Josh Pate prioritized IP ownership over network money during media rise

There was a time when putting your content on ESPN or any other traditional outlet was the ultimate goal for every sports media personality, but that time is gone.

College football commentator Josh Pate is about to have a show on ESPN, launching with Bussin’ & Pate on Campus with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan on Friday, Sept. 4. But finally getting to ESPN is secondary to Pate owning the intellectual property of his college football podcast.

Pate recently joined OutKick’s Bobby Burack for a wide-ranging conversation where he spoke about facing eviction as he struggled financially before building what is now arguably the biggest podcast in college football. In 2020, Pate finally thought he “hit the lottery,” landing a $75,000 deal with CBS. And by 2022, CBS was ready to rip up the old contract and offer Pate even more money, which would seem to be the goal, but the offer was missing IP ownership.

“I had to make some decisions with CBS because they wanted to put a long-term, really, really lucrative deal in front of me,” Pate told Burack. “But it would not have included IP ownership, asset ownership. I remember talking to some people who I confided in, people in the business well beyond me whose opinions I valued. They said, ‘Look, the future of this business is IP ownership, asset ownership. If you’re ever going to get it, you’ve got to get it now because you get one more step down the road and that franchise is going to be way too profitable for them to ever hand over the keys to.’”

Pate called the new offer from CBS “astronomical” compared to what he was making when facing eviction just several years earlier.

“So it was that, or it was counter with an offer that was much less, still good, but much less. But it included IP ownership. We went back and forth on that, back and forth on that. There was one night, it was about 10:30 Friday night, for whatever reason, I was in the office all by myself, and I got a call from CBS, and they said, all right, we’re going to do it.”

Pate told Burack he took a lower salary but secured the coveted IP ownership, signed a one-year deal, and parted ways with the company after that contract expired. Now Pate has one of the biggest podcasts in college football; he maintains IP ownership; he controls the RSS feeds, the YouTube channel, and the company.

This is what Pat McAfee pioneered: the idea that an independent venture could become bigger than any show in traditional media. And while McAfee is now part of the establishment, he did so by retaining asset ownership and renting it to ESPN rather than handing over control. It’s the model Stephen A. Smith has since admitted to copying, having launched his own production company.

The model used to be: get on ESPN and let them have your content. Now the model is to own your content and use ESPN as more of a promotional tool. It’s the model every successful sports media personality wants, and Josh Pate has it.