We’ve got 🎁 🎁

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where the holiday season is upon us, and to celebrate your hosts unpack a sleigh load of gifts for the naughty and nice, alike, across the sporting and political landscapes. In addition to that, this is a long overdue stop on the Collective road show, as we come to you live from the lovely Ledyard, Connecticut home of two great friends and supporters of the podcast, Shannon and Byron. If you came to this summary to snoop for presents you are out of luck, as you’ll have to hit play to unwrap what’s under the Collective Christmas tree. But our select recipients include many of the names oft-critiqued in this space, including the worst of our elected congresspersons, a pair of disgraced cable news anchors, the Collective’s favorite coach/punching bag, and golf’s most iconic figure. It all starts with some rants, as Zak outlines the abject callousness behind an online entrepreneur’s move to lay off 900 employees via teleconference on the eve of the holidays; Ed details the inane and dangerous fight being waged by appointed officials in Missouri and elsewhere over imposed mask mandates; finally Andrew examines coach Mario Cristobal’s move to Miami and the unseemly source affording his contract and the buyouts of both he and his predecessor.