>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour will be made this Sunday with the Super Bowl, and if you plan to watch, of course you're going to see a new batch of commercials.

Very expensive commercials.

If you remember Mean Joe Greene sharing a Coke or Apple's famous 1984 computer, or the Budweiser Clydesdales, which are likely to make a return this year.

Well, what are the Super Bowl commercials that stand out most in your own mind?

It has changed over the years in terms of what works in 2026.

Might not have worked in 1986, and a local sociology researcher will be joining us this hour to talk about why some things stick, what's going on with trends and the cultural significance.

If there still is some of Super Bowl commercials.

We're also going to talk about some of the top stories from our area this week, covered by WXXI News, including the price tag of Rochester's police department overtime and what it means for the community.

But first, my colleague Brian Sharp is in studio with us.

He's investigations and enterprise editor for WXXI news, and this week he has been reporting on how the number of international students coming to universities in Rochester is experiencing a deep drop.

And that goes for the University of Rochester.

It goes for RIT.

It's something that was speculated a year ago when a lot was changing pretty quickly with the new administration, and we're going to talk about what we are seeing and what we can at least glean from that.

Brian, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> let's start with this.

What are the numbers tell us so far what's actually going on?

>> So both you are and RIT saw similar drops in number.

About 300 students each.

We're not sure how that breaks down.

Undergrad versus grad or or across different.

what countries folks are from?

We do know at RIT, which has I think the most of their international students come from India, and that is where they saw the largest drop.

you are they mentioned that their applications actually are up.

but China is where most of their students come from, and those numbers are slowing.

>> Okay.

The students from India at RIT, again, the numbers.

What kind of drop are we looking at with numbers?

>> That was about 300. just there.

And then they saw you know, numbers kind of ebb and flow across other countries.

Yeah.

>> And so it so, okay, as the lay observer here, my first reaction is this can't just be statistical noise.

This has to be related to policy of some kind or or am I wrong there?

I mean, what do we know about why this is happening?

>> Well, and you know, we talked to you go back to the beginning of the year and there was all kinds of issues with visa delays, visas being revoked.

and just the overall, I think, rhetoric around international students we talked to then RIT President Munson and he was saying, you know, it's not it's not really a welcoming environment right now.

you are did send us I think they had 82 students who informed them that their visas were denied.

and so they but where those came from were not sure.

Both campuses didn't want to do interviews about their numbers.

I'm like, I was mentioning to you before I talked to a colleague of mine, former colleague who was an editor down at the Albany Times Union, said, yeah, for whatever reason, institutions seem to not want to talk about their numbers.

>> So, so higher Ed declined your interview requests.

You'd like to sit down with U of R with our I.T.

and say, hey, all right, let's update this.

We talked months in last year.

Then President Munson, let's talk about it now.

And they said, no, we're not we're not sitting down to talk about this.

>> And his projections were he was expecting to drop of 200.

I think 300.

>> I think we got a cut from Munson from Brian's piece last year.

Let's let's listen to some of that.

That from Brian Sharp reporting.

This is last spring with then President Munson.

RIT.

>> We expect that we're going to be down a minimum of 200 international students in the incoming class.

And who knows, the next year, we might see that drop by another 200 at RIT, the largest source of international students for our campus is India.

And the difficulty there is very long visa wait times.

So it's taking our prospective students a long time to get visas.

And we fear that quite a number of students that were admitted and wished to come to study at RIT are not going to be able to do so.

we're seeing the same thing in some other countries, but we're we're particularly concerned about India.

>> So that was last spring.

He was talking about up to 200.

Turns out it's 300.

And now there won't talk about it some more.

Again, this is what the lay public probably starts to assume.

The assumption is higher.

Ed feels like there's a target on them.

They don't want to talk about what the Trump administration policies are.

They don't want to be told they're losing more funding.

And but I don't know that that's true.

I don't know if that's why U of R won't talk to you or RIT won't talk to you.

Do you know why they won't talk to you.

>> Know I mean, I assume that that's it.

You know they are so a lot of what we have gleaned so far about what's happening is they'll do internal webinars, they'll post messages campus wide messages.

They'll do interviews with you know, just internal interviews.

Provost will sit down with or, you know, in this story we had, I think, someone who had sat down for another internal interview.

I think there is a bit of like, keep your head low.

and, and control what you say.

but, you know, I mean, you are also the largest employer here in town, so I mean, obviously, I would like to have that opportunity.

>> I want to ask you a little bit about an enrollment, cliff.

because, again, if our assumptions are correct that these institutions don't want to put a target on their back, that the Trump administration policies have pretty quickly discouraged or caused a steep decline in international students, I think the Trump administration would say, well, that might be a good thing.

We should have just American students taking those positions.

We don't need as many international students.

So square that up.

For me, with the idea of an enrollment.

Cliff, what's going on?

>> So the enrollment cliff essentially says that we'll we'll have a sharp drop in domestic high school graduates going all the way back to they trace it back to the recession and 2008.

Yeah.

>> And people stop making babies for a while.

>> And that stuck.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

and and so we're going to see for foreseeable future, that's a smaller pool.

That's, that's all of our universities competing for a smaller group of folks.

