Meet The Podcasters is a special 9-week series created in partnership with Point to Point Marketing. Our final feature is on the ESPN Senior Vice President, Sports Studio & Entertainment, Mike Foss. Revisit former conversations by checking out the entire category.
Foss joined ESPN in 2017 and was named senior vice president, sports studio & entertainment in August of 2024. In his role, he oversees numerous ESPN studio shows including all SportsCenter editions, Get Up, First Take, The Pat McAfee Show, Pardon The Interruption among others. Foss is a graduate of George Mason University and joined USA Today immediately after college eventually becoming the first managing editor of the For The Win sports vertical for the publication.
In this final edition of our ‘Meet The Podcasters’ series, we explore how Foss juggles his responsibilities, ESPN’s massive growth across digital and social, working directly with the Pat McAfee Show, and if the podcasting space has become too saturated.
Mike Foss spoke with Barrett Media from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, CT.
*Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and length.*
John Mamola: What’s a typical day like in the world of Mike Foss at ESPN?
Mike Foss: I don’t think there is such a thing anymore. Because of the nature of the role, you’re prioritizing the needs of the day. That can be different based on the show or the platform. I like to think of myself as the janitor on the team, or the equipment manager. I’m there for everybody else. Whatever folks need on the day-to-day, that’s what I’m going to do.
John Mamola: How many people do you have on your staff?
Mike Foss: I have six direct reports, vice presidents across various platforms. Overall, the team is about 600 people.
The cleanest way to think about it is content and distribution. I have someone that oversees the 7 a.m. SportsCenter, First Take, and Get Up. I work with The Pat McAfee Show directly. I have another person that oversees the 2 p.m. and weekend SportsCenters as well as PTI.
Justin Craig oversees radio, podcast, and digital production. We have someone who oversees the night-side SportsCenters and Scott Van Pelt. Another person oversees the creative content unit and SportsCenter feature edits in that group.
John Mamola: There’s a ton of items you need to keep your thumb on the pulse of every day. You’ve been with ESPN since 2017. What’s been the biggest advancement when it comes to content strategy with the company from when you first started?
Mike Foss: It’s direct-to-consumer and the way we think about delivering content directly to our audiences. Jimmy Pitaro and Burke Magnus — we owe a tremendous amount to both of those guys in shaping that vision.
In 2017, we didn’t have ESPN+. I launched the ESPN YouTube channel that year. Katiee Daley had just begun to pioneer our social strategy. Everything now is built with this notion of a one-to-one relationship with individual audiences, however they’re consuming our content. The big lesson since I’ve been here is you can’t control how people choose to consume the product that you’re offering.
Whether it’s Get Up, First Take, or SportsCenter, we’re building those as linear TV offerings. The reality is audiences are also watching them on YouTube, consuming them on social, and listening to them as podcasts. The challenge is balancing the fact that we want to make the best TV show that we can, but also making sure that we are relevant and engaging however people choose to consume us.
The next iteration is Flagship — making sure that we’re building something that is relevant to people when they consume us on that platform as well.
John Mamola: ESPN has so many programs that are producing content for a podcast consumer. How do you work with talent to ensure all these programs can continually cut through and be impactful?
Mike Foss: It’s a challenge that is very unique to ESPN. The ubiquity of both our shows and our talent is a tremendous asset. When you think of it specifically through the lens of podcast, it can be challenging. If you are getting Adam Schefter on SportsCenter, and Get Up, then on First Take — you need to love Adam Schefter to then seek out The Adam Schefter Podcast.
Fortunately, a lot of people love Adam Schefter and Ty Schmit from The Pat McAfee Show was a great addition to that. You want to make sure that Adam and Ty are taking an approach that showcases their expertise and offers a new angle that you haven’t gotten on ESPN throughout the day.
If that was the only outlet to consume those two people, the perception might be that show is cutting through more. The reality is the show is cutting through nicely and resonating very well. Because you see Ty and Adam for three hours a day on television, you almost get lost in the ubiquity of it all.
John Mamola: ESPN uses their talent a lot to market their own podcasts instead of the brand. Can you explain how vital it is for the success of a podcast to be marketed by the talent producing the content?
Mike Foss: Podcasts are a very intimate thing. It’s an intimate one-to-one relationship with the listener. It makes sense to lean so heavily on the talent when you’re marketing and presenting it.
We are effectively building the relationship between the talent and the individual listener, which runs a little bit counter to how we would approach something on television or a video product. We’re trying to build this close personal relationship between these two parties, so it makes a ton of sense to have the talent be the focal point of our marketing.
John Mamola: You work directly with The Pat McAfee Show for ESPN. How would you describe your role working with Pat?
