FiredUp Network
Wednesday, July 24:Time Out KC
And you can find them wherever you find your podcast and on YouTube as well at Keegan, thanks for joining us here on time out. Welcome back in. Thank you Gerald. Always appreciate coming on. Yeah, and you know, this has been another big week and I want to let everybody know the best place to get this show and everything on the fired up network, download that true TV plus app. It's available wherever you get your apps and you can show it on any TV now. Google, Apple, Amazon, Roku, everything. It's on there. It's available. It's free, even on Chromecast. So, hey, we're into a little bit of an unusual time of the season, right now. You have the international break for the two soccer teams, the Kansas City current and sporting Kansas City. Obviously, the Olympics are coming up. We got a little bit of Olympic involvement from our two professional soccer teams. Coming off of the baseball all-star break. Media days have happened for the big 12 in the SEC, but the biggest news of the week is the national football league. The chief started full team training camp sessions open to the public on Sunday at Missouri Western University. I'm going to be going this week. What do you feel coming into this NFL season? The Chiefs are basically running it back again, trying to run it back to the Super Bowl. How do you feel this week going in and looking at the Chiefs? Yeah, I think the optimist side of me is always pumped for training camp because you get to see a lot of these guys that you just don't know a ton about. But the championship pedigree side of me goes, this is nothing really, I'm going to spend too much time invested in because it's summer training camp. But it is exciting because we're halfway through the summer and it is just two weeks away, almost 10 days away from the Hall of Fame game, which means NFL preseason is coming up wicked fast, which means the season is coming up. But it's still exciting to be in summer training camp. We've already seen plenty of tape come out of Mahomes connecting with some of his new receivers, and seeing some of the younger guys get some some time so it's still exciting to talk about training camp. But I think from the sports fan side of me says let's get into the different position battles and who are the guys that we really need to pay attention to because at surface level they're really not going all that hard against each other every day, but it is exciting to see them back out of the field so that means kickoff is very, very near. Yeah, I mean the things I'm interested in watching, because I mean here, be honest, I used to cover the NFL, I would go to every day of training camp when I covered the grounds. And you honestly can't pick up that much for the practice, you really can't. But it'll be interesting to see the kind of routes they're running if they're trying to run longer routes throughout the throughout the camp session, if Hollywood Brown, if Xavier worthy are running the fly patterns. And of course, the big question is, who's going to be your left tackle? Is it Juanier Morris, or are they going to acknowledge the bloodline and Kingsley is going to play left tackle I'm, I'm personally pushing for Kingsley. I'd say let's go with the, let's go with the potential. Let's go with the upside. I mean the guy was a left tackle in the big 12 passing league for BYU school that's synonymous with passing offense. I want to go with him. Yeah, I think that's the number one, I guess position battle anyone should be paying attention to it camp is that left tackle position, you spend a high draft pick on Kingsley, you spend a draft pick on one anymore last year. We know how high any read is on Kingsley and Brett Vichy fits all their measurables that they're looking for big, big body athletic long wingspan. I expect him to come out of training camp with that starting spot, but I'm sure we'll see two to three guys rotate in all week. I think with Juanier Morris, personally, I think they see him more as a swing tackle. I think they're going to try them a little bit at guard to see what he's capable of what his versatility is. But I think that's the biggest question going into training camp as far as on the field play is who's going to be that left tackle protecting your half a million dollar quarterback as we go on for a three-peat and as wild as it is to think that a starting rookie would be your starting left tackle in a championship run. We've seen what a cohesive offensive line can do with this team, but we know what Patrick Woham is capable of. So I think that's the number one position people are looking at and Kingsley's got all the size and makeup of that left tackle position. I think he's going to showcase that over the next couple weeks. And, you know, really, let's take a look back. I mean, this run, half we had a truly dominant left tackle. I mean, really have it. Orlando Brown Jr. was big. He took out space, but it wasn't particularly good. Yeah, actually, I think the season wasn't his best year. No, I mean, it's just kind of there. And Mahomes moves around enough. If you're just kind of there and you're not holding people, that's good enough. Yeah. It's all about that internal three that they've got up front. Yeah. And Kingsley just has to be good enough. He's good enough. And the receivers are better. That's going to make a huge difference because that lack of a wide receiver option, especially until late in the season when she rice turned it on. That really magnified the