Dan Le Batard finally addressed the elephant in the room.
Well, sort of.
Throughout last week, Le Batard initially sidestepped the real elephant in the room, which came in the form of a Barrett Media report that co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner would be “stepping back” from Meadowlark Media. That stood in contrast to the ex-ESPN star publicly thanking former ESPN president and Meadowlark co-founder John Skipper on social media after Skipper’s recent departure.
While Weiner was in studio last week, his overall presence across Meadowlark properties — especially The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz — has noticeably diminished in recent months. Instead of addressing the situation head-on last week, Le Batard let an inflatable elephant do the talking, with a visual gag that didn’t provide the type of transparency longtime listeners were hoping for.
On Monday, however, the former Miami Herald columnist was a bit more transparent about what is going on.
“Just so you guys know, because Pablo Torre’s podcast is a place, as media shakes and crumbles, is a safe space for independent microphone conversations,” Le Batard said on Monday. “I will tell you, for those of you that are worried about the future of our show, because ‘Hey, why is this Stugotz? Why is he stepping back? ‘Well, I would like all my friends to have a giant business. Stugotz would like God Bless Football to be a giant business, and he’s going to make a giant business.
“And Pablo’s going to make Pablo Torre Finds Out a giant business. And David Samson’s already made Nothing Personal a giant business. And so, that’s why we left and did what we did, so we could have people take up their brands and be independent. And then, when the corporations come around, now…”
That was the extent of Le Batard’s explanation before the conversation veered off into Pablo Torre’s journalism, Jordon Hudson’s tabloid drama, and Bill Belichick allegedly gaming the system.
Consider the elephant addressed, just not necessarily explained.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.