House of Strauss

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com A hearty welcome to American Soccer Man Alexi Lalas. He’s sometimes discussed as “controversial” in sports media, but is he? We get into how and why he expresses his views, how the culture is shifting, and how athletes are different from us. We also look back at his and Carli Lloyd’s viral 2023 World Cup commentar...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Wosny Lambre wears many hats and today we accidentally went heavy on politics. For that I apologize, given that sports > politics, but I did throughly enjoy the conversation (which even included some spirited arguing). The caveat is this is just two guys shooting from the hip on controversial matters. We are not e...

Nate Jones is one of the most thoughtful commentators on all things NBA. For some insane reason, he still tweets his honest thoughts. We get into those, starting with the end of Turner’s Inside the NBA, transitioning to ESPN’s recent NBA issues and fanning out to Jones’ perspective on sharing normie political tendencies on Twitter/X. House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive n...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com We are joined by Mike Pesca, host of The Gist, and (much to his great shame), House of Strauss super fan. On today’s pod we unpack the various overlapping dramas surrounding Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s commencement speech. The NFL has disavowed Butker’s words. But has “the NFL” really disavowed his words? Topi...

Grant Cohn is a) The originator of the now multimillion dollar media ecosystem known as “49ers Youtube” b) Most prolific critic of 49er coach Kyle Shanahan and, now, c) In a beef with Athletic reporter David Lombardi. We start with that last part, because it’s an intriguing entry point. Why are Cohn and Lombardi openly fighting? Does Grant represent the gate crashing threat of New Media? Or is Lom...

Ben Kaplan and Danny Parkins are best friends and co-creators of this particular passion project . It turns out that the ranks of NBA decision makers and coaches are replete with guys who cut their teeth in obscure Division 3 college programs. The sheer amount of influence out of D3 is pretty incredible, as the book chronicles and conveys. So why has this happened? How come the lowest level of col...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Ryan, our nation’s preeminent sports media critic, is here to discuss reports that NBC wishes to offer the NBA a tremendous amount of money . What does this mean, other than that Adam Silver is our lord and savior? Topics… * Can Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT) possibly come up with a competing offer? * What’s with WB...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Ace New York politics reporter, all around culture writer and crazed baseball fan Ross Barkan objected to my “ Is Baseball Dying? ” article. Naturally I had him here to say his piece and boy did we hit on a range of other topics. * Contra conventional wisdom, is baseball more international than basketball? * Why m...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Joe is really smart about the sports + business overlap, as evidenced by his viral story about Glen Taylor thwarting his own sale of the Timberwolves to the ARod + Lore duo. We got deep into that deeply reported article and hit other topics of interest, such as… * The Pat McAfee + Bill Belichick combo * Robert Kra...

Jason Timpf of Hoops Tonight on the Volume Network seemingly appeared out of nowhere, thriving at the top of NBA media. Of course, like many an “overnight success story,” his rise was many years in the making. This was a great conversation wherein we discussed, among other things… * How Jason used 2020 era Twitter Spaces as the battering ram to break into media * Why Jason, as the counterpoint to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Prominent foreign policy writer Eli Lake, currently posting at The Free Press , dropped by HoS to talk basketball. I, of course, wanted to discuss Lake’s views on politics, culture and the ever fraught topic of Israel. I’m not sure which of us won the battle for topic allocation, but I thoroughly enjoyed the conve...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com We’ve got Andrew Bogut and Mike “Pro” Procopio of the Rogue Bogues podcast to discuss the eliminated and possibly dead Golden State Warriors dynasty. Obviously we talked about a lot of other subjects with these first grade ballbusters. Topics include but aren’t limited to… * The Warriors. What should they do? * Dr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Top flight Audio Man Spike Eskin is here to discuss the newest NBA podcast hits. Spike’s gotten a lot of mileage out of humorously critiquing LeBron and JJ Redick’s “ Mind the Game ” pod, but perhaps he should be focusing more of his energy on Michael Porter Jr.’s “ Curious Mike ” product? Topics discussed: * Is S...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Boy do we have a loaded topic docket with America’s preeminent sports media critic and New York Post newsbreaker Ryan Glasspiegel . Honestly discussed fraught topics abound. As Ryan would frame this rundown : * All things Caitlin Clark (ratings, will it translate to WNBA, the backlash from women's basketball playe...

Sports announcers and 49ers Youtuber Guy Haberman had vocal cord surgery and now sounds like Patty + Selma. I find his current predicament fascinating. He insists the subject of announcer voice issues isn’t interesting. We start talking 49ers around the 52 minute mark, for people who are into that sort of thing. Topics include: * What does a vocal cord surgery do for a broadcaster? * Which sports...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Our friend Amin Elhassan went negatively viral with his jump shot , but it’s only made him stronger. Many a fraught topic discussed in this one, including whether it’s easier to say things now vs. the recent past. Subjects include but aren’t limited to… * Amin’s crazy co-workers argued that Michael Jordan lacked c...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com In the Elon X era, no article ever goes viral. At least that’s what I used to think . But now, of late, articles in New York Magazine and The Cut have broken through as a sort of rage bait. To assess what’s going on, we’ve called in honest and trenchant culture writer Kat Rosenfield. Topics include but aren’t limi...

If you’re an NBA fan you know who Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner are, beyond being recent guests on House of Strauss. In this episode, I used my “stupid questions” approach to ask these current media members about their old jobs. The answers? Well, they were anything but stupid. Enjoy… House of Strauss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a...

Joe covers sports, business and often how the two intertwine . He’s been all over the sports + gambling topic, most recently with his viral observation on live sports betting integration getting added into NBA League Pass . Basically, Joe discusses all my favorite topics, so of course we had a great conversation. Topics include but aren’t limited to… * How America and Europe are on opposite timeli...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com Thrilled to have Chris Vernon on because I’ve long been curious about his career as an NBA + overall sports podcaster . The best way I can summarize Verno for those who do not know: Think if Sam Kinison was really into the Memphis Grizzlies. Topics include but are not limited to… * Vernon used to hilariously CRUSH...

Incidentally, Subscribe to my channel if you want the occasional video/Youtube experience for non paywalled articles… Tom Haberstroh has written an explosive article in The Finder about just how improbable the NBA’s post All-Star break scoring drought is. I think it’s impossible to look at these numbers and reach any conclusion other than that the NBA directed referees to call games differently. B...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com The preeminent sports media critic is here, right after breaking sports media news . We discuss, in notes cribbed from his X feed : * Ryan’s Pat McAfee vs. Stephen A. Smith story * Shannon Sharpe, digital juggernaut * The media lets it slide that Mark Cuban rips Trump nonstop yet sold his baby to partner with stat...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com I’m not sure how to describe this free flowing conversation with geneticist and writer Razib Khan, which was to be expected since Zeeb’s one of the most brilliant/idiosyncratic people I’ve ever met. Naturally, this talk is all over the place after beginning with, and I’m not sure there’s another way to describe th...

Larry Krueger, proprietor of The Krueg Show , and former Bay Area radio mainstay, might know a thing or two about succeeding locally. A couple years ago he was pushed out of his role at KNBR, at which point he started building his 49ers-centric Youtube channel. It’s been a big success, currently at over 40,000 subscribers and rapidly gaining. As a fan of his channel, I wanted insight into the come...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.com What have I been doing with my life, waiting this long to have Frank Isola on? Frank’s a famously bold New York Knicks beat writer turned multi media star. You can find him on ESPN and Sirius radio, talking NBA and a range of other subjects. Frank comes from the era (and region) where media was confrontational. Th...