The new episode of South Beach Sessions starts with real sentimentality, as Dan Le Batard opens his conversation with Mina Kimes by telling her how proud he is of her rise to stardom.
Le Batard noted that when Kimes first started showing up on TV and radio at ESPN, he could see her stress. While he framed it as a standard she held herself to, it seemed clear she felt pressure to be right about every point she made. He noted that, as a man on ESPN, he enjoyed a benefit of the doubt and a level of trust from the audience that Mina Kimes didn’t.
Kimes has been public in the past about the abuse she puts up with on social media. She said it wasn’t as simple fear of racism or sexism that motivated her in that way.
“Certainly, some of it is being an outsider and looking different. That arouses all kinds of feelings in people, not only negative ones,” she said. “Some of it, also, when you’re new, they’re more likely to judge negatively. And that was true, but also, I think, Dan, in retrospect, I could have gotten stuff wrong and I would have been fine. I could have made more mistakes and been looser earlier in my career and I would have survived.”
She compared the mindset of her early days on television to the way she feels now on the set of NFL Live. She describes the environment as one of true comfort. That has less to do with Laura Rutledge, Marcus Spears, and Dan Orlovsky and more to do with her approach to TV.
“It’s really fun. It’s really easy, and even if it’s not, great. It’s another day and it’s over,” she said.
Dan Le Batard noted that what Mina Kimes has now in her career “is true joy.” While he always enjoyed working with her on The Dan Le Batard Show and Highly Questionable, it is not something he always saw.
“I would say that Mina being that kind of comfortable with the experience was not something that was on Highly Questionable until the end.”
Le Batard has brought several of his favorite Highly Questionable colleagues with him to Meadowlark Media. He has said publicly that he hopes Kimes is next. In February, he tweeted at Bill Simmons that The Ringer will have to get in line behind his company to sign Kimes.
