Le Batard's show is not in any recognizable way about sports, instead mocking the concept of sports radioESPN IMAGES
ESPN Radio's "The Dan Le Batard Show" is the "weirdest and funniest non-sports-focused sports radio show in America," according to Mike Schur of SLATE.com. The four-hour daily show has a "Miami-only local hour" from 9:00-10:00am ET that "flows seamlessly into a three-hour national show for ESPN Radio, which is also televised on ESPNews." The show has "existed in one form or another for 15 years" and has "never been more popular." On terrestrial radio, it has an "audience of 2.2 million people a week, and it’s heard in 11 of the country’s top 20 markets." But the show is "not in any recognizable way about sports" as its "singular mission is to mock the concept of sports talk radio -- to make you feel bad for ever liking sports radio." If there is a "list of the things Le Batard and his crew spend the most time talking about, 'sports' would be maybe fourth." The main subject of the show is the "show itself: its own history, its personalities, its unlikely existence." Le Batard and his co-hosts "stumble, meander, and allow their attention to be diverted by literally anything." That is "not to say the show is purely frivolous: Le Batard has made his name in part by discussing race in American sports, and the show feels most vital" when discussing topics like Colin Kaepernick or Jemele Hill’s Twitter fight with President Trump. The show’s "interest in race -- and more recently, gender -- highlights its defining impulse: to focus on what it wants, when it wants." There is "no real day-to-day plan for the show: no rundown of topics, no set list," and it has "inspired a Fight Club–style tribalism, an if-you’re-not-with-us-you’re-against-us strain of fandom that boils down to: You either get the show or you don’t" (SLATE.com, 4/13).