Mike Foss: Pat McAfee is the executive producer and lead talent. He runs his show, and we license the show on ESPN. It’s been a fantastic relationship over the past two years.
My role with that show depends on the day and the need. He might ask to have someone on the show that works for ESPN or outside the company, and I help facilitate that. There are a bunch of different roles that I fill, but it’s 100% Pat’s show. I support what those guys are doing, and they’re doing great stuff.
John Mamola: When it comes to the relationship with Pat’s program and ESPN in regards to posting content from his show on ESPN social platforms, what’s the strategy in choosing which content from the program is housed and pushed on ESPN branded platforms?
Mike Foss: What we’re trying to do is thread the needle of relevance and resonance for the largest audience possible. Pat going to WrestleMania is an incredible opportunity for a couple of different things. First, about 15,000 people were there live watching the show, giving Pat an opportunity to connect with his fans. For ESPN, to be part of one of the biggest sporting events on the planet — not one night, but two nights. There’s absolutely an advantage to us being in those spaces where we aren’t traditionally.
You find the balance of wrestling coverage with everything else that we do. It goes back to the depth of ESPN — we’re able to do that. We can speak to the NFL Draft, NHL, and NBA playoffs on the ESPN YouTube channel hand-in-hand with an interview with John Cena.
People that are Pat McAfee Show YouTube channel subscribers consume Pat not just on his show, but also across his other ventures like WWE. Having a Paul Heyman interview on The Pat McAfee Show channel would make sense for that audience.
John Mamola: The Pat McAfee Show began as a podcast. The show is a visual product now streaming on YouTube and ESPN. How do you keep a podcast consumer satisfied with the product when the product is so visual?
Mike Foss: You see a ton of podcasts doing the reverse-Pat right now. The Pat McAfee Show was a podcast that also had a massive YouTube following. You see very prominent podcasts that are just now moving to YouTube.
People gravitate towards compelling conversations when they’re listening to the podcasts. Pat has compelling conversations every single day. The people that he has on his show — regardless of who they are — they are going to be on for good lengths of time. Can you watch those conversations on ESPN, YouTube, ESPN+, Disney+, TikTok, Instagram or any of those places? You absolutely could, but it’s also just as relevant to a podcast listener.
The conversation Pat had with LeBron James — that conversation had the number one podcast on Spotify. It’s still resonating with people in the podcast space just as much as it resonates with folks on YouTube.
John Mamola: The podcast space is a very crowded content market. ESPN has a ton of content produced each day in that space. Do you feel the podcast space is too saturated?
Mike Foss: I don’t think it is too saturated. The more people that try podcasting, the more likely we will find someone who is truly innovative and disruptive.
Pat was truly innovative and disruptive when he launched his show. Anybody who believes that they want to have a podcast — swing away. The most successful podcast brands and talent all share a similar quality: they are obsessive. The people at the top of the charts on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts — those people are obsessive about their product.
Is it a hard thing? Absolutely. Normal people won’t be successful in that endeavor. People that are supremely driven with doing their show how they want to do it will get results. Only the top 5% cut through, but those top 5% are awesome. They’re excellent, and it’s not just ESPN. You see those examples across the board. The most successful podcasts are done by the most driven, competitive people that really want to deliver something awesome.
John Mamola: ESPN social and digital has had a great start to 2025, topping the U.S. Sports Category in both January and February according to Comscore data. What drives the consumer to just continually check out ESPN content?
Mike Foss: Our foundation is built on the backs of giants in the industry. ESPN has been around for more than 40 years. There’s a foundation of excellence that was laid well before I got here.
Our mission is to take that reputation and ensure that when people come to our product, it is as excellent as the first time that they consumed us. What you see is an accrual of that audience and that credibility. We’ve had tremendous success, but that success doesn’t happen just because of what we’re doing now.
It’s happened because of what we’ve done in the past, and we can’t be comfortable. We can’t take that for granted. We must continue to spin it forward.
We’re so laser-focused on Flagship because that is the next innovation, the next foray. If we don’t nail that, if we are not excellent there, we will certainly lose some of that equity.
John Mamola: What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you started at ESPN?
Mike Foss: We just spoke so much about direct-to-consumer, so I wish I had the last eight years of getting kicked in the teeth on a number of direct-to-consumer ideas that I personally have had here.
You see it in SportsCenter+, which we launched two months ago. That show is built on all the very hard lessons and failings that I’ve had with other things that I launched here that didn’t work out.
All the lessons learned on YouTube, direct-to-consumer, off-platform — and failures. I wish that I could’ve had those before I got here, but you needed to have them in the course that they came so we could deliver the goods now.
To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.
John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
