X (formerly Twitter) has been a failure under Elon Musk’s leadership. There’s no way to measure that wouldn’t tell you that the platform is in a worse place now than it was when he took ownership in a publicity stunt turned forced purchase.
As a company, X has lost value since 2022. As a social media platform, X has fewer users than it did in 2022 and its reputation is in the proverbial toilet. Ask a hundred people what they expect to find on X in 2024. I’ll bet a good chunk of them will tell you disinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories.
Linda Yaccarino was hired as CEO, to give X a public face that was a little less controversial. Instead, Musk began her tenure by undermining her on stage in front of potential advertisers and now goes out of his way to make her job harder at every turn.
Weirdly, that turns out to be good news for Jim Rome. As Yaccarino tries to convince advertisers that Musk actually does have a vision for X and that it isn’t just about right-wing trolling, the Pimp in the Box stands out as the one normal thing the company has to sell.
Two months ago, Rome announced that the video stream of his popular CBS Sports Radio show was leaving terrestrial television. Fans would now be able to see what happens behind the mic only on X.
In signing with Musk and Yaccarino, Rome was joining the likes of former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and recently fired cable news stars Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon. The X bosses touted it as proof that the platform was for anyone who had a point of view and the ability to attract an audience.
Then, Don Lemon dared to ask Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, real questions in his first interview for his new X show. Musk responded by canceling Lemon’s contract. The public backlash was predictable. It wasn’t so much that people were rallying for Don Lemon. They wanted to know why Musk was so adamant that anti-semitism and LGBTQ hate were essential to the town square, but that he could never be questioned. Those are the rules of a dictatorship, not a free society.
Musk’s abrupt about-face on Lemon leaves Rome in a curious position. His show is now the only thing Yaccarino can point to as an example of X hosting platforms with mainstream appeal. Maybe Rome sees that as an opportunity. Maybe he sees it as a burden. I can’t be sure which it is.
Rome definitely means more to X than X does to his show at this point. The guy has a long track record of success, both with the audience and advertisers. If you’ve worked in sports media for any length of time, you’ve almost certainly heard stories of the lengths Rome has been willing to go to for his earliest affiliates and sponsors. That reputation surely opens some doors for Yaccarino that Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard cannot.
Speaking of those two, Rome stands in stark contrast in so many ways that matter to someone trying at attract ad dollars. First, and most obviously, Rome is not unapologetically toxic. Forget the racist dog whistles and stoking the fires of domestic terrorism. Carlson is now producing infomercials for Vladimir Putin. Even some of the most conservative voices are now calling Carlson a nut job.
When you are selling ads to various cryptocurrency hucksters, conservative content companies, and that app that lets me pray like Mark Wahlberg, you probably don’t hear much pushback on Carlson being the face of the platform’s original content initiative. If you want to keep the lines of communication open with all of those major companies that have either been spending less money with X in recent years or leaving altogether, you probably want to lead with Rome.
It also may be advantageous for Yaccarino and Musk to acknowledge that while so many communities pack their bags and leave X, Sports Twitter is still thriving. You saw it all last week as top seeds fell to no-name Cinderellas in the NCAA Tournament.
It’s interesting to see what that community has done. The moment Musk decided to do away with verification based on merit in favor of a pay-to-play system, it was clear that X was no longer going to be a sports news source for many of us. Rather than leave, a lot of people just adapted. The focus of Sports Twitter isn’t so much breaking news now as it is community. It shifted from water cooler to cookout.
Not every sports fan loves Jim Rome, but most sports fans know who he is. His video show moving to X caught the eyes of most of us. It’s a move Yaccarino can show advertisers as evidence that X isn’t trying to dictate to the market what it wants, but is making efforts to serve its most dedicated users.
Finally, and this is really important, Jim Rome’s fans are in a demo that matters to advertisers. Tucker Carlson is seen by considerably fewer people now than he was on FOX News. That’s not an indictment, just a fact.
When he was on FOX, Carlson was speaking to an audience made up of people largely in their mid-60s. X’s average user is in his 40s. Surely, there are plenty of Carlson fans in the group, but he is on a new platform trying to create content for an unfamiliar audience. Who knows what Gabbard is going to do? She’s yet to produce any content at all for X. Rome on the other hand is a very well-known commodity talking to people who have been with him for a long time, decades in many cases.
Count me among the many who adapted. I don’t see a lot of value in X for following the news or for promoting what I am doing anymore. I get much more engagement through Instagram and YouTube these days.
What I do like, as a sports fan, is the community experience of watching a game or talking about a hot topic. Jim Rome is a pioneer of communal fandom. From the Smackoff to his show’s own language, the guy carefully curated what it meant to be part of his club.
That is the kind of brand an advertiser wants. Linda Yaccarino should be highlighting Rome in every meeting she takes. Advertisers would much rather have their brand associated with him than with Elon Musk’s unhinged prejudice and Tucker Carlson’s dictator-PR-for-hire act.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
