Sports Were America’s Last Politics-Free Safe Space (w/ Pablo Torre)

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: Sports Were America’s Last Politics-Free Safe Space (w/ Pablo Torre)
Podcast: The Bulwark
Air Date: May 30, 2026
Host: Tim Miller (The Bulwark)
Guest: Pablo Torre (Pablo Torre Finds Out)

This episode features a lively, candid discussion between Tim Miller and Pablo Torre, focusing on the evolving media landscape, the grind of content creation, and the intersection of sports, journalism, and politics. The pair humorously discuss their Substack and podcast careers, candid advertising moments, new media pressures, and the ways in which sports—once a “safe space” from politics—have become increasingly politicized.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Realities of Modern Content Creation

• Content Grinding and Workload

  • The conversation highlights the intense pace and continuous demands of running podcasts and substacks. Both Tim and Pablo joke about their schedules and the expectations to always be producing content.
  • Quote: "We are an always on show. And always on is a great euphemism because it describes the cadence as well as my own personal insecurities of like, am I just performing all of the time for my family as well as an audience?"
    — Pablo Torre [08:40]

• Old Media vs. New Media

  • There’s a nostalgic riff about how sports columnists of the 1990s had the luxury of long lunches and fewer deadlines, contrasting sharply with today’s nonstop digital grind.
  • Quote: "In the 1990s, Bigfoot sports columnists like you only had to do two columns a week, and then the rest of the week they got to eat buffets and get drunk in the afternoon and go to sports matches. Do you even have the time to go to sports matches? What's happening with you?"
    — Tim Miller [05:14]

• Engagement and Relatability

  • Advice for podcasters centers on authenticity and building a relationship with listeners so that they “want to know what we thought” immediately after big events, making timely reaction essential.

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2. Monetization, Integrity, and Ad Reads

• Navigating Sponsorships Without Losing Integrity

  • Both discuss the challenge of turning down ad money when reporting on certain companies, emphasizing a need for journalistic boundaries.
  • Quote: "It's been something that I just can't take money if I'm going to cover or report on a company. So we go along those lines. But if you are to give me money, I will enthusiastically test and maybe even mean it when I say this is a good product."
    — Pablo Torre [04:09]

• Humor in Ad Reads

  • Tim and Pablo swap stories about using jokes or gentle roasts to keep ad reads engaging and memorable for audiences.
  • Memorable Moment: Tim recounts jokingly targeting a friend with a sponsor's hair loss product mid-read, prompting the friend to text him an expletive in an airport.
    — [04:33]

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3. The Blurring of Sports and Politics

• How Sports Became a Political Battleground
  • Although this episode segment or in-depth reflection on how sports became politicized is alluded to in the lead-in, the conversation weaves through the idea that sports are no longer insulated from political or cultural fights.
  • Quote: "We talked a lot about ... how we got to this place where everything is so politicized by sports and how Donald Trump ruins everything."
    — Tim Miller (Intro/Preview) [00:00]

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4. Journalism in the Social Age: Virality vs. Craft

• Investigative Depth vs. Viral Consumption

  • Pablo notes the tug-of-war between producing deeply researched investigative features and the reality that many only discover them through viral moments or quick social media skims.
  • Quote: "There was a giant race that no one really was running when it came to sports journalism, which was, what if you tell the stories that very powerful people don't want you to know? ... Sports is the cheese melted on this broccoli. Like, we did a big carbon credits investigation into Steve Ballmer, ... packaged inside of an NBA salary cap scandal."
    — Pablo Torre [10:31]

• How Audiences Actually Listen

  • Both admit to self-aggregating—skimming rather than listening in full—and recognize that many listeners do the same, forcing creators to meet their audiences where they are, even if it means sacrificing "the chef's intended" long-form experience.
  • Quote: "I have learned that this extends to apps, certainly phone to print, certainly any way else. So we'll be where you are."
    — Pablo Torre [15:36]

