Thanks to his work on 'Pablo Torre Finds Out,' Pablo Torre is our Sports Media Person of the Year for our 2025 Awfulies.
By Ben Axelrod on

When it comes to the year that was in sports media, 2025 will be remembered as the year that Pablo Torre found out.

He found out about Kawhi Leonard’s alleged no-show endorsement deal, which continues to loom over the ongoing NBA season. He found out about leadership issues within the NFLPA, which led to significant changes for what is arguably the most critical union in all of sports. He found out which ex-NBA player-turned-congressman appears in the Epstein Files. And as you may have heard, he found out much more about Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson’s relationship than had ever been previously known.

Perhaps no figure in sports media has managed to thread the needle of performing legitimate journalism while also adapting — and embracing — the realities of today’s industry as deftly as Torre has. On the one hand, his reporting has enacted meaningful change. On the other hand, he’s (by his own admission) very online and plenty aware that how people consume his work is often left in the hands of the all-powerful algorithm.

Transparently, Torre was an easy, unanimous choice for our annual Sports Media Person of the Year award, which we present to the industry’s defining figure. After informing him that he was this year’s recipient, Awful Announcing caught up with Torre for a wide-ranging conversation about his work, the state of the industry, and whether he believes Jordon Hudson will actually file suit.

Some quotes in the Q&A have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Awful Announcing: You started Pablo Torre Finds Out in late 2023, and it was initially a critical success, but 2025 has seemed like the year it really went to a new level. Why do you think that was?

Pablo Torre: I didn’t plan it this way. I’m kind of startled that it’s happened this way. But what happened was I realized that when I choose to investigate something, it often ends up being like an unfolding multi-part relationship with the subject that I can’t escape, and frankly, I don’t want to. And so for me, the more that I realized that the subjects I was reporting on were otherwise going uninvestigated, I realized that this is a lane that I should probably stay in.

The thought I had as this year was unfolding was truly there has never been a bigger gap between what wealthy and powerful people want the public to know and what they’re actually doing. And the more that the work I was doing began to resonate, meaning that people started caring about it, the more rewarding it was in terms of realizing, ‘oh, there’s an audience for this stuff. I should not consider this a weird little art project. I should consider this something that could be more of the actual show that I do.’

Awful Announcing: You pretty much described the core of journalism. When you were talking with Joe Budden, you mentioned carving out your own lane. Are you surprised this lane has existed for you? In some ways, it seems obvious.

Torre: It’s the most ancient lane in journalism, meaning hold powerful people to some sort of accountability and do it in the spirit of the public interest. I am unsurprised that the lane is otherwise going unexplored just because you could be sued into oblivion by the people that you’re reporting on if you don’t do it right, if you’re not doing the due diligence. It’s not financially incentivized to do this lane.

The fact that this is also a plausible, sustainable enterprise that can live in the online ecosystem, which is otherwise telling us that we should be doing the stuff that feels easier and that feels more like dessert, my whole theory of the show is to make sure people understand that journalism is also fun. And for me, it’s been incredibly, incredibly energizing, as much as it’s been ostensibly exhausting to become a guy who will live in multiple rabbit holes at the same time because I got to make sure that I’m doing justice to the actual story that I’m trying to do.

Awful Announcing: You talked to Bill Simmons about your awareness of the algorithm. And that made me think, as easy as it’d be for you to ignore some of the responses you get, it also behooves you to go back and forth with someone like Mark Cuban or to respond to Jordon Hudson. Is that something you were aware of in 2023 and 2024?

Torre: It’s definitely something that’s evolved as I’ve realized that journalism is generally misunderstood and is generally dismissed, and often needs someone to explain why this story is worthy of their time. And so, in the internet era, every reporter is also a billboard, is also an outlet for the work they do. We’re all living online together and trying to get people to pay attention to what we’re doing.

I am not by nature — despite what this year has seemed like —  someone who enjoys just like beefing with people. That’s mostly, I think, why I haven’t really done it until this year. At a certain point, you just realize it’s my responsibility to make sure that this story doesn’t just disappear. That this story has legs.

We live in the most disposable era of media. And the way to make sure that this doesn’t just dissolve immediately is to be willing to defend your work and to hold people to account and to stand up for what it means to be a reporter. And that is true, by the way, for extraordinarily high-stakes serious stories in which I am investigating billionaires, and governments, and leagues. But it’s that same level of obsession that leads me to spend months thinking about bird watching. Like, ‘how can bird watching get its fair due?’ is also a thought that occurs in my head as I’m figuring out what stories are we covering or not.

Awful Announcing: Are you surprised by the reactions your reporting elicits? I’m thinking specifically about Mark Cuban engaging you in a months-long feud over a story he’s not even a part of.

Torre: It’s the gift and the curse. I’m somebody who professionally tries to tell people things that they did not know before. I’m always trying to surprise people by unearthing hopefully funny and weird and smart stories that feel both like they’re getting their vegetables and their dessert at the same time. And what I find myself perpetually surprised by is who emerges out of nowhere to be an antagonist or a conversation partner in talking about this stuff.

