Chuck Klosterman on the Cinema Revival, Sports Tsars, Owners and Commissioners, Analytics, U.S. Soccer Groundhog Day, and State of Reading

**Bill Simmons** (0:00)
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The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I did a rewatchables last week. We did Ali, if you missed it. It was our ninth Michael Mann movie, and the one we have coming up on Monday. It's a move that's also on Netflix, by the way. She's the one, 30th anniversary. Very important Gen X movie. We're gonna explain all the reasons you should care about this movie.
It's an interesting one to discuss 30 years later. We have that, and then we have Hitch with Will Smith and Ava Mendes. That is gonna be the week after. So that is the plan.
Coming up is a long conversation I had with Chuck Klosterman over the weekend.
It goes in all the directions. It always goes with Chuck and I, sports, culture, all kinds of things. It's a really good one. So if you haven't heard me and Chuck do, we've been doing these shits since I got my podcast that he has painted in 2007 So I don't remember when he started coming on, but we do these a bunch. And this was a rollicking effort. So it is all coming up next. We're gonna take a break. Pearl Jam and then Chuck. This episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move and you see one. A no look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds and Viator. And save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms, credit card points subject to issuers, terms and conditions.
All right, Chuck Klosterman is here. We're recording this on a Friday, even though it's running on Sunday. So there's going to be some World Cup stuff this weekend. Hopefully nothing too crazy. Have you been into the World Cup, Chuck?

**Chuck Klosterman** (3:23)
Not, I mean, not really. I haven't watched much of it.

**Bill Simmons** (3:27)
It can never suck you in.

**Chuck Klosterman** (3:28)
You know, now, you don't even have to try to follow all things. Things just come to you. So of course, I hear nonstop conversation around it. I know that the games for the United States are supposed to be like a good times now, but the times have not worked out perfectly for me.
So I've seen here and there. I've seen some of it. Yeah.

**Bill Simmons** (3:48)
Do you feel like we're in a loop with US soccer where every four years everybody decides this is the time that it's, I feel like you and I have talked about this for 20 years, and it just becomes Groundhog Day every four years where they build our hopes up, and then people get disappointed, and then everyone says how soccer is taking off. I feel like we've been doing this since the 2000s.

**Chuck Klosterman** (4:10)
There is some similarities with the conversations, although I will say every time this happens, the conversations become a little more serious.
Like in the 90s or whatever, it would almost be people make more jokes about, people are less willing to joke about soccer now. In the same way, they're less willing to joke about everything.
What is, of course, I think to me always fascinating is then as soon as the US gets eliminated, there's the immediate conversation about why don't we dominate soccer? Why aren't we more dominant? What do we need to do? Do we need to have our best athletes not play football and basketball? Is it that we have to change youth sports? Is it the financial structure?