weakness in the offensive line more than anything. Yeah. You didn't have guys that could run around long enough or deep enough to get open. So Mahomes was ad-libbing even more. And once you start ad-libbing that quickly and that early on, the offensive lines. I wouldn't say they're toast, but there's a lot of they have to do to catch back up when your quarterback doesn't trust any of his guys around them to make the right place. So I think you definitely feel better, though, about this group coming in. You bring in an experienced high and veteran in Marquis Brown. You get Rashid Rice for another offseason. Obviously, we know the flashy excitement of Xavier Worthy, depending on his health. You know, he's already missed more training camp days and he's attended. Don't really feel too worried about that there, but we've already seen the deep ball coming into play with them. So we know this team is going to have weapons this year. And yeah, the offensive line. I think what we've seen with Andy Reed over the last several years in coach heck on the offensive line there. It's not always about the five best linemen at each position. It's about the five guys that can play together as a coherent group. So whether that's Juanier, whether that's Kingsley, I think at the end of it, it might not always be the guy who might be best suited for the spot, but it might be the guy that gels the best with the other guys in that line. And especially the guy that can pick up on all the terminology of that offensive line group. And if Kingsley can pick that up quicker, then I think he definitely has the edge over Juanier. But Juanier's also had a year in this group to where he might understand the terminology and be able to make those reads and communicate a little more effectively. But at the end of the day, I'm not worried about the position. I think either way will be fine. It's going to take it's going to take four or five, six weeks in the season. I think before we really go. All right, this. This offensive line is really gelling at that left tackle position, especially with the whatever questions we might still have about your own Taylor. If Taylor picks up his game a little bit better, then you're not too worried about that left tackle spot. Well, and Taylor was a lot better as the season dragged on. And I think he kind of got hung out to dry with the lining up off sides because he's not the only tackle that doesn't. I mean, he just does it. And yeah, I think that first week of the season, he definitely improved. Yeah, so I mean, he's, and he's doing the job, right? He's good enough. Now, if the wide receivers can step it up and I'm starting to feel like Rishi Rice is going to be able to play the whole year. It looks like they're not going to suspend him until the trial happens, and the trial is going to be continued until doomsday. I think you'll see it actually go to court. If they aren't able to settle it out sometime next summer. And if the road they're going, he's good. He could play the whole year. Which is great, because not only do you have that hot finish to the season, you get on the whole off season and now you have two other guys surrounding him that are equally capable. Now the posing defenses can't just go Travis Kelsey Rishi Rice. Now they've got three to four guys on the field at any given moment. Oh, and Patrick Mahomes that they have to have someone spy into try and slow down this often. So I'm really excited for the offense when the season gets going. I think there might be some hiccups early like there is when you get some new pieces, but when this team starts gelling, I mean they've got they've got you over the top. They've got you over the middle. They've got you underneath. And they've got a capable running back that can pick up first downs on third downs who can run ahead. And of course he got the best playmaker and all of football and passion were home. So good luck opposing defenses trying to figure out how to slow down Andy Reed's offense, especially when he has a whole off season to figure out how to get the ball in the players hands. Of his best playmakers and heck get areas Tony seeing some snaps at running back. Maybe maybe there's some some stuff up the sleeve there to work. So this is a very dynamic group of of talented wide receivers and you know I know we went into training camp last year. I think most fans thought that hey this could be a very deep wide receiver group you know seven eight guys competing there and turns out only one or two were really great or good. But I think again going into training camp this year I think that's a really deep group there's guys that are still on the fringe there. You know Niko Romeo and Justin Ross fighting for for spots they still got Cornell Powell kicking around from that draft class a couple years ago so deep class or deep deep group there. I think there's a lot of talent and I think it's it definitely is going to open up the playbook so much more this year that you've got three different types of receivers that all do three different things and can attack basically every inch of the field. Yeah and it seems like there's more of a clear delineation this year. Last year it was sort of the you know you see it with colleges right. Hey we got three starting quarterbacks no you don't have one. Yeah if you have three guys who could start that means you have nobody. Last year we kind of had six seven receivers and that meant you didn't have anybody because it got to the point where the only person my