Wouldn’t Heath prefer to hear from the people who actually made the decision? That’s typically how hiring decisions work you know.
Agreed, but this situation isn’t typical. Agree also that most of the comments posted above are just speculation, but if I were HP I would expect to hear directly from JC, in addition to the hiring decision-maker. I’m not on Twitter, so I haven’t seen other Twitter posts about this from HP or others, but in the Twitter post posted above HP found a nice middle ground: disappointed but appreciative, leaving the door open to his eventual return (or a separate gig). JM might not work out or depart voluntarily.
I guess we just have different perspectives. If I had built up a podcast with someone over years, and then that podcast was going to go on without me, I would expect the person who I built it with to deliver the news and talk with me about it. Especially since another co-host, newly come to it, was being kept on. And if I was the person who was leaving someone else behind, I'd be the one that'd want to deliver it. Frankly seems a bit gutless to let a corporate suit do it so you don't have to have the conversation.
I don't understand what it is that you've read that leads you to believe that Jimmy Conrad didn't say anything to Heath Pearce about CBS ditching him. Or, if he didn't tell Heath first, that he even knew about it to be able to say anything before Heath got the news from CBS.
Just Heath's response seemed surprised. That's all. If he did, great. But the back and forth here has been hypothetical.
I hope he starts a new one where he has total control. I really liked his takes. they seemed interesting, well informed and not clickbate. Reminded me of 3rd Degree for FC Dallas Burn a little on a more national / international scale. He also surprised me a bit because he seemed so normal but he always had run ins with coaches. Wonder why? Maybe he questioned them when they did dumb things?
BTW, he had like 13 assists for FCD playing right back (he was a left back) and had spats with coach Hyndman. Maybe Hyndman was the jerk.
I don't necessarily disagree with you on this, but the corporate suit might have said, "The decision and the phone call will come from me with HR also on the call." Now if I were in Conrad's shoes, I definitely would be on the phone pretty quickly after the suit as a friend and colleague to ask if he wants to talk about it. But I'd wager a decent amount that since we're dealing with the HR department of a mega-corporation, I'm sure they have a very strict protocol regarding who makes that type of call. Corporations will always go into full CYA mode. When all is said and done, mega-corporations will act first and foremost so they don't get sued. Allowing a long-time friend and co-host to deliver that kind of news wouldn't fit that protocol, even if it would be the empathetic thing to do.
I agree with you. Jimmy's enthusiasm is infectious, but his analytical chops are average. Charlie just isn't much of an analyst. Heath was the smart and cool-headed one.
Agreed on all points. I like the 3 of them together. And I really like Pearce's no-frills, independent and knowledgeable commentary. But, it also seems like Jesse Marsch might be a good replacement for the "smart and cool-headed one", who is simultaneously more interesting than Pearce. While I feel bad for Pearce being left out here, I can clearly understand CBS' thinking.
It's worse. It's less personable. One of the draws of ISWT was that there was an interaction and connection w/ the audience. Adding Marsch and going more corporate makes it lose charm. And it loses cred among the base, because Jesse has incentive to be political. The commentary will be sanitized. ISWT was a good balance of being fairer than the provocateurs but still critical. If Heath finds a good complimentary partner, I'll almost always watch/listen (to) that, and never this expensive but cheap knock-off.
I can't stand her snark. Anything she's in, I'm out. Aside, this isn't why I don't like her, but why can't they get an American woman to host the show? It's just more if this fetishizing a foreign accent in the soccer world. But, like I said, can't stand Abdo's snark.
I also think she's great, and I couldn't care less about her accent, either. The woman clearly knows the sport and speaks passionately and clearly about it. There are few people in the world--of any gender--that are as good as she is at what she does.
I miss the USMNT podcasts.— Heath Pearce (@heathpearce) March 21, 2024 I speak for many here, when I say we do too. It's not the same. I barely listen to the new one. It's not the voice from a former player and current fan's perspective, more so someone angling for his next coaching job. And they culled Heath. And as far as alternatives, it feels like a desert now. There's a ton of panderers out there. Even feel like Scuffed is doing it somewhat now. And they do little men's team talk, outside the Patreon at least. It's become more of a USWNT podcast. TSS has never been the same w/out Daryl.
