ESPN Radio suffered big internal losses last week as part of cost-cutting measures at The Walt Disney Company. In a fantastic look at the situation, Jason Barrett stated what needed to be said: Radio is no longer a priority for ESPN, and the entire situation could have been avoided.
Unfortunately for national sports radio brands, the outlook doesn’t appear much rosier.
For better or worse, we live in an on-demand, hyper-personalized world. Virtually every aspect of our lives has become completely customizable. That doesn’t bode well for broad national sports radio.
According to a recent estimation from podcast search engine Listen Notes, there were more than 50,000 podcasts launched in the first quarter of 2023. That number grew the podcasting space to 3 million active podcasts. If you’ve ever thought “Oh my gosh, everyone has a podcast”, you were right.
And that’s part of the problem for national sports radio brands. If the options for daily sports listening are “listen to national sports radio and hope they talk about the leagues, teams, and players I care about” or “find a podcast centered on the leagues, teams, and players I care about”, it’s an easy decision, and it’s never been easier to make that decision.
And yet, many of these national sports radio brands are cognizant of that issue plaguing their organizations, and the remedy is…what, exactly? Try to localize content as much as possible in individual shows?
Keyshawn, JWill, and Max talk about Chicago sports topics in the 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM hours. Why? Because that’s when they’re on in the Windy City. Damn near every day at 8:00 AM, the discussion was about the Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Yankees, or Mets, because that was when the show started in New York City before 98.7 ESPN New York shifted DiPietro & Rothenberg to a full-fledge morning show. So, I’m guessing you can see — if that was the result — just how well that experiment went.
ESPN Radio, FOX Sports Radio, and CBS Sports Radio have their challenges, no question about it. Heck, their own hosts are creating separate podcasts to compete in the audio space.
ESPN Radio, while no longer having that flamethrower, signature, must-hear host, has invested heavily into the podcast space. Frankly, ESPN Radio hasn’t had a host like that since Colin Cowherd departed. Cowherd, by the way, has invested heavily in the podcasting arena with his ownership of The Volume. Not a bad investment for a guy who lampooned the podcasting business just a few short years ago.
Cowherd is still a national sports radio draw, because nearly as many listeners hate him as love him. However, one could argue Cowherd hosts a sports television show that happens to air on radio as much as he hosts a radio show that’s on TV. So Cowherd, the preeminent voice of the national sports radio scene, is more invested in podcasting than radio. Not exactly a great position for the industry to see itself.
In addition to Colin Cowherd, FOX Sports Radio has Dan Patrick…who started a podcast network.
CBS Sports Radio has Jim Rome but lacks much of the distribution and reach of FOX Sports Radio. And yet, Rome’s got a podcast with interviews from high-profile guests.
Unfortunately, the national sports radio host no longer carries the same cachet as the role once did. It used to be a chief driver of the national sports discussion. Now? That role isn’t held by a single individual or a select group nationally. It’s held as much on a market-by-market basis as it is on a national level.
And podcasting has a lot to do with that. You could argue that someone like Ryen Russillo has as much influence on the national level as host of his podcast on The Ringer as he did hosting afternoons at ESPN Radio.
And that isn’t a shot at ESPN Radio, Russillo, or anyone, as much as its an understanding and an appreciation of the times in which we live. It was the likely evolution of the medium. In a world where everything has become individualized, customizable, and on-demand, the downfall of national sports radio was inevitable. But that doesn’t mean it can’t fight back.
I don’t know what the exact answer is, but I do know that pretending as if you can still operate like its 2003 rather than 2023 isn’t the right path for the future of the industry.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
