Clay Travis has officially launched his new outlet after departing OutKick earlier this summer.
On Wednesday, Travis filed his first column on Sport & State, the new sports, culture, and politics venture he will lead after 15 years building, growing, and eventually selling OutKick.
Sport & State will feature an all-day lineup of live shows beginning at 8 a.m. ET and running through 5 p.m. ET.
In Travis’ column outlining what Sport & State would look like, he estimated that the new site would be “70% sports, 15% pop culture, and 15% where politics intersects with sports,” adding, “Most of the politics will come from me. These other shows aren’t designed to be political.”
As for Sport & State’s initial programming lineup, Chad Withrow and Jonathan Hutton will anchor a morning show from Nashville; Lance Taylor, Ryan Brown, and Jim Dunaway will take the reins through noon for Birmingham; and Travis and Buck Sexton’s show will run from noon to 3 p.m. ET. Travis will continue his eponymous show from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., with Kelly Stewart, Ariel Epstein, and Joe Raineri closing out the last hour of programming on Sport & State.
In his first post, Travis explains why he decided to launch Sport & State, which, on paper, seems very similar to what he created over at OutKick. Travis reiterated there is no bad blood between him and Fox, which purchased OutKick in 2021. He’ll still continue to contribute on Fox News and Fox Business. His weekly evening show will continue to air on FS1. He’ll also make appearances on Big Noon Kickoff this fall, “from big SEC football games.”
What motivated him to create Sport & State was the desire to be his own boss again and create something from scratch.
“I started Outkick back in 2011 because FanHouse.com was shut down and pretty much everyone was let go. That was awful for me and for many other employees. But it was important because I decided then and there I would never allow someone else to determine if my family had a paycheck,” Travis writes.
Travis goes on to reveal that Sport & State will not be a typical media company reliant on advertising, subscriptions, or events to fund the business. Instead, Sport & State will be funded by revenue generated from a handful of other businesses that Travis is launching in conjunction with the publication. Those businesses include a mortgage loan company, a coffee company, an athletic-wear brand that not-so-subtly leans into the ongoing right-wing obsession with transgender athletes, and an injury law firm bearing Travis’ name.
Travis describes this model as a “flywheel.” As more people read his site, more people will get home loans from his company, more people will buy his coffee, and then more money can be reinvested to grow the site.
In addition to those companies, Sport & State has an equity partnership with Hard Rock Bet. The sportsbook will be the outlet’s sports gambling partner and owns a minority stake in Sport & State.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.