• Speed-Listening and Consumption Habits

  • The hosts trade confessions about consuming podcasts at 2X or 2.5X speed, especially ones they find grating or disagreeable, like “MAGA podcasts.”
  • Quote:
    "I have to consume MAGA podcasts and the only way to tolerate it is 2.5." — Tim Miller [13:48]
    "I hate when people listen to things on 2X. I listen to shit where my wife is like, you are clinically unwell because you are just hoovering 2X." — Pablo Torre [13:13]

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5. Personal Reflections and Humor

• Status-Income Disequilibrium

  • A playful discussion about the "disequilibrium" of rubbing elbows with famous people but maintaining a modest lifestyle, leading to feelings of bitterness.
  • Quote: "It's the feeling of buying and also being trapped inside of exposed brick."
    — Pablo Torre [02:54]

• Balancing Work and Life

  • Tim and Pablo riff on using sports or social media as “work” to justify time spent to their partners, underlining the blurred boundaries between work and personal life in their profession.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 05:14 | "In the 1990s, Bigfoot sports columnists like you only had to do two columns a week, and then the rest of the week they got to eat buffets and get drunk in the afternoon and go to sports matches. Do you even have the time to go to sports matches? What's happening with you?" | Tim Miller | | 08:40 | "We are an always on show. And always on is a great euphemism because it describes the cadence as well as my own personal insecurities of like, am I just performing all of the time for my family as well as an audience?" | Pablo Torre | | 13:13 | "I hate when people listen to things on 2X. I listen to shit where my wife is like, you are clinically unwell because you are just hoovering 2X." | Pablo Torre | | 13:48 | "I have to consume MAGA podcasts and the only way to tolerate it is 2.5." | Tim Miller | | 10:31 | "...What if you tell the stories that very powerful people don't want you to know? And what if you were to do that through the ancient art of reporting stuff? ...Sports is the cheese melted on this broccoli." | Pablo Torre | | 02:54 | "It's the feeling of buying and also being trapped inside of exposed brick." | Pablo Torre |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:00: Casual intro, sitting on a poof, setting the tone for a relaxed conversation
• 03:23–04:09: Monetization integrity, ad reads, and sponsor boundaries
• 05:14–06:43: The grind of modern sports media vs. the “good old days,” pressures of being “always on”
• 08:40–09:04: Content cadence, performing for audience/family, discoverability
• 10:31–11:55: Investigative journalism in sports; the Ballmer investigation as a case study
• 13:13–14:09: Media consumption habits, speed-listening confessions, and podcast virality realities
• 15:36–15:52: Meeting the audience “where they are” despite format or platform

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a funny, honest, and insightful look at what it means to be a journalist and podcaster in 2026, with all its attendant pressures, compromises, and rewards. Tim Miller and Pablo Torre openly discuss the business, their creative processes, and how cultural and political tides have swept through the world of sports. Whether you’re a media junkie, political observer, or sports fan, this conversation offers a rare window into the life, humor, and everyday tradeoffs of modern content creators.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, guys. When I was in New York, I did a substack chat with Pablo Torre. You know, it's kind of a casual vibe, like we're substackers, we're bloggers, we're newsletters. They gave us a little poof to sit on. It's hard to figure out how to sit on this thing. So, you know, be nice to me. I was trying crisscross applesauce. You know, I was man spreading, I was laying, I was sitting, but it was just casual, nice little chat. Pablo's doing such great work over at Pablo Torre finds out. And we talked a lot about kind of like the industry, the content industry, how we do what we do. I asked him about the man hours he's putting in, how he navigates doing investigations while also talking about what's on the news and what's in the chatter day to day. And then we get into the sports and politics overlap, which is his specialty. And kind of how we got to this place where everything is so politicized by sports and how Donald Trump ruins everything. So stick around for that. Me and Pablo. It was great. Subscribe to the feed. How do you sit on a poof

[B]

like Jabba the Hutt?

[A]

How do you sit on a poof without looking? Good thing I'm gay. How do you sit on a poof?

[B]

As a unrepentantly straight male, I'm gonna.

[A]

It's gonna change.

[B]

Be as foppish as I can.

[A]

Can you do. Can you do full Indian style? We don't do Indian style anymore. We don't do crisscross applesauce. Can you do that?

[B]

Can I crisscross applesauce? Do we want to start with what the White House is saying about you in the last day?

