- [Narrator] Through their housing fund, Amazon is creating and preserving affordable homes with 99-year affordability commitments.

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(bright music) - [Presenter] And now, the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, featuring journalists and newsmakers from around the country in conversation about the issues making headlines.

Thank you for joining us for The Newsfeed from Cascade PBS with Kenny Mayne, moderated by Paris Jackson.

Before we begin, a special thank you to our members.

We'd also like to thank our premiere event sponsors, Amazon and HX Expeditions, our founding sponsor, the Kerry & Linda Killinger Foundation, and our host venue, The Picklr.

(audience applauds) - Welcome, everybody, to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival.

I'm Paris Jackson, joined by my guest Kenny Mayne.

And it's good to have you here, Kenny.

- Yeah, it's a free trip to Seattle.

(audience laughs) - [Paris] Free ticket.

- I said yes.

I was a pay nothing, but, we'll- - I hope it was first class.

- They took care of me.

And so I live, Connecticut now most of the time, here as much as I can, my heart is here, so it was great.

Got see my daughter, you know, got to do some fun things.

I'm doing a fun thing right now.

- Absolutely, we wanna get right into it because you, as you said, you are mostly in Connecticut, but you were born and raised right here, Kent, Washington.

That's your home, native home.

Let's talk about what it's like to see the transformation growing up in Kent and seeing how the sports landscape has really evolved over all these decades.

- Yeah, my friend Chris Cashman always says, Kent is where people from Seattle store their things.

(audience laughs) So, but we're proud of it.

Star Lake, anybody?

South 272.

So I was born in Tacoma, as were you.

- [Paris] Same.

- Oh, I mean, I'm so old, you know, God bless Lenny Wilkens, rest in peace, like I grew up watching him, he was my favorite player.

- [Paris] Yeah.

- My dad used to work at United at the airport and he'd make friends with the different travelers.

So we would drive some of the NBA officials to the game.

They'd save their taxi money, we'd get free tickets.

So I've been going to that forever.

And obviously we can't go to those games anymore, can we?

Although we have Storm, of course, but yeah.

- And we're gonna get to that because the thing is, people know you from ESPN, 27-year career run, but you could have been Kenny Mayne of PBS.

Tell us about your journey starting out with PBS.

- Yeah, well, I went to, first I walked on at Washington, then I walked off, then I went ... (Paris laughs) (audience laughs) I wasn't gonna beat out Warren Moon that year, okay?

Or Tom Flick for that matter And I went to Wenatchee Junior College, and then I went to UNLV.

I actually had a tryout with the Seahawks.

I signed outta college, but I failed the physical.

That's why my shoe's half on, half off.

I was gonna wear flip flops, and they said, no, look, more professional.

But now my shoe is half off so what did it matter ultimately?

- And we're gonna get into a little bit more of what you're doing about your foundation.

- Oh yeah.

But right before that, I was finishing at UNLV, broadcasting, political science, journalism, I was gonna be all serious.

I wanted to work for PBS, I didn't wanna do what I ended up doing.

It just kind of happened.

And I worked for the PBS station, KLVX, Lee Winston.

You know, the moderator of the three o'clock Sunday show that you all loyal viewers watch wherever you live.

- Down in Vegas.

- And I would do the setup story.

Not very good by the way.

Like if we looked at that now, it would be very funny to play it back.

- We all gotta start somewhere.

- Oh yeah.

I mean, we did one on prostitution, and allegedly she was a prostitute.

And it looked like she was mad at us 'cause I was wearing, I thought I was morally safe, I'm wearing like a wireless mic out there.

- [Paris] What?

- We abandoned our tripod on the Las Vegas strip, got in the car and left and then we had to explain that.

But we feared for our lives, okay?

So we weren't doing the most heroic journalism at the time, but it got better.

- But fast forward to now, and today we're gonna really get into the landscape of the Seattle sports market.

And one thing that when we talk about the Seattle sports market, it's evolved over the years, and you've seen it firsthand as being an analyst on ESPN.

Kind of take us back to the inception in terms of how we got to the behemoth of a city that really is one of the best towns, one of the best cities to play in.

- For sure.

And so many of the people in the NBA always talk about how they missed that Northwest trip, that's, and Vancouver for that matter.

But yeah, it just grew and grew.

It's an attractive place.

I mean, but you think of our losses too.

I'm so old I watched the Seattle Pilots play at Sick's Stadium.

They lasted one year.

Tommy Harper was my favorite player, led the American League in Stolen Bases with 73.

I know that's a little nerdy, but I have that fact.

And they moved to Milwaukee, right?

They're the Brewers.

We almost lost the Seahawks, right?

Mr.

Allen saved the day.

And so we've had gains and losses all along the way, including losing the Sonics.

But you know, again, it's an attractive city, it's a growing city, there's new buildings going up every five minutes.

I wish they'd finished the road construction to wrap it up.

Let's just go hard on a weekend- - Wish that.

- And really be diligent about it and then let's just drive places.

- Talking about the Seahawks and your relationship, 'cause we're gonna get to the Sonics of course, tell us about some of those highlights in your career and the things that you were able to do with players.

- Oh man, I used to do like a pretend football story for NFL Countdown.

So we would either take a real story or just make one up and then it was like our little two-minute fictional thing that fit into the show somehow.