And then if we are also shrinking the number of international students who are coming here, that then starts to have, as Munson had said at that time, you have to start planning for smaller class sizes.

That means you don't need as much faculty, you don't need as much staff you don't need.

And so these things start trickling down.

And one of the things that that we include in our story was a group that had looked at, well, what are the long term implications as far as workforce?

You're now graduating fewer people, you're producing fewer people into these different fields.

And what the shortage we're going to have as a result.

>> I also wonder, you know, these are institutions that have talked about wanting to be the best of the best, having a great American students, but also students from around the world.

What about hits to research and prestige?

>> Yeah, no.

And that's another thing we talked to.

Not, you know, at the end of the day, I was like, well, this is a story about students.

And so we reached out to graduate student organizer who has been on campus.

She came here from Florida.

She came here because of the community that you are offered.

and she has seen that change as you know, just with the drop in international students, that's noticeable.

Not as much in her area.

She's in psychology, but she sees it across and hears it from folks in other departments.

>> I think we've got to cut the students name is MF Amoah.

Let's listen.

>> I imagine that our standing as a global institution now in the United States under this presidential administration could take a hit.

>> Yeah.

And, you know, this is just the first year of this administration.

So when we're sitting here 2 or 3 years from now, what's what's the picture?

What could it look like?

>> So I did see speaking of statements, President Mangelsdorf had had posted a message as they came back to class.

here saying that the early signs that the picture for federal research funding in the coming year might be these are his words less challenging than in 2025.

But we must be prepared to adjust as the year plays out.

they're apparently doing financial modeling.

and, and looking at different because there are other thing is to protect the integrity of the programs that they have.

So they need to be mindful of, you know, RIT, for instance, had a business program at a college in China and they shut it down because they were needing to get approval every year.

And it was a two year program, and they didn't want to be essentially to bring students into a program.

And then after their first year, cancel it and leave them stranded.

So you're you're, you know, I don't know all the ins and outs of these, these decisions, but it's yeah.

>> One other point here, I'm going to read a quote from Forbes in 2024.

What what what Donald Trump said not president yet.

Forbes reports that Trump told podcasters in Silicon Valley what I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college.

I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country.

In reality, now, $100,000 fee imposed on the entry of new H-1b visa holders and a very different disposition towards what the president said on the campaign trail.

>> Well, and it's interesting because he's made similar statements.

I saw something up until November.

I think, of last year.

so there is a point of what the president says and what the administration does.

don't always seem to line up on this this point.

He had said, I think it was November where he said, look, you don't you don't bring in this investment, open up a big plant and pull people off the employment line who've been there for, you know, months and, and have them building missiles like you need you need to bring in talent.

I think was his words.

and there's another part of this.

There's a, a program to that end that allows students to stay on after graduation.

Have a and I'm going to mess up this optional professional training visa that they can stay a year.

If they're in a Stem field, they can stay.

Two additional to that, it was seen by prior administrations, Bush administration as a pathway to a H-1b visa.

and the administration is looking to eliminate that saying that it's with some folks saying, oh, it's it's been abused.

one of the most abused areas of the immigration system.

so but that's another area where these are folks who Stem fields.

We need the people.

>> I don't have any knowledge of, and I have not done any reporting myself on whether that is an area of abuse.

Do you happen to know.

>> I did I, I saw and it was kind of there's a congressman out of Missouri who's been most vocal, I think, on this.

and it's that it's abused that it is a form of cheap labor.

for companies.

and, you know, I'm not sure.

I guess there's a question though, is then reform it.

and fix it instead of get rid of it.

>> So let me read a couple of things from a listener named Joel before we let you go.

He says, keep in mind that most international students pay full tuition price.

That's a huge loss in revenue for universities across the country.

Yes.

>> I believe so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the implications are right.

It's it's financial.

And I think that's why I said in the story is that the implications that go far beyond even the financial hit is when you look at then having to, you know, cut their staff, adjust their programs, et cetera.

>> And he says there's so much benefit to having international students on a college campus for both undergraduates and graduate students alike.

This has been ridiculous.

These cuts to programs, the Middle English book series that's been around for decades, that's based at the University of Rochester and lost all of its net funding.

There's a chance that the online resources and all the new books that were coming out of that Middle English book series will cease to exist, despite countries around the world using those documents and teachers using those documents around the world.

And so, you know, just examples of Joel sharing on practical effects on research.

So so there's going to be some downstream effects here, assuming this continues here.

make sure in case we missed it here, it's one thing to say we're going to accept fewer students.

It's going to be another.

Fewer can even apply or even decide to apply application drops.

And do we have evidence of that so far?

>> Well, that's where you are.

Says that they are seeing an increase in applications.

try and find it here.

I think they were saying from remember they said countries like Vietnam elsewhere in Asia, South Korea and they were seeing an increase, notably from India.

So these are the things where it's like it'd be good to sit down and figure out why RIT is losing students from India.

you are seems to be gaining but the thing I was looking up, I was trying to find real quickly because it surprised me.

Is that I believe it's 1 in 3 u.r.

students are international students.

It was just staggering to me to think of that that large of a representation.

So again, to Joel's point, if you start losing those numbers, that gets very serious very fast.

