While there are still some notable differences between shows produced for conventional TV and digital shows, there’s no dispute that many digital-only shows are drawing big audiences. One of those is Gil’s Arena. And that show, from media and gaming company Underdog, made notable news Tuesday by not only announcing they’d signed their full cast to multi-year extensions, but also issuing a pronouncement they’ll pass First Take in viewers per episode by the end of 2025.
Underdog launched Gil’s Arena in February 2023. At that time, the company’s VP of content Tim Livingston told AA then it fit into their approach of working with prominent athletes such as Steve Smith Sr. and Rashad McCants. “We believe there’s a big opportunity giving athletes with really interesting POVs a platform where they can be their authentic selves and not have to deal with the barriers and bureaucracy of traditional media.”
The show (which airs Monday-Thursday on the Gil’s Arena YouTube channel, going live at 2:30 p.m. ET each day) has certainly done that. Takes from Arenas and the extensive cast (including host and executive producer Josiah Johnson and former players McCants, Nick Young, Kenyon Martin, Sheryl Swoopes, Brandon Jennings, and Lexie Brown) on men’s and women’s basketball have frequently drawn a lot of buzz, and Gil’s Arena has built a notable regular audience.
And now, Underdog has not only signed that whole cast to multi-year contract extensions, but vowed that Gil’s Arena will pass First Take in regular viewers by the end of this year. Here’s more on that from an Underdog release:
Gil’s Arena is the largest digital basketball show in the U.S. and the fifth-largest daily sports show in the country, measuring viewers across all platforms.
“Underdog built us a platform and more importantly created a real partnership to share our unfiltered takes with fans. We’re building a one-of-a-kind basketball network here, and this is just the beginning – we have big plans for the future,” said Gil’s Arena host, Gilbert Arenas.
Gil’s Arena has become the fifth-largest daily sports show in the United States across all platforms, garnering more than 500 million views on YouTube, tens of millions of audio downloads, and billions of impressions on social media. Currently averaging 275,000 viewers per episode, Gil’s Arena aims to pass ESPN’s First Take (496,000 viewers per episode on linear TV) by the end of 2025.
…“This partnership is at the center of our media network expansion and proof of concept for our belief in bringing fans unvarnished and incredibly deep sports content. Working with Gil and his team has been incredible, and we are going to continue to elevate our sports content and build the best sports entertainment experience for our customers, ” said Liz Marro, Chief Marketing Officer of Underdog.
Of course, comparing linear television ratings to digital numbers is always tricky. Those are never apples-to-apples comparisons, with the linear ratings coming from Nielsen’s approach and the digital ones coming from YouTube stats. And there are questions with each about what time window you’re considering (live only? live+same day? live+7? any time over the year?) and what counts as a full episode view (one person watching the entire thing, or average viewership of partial episodes that adds up to the equivalent of one full view?).
If Gil’s Arena does wind up pulling in a digital number similar to First Take‘s linear numbers, there will be plenty of debate about the merits of those numbers and who actually “won.” But for now, the really notable element of this is this publicly-declared goal of passing one of the biggest linear sports shows. That’s highly ambitious for a digital show, but it shows how this landscape is changing, and how some of these digital shows want not only to be in the same conversation as linear TV, but surpass it. (And Gil’s Arena isn’t alone there; see Adam “Pacman” Jones’ recent vow to AA that he wants his The Pacman Jones Show to be “the biggest talk show in the world.”)
Another interesting element here is how important this content approach is to Underdog’s overall goals. Beyond hosting Gil’s Arena, Arenas has his picks featured across the company’s website and app, and his co-hosts are soon to join him in that under this new deal. As Livingston (who’s often talked up the importance of content to the company) said in that 2023 interview with AA around the launch of this show, ” Our goal in producing high-quality original content is to build an audience that we can organically introduce to our games.” They’re definitely working to do that with Gil‘s Arena, and that’s a factor beyond just the viewership in why they’re investing in multi-year deals for this extensive cast.
Livingston said in Underdog’s new release here that “The success is a testament to the hard work of Gilbert, Josiah, and the entire cast and crew. We’re grateful for the last two years, and excited for the next ten.” So Gil’s Arena is definitely in the long-term plans for the company. We’ll see how that works out, and just how much of a viewership challenge it can pose to traditional linear shows like First Take.