home's trusted really. Was what Justin Watson and when Hardman got here and kind of misplaced stress and Hardman because Hardman's better than more and good areas down here but he still drops the ball a lot. I mean he's just a guy so now you have Hollywood Brown Xavier worthy rush he arrives Justin Watson Hardman then everybody else that's a lot better position than they were in last year. Now hey let's talk about the major story that did come out of Chiefs camp already and it's been commented on by Mark Donovan the team president and by Clark Hunt as well the Chiefs want a stadium decision within six months. My opinion on that is advantage Kansas Kansas right now they're I got the soccer stadium behind me I got Children's Mercy Park behind me Missouri just got a red card they're playing a man down now. Kansas has their legislation passed the stadiums basically free for all intensive purposes it's 70% covered boom done the Chiefs aren't going to have to pay hardly anything. And this is history repeating itself because the reason why sporting park is at the legends Children's Mercy Park is because they wanted it to be in Kansas City they wanted it to be by the old banister mall. The city couldn't get out of their way and say yes to anything. The city of the county at that point it was mainly Mayor Funkhouser butchered it to such a point that sporting finally said okay hey it's enough we're done. We tried man we're taking free. And it seems like it's repeating itself doesn't it. Yeah I mean I know we sat here what four five six weeks ago talking about the same thing with the Royals and a little bit about the Chiefs but it does feel like we're in the same spot the Kansas City side you mean there's still nothing coming out politically speaking that suggests they're any closer than where they were six months ago or even three months ago when the renovation project was announced and the talks started to be started going. I think what I kind of took away from Clark Hunt's message there. I thought he was pretty concise he obviously didn't say a ton on it but he acknowledged hey we really love what we have but we also understand this is an ever changing game. And when we go visit other stadiums that are newer and nicer and some that are brand new. There's a lot of things we see that we should be implementing so I do feel like his, his heart maybe has warmed up to the idea of relocating in the area as far as moving the stadium and building a new one versus just renovating. I think I'm going to be in the same spot I was six, eight weeks ago it just doesn't feel like it's going to be Jackson County. And to me the only other logical location that fulfills everything Chiefs Kingdom desires is on that Kansas side out there where everything else is a rad legends. They've got all the infrastructure in place already they've got plenty of space to go in and build it. I think it's a matter of yeah if the Chiefs don't want to spend a ton of money and Clark Hunt says oh great I can save $800 million and okay cool let's move across state lines. It's still probably going to be an interesting process over the next six to eight weeks as more information comes out. Because you got to think the traditionalist in you still thinks Clark Hunt wants to stay where he is because again Lamar Hunt that legacy there. It is so difficult to want to move on from that and I mean I love Arrowhead I love the dynamic out there but we've said it over and over there is nothing else out there. So if you're coming in for the weekend for a game and you want to be entertained outside of the stadium there's just nothing there. And I'm sorry but gone are the days of the 1970s 1980s style tailgating football. Not that we don't still tailgate to a high level but just the average fan consumer nowadays just needs more stuff around to be to be more entertaining. So it definitely feels again just like with the Royals that Kansas is a lot more appealing than maybe it's ever been. And I know the Royals it's a whole other conversation there but if you're Clark Hunt and Mark Donovan you gotta at least entertain every offer that Kansas puts together. And if you really do want to stay in Kansas City then that's a ton of leverage to put the pressure on Jackson County and the Missouri legislation to figure out how we keep the one of the most prestigious franchises in the world right there on the Kansas City Missouri side. We know at the end of the day they're not going anywhere they're still going to be the Kansas City Chiefs will be here it's just a matter of who wants to pay the bill. Well and then let's take a look at because this is an election season so let's take a look at a little added layer of complexity to it which again Kansas has the advantage because their governor is in the middle of a term not going anywhere. And they already passed the legislation there's no public vote needed it's done in Missouri. Jackson County is now flailing away trying to throw another sales tax initiative up. Minus a plan from the Chiefs minus the Chiefs even being in on the negotiations and they can't get that done it's been blocked in committee on the governor's side. You have a term limited Mike Parsons who is a huge Chiefs fan and a chief season ticket holder. If Mike Parsons had a couple of years left in office I feel a lot more confident that this was going to get done. But you have Mike Kehoe who is the current lieutenant governor who's probably the only shot if he wins to actually push for something for the Chiefs. Then