How a Video Game You’ve Never Played Changed the Biggest Sport on Earth

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends

Sports

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sports video games pride themselves on their simulation of reality. But the most popular ones that Americans know and love — Madden, FIFA, NBA 2K, MLB: The Show — cannot compete with an intensely specific and uniquely important game called Football Manager. Which got so good at simulating soccer that it converted a worldwide army of real-life players, coaches, and executives into genuine obsessives — changing the multi-billion dollar soccer industry itself. PTFO’s London correspondent, Kieran Morris, embarks on a global quest to explain the Football Manager revolution… and jeopardizes his impending marriage in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Pablo Torrey finds out. I am Pablo Torrey and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
0:06.0	It's a dangerous, dangerous, almost like narcotic feeling when you're really in the midst of it. It's more than a football game, far more than a football game.
0:15.9	Right after this ad.
0:18.7	You're listening to Draft Kings Network. When Cynthia came to TurboTax, she had just launched her new side gig, a true crime podcast.
0:34.0	I'm a first rate detective with a golden voice.
0:38.0	As her TurboTax expert, I made her second income count
0:41.0	by guaranteeing 100% accurate filing and her maximum refund.
0:45.6	What did she do with that refund? Find out next week.
0:50.2	Switch to Into a TurboTax and make your moves count.
0:53.0	See guarantee details at TurboTax.com slash guarantees.
0:56.0	Experts only available with Turbo Tax Live. So, Kiran Morris, my favorite sorts of episodes on this show are Passion Projects.
1:10.0	Until today, I've never been concerned that someone I'm about to talk to has too much enthusiasm for a subject.
1:18.0	So thank you for joining us and I guess preemptively I'm a little worried about you
1:23.6	I can't say thank you I whatever the opposite of that is is what I'm saying to you you brought a sickness back into my life
1:30.9	You brought years and years of hard-won sobriety crashing down as soon as it was the last thing you said to me in this studio months ago, hey, do you like football manager?
1:45.0	I just, but here we go.
1:55.0	Okay, so I didn't know how much I'd be ruining the life of Kirid Boris, our 27-year-old British correspondent, when I assigned him this story, the story about his
1:59.7	particular sickness, known as football manager.
2:04.0	And football manager, if you did not know, is this globally popular and uniquely important
2:09.7	and extraordinarily strange video game that I knew jack-shin about.
2:15.0	Because look, I'm not a soccer expert.
2:18.0	Guys, I love FIFA.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.