>> I appreciate not only the reporting on this, but also just the transparency with our audience.

There's a lot we still don't know.

And hopefully with more of a chance to talk to you of RIT, but other institutions as well, we'll get the fuller picture to come.

And who knows, maybe they'll call you tomorrow.

Well, not on a Saturday, but maybe they'll call you soon.

>> I take the call.

>> Take the call on Saturday.

Of course.

You're you're always working.

Thanks for coming in.

>> All right.

Thanks.

>> Brian Sharp from WXXI newsroom.

Short break.

We're coming right back on Connections.

>> I'm Veronica Volk Monday on the next Connections in advance of World Radio Day, we're going to talk about the medium's relevance in 2026.

What is the role of terrestrial radio in a digital media world?

Then in our second hour, a rebroadcast of a conversation about how local Catholics feel about Pope Leo and the first few months of his papacy.

That's coming up Monday on Connections.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola center, supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Cariola Center Transforming lives of people with disabilities.

More online at.

Mary Cariola.

Org and the Prospect Fund.

Announcing the film, The Voice of Job, based on the true story of a six year old Palestinian girl and efforts to rescue her in war torn Gaza, screening at the Little Theater February 6th through 12th.

Details and tickets at the Little.org.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and WXXI investigations in City Hall.

Reporter Gino Fanelli is with us in studio.

Hello, Gino.

Hi, Evan.

Happy Friday to you.

>> Happy Friday.

>> You know, there's some new information on a story that you have been following for a while now.

between July 1st, 2024 and June 30th, 2025.

So a span of a year.

Rochester police saw a surge in overtime work.

And you've reported that special events have fueled the increase.

It's an increase of more than 30% from the previous year.

What's going on?

>> So it's an interesting trend that we've been tracking for a few years.

And during the Covid 19 pandemic, there was an increasing staffing shortage of officers in the department.

And that in turn, led to higher and higher amounts of overtime.

We saw officers collecting higher and higher salaries, and this year we saw an increase again.

It was about $2 million, an increase year over year and overtime expenses.

But the interesting thing that was at play this year is it wasn't personnel shortage that drove the amount of overtime.

It was special events.

It was.

And for special events, you had to consider the Lilac Festival, East Ave parking lot the East End entertainment district Blue Cross Arena, that's what special events is, is the police that are helping people cross the road, making sure nothing bad happens or just the events.

special event overtime is kind of different from other kinds of overtime in that in the department's policies and in the union contract referencing the department policies senior officers are given first dibs at special event overtime.

It is in turn, used to raise up their last few years of pay, and then they retire with larger pensions at the end of it.

>> Okay.

couple things there.

So it's one thing to say, well, lilac festivals, we have annual festivals.

We have a lot of them.

But that's not new.

The East End entertainment district was new, as you've reported on, because people might see that oh, East Entertainment district.

Was that like a festival?

No, that was the city deciding right to police and patrol an area differently.

Okay.

And that led to more overtime.

>> About 1300 hours.

>> 1300 hours.

>> Of overtime in the past fiscal year.

>> So overall, again, it's a $2 million increase from the previous year in overtime alone.

>> Yeah.

And it is important to note that some of these are reimbursed by, let's say what the East Ave Wegmans parking lot is a good example.

Wegmans does pay to have them there, but in turn, the when they retire and it goes into the pension system and then you have a larger pension, taxpayers do end up burying that.

>> Taxpayers are paying that.

Yeah, sure.

and you have this chart of top earners here and it's pretty remarkable.

Again, I'm not I'm just observing.

I'm not saying this as a critic of police making money.

You know, I think officers, you know, of course they should be paid of course.

But here we are with a milestone as in 2022, you reported the first time an officer made 250 K.

>> yeah.

Yeah.

And actually 20, 21, I actually went back and there was another one that had increased that hit that number the year before.

But yeah, with 265 K, I think was the first one.

>> Okay.

And so, so 2021 was the first time someone makes a quarter of $1 million.

But now 15 officers exceeded a quarter million dollars.

And we're looking at on YouTube, if you're watching on our YouTube, we're looking at a chart.

The highest paid members of the Rochester Police Department and the highest paid made $318,000.

>> Yeah, that's about double the mayor.

it's an it's a pretty extraordinary amount of money.

And it's not meant to be.

And I've been doing this story for so long, and I think this is the fifth iteration I've done of it where the criticism I get is like, well, these guys deserve to get paid.

And you know, they're heroes and all that.

And like, sure.

But, I mean, it's pretty extraordinary amounts of money.

And I think it is noteworthy when you're talking about civil servants, how much they are getting paid.

And most of that is fueled by that special event overtime.

>> Yes.

So let's get ahead of this here.

I want to endorse what Gino said.

No one is saying police officers shouldn't be paid or even paid.

Well, the reason I think this matters is a couple of things.

I think you articulated it well and I want to add to that.

First of all, I don't want an airline pilot who is on a 90 hour workweek, right?

I don't want people doing critical jobs in the community where safety is involved.

If they're torched and you know they're on their 50th hour of overtime for the week and ideally you'd have a spread out workload.

So an entire department is covering the community in ways that allows no one to be overworked or burned out.

I'm not saying the officers were burned out.

