then we have l.z. granderson. ben ferguson here along with terrance moore and sports contributor to cnn.com. so, terrance, i'll start with you. what kind of reception will jason collins receive? >> i tell you something, don. right now we should all be getting lottery numbers from jason collins. he is the luckiest person on the face of the earth for a lot of reasons. first of all, the best thing to happen to him was michael sam. takes all the pressure off of him. plus the fact that michael sam is projected to be a starter and you look at jason collins, he is basically going to be a big player. the other thing, this is the perfect team for him for a lot of reasons. nobody cares about the brooklyn nets. i don't care how much money they spent. they are the other nba team. it's the truth. here's the other thing. when you're ranking all the professional teams in the new york area, this is about the sixth team down the line. but here's the biggest thing of all, he's going to play with guys who have played with him before

cnn commentator, l.z. granderson, was in the room, in the east room of the white house, listening to the president speak to all those young men. l.z. joins us from chicago. people are talking about how revealing and how personal this was. how the president opened up about his own youth and own racial identity. what he really doesn't do that often, which a lot of people think is ironic as the first black president. he say he connected. the fact that he connected will make a difference. >> absolutely. part of the reason why or at least i believe part of the reason why the president had been so hesitant to be this assertive in regard to racial issues is because he was the first black president. when you are the first black president, what you don't want to be perceived as is the president of only black people but the president of the entire country. i believe he is hesitant to dive into this issue the way he has. he doesn't have that burden to prove himself as a president for all. what he does have the burden

l.z. is correct in that fox will put out these numbers after the game but your traditional nfl game may be viewed by 65% men, 35% women. the super bowl is much closer to 54%, 55% men, 45% women. the demographics are good all across the board from young and old, different races and jernds. it's one of these game where is you -- >> but why don't controversies affect that? >> because football is our passion and maybe sometimes a little bit of our -- i don't know what it is, voyeuristic kind of moral problem that we have with the concussions but yet we're so in love with the violence, so in love with the game that i think sometimes we look past knowing that these guys are suffering for us 20, 30 years down the road. >> they're also well compensated. >> that's correct. >> in america, when you know the guys are informed and they know what they're getting into and they're making hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to do what they do it's easy as viewers to go, they know what they're