Jay Ashcroft Bill Eigold Mike Hannah and Crystal quite on the Democratic side. So you got you have no sitting leadership in the state. A huge part of every election commercially you hear is we're going to cut taxes we're not going to raise taxes while Missouri's initiative to keep the Chiefs is in fact a tax increase. So you're running into a huge headwind. I just don't see any way possible they're going to come up with a plan within six months. This really seems like hey we've already made our mind up. We like the idea of new and free. And I think for the city it's probably better anyways because now you're in the running for a WrestleMania you're in the running for an NCAA final four. You know maybe and they've talked about wanting a super ball. I don't know if a super ball is going to come to this climate because you have the potential of it being really cold but you know maybe I know one thing it's never going to come to arrow at. Yeah, and that's why I thought his comments were for for those that are in favor of a newer stadium or rebuild state whatever the case may be. I took some more positivity from that because it did sound like Clark Hunt was much more open mind he kept saying the over and over we're going to be open minded during this process. I think he's still leaning heavily to we want to stay right here. And figure out the best way to reduce stadium here and everything that needs to be done. But you definitely saw the wheel starting to turn that hey maybe we could do something bigger and better. Less expensive, newer and still be right here in the community just you know shift across the ways and I think that mindset's definitely opened up more and and you know he talked about you know the advantages of having a dome type stadium whether they build a dome or not. He recognized that hey there's a lot of major not just monetary advantages for the team. But there's so many other events that a community can host at a global level when you have a stadium that can be covered when it's 19 degrees with a negative 18 degree wind chill and it's raining or snowing so. I feel a lot more optimistic that a brand new arrowhead a new stadium altogether is going to happen. But again just kind of like with the Royals right now. Even though john Sherman has said hey we're going to do this and this is what we want. There still hasn't been a whole lot of progression as far as where's it going to be who's going to be a part of it and who's going to make the get the approval to get this done so it does kind of feel like we're still in a little bit of limbo. So this month's pressure six months or less pressure getting things done before election turnover makes me still think that Clark cons leaning to hey if we can stay here where we are. Let the Royals figure out how to get out of town or move across state lines or whatever and then we can stay here and redo this entire area I think that's still what he wants to have happen if he had it his way. I think the Royals they kind of stumbled backwards into this position of being in a position of strength. But if the Chiefs say hey we'll take the free stadium let's go in six months and the Royals are the major league team looking for a new contract and Missouri has lost the Chiefs the Rams. And now maybe you lose the Royals, Royals are in a pretty good position. And yeah Missouri hasn't passed legalised sports gambling yet. There's casinos in Clay County who really really wants the team passports gambling take the sports gambling revenue bonded out until the end of time. There you go. It just seems like a number. Yeah and they already own the property. The property is owned by members of the Royals ownership group and it's like six acres contiguous right off the downtown so I think Kansas City gets something but I don't think it's arrowhead. Yeah definitely yeah I know we said this weeks back now but it does feel more like if a team was to go to Kansas it is the Chiefs. Now let's talk about the Royals because while there's been drama off the field with the stadium. There's drama with the TV contracts which we talked about you can't watch them I mean it's like 15% of the Metro has access to the games on Valley Sports and if you get the Valley Sports app it's not set up to stream to most TVs. I mean true TV plus has better streaming capability to your major TV sources in Valley Sports and our biggest franchise is Glory Pro Wrestling. So it's something really really wrong with the basically baseball contract but the Royals have done a lot of things really really right as we're recording this right now. The Royals have tied their win total from last year. Third fastest team in modern formatted history to hit their win total from the previous year they did it in a hundred and one games. How are you feeling about the Royals now because they've been on fire since the break. They are probably one of the three to four hottest teams in baseball I think they're a team that most anybody in baseball could unanimously say if the playoff started today this is a team we have no desire to see the playoffs. They're doing it in multiple ways starting pitching has been fantastic the bullpen's gotten better. Poppy wait junior is the hottest player on the planet I mean he is just scorched earth right now. He's he's living up to the top five player baseball kind of status. Oh yeah. I think I don't remember the exact number off the top of my head now but I know the Royals like in the last 10 years the Royals usually finished top five in baseball