Bill Parcells did not approve.

He would just sit there like this, like blasphemy, like how dare you joke about football?

Our favorite one, and Mike Holmgren was great, he was such a good guy, still is such a good guy.

I got to introduce him for, he and his wife won the Humanitarian Award at the Seattle Sports Star just in March.

We had a pretend Seahawk named Kim Il Zong, and he's like a five foot eight Korean guy who worked at ESPN named Max Kim, just great guy as a friend.

I said, would you wanna pretend to be a Seahawk player?

And he's, I will go to Seattle, yes.

So we did a fake press conference.

They signed him for $1 billion because they want to win now.

And he could play all 22 positions.

Then each year, we did a new iteration of the story where now they hate him, he can't play anything.

He gets into yacht sales during the 2008 recession that was- - [Paris] Oh, my goodness.

- Yeah, so we got to do that when you asked what were my experiences.

- You've done a lot.

- And we did some real stuff, I did some real stuff.

You know, the Super Bowls.

I got to interview Stevie Wonder before the one in Detroit 'cause he opened before the game.

- [Paris] Okay.

- So that was- - One thing that I'm thinking about, and of course a lot of us in town are trying to, or there's the anticipation, one of the headlines is, who is going to own the Seahawks?

You know, they're coming off a Super Bowl win, the roster is stacked.

But at this point, you know, the reports are by the end of summer we could hear about new ownership.

What are you thinking how this is gonna shake out?

- I hope it's a good person, that's what I hope.

- [Paris] Yes.

- Not all the billionaires are good people.

(audience laughs) Some of them are.

I hope they keep going where they're going, right?

I mean, they got such momentum.

- [Paris] Yeah.

- And Mr.

Allen's sister took care of the team so well.

Sell it back to the town.

Why don't we just own it like Green Bay does, you know?

- [Paris] Hey.

- We could go that way.

- I hope it goes in this, we got great respect for Coach Mike, players love him.

You know, I went to their practice the other day.

The efficiency, the way they move, the energy of that place is so good and there's no reason they can't come back and have another good, it's really hard to repeat but they're gonna be in the me again for sure.

- Just heading on and really digging into, you know, we talk about the Hawks but we can't forget about this team that has left us for about two decades now, and we're hoping to get them back, and that's the Sonics.

A lot of conversation around potential ownership.

And one group that's kind of leading conversation right here is the Kraken ownership team led by Samantha Holloway.

And just this week, Melinda French Gates was announced to be joining as a minority.

- I approve.

- Owner.

(audience laughs) - I approve that scenario.

- [Paris] In that investment group.

- Remember when I was saying good people?

Like we want good people.

So I mean, the original sin was selling it to people who don't live here because they might not keep the team here.

I used to go into Starbucks after it happened and I'd say, gimme two shots and the tears of Gus Williams.

- [Paris] Oh, Lord.

- And my daughter, who was only like eight or nine, she knew what I was up to but she like corrected me, like Dad, girl's like a 15-year-old barista.

She doesn't even know who Gus Williams is.

Gus Williams, rest in peace, by the way as well.

We had a lot of loss recently, Slick Watts as well.

- [Paris] Yeah- - But so I modified it and just didn't go.

Just to feel the pain of I want coffee but it'll feel like I did something for the town.

I think that that's a great ownership group that you just proposed, and I've heard the same thing.

I think I'm a little cynical at this point.

Like, let me know when it happens 'cause they keep teasing us with it, you know?

I think it makes sense.

The problem allegedly was we didn't have a good enough gym, right?

- Well, we have Climate Pledge now.

- So we did okay with this Climate Pledge.

And I love how it's still on the same footprint, right?

So I used to go to those games.

This is before, you know, one parent would drop you off, the other parent picks you up at 11 on Mercer.

We're a bunch of 12-year-olds, got five hours for free.

I got sold out of the Lenny Wilkins return game.

Anybody remember?

He got traded then we all went to root for him when Cleveland came to play.

But I threw a T-shirt off the Space Needle, that was my political message that day.

I don't know if I conveyed it perfectly.

But Lenny said that night was, other than winning the title in '79, that was the highlight of his career.

The love he felt from the city cheering for a guy from another team 'cause, no offense to Butch Beard, but you know we were all sad that our best guy left.

But again, he then comes back as the coach, turns the team around, they lose to the Bullets, called the Bullets at the time, and then we beat them the next year.

And that was so fun, I'm sorry.

I was in Vegas just then, just finished Spring Ball.

All my receivers and running backs, you know, they were from Inglewood and Crenshaw and- - [Paris] Yeah.

- And I'm like, we beat you guys on the way and we beat the Bullets.

So yeah, that was a thrill.

- And I'm thinking just speaking of Lenny Wilkens, we have that statue just right outside of Climate Pledge.

And one component of this deal with the NBA is the media deal.

And that's a component that a lot of people do not know about because it is integral to, if this actual ownership shakes out and the owners, NBA owners approve, how important is a media deal?

Because that seems like to be a point of contention.

- Yeah, money always comes up in these deals.

(audience laughs) If they get enough money for the buy-in, they're all gonna be happy.

I think everybody will celebrate that we now have restored basketball here, probably Las Vegas might be the other one.

And there's enough talent, you know?

- Yeah.