I'm just saying ideally, it's a little more spread for the community aspect of it.

>> There are about 27 officers that received over 1000 hours of overtime in the past fiscal year.

And that's that's a lot of overtime.

>> Thousand hours.

>> 1000 hours.

and I know some of these are like, you know, doubling their base pay, close to tripling their base pay.

>> I'm doing math in my head, which is never good.

1000 hours a year is 52 weeks.

I mean, that's almost 20 hours a week for the whole year.

>> and some some significantly more than that.

I mean, I remember when we first started doing these stories, there was one officer it worked out to like 95 hours a week.

He was working.

>> And I feel for the officer.

I mean, that's a lot.

>> Yeah.

But and there was a point in time it is important to note that some of this was mandatory during the pandemic, the personnel shortage, overtime was mandatory.

There was a shortage.

There's still about 100 officers short in the department, which raises a whole other question about staffing numbers that I've been asking for quite a while.

But it but a lot of this isn't personnel shortage.

Now.

It's more, you know, getting guys out at the festivals and the sporting events and stuff like that and not not to say that it's not a critical service, but it's something that are we biting off more than we can chew by keep taking these contracts with places to staff them with?

RPD.

Officers.

>> can you explain something a little bit more, though?

Because when you say the shortage of police officers, again, as Gino just mentioned, we've been hearing for the for a while now that this is a department that is essentially 100 officers short of being fully staffed.

So the assumption that anybody would have is, well, that's exactly why there's this overtime surge is you just hire those 100 people, which the city has said they're trying to do.

The department has said they're trying to do.

But you you fill out the staff to where it needs to be.

You're not going to have this overtime.

But you're saying that's not necessarily the case here?

>> No it's not.

and if you look at the numbers and I was I made the horrible decision of reading the Facebook comments on this story.

And this is like the big the big.

>> Never.

>> Never read the Facebook.

>> Well, it is an interesting thing where like, clearly people didn't read the story to understand what we're actually talking about.

>> Yeah.

No man.

>> Someone is commenting on social media without having read the story.

>> Yeah.

You know, they just innately know what's going on.

it's it's very clear that year over year from the previous fiscal year to this year, the amount of personnel shortage overtime work did not change.

It was more or less exactly the same percentage wise.

it's the special event overtime that increased.

And yeah, if you look at the chart that we, we just had up there 2023 was the highest year we had on record, and that was mainly due to an interest arbitration award that gave back pay to officers.

But this year it went back up.

And you can't account for it just by the personnel shortage.

The personnel shortage is a factor in all of this.

it's the department's budgeted for 728 officers.

There's about 655 on the payroll.

that's not including people that are on medical or administrative leave.

So it's about 100 officers short, and that's a significant amount.

The question always rises up to me when I'm having these conversations about this is look, it's been years of the department being extremely short staffed.

Is there a point in time where you start asking the question of like, okay, what is a realistic, sustainable number for our staffing model?

Because it doesn't seem like 728 is right now, because you can't get enough people on to outpace the retirements.

we're down about another 12 officers year over year.

And it kind of contributes to this snowball effect where, you know, the overtime is never going to go back down if you don't fix this problem to begin with.

But can you fix this problem if it's an unreachable goal to begin with?

>> And by the way, maybe we need to have Greg Bellow back and just talk about where they are with their recruiting because he's talked about it on this program.

They've been very they've tried to be aggressive.

They've been very public.

I don't know what their next hiring class looks like or where they are if they've made a dent.

>> At all.

Yeah.

>> I was talking to Greg about that.

And they are they are getting people onboarded.

it's just it's kind of at a stalemate of every time you get one on to leave or not.

Not, not exactly 1 to 1.

But that's kind of the scenario that they're finding themselves in as the retirements are outpacing the new recruits they can get, and they're having a hard time finding people that want to be a cop, that they want to be a cop to, because some of those guys that they that want to be a cop are, are not not the best choice for the position.

and so we've had this conversation.

I've had it with the chief and with Greg, and, you know, a lot of people at the department for years.

And it is one of those things where it doesn't I haven't seen how this is like a really solvable problem.

on the track that they're on, I think they're doing their best.

I think they're trying, but it seems like the numbers, you know, numbers, the numbers don't lie here.

They they show that they're not getting to that number.

and then at the same time you have the, the pension cost just skyrocketing.

>> And part of why is Gino mentioned again, people can decide for themselves how they feel about this, but your pension is determined by the the average of the last three years of your pay.

>> Yeah.

It's calculated.

>> From the highest earning three consecutive years.

So usually that's in the last three years of these guys pay.

>> So if you get a lot of overtime in your last three years and then you retire, your pension soars.

>> Yeah, I remember one last year where the the it was an investigator who was making just such an extraordinary amount of money in his last few years, and he retired with a pension that was well above his base pay, and his base pay was in the six figures.

so it is a scenario where, like, hey, like, this is the way the system is set up.

It is.

I'm not.

>> That's legal.

That's not illegal at all.

>> I wouldn't fault that investigator at all.

Get the money while you can, man.

That's great for you.

But we have to look at the system as a whole of, like, hey, should he should people be able to retire and make more than when they're actually working?

Like, is that a question that we should be asking at some point?

and not a little like 50 grand?