as far as the best second half season. And that's like a continuous over 10 years they were the best second half season teams in baseball and it couldn't come at a better time because Cleveland's kind of starting to come back to earth some. They're starting pitching starting to taper off and you know two and a half weeks ago there was still a lot of frustration that maybe the Royals weren't quite there yet and they'd have to fight for a wild card because they were seven eight nine games out of first place in the division and now they're only four games and I think the divisions very much up for grabs you've got an MVP candidate you've got two potential side young candidates you've got an outfield that is picking up production. Hunter Renfro is bad and what I think three like over 300 in his last 15 games or so. M.J. Melendez until he went on the aisle was also heating up Kyle Isabelle is getting hits while also playing best center field defense there is in the league. Mike Helgar see us starting to warm up mass he's getting back out there and of course salvage doing his thing so this is a team that's kind of starting to fire and all cylinders and when you've got the pitching depth that they have in the rotation. You're never out of it, but as the summer heats up the royals are certainly heating up and I think nationally speaking they're also becoming one of the more exciting teams that national baseball audience is starting to pick up and pay attention to because Bobby and he's just a walking highlight reel almost goes for the cycle last night of course gets plunked and the heat back and forth there between the team but I mean you've got one of the five best players in the game right here in Kansas City. And I think that's putting us on a national level to where the national meet is going man the royals who by the way also MLB record the quickest turnaround I think this is there the team with the most wins right off of a hundred lost season to this point in the season two and MLB history so they're doing everything right we still got the trade deadline a couple couple of about a week and a half away. So still still moving to make some moves and I know they still want to make some moves but you got to feel really really good with where they're sitting not just in wild card contention right now with the spot but they are very much in the race for the division and with the way Cleveland starting to trend in Kansas City going this way. I mean we could be sitting here in a month ago and the royals are leading the division with the possibility to lock that up down the stretch. Yeah, I mean easily Chris Rubik is back now and he's looked good he's looked like he did last year before he got hurt. They did pick up Hunter Harvey from the Nationals quality set up man really hasn't done much though. Yeah he's only had that thing won out him so far appearance. This is the first time in team history that the royals are starting after the all-star break for now. I mean they're they're really clipping along like you said Kyle Isabel. He's getting it done because if you can play the defense he plays you can be the base runner the all around athlete he is. If he can hit 250 245 fine. One more one more contributor who do you want to see them trade for. So for those that have checked us out before Chris 10 penny one of my coz we've been talking about this for weeks back and forth and we've gone back and forth on this is it is it the outfield bat. The third baseman that's got power and Michael goes to second and him and Massey split time. I still think they obviously need one more bullpen piece. I think depending on who you can go after a seal it seems more likely that it's going to be an outfielder I don't see a third baseman right now that fits that description that is available and we can have enough pieces to move unless the giants want to just go ahead and give up on Matt Chapman. But I think it's going to be a corner outfield bat I mean Tommy fans name continuously pops up. You know I was joking with him the other night that he might as well just stay off the bus when the white socks were in town and come to the other dugout. But it definitely feels like it's probably going to be an outfield bat I think they they still need some depth there even if Melinda's was healthy. I don't think they have enough dependent at bats there to not just get hits but to drive some power and so I think that's still the move if I had to rank them though. I think I'd go bullpen a late in bullpen piece first just like every team is doing binge corner outfield bat and then if he's available an upgrade at third base and move my kill back to second. I saw I saw this floated out earlier and I don't think this was anywhere close to a legitimate trade idea. But a guy here in Kansas City sports talk put out a trade where the Royals just give their top three prospects you know Blake Mitchell Jack Kaggle on they just got and then Gavin Cross and they call up the angels and say hey give us Carlos S. and you know what we'll go ahead and take my trout off your hands too. Even though he's not going to play the rest of your ball go ahead and take my trout off your hands. I don't think anything that level is going to happen but if they can go out and get a Tommy fan or something similar to that heck I'd even call Oakland and see if we could get Brent Rooker back. He'd be a great corner outfield bat here. I think that's kind of what I'm looking at but if they don't make any moves at all. I feel pretty