- There's worldwide talent now it's, you hear guys in the draft, like never heard of the guy, but he played at, you know, Under Armour Academy or something, whatever.

You know, like there's other ways, there's Europeans.

I mean look what Wemby is doing for San Antonio.

So there's enough players to fill a league that's wider and there'll be some kind of expansion draft.

But yeah, you gotta buy your way in, for sure.

- When we talk about the evolution of women's sports, this is also the city where we've seen in the last couple of decades- - [Kenny] Sure.

- Really take off.

From the Sue Birds to the Megan Rapinoes.

And when we are looking kind of at that in terms of this city being what it is, how have you seen it from the analyst side to now?

- I think it's just grown and grown, not just Seattle, but nationally.

You know, when I was in high school, how many women's sports or girls sports, right?

It wasn't even a full roster.

- [Paris] Right.

- And through time, you know, partly Title IX, and partly people just like, it's a pretty good thing, it's a healthy thing, it's team building, you know.

It gives you mentors to follow, it gives you confidence, all sorts of reasons why athletics are good.

And it's just grown in that respect.

But, you know, we got, like you said, you listed it all.

We also got rugby, we got a lot of good women's sports.

- The Torrent.

- How about the University of Washington women, the Western Washington women, you know?

All over.

So yeah, it's grown.

And the leadership, those models you talked about Rapinoe and Sue, like- - [Paris] Yep.

- I loved being there for Sue's last season.

I went to a bunch of those games, I went to one in Vegas as well.

She's just a sweetheart, a great player and just a perfect model, you know, and she's still doing it, right?

- And the thing is, you know, the Storm have four championships, one of the winningest sports leagues here in the town.

Got some new female players on the roster for the Storm.

But one thing is people are wondering, like, do they still have it to bring another chip home?

- Why not?

I mean, they've been competitive a whole bunch of years.

The fall-off happens in all pro sports.

NFL's a perfect example.

You can be bad one year and win the damn thing the next year.

So I mean, it's the same thing with women's sports.

And again, having that base, what a great place to go watch anything.

I saw Springsteen there, I've seen the Kraken there.

- Of course.

- We left them out.

And the women's sports there as well.

So it's a perfect venue.

And they've treated it just right so it looks like the old Coliseum to some extent.

And then it's bigger.

They got a garden, they have more plants than we got.

(audience laughs) - It's lush inside.

Let's talk about the media landscape in terms of right here in 2026 where, what?

- [Kenny] '26.

- 2026, '26, to how things used to be.

There are so many options.

If someone wants to watch streaming for, you know, NBA games that they wanna look at their apps.

There's gambling option that is now out there.

- There's also the note about if you gamble too much, here's a phone number, we got that as well.

- That too.

- I'm not without sin.

I did it after left ESPN, I did a thing with Caesars with the Mannings and Trey Wingo, who some of you think I am.

(Paris laughs) (audience laughs) We did some of that, just did silly little videos and whatnot as content for what they're- - [Paris] Yeah.

- But yeah, you're right.

And it's sort of troublesome 'cause sometimes you're trying to watch something, and Gretchen, what is our Hulu 2 password?

You know, like, it gets cumbersome.

- You gotta write it down.

- I need a media manager to come and audit what the hell I even signed up for.

Like we're paying full retail across the board plus 20 new apps.

But I mean, that's just the landscape, that's what it is, it's different.

In my day, there were three channels on PBS, Channel 13 came in most of the time.

That was it.

And then you had that other weird thing, UF, whatever that was, yeah.

But you could change the tint and the hue.

You remember the, do you anything about that?

- A little bit.

- Yeah.

- I remember a little bit.

I remember the bunny ears.

- Indeed.

I mean, just think of somebody who used to work at one of the big networks and they used to get a third of the country or half the country 'cause there were no other choices, right?

- [Paris] Yeah.

- You know, read a book.

But- - But now there's a plethora, too many options.

- Yeah.

It's almost too much.

Some of it is kind of white noise, some of it's really good.

Some of television's better than it's ever been.

When you look at some of those series that you can see on the different platforms, there's a ton of talent out there, now there's more places to expose it.

But as a consumer, you're like, you know, what?

I just kind of stick with what I, I'm still listening to Talking Book, Stevie Wonder, 1972, okay??

So, I mean, I'll listen to new music, but I stick with what I already know is good too.

And it's the same way for who you follow, right?

You end up on whether, I kind of quit Twitter, Elon Musk ruined it.

I mostly do Blue Sky, Threads.

Nobody really followed me over, I don't care.

It's a boutique, it's a boutique.

And some Instagram, show pictures of my dog, and promote whatever things that I'm doing.

- You do a lot.

And one thing that we wanna talk about and get into is you had this long career at ESPN, almost 30 years.

Take us back 'cause a lot of people just, that's how they know you, that's how they were introduced to you.

What are some of those highlights?

- Oh, all-timer highlight is getting Stevie Wonder to say, "I can't play at the All-Star game, I have a high ankle sprain."

(audience laughs) (Paris laughs) And then when I did it, like when we unveiled it, I screwed up.

I wanted it to be so good but the timing of when I was to introduce it wasn't time for satire, but he still did the line.

Oh, man, getting there was most of the trip, right?

Because in school, like I said, I took journalism and political science.

