OutKick personality Charly Arnolt is in her element right now. Following her departure from ESPN, Arnolt has settled in with one of the country’s most popular digital media brands. She realizes that to continue to grow in the industry, she needs to strengthen the relationships she has already established.
As a young reporter in Indianapolis, she honed her on-air presentation and writing skills while covering local sports and news. Those opportunities led to bigger ones.
Earlier this year, she left ESPN, as she was bored with talking strictly about sports and knew she wanted to explore beyond the limits of that platform. That’s when she discovered OutKick, a brand encouraging its talent to speak their minds and creating a place where pop culture, sports, news, and politics intersect.
Charly Arnolt balances her new role with her ongoing commitment as a host and reporter for the UFC, demonstrating her unwavering dedication to delivering top-notch sports content.
Before joining OutKick, she spent nearly five years at ESPN, leaving her mark as a multi-platform host and reporter. Her contributions extended across ESPN’s flagship programs, including First Take and SportsCenter. She also graced the screens of ESPN+’s weekday morning show, SportsNation.
The way the media portrays the 2024 Presidential Election will be unprecedented. Donald Trump, the former President, has been indicted four times, two times on the federal level and twice in state courts. Conservative media must navigate how to address the misconception that news broadcasted on their platforms is fake. Charly Arnolt and her colleagues at OutKick will play a significant role in capturing the attention of young and impressionable voters who might notice their First Amendment rights eroding.
Charly Arnolt is worried about her country, the same country that gave her the right to earn her way to the top of the media industry. She takes her right to freedom of speech seriously and wishes that the other GOP Presidential candidates would drop out of the race and support Donald Trump.
Arnolt wants to clarify that her intentions are sometimes misunderstood. In the past, some people have mistakenly believed that her current actions contradict her previous statements. However, she disagrees with those who label her as hateful. Charly Arnolt acknowledges that specific subsets of people pose a dangerous threat and must be stopped and spoken out against.
Specifically, she is against people who try to indoctrinate and brainwash children. Charly Arnolt reiterates that just because she speaks out against certain things doesn’t mean she has hatred in her heart.
During an interview with Barrett News Media, Charly Arnolt discusses the success of OutKick and shares insights on individuals who have influenced her storytelling style and career. She also reveals who she would love to sit down and have dinner with and how she developed a well-rounded passion for sports, pop culture, news, and politics.
Ryan Hedrick: What factors have contributed to the success of OutKick?
Charly Arnolt: OutKick talks about news from a straight perspective. If there’s a detail that certain versions of the media are leaving out that would align with their own agenda, OutKick doesn’t see it that way. If something is glaring, and there’s a detail that helps to tell the story, you’ll be able to find those details on OutKick.
I appreciate approaching things from an honest and authentic standpoint, and I think a lot of people appreciate that, too. That’s why OutKick is so successful.
RH: You recently interviewed Dave Portnoy, the owner of Barstool Sports. What misconceptions does the media have about him?
CA: We all have different opinions; that’s how the world works, and you should be able to voice your own opinions. If you don’t like what someone says, you don’t have to follow or listen to them. I don’t understand why people are always trying to silence each other; just move on. We don’t all have to be on the same page here.
I think what Dave does fabulously is he hears all the people screaming, he hears all the criticism, and not only does he ignore it, but that fuels him.
RH: When did you realize you could talk and wanted to talk about sports and news?
CA: I have always been like that. I’m the girl who always had so many different interests. I can talk sports with the guys and then can turn around and tell you what happened with Keeping Up With the Kardashians in the season finale. I am a versatile person regarding the things I am interested in and the things I can talk about.
I love having the ability to talk about different things because I got bored being at ESPN and talking about sports all the time. Sports are fun, but there are so many other things that are important in this world that I think are more important than sports in a lot of cases.
Sports are great; they are a fabulous escape from our everyday lives because there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world that is very burdensome, but it is a lot of that burdensome stuff that needs to be talked about; otherwise, we are going to find ourselves in an even deeper hole than we are right now as a country.
I like getting into those more intellectual discussions and having a platform where I can pivot so quickly from sports, news, politics, and pop culture and interject my opinion into all those different areas.
RH: What can you tell me about the culture at ESPN?
CA: ESPN is a great place as far as the content that they put out. Obviously, they are a powerhouse. I don’t think I would describe ESPN as being different from any other media organization. It’s standard the way that it’s run. There are the big fish and the small fish, and I think you have to understand the lane you need to stay in if you want to get to the top and what’s expected of you. But that’s not anything that’s unique to ESPN.