More like that.

That's a lot of money.

so it is a thing where I feel like and I, I'm not here to defend the reporting.

The reporting stands on its own, and that's perfectly fine.

It's just it is a matter of when people critique this as some kind of attack on the police.

Like, no, this is a systemic problem.

and this is a systemic issue that the department and the city have tried to solve.

They did a reorganization plan in 2023 that was supposed to address some of this.

It didn't it just simply didn't.

And the numbers clearly show that it didn't.

>> Oh, in general, to Joe Public, you can love the police.

You can be the biggest police supporter and still think this system is maybe not the best.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

>> And I think that it's I think it's a system built that is really benefiting the senior officers and Godspeed.

That's great for them.

And but like I you have to ask the question at a certain point, what is the long term fiscal viability of having a system like this?

>> They are absolutely, though, operating perfectly legally within the system.

So lastly here, what is the city of Rochester say about this?

What is the department in general?

What has been their response to your reporting?

>> Oh man, I've had a lot, a lot of fun conversations with them over the past week.

you know, I think their position is that, you know, they're doing this in the interest of public safety.

If people request the presence of RPD, they're going to send them.

And if that means getting a contract for them to be on staff or on site, where for an event or for a store or whatever, they're going to do it.

And if they're reimbursed, that's no cost on the backs of the city.

Taxpayers directly.

and I think that when I talked to the finance chair at City Council, Mitch Gruber, he's been concerned about this for a really long time.

And it's just it, it I think to him, it was kind of this thing of we need to figure this out before it becomes a bigger problem, not just because of the overtime expensive itself, not just because of the pension cost itself, but because you know, our budget is you know, based on a few things that are struggling right now, sales tax you know, revenue from the federal government has been in jeopardy for the this current presidential administration, there's some decisions that need to be made going forward to keep afloat the fiscal viability of, you know, being able to meet a budget that funds all of these things.

And when you have millions of dollars that are going to things like overtime to meet either the need for a personnel shortage or into the pension fund as a result of, you know, the amount of special event overtime that the senior officers are getting before they retire, it adds up.

And I think that it brings up a financial concern of how we maintain this in the long run.

>> Well, let's listen, we've got a cut from Mitch Gruber, chair of the finance committee for Rochester City Council.

Let's listen.

>> It may be that we have to start saying no to some of these requests coming to us, and maybe that there has to be a negotiation with the Locust Club to ensure that these kinds of special events are that they're spread equally across both people who are coming up upon retirement and people who are at the beginning of their careers.

>> Again, that soundbite we just heard does not sound anti-cop to me.

>> No I don't think any of this is anti-cop.

I think it's more, you know, noting what the system is and what it has resulted in.

And this is a system that is been made through labor negotiations.

The system that's been coded into the department's general orders.

It's a system that's been made by just how it works.

Just how it works has made this kind of situation end up the way it has.

And then when you look year over year, the number increasing so dramatically from where it was pre-pandemic, particularly, it's worth asking questions about.

And I think that's been the point of tracking this year over year is like, look, this is something that we need to keep an eye on, and it's going to be a thing that we're going to have to continue keeping an eye on.

>> Last thing real quick.

If there's a week where, let's say you've worked 75 hours, okay.

I mean, there's plenty of weeks where you probably are working.

>> Yeah.

No.

>> Yeah.

On your 75th hour, are you a sharp are you as thoughtful.

Are you as circumspect as you would have been in your first or second or fifth hour?

>> I'd like to think my charm shines through at the end of the day, but.

No, I'm tired, I get tired, I get burnt out, and I'm not working a job that has the kind of I mean, I have a stressful job in regard to, like the mental taxing of it, but like, I don't have to carry around a gun and, you know, chase people down or handcuff people or anything like that.

I don't have to defuze domestic situations.

I don't have to chase people in a car.

I don't have to do any of that.

so it is the kind of thing where you have to think about the officer's wellness, too, of like, are are any of these guys overworked?

I mean, you talk to the department about it.

They're like, yeah, we try to, you know, make sure that of course they're fit for duty.

But we can't say no if they're trying to take over time.

>> Okay.

Fair enough.

I just I'm thinking about the officers who who I respect.

And I think of any job.

I don't know if I want a pilot in his 80th hour flying me.

You know, it's not easy when you're kind of torched after a long week.

Thank you for coming in.

Great work, as always.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I don't know, I don't know what hour in you right now, but get out of here.

>> All right.

I will.

>> Gino Fanelli.

We're coming right back here to close the week on Connections.

>> I'm Veronica Volk Monday on the next Connections in advance of World Radio Day, we're going to talk about the medium's relevance in 2026.

What is the role of terrestrial radio in a digital media world?

Then in our second hour, a rebroadcast of a conversation about how local Catholics feel about Pope Leo in the first few months of his papacy.

That's coming up Monday on Connections.

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Announcing the film, The Voice of Hindrar job, based on the true story of a six year old Palestinian girl and efforts to rescue her in war torn Gaza, screening at the Little Theater February 6th through 12th.

Details and tickets at the Little.org.

>> You know, it wasn't that long ago when the controversy of the Super Bowl was arguing over how we ranked the ads, how creative or clever they were.

