Sports Media with Richard Deitsch

Episode 36 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features a conversation with Sports Business Daily media writer John Ourand. In this podcast, we discuss the potential viewership for this year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta; ESPN’s interest in getting a Super Bowl game in the future and the potential cost to get in that rotation; what kind of Super Bowl broadcast ESPN/ABC might put on; ESPN’s NFL journalism; Ourand’s story on the Big 12 conference shopping the 2019, 2021 and 2023 championship games to media companies; Endeavor move into streaming; the latest on Disney’s sale of the RSNs; the Monday Night Football booth for 2019; whether the Wizards should trade Bradley Beal to the Raptors for Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby, and much more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 35 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features two guests: longtime Sports Illustrated writer Austin Murphy, and Daniel Dale, the Toronto Star’s Washington bureau chief. In this podcast, Murphy discussed the recent piece he wrote for The Atlantic (“I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated, Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon”) in which he discussed his new job as an Amazon driver at age 57; why his piecestruck such a chord, especially on social media; how he approached writing it; what the writing job market been for him since leaving SI; the issue of ageism for sports writers; covering Lance Armstrong during the Tour De France and college football for SI; getting laid off from a job after decades, and much more.  Dale discussed covering Donald Trump’s administration; his reputation as a premier Presidential fact-checkers; how he fact-checks in real-time and on social media; the record for the most lies in a month; why some outlets are reticent to use the word “lie; whether the focus on Trump is unfair compared to previous administrations; Dale’s contact with the White House; his experience on social media; why he describes his email inbox as “a dark place”; gaining celebrity in political circles in the  U.S. and balancing that with hischarter as a journalist; the role of CNN prior to the 2016 Presidential Election; what his U.S. colleagues think of his work and whether they think he is an advocate or opinonist; how the U.S. political media can improve; how Canadian audience perceive the Canadian media today; how trust-building can demonstrate that journalists are human and relatable people who are doing the best job they can; how long he will keep his current assignment; what he thinks of the Toronto Raptors in 2019 and his thoughts on the Kawhi Leonard-DeMar DeRozan trade; attending Raptors games; his prediction for how this season will conclude; the prospect of writing about the team, and much more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 34 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features a sports media conversation on ESPN with James Andrew Miller, the best-selling author of books on CAA, ESPN and Saturday Night Live the host of the “Origins” podcast. In this podcast, Miller discusses where ESPN is in 2019 regarding its relationship with parent company Disney and its position in the sports media marketplace; ESPN’s current relationship with the NFL and interest in future rights deals; where ESPN+ is today and where it needs to be in the future; whether ESPN will be aggressive with its journalism about the NFL heading forward; new ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro’s challenges and charter; talent salaries at ESPN heading forward; what SportsCenter is today; the future of the Monday Night Football booth; ESPN and politics; why ESPN separated with Jemele Hill; a quick examination of Get Up!; ESPN as a news-breaking engine; whether ESPN would do sports-related interviews with 2020 Presidential candidates, and much more. Plus, an apology to Sports Illustrated staffers.  You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 33 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features two guests: Chelsea Janes, the Washington Nationals beat reporter for the Washington Post who will move from that beat after the new year to cover the 2020 Presidential election; and Bruce Feldman, a college football reporter for The Athletic and a football sideline reporter for Fox Sports.  In this podcast, Janes discusses her upcoming move from covering MLB to the 2020 Presidential campaign; how her new assignment came to be; the challenges of covering politics and getting new sources; how she has approached social media and political opinions; how baseball is a good training ground for the political road; whether she thinks she will return to sports; covering the Nationals and specifically the specter of Bryce Harper leaving the franchise; what she thought of the Patrick Corbin signing and what she thinks of the Nationals in 2019; the prospect of covering the next President of the United States; and much more. Feldman discusses college football podcasts and why there are not as many as other sports; the roles of college football media people in 2019; how important it is for him to be a newsbreaker; his leaving ESPN and whether he still has hard feelings from that episode; how he navigates his broadcast work with reporting for The Athletic; the value of being on TV for reporting; the deification of college coaches on college broadcasts; whether game coverage is the appropriate place for issue-oriented discussions, and much more.  You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 32 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features a roundtable discussion with three prominent NBA writers: Howard Beck, a senior NBA writer at Bleacher Report; Candace Buckner, a reporter for The Washington Post who covers the Washington Wizards, and Seerat Sohi, an NBA reporter for Yahoo Sports.   In this podcast, the group discusses what they think readers expect from them in their specific roles; the different kinds of media people covering the NBA; how to figure out what lane to pursue when it comes to an NBA media job; what it’s like for Buckner and Sohi to be people of color in the NBA media; whether there is pressure to perform for NBA Twitter;  the most media friendly players they deal with and Buckner’s praise here for John Wall is worth noting; the person in the NBA they most want to interview and why (the answers will surprise you); how where they live (Brooklyn, Toronto and Washington) impacts how they view the league and job; the NBA media person they’d most want to sit next to for Game 7; and much more.   