I wanted to be, hell, working for Frontline or something like that, right?

And when I got to Channel 11, I first started as kind of a, they call it a PA now.

But you know, a gopher, you just do that, right?

- [Paris] Yeah.

- And I finally got my chance to be on the air.

And we added a weekend show.

At the time if there's news on the weekends, it's news to us, that was our motto.

Channel 11, hour before the rest, 10 o'clock news.

Winnie Mann, Charles Johnson, Dave Torcia with the weather.

And I was this upcoming, you know, trying to be a news guy.

And then they added the weekend show and Jack Eddy's like, you played football, you're doing sports.

And that's how I got into doing sports.

- Yeah.

- I soon realized going to Seahawk games and Husky Games and Mariners and whatnot, Sonics, was more fun than like a city council meeting on sludge waste.

(audience laughs) (Paris laughs) And so I kind of, okay, I'll be political how I want to be, but I'll, you know, still watch the news and pay attention to what's going on but sports would be my thing.

And then I just, it took a while.

Do you want the whole story, do you want me to synthesize?

- No, that is story, that in itself.

- I got interviewed by ESPN off the Joe Montana to John Taylor 1989 left to right post Super Bowl against the Bengals.

Any football fans remember that one?

John Candy on the sidelines, that whole story.

And they liked the tape.

They said, send us another tape, we wanna see if that was a fluke.

So I sent another tape.

And then I got interviewed but I didn't get hired 'cause I just wasn't enough of a sports nerd for them.

You know, they're asking me about the Cubs' middle relief.

I'm like, well, they'll come in after the starter and then the closer will finish things up.

It wasn't the answer they were looking for.

So I go back to Seattle, I quit my job at Channel 11, we don't have time.

I called the garbage company 'cause I used to be a garbage man in college, but they were down to one-man crew.

You know, they had the claw now.

The industry had passed me by, basically.

(audience laughs) (Paris laughs) I was the guy on the back, the swamper, they called.

- What did you not do?

- But he had me make garbage cans for about two months.

Then I sold prepaid legal insurance, then I worked for MCI, all the while I'm trying to get to ESPN.

Kind of the Magellan route, you know?

Getting that- (audience laughs) - Quite the voyage.

- But I got there.

- I just beat down the door and I finally got hired and then I got salary capped.

And then I've had like five years of a lot of things, a lot of different things.

- Another thing that you did in the early 2000s was Dancing with the Stars.

You called yourself the second worst dancer out there.

- On my show.

- [Paris] On your show.

- Yeah.

- Master P was worse than I.

- Okay.

- He would admit to it.

Nice guy, I liked him.

But he had a big fan base and nobody knew who the hell I was.

They thought I was dancing with a star.

They were like, who's, I was not elegant.

My ankle was in bad, by the way, we'll talk about the ankle, but I was in better shape.

Now, this is a long time ago, it was almost 20 years ago.

- [Paris] Yeah.

- And the young lady named Andrea Hale, I ruined her career too, they never had her back.

(audience laughs) I'm serious.

So I said, why don't we do something really small.

Like this carpet right here, just stay right around here.

She's like, no, no, no, we're gonna be ambitious, and they'll reward you for your ambition.

And so I'm just like chasing her around the room like trying to catch up to her, I skipped a couple moves.

And Bruno the judge hated me.

Len, rest in peace, the older British judge loved me, and Carrie Ann, she was, we don't know what she thought.

(audience laughs) And so I got voted off first show.

(audience laughs) - Dang.

- Which was something of an embarrassment.

But they brought me and, Jerry Rice and I did a thing with Len for, God, eight years or something.

We'd come back and do like a fake SportsCenter about the dancers.

So I created a different relationship with the show.

It was fun, I'm glad I did it.

I wish I had tried, Jerry told me that he practices seven days a week.

I was probably doing once every 10 days.

- Well- - See you guys out in LA, you know?

- Maybe that led to the- - That could've been fun.

- You know, could have been the ranking there.

- But it was fun.

- Yeah.

Now one thing that you always are consistently doing each and every year is the Seattle Sports Awards.

- [Kenny] Sports Star, yeah.

- Sports Star Awards.

Tell us about why that's so important to you 'cause you come back every single year to be a part of it.

- I got a call from this guy, Mark Dickerson.

I feel like I'm honoring a lot of people who we've lost.

- [Paris] Yeah.

- Him as well.

And he said, remember the old Seattle PI used to do the banquet every year, right?

Royal Brougham, I thing.

- Yeah.

- And then kind of went away, and Mark called and said, hey, we're trying to bring this thing back.

We wanna make it like entertaining, have a band, and you know, be funny and make it be an entertaining show.

We did it at Benaroya, we did it at Paramount, we've done it at a couple hotels.

We're at the new convention center, the add-on part, whatever that's called.

What's it called?

You know the place, it's over there - Above I-5.

- That place.

- And beautiful facility by the way.

But it's fun 'cause every year, you know, you either honor the top athlete of that year, a legendary one.

Griffey's won, Marshawn won for all the good works he does in the community.

I mean, the list is long of people.

So I either have contributed on stage helping host it or make a stupid video.

And you know, that that's how I do it.

So it's always good to come back, usually in February or March.

- One thing that a lot of folks just really love about you is your outspokenness.