I listen to Scuffed when Greg(g?) is on and I listen to TSS mostly for Graham. The rest of Scuffed is basically the closed podcast/patreon dynamics where their listeners seem to want to be friends more than listen about soccer -- the inside jokes and references to the patreon outweigh actual soccer talk. On TSS, Joe Lowery is not without insight, but he also will suddenly shift into hype mode and he spends forever trying to say simple things. Taylor's fine, but he was never the true insight there and these days, he tends to just do the emotional fan thing. Anything on CBS Golazo, you can tell they keep pushing them to generate clickbait. It always drives me a bit nuts. Both Greg V and Graham are pretty unbiased and knowledgeable.
Its definitely slipped in general, though I tend to view scuffed as fine. TSS, I'm not a Lowery guy, at all, I find him incredibly aggravating lol. I would agree with the argument that the show was at its best with Grove, and has slipped a lot since he passed on. There's still some good ones out there, but almost everything has been damaged a bit over the past 3 years as $$$ played its role. And Marsch, over Pearce has been just absurd and stupid. The one positive I'll note, probably the only soccer podcast positive the past 18 months or so has been the arrival of that paramount/cbs show with Katie Abdo, and Dempsey, and Davies, that's been really interesting-not avoiding tough questions, revealing real insights, backstories, finding out that Chandler was funny, and that Jozy loved that guy? I've been slamming him for a decade, and it's nice to be at least partially disabused of a picture I had in my mind that was totally wrong (concerning him) or mostly anyway. Some serious, and dark topics have been covered on that show, it's been the one real asset to me, even the Donovan-dual americans thing was useful as a way to flesh out how and why people feel and think the way they do on the topic.
Joe simply takes forever to say anything. He clarifies the smallest points to a level of insanity. And I say this as a person who types novels. But Graham in great in large part because he watches a ton of soccer and isn't a USMNT fan. There's no bias in either direction -- he neither hypes the team or is soft on them but also he doesn't have absurd expectations. Scuffed ... whatever it is Watke and Vince talk about, it doesn't seem to be soccer. The Kate Abdo interviews with the crew are really great, but they are different from game analysis. Charlie's useless as an analyst to me; I can predict what he's going to say and it's the usual player stuff. Edu and Clint are fine at it but I will they had more of a coaching perspective there -- neither is an analyst more than a player and I think we need a counterbalance to the feel when they are on at halftime or postgame. I like Marsch overall. Yes, he's always positioning, which does drive me nuts, but he brings a perspective no one else has. It's really the choice to take Charlie -- who was already under contract -- and drop Heath that really killed it. Jimmy is the host / emotional fan / storyteller; Marsch the coaching perspective ... Charlie is the generic guy there. I liked Heath's measured contrast to Jimmy's gut reactions.
Ditto. Heath was actually my favorite of the three (but you can't can Conrad without killing the show, as he's the show's "animus"). I like the addition of Marsch a lot, but he's campaigning as much as Klinsmann the pundit was campaigning before his hire. Charlie is.... a player. Who has as much insight as any other player, and less than a particularly thoughtful player like Heath.
I think with Joe there are times when hum admittedly being a new fan shows up. Don't mean that as a negative really but I do think at times you see he has the "shiny new toy attitude" especially with USMNT players (Balogun mainly) but I tend to enjoy what TSS does. I don't listen to Scuffed as much much respect what they've built. Also while Jimmy was on TSRC the other night he confirmed it was a situation where Heath's contract expired and the higher ups decided not to renew unfortunately. Wish Sam from Yank Report would get back into making content (he even recently appeared on Que Golazo to talk the roster) but he got ran off by people for being a big fan of Jesus Ferreira and also not being critical enough of the team
If you haven’t caught it, the interview with Tony Meola on “Call It What you Want” is a must listen. Major respect.