good. If Hunter Renfro keeps doing what he's doing and Melinda's comes back and keeps picking it up. I think there's enough pieces there as long as that bullpen can can hold hold its own for the next two months. Yeah and even better. They're actually potentially set up better now. Then they were looking long term in the World Series years because the World Series years you saw that window creeping closed when they made it. This team you only have 26 million obligated to payroll in 2026. I mean they have a hundred million dollars they can throw around and still be in the bottom third of payroll. Yeah that's a great position to be in. Yeah and I think Christian and I were talking about this too. A couple of weeks ago John Sherman had a sit down interview with Josh Furnier here of 6 on the systems orch radio and Royal's Insider. I took a lot of great things away from that. Sherman was asked a lot on trade deadlines coming up. What's the moves? What are you guys looking to do? He was asked about are you willing to give up prospects to go get the piece. One thing I took away from him he's like hey if I can I would rather take on extra payroll. Yeah with team control didn't have to just give up a bunch of prospects for a six month rental. And I don't know some people took that as well he doesn't think we're good enough to get the rental piece to win now. But I took that more of I would rather not just compete this season. I'd like to be good this season and continuously be geared the next two or three years instead of have a two year window. So I took that to be a good positive thing coming up. I don't know if that means anything this season that might be off season he's willing to take on a contract or spend some more money. But hey if there's a team that decides they want to unload some payroll here in the next couple of days and aren't asking for a ton back then yeah John Sherman pick up the phone. Hey how much money what kind of checked you need me to write great let's go get it done. Because we have a caliber team right now. He flat said I want to do what Cleveland did I want to be consistently good. Because he was a co-owner with the Guardians the Indians back then but he was a co-owner of that team that consistently was sitting at the top of the division with a mid-level payroll that the Royals could easily do. Especially when you consider when Kansas City teams when they draw. I mean they just do. Our teams when they're winning they draw fans so the Royals are going to have the revenue go up and my God they're going to have a better broadcasting deal as soon as this one's up. Maybe the bankruptcy coil bill about and it'll be next year. A team that's you know kind of Scotland right sporting Kansas City. They head into the leaks cup break because the Olympics are coming up. It was a good atmosphere. It was a great atmosphere. St. Louis city soccer club they traveled to Children's Mercy Park ended up being a one one draw of St. Louis probably had about 2000 supporters in a tight section. Really had a great feel great rival game and sporting has kind of circled the wagons. That was the end of a tough stretch they played a lot of games and rapid fire succession in the US Open Cup and MLS play. Still alive in the US Open Cup they got the semifinals coming up at the end of the month in August against the India 11 a second division team the USL team. So as many challenges a sporting had this year. They're still in contention to win one of the two big titles in US soccer. Are you okay with that considering the hired a new general manager and they've committed to spending more money on players. Well you know I'm not the big soccer phenomenon out here. But I will say when you look at the teams around you. Kansas City has a very strong soccer market a growing soccer market I think even when sporting case he struggles you still get a pretty solid draw out there. It's still an entertaining environment and one that is still exciting for the fan base out here so what how do you keep the fans entertained you got to bring in town. So if you're going to spend the money go get talent great that's going to keep people interested. Obviously that town has to show up on the field too but I think when you when you analyze a front office's decisions on how they construct a team. You know there are plenty of teams that look at it and say hey we're not good enough so we're just going to put something out there on the field for the next two three years until we can build that pipeline of town up. Then you've got teams are going hey we're not going to settle for mediocrity we need to win now. I'm a big proponent especially in sports of every season is a championship type desire season. You got to put a winning ball club out there any sport you play in because you're doing your fans a disservice if you're not so to me that means the ownership and front offices should be looking to spend money they should be looking to get better. Not just spend money just to spend it but spend money that's going to bring in talent that the fan base is going to be excited about and put together winning ball club on the field. We know at the end of the day winning cures all. But it's harder to win when you're not investing funds back into the payroll side of your of your team because that typically means you're not getting the top talent and I think, you know, national conversation on soccer the last six months or so as preparing for the World Cup and looking at the international scene is US men's