Of course you're funny, I mean, we're getting the jokes left and right, but tell us about why you are also just as vocal when it comes to politics?

Because what we're seeing in the country is, it's- - Alarming?

- Alarming, divisive.

And the division is thick.

The feelings that people have are very strong on both sides.

Tell us about how you feel.

- I decided before, how much time do we have for this?

- Well, we'll keep it tight.

- Well, when I was at ESPN, we had Twitter rules, and there was literally like a committee that watched if you went too far.

Remember Jemele Hill, my friend, she went too far.

She called me up and said, Kenny, I have died for your sins, as she put out what she put out, which I don't think she was far off.

But they, and I get why corporations don't, you know, it presents a problem.

It was kind of funny because ultimately we didn't really have a rule about what you could and couldn't do.

The rule was, if you do something and it causes a problem, you can't do that.

See what I mean?

- [Paris] Mm-hmm.

- Like if somebody notices it or you say it, go a little too far.

But there's a British writer, I forget his name, he said the best way to put it, he said, he has no principles and he has no humility.

And that's a bad combo.

I mean, we could go on all day.

I don't know how much the audience agrees or disagrees, but so be it.

You come up here and talk.

(audience laughs) We're seeing just wanton open corruption seven days a week.

There's one, we go through any category.

We have the worst people in charge of every department.

You know, just like, it looks like an intentional destruction of the country.

For what good?

Like Sarah Kendzior, great author, if you've read her book, she wrote a beautiful book explaining how we got here.

How did it happen?

It was called View From Flyover Country.

And there were a lot of people who felt like they were overlooked, right?

Like they were never catered to all, or their concerns weren't valued.

And he went and conned them, right?

And some of them fell for it, some of them still believe in it.

Daily just like what we see like on social media, like it's just, it's so beyond the pale like we've now normalized, oh yeah, that happened, it's Tuesday.

Of course that happened, right?

Like even those of us who are against it.

But I blame a lot of the media has capitulated.

Look at the Sunday morning talk shows.

If in sports, I'll give you the sports example.

If on SportsCenter, the Lakers were pathological liars, just as an example, and they told us they won five games in a row when we know they've lost three games in a row, and so-and-so scored 80 points when he scored 20, right?

We wouldn't have them on the next week.

We'd be like, we're done with them.

- Yeah.

- But instead, just the normalization of it all.

We keep bringing back like we're still living in McCain-Obama days, you know?

Which isn't that long ago but that sure was more normal than today's days.

So yeah, that's where I'm coming from.

- Let's, I mean segue just on the 14th, June 14th, there's gonna be a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

The arcs are already erected on the property.

What do you think about that?

- I won't watch for openers.

I don't know my Paramount+ password to begin with, but even if I did, 'cause the day before, I'm gonna be at a memorial.

God, I don't mean to take a dark, there's a lot of friends I've lost and a lot of people we all know we've lost.

My best friend Mark Sansaver, I'm gonna be in Montana for his memorial the day before.

He wouldn't have watched it the next day, I promise you that.

So hold on that way.

But it's just desecration of the grounds, is that a better way to put it?

Like look at a high shot of the White House, how it looked a year ago and look at the reflection pool.

The dead pool that we have now is a great reflection of America actually.

Sadly enough.

But did you just wanna talk sports or how we doing?

What's going on?

- Just wanted to get your perspective 'cause you've just been vocal and you don't mince words in terms of, and we're keeping it a little bit more PC here, but I just wanted the audience to kind of just hear your perspective.

You also have a theory about what's taking place in the administration.

Kind of share a little bit more, because you talked a little bit about Project 2025, and what we're seeing currently is to the book.

- I think in the same program today, Adam Schiff, more educated on the subject can, isn't the title of his show, Adam Schiff is Worried, I think?

So he'll say it probably more eloquently and he has more background than I, I'm just a, you know, citizen.

But I don't know that too much has not happened that they were denying, right?

Sometimes it's like things are done almost to show off that they can do it, almost for the cruelty of look what we got away with.

And so much of that that has been carried out definitely was advertised ahead of time.

Once in a while they tell the truth.

And usually an accusation is an admission.

That's, you know, kind of a cliche but true.

Go back to Sarah.

She wrote another book called They Knew, and it talks about, well, there was also Hiding In Plain Sight, which is true, but it's like there's a lot, she's an equal opportunity critic.

So it's not like everything the other side is great and they're all, but the both sides of it all, I don't buy at all.

They aren't the same.

They just aren't the same.

But there were people that maybe could have done things sooner.

How come Garland took forever to get, you know, I don't understand how this went on when it was all in front of us, we all saw it.

And you don't need Rachel Maddow to tell you what to think.

God love her.

You can just see with your own eyes.

- [Paris] Right.

- It's just right there to see.

You should be able to, there's just kind of too much willful ignorance, I would say.

People who know better, they know it's wrong, but they got their 4% tax cut.

Or they haven't been touched yet, right?

Because it hasn't hit my neighborhood.

And that's a white privilege thing in a lot of cases.

But also people whose physical life, you know, their immediate family or immediate friends haven't been touched yet.

But once they do, then they'll be mad, right?

- [Paris] Right.

- And it might be too late at that point.

- Some of the things that you're doing just across the nation with some of the different projects that you're working on.