[A]

Yeah, probably. I just saw it.

[B]

RapidResponse47. Quote, Tim Miller has such a severe case of Trump derangement syndrome that has warped his peanut sized brain that he's starting to take Iranian state media as fact and peddle disinformation on their behalf. Maybe Tim should register under FARA for being an agent of a foreign country.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

End quote.

[A]

Watch out, guys, you might be in the presence of foreign agent. Unfortunately, no. I think one of major problems with the threats coming from the White House against U.S. independent substackers is that I think Trump is on the take from foreign governments. Actually, I'm pretty sure he's an agent of a foreign government. Not us. We're just paid by our substack subscribers, which is nice, isn't it? How are you getting. I guess you're also getting paid by the Athletic.

[B]

I am.

[A]

You're kind of corporate ish media still. You're borderline.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a puppet.

[A]

You're a puppet.

[B]

I'm available for sale in case any foreign governments are interested as well.

[A]

We were discussing what we wanted to talk about and we were like, probably the people in this room who are facing Status income disequilibrium. You know about that?

[B]

Is that in the dsm?

[A]

Yeah, David Brooks wrote about that. Status income disequilibrium. It's like people in New York that hang out with like really cool, fancy famous people, but then go home to tiny apartments. And there's a disequilibrium between how they feel in the workspace and then how they feel at home.

[B]

It's the feeling of buying and also being trapped inside of exposed brick.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, you know, and so it can lead to bitterness. So I want you guys to watch out for that. Be careful. Don't let that happen to you. And one way to avoid status income disequilibrium is ad reads is being paid by sponsors. And I figured that the people in the room before we got down to like the news would want to know, Pablo, how you think about doing an ad read?

[B]

How do I feel about Quince?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Do you have a strategy that you put in place to keep quints happy? You know, how do you keep your integrity if you actually got a quints shirt that you don't like?

[B]

This is now where it gets a bit pathetic.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I do sometimes wear quints as well as advertise Quint's products. There are products that we've said no thanks to.

[A]

Like what? Me too.

[B]

You know, various prediction market stuff. I'm not judging, but you know, it's just personally, I cover this stuff, so it's hard for me. I'm not here to say get the fuck out of here if you do. It's just what I. What do I cover journalistically? So my show, Pablo Torre finds out does journalism as well as has foreign agents like Tim Miller on to spread his propaganda.

[A]

Alleged.

[B]

Alleged.

[A]

You don't want this to show that

[B]

a DOJ reports we've been unsued by the various people we investigate. Knock on this very puffy non wooden chair. But it's been. It's been something that I just can't take money if I'm going to cover or report on a company. So we go along those lines. But if you are to give me money, I will enthusiastically Test and maybe even mean it when I say this is a good product.

[A]

Yeah, I like to do jokes in the middle. You know, you want to keep people focused. Right. You know, I had one of my friends was walking through the airport recently and I had a hair loss product. I think it was our friends at HIMS that were advertising. And I was like, you know, my friend Matt Bevins could really use this product and I think that he should. And he said, I was listening to it in Reagan airport and I was just like, fuck you. Okay. But that's how you get people to stay focused, you know, and that's how you get the advertisers coming back.

[B]

You want to personally harass individuals in your ad reads.

[A]

Yeah, it's really gotta note that that's a tip. Okay, well, let's do. Why don't we talk substack business first and then some politics, sports news. How does that sound?

[B]

I believe I've ceded control.

[A]

Okay. You have the grindset mindset, you know, and I'm sure that a lot of people are coming to you and being like, what does your schedule look like? When do you sleep? Do you that this is very fair? In the 1990s, Bigfoot sports columnists like you only had to do two columns a week, and then the rest of the week they got to eat buffets and get drunk in the afternoon and go to sports matches. Do you even have the time to go to sports matches? What's happening with you?

[B]

Yeah, I do. I do. I make time. I mean, look, part of the premise of my show for again, those not familiar, is I use sports to get to everything. Sports is like a liberal arts education. I do think being outside is important. I was at the New York Liberty game last night. I was a plus one. The Liberty one.

[A]

Big nice.

