Dan Le Batard signed off as an ESPN TV and radio host yesterday, but the "Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz" will continue as soon as today, "the show hoped, if logistics could be worked out -- as an independent enterprise available digitally via the show’s podcast as part of the Le Batard And Friends network," according to Greg Cote of the MIAMI HERALD. Main producer Mike Ryan confirmed the planned conversion to an independent show, but he added, “Please be patient if some latency related issues pop up in the early going.” The show is "in talks to find a permanent major hosting platform to replace ESPN but it is believed no announcement is imminent." Le Batard and ESPN last month agreed to part ways (MIAMI HERALD, 1/5). Le Batard during yesterday's radio show said, "Wait until the audience gets a load of the website we’re going to unleash in a day or two" (“The Dan Le Batard Show,” ESPN Radio, 1/4).
STRANGER THINGS: Le Batard at the close of “Highly Questionable” addressed the split with ESPN, saying his father, Gonzalo, “confided to me recently that he thought the show was too strange and would be canceled within its first six weeks.” Instead, it aired for a “damn decade.” Le Batard: “This isn't quite the glamorous, crisscrossing spotlight show business ending I imagined: on a bad lighting Zoom call during a pandemic, 2:30 in the afternoon on ESPN2. But it's finally time for me to go, to leave ESPN after more than two decades working at the place, after one of the most improbable runs a TV show of any kind has ever had.” Co-hosting the show with his father has been the “greatest professional blessing of my life, having been able to share him with you.” Le Batard said he was “happy to say ‘Highly Questionable’ will continue with” various hosts on ESPN, “and if that’s part of my legacy here, I’ll always be proud of that.” As he choked back tears, Le Batard said, “Just know that I will stop and look around on my way out today like you do when moving out of a house where the family memories are. … I will be more grateful than sad” (“Highly Questionable,” ESPN, 1/4).
SO LONG, FAREWELL: Le Batard during the radio show said, “This whole thing feels a little bit like listening to your own eulogy, that is what the last couple of weeks have felt like as people have said goodbye to us as if we’re leaving Earth, not just this platform.” Le Batard said the show was “never intended to be anything that was anything other than a fun, goofy Miami show. And when ESPN gave us the platforms and put these guys on television, they elevated us to a place where now we feel like we can go.” Co-host Jon Weiner (known as Stugotz) said, “There’s no one listening on the radio. ... it’s why they’re firing us.” Le Batard: “Does ‘Stugotz’ think we were fired? Does ‘Stugotz’ think nobody listens to us on the radio? I was absolutely not fired” (“The Dan Le Batard Show,” ESPN Radio, 1/4).
