Jeff Goodman recently left ESPN for Stadium. He is set to be the digital network’s lead college basketball insider. What lead to the move was a topic of conversation on the latest episode of The Glass Half Full podcast.
Goodman recounted being asked to “stand down” by one of his managers when reporting on the FBI’s recent probe into a number of college basketball programs. He told Glasspiegal that he pitched multiple different ways to cover the story but was always told no. He talked about pushing back.
And I said to the person, ‘How can that be the case, with all the relationships, with all the information I’m privy to in college basketball, wouldn’t you want me leading the charge on this?’ And instead it was almost like ‘Well, don’t ruffle any feathers with the relationships you have.’
While Goodman was complimentary of the work done by Yahoo! and his ESPN colleagues Mark Schlabach and Paula Lavigne, he was adamant that ESPN put itself at a disadvantage by not allowing him to probe his sources for information.
Remember, I came up through recruiting, so I knew a lot of the agents, AAU coaches. Obviously it hit some of the college coaches, I knew people who knew people that had been arrested, Christian Dawkins, Andy Miller that whole deal. So I was baffled on that one to be honest.
Goodman told Glasspiegal that “the greatest thing about ESPN is its size and the toughest thing to navigate is its size, because they’ve got so many moving parts and so many people.” The number of people available to the editorial staff came up again when Glasspiegal asked Goodman what he could do at Stadium that he couldn’t at ESPN.
I feel like at Stadium, Ryan, I can give my opinion. They encourage me with the information I have, which I’ll put against most people in college basketball and even NBA and some recruiting, they encourage me to give my opinion, an informed opinion. Whereas at ESPN, a reporter was more put in a box, give the information, but let the former coaches, former players give the opinion. I don’t understand why a reporter who’s got more information than most isn’t able to give their opinion as well.
Stadium announced the addition of Goodman earlier this month as part of what the network calls “the new trifecta.” It includes Goodman as the Stadium’s college basketball insider, Brett McMurphy as the college football insider, and Shams Charania as the NBA insider.