Sure, when something is going to result in a multi-month feud with a guy on Shark Tank, it’s hard for me to predict that. But when it happens, the thought I have is gratitude that someone cares and is willing to talk about this thing and seemingly care about it in ways that I knew I did, but wasn’t sure anyone else would. And for better and for worse, the proof of impact on the internet these days is reaction. And so my job is to make sure that reaction can be turned into something useful and can help in the service of making an important story get known.

Awful Announcing: Was Bill Simmons the best example of that? On the one hand, you have one of the most prominent sports media members questioning the value of your work. On the other hand, it then allows you to go on his massive platform and explain why this really does matter.

Torre: All I ever want to do is make sure that people understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. And yeah, I am more than happy to play road games. If someone has questions about what I’m doing, the good and bad news is that I have been thinking about what I report by the time I publish it for longer than it’s probably healthy and so there is so much for me to say. And even somebody who doesn’t seem to have really put in anywhere close to that amount of work, thinking about that same story, if they have questions that are in good faith, if they have questions they are authentically curious about like, ‘why are you doing this? Isn’t this beneath you? Isn’t this stupid?’ I am also here to answer those questions.

I think that part of a journalist’s job in 2025 is not merely to publish their work and then disappear; it’s also to be willing to defend it because journalism as a concept right now has never been less funded, less understood, and less protected. And I think that for better and for worse, that responsibility, especially with a show like mine, is on me.

And so Bill was the first instance in which I realized that this could be a thing that actually helps the larger project that I’m engaging in. Which is to say — I don’t wanna be so grandiose here — but be willing to take on people who are a lot richer, a lot more famous, a lot more powerful than you, if you believe in the work you’re doing. And I’ve committed to that ever since.

Awful Announcing: Do you ever worry about getting scooped? I think about a story like the one with Kawhi Leonard and Aspiration and how much time you dedicated to that, and there must be a fear that someone else is going to beat you to the punch.

Torre: All the time. We tend to deliberate in terms of picking stories and angles on stories and approaches to stories that are different as a function of just my own personal curiosity. But all of the time, we are respectful and worried that other journalists are out there on the same trail, and of course, we have [been scooped].

There are plenty of stories where I’m like, ‘we wanted to get to that, but they got to it first,’ or ‘that was a really great execution of an angle or an interview that I wish I had done.’ And yes, that is something that we are competitive about and also grateful for because it makes us be as strategic as possible in when we publish, and how we publish, and what we spend our time doing. There aren’t as many journalists as there used to be, but the ones that are out there — there are lots of investigative reporters that I remain in awe of. And yeah, you have to salute the body of work that they’ve been doing.

The thing that I think I’m differentiated by is there is a bit of a moat around how we’re doing it is the format. We’re doing magazine, narrative style reporting, it’s often in the spirit of my old employers, like Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine. How is that translated into the podcast and YouTube era? I don’t think anybody’s doing stories like us, but they’re definitely picking stories that I am jealous of when I see it done well.

Awful Announcing: What’s the best example of a story you felt that way about?

Torre: Don Van Natta got the strip club receipts from Lloyd Howell in the NFLPA investigation, and as soon as I saw that there were Tootsie’s receipts for like hours-long trips using union money, I was so jealous of that. It was an important part of the unfolding investigation into the NFLPA. That was something that I was applauding and envious of.

And Don is, of course, one of the great reporters who does this work, and he has done it for a lot longer than I have. So that one, I’m like, ‘God, I wish I had the Don Van Natta Lloyd Howell strip club receipt story.’ That still kind of sticks with me of like, ‘man, I wish I had that.’

Awful Announcing: What is the story that you’re most proud of from this year?

Torre: There are two answers. One is the Aspiration story. Because taking on a subject that one of the 10 richest people on the planet tried actively to hide and emerging, so far, having to issue zero corrections and having no legal notice of any litigation is something that terrified me before we published it. And we took so long, seven months to do it, and it ended up being a thing that we still continue to report today.

And that story just feels like a metaphor because sports has never been more valuable and more dominated by people who come from Silicon Valley and essentially violate the rules of fair play, and sports is one of the last places we have left where fairness of competition and rules matter. And so getting to do a story that is on some level, incredibly nerdy; it’s about carbon credits, it’s about salary cap circumvention, and collective bargaining. Getting that to be something that feels also fun and compelling and kind of like a true crime series is so gratifying that it worked and resonated to the degree that it has, causing the NBA itself to have to take the story seriously by investigating it.

The second answer is just the Tom McMillen story that we just did. It’s a very different story, right? The Aspiration story felt elaborate and methodical in ways that took months and months and months. This was, here’s a person in front of you, a three-time congressman who was caught up in the foremost political scandal of our era, and he has not been directly asked straight-ahead questions that are informed by public records to date, given that the new files have come out and he is in them.

And so conducting an interview that is based on evidence with someone who actively was trying to evade those answers, but getting the opportunity to contribute anything to a story that was, by the way, first broken by Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald. And to have Julie send our work out as part of this larger, growing body of reporting on the Epstein scandal is something that I’m very glad that we took the time and care to get right.

