Dan Patrick announced his retirement four years before it is actually set to happen. It overshadowed news of his new deals with iHeartMedia and NBC News.
He told The Hollywood Reporter that it is not what he meant to do, but all he can do now is embrace it.
“I did it backwards, that I announced my retirement then announced my contract extension,” he said. “It’s sort of an Elton John Farewell Tour, where it’s going on for years, and I apologize for that.”
Elton John announced his retirement in 2018 and just wrapped his “farewell tour” earlier this month.
The new deals not only keep his radio show and its video simulcast going. It also keeps iHeartMedia at work on his podcast network.
Patrick said that it is easy to commit to continuing to produce the shows in the near future, because he still has passion for the product and the process.
“The parameters are freeing, they’re fun, they’re loose — I don’t have a boss — and it’s up to us to create content that sounds good on radio, and looks good on TV. And that’s a great challenge and we have three hours to do it.”
Writer Alex Weprin asked why Patrick announced a retirement that was still a presidential election and two Olympics away.
“I just wanted people to know, instead of asking me all the time, ‘What are you going to do, how long are you going to do it?’ and I owed that to the guys that I work with that this was going to be it,” Patrick said. “I’ll be 71, I’m probably the oldest person in this genre doing this. And I just thought you know what? That’ll be that’ll be a good career and I can call my own shot.”
