ESPN SVP Mike Foss explains why network doesn’t produce general sports podcasts

The podcast charts are riddled with big, broad sports shows from companies like The Ringer, Sirius XM, and Barstool.

Over time, audiences have flocked to this type of talk content as a looser, more personality-driven alternative to television studio shows or sports radio. Today’s media stars are just as (if not more) likely to come from the digital audio and video world as they are from television.

But one media company that has a conspicuously limited presence on these charts is the Worldwide Leader itself. Outside of The Pat McAfee Show, which ESPN licenses, just two of the network’s podcasts is currently in the top 50 on Spotify. A couple more appear on Apple’s charts, but these are largely reposts of the network’s television shows like Pardon the Interruption.

Podcasting is simply not a big priority at ESPN. The company outsourced much of its podcast production to Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions in recent years. Most of its shows are driven by a single popular commentator covering their sport-specific beat.

In an appearance this week on The Varsity podcast, ESPN SVP of studio and entertainment Mike Foss explained why the company continues to favor its television programming over potential podcast projects, and why he doesn’t see ESPN competing directly with other networks’ “straight-down-the-middle sports shows” any time soon.

“Podcasts (are) such a challenge for ESPN, I think, because our talent are across so many things… you may have already heard [their perspectives],” Foss said.

“To me, that’s what’s so interesting for us trying to thread the needle for our podcasts, and being very discerning about what we launch and when we launch it. It’s quite difficult when you have this talent that is already on Get Up, on SportsCenter, on First Take, then to turn around and say, ‘Okay, give me an hour with stuff that you haven’t used for the past five.’ Right? So I think we’re finding success in areas that maybe are a little bit underserved.”

Foss listed more niche subject areas, like fantasy football or the NFL Draft, as examples of where ESPN might use a podcast for its coverage. But for bigger national sports commentary, Foss explained that conversations internally often drift back to the existing television properties.

“We’re looking to find things that are going to augment what we’re already doing, which also means that some of the straight-down-the-middle sports shows that have massive podcast followings, we’re probably not going to be in direct competition with those,” he said. “Because we already have these things like First Take and like Get Up.”

In the case of the McAfee Show, ESPN has the best of both worlds. It gets the feel and broader scope of a podcast in a form that is polished enough for TV.

While one might wish ESPN could devote more resources to producing its own versions of this more modern content, the focus now for ESPN appears to be refashioning its television content for digital audiences, rather than building out significant YouTube or social media-specific content.

Still, through Omaha and people like Foss, some ESPN personalities are able to establish large audiences online through podcasts, even if they are the exception and not the norm.