Derek Jeter surprised many when he joined Fox’s MLB coverage considering his reputation as a quiet, vanilla athlete in New York City.
But Jeter knows that reputation existed and wants to set the record straight. In an interview on Calm Down with Erin and Charissa released Friday, Jeter explained how launching The Players’ Tribune prepared him for broadcasting.
Jeter reminded listeners how ahead of its time the website was and what he foresaw about sports media when he launched it in 2014.
“When I first retired, I started a company called The Players’ Tribune, so it’s not really the first time I was in the so-called media world,” Jeter told hosts Erin Andrews and Charissa Thompson. “And I got destroyed when I started that. People were like, ‘You didn’t say anything, and now you’re going to start a media platform.’ But I looked at it as, and I truly do believe the Tribune was … a little bit before it’s time. Because it really was one of the first to do it.”
Since then, athletes like Pat McAfee, JJ Redick, Gilbert Arenas and AJ Pierzynski have crafted sports media companies around their personalities and perspectives.
Jeter projected into the future that athletes would have a seat at the table and their voices would be louder.
“I understand that speaking with athletes, not only in baseball but other sports … that we’re not two-dimensional,” McAfee said. “There’s other interests, there’s other beliefs, you have opinions. But if you don’t necessarily trust the person that you’re speaking with, you’re just not going to share those things. So I wanted to give athletes a platform where they could talk about things that are important to them. I looked at it as a complement to mainstream media.”
Now, Jeter is part of Fox’s MLB studio coverage alongside Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz. The show attempts to replicate Inside the NBA with choreographed shenanigans and a loose vibe.
It’s very different from the approach Jeter took with the Yankees, when he admits it was his “job” to be “vanilla.”
“I wanted to draw the line between professional and personal,” Jeter told the hosts. “I didn’t want to cross the line … I felt it would be a distraction. Our old teams used to get this label of we’re so corporate and professional and we don’t have fun and we go through the motions. But when the media wasn’t in there, we had a great time.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.