soccer has not really been up to par. You know and it's they don't have the same talent level is it the culture in American soccer is not the same as it is overseas I don't know you know they're looking for trying to figure out their coaching tree there. But it's about getting the high quality talent on the field and you gotta you gotta go and find it you gotta spend spend the money to do so you don't just get a superstar that falls in your lap all the time. You know, obviously the Royals and chiefs have their guy for the next 10 15 years but you know soccer. It's it doesn't feel like in the soccer landscape you have the 10 to 12 names that you may have heard a decade ago in soccer so you gotta figure out how to put together winning ball club and sometimes that means spending the money to keep the fans interested. I think what helps them or will help them is the fact that this summer I think is one of the most important summers in Kansas City sports history. Just a lot of excitement in general Royals getting back into the playoffs hopefully chiefs going for a 3 P current opening season and they're the new stadium and they've been off to a really good season so far. The the international draw coming up here with with near the World Cup coming coming to the US side and having some of those matches here so I think they're in a good position to have a lot of eyeballs on them. It's just a matter of hey now that we've got this attention and we've got the focus here. We got to figure out how to get back to putting a high quality club out there that's going to compete at a high level night at night out so I think they're in a good position because I think all these teams around Kansas City right now feed off of each other and kind of push. Push the envelope with each other to really showcase that Kansas City can be in the likes of an LA New York type of market that we're not just this small market area that doesn't draw the same attention that the big cities kid. Now I agree with that and sporting is in a good position because they have the flexibility to much like the Royals are committed out long term. Sporting has the ability to turn over 18 players off their roster within. So yeah it's it's up to them they can definitely make it work and we're going to get a good look you mentioned the US national team. We're going to get to see the first game for the US national team after the Copa America tournament which they lost here at Arrowhead. They're going to be playing Canada who surprisingly finished better in the Copa than the US at Children's Mercy Park on September 7. That's going to be the first game for this new regime of the US team and we'll see if it's the talent or the coach because they're going to try different coach because in any sport it's a lot easier to replace the coach that it is to replace all the players. Coach is always the first one to get let go easiest one to go right you mentioned the Kansas City current. They hit on a couple of things that you said every season is an opportunity for a championship and you need to have the players who can get it done. They lost to Orlando. They're sitting Orlando and the current have been dominating the NWSL lost to Orlando in their last game to one at CPK Stadium. You could argue that the referees lost control the game but hey I mean you still have to win so they got back on it took on Houston in their summer tournament and here's how they started the game this is less than a minute into the game. Cup game like this. Serves in a dangerous cross and it's touch home. Cooper puts Kansas City on the board just seconds into this match. 55 seconds into the match Michelle Cooper a high draft pick for the Kansas City current last year. She now has the two fastest goals in team history 22 seconds and 55 seconds. The assist came from Tamua Chawinga who is leading the league in scoring and she was your free agent acquisition and they actually did the double down when it's an opportunity to win because the one week spot on the team. They're missing Gabrielle Robinson who was the center defender. She got torn ACL just when she was really playing well bringing the ball up out of the back and kind of locked down defense. Well they traded and picked up Alana Cook who's a two time nominee for NWSL Defender of the Year and they got Alana Cook for the gift that always fits cash. That's $124,000 of allocation money could be up to 140,000. So you get a two time all star for cash. And that fills your needs so they went ahead and took advantage of the trading deadline for the season and the NWSL and added to really their only weakness on the team. That's how you got you got to identify your weakness, figure out the hole that that's in the roster and what's the immediate fix. It's nice when you don't have to give up a ton I mean I know it's money is still money. But when a ball club only has to give up cash considerations for a player that can make an immediate impact that's always a good thing. It's a big league that the TV is up 95% social media is up 94% apparel sales up 300%. You have a stadium that's got to sell out for every game of the year and that's guaranteed because it's season tickets. 