[B]

It was a delight. I recommend anybody also consider eating between 15-25mg of THC and sitting courtside if a friend will tolerate you. It's an incredible thing that I can fold into.

[A]

Journalism 25 is a lot for me.

[B]

I'm skinny with that attitude.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But no, the point being, sincerely, like, I think going to these things and perhaps falling victim to the thing that I have to convince my wife of, which is this is for work.

[A]

This is work. Yeah. I tell my husband about that when I'm rage tweeting during dinner like, this is work. Actually, you know, engagement.

[B]

That is whatever mindset. This is beyond dunking my face in a bowl of ice water at 4am it is also constantly making the Content furnace burn.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it's necessary. This is just the reality. Like, it's a necessary thing. Like, there are a couple people who are, like, super lucky and talented and can do like one show a week and get big numbers and succeed. Like, besides that, I don't know when I actually went to. I didn't because I don't think we were friends yet. But when I started the Bulwark Pod, I went to sports podcasters for advice because, you know, I don't know, I felt like it would be interesting to hear their perspective.

[B]

And you stayed gay.

[A]

I say gay. Yeah, I'm a sport gay. I called Tommy Alter, who was doing that podcast with JJ Reddick before he became the Lakers coach, which is a

[B]

sentence that is real.

[A]

I mean, podcasters can become the secretary of US War now, the FBI director from the president, the FBI director deputy, and the FBI, and they can become the Lakers coach. So it's a path to a lot of different stuff. Your parents might think that this is a dead end for you on Substack, but no, actually, there could be greater horizon. So I called Tommy, I called pft, part of my take, and they both gave me the same advice, which was just like the listeners to the show build a relationship with you. And so they're doing sports on Thanksgiving. At the end of the Thanksgiving games, they want to know what we thought. So I can't get that drunk at Thanksgiving lunch with my family anymore. At the end of the day, I have to podcast. That's a real sack sacrifice podcasters make. But he's like, because if the games are on Thursday and we tape on Sunday, it's like, people don't care anymore. They've already moved on. And you're not on the news like that. But the point is that people want your thoughts on what's happening out there in the world, and that's the only way to stay relevant.

[B]

Yeah, I think this is maybe self evident in this room particularly, but discoverability and people knowing you exist is a perpetual boulder to roll up a hill only to be crushed by it. But how do you do that for us? We're three times a week. We are an always on show. And always on is a great euphemism because it describes the cadence as well as my own personal insecurities of like, am I just performing all of the time for my family as well as an audience?

[A]

Same. Speaking of which, I was like, I saw that $250bill Donald Trump news that came out today. He's thinking about putting his face on a $250bill. And I was like, I already taped the podcast, but do I need to go back in and add one more segment between Pablo show and the substack thing? It's like, that's just the minds. That's just it.

[B]

And I think for me, one of the things that I'm proudest of is trying to thread a needle of. We have our deep dive investigative episodes that are vetted by real lawyers about very wealthy people. And I am proud of those. We spend months investigating those. And we also do the lighter lift things like the one Tim and I just taped before we got here. And that enables me to also kind of feel like more of myself is in the show, while also protecting the deliberate newsroom sort of process that needs to attend the journalistic investigator.

[A]

So do you think that. Because for me, I think the Catholic guilt really plays in. Like, my. My mother's guilt, I think, has been a big plus for me in the content space. What about you?

[B]

Do you feel that I'm also driven by a fear of not reaching salvation?

[A]

Yeah. Same on the investigative stuff. It seems like you have a million balls in the air on this front. And so that's something I don't have to do, which is kind of navigate. Okay, I need to be talking about whatever's happening today. And also I have source relationships I'm developing. What's happening with you? How many investigations balls are in the air right now on that? Poof?

