Dan Le Batard is tired of talking about sports media, but he feels a need to discuss the topic because he has lived it and experienced the changing nature of the business firsthand over the last several years. With alterations in consumption trends and platforms of dissemination, he has watched what Pat McAfee was able to do in creating his own show and licensing episodes to ESPN throughout the year in a multiplatform deal.
Stephen A. Smith owns and operates his own production company with an independent show while continuing to appear on First Take and NBA Countdown. Moreover, he helped facilitate Shannon Sharpe joining First Take on ESPN and commencing a new era of his media career that has included the growth of Shay Shay Media in doing podcasts with The Volume including Club Shay Shay and Nightcap.
During the pandemic, Le Batard and his radio program left ESPN and began operating within a new digital venture, Meadowlark Media. Le Batard co-founded the company with former ESPN president John Skipper, which has since introduced a variety of original programming, inked a distribution deal with DraftKings Network, is working with All The Smoke Productions and is involved in documentary storytelling as well.
“[L]iving it over the last few years has been quite the illuminating experience because our business is changing,” Le Batard said on The Dan Le Batard with Stugotz. “Anybody who’s been with us for this long knows everything that happened with us, and it’s an interesting thing to, in the pandemic, leave a safe thing that’s changing and just sort of push ourselves into an unknown future where you’re fighting for yourself, you’re self-employed and the media landscape is totally changing.”
Le Batard also mentioned how Travis and Jason Kelce were able to build their own podcast, titled New Heights, that has catapulted to success and what JJ Redick is doing with ThreeFourTwo Productions and ESPN while potentially becoming an NBA head coach next season. In fact, he outlined that the decision Redick is ultimately making if reports are true that suggest he is in the running for the Los Angeles Lakers head coaching job is whether he wants to podcast with or coach LeBron James next season.
“They all just realized, Stugotz, all of them,” Le Batard said, referring to athletes working in sports media. ‘Wait, all I’ve got to do is beat Le Batard and beat Stephen A.? All I’ve got to do is beat Cowherd? Wait, look, the punter McAfee can do that? How did he do that? I’m more famous than him.’”
Le Batard believes that it is facile for athletes to conquer the sports media space, as evidenced by the previous examples he outlined within the segment. Moreover, he adumbrated more insights as to how he has perceived the landscape over the last several years.
“Now JJ Redick – and I’m sorry if you’re tired of hearing it – but it’s been my life for three years and it’s been the second-worst thing in my life in those three years, because all of these athletes are coming for gambling money that is keeping the entire industry alive as ESPN and Disney shake so much that they got to rent to McAfee and here comes Kelce and Shannon Sharpe,” Le Batard said. “‘How do I use your platform to build what Stephen A. Smith did?,’ as Stephen A. Smith, every day on their air from 10 to noon is selling, ‘I’m in a contract year. I’m the biggest voice you got, and I’m about to be a free agent to do whatever I want.’”
As it pertains to Smith in particular, Le Batard is not particularly fond of some of the things he does to broaden his audience because he does not always perceive the size of such to be most important. Nonetheless, he recognizes how he has gone about building his brand over the last several years both appearing on ESPN and through his own independent ventures.
“There has never been anyone better because look at the teammates he has now, Stugotz,” Le Batard said. “He’s gone and grabbed the best you can grab at what it is that they do, which is make good television, and he’s got total power in a contract year…. and he’s got a production deal, so it’s the big salary plus, ‘How do I build this with ESPN?,’ because you don’t think that Omaha Productions and Tom Brady and Stephen A. – you don’t think he wants to compete with them there for big money?”
