Freedumb, the 24-hour livestream of the Dan Le Batard Show, was Meadowlark Media planting its flags. It was the company’s coming out party. It was a reintroduction to the audience that maybe hasn’t heard or even thought about Dan, Stu, and the Shipping Container since the show left ESPN Radio.
I am not going to lie to you. I didn’t watch all 24-hours. I consumed the event in multiple two or three hour sessions.
There was a lot of good. I really enjoyed watching everyone, not just the producers, run around in real-time looking for guests. I liked the familiar elements of the Dan Le Batard Show that I knew from ESPN Radio like “put it on the poll” and Stump the Meech. Using the show to raise more than $100,000 for ALS research was a very admirable thing. It threaded the needle between sincere (the effort was lead by Tom Haberstroh and Kate Fagan, each of whom have had parents affected by the disease) and the silly (the motivator for donating was watching Haberstroh and Fagan eating Carolina Reaper peppers).
Admittedly, there was stuff I didn’t like too. Look, this isn’t me calling these elements simply bad. I just thought these were missteps for an event trying to establish what the next evolution of the Dan Le Batard Show will be.
Rather than go through each minuscule complaint I have, I will focus on one key thing. Dan and his crew will have have to put ESPN in their rearview mirror in order to truly embrace the freedom they claim to enjoy.
It doesn’t mean you can’t talk to former colleagues anymore. It doesn’t mean you cannot revel in the fact that so much of what you can do now you couldn’t just one year ago, when Mickey Mouse was your boss. But now, the rebellion against ESPN hits different. When you are raging against the machine from inside of it, you are a rebel and a voice of decent. When you are bringing Dan Patrick, Michael Smith and Jemele Hill on to tell the same stories that I have already heard them tell multiple times, you sound bitter.
Also, it all feels very self-serving. I don’t think the audience cares about Dan Le Batard’s newfound creative freedom when it isn’t being used to do cool stuff. I’m not sure who multiple guests raging against Disney was for aside from people that have had professional dealings with Disney.
Now, I do think that if you made me rate the Freedumb stream on a scale of 1 to 10, it would come out way closer to 10 than 1. I would say taken in total, of the 8 to 9 hours I watched, I would give it an 8. My complaints about the content come way more from thinking like a professional trying to think like a listener. Mostly, I was just entertained, and that is good.
I have written before that I was concerned that DraftKings’ money was going to turn the irreverent show that is only kind of about sports into an irreverent show that was shamelessly about gambling. At least for the time being, I would say Freedumb did a lot to ease that fear.
As soon as I turned the stream on, I started taking notes and documenting the moments that stood out to me as really great. I could write multiple paragraphs about each one, but that would make this column way too long. So, instead I put on my editor’s cap and narrowed the list of moments worth writing about down to five.
That means great stuff isn’t going to get a deep dive from me. Real quick, I want to mention Rasheed Wallace’s hilariously wimpy RV horn, Dan calling out how miserable Dan Patrick is by saying that the celebrities that are drawn to him find a “dried up twig of a man,” an owl lunging for Mike Ryan’s head, the people that openly said Chris Cote wasn’t a celebrity, the ones that believed he was, the event opening with Stugotz mismanaging the Marching Band to Nowhere, Charles Barkley telling Dan he wanted to murder Papí, Papí saying the name Rui Hachimura, Stugotz trying to spell the name Rui Hachimura, and finally Mike Schur PERFECTLY mocking Stugotz’s Game Notes. They were all hilarious, and unfortunately did not crack the top 5.
With that in mind, here are the five best moments of the entire 24 hours.
5. PAT RILEY SINGS THE PRAISES OF OLD SPICE
This is a moment that isn’t going to show up on any of the highlights, because literally every second Pat Riley was on was worth watching. The interview opened with Dan Le Batard forcing Ryan Cortes, a Miami Heat superfan, to ask Riley a very unfomfortable question: “What do you smell like and where can we meet for a hug?”