You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 31 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Tom Verducci, a Sports Illustrated senior writer, an analyst for MLB Network, and an analyst and field reporter for Fox Sports. In this podcast, Verducci discusses how reporters approach covering the Winter Meetings; which MLB organizational staffers are likely to speak to reporters at the Winter Meetings; why the Winter Meetings are often controlled by agents and their agendas; how texting has become a major form of communication for reporters covering the Winter Meetings; whether he expects Manny Machado or Bryce Harper to sign during the Winter Meetings; his thoughts on Patrick Corbin signing with the Nationals; how he views long-form baseball writing in 2018 and beyond; how MLB players feel about being profiled for a written piece versus a video one; why he is not on social media or Twitter; how he views the impact of legalized wagering on MLB; when he saw the sabermetric revolution in baseball writing; his long-term commitment to feature writing, and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 30 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features a media roundtable with Sports Business Daily sports media writer John Ourand and Boston Globe sports media writer Chad Finn. In this episode, Ourand, Finn and Deitsch discuss the Monday Night Football booth, Finn’s recent piece on analyst Jason Witten and what the feedback as been on the booth from our readers; the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson pay-per-view event, what went wrong, and how Turner Sports viewed the enterprise; the rise of NFL viewership this season and what to expect in the final weeks of the regular season; what’s next in the sale of Fox’s 22 US-based regional sports networks (RSNs); Fox’s broadcast of Ohio State-Michigan and the overcoming adversity narrative pushed by Fox broadcasters Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt; and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 29 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features sports broadcasters Rebecca Lobo and LaChina Robinson for an examination of women’s college basketball coverage, and a look at this year’s top teams. Lobo joined ESPN in 2004 as a WNBA and women’s college basketball analyst and reporter and calls the Women’s Final Four annually. She is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Robinson calls games for a myriad of companies including ESPN, Fox Sports, Raycom’s ACC women’s basketball, the Atlanta Dream, and works at espnW, where she hosts the “Around The Rim” podcast.    In this episode, Lobo and Robinson offer their thoughts on Notre Dame, UConn, Oregon, Baylor, and Louisville, and dissect the biggest challenges for Notre Dame to repeat; what women’s basketball programs are the most media accessible and why; how forthcoming coaches are in production meeting with broadcasters; the U.S. media markets with a lot of coverage of women’s basketball and the markets that should be better; the state of the women’s basketball blogosphere and the websites doing a good job of covering the sport, and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 28 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Boston sports-talk radio host Kirk Minihane In this podcast, Minihane discussed why he has not been on WEEI’s air since last September; checking himself into a hospital last August for treatment of depression and suicidal thoughts; why he took an indefinite leave from the airwaves; where is mental health his now and his current medication regimen; how he has spent the last three months away from sports talk; whether he thinks WEEI management believes him regarding his mental health issues; why he is leaving the Kirk and Callahan show;  his upcoming sports show for Radio.com and what he hopes the show will be; why he and Entercom management decided to take this new path; whether he will be on the Kirk and Callahan show as a guest in the future and if he discussed anything formal with Barstool Radio; whether his issues with depression has given him empathy for other people or at least pause about attacking others on the air as he did frequently; what responsibility he has when people he has criticized on air get attacked on social media; whether the highs outweigh the lows of working in radio; the relationship between his job and his mental health, and much more.     You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 27 of the Sports Media Podcast features Fox Sports NFL analyst Troy Aikman.  In this podcast, Aikman discusses his first year as an analyst for Fox’s coverage of Thursday Night Football; how doing an additional game each week has changed his preparation; what an average week is like for him work-wise; how sustainable it is for a broadcast crew to work Thursdays and Sundays weekly; why Tony Romo was able to be successful so quickly where others have struggled in broadcasting; how much feedback he receives from Fox Sports execs; why he thinks NFL viewership is up; how he feels about Fox’s hiring of Skip Bayless; the NFL team that has impressed him the most this season; what it is like for him when he reads of Fox’s interest in other NFL analysts; whether he is interested in working in football management after his children graduate from high school, and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 26 of the Sports Media Podcast features Turner Sports and Fox Sports soccer host Kate Abdo; a media discussion with Boston Globe media writer Chad Finn on Monday Night Football’s broadcast crew and declining World Series viewership; and best-selling author and Detroit Free Press sports columnist Mitch Albom.    In this podcast, Abdo discusses her role as the studio host for Turner and Bleacher Report’s UEFA Champions League coverage; how she ended up in soccer broadcasting after leaving home at 16; the differences between working in sports media in the U.K., Germany and the United States; the sexualized coverage of women broadcasters in the U.K.; being fluent in four languages and how that has shaped her soccer work; her biggest takeaway from Fox’s coverage of the 2018 World Cup; her Muslim faith and whether she has experienced discrimination or repression in her job; how she navigated Ramadan and calling the World Cup; future assignments and much more.    