. Peace out.