Not whether Bad Bunny should be doing the halftime show.

But look, there's a lot going on on Sunday.

Still a big cultural event, of course, and bringing in one of the really smart people to talk about this.

Dr.

Kyle Green is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Suny Brockport.

Hey.

Welcome back.

Nice to see you.

>> Hey, thanks for having me.

It's a tough act to follow.

Gino.

He does incredible work.

>> Well, listen, we appreciate having you.

And, you know, Kyle, I'm sure on different days we'll go deep on a number of things, including a lot of your works on what the polarization of sports.

And I would love to, to talk more about that on a separate day for an hour with you briefly tell me a little bit about the polarization of sports.

>> I mean, the, the.

>> The politicization.

Sorry, I'm on my, you know, 80th hour, I think.

Go ahead, man.

>> You know, you're right though both actually work.

That's what's so fascinating.

Sport has been traditionally the space that's celebrated for being apolitical, where you can escape from the polarization.

And it's still true to a degree.

We could talk about the Super Bowl, but more and more we're it's being revealed how political sport can be.

And we're seeing politicians specifically engage with sport in a more antagonistic manner.

So there's been shifts over the years.

>> So you're not surprised to see the all of the raging or sincere or insincere controversy about Bad Bunny, then?

>> No, I'm not surprised.

I actually I'm not surprised at all.

Now, I do think there's some mistakes being made.

And we could talk 20 minutes about Bad Bunny.

We could talk 20 minutes about commercials.

But one of the things that's fascinating to me is the way people are attaching this idea of the NFL being intentionally part of the resistance or something like that.

That's patently not true.

We know what the NFL is doing, right.

The NFL wants to make money.

The NFL wants to expand its fan base.

And so we could talk about that decision much more if you'd like.

I'm happy to go that route.

>> Well, let's hit that briefly here because you know people are going to see you know, there's this alternate talking point USA halftime show with kid Rock.

There's Bad Bunny.

Everyone's going to have an opinion.

And if if what you're saying is correct here that the NFL is not part of a resistance, they're they're a money making entity, then why would they condone something that is going to upset the white House right now, or create this sort of cultural firestorm?

>> I think the answer is pretty straightforward.

They're they want to expand their market, right.

That's that's the goal of a corporation like the NFL.

And they've maxed out what they can do.

They've already expanded from 16 games to 18 games for the regular season.

And we're seeing players get injured more and more going into the playoffs.

They can't add more games.

So how do you extend if you have I don't know.

Morgan Wallen was the most streamed country artist last year.

If you have Morgan Wallen, you'll bring Morgan Wallen in.

The fans in.

That's a pretty clear overlap in the Venn diagram.

The NFL can be pretty confident.

Morgan Wallen fans already are paying attention to the NFL.

Bad Bunny is the most streamed artist globally by far, so the hope there is saying, all right, we know a lot of Bad Bunny fans probably already watch NFL, but maybe we can bring in some fans who don't pay attention already.

That's an expansion.

That's possible.

So even there, the controversy is worth it, right?

People will still turn into the game and you might get in, you might get some new fans.

>> But this is where I think it puts the lie to something we've heard for years now, probably.

I don't remember when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling during the national anthem.

Was that ten years ago?

Was that more?

I mean, it was around a decade ago, right?

Something like that.

>> Yeah.

At least at least ten years ago.

I think it was 2012 even was the first time that began.

So it was a while ago.

>> Okay.

So there's a theory of thought here that says the NFL is really taking a big risk in allowing Bad Bunny to do the halftime show, because the Morgan Wallen crowd that might not dig the bad bunny stuff, well, they could say, that's it, I'm out.

But I think that they kind of did that with Colin Kaepernick.

They said, well, I'm done with the NFL.

There's too many players kneeling.

I don't want another Colin Kaepernick.

I don't like end racism in the Super Bowl or in in the end zone.

The painted stuff.

You know, all of these political what they saw as virtue signaling.

And people said, I'm out as fans.

I suspect you're going to tell us that they didn't actually leave.

>> But did they act on it?

Right.

People said it, but did they act on it?

Because NFL can look at the numbers and they can say, hey, every year the number of viewers of NFL is still gone up.

Last year, 127 million.

Most they've ever had.

Right.

So even though people said that, did they actually act on it and I do I do actually fundamentally believe that a lot of people watching the NFL want to, you know, get away from the polarization, get away from everything being a political fight and sport being a place to provide that.

So there is that risk by choosing Bad Bunny.

But Bad Bunny is also the most popular artist in the world.

He won three Grammys, so that is going to bring some controversy.

Maybe some people go over and choose they choose to watch kid Rock instead.

They can go over to the Turning Point USA show.

I think that I actually think Turning Point and a number of conservative figures who have endorsed Turning Point have made an error in trying to counter-program.

I think they would have done better by simply saying, oh, we're going to tune out during that time by making it a head to head matchup.

They're creating a fight that I don't think they'll win.

They should have said, turn on the Puppy Bowl, right?

That would have been a safer way to try to counter-program than saying, we're going to go head to head with the biggest global artist in the world.

>> I mean, so JD Vance back when he was an author, said that, you know, he listened to like Postal Service, like that's kind of was his vibe.

