The Ben Shapiro Show - September 09, 2026


NFL Players Are Returning to College Football. It's Chaos.


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

198.45

Word count

2,517

Sentence count

164


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 DW subscribers, you're getting way more content.
00:00:04.000 Today, Daily Wire and our friend Clay Travis are announcing a partnership that brings the full sport and state lineup to Daily Wire's audience, over 25 million people.
00:00:11.000 Sport and state's editorial content will now be featured over at DailyWire.com.
00:00:15.000 The Clay and Buck Show will soon be available for streaming as well over at DailyWire.com.
00:00:20.000 We love Clay, obviously, we've known him forever.
00:00:22.000 He's been a groundbreaking figure in culture, in sports, in politics, got a huge audience.
00:00:27.000 We are super excited to be working with him, helping to unite the conservative movement.
00:00:30.000 We're helping him.
00:00:31.000 He is helping us.
00:00:31.000 It's awesome.
00:00:32.000 Clay, of course, is amazing at blending sports, culture, and politics.
00:00:35.000 And again, the Daily Wire, we're about unifying with other people in the conservative movement like Clay, which is why both Clay and I are going to be tomorrow at the RNC in Dallas discussing all of this even further.
00:00:45.000 He joins us on the line right now.
00:00:46.000 Clay, thanks so much for joining the show and very excited about the partnership.
00:00:50.000 Yeah, look, I'm super excited to get rolling with you guys.
00:00:55.000 You know, I sold out Kick five years ago and I'm just looking at the data on Sport and State, which is my new media.
00:01:02.000 Company primarily focused on sports, although, as you just said, we will touch on everything.
00:01:08.000 And I think you guys are going to be a perfect partner here.
00:01:12.000 And I can't wait.
00:01:13.000 I mean, building something is always the most exciting.
00:01:16.000 I was talking to a college football coach.
00:01:18.000 I know the NFL is kicking off today.
00:01:21.000 And they were talking about, man, you know, taking over a team that's awful, that's three and nine or, you know, four and 13 in the NFL and building them into a playoff team is way more fun than taking a playoff team and trying to win a Super Bowl.
00:01:37.000 And you think about just the scale with which you can improve so rapidly when you're starting and trying to build something new.
00:01:44.000 You know this because you started the Daily Wire and built something awesome.
00:01:48.000 And now I'm a huge fan of everything you guys have done.
00:01:52.000 You know, excited for some of hopefully the lady baller vibe to carry over here.
00:01:59.000 And I think we're going to be producing a lot of great content that is going to entertain a lot of people and hopefully move the country in a sane direction, which is something that's desperately needed still.
00:02:12.000 Now, again, as I've been saying it, it's going to be awesome to work together.
00:02:15.000 We're combining on particular projects.
00:02:16.000 And of course, you can now get Clay and Buck's show over at Daily Wire, plus sport and state content over at dailywire.com.
00:02:24.000 Written content, other content as well.
00:02:25.000 It's just awesome stuff.
00:02:27.000 And obviously, sport and state is going to be a huge success because you know how to do this.
00:02:30.000 Clay's done this before.
00:02:31.000 And I'm sure that sport and state is going to dwarf prior efforts.
00:02:34.000 That is awesome in and of itself.
00:02:35.000 So, Clay, while I've got you, I do have to ask about a couple of sportslash culture related controversies of the day slash week.
00:02:42.000 So, WNBA is looking for a new commissioner.
00:02:44.000 I've heard rumors that you're up for it.
00:02:46.000 What's the story on your offer, number one, to buy a WNBA team?
00:02:52.000 What is the story on whether the WNBA will ever take you up on your multi million dollar offer to have them play a high school boys team?
00:03:00.000 What's the latest here?
00:03:03.000 The absolute latest is in the wake of Sophie Cunningham coming out and saying, hey, men shouldn't be able to compete in women's sports, the WNBA lost its mind.
00:03:13.000 And a lot of players, coaches, and owners said, hey, you know what?
00:03:16.000 We actually would welcome men who identify as women into the league.
00:03:21.000 And Being as inclusive as I am and being as committed to the trans agenda as I am, I said, I want to get a WNBA franchise.
00:03:32.000 We will call them the Nashville Balls.
00:03:35.000 Nashville does not have a WNBA franchise yet.
00:03:37.000 Please take my expansion check fee.
00:03:40.000 And in an effort to be the most inclusive team that has ever existed in the history of mankind, we will have a 100% roster of men who identify as women.
00:03:51.000 Our slogan will be one love.
00:03:54.000 But two balls.