You talked about your ankle.

And there's a couple of other different things that you're working on from your podcast.

Tell us about why you're so passionate about the foundation that you're working with.

- Well, I wrecked my ankle my junior year at UNLV.

We were playing at Oregon.

I was in at the end of the game, we were getting killed, I threw one long pass.

Some idiot stuck his helmet on my ankle so I had a fracture dislocation, really fun.

But I played the next year.

But then you got surgeries and arthritis and old age, and so I wasn't moving around so great.

But I found this guy down in Gig Harbor named Ryan Blanck at Hangar Clinic.

Free advertisement.

And he makes insane devices for every kind of disability.

But basically you wear it, it goes way up here above your knee, and it displaces the pressure off your joint.

So I can play golf, I played flag football at the Super Bowl.

I could run, not very far, not very fast, but I can run.

And I can't if I just wore regular shoes, right?

So Gretchen, my wife, we wanted to do something good about it.

And they had made these for veterans in the first place, right?

They sort of like did the R&D for me, for the injuries they'd suffered, so we immediately started this thing called Run Freely.

Runfreely.org, tell your rich friends.

(Paris laughs) And we just basically raise the money and then buy the next device.

It's like there's no building, we're not the Red Cross.

It's me and a girl named Mara, but mostly me telling the story.

We've had amazing support.

Jamal, Gary Payton, Steve Largent, Jerry Rice, Lenny Wilkens.

Who else?

Dale Earnhardt's helped us, Steve Kerr, Joe Montana, Mike Penix.

- Wow.

- I'm leaving out some names, Chris Long.

They've all either given their time or their name or their money and helped us raise, you know, the next dollar to get to the next device.

So basically Ryan keeps a list, here's the ones who've been waiting the longest, here's the one with the most need.

And we try to figure out, all right, who gets the brace?

He doesn't like to call it a brace.

It's called a device.

You get a brace at Costco.

You can't get patio furniture right now if you're looking for the one that I was looking for 'cause they didn't have it at the Kirkland store.

(audience laughs) - What about your podcast?

'Cause that podcast is also a good sign as well.

- It's been a blast.

I'm selling all sorts of stuff.

Ready?

(Paris laughs) (audience laughs) We have a podcast called We Need a Fourth.

It's me, Cooper Manning, the more handsome and intelligent of the Mannings, and Kevin from The Office, Brian Baumgartner.

- We know Kevin.

- Who's a actually really good golfer.

So we started the show under Smartless, you know, Jason Bateman, all those guys.

And we interview somebody every week.

We just had Jermaine Kearse who's huge in the golf, the former Seahawk star wide receiver.

But it's been a blast.

We just basically tape remotely.

We're together a few times in LA and Scotland.

We got to go to Scotland, that was amazing.

- [Paris] Oh, nice.

- And hopefully people start listening more.

In the meantime, do people still buy greeting cards?

- [Audience Members] Yeah.

- Okay.

- Now wait till you hear this.

- Yeah.

So- - Your one-year-old niece?

- 10 years ago, I went to my niece Winnie's one-year-old birthday party and we'd forgotten a card.

I was like, what does it matter?

She can't read.

Like what?

So I made a card that said, you are one, you cannot read.

And we gave it to her.

(audience laughs) And since that time I've had this vision, I want to make that joke appear in the universe.

I want somebody to get behind it, make cards.

I can't do the art, I can just do the jokes.

And through lots of other tries, I got to these people called Lovepop.

They made their name on, what's it called?

Shark Tank, right?

They got the funding there.

And they're very successful.

They're one of of the top sellers in the country now.

So I send them the jokes, they stick them inside the cards they've already made, these big pop-up cards.

Lovepop.com.

Why aren't you writing it down?

You.

(Paris laughs) (audience laughs) And then search bar, Love Kenny.

And you can see both sincere and really stupid things.

- You infuse humor- - Father's Day's coming, did I- (audience laughs) - Right, last shameless plug.

You infuse humor and reality into comedy.

Have you started to, you know, step on the stage and tell some jokes?

- I have in the last year.

- Tell us about it, tell us about it.

- So I made a movie called Wiffle Ball.

And back when I was just starting on TV at Channel 11, Ken Griffey was a rookie, this is 1989.

I got Harold Reynolds to bring him to the Seattle Science Center, and we ended up throwing wiffle balls and made a feature story that wasn't very good.

I looked back at the tape, it was bad.

But I held onto the raw tape all these years.

I had us throwing wiffle balls, Ken Griffey looking the 19th.

And I saw him and he brought up the fact that we had played that day.

And I was like, wait a minute, he's like Willie Mays of our generation.

Like if he's still thinking about it.

And I just at that time had been thinking of, I want to get into some fun projects, just make them up, see what happens, right?

- Yeah.

- So I made a movie called Wiffle Ball.

Ken Burns is in it, by the way.

His documentary on America in like five years will be killer.

- Go see that, check it out, for sure.

- If documentaries are allowed.

He was great.

Pearl Jam music's in it, Head and the Heart.

Who else?

Sam Lachow, local rapper, he did a little thing for me.

And then I decided to add on like a front end, like a half hour standup that marries to the movie.

And I'm trying to sell that right now.

If anybody from Netflix is here and just looking for that hour to fill, meet me in the chat thing afterward.

