On Thursday’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes made an appearance on the program to discuss the latest events taking place around the league just past the midway point of the season. While football comprised a large portion of her discussion with the cast of the program, host Dan Le Batard decided to come back from a break putting Kimes’ presence on the show in context with some other guests throughout the history of the show.
“I believe Mina Kimes is the most-popular person in the history of our show who is not Ron Magill or Tim Kurkjian,” Le Batard affirmed. “I believe you are the third-place finisher, but Lucy [Rohden] and JuJu [Gotti], I believe have a comparable Q rating on popularity. Do I have this wrong as I try to pit people against each other?”
Mina Kimes recently inked a contract extension with ESPN that will keep her on the network’s airwaves, and she also signed a deal with Meadowlark Media to make weekly appearances on The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz. Prior to signing the deal, Le Batard emphasized that the line to sign Kimes to a deal started behind Meadowlark Media after a report emerged that Bill Simmons wanted her to join The Ringer. In response to Le Batard’s claim that Kimes is the third most-popular person in the history of the show, she averred how despite him being a mentor to many people in the industry, he seems to revel in putting people against one another.
“In fact, the moment I first started doing your show, you pitted me against Pablo [Torre], I think from the jump,” Kimes said. “Now did I embrace that? Absolutely – it was a very winnable rivalry, easily so in fact…. But you’re doing it again. Why do we have to be pitted against each other?”
Le Batard told Kimes that she has a selective memory and reminded her that when she first arrived on the show, she identified producer Billy Gil as the weakest person in the studio and attacked him. While Kimes did not remember taking that course of action, other people on the show knew what Le Batard was discussing. After more discussions about the ostensible popularity contest occurred on the show, Kimes suggested dials to be added on the video feed that would discern overall listener interest that would fluctuate when people discuss varying topics.
“You need that for that show so not just real-time polling, but as we’re talking, I want to know,” Kimes said. “For example, if I bring up a serious topic, does the dial start moving down, but then if I go into some nonsense, does the dial move back up? This is the kind of real-time information we need.”
“I think video should get to work on something right now that allows us to do that on the air graphically,” Le Batard replied.
