There’s no sphere of television more depressingly homogenous than sports broadcasting, not only in demographics, but also in formatting. Ninety percent of the content on channels like ESPN involves ex-athletes and talk-radio hosts batting around scripted talking points, and the lack of new voices is one reason there’s so little real discourse about controversial issues in sports. But since it debuted in March, Fox Sports 1’s Garbage Time With Katie Nolan has broken that pattern. Nolan’s freewheeling talk show, airing every Wednesday at midnight, stands out as much for its humor as it does for its willingness to tackle tough topics such as domestic violence and mental illness.
The 28-year-old Nolan is still in the “up-and-coming” bracket: Fox Sports 1 remains a junior competitor to the ESPN behemoth and Garbage Time is nestled deep in its schedule. After starting a sports blog while bartending in Boston, Nolan began hosting and producing shows on YouTube for Fox Sports. She graduated to “digital correspondent” for the network in 2013 before getting her own show this year. Garbage Time is a distillation of Nolan’s witty, sometimes sarcastic, always hyper-knowledgeable sportscaster persona: a kinetic mix of commentary, scripted comedy, and interviews peppered by off-screen laughs and jeers from her production crew. In the way it seamlessly and energetically switches from funny to serious, it feels more like E!’s long-running hit The Soup crossed with The Daily Show than typical sports commentary.
Mostly, Garbage Time has a looser feel, and is happy to indulge silly comedy bits as often as in-depth reporting. Its time slot works as a fun perch from which to razz the rest of sports media. After Bill Simmons’s much publicized departure from ESPN, Nolan had him briefly “take over” her show for a hastily staged bit that was as funny as it was amateurish. (Simmons has long touted Nolan as a rising star in sports media and reportedly tried to poach her for ESPN while he was there.) When Deadspin’s Greg Howard published a searing take-down of Jason Whitlock’s disastrous tenure at the ESPN site The Undefeated, Nolan had the writer on to talk about his reporting process, something that couldn’t have happened on ESPN (Fox Sports 1 now, ironically, employs Whitlock and Colin Cowherd, another ESPN cast-off Nolan has been happy to mock).
For now, Garbage Time is a lovable underdog, and Nolan is the ideal host, but she’s definitely on the rise: She just launched a popular new podcast and currently boasts 158,000 followers on Twitter. Sports broadcasting often softens the edge of its renegades, especially those climbing into higher positions—Simmons, for example, never seemed comfortable hosting NBA broadcasts for ESPN, and remains at his best when hosting a podcast. Nolan may have to strike a tougher balance in the future, but for now Garbage Time should be celebrated as the much needed rebel in the otherwise uniform world of sports TV.
Read more at The Atlantic where this story was originally published
Jason Barrett is the President and Founder of Barrett Media since the company was created in September 2015. Prior to its arrival, JB served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He also spent time programming SportsTalk 950 in Philadelphia, 590 The Fan KFNS in St. Louis, and ESPN 1340/1390 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jason also worked on-air and behind the scenes in local radio at 101.5 WPDH, WTBQ 1110AM, and WPYX 106.5. He also spent two years on the national stage, producing radio shows for ESPN Radio in Bristol, CT. Among them included the Dan Patrick Show, and GameNight.
You can find JB on Twitter @SportsRadioPD. He’s also reachable by email at Jason@BarrettMedia.com.