125,000 to fill their only week spot. Let's go. You'll make it easy. Yeah, it'd be easy to just sit back and say, Hey, man, we're good. Let's go. We lost one game. It was to the best team in the late. Who cares. We're fine. But they're to use the soccer cliche. They're playing on the front foot. They're pushing it forward. I think that's really impressive. That's what you want to see from your teams. Yeah, that again, that's what I was saying. I feel as an owner of a sports team, if you're in that position, if you're ever lucky enough to own a sports team ever in your lifetime, it is your sole responsibility. I don't care how much money the club makes for you. Your responsibilities to put a winning team on the field on the court, whatever it is, night at night out because your fans don't care if you lose. If you lose and they're not going to show up and not going to spend the money on the merch, they're not going to be coming out to the stadium and investing their time there. They might come out for entertainment here and there. But if you have a winning ball club and you show that you're willing to invest in it, not only is your own fan base going to grow locally, but you're going to pick up the attention nationwide. And, and hopefully someday you can can compete at the national level to where your fan base isn't just located around you locally. But that's, I think what's the great thing about Kansas City right now is you look at all these, these different sports teams around the area. And it feels like all of them ownership groups front offices are all about, we got to win. We got to be really good. We have to compete at the highest level and we're going to prove that through the actions of what we're talking about here. Adding to the team, making your facilities better, going out and finding top to your talent, quality coaching and developing players, you do all those things in Kansas City is going to be one of the premier sports cities in America. I think they already are. And, you know, we have the NWSL championship coming here. So, good shot that the current can play the championship game in their stadium. That would be pretty cool. That would be pretty cool. Yeah, that would be neat. Let's go ahead to weekly champions. We'll hear from our friend, LaWara Loca, Taya Valkyrie talking about our sister channel wrestling spotlight negative wrestling spotlight presents the weekly champion. Hey, what's up, guys? This is Taya Valkyrie LaWara Loca and you are watching wrestling spotlight. Okay, got the title belt here, the wrestling spotlight title. Keegan, who's your champion of the week? Oh, it's obviously got to be Bobby with Junior. I mean, he is just, again, on quite a tear, batting over 800 since he all-star break. He is working into the top five in every statistical category in baseball. You know, the power starting to pick back up there. He's putting the team on his back night in the night out. He's a joy to watch and he is getting me fired up for baseball. So, it's got to be Bobby with Junior, what he's doing on the field right now. That's a good one. It's hard to argue that, but I got to fix it. I mean, I don't know if anybody has had a better week in their career, what career than what he's having right now. Got him. He's hitting 800 since he all-star break. I'm going to go with a guy who's also lighting it up and I think vastly overachieving what we thought he would do. And we thought he would be good. Seth Lugo, complete game victory in an era where complete games just don't happen. I mean, the big talk going into the all-star game was that the Pirates pulled Paul Skeens in the seventh inning when he was thrown in no hitter. Seth Lugo gets the complete game. He's leading the league and wins. I don't think anyone thought when they signed Seth Lugo, okay, they got the Cy Young Award winner, but they may well have him. Yeah, definitely. I think you hoped that when you came in the year, he'd be a third or four starter and he's one of the best starters in all of baseball. And he was what? One wild little pitch off of Nicki Lopez away from a complete game shutout, too. Yeah. And then add in, he's helped take that pressure off because Cole Reggens doesn't have to be perfect now. Brady Singer doesn't have to be perfect. And Michael Waka, when he's doing what Michael Waka does, he's fine. He's good. So now you have four solid starters that are going out there. And that's such a huge key to turning around the team. It's so night and day different because we were hearing all this talk about how, hey, you're going to have openers and starting pitching isn't all that important anymore. Well, if you want to find the mystery to what turned the royals around, you don't have to look a whole lot further than. Yeah, Seth Lugo, Cole Reggens, Michael Waka, Brady Singer, and Alec Marsh, because they're getting it done. But weekly champion for me to Seth Lugo, Keegan, to Bobby Wood Jr., both the worthy champion contenders. And we'll wrap it up here for this week on Time Out Kansas City. Stay tuned to the fired up network for more sports and entertainment and Keegan, where can people find you in the KCC sports facility? Yeah, you can check out our podcast KCC Sports Authority over on YouTube at KCCSA POD. You can also hit us up on any of our social media. We have weekly episodes on everything around the Kansas City sports scene, as well as Kansas JHOC. Yeah, go check us out. You can also hit me up on Twitter at Keeganator_11. Yeah, and we'll come back here real soon in the next couple of weeks with a preview of College Football because we didn't even mention Missouri, Kansas, and K-State, all three looking like they're going to have good years. Download that TrueTV Plus app to follow us and stay tuned for more right here in the fired up network for Time Out Kansas City. I'm Gerald Bentley. Thanks.