This was always going to happen with Rich Paul.
As soon as the Klutch Sports super agent announced the launch of Game Over alongside a reemerging Max Kellerman, any reasonable person could understand the issue. Paul’s professional obligation is to his clients: LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Jalen Hurts, Myles Garrett, and so on. Ideally, an on-air talent’s obligation is to the audience.
For anyone who listened to the first handful of episodes of Game Over, it was impossible not to play a mental guessing game. Is that his client? Does he know them? A stunt phone call with Shams Charania, which The Ringer staff dutifully blasted out across social media, encouraged us to keep playing it.
The bizarre experience of Paul as a podcast host finally broke beyond the Ringer walls this week when Paul pitched a trade that would send breakout scoring guard Austin Reaves (not a Klutch client) to Memphis for Jaren Jackson Jr. (also not a Klutch client). One Lakers reporter quickly noted that management was ticked that its top star’s agent was giving takes on roster moves involving the player’s teammates. Another reporter detailed a confrontation between Reaves’ representation and Paul on the court at Tuesday night’s Lakers game. Any of us could have scripted this exact sequence of events.
The problem is not that Paul is bad at this. Actually, Game Over is decent. Paul is at least as plugged in to the day’s sports news as anyone hosting other top sports TV shows or podcasts. Hosting opposite Kellerman, the show was never going to involve hardcore breakdowns or rigorous analysis. Kellerman and his takes are the main event, and, as a sidekick with a voice of reason, Paul, in theory, is supposed to balance Kellerman’s more imaginative takes with firsthand knowledge as a player rep.
Early in its run, the show has been rough around the edges because Paul, like many coaches and athletes who enter the media, doesn’t seem to realize just how informed audiences truly are. He came into Game Over clearly wanting to bang the drum on organizational alignment and sacrificing for the team, which isn’t exactly an original point of view. Sure, hearing Paul recall how he disagreed with James’ decision to go to Miami in 2010 or why he respects the San Antonio Spurs so much is interesting. But only insofar as we now have the answer to the question “What did LeBron’s agent think of him going to the Heat?”
Don’t forget, this is the guy whose name is next to James’ on the patent for player empowerment. It wasn’t hard to project that as a commentator, he would default to a player blowing his way out of town. An early highlight of Game Over came when Paul invented the word “partnerial” to describe the relationship these supposedly well-run franchises ought to have with their star players.
In the first episode, Paul said Patrick Mahomes should leave Kansas City for the Dallas Cowboys. Recent analysis of the NFL divisional round questioned which other quarterbacks might join Josh Allen on the endorsement roster for New Balance, with which Paul has his own clothing line. Paul’s point of view is basically exactly what you would expect if someone had told you a year ago that Rich Paul would host a sports podcast. Interesting enough, not exactly revelatory.
Among the only reasons someone might have been excited to see Paul launch a podcast was to see precisely the type of mess he just created with the Reaves trade. Taking after his client, Draymond Green, Paul is proving to be the type of guy willing to go there with the industry and his colleagues.
Of course, that is a plenty good enough reason for Paul to host a show. It goes viral. The early-internet push from athletes and other figures to control their own message has gradually turned into these celebrities simply taking over the delivery mechanisms. At a time when dozens of active athletes are churning out content, and the tech executive goofs who host All-In are interviewing the president, we can’t exactly be precious about who gets to hold a microphone. Why shouldn’t an agent get in on the fun?
But unless you’re a Lakers fan or the agent of a player worried he might put his thumb on the scale of personnel moves, Paul can’t hurt you. Avoiding him is easy: Just don’t listen. Where Paul does run up against the bigger concerns of the average sports fan is in the gall he demonstrates in doing any of this in the first place.
Like more and more people sucking up cultural oxygen and driving engagement around themselves these days, the best explanation for why Paul is doing any of this is simply that he can. Perhaps he believes he has genuinely unique perspectives on the sports world. I am here to report that while Paul is undoubtedly one of the most impactful player representatives in sports history, his perspective is not unique. That guessing game we all play while listening is actually a B.S. detector. We can all tell when we’re being punked.
Not satisfied with consistently having his hands on the biggest chess pieces in the sports transaction game, Paul is here to take an even stronger hold of the narrative. And as far as the executives go, it seems that when Rich Paul wants to do a sharply produced, Netflix-distributed podcast with your company, you just say yes.
The more people like Paul who get these big media jobs, the more self-serving these shows will become. In a world where Tom Brady can get $37.5 million from Fox to gather intel each week, calling games that directly help him as the Raiders owner, or where Pat McAfee is actively giving the bird to anyone in sports media interested in accountability, Paul fits in.
Rather than trusting the people who are cashing in on the melting away of these boundaries and norms, we can all trust ourselves to detect the B.S. here. To detect that Game Over is souped-up PR, hardly content at all. That we are all being punked.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.