Deitsch and Finn discuss the declining World Series viewership from last year; whether there is Boston fatigue; the call of Joe Buck and John Smoltz; and an analysis of the Monday Night Football booth.    Albom discusses his current book, “The Next Person You Meet In Heaven," the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven”; the challenges of bouncing from sports writing to non-sports writing; how much a sporting event still interests him as a writer; what sports figure in Michigan he finds the most compelling and why; whether he misses being on ESPN regularly and the fate of the newspaper sports section.   You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 25 of the Sports Media Podcast features Sports Business Daily media writer John Ourand for a discussion on the latest sports media news.    In this podcast, Ourand and Deitsch discuss the current NFL viewership numbers and why they are up from 2017; whether the league can sustain the ratings through the end of the regular season; the impact of quarterbacks, competitive games, and news fatigue on the viewership; the World Series matchup between the Dodgers and Red Sox and what kind of interest there will be nationally; a look at Fox’s MLB pregame show; the NBA viewership numbers from the opening week of the season and the impact of LeBron James moving from the Eastern to Western Conference; whether the Boston Celtics can fill the TV role that Cleveland played last year with James; Ourand’s interview with ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro; the stylistic difference between Pitaro and John Skipper; Pitaro’s discussion with Ourand on the role of political talk and ESPN and the impact it had; the opposing views of Ourand and Deitsch on covering politics at ESPN; Ourand’s piece on Around The Horn and how that show will move to ESPN’s Seaport studios in lower Manhattan and will use a new graphics package that will employ augmented reality; the impact of Tony Reali as a host; whether PTI can last post-Wilbon and Kornhesier and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 24 of the Sports Media Podcast features guests Rachel Nichols of ESPN and Candace Parker of Turner Sports. Nichols is the host of The Jump and a longtime reporter whose resume includes CNN, Turner Sports and the Washington Post. Parker Is a future Basketball Hall of Famer who recently joined the NBA on TNT and NBA TV as an analyst. She currently plays for the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. In this podcast, Nichols discusses how The Jump gets put together daily; who she thinks is watching her show; women getting solo hosting jobs in the sports media; how much attention she pays to her show’s ratings; the impact of having an afternoon time slot; whether she considers NBA Countdown a competitor or complement to her show; what ESPN management has told her about the long-term prospects of her show; how her interview with Minnesota star forward Jimmy Butler came about; whether she feels Butler used her as part of a media strategy; why Mark Cuban agreed to go on with her to answer questions about sexual harassment in the Dallas Mavericks’ organization; what she expects from LeBron James in Los Angeles this season, and much more. Parker discusses why she took the job with Turner Sports; what her broadcasting schedule will be; how she plans on approaching sports broadcasting; what it means for her international basketball career now that she has a job with Turner Sports; the impact of her 9-year-old daughter on this decision; how she compartmentalizes her time; how much it helps a professional athlete with an interest in broadcasting to be interviewed over the years; why Michael Strahan gave her the best broadcasting advice; how she sees the evolution of the WNBA; her greatest starting five in WNBA history; the player she would chose today to build an WNBA franchise around; what she expects from the Eastern Conference this year; whether she is happy to see Tennessee playing UConn again in women’s college basketball, and much more.  You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

Episode 23 of the Sports Media Podcast features Jemele Hill. In this podcast, Hill discusses leaving ESPN after 12 years; why she decided to leave; how one goes about negotiating a buyout with ESPN; the role of management changes at SportsCenter that led to her leaving SC6; whether ESPN management wanted her to stay or leave the company; why SC6 was not a viewership hit; the role of former ESPN president John Skipper in her career and the impact of Skipper’s leaving the network because of a cocaine addiction and the subsequent impact of that addiction; whether ESPN was too deep in political talk; her Twitter feed in the era of Donald Trump; her thoughts on the comments of Disney Chairman Bob Iger regarding ESPN swinging the pendulum a little bit too far away from sports; the culture of ESPN under new president Jimmy Pitaro; ESPN’s commitment to journalism regarding the NFL in the Pitaro era; what she will be writing for The Atlantic, where she will work as a staff writer; her role as the narrator for LeBron James' upcoming documentary series "Shut Up and Dribble; her thoughts on a conflict of interest writing about LeBron James and having financial ties to his production company; her upcoming podcast; her thoughts on the future of The Undefeated and much more.

Episode 22 of the Sports Media Podcast features Yahoo! Sports senior NBA insider Chris Haynes. In this podcast, Haynes discussed why he ended up leaving ESPN; what he expects at Yahoo! Sports; how ESPN wanted him to remain a local Bay Area as opposed to a national reporter; what it was like covering LeBron James for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer; what James discusses with reporters; what it’s like to have multiple employers over the past six years; whether he feels the pressure to break news as previous Yahoo staffers Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania; addressing charges that he is too close to Kevin Durant; how reporters of color are seen in the league; graduating from Fresno State at 27 and trying to break into journalism; working as a security guard during the day and covered Trail Blazers games at night; why the Raptors might be the most interesting NBA story this year, and much more.    You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.