Rich Eisen never thought he would be managing employees, dealing with time cards and figuring out how to reach the bottom line on a yearly basis. The longtime television host always had a better score on the reading section of the SAT than mathematics, and he did not study business operations or management while in college. As the modern media ecosystem has changed, Eisen has taken ownership of his intellectual property and developed it with sustained growth and adaptability.
Eisen recently agreed to a new deal with Cumulus Media that has its podcast network distribute, market and monetize ongoing and upcoming podcasts within the new “Rich Eisen Podcast Network.” Through his company, Rich Eisen Productions, the veteran television host is aiming to grow his audience and cultivate a vast portfolio of offerings appealing to different niches of the marketplace. Had he resigned to ‘No’ as an answer, however, there is a chance that none of it would have come to fruition and that he would solely be working under the auspices of a large television network.
It can all be traced back to when Eisen had a conversation with NFL Network President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Bornstein in 2011 shortly before the start of the National Football League lockout. The capricious state of the media industry and his own aspirations catalyzed him to ask about penetrating beyond the scope of solely hosting NFL Total Access to explore new ways to disseminate his voice.
Working just outside of Hollywood, Eisen recognized that he was surrounded by pop culture and celebrities. Moreover, he observed that people watched sports programming for reasons other than learning new information, leading him to pitch a podcast that would amalgamate these topics. Bornstein answered by asking Eisen, the network’s first employee, how much the production would cost. “It will cost you nothing,” Eisen said to Bornstein, who replied, “Then why are you even asking me? Go ahead, do it.”
Landing a position to anchor the coveted daily ESPN flagship program, SportsCenter, was Eisen’s dream from the time he started studying communications at the University of Michigan. On the side, he periodically performed stand-up comedy and imitated some of his favorite sports announcers, including Howard Cosell, the renowned voice of Monday Night Football.
Eisen worked with Chris Berman when he initially landed at ESPN. Then, he was assigned to anchor the show with Stuart Scott. Having joined the network three years earlier, Scott quickly stood out because of his unrivaled delivery and cache with the audience. While they came to be known as a routine pairing – along with the “Big Show” of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann – Eisen was never formally told that he and Scott would appear together within the larger lineup.
Eisen never thought he would depart ESPN; that is, until SportsCenter began to change. As consumers gained the ability to discover live scores and watch highlights in real time, the philosophy of the show centered on divulging more about why something happened as opposed to what occurred.
“The role of a SportsCenter anchor changed, and it changed to more of a role of moderator between two analysts coming on to argue about why their opinion about what happened was correct, and I didn’t like it,” Eisen said. “I didn’t enjoy it.”
Upon requesting consideration for other projects within the company, including Good Morning America, he was told that he would be doing more editions of SportsCenter and be limited in his other work.
The offer to host the debate show Cold Pizza was enticing because it would be taking place from New York City, Eisen’s home marketplace. After meeting with those behind the concept though, he was not sold and declined the offer. Simultaneously, Eisen was receiving interest from Bornstein, his former ESPN boss, to join NFL Network and host NFL Total Access.
“When ESPN told me we were done and leaked it to USA Today three days before the end of my contract, I kind of got a very hardball lesson in our business and went with NFL Network,” Eisen said. “….The NFL was only growing in popularity at the time [and] I could work on a show that was definitely going to employ more pop culture than just the NFL.”
From the time Eisen joined NFL Network in 2003, the league has flourished. Two decades later, the league is in the first year of new national media rights deals that generates more than $12 billion annually across linear and digital platforms, and is coming off a Super Bowl that set viewership records. Yet a preponderance of the league is based on storylines and entertainment value, which is why Eisen knew that in order to take the next step in his career, he would need to find a way to fuse sports with other genres.
“There’s a reason why the NFL stops America’s greatest sporting event – an exported sporting event – for a rock concert essentially in the middle of it and nobody bats an eyelash,” Eisen said. “As a matter of fact, more people talk about the halftime show than sometimes what happens in the Super Bowl itself. I just thought to myself, ‘More and more people are attuned to talking about movies, TV, books [and] music when they’re coming to the table for sports conversation.’”
Eisen uses his platform to benefit good causes, one of which is the distinctive “Run Rich Run” charitable endeavor. The entire ordeal began in 2005 after he was challenged to run the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in a full suit and tie by running back Terrell Davis. Eleven years later, NFL Network executive Sarah Swanson suggested to Eisen that he should transform the event to benefit charity, and it was a proposition he could simply not turn down, resulting in more than $5 million raised over the past eight years. In the year after it became tied to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Eisen posted his best time of 5.94 seconds, a mark he will try to top next year in Indianapolis.
“My children were very young when this first started and I just thought to myself what a nightmare these families are going through when they get the worst call,” Eisen said. “….It was an absolute simple choice to do this, and I’m so thrilled. I’m a lucky guy to have the opportunity to do this for so many families.”
Once the NFL lockout commenced in 2011, Eisen was asked to take his podcast to NFL Network for a weekly show, which featured interviews with personalities from sports and entertainment. A few years later, Eisen received a call from DIRECTV’s Audience Network to ask if he would be interested in broadcasting the show on the outlet and simulcasting it on radio. He was offered the slot following Dan Patrick, someone Eisen looked up to growing up, and ultimately decided to take his program there and on the NFL Now digital platform. The Rich Eisen Show was simulcast on FOX Sports Radio starting in 2014, creating consistency in that he would be following Patrick both on television and radio.
When AT&T completed its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. in 2018, it sought to build a vast content portfolio and broad means of distribution. Audience Network shuttered to focus on marketing efforts for the HBO Max over-the-top (OTT) streaming service and rendered Eisen without a television home.