00:03:55.000 And we will, I believe, embark upon the greatest dynastic dominance in the history of sports.
00:04:02.000 We will make the Brady era Patriots seem like, you know, also Rams.
00:04:07.000 And I also, following the logic of the WNBA players, coaches, and owners, I also stepped up and I said, look, I will pay $10 million to the Las Vegas Aces.
00:04:19.000 People probably don't realize this, but they're the defending WNBA champs right now, Ben.
00:04:24.000 They make $7 million for the entire year.
00:04:27.000 If they can beat a high school boys state champion team of my choice, I will give them $10 million.
00:04:36.000 No one from the Aces has responded.
00:04:38.000 No one from the WNBA has responded.
00:04:40.000 I think this would be the most watched WNBA game of all time.
00:04:43.000 And then, Ben, I stepped it up even more.
00:04:46.000 I said, an eighth grade boys team of my choice against the WNBA champions.
00:04:52.000 And still, zero response from the WNBA.
00:04:56.000 It's really just a slap in the face to.
00:04:58.000 True titans of inclusivity like myself, that the WNBA is spurning my attempt to bring two balls to every basketball court.
00:05:10.000 We'll get to more on this in a second.
00:05:11.000 First, let's be real.
00:05:13.000 You need to sleep better.
00:05:14.000 We all need to sleep better.
00:05:15.000 Okay, when it comes to what's going on right now in my home, sleep is hard to come by because my wife is nursing the baby.
00:05:21.000 We're getting the baby to bed late.
00:05:22.000 And once I get on the mattress, I need to go to sleep.
00:05:24.000 I don't need to roll around.
00:05:25.000 I don't need to feel uncomfortable.
00:05:27.000 I need to go to sleep.
00:05:28.000 And this is why I rely on my Helix Sleep mattress because, again, It was programmed just for me.
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00:05:54.000 You know, the fact is that again, your mattress matters a lot.
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00:06:02.000 Go to helixsleep.comslash Ben.
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00:06:15.000 And I have to say that these women, you know, they're shortchanging their own players because obviously these women would be slated to make a lot more money if they were to take you up on your offer.
00:06:24.000 The WNBA would become far more popular.
00:06:27.000 The skill level would improve radically.
00:06:29.000 But I guess they don't care about any of those things because they just wish to discriminate against trans people, which is a shocking thing from such a A league that has based itself on the idea of tolerance and inclusivity.
00:06:40.000 Pretty unbelievable stuff, frankly.
00:06:42.000 So, I wanted to also get your take, Clay Wallier, here on this controversy over whether NFL players should be able to play college football.
00:06:49.000 So, apparently, there have been a couple players who were drafted by the NFL.
00:06:51.000 They actually played brief stints in the NFL, and now they are going to go back to college.
00:06:56.000 These are two players who I guess played for Olmis, and now they're going to go back to college to play because, again, the distinction between amateur and professional sports has basically been obliterated.
00:07:07.000 What do you make of that?
00:07:09.000 Yeah, what you hit on is the key here.
00:07:12.000 How do you distinguish between what is and is not a college athlete when college athletes are often making more money to play college than many pros are?
00:07:22.000 And what happened here was players went into NFL preseason camps, they were cut, and then they decided, wait a minute, I still have eligibility in college.
00:07:32.000 I want to go back to college and be able to make money to play college football.
00:07:36.000 And the SEC, the Southeastern Conference, decided we're going to have to draw a line here.
00:07:41.000 We're not going to permit this to occur.
00:07:44.000 And so they have been suing LSU.
00:07:46.000 Now, it seems like, at least this morning, it seems like LSU has kind of basically relented and said, okay, we won't roster these guys.
00:07:57.000 But the SEC has a hearing today in a federal district court in Alabama where they are seeking the right to kick LSU out of the Southeastern Conference as the most significant of the penalties if LSU will not accede to conference rules.
00:08:15.000 Again, it seems like LSU has kind of.
00:08:18.000 Stepped off the brinksmanship here and is not going to try to roster these NFL, former NFL players now.
00:08:25.000 But I think it speaks to the larger issue that you just laid out, which is for a long time, college said that all of the athletes were student athlete amateurs.
00:08:34.000 The Supreme Court said 9 0, the NCAA is a restraint of trade.
00:08:38.000 We can't keep players from being able to be compensated for their talents.
00:08:43.000 And now it was initially name, image, and likeness, which is basically just you could do endorsement deals.
00:08:49.000 It rapidly moved into pay to play.
