Pablo Torre: Bad Bunny & Bad Ballmer

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John welcomes the host of Pablo Torre Finds Out back to the show to discuss a pair of freak-outs at the intersection of sports, politics, and commerce: the Republican outrage over Bad Bunny being chosen to headline next year's Super Bowl halftime show, and the NBA's panic over the unfolding scandal, exposed by Pablo's exclusive reporting, involving billionaire LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and the team's superstar forward, Kawhi Leonard. Pablo explains why the NFL's increasing financial and cultural dominance make it impervious to partisan controversies; what drove Ballmer to engineer an egregious scheme to circumvent the NBA salary cap; and why the former Microsoft CEO's status as the league's richest owner (indeed, the richest in all of sports) presents a vexing quandary for Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA's investigation of Ballmergate. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Aloha and Namaste everyone and welcome to Impolitic with John Howman, a puck and
0:10.8	Odyssey joint featuring lively, in-depth conversations with the people who cruise the corridors
0:16.0	of power in America, sculpting and shaping the ebb and flow of our politics and culture.
0:22.5	One of the best things about the fall is the collision of pretty much every sport imaginable.
0:29.3	The only one that's really missing for me is tennis.
0:31.5	Everything else is happening.
0:33.4	You have the pro football.
0:35.0	You got the college football.
0:36.0	You got the start of the new NBA basketball season. You got the post football, you got the college football, you got the start of the new NBA basketball season.
0:38.6	You got the postseason in Major League Baseball.
0:42.5	You got so much going on in October.
0:45.8	And when sports come crashing together, sports culture also comes to the four.
0:53.0	And there has been a whole bunch of stuff in that realm that has been happening and worthy of comments.
0:58.0	Most notably last week, the freak out on the right when the NFL announced that its halftime performer at next year's Super Bowl was going to be Bad Bunny.
1:12.4	That story is so interesting and so compelling.
1:16.4	I thought I could do a whole episode just on that.
1:18.5	But you know what?
1:19.4	You know, the baseball season is coming.
1:21.4	They just have the best time of all year.
1:23.8	Baseball goes on for so long and I love that sport.
1:26.3	But man, October baseball is a special
1:27.7	thing. And there's all kinds of interesting kind of cultural and regional things happening in that
	...

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