We Finally Found the Star of the Worst (and Most Mysterious) Commercial in Sports History

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends

Sports

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It is an infamous basketball ad that keeps going viral as much for its cringe-worthiness as the mystery of its simple message: "sportsmanship." But correspondent Zach Schwartz embarked on a two-and-a-half-year quest to meet the anonymous actor who's gotten dunked on by Twitter for more than a decade. Now, he helps us untangle a web of links from March Madness to Madison Avenue; a Supreme Court justice to a secretive billionaire; and the Dalai Lama to Damian Lillard (who agreed to go on the record). And we learn the true meaning of "perseverance" in the process. For more Zach Schwartz, you can visit his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@zach_schwartz And special thanks to Goodnight, Texas for blessing this episode with their hit song, "The Railroad": https://youtu.be/1sp33WgVWMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
0:07.0	I touched it. I touched the ball before it went out, coach.
0:11.8	Right after this ad.
0:14.6	You're listening to Draft King's Network.
0:23.2	Ready to launch your business?
0:25.1	Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:28.3	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business
0:32.3	with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand.
0:35.9	Marketing tools that get your products out there.
0:38.2	Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go.
0:45.5	Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
1:04.4	I have this issue when I like go out and I talk to people in real life and they're like,
1:05.2	so what do you do?
1:08.1	And I have to explain what my show is.
1:14.4	And I've settled upon, I've settled upon Zach a summary, which is basically I use journalism to solve mysteries that are technically about sports. It's a good way to put it. It's a very good
1:20.2	way to put it. I only just recently started calling myself a, like, journalist because, like,
1:24.3	produce some stuff and then I, like, did social media and made memes for people for a long time. But the real, like, produce some stuff, and then I, like, did social media and made memes for people
1:29.4	for a long time. But the real, like, lead of your, of your bio now is Zach Schwartz, guy who is
1:36.4	truly unparalleled in a very specific obsession about the worst commercial in the history of sports.
1:46.3	My wife said, that's when I found that you're a real sports pervert,
1:50.6	is when you were like trying to find this guy and how obsessed you were with it.
1:55.2	Because it was very early on in our relationship, and I had to find him.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.