The Tennessee Titans revoked Jared Stillman’s credential. Depending on who you ask, this is either a franchise standing up to a loudmouth who dared them to do it, or an organization delivering a blueprint to other franchises on how to silence local critics.
Teams that travel this path usually end up with more negative coverage. You can’t deliver a 6 and 28 record over two seasons, change your front office and coaching staff, and then complain about unfavorable attention. Winning changes the local conversation.
I went through this in St. Louis with the Rams and in the Bay Area with the Raiders. Kevin Demoff, Amy Trask and Marc Badain were all fantastic. All knew their results shaped the local coverage. Win games and people are happy. Lose games and fire people, and criticisms follow. It’s that simple.
What Happened
Stillman is a longtime Nashville radio host. He broadcasts now on YouTube, and recently went viral after a testy exchange with quarterback Cam Ward. On his show the next day, he said the Titans wouldn’t be foolish enough to pull his credential over it. He felt the backlash would be brutal and make them look like the softest organization in the NFL.
A day later, they did it anyway.
When Stillman pressed for a reason, the team told him that as a YouTuber no longer affiliated with a radio station, his coverage doesn’t warrant access to their facility. When Stillman explained that he had just spent three hours on SiriusXM, the Titans allegedly told him he didn’t need access to the facility to do that work either.
The Opposing View
Pat Boyle of Westwood One Sports sided with the Titans. He said, Stillman got what he deserved after daring the team to act. Boyle believes that a host can’t poke the bear and then act stunned when it bites. That point is fair. Stillman did say the day prior that the team wouldn’t be foolish enough to revoke his credential and create this type of storm.
But Boyle also said, “Eventually you talk enough smack where it’s not journalistic integrity if you’re going after somebody over and over and over and over again. Saying that they’re terrible and that they’re a bust and that they’re awful. Then you have this interaction [with Cam Ward]. I think it’s completely fair what the Titans did.”
Most hosts are not journalists. They are personalities with strong, informed opinions tasked with making people listen, think, and react. Whether they agree or disagree with them is irrelevant. When it comes to opinions, you can make a case for both sides of a topic nearly every time. Even the best talent are wrong 40-50% of the time. Nowhere in a personality’s job description does it say you professional opinions that upset the feelings of the local team’s players, coaches, management and PR staff are off limits. Nor should it, ever.
Stillman’s crime is that he isn’t sold on Cam Ward. He used specifics on his show to explain why he feels the Titans QB is terrible and likely to be a bust. When he recently asked Ward to share how he felt he has played this preseason, Ward flipped the script and asked him for his analysis. Jared replied, “not well.” People may not like that Stillman gave an honest response, but he stayed true to who he is. He didn’t act like the studio tough guy who folded when confronted. Players, coaches and PR people like to bitch that hosts say things on-air but never show up, but when Stillman did, look how that turned out. Teams can’t have their cake and eat it too.
If Jared’s read on Ward turns out to be wrong, Freezing Cold Takes will have a field day with it. But when Stillman shares that Ward was ranked 102 out of 104 QB’s who played this preseason with a grade of 29.6 according to a PFF metric, it’s hard to say that’s not smart use of information by a host or a good reason why not to buy stock on the former #1 pick. It’s on Ward and the Titans to prove him wrong.
The Bigger Issue
If every team pulled credentials from personalities based on who spoke negatively, sports media would be full of sanitized coverage. Hosts and stations would become even more negative because there’d be little reason to give teams and players the benefit of the doubt when times get tough. That’s not good for the leagues, its teams, or fans who want honest information and accountability from those they support. Nobody wins in that scenario, including Boyle.
But the access fight isn’t even the real story. The Titans’ excuse of why they were revoking Stillman’s access is.
Labeling Stillman a YouTuber untethered from a radio station suggests that he’s not qualified to cover them. Hosting for SiriusXM also isn’t enough apparently. I’ll remind you that SiriusXM is an NFL partner and just teamed up with Audacy to feature tons of local sports radio stations across its channels. The Titans must’ve missed that news.
Who Else Is at Risk?
Ask yourself, what happens to Joon Lee, Jake Asman, Damon Bruce, Damon Amendolara, or Brandon Tierney if they deliver a harsh take on a local team? Will they be denied too because they prioritize YouTube? Some of these hosts have deeper relationships with fans of local teams and advertisers through YouTube than many on terrestrial signals. Is a team going to tell them their audience doesn’t count because it lives on YouTube instead of a transmitter?
Let’s move to the local scene.
What if respected writer and broadcaster Paul Kuharsky wrote something the Titans didn’t like. Are they going to restrict him too because he represents “independent media”? Jonathan Hutton and Chad Withrow are in trouble if that’s the case. They now work for Sport & State, an outlet led by Clay Travis which has a $100 million dollar valuation. But they broadcast on YouTube and podcast platforms so that’s not enough to earn a Titans credential. That’d be a problem too for Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton at Yahoo Sports, and Austin Stanley and Zach Bingham at A to Z Sports. After all, they also prioritize YouTube, social media, and podcasts.
Owning a transmitter and signal does not make one more qualified of a broadcaster than the other.
Thin Skin Warriors
Some PR people working for teams are great. Others are disconnected from the media industry. They have thin skin and to put it bluntly, don’t know their ass from their elbow. I’ve had PR people in prior years cancel guests over critical takes, take away seats on the team plane over honest reporting, and put staff members in seats with obstructed views of the field to try and send a message.
The people behind the microphone and camera are there to be the voice of the fan. Those fans are the teams customers. They deserve greater respect. The talent offering critical opinions usually focus on results and/or decision making. They opine based on what they see, feel, and hear.
For the Titans to label Stillman “just a YouTuber” conveniently erases a career that includes years on Nashville radio including working alongside former Titans GM Floyd Reese. It also ignores his current work on a channel named after Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. You can like or dislike his opinions and style, but he knows how to host a show and generate interest. Framing him as being less than a qualified member of the media is ridiculous.
We’ve Seen This Movie Before
This isn’t a new fight, either. The same issue played out a decade ago when teams treated bloggers, newsletter writers, and website owners as less than newspaper reporters. Digital writers were considered less credible because of where their work appeared. History settled that argument. The YouTube argument is from the same tired playbook. It just has a new coat of paint.
What makes this even more bizarre is knowing who the Titans are now led by. Robert Saleh spent years absorbing brutal, informed criticism as head coach of the New York Jets. He heard plenty of pointed commentary about his defenses back in San Francisco too. So did new offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, who ran the Giants in New York. Both of these men can handle adversity and scrutiny. Why would a franchise led by people who’ve lived through real media pressure choose this hill to die on? Where’s the win for the new regime?
And the Winner Is…
This fight doesn’t hurt Stillman. It helps him. He gets more attention, more subscribers, more views, and probably a few more SiriusXM shifts. He acknowledged that he doesn’t attend many games on a credential, so losing access to a few practices has little affect on his work. Meanwhile, the team invites more national scrutiny, putting Saleh, Daboll and QB Cam Ward in position to appear weak.
Organizations thinking about restricting access to broadcasters who operate digitally may want to reconsider going down that road. YouTube is mainstream. Advertisers are investing in notable hosts with local equity, and thousands of fans are consuming their content there. Jared Stillman already had a following on Nashville radio, they just moved to a new location to hear/watch him.
The Tennessee Titans took a match and scratched it against a surface not expecting it’d start a fire. Instead, they wound up with a blazing inferno.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. Sign up for our newsletters to stay updated and get the latest information right in your inbox.
