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1. The Dan Le Batard-ESPN wedding will end on January 4, when the popular host makes his final radio show and episode of Very questionable.
For anyone interested in sports media, the breakup comes as no shock. The relationship between Le Batard and the Network seemed to be broken for a while.
The latest incident happened last month when ESPN fired Chris Cote, one of the producers of the Dan Le Batard’s show with Stugotz.
“We were blinded by his dismissal,” Le Batard said on his show. “This is the greatest lack of respect in my professional career, that I had no notice, no collaboration, that [producer] Mike Ryan told me that Chris Cote had been released. I would have liked to find something, if anyone had told me, to protect him. ”
The Batard ended up hiring Cote as his assistant, which wasn’t just a big gesture, but sent ESPN a message as well.
Shortly before the Coastline controversy, ESPN had moved Dan Le Batard’s show with Stugotz off TV and on ESPN +, while also cutting an hour from the show.
Obviously, it was not a kumbaya relationship.
Things between ESPN and The Batard always seemed bumpy, which never seemed to make sense given the popularity of The Batard. You’d think ESPN would value someone with such a loyal following, but instead the network made it seem like they were nervous that The Batard was a wildcard.
This is a man who once gave his MLB Hall of Fame ballot to Deadspin and paid for the billboards that took a hit on LeBron James for leaving Miami. But in the world of radio sports, these aren’t things that should ruffle a lot of feathers. In addition, both incidents happened years ago.
In my opinion, the real turning point in the Le Batard-ESPN relationship came in the summer of 2019, when the channel put a big stench on Le Batard that took President Donald Trump against his show. radio for supporting the chants of “Send Her Back” to US Representative from Minnesota Ilhan Omar.
After saying that Trump “was at the root of the racial divide,” Le Batard, whose parents came to the United States from Cuba, said: “Here at ESPN, we didn’t have the stomach for this fight, because Jemele [Hill] been doing things on Twitter and you saw what happened next, and then here all of a sudden nobody is talking politics on anything unless we can use one of these figures from the sport as a meat shield in the loosest possible way to discuss these topics. “
Le Batard added: “The only way we can discuss it here – because it’s not about politics, it’s about race; what you see happening here is about race and it got turned into politics – we’re only talking about that here when Steve Kerr or [Gregg] Popovich is saying something. We’re not talking about what’s going on unless there’s some kind of weak, loose sporting angle that we can go through, when sport has always been a place where that changes.
While The Batard-ESPN relationship ended Thursday, it really did end when The Batard made those comments. ESPN’s reaction to his comments was so overblown. ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro had a face-to-face meeting with Le Batard to talk to him about what he said, even though Le Batard didn’t say anything bad and nothing that should be considered, even remote, controversial.
The bottom line is that ESPN values vanilla hosts, does not rock and stick to sports over creative, genuine and original hosts.
ESPN wants their hosts to argue over who the NFL MVP is and whether LeBron or Jordan is the best player in NBA history. The network does not want its hosts to dive outside the world of sport.
Who cares if the person who runs the country has epically botched the pandemic response, and who cares if the same person is trying to steal a presidential election? DO NOT DARE to mention these things on a three hour radio show. GO TO SPORTS!
Once Le Batard made those comments last year – again, in my opinion – it put a target on his back. So his show loses an hour. His producer gets fired. And now the business is parting ways with him.
Le Batard will instantly sign with another company, and hopefully for his fans, it will be with a company that doesn’t muzzle him.
2. In what should be a fun watch, NBC Sports will have card assistant Steve Kornacki on its Sunday night football pre-game and halftime of the Broncos-Chiefs game to shatter the playoff image.
After hearing the news, a lot of people on Twitter made the same joke.
3. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky revealed on Thursday that he had never seen an episode of Seinfeld. I have nothing more to say.
4. NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson will be working on his 200th episode this Sunday. Here’s a clip, featuring Brett Favre with the Vikings, from the day RedZone launched in 2009.
5. This week SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Chris Long. The Super Bowl champion, who now hosts the Amazon Prime pre-game show on Thursday nights and on Green light podcast three days a week, shared his take on what NFL players are going through this season while trying to play through a pandemic.
Long also talks about what’s going on with Tom Brady and the Bucs, and why he thinks people shouldn’t be sleeping on the Packers.
Non-football related topics that Chris and I have discussed include our hatred of shaving, UGGs, scented celebrity candles, the funniest TV / cinematic death or funeral scenes and much more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it from Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play.
You can also watch the podcast on YouTube.
6. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: WWE released a stunning tribute video to Pat Patterson, who died on Wednesday.
seven. SPORTS VIDEO OF THE DAY: If you are a young person who has never seen this play, make yourself comfortable.
Make sure you catch up with the latest editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina at Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
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