Yeah.

Watching there's this video of him and usher at the Kennedy Center watching kid Rock, and it's so uncomfortable.

Like it's just like he's trying to, like, act like he's all into it wearing a full suit.

And I'm like, man, like, what are we doing here?

But you know that I take your point then that trying to counter-program with kid Rock versus Bad Bunny, maybe not politically the smartest.

So one more question on politicization.

And yeah, it has to do with this, this moment about who is speaking out.

and I want to reference a couple of things in regards to ice.

So first of all, league to league Americans can probably start to guess which sports organizations and leagues are more conservative, which are more progressive.

Alan Shipnuck once wrote that coming out as a Democrat on the PGA tour was harder than coming out as gay in politics decades ago.

Peter Malnati is like one of the only political lefties that I know of on the PGA tour.

Maybe there's more, but they don't.

I mean, it's very, very conservative.

That's not a surprise.

What is more surprising is when people see, to the extent that it's tracked, the politics of Major League Baseball pretty conservative.

The politics of a lot of organized sports, pretty conservative.

Chipper Jones retired from the Atlanta Braves.

He recently said about ice, he said, I want to see less talk and more handcuffs.

And people were like, whoa.

He's like pro ice.

Like, yeah, a lot of athletes are pro ice, whereas Victor Wembanyama from the San Antonio Spurs, he came out last week and said, my team has tried to muzzle me for too long, but I have to speak out about what I'm seeing against ice and killing people in the street.

And that surprised me, Kyle, because one of the most outspoken voices in sports when it comes to progressive politics has been Greg Popovich, former coach of the Spurs.

Now he's the team, the team's president.

And Wemby is saying, yeah, they don't want me to talk about this.

I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about this.

I think people are would be surprised at how conservative sports as an architecture is in general.

Are you I mean, do you think people would be surprised that.?

>> I think people would be surprised because their association with sports are the athletes, right.

So those are the people you see.

and if you see someone like Larry Nance Junior also wear an anti-ICE shirt.

And we've had a number of players in the WNBA.

And whenever the WNBA players are engaging in protest, which is pretty common, I'm impressed because they have more to risk because they're not getting paid as much.

Right?

So if you lose, you don't have a ton of money saved up.

But it's the players that we think about.

But if you go up the chain and you get to the owners, you probably wouldn't be as surprised, right?

Because the owners are a group of billionaires, some of the richest people in the world, many of them have donated to Trump.

Many of them donate actually to both the Democrats and Republicans because they want to have ends either way.

But generally pretty supportive leaning Republican.

So when you look at that and you say, well, again, the league wants to make money, they don't want to be mired in political controversy.

So they want to shut down that conversation.

So it's not a surprising that Victor Wembanyama would say that.

It's also not as surprising to see someone on the San Antonio Spurs or someone in the NBA being willing, willing to speak against ice.

We haven't seen an NFL player, I believe, speak out against ice yet.

>> And any NFL player.

Wow.

And I think.

>> Current current I should add there have.

yeah yeah yeah retired players who have spoken John Randall great Minnesota Viking posted something and I think has actually been at some of the protests.

But I don't think there's been an active NFL player to say anything, which is pretty amazing.

>> No, I mean, I think I don't want to speak out of school.

I think I saw Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, with Trump, last week at an event, and some people were commenting on, wow, he's he's hanging out with Trump.

And the Vikings play by play radio guy, who also hosts a show locally in Minneapolis, had to come out and apologize after he made some pretty derogatory remarks about protesters in Minneapolis.

So it's a pretty conservative you know, sort of ecosystem in general.

>> Or at least a safe ecosystem, right?

One that still believes that we should not speak out.

And that's shifted, especially in the sports media.

But traditional sports media still has this idea.

You don't speak about this type of thing.

>> yeah.

So let's set that aside for now.

And let's let let's start the last portion of our program here, Kyle, with just a question on like, people are still spending a ton of money on Super Bowl ads.

I mean, I remember when it was like the first $2 million ad and it was like, whoa.

But now it feels less relevant to me culturally.

I've got to be wrong about this.

I mean, because companies are going to spend money if they think that there's a return on it and they're still spending a ton of money.

So it's still relevant, huh?

>> Yeah.

That's what's so fascinating.

It seems like people are talking about less than they were before.

When I get to class on Monday and I ask my students, they're not going to be as excited about the ads as they used to be.

Yeah, companies are still spending.

They're not just still spending money.

They're spending more money than ever before.

NBC sold multiple commercials this year.

First time ever, $10 million for 30s.

That's $300,000 a second.

So the company the companies are saying this is still worth doing.

I mean, that's just simply an astounding number.

And it's doubled in the last five years.

>> And and yet, you know, what ends up going viral?

What ends up getting traction doesn't look to me like the stuff that was the most well received Super Bowl ads of the 80s or 90s.

It looks pretty different.

Does it look different to you?

>> It looks different and it looks safer.

And I don't want to fall into this trap of saying things used to be better in the past, but I think a few things are happening.

One is we were talking about before the polarization and also politicization.

So both of those words work in this case of the sporting event.

It's also that we're seeing things cost more than ever before.

And so this happens with music.

This happens with movies.

