The biggest segment of our audience is 18 to 34, and, believe it or not, they still speak Spanish, and they still watch novellas and soccer games and news.
I don't know how smart I am, but I was a student of the game and I still watch games and still pick up things. If you watch individual players you will see genius.
I was a soccer cheerleader. It doesn't get nerdier than that. I was fired from the soccer cheerleading squad after one year, which I believe to this day is unprecedented. You have to understand, no one went to the soccer games. In fact, I believe part of my duties as a cheerleader was to bake brownies for the team.
I was passionate about soccer. I still am. Odd, though - playing soccer always made me much more anxious than playing tennis. On soccer days, I'd be out of bed by 6 in the morning, all nervous. But I was always calm when it was time for a tennis match. I still don't know why.
If you win two games, one game or three games, you can still say it's luck. But when you win a championship over 18 games, it's not luck.
Even though professional soccer has become more about business and less about the game itself, I still believe football is a party for the legs that play it and for the eyes that watch it.
Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.
I didn't grow up speaking Spanish, and the interesting thing was, we would watch these novelas and you didn't have to speak Spanish to understand what was going on.
I admire a lot of Spanish filmmakers and actors. I grew up watching a lot of Spanish films and novellas, and there's just so much talent out there.
Boxing is a stepping stone just to introduce me to the audience. If I was still in Louisville, Kentucky and never was a boxer I still might get killed next week in some kind of freedom struggle and you'd ever hear the news.
The weakness of cable news is that it chases its audience around. Your audience wants fast-paced, popular news. It needs real news. Cable news changes its stripes based on audience reaction. Viewers are reacting well to breaking news? You probably do more breaking news than you need to. The struggle is building something so that people will come to you, as opposed to constantly changing what you are because you're unsure of where the audience is.
When you're still in the broadcast business, you're still trying to reach tens of millions. You're trying to still aim for a broader audience, and I think that's a more difficult task to spread yourself across that audience, connect with them, as opposed to a very, very small, pinpointed audience. Difficult to do.
We need to discuss what our own standards are for games writing that falls outside of journalism, and support experimental formats and routes of production that may be more tailored to them than the status quo, because the public at large seems to still think that the only games writing that exists are reviews and news.
I could speak to you and say, 'Laytay-chai, paisey, paisey.' ... Why aren't you responding? Oh, you don't speak Swahili. Well, I've got news for you. The dog doesn't speak English, or American, or Spanish, or French.
Look at the growing number of people that want to ban football. Or ban anything that might hurt somebody. Too violent or too brutal or what have you. There's a segment of our adult population that's still children, still kids.
I still believe in old school values, I still believe in hard work, I still believe in wrestling, and people have showed that's what they want to see.
While I'm more of a soccer and tennis fan myself, I still enjoying catching some football games when I get the chance.