ESPN laid off NBA writer and podcaster Zach Lowe earlier this week. Former ESPN employee Bill Simmons believes it shows the company is no longer committed to the podcast space.
While discussing Lowe’s exit on The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Ringer founder shared his belief that ESPN has essentially thrown in the towel in the podcast space.
“Omaha is producing more and more shows for them. It’s kind of insane. Why aren’t you producing your own shows?,” Simmons questioned. “Why aren’t you guys doing this? So on the one hand, they’re outsourcing a bunch of stuff, and then concurrently, they seem like they’re throwing away at least the podcast piece of everything. They have podcasts. They have a bunch of them, but it doesn’t seem like they care. Because if they cared, they would have kept Zach, so when you talk about this new world that they’re entering, the world is sports rights and just enough people to seem like you’re still the biggest.”
He continued by bluntly stating he doesn’t comprehend the motives behind the recent decisions made by ESPN.
“My point is I don’t understand the strategy. I feel like I’ve always understood, at least somewhat, what they’re doing. And now it seems like their strategy is five different things happening at the same time,” Simmons added. “Because now they’re in on the gambling side too. So they got in super late on that, probably like four years too late. It doesn’t seem like they’re in on podcasts the same way. Seems like they’re really in on YouTube, TikTok, all that social stuff, and that seems to be the thing they point to when they talk about success things.
“They also talk about how the ratings are up. But we all know the ratings are up because they started counting bar TVs and airport TVs and things like that. The ratings aren’t actually up. It’s just the way they count the ratings.”
He continued by questioning if Pardon the Interruption hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon could potentially be on the chopping block because it no longer fits into the daytime strategy of the Worldwide Leader.