Riley laughed and aside from mentioning what cologne he wore, I didn’t expect much more to the answer. Instead, Riley admitted that he still wears Old Spice and went on for a good two minutes about what Old Spice meant to him and how it reminds him of his father. It was funny and heartwarming and perfectly punctuated by Le Batard’s awe at the fact that Riley’s cologne of choice can be bought at a CVS.
4. “LOOK WHO’S ON THE F***ING PIRATE SHIP!”
If you are an icon of sports talk radio going on someone else’s uncensored, unencumbered show, you better announce yourself with authority. That is exactly what Jim Rome did. We heard his voice before we saw his face and the inflection made it clear that this was Le Batard’s show, but as far as sports talk radio goes, there is only one GOAT.
What I loved about this segment was the absolute reverence the Shipping Container showed Rome. Mike Ryan admitted that he was a huge fan. Jessica Smetana tweeted later that having him on was unbelievable. These are people that clearly love the Pimp in the Box.
I also loved how self-aware Jim Rome is. He clearly gets where the guys that grew up listening to him are now in their lives and he knows his place in the radio industry. That being said, he can also look back at the over-the-top bravado that is his trademark with a wink and a laugh, which was clear as he talked about his run-in with Jim Everett.
3. GREG COTE SHOWS OFF HIS SQUISHY BELLY BUTTON
There was not a weirder, more on-brand moment of the entire 24 hours than the overnight hours with Greg Cote. Throughout the earlier hours of the event, Cote had alluded to a number of health issues he had been dealing with. The Le Batard crew largely met each complaint with disbelief.
When he took his turn in the host’s chair though, Cote was going to take advantage. At around 4:25 AM, he asked his guest, Dr. John Roberts, if he wouldn’t mind taking a look at his strange belly button via Zoom. It was a memorable event as Cote showed off what was clearly a hernia of some sort and proceeded to poke it and squish the mass that covered his naval.
Credit Roberts for being a good sport and giving his professional opinion. Credit the Shipping Container as well for showing the proper horror at just how much the moment had gone off the rails.
2. BOB LEY SHOUTS “HOLY SHIT”
Prior to leaving ESPN last year, Bob Ley had been at the center its journalistic credibility. When the network leaned into the goofiness of The Big Show and the “This is SportsCenter” campaign, there was Ley leading the Emmy-nomination bait Outside the Lines. When the network embraced debate, there was Ley, hosting panels on the head trauma caused by playing football and the corruption that plagued FIFA and the World Cup. That Bob Ley, the one that was an institution in Bristol since day 1, would never have been caught on camera shouting expletives after eating a raw jalapeño.
Welcome to the internet, General!
Ley was keen to join in Kate Fagan’s fundraising efforts for I Am ALS, that is why he was amongst the many biting into hot peppers. The real treat though, aside from the swearing, was just how animated he was in expressing his pain. Ley was sweating and crying and laughing as he tried to tell stories of covering the World Cup, while clearly in tremendous pain.
1. CHRIS WITTYNGHAM IS A FANCY LAD
Chris Wittyngham calls soccer play-by-play. He is part of the Miami Dolphins’ radio broadcast, and most recently, has joined Meadowlark Media as a producer and commentator on the Dan Le Batard Show. His idiosyncrasies have been put under a microscope since coming on board, and rightfully so. Chris is someone that gels his hair BEFORE HE GOES TO BED!
It all inspired a jingle that is played regularly on the show, and on Friday, that jingle was turned into a full-length music video.
The second I started putting the list together, it was all about what was #2. This fan-produced masterpiece is everything you love about the Dan Le Batard Show and a perfect picture of why DraftKings thought it and Meadowlark Media were worth a $50 million investment.
It has everything that made this crew great: ball busting, silliness, and character development. On top of that, it was a beautiful picture of this fanbase’s dedication to the show and its willingness to embrace inside jokes.
Seriously, if you can hear this and not go around singing “So let us mount our penny farthings, ride till dawn with our comrades,” I am not sure you have a sense of humor at all or get what made The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz great to begin with!
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
Dan lebatard and his racist anti white rants are old hat now.