Companies are saying, if we're spending this much money, we don't want to make anyone angry.

And that might be a mistake.

But companies are saying, we're going to run a ton of focus groups.

We're going to do a bunch of research, and we're going to put forth something that can appeal across the aisle and can appeal to everyone.

And then the last 15 years.

So I published an article in 2010 looking at Super Bowl commercials, and I've been tracking it ever since.

In the last 15 years, we've seen companies lean into nostalgia.

We've seen companies lean into celebrity appearances, we've seen companies leaving lean into fantasy and really simple humor, because those are the things that won't bother anyone.

>> Were there more social?

Was there more social commentary and political commentary 20 years ago?

30 years ago, in Super Bowl ads.

>> It wasn't direct social commentary, so it wasn't like a company was going to take a stand and make a political statement.

But they would take a few more risks.

So maybe the humor would be a little edgier.

Maybe the commercials, it used to be the classic thing was sex sells.

So you had a ton of commercials that featured, stereotypically attractive women not wearing much clothing, and that would be the way they would sell product that's disappeared as well.

You would see companies making a statement about society.

In 2010, a number of commercials said, hey, there's a crisis of masculinity and you need to wear the pants, or you got to get a Dodge Charger to feel powerful again.

Those type of commercials have disappeared also.

So it wasn't that the companies were making some sort of profound statement, but they were willing to try something.

And I think in the last 15 years, in part because I like to think of marketers, especially in these big moments, as being sociologists with a different purpose.

Right.

They're trying to understand what's the story of society in this particular year.

That's harder to get a grasp on.

So companies just have gone right down the middle, right, right.

Trying to get right in the center.

And I think as a result, it's exciting.

No one.

>> Try to please everybody and you please nobody.

Now the the actress Jennifer Lawrence said in the last year that she has kind of pulled back from talking about politics because she I'm trying to paraphrase her, but she essentially said she used to talk about politics a lot.

And of course, it offended some people.

It earned her some big fans.

But her calculation now is kind of like, I'm not changing anything.

I'm not winning.

I'm not I'm not like personally to her, but like, I'm not changing society here.

People don't want entertainers to tell them about their political views.

So she's like, I'm going to not do that as much.

And I wonder if that also is reflected in commercials and advertising.

>> Yeah, I could see that.

I also think that the Super Bowl is just it's more difficult than any other space to advertise in every other with almost every other.

The monoculture is basically dead, right?

Or at least it's on life support.

I teach a bunch of 20 year olds, and what people watch varies greatly based on age, based on gender, based on, especially on political affiliation.

So advertisers can target a little bit more.

The Super Bowl really is that one moment that transcends every group.

And so I think for that reason, that's why we see people being safer in terms of the politics.

I do think companies are willing to take a little bit more of a stand when it's I don't know when it's in the middle of a show where they have a better sense of who's actually going to be watching.

Now, with someone like a celebrity, that that's tough, because we also see a lot of celebrities who are speaking out about social issues, especially in regards to something like Palestine, especially in regards to something like ice.

So I don't know if you win support by doing that, but.

Well, I don't know if you win more if you expand that diagram of who actually likes you, but I, I think you can impress people.

And I think on some level it matters.

>> All right, lastly, down to our last minute here.

we've seen some big companies put out entirely A.I.

ads in the last couple of months, spending a lot of money, but maybe spending less than they would on humans.

I have no idea.

But I saw in my spheres and it's very self-selected here.

A lot of like, this is gross.

This is terrible.

Why do we want this?

But I suspect that that train is going to be hard to stop.

What do you think?

>> Yeah, there's two things.

So one, you can also just look at who the advertisers are.

That tells a story because it's a companies have money and it's also the companies either need to establish or rehabilitate their image.

There's going to be a lot of A.I.

companies themselves putting out ads, and I'm sure the A.I.

companies will be using A.I.

to create the ad.

The other thing that's interesting is there's an ad this year by Svedka Vodka that is completely A.I., and it already has 100.

I checked right before we talked.

It already has over 100,000 views on YouTube.

It's an ad with two robots dancing.

And it's interesting because this is the example they're leaning into sex sells.

They're also doing it through A.I., which I think is particularly depressing because they're saying be attracted to a robot.

That's who will objectify.

And it's getting a response.

So they might be the company that wins through saying, we're going to anger some people, but you're going to watch it.

If you're upset about it, it'll probably be the ad that's talked about about the most on Monday, and it'll be the ad we remember in ten years, even though I think it's an awful ad and people who are upset about A.I., including myself, find it grotesque.

>> Every time I talk to Kyle Green, I think we need to talk to you more, man.

really, really, really great stuff.

Your students are lucky to have you, professor in the Department of Sociology at Suny Brockport.

Yeah, let's come back.

There's a long menu of topics that we can talk about, but in the meantime, thanks for making time.

And it's good to talk to you again here.

>> Hey, really enjoyed it.

>> Dr.. Kyle Green, Suny Brockport.

Now you know what to look for here.

Robots dancing.

Oh, boy.

Sex sells and it's robots.

This is 2026.

Hope you had a great week from all of us.

Wherever you're finding us on our various platforms.

Thanks for supporting your public media, and we'll talk to you next week.

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