From the Clark Ford Studio in Oxford, Mississippi, MBW Digital proudly presents the Oxford Exxon podcast.

I'd say thanks for tuning in, but why am I going to give you a round of applause for something that you're supposed to do, to be frank?

And now, here are your hosts, Chase Palm.

That broadcast school is really paid off.

And Neil McCrady.

I deserve to be on TV.

Spin port and stuff. really paid off. And Neil McCrady. I deserve to be on TV. Ben Portnoy, Sports Business Journal.

Sorry, a little tongue-tied here this morning, kind enough to give us a little time with an MPW Digital Extra,

Ole Miss and South Carolina, 230 in Ben's neck of the woods, Columbia on Saturday.

I guess first off, let's talk serious before we talk sports, because sports are dumb and they're just here to entertain us. How's just

stuff there? I mean, was it hit by the weather and whatnot, road closures? Kind of what can people

expect when they get to town this weekend that are coming from Ole Miss? Yeah, Columbia is doing

all right. Obviously, I live down not too far from the river and got pretty high the other day and

hit some pretty crazy levels.

Didn't get too, too much flooding as that sort of water came down from Asheville.

But obviously, you know, thinking of those folks in Western North Carolina that are suffering

with a whole lot worse than anything in Columbia.

But yeah, definitely some crazy weather the last few weeks, but things should be mostly clear by the time folks get in for game day. What's it sort of been like for you this period of time? Sports Business Journal, you covered Mississippi State, covered South Carolina, we'll get to the Gamecocks a little bit in a second, but just a lot of travel, I would assume, a lot of different type of sourcing and whatnot. Though you were pretty heavy features and things and tried to meet and know as many people as you could when you were doing beat work. What's, I don't know if we're going to call it still infancy there at a more national level, but what's it sort of been like to this point? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I'm now almost right at one year on the national beat, and it's, you know, it's always the thing of like, you know, usually you're thinking about, like, okay, like, what are the things I have to pay attention to? And what are the couple of things that storylines I should be tracking? And, you know, these days it's more like, what don't I need to pay attention to? And I think that, uh, it makes it interesting. I think, you know, you go from covering, whether it was, you know, Mississippi State or South Carolina or whatever, like you're covering one school, um, you know, one ecosystem. Now it's sort of like, oh, great, if something happens at, you know, Hawaii at whatever time of the day it's you know I'm

having to jump on and deal so it's uh it's definitely a different dynamic it's certainly a crazy time

and I think too you just look at sort of the changing tides in college athletics right now like

I think you know most people would tell you like the average fan or Joe fan like has a better

perspective of just like you know the financial pieces of

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