[B]

Yeah, probably about a dozen, just in different stages of development of reporting. And so, yeah, we get a lot of incoming. So a lot of our niche. So one, I don't know if I'm supposed to offer anything resembling a lesson or here's what I learned. But, like, the most basic one is there was a giant race that no one really was running when it came to sports journalism, which was, what if you tell the stories that very powerful people don't want you to know? And what if you were to do that through the ancient art of reporting stuff? But we presented it in a medium, on a newsletter, on a podcast, video and audio simultaneously. That would enable it to feel like, ah, sports is the cheese melted on this broccoli. Like, we did a big carbon credits investigation into Steve Ballmer, and that was sort of not Trojan Horse, but it was contained inside of this, like, NBA salary cap scandal for Kawhi Leonard, which is a real story on its own merits, but the larger packaging was here is fun sports thing that's going to impact the news cycle. And inside of that journey, you're going to get to dive into, like, bankruptcy filings and the ESG movement and all these other bigger picture substantive issues. And so for me, it's been, what is the race that other people aren't running? And it turns out journalism and sports, combining those two things has been helpful to me.

[A]

Back to monetization and our friends at Quints. Do you worry at all, like. Cause I'll just. I'm just gonna be. Can we be candid? How many days a week are you listening to? My entire podcast, Pablo? Oh, Tim comes out five days a week.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Doing the math. Six.

[A]

Six. Okay. Yeah. Probably 10 and a half.

[B]

But to be real, like, part of the. What is it? The triage of how I consume everything is that I am victim of my own strategy, which is we self aggregate.

[A]

Right. So this is where my question was going. Right. Cause that's how I consume yours. I wanted to attack you first before I admitted that I had a sense. Yeah, I mean, I've consumed a few of the entire episodes of your show, and I have two favorite ones from this year, which we'll end with. But besides that, I feel like I got the gist of the Ballmer investigation from Twitter and from your fight with Mark Cuban on X. And so I didn't consume it. I didn't listen to the great ad read that you did. And I assume that there are other people out there like that. And so I'm wondering how you kind of think about balancing that, like staying relevant, staying in people's faces, promoting what you're doing with, like, showing so much lag that people don't actually listen to the product that makes you money.

[B]

This has been so. A couple of hypocrisies about me. I sort of like, worship at the altar of, like, public radio precision and audio first storytelling, which isn't a trait shared by the podcasters that you may have consulted for advice, who also happen to be my friends. That's not what sports podcasting is. And so we are kind of this new sort of thing on the graph of production value as well as, like, virality. And so this is my way of saying that I hate when people listen to things on 2x. I listen to shit where my wife is like, you are clinically unwell because you are just hoovering 2X.

[A]

Have you ever done a 3X?

[B]

I've.

[A]

I have to consume MAGA podcasts and the only way to tolerate it is 2.5.

[B]

What is. What is Dan Bongino on 2.5.

[A]

It's real fast, but you're getting the gist of the.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It sort of feels like you're in the bloodstream of the people that you are listening to.

[A]

But Bongino is too stupid for me to listen to it just I do. How dare you, higher class. My favorite character in the entire war room.

[B]

My favorite character in all this is Dan Bongino. He just wanted to podcast the whole time. That's all he wanted.

[A]

I relate. You saw the post.

[B]

And so for me, I hate that. But I do that. And we self aggregate. I make a deliberate. We fetishize structure and story so deeply as a matter of what our ultimate I think taste is. We want magazine long features, deep dives in which the ending we sort of work backwards from that and how to construct a story. And yet we are at peace now with the idea that some people will never sniff the end of that story. They are only going to consume how I consume other shows, friends of mine, even that I may be sitting on stage with, in which if we don't self aggregate and meet people genuinely where they're only going to be, then we're being precious at the cost of being discovered, at the cost of benefiting from people saying I'm a fan of your show and yet you've never consumed it like the chef intended. And that's something that we are I was at Sports Illustrated and there used to be in the waning days of the 2010s, ish early 2010s, excuse me, they used to put on the bottom of the page. For more on this story, go to si.combonus and we were in a meeting and someone was like so zero people have gone to si.com for that bonus. And so the idea, the lesson there was just don't expect people to change their habit over here to then be redirected over there. And I have learned that this extends to apps, certainly phone to print, certainly any way else. So we'll be where you are.

[A]

Hopefully you're not doing teasers, you know, to learn more about how Steve Ballmer was shirtless when he called Kawhi Leonard, you have to go to our YouTube page to see the exclusive pictures we have.