00:08:54.000 Well, again, the thing about college sports, and again, I'm not a huge college sports guy, I like professional sports, but the thing about college sports is it was always pay to play.
00:09:02.000 Everybody was always bribing each other under the table, going all the way back to the 50s and 60s.
00:09:07.000 This is a real thing.
00:09:08.000 The way that you recruited players to your basketball team back in the 80s and 90s was that you slipped a truck to mom and dad.
00:09:14.000 I mean, this notion that pay was never moving, or that most of these players were getting into school based on their scores and stellar GPA, and that they were really working hard for that engineering degree.
00:09:24.000 I mean, it was a professional team that was basically attached to a school as a fundraising ploy.
00:09:29.000 And now all of that has sort of been exposed.
00:09:31.000 I don't know.
00:09:32.000 I'm kind of on the side of the players in LSU.
00:09:33.000 I kind of think that you should be able to just go back and play college ball.
00:09:36.000 And by the way, in my opinion, this is not going to hold because there will be some D3 college that doesn't make that much money off its sports team right now that will decide, hey, I'll take those NFL players and then we will go compete with another team and we'll just dominate them because we have NFL players on our roster.
00:09:51.000 Well, look, I mean, this is one of the things that I think Congress has to fix because what you've hit on is.
00:09:56.000 In the wake of a 9 0 Supreme Court case.
00:09:59.000 By the way, can we just mention the NCAA lost 9 0?
00:10:03.000 We can't even get the Supreme Court to agree men can't compete in women's sports.
00:10:06.000 To lose 9 0, as you well know, is pretty difficult to do in this day and age.
00:10:12.000 They have to have an antitrust exemption because really what the NCAA is dealing with is any attempt to put in place a rule that cuts what someone might be compensated is immediately challenged.
00:10:25.000 There's a great deal of forum shopping going on here, which you can appreciate.
00:10:29.000 If you want to play in Mississippi, you're filing in local Mississippi courts, right?
00:10:33.000 If you want to play in Texas, Texas courts, you're getting some home cooking in terms of the rulings.
00:10:38.000 Right now, the LSU versus SEC is Louisiana state court against Alabama federal court.
00:10:45.000 And so the challenge is without that antitrust exemption, putting in place any form of restraint of trade is immediately seen as an antitrust violation in the wake of that Supreme Court case.
00:10:56.000 So this is one of the few opportunities where Congress actually does have a role to play.
00:11:01.000 In terms of trying to figure out what the rules going forward are for college athletics.
00:11:07.000 Yeah, and again, I think that probably Congress won't be able to do anything because Congress is never able to do anything.
00:11:11.000 And college sports will basically end up like the Olympics, where it used to be that the men's basketball team in the Olympics was a bunch of amateurs.
00:11:17.000 And now it's just a bunch of people from the NBA because the dividing line between amateur and professional has completely collapsed.
00:11:23.000 Well, if you want a ton of great Clay Travis content, not only should you head over to Sport and State, but you should obviously also head over to DailyWire.com because, again, the partnership between us means that.
00:11:33.000 His content is coming to dailywire.com.
00:11:35.000 The Clay and Buck show will soon be available for streaming as well.
00:11:38.000 Clay, again, very excited about the deal.
00:11:39.000 And we'll see you at the RNC tomorrow for what will be interesting, fascinating, and we'll see how the ratings go against the NFL because, again, the RNC intuition is more iconic, I think, than to put them head to head with the NFL kicking off and putting the game on Wednesday and Thursday head to head against the NFL, particularly when Republicans are trying to appeal to young men.
00:12:02.000 I would have said, hey, maybe we could pick another week, but this is the week they picked.
00:12:07.000 I'm looking forward to hanging out with you tomorrow in Dallas, and I know you guys have a great setup down there, and.
00:12:11.000 This is going to be a great partnership.
00:12:13.000 And I think many people are going to enjoy in both directions all of the sanity that they're going to be able to find.
00:12:21.000 It's going to be awesome.
00:12:22.000 And again, we will be at the RNC tomorrow.
00:12:23.000 We took over a gigantic bar.
00:12:25.000 It is all Daily Wire and friends.
00:12:27.000 It'll be awesome.
00:12:27.000 Clay, we'll see you tomorrow.
00:12:29.000 See you tomorrow, Ben.
00:12:30.000 Appreciate y'all.
00:12:31.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:12:33.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:12:34.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.