But it was fun.

I called Jimmy Kimmel, he has a comedy club in Vegas, they had a night open.

First one wasn't that great, I'll admit.

Gretchen, my wife was so nervous, she was treating me like I was a four-year-old with a line in a play or something.

And I was like, get her outta here.

Like I'm fine, I've been on stages.

And then the second, third, and fourth times, did it in New York City, did it again in Vegas.

Like it's not terrible.

I did it in Wenatchee a couple weeks ago to raise money for athletics over there.

So like, standing up here isn't scary at all.

Remembering, sometimes you do blank out.

Like what's the next thing I'm about to say, I'm gonna say something.

But the more you do it, the better you get, right?

You're always better on your second day than your first.

- Well, I bet we can all agree, you got it.

So if that's the next direction you wanna take your career in.

- [Kenny] I hope.

- I can definitely see- - And greeting cards again, Lovepop.com, search bar, Love Kenny.

- Well, in terms- - You don't have to put the comment in, it's fine, they'll find it.

- In terms of back to getting us back to the Seattle landscape of and sports here- - Back to the hell of America?

Did you want to go back to that or keeping it lighter today?

- We'll kind of weave through back and forth.

- Go Mariners.

How about the Mariners?

Come on.

- Yeah.

(audience cheers) - We didn't even say it.

Last season was insane, just so fun.

- [Paris] For sure.

- We lost by one pitch really, right?

One pitch.

And I liked the guy that, you know, I have no problem with what happened.

It's funny 'cause sometimes a guy will throw a ball dead down the middle and it's called strike.

And they'll say great pitch.

And then next time it gets hit for a home run, ah, mistake pitch.

So yeah, there's a lot of rationalization with that.

But they started kind of slow this season, but you know, they're on top right now, they're fine, they'll work it out, it's a long season.

- They'll figure it out.

- People make way too many judgements, especially like football.

September football, people are, you know, giving out MVP, it's like a lot of football left, you know?

You can go one and three or whatever and still turn it around.

But I like the prospects kind of of all Seattle teams right now, like on the rise.

Hopefully the Sonics get here.

Let me know when it happens.

I'll be excited.

- Oh, I'm sure you'll hear about that.

And even hockey, 'cause I mean, we can't forget.

- [Kenny] Yeah.

- Just women's hockey, men's hockey- - Absolutely.

- Is really been taking off.

What do you think about the hockey scene here in Seattle?

- I don't think it's surprising that it gets the support.

I think some people thought it would be like, oh, that's not much of a hockey town, you know?

But I mean, it is.

There's youth playing it and just the attraction of it.

You know, look at the teams that come in here, that's kind of a thrill.

If you're just like a novice fan, like the Rangers are here, you know.

But there's a lot of support for the team right away.

The building is so cool, it's perfect venue, and they did a perfect job with that.

So that obviously qualifies us to have a basketball team again.

They're gonna have some space sharing to do, right?

- [Paris] Yes, they will.

- Yeah.

- We have the World Cup just a week or so away coming right here to Seattle.

Tell us about, are you a big soccer fan?

- I'm a watcher of it.

I'm not a, you know, I'm not like ordinantly into it like I am the NFL say or the NBA.

But absolutely, appreciate the sport.

We went to England for a shoot one time.

The Queen of England had come to America and I went to England in exchange.

That was the premise of the story.

We ended up going to Millwall.

You know about Millwall?

- Mm-mm.

- They're a little rough and tumble.

They have a song, what's their song?

It goes, we are Millwall, we are Millwall.

No one likes us and we don't care.

(audience laughs) - Oh.

- But big-time soccer is intense.

I mean, yeah, I mean, who doesn't, you know, I've watched every time there's a World Cup, and to have it here now, it's gonna be quite interesting.

Iran's still in, coming up.

And I don't know the whole story on that 'cause I haven't been like reporting it.

I heard they were gonna literally fly up day of because they got a game in Mexico first, right?

Don't they play down there first?

- I'm not sure, but I know- - I think that's true.

- Over 700,000 folks are supposed to be in town.

- Yeah, although I did hear some, you know, again, have not been covering it like a story so I'm kind of like talking of someone who just read things.

But some of the hotel traffic wasn't what they expected.

But given the state of America, there's probably people that changed their mind about coming.

That could be a thing.

- One thing we can't forget is looking forward, and we're talking about youth, youth sports, and again, growing up in this city, growing up in this state where a lot of kids look up to some of the legends that you've mentioned, some that have passed on, some that are currently playing.

- Do they look up to me or just those people?

Like what- - They, they might look up to you too.

- [Kenny] Okay.

- Of course they look up to you.

What do we need to do in terms of really cultivating or supporting some of the youth programs, little league games.

How do you see it?

- I think a bunch of people are doing great work.

I mentioned Jermaine Kearse he's doing it with golf.

There's some more inclusivity in golf.

Doug Baldwin's doing great things, right?

And those are just two of many.

But yeah, it's funny the people who are into sports and not into sports, and it is okay if you are or you aren't, you know.

You get into music instead or you get into writing whatever.

- Absolutely.

- Not everybody wants to be in athletics.

But I'm certain that there are a lot of good things that come from it.

Whether you carry it on all the way or you don't, you know, just teaching teamwork, you know, teaching confidence, you know, having good mentors that steer you the right way.