Awful Announcing: That reminds me of when you were teasing the David White SAG-AFTRA story and you retweeted a post saying, ‘we need to get Pablo to find the Epstein files’ and you said something to the effect of ‘my next story was inspired in part by this post’ and the immediate reaction was ‘holy shit, Pablo got the Epstein files.

That reaction to a fairly innocuous tweet feels like the best compliment somebody could give an investigative reporter. But do you also worry about overpromising and underdelivering?

Torre: The bar being raised for us and the expectations going from the floor to the ceiling is also a gift and a curse. I think we have made, as a function of the style of our show and the frequency with which we are publishing episodes that I think are making an impact on the news cycle, it seems possibly a lot easier than it is. And I love that people are challenging us to deliver the things that they are most curious about.

I am tortured by the fact that every story we publish involves unseen hours and vetting and double and triple checking and legal counsel, such that I do worry that we’ve raised the bar a bit too high. But for us to come back around and say, ‘here’s a specific angle from the world of sports on the story everybody’s talking about,’ it felt like that was satisfying to our audience, who had demanded me to be involved, while also not being a story that I wanted to do because people demanded it.

I think something that I struggle with is how to select a topic, how to select an investigation. And I struggle with it because there is a way to do it that is based on metrics. ‘Everyone’s talking about this thing, go investigate it.’ But what I try to take such care in doing and take pride in doing is picking the right angles, such that it is non-obvious sometimes.

So like, Tom McMillen is the guy hiding in the background of the most famous video you’ve seen. He’s been there the entire time, and people haven’t quite paid him the attention that he’s due. And so, us finding a way into a real story through a side door, as opposed to the way that everybody’s chasing it is something that we try to do as often as we can within the principles of what it means to be a rigorous journalistic outlet.

Awful Announcing: You’ve had some real cornerstone episodes and topics this year: Jordon Hudson, the NFLPA, and Aspiration. What is an episode or subject that didn’t get as much love that you think people should check out?

Torre: I’ve been a little worried lately that all the investigative reporting we do on billionaires and leagues and political figures has obscured the real spirit of our show, which is rooted in using journalism to tell a documentary-style story about stuff that probably seems — at first glance — to be stupid. One of my favorite episodes involves the internet legend of a secret rap-jazz album that Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti recorded when he was younger and then hid from the world.

I don’t want to spoil the episode, but Presti’s music and the quest to find it wound up being a profound joy in ways I never expected, which is often the best kind.


Awful Announcing: You did this to Bill Simmons. You did this to Mark Cuban. When you reply to somebody by saying, ‘actually, I have some questions for you too,’ you know what you’re doing. When did you realize that telling somebody that you want to ask them questions could also be a threat?

Torre: I guess it is threatening to have a request for comment, of course, and so that’s an ancient sort of thing, right? Like a journalist has come calling to ask you some things.

I’ve seen various memes about what it is to get a request for comment from me now. I will say that like LinkedIn is a place that has become less fruitful. I used to be able to send people messages, and they would accept. They’re accepting that connection less often now.

It went from the big sort of step changes in our show’s identity from the reputation of it are concerned; it went from Jordon Hudson to the NFLPA to our first NBA gambling episode — which I also love because it involved us unmasking a guy on Twitter who ended up being a key to understanding how possibly the government is not totally appreciating the nature of what this story is. Which is to say it’s a scandal about the internet, and we are internet-brained people, in the NBA, in the NBA media, and on NBA Twitter. And it went from the NBA gambling thing to Aspiration, and at that point, yeah, people are expecting that if I reach out to them, there are a bunch of questions coming in that they don’t wanna answer.

But I wanna be clear too, like sometimes I make a request for comment or I request someone for an interview because I’m a huge fan of theirs. Like it’s funny, my show has become a show in which I’m investigating people in the Epstein files, but also requesting that, ‘hey, can Method Man come hang out with us? Can Connie Chung come and like tell me about what it was like to be a reporter in the earlier era?’ Like, I love that.

Awful Announcing: Do you have any reason to believe Jordon Hudson will actually sue you?

Torre: I have been waiting for anything resembling a formal legal notice, and nothing has happened. I have found out that the University of North Carolina is not only not involved in any of her threatened litigation, but they are also the subject of public records requests that Jordan Hudson has been filing, so I can’t speak to her deliberate legal strategy here, only to say that I am eager to find out.

Awful Announcing: What are your goals and vision for Pablo Torre Finds Out heading into 2026?

Torre: To see my family more. To make sure that my deep dive into every possible rabbit hole does not result in me, myself personally going insane, while also continually showing people that journalism is the opposite of dead. It’s the thing that everybody, when they are on the internet, whether they realize it or not, is talking about.

You’re talking about things that you did not know before. You’re talking about stories. Because even if media is being totally ruined and hollowed out and disrupted by tech billionaires and the U.S. government, it’s the thing that could not be more important right now.

And my stupid show, which tries to do serious things while also occasionally doing stuff like interviewing a witch for our Halloween episode, is meant to not be the solution to every problem in the world of accountability through journalism, but it is meant to be a case study in the fact that this industry, this profession is worthy of investment and time and hopefully respect.

About Ben Axelrod

Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.

View all posts by Ben Axelrod