No one loves talking about their former employer quite like Dan Le Batard loves talking about ESPN. Since leaving the Worldwide Leader for the creative freedom of Meadowlark Media, he hasn’t looked back — and he hopes some of his former colleagues can find the same fulfillment.
That doesn’t mean he recognizes the place anymore.
In fact, much of the ESPN he once knew feels unrecognizable. On Thursday, he turned on the network and saw an anchor he had never seen before. That’s not unusual for him these days. But what stood out was just how young the person looked — so much so that it caught him off guard.
Le Batard openly questioned whether the traditional sports highlight show — and the role of the sports anchor itself — is becoming endangered in today’s media landscape. The rise of the internet and social media has turned highlight shows into relics of a bygone era.
“The casual fan observes through highlights, the NBA chief among them,” Le Batard said on his The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, “but observing highlights on your phone or through your social media is different than having to go to your television… I know throughout the industry, everyone’s being asked to pay cuts because media is shrinking, media is in trouble and there are fewer jobs in general than there used to be. And as a practice, ESPN makes sure that the four letters are the thing that matters the most and that other parts are interchangeable or disposable.”
Take Scott Van Pelt.
Le Batard believes Van Pelt’s immense popularity would ensure ESPN continues to pay him handsomely. However, he also acknowledges that if ESPN were to lose SVP, it wouldn’t be a “seismic” event.
“In general, the sports anchor is less valuable throughout television than he or she has been almost the entirety of my lifetime,” said Le Batard.
As senior producer Roy Bellamy pointed out, ESPN’s launch of a daily SportsCenter on Disney+ with Gary Striewski and Randy Scott shows that highlight shows aren’t becoming completely obsolete.
“They’re the new big show. Instead of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, it’s Gary Striewski and Randy Scott — and they’re fantastic,” Jonathan Zaslow added. “But, I feel like one of the big complaints that fans, that viewers have with ESPN television these days is they want more SportsCenter. They want more highlight shows that they miss that part. You know, the same way you get older, people say, ‘MTV, oh, why don’t they have videos anymore?’ I feel like we’re in that place with ESPN, where they want more SportsCenter.
“And Scott Van Pelt, by the way, I think you’re wrong about that part. That show is pretty damn important. He gets amazing guests after all the big games… He gets great guests on the field, on the court, right after the game. That show’s pretty popular. So, I think you’re wrong about Scott Van Pelt.”
Van Pelt is a contender in the battle for late-night supremacy. As Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner explored earlier this year, his viewership has kept pace with traditional late-night shows as of late January.
“I would say that if ESPN chooses to make its midnight flagship something that it’s pouring all of its resources in, because one of the things you guys just said is, ‘Oh, he’s got the greatest guests.’ That has nothing to do with Scott Van Pelt,” said Le Batard. “Scott Van Pelt is being put in a good position to have maximum support and resources and do that better than most people have ever done it.”
That’s beside the original point Le Batard was making, though.
His point was that the role of the sports anchor is becoming less relevant in today’s media, and ESPN’s shift reflects that larger trend. While the network’s biggest names, like Van Pelt, may still hold significant value, Le Batard argues that the core of what made ESPN the giant it once was is rapidly disappearing.
And in the end, that’s the part that’s truly worth questioning.