Also in cases where kids can't afford it, it's good that there are other people that, let's make sure more people get the opportunity.

'Cause to some, it's nothing, right?

It's the old $5 is a little to somebody and a lot to somebody else.

- [Paris] Right.

- So there's different fees.

And the one thing I'll say that I don't like about youth sports, Jamal Crawford by the way, doing great work too, is sometimes they make determinations way too soon, right?

Like eight-year-old club soccer.

And it makes the kid think he's a failure, he or she's a failure 'cause they didn't make this thing and three of their friends are on it and they look like I'm over here on the JV, right?

So I think that needs to be couched in a different way.

So it's not, I mean, heck, not that I was that great, but I got to go to school for free in Division 1A, right?

- [Paris] Yeah.

- And that was my goal.

In ninth grade, I played fifth quarter, they had the four quarters and then they had an extra legal fifth quarter for the terrible players.

But I didn't give up.

I knew I could throw, I was little, I was 5'8" 130 pounds going into high school or something.

And I remember the varsity quarterback, said, you're turning out?

And I had that moment like, yeah, I am.

But you need people to keep people's attitude up.

I remember Mr.

Mehawk, every play, every practice when I'd walk home, he'd say, how's the golden arm?

And he just gave me that little, you know what?

One guy knows I can throw.

And you never give up on yourself.

So we need more people getting more opportunity, which is gonna instill more confidence, it's as simple as that.

- And just we can't forget college, college ball, college sports.

Now athletes are able to get paid for the work that they do on the field.

Any words, just final words on that?

- I don't, it is a wild, wild west.

It's hard to keep track of who's on what team.

They could change teams at halftime in certain cases now.

(audience laughs) (Paris laughs) That part's weird but we'll get used to it.

I mean, coaches always had that freedom, right?

They're getting buyouts, taking a new job, like, and we never questioned that.

That's America, you know?

And suddenly the kids are not supposed to have rights.

So they have way more rights now but it happened really fast.

So maybe it just confused all of us at once.

But I have no problem with them exploiting, you know?

And I mean, nobody got mad if a music student was on scholarship and made an album, right?

Or went and did a concert or played at a cafe.

But athletes, like when I played, we weren't supposed to have jobs during the season.

Like you got your $400 a month to live on.

And you could do that in 1980, actually.

- And you could afford it.

- Yeah.

No, apartment was like 175, I thought I was rich.

(audience laughs) (Paris laughs) But you had to have certain rules.

So maybe at some point things coalesce somewhat and we can have more uniform rules.

But right now it is like, whoa, that just happened, you know?

'Cause originally the thought was you would pay someone to, you know, make a car commercial for the local car dealership and now he or she has exploited their name, image, and likeness, right?

- [Paris] Right.

- Then it just became, hey, here's a million bucks, come and block for our quarterback, you know?

So that part is needing to be straightened out, like how it's gonna be.

I don't think the Trump administration is the right outfit to straighten it out, I'll say that.

- Let, just before we wrapping up time before we go, and if you are looking from the big picture, of course we were talking about all the different sports, but soccer, or NBA potentially gonna be expanded and coming back to the city, hopefully, football and many others.

If we had to look at a crystal ball in terms of where people, on the broadcast side, where people are going to really be tuning in to see these sports, do you think that we're going to be sticking with some of these legacy broadcast institutions to catch these games?

Because we're knowing YouTube, Amazon is getting into, for example, on the NFL side, into broadcasting games.

- Yeah, I mean there's just more diversity in it now.

There's so many people that see having it, you don't necessarily make money on just the thing, but you make money for having the thing.

You know what I'm saying?

Like ESPN has the Super Bowl this year, like they're gonna talk about that all year, right?

So more people want in.

It makes a little confusing for the consumer.

You know, you have to buy the bulk package to make sure you get all the choices you want.

But that's the only thing that's frustrating.

It happened even during the NBA playoffs this year.

Like what channel is it on today?

You know, Scott Van Pelt always does that funny thing during the NCAAs about what are shows on truTV.

And he'll make up titles and have real titles to find out.

I guess it's just the new reality.

I don't know if there's any beating it.

I'd rather have wide diversity of media than conglomeration of media, which is what we're falling into, right?

- [Paris] Right.

- Where one owns too many and then they control the message.

So it's good to have a diversity of opinion.

- And meet people where they are.

Everybody is so busy.

If you have your app, you have a phone, you can catch a game, you can, I mean, diversifying the market is- - Although I'm dating our show, we're taping this on a Saturday, right?

The day after game two of the NBA.

So my friend and I were watching and we called game.

We were wrong.

I was gonna get into my rental car and listen to the rest on the radio, the game.

By the time I got to my car, it was a tie game.

Knicks ended up winning of course.

But yeah, I should have stayed on the TV.

I still wanna watch it on a big TV.

I'm not gonna, I don't, I mean, to watch it on your phone in my, is, that's emergency.

- I'm with you, I'm with you.

- You're at the swim meet for nine hours and you, you know?

(audience laughs) - And then your eyes get all foggy.

This has been a pleasure, this has been a joy.

Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you all for being here with us.

And you watching at home, here, right here at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, we appreciate you all.

Thank you.

(audience applauds) (bright music)