Shortly thereafter, iHeartMedia subsidiary Premiere Networks, which distributes FOX Sports Radio to affiliates, doubled down on its commitment to Colin Cowherd’s show and dropped Eisen’s program. Patrick found out about the television news on the same day, but he had approximately 300 radio affiliates, whereas Eisen was left with none.
“I decided this wasn’t going to be the way this was going to end,” Eisen articulated. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t have an MBA, but what I do have is a degree in this business for 20-something years and a crew that was insanely talented.’”
Eisen funded the show himself for a while and broadcast on YouTube immediately after the NFL Scouting Combine with no presence on traditional television or radio. The show was being run off a laptop where a producer would cue elements using the keyboard and load graphics emailed by designers from home. Eisen’s program was eventually picked up by NBC Sports Network for a two-month run and continued airing on Peacock and SiriusXM’s NBC Sports Audio channel. Cumulus/Westwood One assisted with the distribution of the show starting in December 2020, beginning a synergistic, mutually-beneficial partnership between both parties.
“How lucky can somebody be in a moment where you feel unlucky?,” Eisen asked. “That motivates me every day…. If I’m not motivated and I’m not coming in shot out of a cannon, then something’s wrong.”
The program left Peacock and NBC Sports Audio in 2022 to join the Roku Channel. The show continues to broadcast on SiriusXM satellite radio and on 61 local affiliates, in addition to being distributed as a podcast through Audacy’s platform and the Cumulus Podcast Network. Through his production company, Eisen owns his intellectual property.
“The best idea wins, but it’s very infrequent that it can come from management that may not know you or your product or anything like that when you are working in a more traditional setup,” Eisen said. “That’s why it’s important to own it because you know best and you should trust your instincts if you can.”
Eisen has amassed a sizable audience and platform that allows him to make announcements on his show, something he knows perturbs those who cover the media industry. In watching Pat McAfee building his own platform through YouTube and leading to a multi-year, multimillion dollar licensing deal with ESPN, Eisen sees the proliferation and maturation of the trend.
“Everything is content now,” Eisen said. “Opinions are content; life stories are content. Everyone’s walking around with a phone, turning it around on their face and taking videos just walking down a hallway – that’s content; that’s a show, boom. A lot of social media is shows about nothing, but it’s content.”
When Bryan Cranston joined Eisen’s program for an interview in 2016, he recalled a scene from Seinfeld where he took a hit of nitrous oxide before putting it on Jerry Seinfeld. Cranston, who was playing a dentist in the episode, improvised the scene on the spot after an electrician from atop a ladder on set suggested it to him during a break. Being able to equip an idea from unexpected sources can engender success, just as hosts adapting to the conversation within an interview can extrapolate concealed storylines. It creates enticing content that will keep people coming back for more, which is at the crux of what Eisen is building.
“There still will always be a commodity for an avuncular, down-to-earth, smart, witty, rounded individual who lets others on a television show or a radio show speak and have their say and pull back,” Eisen explained. “There will always be, I think, a home for that.”
The expansion of the “Rich Eisen Podcast Network” is a seminal moment for the longtime sports media host, who has several future projects in development as he aims to leverage his brand. One of the ways he will try and seek to do that is by isolating signature segments of his long-form program by creating short-form podcasts out of them, including OverReaction Monday with Chris Brockman.
“No other sport has major knee-jerk overreactions that some team is terrible or going to win it all based on one game quite like the NFL or football in general,” Eisen said. “It’s popular – why not take it and make it into a podcast?”
Eisen’s wife, Suzy Shuster, has frequently made appearances on his program and has decades of sideline reporting experience with major networks. Each time she would appear on the air with former Oakland Raiders chief executive officer Amy Trask, Eisen could tell that they had a strong chemistry and rapport. It implored him to ask if they would be interested in launching a podcast on the network, an idea both decided would be beneficial to them.
On Tuesdays throughout the NFL season, Shuster and Trask will release their podcast, titled What The Football, which will feature conversations with personnel and conversations about the sport. The creation of such a show and other future projects will be expedited through Eisen’s experiences he has culminated throughout his career in sports media and being part of the industry’s evolution.
“I kind of know what will make for a comfortable host setting because I’ve been in search of it and I know what makes me comfortable,” Eisen said. “It’s a talent-friendly, wide-open, free marketplace of ideas podcast network, and I think a person with a gift of gab and a sense of humor and humility and sense of self will succeed in the setting that I’m creating.”
Having worked with Cumulus/Westwood One on both his program and as the pregame and halftime host for syndicated Monday Night Football coverage, partnering with the company to sell advertising and distribute shows was a facile decision for Eisen. The trust that the entity has put in him from the time the survival of the show was more precarious and the concurrent return on investment are factors that have left a lasting impact.
“Everybody has been rowing in the same direction since I came abroad, and it’s only been an arrow pointed up,” Eisen said. “For them to also entrust me with the seat of Monday Night Football as well – I don’t take any of that for granted – and I’m not going to rest on a laurel either. To be able to create a podcast network with them is something I was always interested in and this time was right where I’ve kind of incubated ideas and show ideas through my daily program.”
As Eisen continues to grow his production company, he is focused on developing new content for scripted and non-scripted television in addition to podcasts and traditional media endeavors. While he worked as a host with an established audience early in his career, he decided to take a chance in leaving the “Worldwide Leader” and do things independently, a gamble that inspired him to pursue more entrepreneurial opportunities. Continuing to repurpose his brand and finding new avenues for content can be challenging, but he is inclined to keep running while standing out from the rest of the pack.
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