I’m sure if you went to NBC Sports or FOX Sports, it’s all run pretty similarly. I just think that we can all agree that ESPN takes a more liberal approach to how it does its reporting rather than allowing a debate to air on the more conservative side as far as politics go.
RH: Talk about your show, OutKick the Morning with Charly Arnolt, and what you are excited about with that show.
CA: Already from day one, Dana White (UFC’s CEO) was on my show as a guest. Obviously, he’s my boss at UFC. It makes me feel very special and really shows me that I am doing something right when I can call up Dana White and say, ‘Hey, would you be the first guest on my show?’ He told me, ‘Anything for me.’ That is probably the biggest compliment I could be paid regarding the relationship-building I have been doing so far in my career.
That’s something I hope to continue is just forging more relationships, whether in the world of sports or in politics. I had Senator Tommy Tuberville the other day. He is a fabulous interview. I’m going to be having Ken Paxton on later this week. (Texas Attorney General who was acquitted last week in an impeachment trial before the state Senate. He was accused of abusing his office to protect a political donor).
There are so many different people who will be guests on the show, which will make it so much more interesting. I am so excited to have the opportunity to talk to them on a platform where they want to come on and talk to me about different topics.
Additionally, we are going to be getting into stories that you just won’t get anywhere else. I am hoping over the course of time that, I can create a show where people know that they’re coming for something different, and that’s the reason they want to come because they know they are going to pick up something or hear about something, that they wouldn’t hear or talked about anywhere else.
RH: Are there any broadcasters whose work inspires or motivates you?
CA: Joe Rogan really inspires me. When you listen to his show, I think you hear things talked about that you just don’t hear about anywhere else. He pushes the envelope, he pushes the limit, and I find that to be very motivating and inspiring, and I would like to bring a semblance of that into my OutKick show as well.
RH: What role does great storytelling play in your job as a host on OutKick?
Charly Arnolt: You have to do your research. There is so much clickbait out there these days, where you see something that seems sensational, but then you delve a little bit into it, and maybe there’s something there, or maybe it’s been sensationalized on the surface, and it’s not worthy of a spot in the show.
I think if you do your research and at the core, even if you want to be interesting and compelling, you have to remember that you are a journalist, and you want to make sure what you’re saying is factual, and even if you can put your own opinion on top of it, you still have to have facts. I think that the most important key is remembering not to say anything that’s incorrect, even though it might be able to attract more people.
RH: Has one person or brand influenced your personality and commentator style at OutKick?
CA: There are a few different people. I think being able to work under a guy like Dana White in the UFC, who is so unapologetically himself and who has used his resources in the platform he’s given to extend past the world and now he’s become a cultural icon as well. I would say being around him and how he uses his platform to help and drive the conversation in a very important way has been critical.
Coming to OutKick gave me the ability to do some stuff for Fox News. Never in my life would I have imagined that I would’ve gone from ESPN, which oppresses political standpoints, views, and opinions, to being on an ultra-political platform like Fox News, where they welcome the things you have to say.
Every little step of my journey has culminated in what has really played to my strengths. I have always been into lots of different kinds of subject matters. I’ve always been into sports, news, business, and politics. I didn’t have the platform to voice my opinion on these very different areas until now. I have finally come into a space where I can take everything that I’ve learned so far in my career and life and bring it into one thought and deliver something special.
RH: Is there anybody you haven’t met yet that you would love to sit down with, learn from, and talk to?
Charly Arnolt: I would love to sit down with Elon Musk because I think that he is so important in every aspect of the world right now. He is one of the people who has the resources and the platform, and the money to help save this country. That’s the direction that he’s trying to take things in. He bought Twitter for a reason, he didn’t just buy X to take over the platform and have some fun, he bought it to preserve free speech. He is one of the most unapologetically authentic people you can encounter.
Even just looking at the things that he’s willing to speak out on X. The conversation that he helps to nurture and drive. The fact that he’s also willing to give people platforms on X who otherwise would not have the platforms to say the things that they believe and that’s also important because it is helping to bring back a healthy debate in conversation in a world for just a couple of years ago, we were seeing a lot of that free speech suppressed because it didn’t align with the political agenda of our country which is really sad and ultimately will take us to a devastating place.
