While Rich Eisen has not been at ESPN since 2003, there was apparently a time where he almost brought The Rich Eisen Show to ESPN, which would have pleased a lot of people that grew up watching him and Stuart Scott on the late night SportsCenter.
Eisen was a guest on the most recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show and he mentioned that he was ready to take the show to ESPN on two different platforms at the same time (12 Noon-3 PM ET) as his show recently announced it will leave Peacock for Roku. He would not say when those talks took place.
“That’s as far as I’ll go. I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I was ready to go for this show. Potentially both TV and radio, same time.”
Despite that not happening, Eisen holds no ill will towards ESPN and loves all the people that are there.
“I have no animosity at all. I love that place. I love the people there. My children exist because I met my wife there. I watch it all the time. The number of guests I have on the show who I used to work with or still work there. I have no problems at all with my relationship with ESPN.”
While people still go up to Eisen and mention to him that they loved watching him on SportsCenter, he is not mad that ESPN is still associated with him and he mentioned to Helwani that he enjoys connecting with a different generation.
“When I hear the SportsCenter theme hummed to me in the airport as happened about a month ago or people call me that they watched me at ESPN and I inform them it’s been 19 years, they’ll apologize thinking they’ve offended me, but it doesn’t offend me at all. I just love the fact that I have a connection to a whole different generation than my age. That’s a treasure. It really is.”
Eisen has enjoyed hosting his own radio show and he told Helwani that having a show allows him to do two different things that he is unable to do at NFL Network and was unable to do while he was at ESPN.
“My dream jobs were to be a sportscaster or late night TV show host. I got to combine both here. This allows me to stretch my legs and interview people for an extended period of time as opposed to hosting a show where I’m setting up my analysts and then 3 minutes into a terrific conversation, I hear in my ear, move on. The other thing I love about this program is when I do what I do for a living on NFL Network or what I did at ESPN as rewarding and incredible as that is, the one thing you don’t get to do on a show like that is talk to fans. Talk to people. I take phone calls and I meet people. I talk with them. I hear that opinion and mix it up with them.”
