While many sports radio stations have seen their audience decline during the sports shutdown, ESPN boasts strong digital listenership. June marked the eighth time in the last nine months ESPN Podcasts experienced at least 40 million downloads.
The Worldwide Leader reports their podcasts were downloaded 42.7 million times in June, a 31% increase year over year. ESPN has 11 of the top 30 podcasts in the Sports Podcast category, according to The Podtrac Podcast Category Audience Rankings. And The Dan Le Batard Show ranks third in the sports podcast category thanks to 1,025,870 listeners in June.
Last week, ESPN announced Le Batard’s weekday radio show would be cut by one-third, in favor of a daily digital hour. At the time, Le Batard said having one hour of his daily radio show converted to digital-only felt like a demotion, but he clearly has a strong podcast following that ESPN can look to further build off.
For ESPN’s digital audience in June, original podcast downloads experienced an even larger jump, increasing by 65% year-over-year. Their strongest original podcast performers were Jalen & Jacoby, The Lowe Post and Bomani Jones’ The Right Time.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
